The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH54

Jeremy brought up the circuit he’d designed and inserted it into the reactor floating over his drafting table. It was a scaled-down version of what it would be if he were to have it built, not that he knew if it would work. This was a new design, taking his last reactor and applying Kelsirian thought process to it. The theoretical results his table gave him said he’d reduced the heat output by seventeen percent simply by increasing its volume three folds.

His biggest issue was that he kept filling that extra space with more components, which increased the power output, and the heat generated. It was what had led him to design his own circuits. Larger than needed to visually fill the space and keep him from adding to it. What he now had was half the size of Alix’s reactor with an output of nine percent higher, but generated far too much heat.

The extrapolation model to reduce the heat to something that could be uncomfortably survived while keeping the same power generated placed the resulting reactor at a hundred thirty-eight percent larger than the ship’s reactor.

It looked like a sacrifice was inevitable. Power, heat generated, or size.

He stored the design, then erased the work area.

Unless he had a breakthrough somewhere.

He started by designing a new circuit.

When in doubt, forget everything and start fresh.

*

“So,” Bob said, his odd voice still bothering Jeremy. “You want to know how I was trained. Let’s start by establishing that after the mess they made of my mind, I don’t know how reliable what I remember is. I have cross-referenced as much as I could using the attached movies, so you can see dramatized version of what it might have been like.

“I was infantry. So, no fancy, resist mind game training for me. I know they have divisions who got the special missions, and I’ve attached movies about those people, but again. It’ll be dramatizations. The way I remember it, my training was about hardening my body and my will. They had us train in the worse conditions you can think of. Storms, tight places, deserts. Hot, cold, wet, way too dry, can barely breathe. If there was a way to create discomfort, we had to train through it. Means that what I remember of my deployments went as well as those things go. I think one was aboard a cruiser that had been taken over by some liberation group. Miners, I think. Really hazy. But the fighting was through narrow corridors. Training paid off.

“Had to take on terrorists on a planet in the middle of a monsoon, if I remember that one right. Can’t tell you what their deal was or who we were defending. I remember being wet all the way to my marrow. I think that was my last deployment before being assign on the Washington.

“Regarding my contract. Yeah. For a bit there, it looked iffy. Turns out that even with people for whom the contract is everything, emotions get in the way. New hire ingratiated herself with the captain and tried to convince her I was bad for business. More of the crew sided with her than anyone expected, but in the end, my performance reviews spoke for themselves, and short of pissing off everyone, that’s what the captain cares about. There was a lot of shuffling at the next station. A few saw their contracts terminated early for working against the ship’s interest. We lost two good workers who I thought were friends of mine. I guess you do never really know people, even if you’re sleeping with them.

“I’m glad your crew’s good to you. Although what you described for your training terrifies me. I think that back in my military days, that would have qualified as torture. You sound like you’re pulling through, so…go you?

“Oh, after your message, I warned my captain not to get on your ship’s bad side, you know, because I don’t want to have to face you in a fight. Did you know there are movies, well, what Kelsirians call ballads, about your ship and your captain? Is he really some god chosen super Kelsirian or something? I mean, I know they’re movies, but they have to be based on something, right?”

*

The Kelsirian on the screen was a good representation of his Heart, Jeremy had to admit that. If he allowed for the extra height and muscle.

“Really?” he asked Gral. “That’s an actual Kelsirian actor? Not a visual creation?” the male on the screen roared as he grabbed a Taournian by the neck in each hand and raised them.

“I hope he was altered for the role,” Gral answered, wincing as the male made demands and threats to be told where the stolen goods were. “Because that kind of muscle mass can’t be healthy. That isn’t how it happened,” he snapped as the male threw one hard enough the window shattered. “I had four packs with me. It was supposed to be a peaceful surrender, and we were all armored. Taournian claws are vicious, jagged. They get under your flesh, and they will rip as they pull through. You get nasty scars from them. And some pirates are known to dip them in poison before battle. Only an idiot goes into battle wearing only pants!” he yelled at the screen, then mumbled. “I hate those things.”

“Why are they made, then?”

“Because there is a market for ballads about the real hunts hunters perform.”

“Really, they claim that’s real?”

“They don’t have access to the reports, just the stories that circulate. And they aren’t made by official ballad makers. Those know they aren’t allowed to produce real stories about us. Although some of their fictitious ballads were close enough to actual event they have been brought before adjudication and lost some of those cases.”

“So these are what? Amateur works?”

Gral nodded.

Jeremy whistled. “You have to respect the work that went into making those, then. How much of the surroundings are digitally added, do you think?”

“None, I expect. A shuttle to one of the stations orbiting Kelser is cheap, and there are plenty of deserted areas. It doesn’t take much to make something like that look like a ship. Although the corridors are too large for a Taournian ship. They aren’t as bad as Earthers, but smaller than I like.”

“If ballads about hunters aren’t allowed, why aren’t these stopped?”

Gral shrugged. “That’s for the adjudicators to decide. The little I know is from the ship’s Accountant. He did a tally of those about me and pointed out the kind of money they generated. I asked how that could go unchallenged, and he explained about black economy and alley dealing. I stopped listening when, after five minutes, he was still explaining how the hard currency made tracking sales impossible.”

“Can’t you take action directly?” Jeremy motioned to the screen, where the Gral’s look-alike had somehow lost his pants while fighting a Shimbarian. “That’s pretty disparaging.” He grinned. “He’s nowhere near as well endowed as you.”

Gral stopped the ballad, and with a few taps brought it back to that beginning, where, after the title of “The Hunt for the Taournian Thieves,” he paused on a message Jeremy hadn’t noticed.

He read it, then laughed. “You guys also have those ‘none of the events or people in the movie are real’ disclaimer?”

“If they didn’t do that, every Hunter who has been depicted could take action, and some aren’t content letting the adjudicators deal with this kind of depiction.”

“Then why aren’t the studios that officially produce ballads doing the same thing?”

“Because they’re too big to convince anyone the reports they’d recreate were anything but accurate, so such a disclaimer becomes an act of bad faith, and those went before Adjudicators centuries ago. There are too many things wrong in that for anyone to believe it’s really what happened, even if that’s the story those who enjoy watching them tell themselves. Those are what people who join the Hunters think they’ll experience. They’re why the leadership’s complaining about getting our rejects.”

“Then why aren’t they doing something about them?”

“You’d have to ask Toom, and he’d have to ask someone he knows in the backrooms, I figure.” Gral nuzzled him. “Please tell me you’ve seen enough. I don’t think I can take anymore abuse.”

Jer grinned. “I don’t know. He was naked, and I would like to see what they have him do as a celebration.”

Gral snorted, then was on top of Jeremy. “Oh, I can show you how I celebrate a victorious hunt.”

*

The female came at him, and he blocked, grabbing her arm, unbalancing her and shoving her away in time to turn and step out of the way of the clawless swipe. The man threw himself back before Jeremy grabbed the wrist. He pivoted and blocked the punch, stepped in and tripped that male. A weight landed on his back, and was off as he fell, the female landing as he rolled to his feet, blocking her kick, then sweeping her leg out from under her.

He turned in place to keep his attacker in sight, having to glance left and right in top of that, trying to gauge out of the corner of his eyes who was feinting an attack, and who planned to carry through.

He fell for the feint this time, and didn’t avoid the punch in his stomach. He pushed the pain down, and shouldered the female as hard as he could, sending her off her feet. Then he blocked a kick, and a punch connected with his shoulder. A foot at the back of his knee had him down on one, then he was keeping an arm in front of his face and doing the best to keep hits from connecting until he finally raised it and made a fist.

They stepped away from him, and after catching his breath, he stood. “Good. That was good. You’ve noticed that those of you who were able to dart in and out, lasted longer and were more of a nuisance to me, slowly exhausting me. When taking on an Earther, coordination is important. You can’t let me rest, but you can’t get in each other’s way.”

The pride on their faces would get the teens reprimanded if they were hunters. Pride got hunters killed. But for a group exercising, pitting themselves against the ship’s hunter trainer Earther, it was deserved. Especially considering how easily he’d controlled the fight their first time.

Training cubs hadn’t worked. Jeremy wasn’t much of an instructor. Telling someone how to fight was harder than simply letting them come at him so he could show them what they did wrong. Cubs hadn’t learned enough to be able to absorb those kinds of lessons, so Thur had transitioned him to teens. And it had gone better. Taking each group from disorganized fighters, who quickly tired out, trying to keep him off balance, teams who learned to relieve each other while they exhausted him.

He sent them to the showers, and adults stepped forward.

He smirked. “Really, after they softened me up is when you lot decide to take me on?”

Trose looked at the rest of the pack. “Does a hunter deserve to be in our pack? After all he did was have a play fight with barely out of their cubhood children?”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Well, is that how you got the male to agree to this? So I’d give them the pounding they deserve?”

Skaram returned the smirk. “We’ve watched you males. It’s a fun show no matter who pounds into whom.”

Jeremy raised his fists. “For the record. There’s a leisure alley right outside the gym. It would be way simpler to just head there.”

“But nowhere near as fun as first fighting you,” Urum said, then rushed him.

*

Jeremy sighed, enjoying the bodies against him, exhausted and sated.

He loved his pack.

*

“We have a situation down here,” he hurried to say. “I need the power to Arks 13 off, now!”

“Technician,” the Engineer’s voice came over his comm. “Explain.”

“The printer in the repair bay faulted,” he replied, cutting through the wall. “But the safety circuit didn’t blow, so the line’s overheating and melting stuff no one wants.”

“One of your prints?”

Jeremy chuckled, pulling the panel off, then backed from the heat. “No, mine’s printing fine, although once you cut the power, it’s probably going to be ruined.”

“The power has been cut.”

Jeremy looked up. The lights were off, but the fires behind the wall were continuing. He cursed. “Out! Everyone out! We have a chain reaction. Engineer, Repair needs to be sealed and voided. The fire’s hot enough, it’s feeding off the Oxy directly.”

“This is Maintenance, we’re reading people still there.”

“We’re evacuating. What’s in place to keep this from spreading to other sections?”

“Bulkheads have been lowered between the section you are in and the adjacent one.”

Jeremy looked around as he reached the door. The fire was intense enough that half the bay was illuminated. “Tell me I’m the only one left in here.”

“Confirmed.”

“Leaving now, closing the door.”

The light over the lock immediately went red, then flashed. “Non-breathable. Do not Enter.”

“Sensor confirm the fire has been starved,” the Maintenance female said after a minute. “Reintroducing Oxy. No reignition.”

“Good, unlock the door.”

“Negative. Only safety personnel are allowed until the area has been confirmed secure.”

“I’m Technician Jeremy Bradshaw. I have the expertise to look over the damaged parts and find out what went wrong.”

There was a pause.

“The Engineer has confirmed you are qualified. You can enter.” The door opened, and he hurried in. No one else tried to rush before it closed. The melted wall still radiated heat all the way to where he stood, so he wouldn’t be able to get close for a while. Which was fine, because he needed to find the tools that would let him work out what had gone wrong.