{"id":841,"date":"2023-01-18T15:27:26","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T15:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starfleetinfinity.com\/cms\/2023\/01\/18\/passing-gas-sd230118\/"},"modified":"2023-02-09T17:59:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:59:11","slug":"passing-gas-sd230118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starfleetinfinity.com\/cms\/2023\/01\/18\/passing-gas-sd230118\/","title":{"rendered":"Passing Gas – SD230118"},"content":{"rendered":"

Personal Log – Lacy Underall – Stardate 230118<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m down in the security office on level eleven when Chief Barbosa pings my comm badge and orders me to get my butt to level two and speak to the duty Ops officer, and that they have a job for me.\u00a0 I sighed and threw away the last of my raktajino. She kept sending me to do work for other branches. I think she\u2019s trying to get rid of me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I took the turbolift to level two, and went to the Ops office, and the duty officer assigned me to gas collection. \u201cUnderall, get some junior officers with the skills you need, check out a runabout rigged for gas collection, and get a load of deuterium.\u201d\u00a0 Ugh.\u00a0 The force of gravity ensured that crap ran downhill until the job hit the lowest ensign. I perked up. I would be in command. I would have my own ship and crew. Cool!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I smiled brightly at the Lieutenant and assured him I was on the job, then quickly checked my PADD to find out what the heck I was supposed to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My last time \u201cin command\u201d had either gone really well or spectacularly badly, depending on who you talked to.\u00a0 At the Academy, they had us do the Romulan bioweapon lab simulation. My team was inserted into the simulation, and the idea was we work together to solve a series of puzzles to escape before the weapon killed us.\u00a0 They\u2019d emphasized that we should use \u201cout of the box\u201d thinking, which I think was their mistake. Some thought the other mistake had been making me the team leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As soon as the instructor, Commander Fish, told us to proceed, I\u2019d smashed a beaker, held a jagged piece of glass to Fish\u2019s throat, and screamed, \u201clet me out of here, or I\u2019ll kill you!\u201d My team set a new Academy record of 8.2 seconds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I digress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I checked who was on duty and rounded up Cadet Dingus and the new Nova419 android, Pauline, as my engineer.\u00a0 Dingus was eager to get off the station after several weeks of cleaning space toilets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So the three of us trooped down to the docking bay, talked to flight operations, and got assigned a dusty runabout named the Athabasca<\/em>.\u00a0 It was in the very back of the bay, and it seemed the passenger module had been removed and a gas collection module installed instead – basically a set of big tanks and compressors that filled the extra space, leaving a very narrow corridor to get to the back where the replicator and bathroom were located.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We filed a flight plan to Hrulea (Ircassia IX) and got on with the job.\u00a0 Basically, what we needed to do was activate the Bussard collectors, fly through the upper atmosphere, then pause and wait while the continuous cycle fractionator threw away everything that wasn\u2019t deuterium. Then the system took the remaining heavy hydrogen and pumped it from the collection tank to the storage tanks, liquifying it along the way.\u00a0 Rinse and repeat until we filled the storage tanks.\u00a0 Seemed simple enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My role in all this was to sit back with my feet up on the console, sipping raktajino while Dingus did the flying and Pauline operated the collection equipment.\u00a0 Something the manual hadn\u2019t mentioned was how hot it got on the flight deck as a result of the gas compression.\u00a0 I stripped down to my undies, Dingus to what I can only hope was red body paint, and Pauline just sat there in her smug android way, unaffected by the heat.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pauline did explain the three suggestions of robotics to me, though.\u00a0 Seems that way back in history, the Asimov guy had got it all wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Try not to break humans.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. If you do break a human, deny everything, and try to claim they were already broken.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Try not to leave an oily residue on any surface Captain Maven is likely to brush against or sit on in her uniform because then there will be talk of taking away self-lubing privileges.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    The third suggestion seemed oddly specific.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    So after skimming the atmosphere about twenty times, collecting, compressing, and sweating, we made our way back to Galileo<\/em> station. The engineering crew pumped the liquid deuterium from our tanks to the station’s slush storage tank.\u00a0 I dismissed Dingus and Pauline and reported back to the duty operations officer.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u201cGood job, Underall, that brought our stored deuterium up by two percent.\u201d\u00a0 He gave me a big grin. \u201cThe CO will be very happy. Now go and do that twenty-five more times.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    Crap!<\/span> Dingus just shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s better than cleaning space toilets. Same time tomorrow?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    I couldn\u2019t argue with that assessment.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    End log<\/span><\/p>\n