Seinu looked up from the holographic screen and the information he was reading as the low level hum of the engines changed pitch. It was a subtle sound coming from the rear of the shuttle. The small ship didn’t have much space; a cockpit, integrated communal sleeping and living area, a small cargo hold and beyond that an engineering section. With quadraphonic hearing Seinu could hear the soft, quiet hum of the warp engine travelling all the way forward from the engineering space. Unless they entered an atmosphere there was no sound from outside but the internal hum and tick of machinery and environmental systems whirring away keeping them all alive was something he was very used to and could tune out after spending the past ten years living in space on various ships.
The hum of the engines in a shuttle this small though, changes in its sound, those he did notice. So he was looking forward out of the viewscreen as they dropped back into real-space, crossing the boundary in a smooth, otherwise unnoticeable way. Avali tech was far beyond allowing such mundane things as shaking or stresses on the hull to translate inside and disturb the warm, cosy, white and orange coloured passenger cabin. Dampening the sound of the engines in a ship so small, that would probably be the next breakthrough, Seinu was sure sooner or later they’d have shuttles that gave no physical or audio queues that they were moving like on large Avali ships.
Watching the darkness of warp and the scintillating lights of stars whizzing past fade away the Avali found himself looking out of the windscreen at a glorious sight. The shuttle entered normal space above a white world and the auto-pilot started to curve in toward the ship-yards in orbit, a gentle orbital injection course that gave both Avali onboard a rather impressive view of their destination. It was a five kilometre wide lattice work of white metal, aerogel, automated construction bays, foundries, dormitories, material storage containers and nano-factories. The whole edifice looked like a glorious piece of white and orange lace spinning slowly in orbit above the northern pole of Protion.
The world itself was actually a small moon located in a system one light year from the Avali home world of Avalon. It was rich in gabireum, gold, kri and other materials used in the fabrication of high end technological components. The asteroid belt was full of granite, metal-ores and carbon which featured heavily in the production of aerogel and tungsten so the new exploration division ship-yard had been built here to avoid adding more clutter to space above Avalon or the larger colonies. The packs in charge of the surface operation had been in place for a few years now and had set up a very efficient mining operation, extracting minerals from the harsh, frigid moon with skill and minimal environmental impact. No strip mining, no open wounds on the surface, just surgical, targeting mineral extraction that even backfilled the excavation tunnels to avoid creating instabilities. With the construction of the new yards and orbital factories the local packs no longer had to ship minerals and metals out of the system to Avalon; the Illuminate were having it shipped to their new production facilities in orbit. This led to lower costs, meaning a larger slice of the profits for the packs working on the surface. All in all it was a good deal for everyone involved and now the shipyards were busy producing the first set of new ships for the new exploration initiative demand was also increasing.
Leaning forward, Seinu peered down at the moon as it drew closer. There were large breaks in the blanket of clouds wrapping the wordlet showing plains of ice and snow and the occasional twinkling lights of one of the mining encampments. Seinu had not spent much time on the surface himself, the past few months he’d been on Avalon attending a variety of refresher classes and tutorials concerning his duties as a roaming diplomat. Aside from a few visits to see his pack he’d not had much to do with the final stages of ship construction. Selenu, his twin sister, their pack-leader and soon to be captain had been telling him all about the last couple of months on the journey. He’d been listening to her whilst reading during the transition through at warp speed from their homeworld.
She and their sister Firi had been working together with the mining pack at the top of the local hierarchy on Protion, talking quality, quantities and supplies with a pair of Avali called Sawi and Eikomi to ensure the ship was fully equipped now it was nearing completion. The pack in charge of the shipyard was working on the final installation of components, the hull was complete so it was now all a question of system tests, logistics and deliveries which had to go through the local packs. The Iluminate might be paying but it was a delicate balance of ensuring the ship had what it needed for months away in space without depriving the resource mining operation on the surface of equipment they needed to keep operating. Which of course meant ordering things in from Avalon in a big cross-pack project, the sort of thing Seinu would usually handle if he was around, but it sounded like Selenu had it all in hand.
“We will be there shortly,” Selenu chirped in their own private pack dialect, a series of quiet chirps and chittering that whilst similar to the primary language known as Avali-Core had drifted somewhat into a mixture of personal colloquialisms and local flavour picked up from the nursery that had raised them on the capital world. Seinu turned to look at her, lifting his visor and smiled at his twin.
“Would you like to go straight aboard or see the ship from the outside?”
She asked and Seinu took a moment to just appreciate being sat next to her again after several weeks away. She had soft white feathers covering her legs, belly and arms with bright lime-green feathers coating the top of her head, back and the plumage covering her wings. The two primary colours were separated by a line of dark emerald green that crossed her entire body and three stripes atop her forehead, the only real natural demarcation in body markings between avali males and females.
She had also changed the style of her crest since he’d last seen her a month ago. It now sported one very large feather emerging from between her upper ears, before sweeping backwards in a series of smaller and smaller sharp quilled pinions trailing down the back of her skull. The big feather was lime green at the base, rising two thirds up before there was a line of emerald banding and a white tip, a colour combo repeated along the length of her quills as well. It looked good on her and Seinu had said as much when she picked him up on Avalon and she’d threatened to replicate it on him once they got home.
“Outside first,” Seinu declared excitedly, “Last time I was here it was mostly girders in the shape of a ship, I want to see what our new home looks like.”
“It is really nice,” Selenu chirped, “They did a great job and even incorporated some of my design suggestions!”
“Eheee go sis,” Seinu leant over and hugged her, “See I told you they’d listen, you know ships and it is going to be our home after all,” he settled back in his chair, resisting the urge to remain in a hug and mess with her ability to fly the shuttle, “Let’s see it from outside, as long as we won’t disturb anyone by buzzing around where they are working.”
Selenu chirped excitedly as she brought the shuttle about to fly a long low curve around the underside of the station. One of the construction bays steadily came into view, a gantry of support struts, moving waldo arms and nano-fabricators that could shift and flow and move around components or sections of a vessel under construction.
Nestled inside the cocoon of construction devices was a ship, a kilometre long, six hundred metre tall ovoid of Avali design. It had a silver-white hull with bands of industrial grade orange aerogel and black detailing incorporating at least fifteen decks from top to bottom and from the outside at least looked as if it had no windows or portholes, though Seinu knew most of them would be mirrored or designed to blend in with the hull.
“Oh wow she looks good,” the silver and charcoal grey Avali said with a happy chirp, “Big too, I still can’t quite get over how long she is.”
Selenu chuckled, “We are going to be away in deep space for months at a time, we need to carry enough tech and equipment with us to do our jobs,” she pointed with one claw, wing feathers fluffing up, “Here are my big design changes, the engines.”
Seinu leant forward so he could get a better view of the impressive array of main engines at the back, there was a cluster of six large plasma engines surrounded by a smaller array of twelve supplementary thrusters. These were then assisted by smaller thrusters set in groups of three ringing the rest of the hull to give the ship three hundred and sixty degrees of movement.
“That is a lot of engine power Sel,” Seinu chirped.
“Sometimes we will need to go fast,” she said demurely, “Now besides a few open ports and sections of hull still out of place so the fabrication systems can reach components inside the ship she is pretty much complete.”
The white and lime Avali pointed up, “See the hangar bay entrances,” Seinu tilted his head to peer up as they circled under the ship, he could see three different sized bay doors open in the bottom of the hull, “We changed the design there and actually now have three bays, shuttle bay, exploration vehicle bay and drone launcher systems.”
“I assume there is some fancy design reason behind that?”
“Yup,” Selenu smiled, “The original design had one big joint shuttle and exploration vehicle bay. It was a huge structural weakness and created bottlenecks on launching certain vehicles. Shuttles and the exploration gear need different support systems so it is just easier to have them exist in their own homes.”
Seinu nodded and chirped, settling back to admire the ship sliding past outside. Once it was finished and the final hull segments had been slipped into place there would be very little technological gadgetary visible on the surface, everything was built into the design. Sensors, control systems, even the thrusters were all flush with the hull so the ship would fit into the design aesthetic of the Avali fleet.
“So here she is, the Odyssey,” Selenu chirped happily, ears splaying sideways as she admired the ship, “Our new home, and the base for you to do your work from.”
“It’ll be good to have a larger base to host guests in,” Seinu chirped, “Our last ship was nice but too small for guests really.”
“It took long enough,” Selenu grumbled, “We may live in a utopian, post-scarcity society but the Illuminate likes to be sure before spending this much on one pack,” she shook her head in admiration as she looked at the ship, “And you helped make it happen, they don’t hand out top of the range exploration vessels to just anyone,” she turned to smile at him, “I know you struggle to accept praise, my egg-brother, but this is your victory, I know just how many hours the Illuminate have spent training you.”
Seinu squirmed in his seat, he always struggled to accept praise like this, he folded his ears back shyly then sat up, “Not just me, I couldn’t do my work without all of you Sel, I may do the talking but you lead us and everyone else contributes too.”
Selenu nodded and pointed up at the hull of the ship sliding by outside, “We are being entrusted with this ship by the Illuminate Director, the pack leading the council because you are damn good at your job, even more so after the last few special courses on interacting with alien societies that don’t trust the Avali species, but you’re right, we are all here to support you in your work, we are a pack.”
“Yes sis,” he murmured embarrassed and trying to hide it, “I… I see the ship’s energy readings are high too,” Seinu pointed at the scan data, “It has a much higher reactor output than I was expecting.”
“It certainly does,” Selenu smiled softly in victory and let him change the topic, “It has a larger then usual reactor, it’s own internal nano-factory so we can do repairs of most systems in the fields or outright build new exploration vehicles or shuttles if they get damaged,” she gestured at the control interface for the shuttle and the holo-projector came to life, displaying a wire-diagram outline of the Odyssey surrounded by a cloud of labels.
“We have shields of course, and the hull can be energised for additional armour, no cloak though, we are way too big to hide, we do however have one of the best sensor suites Avalon knows how to produce,” the lime Avali chirped excitedly, “We have a fleet of land, air, water and below ground vehicles for surveys backed up by a dedicated factory for producing any satellites or probes we may need, two shuttles and the engines… well as you saw they took on board my design suggestions for those hence the bigger reactor.”
“What is the weapon system like?” Seinu asked curiously, “A ship this big, especially an Avali ship… most alien races we meet are going to expect it to be armed.”
“We have weapons of course, we are registered as a government vessel, though that caused a huge debate,” the lime Avali grimaced, “Wish you had been here for that, I could have used your authority there, everyone had an opinion, it got loud.”
Seinu wiggled all four of his feathery ears and chirped, “I bet, oh dear I hope we didn’t have any off-world visitors, a room of Avali all holding different conversations is headache inducing for most aliens.”
Selenu giggled, “It was quite some debate,” she pointed at the ship, “I nixed the idea of a forward mounted railgun much to Firi’s very loud disapproval but it would have taken up way too much space and we are a diplomatic government vessel not a front line battlecruiser,” she tapped one of the tactical holographic tags and the projection zoomed in on three groups of oval shaped pods stationed fore and aft along the ships ventral axis and one on the dorsal or top of the ship, “We have a standard set of nine detachable weapon pods that can be deployed to provide roving weapon cover. It is mostly geared towards defensive capabilities, the idea is we won’t be shooting anyone first but need to be prepared to defend ourselves.”
“Ooh autonomous Avali weapon pods,” Seinu picked up one of the holograms and squeezed it, making it display its supplementary data, “That must have made Firi happy, those things are top of the range. I am surprised the military let us install them.”
“The Director pulled some strings,” Selenu said with a smile and pointed at Seinu, “She wants to make sure their latest ship and her pet project pack running it are protected.”
“I guess that’s a good point,” Seinu perked their ears, “What other systems do we have?”
“A fully equipped, semi-automatic infirmary, it’s so advanced we just need to turn it on and do what it tells us to do so we don’t need much medical training. It’s pretty fancy and the ship also has the ability to create sectioned environments. So we can have our rooms set to Avalon frigid whilst leaving you able to generate different environments for visiting ambassadors or trading partners during negotiations.”
Seinu ruffled his thick feathers and grinned happily, “That is good, most aliens claim we like it way too cold, being able to invite them over and not having to worry about them freezing to death, is a bonus it also makes them relax and get comfortable. What about the exploration suite?”
Selenu pulled a segment out of the core of the hologram and held it up, “We have permission for the full nexus linked cartographic system. Working in conjunction with the nexus records, the Odyssey’s scanners and drones should be able to build the most accurate maps of not just the star systems we visit but the surface of the celestial bodies as well.”
“Oooh that is useful,” Seinu peered out at the hull of the ship, “What about mineralogical scanners? I know we have a mixed portfolio of stellar exploration alongside my diplomatic work.”
“Chantelle is taking the lead on those aspects of the mission,” Selenu said with a smile, “She is excited to be more than just your secretary and get to use those geology and planetology skills of hers,” the lime Avali gestured at the ship, “All the exo-vehicles come equipped with the most sophisticated scanning and sampling arrays we can build.”
“Excellent,” Seinu smiled, “Originally the Directorate envisioned us just doing diplomatic house calls, but as I pointed out we are much more cost effective and efficient if we are out there performing a mixture of fresh exploration and diplomatic missions,” the silver Avali chirped in excitement, “I can spend months preparing for one meeting, so this way we are doing something useful whilst I am learning customs and preparing speeches.”
“It’s a good idea,” Selenu smiled, “And it means I get to fly this baby between stars and we all get to see unexplored wonders now…”
“`Hello you lot,”` a voice buzzed over the communication system, “`Sel, Sei what are you doing out there? I’ve been watching you circling the ship for the past five minutes.”`
“Oh hi Taran,” Seinu chirped back, “Sel is busy showing off the ship, last time I was here it was still a skeleton, we’ll be in soon, how are you brother?”
“`I am well, struggling to get the AI core to integrate with the main command pathways for the manufacturing deck,”` Taran chirped over the com, “`I could really use an extra wing over here.”`
“Ok we’ll be over soon,” Selenu moved her hands across the controls and banked the shuttle around toward the lower aft quarter of the ship, “We’ll dock and you can go see what Taran has done to the manufacturing bay, he’s been grow-programming an AI for the Odyssey from scratch instead of using an off the shelf AI.”
Selenu’s instruction for the shuttle saw it swing around silently and head in toward the Odyssey’s shuttle bay. Orange forcefields wrapped around the shuttle guiding it to land gently in a docking cradle. Latches clacked home, umbilical cables snaked into sockets and the airlock tube connected with a solid and re-assuring thunk. His twin sister then led the way aboard and Seinu bounced after her happily, ears perked up and even before the inner airlock door opened Seinu was, excitedly chirping away, talking loud enough for the Avali on the other side of the door to hear them.
Selenu was feeling the excitement herself, her twin was expressive in his delight and it was infectious, she’d only been away for two days to pick Seinu up from Avalon, he’d been gone for months. As soon as the door hissed open the silver Avali was through and into the arms of the two Avali waiting. There was a yellow and white feathered avali with pink banding and a blue and white avali with orange feather banding, both female with the distinctive stripes along their snouts. The yellow avali had her crest bound up in a pair of braids weighted down by green stones that framed her face on either side and the blue avali had hers done up as a series of quill like pinions in blue rising backwards in shortening waves across the top of her skull.
They were their pack-sisters, Firi and Chantelle and they had their arms around Seinu in a hug and were talking at each other, their ears pointing every which way as they listened. Selenu wandered over and inserted herself into the hug with casual ease, everyone shifting around to make room for her as they for a moment just enjoyed being together again. Avali pack bonds were the strongest and whilst being away from family was a bit easier for Seinu thanks to his training and his special circumstances none of them liked it for long.
“Hello,” Firi chirped at last, “It is so good to have you home,” she ruffled Seinu’s mohawk then leant over to lick Selenu on the cheek, “Both of you.”
“Yes, so very good” Chantelle said, “But I need to say hello and dash. Sawi’s pack has the final delivery of raw materials for our onboard factory and I need to fly down and collect them. They are off to some music festival, their first holiday in years and I don’t want to hold them up.”
“A music festival, like an alien one?” Firi asked curiously, “That’s brave, I love them, those things are always so loud and bouncing but most of our kind would shy away from that much noise.”
“Yeah, something called the Ultra Music Festival on that tourist station,” Chantelle waved one wing arm, “What’s it called, Warfaisser?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Seinu said, “It’s a pretty big deal.”
“It’s even bigger for Sawi and her pack,” Chantelle smiled, “One of their brothers is performing in it, you know the one Sel said was cute Rowi.”
“I know who Rowi is,” Selenu said primly, “He has cute quill feathers, but he’s on Earth, isn’t he studying Earthian music?”
“That’s the one,” Chantelle said, “Seems his band has been building some off Earth presence and got invited to play so the whole Ouakkia pack are taking off to see him, as long as we can all sign off the production schedule on time,” she waved a hand, “So I gotta get going to pick up this last delivery.”
Chantelle waved and hurried into the shuttle and Seinu sighed, it had been good to be surrounded by all three of his sisters, it was over way too soon. Flicking his ears forward he turned to Firi whilst relaxing back against Selenu’s chest, enjoying having her arms around him.
“So Firi,” Seinu said as his visor logged itself onto the Odyssey’s systems after verifying who he was, “I’d love to see the navigation system, I hear you’ve been given fancy military drones too?”
“Yeah,” Firi clapped her hands together and chirped, feathers poofing up excitedly, “We got like a huge materials budget for this project. I wanted us to have the best so I have been able to wire the exo-vehicles and the drone systems together to increase their effectiveness.”
“Well you will have to show it all to me later,” Seinu smiled, swishing his tail from side to side, “I really want to see the cartography suite and the bridge and our rooms but it’ll have to wait, Taran needs my help in the factory.”
Firi laughed, “Only just home and he’s already putting you to work, run along and see what he has broken. I have a pack from the shipyard finishing up some final installation in the drone bays. I will go help them finish up but then we are all having dinner together ok?”
“Sounds good,” Selenu smiled, “I will be on the bridge. I want to check the plans for our shakedown cruise and Firi… is there anything I need to know?” She gave her sister a penetrating stare, “Any extra projects you should tell me about now?”
“No,” Firi’s ears wilted in affront, “The only thing I did was to start building a new hammer, Mine broke when we got boarded by pirates in Beta-Langoustine, but I am making a new one, do you want to see?” Her ears came back up and she looked up at her sister with big wide eager eyes.
“Sure,” Selenu chuckled, “If it’s a hammer built by you it’ll be capable of punching a hole through the ship! I may have to lock it up if it is too crazy”
Firi huffed and folded her hand, tossing her head and braids from side to side, “Yee of little faith sister, it is a perfectly reasonable hammer for keeping you all safe!”
“I am sure it is,” Seinu nuzzled her on the cheek and hugged her, “But I bet it has rockets on it, right see you both in a bit!”
Seinu waved and headed off deeper into the ship, following the map his visor was printing and leaving his sisters bickering good naturedly about Firi’s habit of over-engineering her personal weapons as they started off toward the front of the ship.
Taran bounced from console to console on the main factory deck of the Odyssey, their clawed fingers dancing across the controls as they analysed the results coming in from the large nano-fabricators. Every screen was showing very large, serious sounding error messages.
Data poured along the inside of his virtual vision, the processors attached to his neural array and cybernetic eyes allowing him to see, visualise and process the data rolling out of the computers at three times the speed anyone else could. Taran’s ears twitched from position to position as he also listened to the audio queues, alerts and system errors that filled the air. Avali interface systems relied more on sound and pronouncements with the text screens as only a supplementary secondary output device but every alarm had tripped at once. For Taran though the cacophony of noise was easy to follow, unpicking the warnings he was tracing the error back step by step toward its origin. Working his way methodically from machine to machine in a whirl of energetic Avali activity.
Seinu had arrived and whilst he’d said on the com he needed a hand, the best hand was just having a member of his family with him. He swung past his silver brother to nuzzle up against his chest feathers in a warm hug before bouncing back toward the mess of error messages. He paused for a second as he caught sight of himself in a mirrored panel, the orange feathers covering the front of his body were neat and tidy but the teal coloured feathers across the top of his head and running down his back were a bit of a mess. He really should take some time to preen properly, he’d take care of that later now Seinu was back, his brother was the best at it. He took a moment to straighten a few feathers, running thumb and forefinger along the yellow banding separating the two colours. Whilst Seinu had been away he’d gotten rid of his crest leaving the top of his head covered in short scruffy downy feather growth, now his bro was back he could get some real advice on a new style that wasn’t some over the top seasonal fashion the girls had read about on the nexus. Having three siblings who loved fashion was a chore sometimes, especially when your brother wasn’t around to help back you up, so to escape their insistent attempts to let them style it he’d sliced it all off.
The other avali in the room watching him was Naha, a mechanic from Sawi’s Ouakkia pack, he had a magnificent mohawk which Taran was a little jealous of but it worked really well with his white and black feathers. His yellow stripe was of course awesome; it was the same shade as his own. All these thoughts flowed through Taran’s enhanced brain as he listened, looked, processed and traced the cascade of failures.
Both Seinu and Naha were just watching him dash back and forth working and after a couple of minutes Naha sighed and shook his head in amusement as Taran pulled off a panel and vanished inside a crawl space under a machine that appeared to be switched off.
“I have no idea what he is up to…” Naha shrugged, “I’ve already checked that nexus junction, “But I am more a mechanic, I can check it’s all plugged in properly but this seems to be a software problem.”
Seinu laughed, “I am a Diplomat, I couldn’t even tell you if it was turned on, let alone why it may be broken, I can just about… program a nano-loom for clothing. He seems happy to see me, though I have to find out what he did to his crest but later, I assume he wouldn’t be crawling inside the machines if he hadn’t found something.”
“I hope so,” Naha sighed, “I don’t want to bother one of the shipyard crews, they are fixing the last hull plates into position. If I drag them in here I’ll delay the launch.”
Taran slid back out of the crawl-space, lying on his back and looking up at his pack-brother and Naha, “I can hear you both…” he admonished with a smile, “And yes I’ve found the issue, the nano-wire between this nexus junction and the AI core on the deck above is corrupted. This has caused a cascade failure in the primary data-bus and shut down the factory, but there isn’t anything wrong with the systems, it’s purely a data issue.”
He swung out from under the console and bounced back to his feet and thumped against Seinu hugging his brother as he grinned over at Naha, “Someone, naming no sisters of mine didn’t re-calibrate for a high density manufacturing environment when spooling nano-cabling from the AI core to the factory wing.”
Naha frowned, “Oh…. Oooooooh,” his ears perked up as he grasped what Taran was saying, “So the first time someone started up the looms down here the microscopic particles given off by the nano assembly heads would get into the wiring assembly.”
“Ah and that caused the cascade failure?” Seinu asked.
“Yes,” Taran smiled, their cybernetic eyes clicking every so faintly as they reset to regular vision mode, “I can get Ifelse up and running as soon as it is replaced”
The teal and orange avali waved an arm, still nuzzling up against Seinu happily, “I have already set a new nano-spool to work and it is replacing the wiring connections between the nexus point at the AI core it’ll take about twelve hours to finish but we don’t need the factory up and running for launch.”
“Well that’s good,” Naha said, “I’d hate to miss our completion deadline, my pack is off on holiday as soon as we are finished here.”
“I heard,” Seinu said with a smile, “Chantelle was going on about this big festival you are off to, my advice, pack a whole load of sound dampening headphones.”
“Already packed,” Naha laughed, “I’ve heard Rowi and his boyfriend play before, they can get loud.”
“Awesome,” Taran sighed, “I hope we can do something fun like that soon, but we shouldn’t miss the launch time,” Taran released Seinu and moved to slide the panel back into place and pressed a holographic switch and all the alarms powered down, “We are pretty much on track though the command circuit says Ifelse still hasn’t taken command of Engineering and the engines?”
“Oh right!” Naha turned and started between the nano-looms, “Let’s check in with the team down there. The pack from the shipyard in charge of the reactor installation have been calibrating the new plasma conduits for the additional engine systems Selenu had installed.”
“Oh lord,” Taran laughed, starting off and dragging Seinu with him, “You missed it bro, the Illuminate design team were so grumpy. They reluctantly agreed it was an improvement on their design and the Director signed off the change but man they were salty about being shown up by an amateur.”
“That’s our sister,” Seinu laughed, “She loves tinkering with engines, let’s see what she’s done.”
The three Avali passed through a hatch, down a short corridor and into the main engineering deck. The power-core filled the centre of the room, a huge spherical device made from overlapping plates of silver metal and orange aerogel that contained a micro-singularity that generated power for the ship and engines. It produced electricity for the battery array supplemented by solar-panels and neutrino collectors on the hull. But its primary job was to generate a closed loop energetic plasma system to power the engines and warp-drive.
“So,” Naha gestured up at the core, “This is your main generator, it’s the latest model from the Illuminate Military Power Corps providing you with power for at least five years before it needs refuelling,” he sighed, “I wish I had an excuse to get one of these installed on the surface, but I can’t really justify running a mining camp on military grade generators… but it is so cool.”
“It’s the latest military tech,” an avali with spiked grey plumage said as he climbed out of a hole in the floor, “It’s a bit much for an exploration vehicle but it gives your entire engine system and shields a kick that’ll be able to withstand anything unexpected you bump into out there on the fringe or any angry aliens who decide they don’t like you and open fire.”
“It’s amazing,” Taran said with a happy chirp, “I’ve never seen a power system like this ever… I still can’t quite get my head around how it is self-sustaining, the loss of energy is so miniscule we had to re-calibrate the fuel consumption sensor array to even detect it.”
“I am glad you like it,” the grey crested Avali laughed warmly as he pulled his tool-box up out of the hole in the floor, “We were really excited to get our hands on the plan for it, all the new Odyssey class ships will have one but we are all done here and ready to hand over to your pack-leader.”
“I am glad I got to see you start it up earlier,” Naha smiled, “I don’t often get to see such big tech in operation.”
“It was a pleasure,” the shipwright said with a smile, “This was the last thing other than the mess in the manufacturing deck. We had to go through and widen all the engine plasma conduits by about six inches to cope with the power requirements for the new engine setup.”
“I fixed the mess on manufacturing,” Taran chirped, “We’d accidentally used the wrong sort of nano-wiring to connect the nexus control to the AI core, it’s being re-laid now but shouldn’t interfere with our launch time.”
“Well low-level engine tests were successful, I am ready to hand engineering oversight to Ifelse now then I’ll clear off,” the shipbuilder Avali said with a grin, “As fun as going on your shakedown cruise would be I got other ships to build.”
“Oh right,” Taran brought up his left hand and started to type on the wrist-mounted computer control that encircled his wrist, “Ifelse… engineering is open to you, please confirm monitoring control.”
A hologram flickered into existence above the main control board, it was a small, magenta feathered critter with a curling tail and long claws. They clambered up the side of the console, hanging off the support struts for the power core as they turned wide black eyes on the group of avali. The feathers on their head swayed softly upright, glittering with lines of roving translucent orange data as they opened their beak. It was a Jakub, a small, tree climbing herbivore from the forests of Avalon, they couldn’t fly but they loved to climb and scamper, and some nurseries kept them as pets for growing packs.
“Hi everyone, Engineering monitoring systems are five by five under my control…” they glanced around the sterile environment of the engineering deck and sighed, “This place needs more trees like the rec-deck.”
“Hello Ifelse,” Taran said, “I am sorry engineering isn’t as fun as the rec-deck but this is a working environment”
“I am getting used to it,” the AI hologram jumped across to land on Taran’s shoulder and gently clambered up to perch between his ears, “I have an in-coming message from Chantelle… Patching it through to all occupied rooms.”
The hologram blinked out and re-appeared as a little fuzzy head in the left corner of the large video screen that blinked into view. A three-dimensional hologram of Chantelle peered out and with her were Sawi and Eikomi. The three female avali looked excited as Seinu’s sister chirped up.
“Guys! Great news, we are on schedule to launch in seven hours and I’ve scrapped the route Selenu picked for our shake-down cruise.”
“What!” Sel cried out over the comm-system, “Chantelle you can’t just...”
“Shush sis, this is better,” Chantelle interrupted, “We are following Sawi and their pack to the Ultra Music Festival where their brother Rowi and his band are going to perform.”
“You are?” Naha said in surprise, “That’s quite a distance away from Protion.”
“It is, but it is a safe track along populated routes, we can test the sub-light engines, the warp, AI and other ship systems on the trip there and if anything goes wrong we will be in range of friendly ships in-case we need help.”
She clasped her hands together and chirped, “AND I have been informed the Director has arranged tickets and hotels for us all for finishing the build and launching on time. Sawi and her family already have VIP tickets as their brother is performing but otherwise, phew let me tell you a single night at this place costs more than rooms for a week for all five of us at that resort we went to last year on Zeitaku. So we get a proper shake-down in a secure space and at the end get to enjoy a festival before we set off into deep space for months.”
“Woo go Chantelle,” Taran chirped, doing a little jig and pulling Seinu in close, hugging him excitedly before sobering up, “But seven hours to launch… ok I want to run a full calibration sweep on the warp-drive before then.”
“Right, I had better get back to the surface, my delivery run was finished hours ago, I only stayed as Taran was having issues with the factory, “Eikomi, Sawi if you want anything packed let me know and I’ll transfer it to the ship we hired. Kalani I know you’re still on the surface, meet me at our residential tents you can help me pack.”
“Will do,” a male voice echoed over the comm, “I’ll start striking the tents, see you soon.”
Taran shook his head as the video feed to the girls ended, “Right Ifelse, start a seven hour count-down to launch I’ll meet you in the AI core. We have some final calibration tests to perform.”
Taran and Naha hurried off out of engineering and the grey avali from the shipyard nodded politely and said his goodbyes, heading for the nearest airlock to move onto his next task. Seinu watched them go smiling happily at being home and started off toward the nearest lift.
“Seinu,” Selenu’s voice echoed through the speakers on his visor, “Did you suggest this to Chantelle?”
“Maaaaybe big sis,” Seinu chuckled, “It seemed like a good idea and much more fun than your shake-down cruise. Plus Sawi and her pack will be nearby on the civilian transport they have hired for the trip, so we have some Avali nearby in case anything goes catastrophically wrong.”
“I knew it,” she laughed down the com line, “This has Seinu written all over it! Well brother I need to plan a new course to Warfaisser Station, can you send someone to bring me some lunch?”
“Sure thing,” Seinu chirped, “I’ll check in on Firi and make sure everyone’s sleeping quarters are set up on the residential deck then I will bring you lunch myself.”
“Very well,” Selenu said, “And Seinu… good job.”
Seinu chirped and hurried off, he had a lot to prepare in the next seven hours but they would be leaving soon! It was going to be a fantastic launch and their first journey together on their new home would be a memorable one.