With a pout that acknowledged the hit, Starsa raised her chin. “Where’s the fun in engineering if you don’t build things?”
Jayme didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been thinking the same thing for weeks–where’s the fun in engineering? At night, the mess halls were filled with talk of the new warp designs being developed at Utopia Planitia, so that starships could exceed warp five again. But Jayme couldn’t see the thrill in the need to eliminate subspace instabilities. The thought of twiddling away on a gerontometer or anything like it made her want to yawn.
In some strange way, Starsa reminded Jayme of her mother. Commander Miranda always had a project or three underway in her quarters. Her great‑aunt Marley Miranda’s home in France also looked like an engineering lab. Growing up, Jayme had a permanent image of her great‑uncle gamely smiling from behind piles of coupling rings and conduit bundles, trying to watch the news on a padd in one vacant corner of the room.
Starsa started to ask, “What’s wrong–”
Suddenly the floor lurched under them. Even unbalanced, Starsa dove for her gerontometer and caught it before it could hit the ground.
“What was that?” Jayme asked, afraid of what it mightbe.
Starsa settled her gerontometer back on the desk. “It felt like the graviton array went out of synch for a microsecond.”
“Maybe it’s another tremor,” Jayme suggested, holding her breath.
Another jolt shook the floor. Starsa was ready that time, and she cushioned her precious device safely on the bed. “That’s no tremor. That’s a system failure–”
The yellow alert began to flash, and the computer announced, “Yellow alert! Emergency personnel to their stations.”
Starsa made sure her gerontometer wouldn’t be knocked off the bed. “I’m supposed to go to the environmental support substation this week. I think . . . what about you?”
Jayme was already heading out the door. “I’ve got to get down to the graviton conduit chamber.”
“See you later,” Starsa called merrily. Jayme wondered how someone could be that oblivious about people and still be such a great mechanical genius. Then she remembered Barclay, who was not very personable himself, but she sincerely hoped he was working on whatever was going wrong down there.
The jolting continued to rock the decks of Jupiter Research Station as Jayme rapidly made her way down to the graviton chamber. Personnel were rushing to their alert stations, purposefully crossing paths. Strictly speaking, Jayme wasn’t supposed to be belowdecks, but she grabbed a kit from the rack and followed a work crew down the access ladder, crossing her fingers that they wouldn’t notice an extra person.
“This valve hasn’t been vented in three days!” Ensign Dshed exclaimed, leaning over to check the gauge.
“This one hasn’t either,” a technician further down the conduit confirmed.
“The graviton distortion waves are phasing into synch,” Barclay informed them, concentrating on his tricorder. “We better get these valves vented fast!”
Jayme grabbed a siphon and ran to check the next valve. It wasn’t vented either. In all, more than half a dozen valves in the section hadn’t been vented. They were throwing off the synch of the entire array. She hung onto the conduit walkway as the station shuddered, almost knocking her from her perch to the floor a few feet below. She hoped they could get the valves vented before a synchopathic wave ripped the station off the moon.
The next graviton slip was so strong the walkway seemed to fall out from under her. “Ohh!” she exclaimed, landing hard on the conduit walk.
One of the other technicians grabbed her arm, and helped her hang on. He looked at her. “What are you doing down here, Cadet?”
Her stomach leaped into her throat, threatening to strangle her. Her mouth opened wordlessly as the full import of her mistake hit her.
“Never mind,” the technician whispered, glancing over his shoulder. “I always wanted to be in on the action, too, when I was a cadet. But you better get out of here before the lieutenant notices.”
Jayme nodded, her eyes wide, as she backed away. Then she turned and ran down the conduit, barely grabbing hold of the ladder as another graviton slippage hit the station. For a moment she hung there, staring back at the others, attempting to fix the damage she had done to the conduits, while she had to climb back up where she belonged, unable to help.
“This is gross negligence, Cadet Miranda,” Commander Aston of Jupiter Research Station said slowly, considering the report handed in by his first officer. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“No, sir,” Jayme said stiffly, staring straight ahead. She couldn’t think of another Miranda who had received as many reprimands as she had accumulated in two‑and‑a‑half years at the Academy. She wondered if she was destined to mess up with every commander she served under. If so, it was bound to be a very short career.
“I must say, Cadet Miranda,” Aston said severely, “the reputation of your family members led me to expect a much different officer.” The commander regarded her thoughtfully, a specimen in a jar.
Jayme winced. “I’ve been preoccupied lately, sir. It won’t happen again.”
The commander seated himself. “What’s on your mind, cadet?” When Jayme hesitated, Aston urged, “Out with it! I want to know what’s keeping you so busy that you neglect your simplest duties.”
“I‑I’m not sure I’ll be happy, sir, as an engineer,” Jayme said in a rush, letting out her breath in surprise that she had finally voiced her deepest fear.
“Cadet.” The commander stood up and leaned forward, crooking his finger at Jayme. Startled, she leaned forward to hear his low order. “I don’t care if you jump for joy all the way from your quarters to your workstation. But you don’t let your personal feelings interfere with the safety of my station. Do you understand?”
Jayme snapped back to attention. “Yes, sir!”
The commander consulted his screen. “You’ll continue your graviton adjustment duties, but you’ll alternate with Cadet Sendonii in the aft conduit chamber. That way you can’t make too much of a mess of my array.” Jayme squirmed as the commander added, “We’ve suffered some structural damage, especially to the lower two decks, so you’re to report to Lieutenant Barclay for extra maintenance and repair duty in the evenings.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There will also be a formal reprimand put on your permanent record.” The commander’s voice softened somewhat, his dark eyes looking on her kindly. “Good luck figuring out your career choice, Cadet. I know how difficult it can be sometimes. I thought I wanted to be a counselor for my first two years at the Academy, but as it turns out, I ended up right where I belong, holding this station together for some of our best researcher engineers.”
Jayme looked at Aston with surprise, but before she could thank him, the commander seated himself. “You’re dismissed, Cadet.”
* * *
Jayme could handle hearing Starsa joke about her blunder–she was used to her former quadmate’s completely irreverent attitude about the most serious things. But Jayme hated knowing that everyone else was talking about her incompetence. When she and Starsa went to Zimmerman’s lab to run the imaging checks, she had to hear it all over again.
“That was a fine trick you pulled, Cadet.” Dr. Zimmerman narrowed his eyes at her. “Come this way. Look at that!” The random pieces of one of his experimental holographic imagers was gathered into clumpy piles. “Ruined! Three weeks of work, destroyed!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Jayme said through clenched teeth. “It wasn’t done on purpose.”