ONE LESTER MAN
Far from peril a seemingly insignificant vessel laid nested in the support flotilla.
The support flotilla was thousands of spacecraft that attach themselves and joined their innards into a giant, unwieldy and most ugly wonder of engineering. Power and fluids were shared between the flotilla members via cables and pipes, but what truly made the Flotilla special was the conveyance tubes which allowed efficient transfer of men and materials. In this way the specialties of each ship contributed to one giant support superstructure. The Flotilla was a mobile home base if you will. Of course significant time and effort was needed to assemble (or disassemble) such a monstrosity and when combined mobility was entirely compromised.
The support flotilla was decked with hangars, repair bays, vaults, barracks, officer quarters, mess halls, science stations and everything else imaginable. It was a temporary floating main base for the Ronin fleet and its capture or destruction by the enemy would mean total collapse of the Ronins. It was ALSO the headquarters of the Tactical Engineering Support team which was housed in the ‘seemingly insignificant’ and clunky piece of junk vessel mentioned christened ‘Vulkan’s Pride.’
The ‘seemingly’ differentiator is an essential adjective because Tactical Engineers were vital to Astro Battle… No major battle in space had been won without smart use of these battlefield wizards. They were more smart than strong. They applied their arcane knowledge of science, technology, mathematics and engineering to give their battlefield masters an advantage critical for victory. And unlike other engineers, all Tactical Engineers were a fast and decisive thinker and doer.
Among Tactical Engineers were two distinct and different varieties. The Field Tactical Engineers 'Fielders' who are obedient to command and proud to stand among the hardened warriors on the front lines. Fielders were not averse to extreme risk or personal hazard or engaging in actual hand-to-hand combat. They had the respect of everyone in the war machine.
Then there were the Tactical Engineer Support team 'Suppies' who were unalike in that they were more fat than fit, more opinionated than compliant. The suppies were the bane of command and–if not for their extreme utility–top brass would have turned their implements of war towards the ‘Vulkan’s Pride’ and obliterated its crew of headache-inducing-know-it-alls.
One other thing, when it was written a paragraph ago that ‘Fielders’ had “the respect of everyone in the war machine” It would have been more accurate to say “...Almost everyone in the war machine” for the Suppies thought themselves smarter than the Fielders--which makes sense, Suppies were smart enough to not go to places they might get killed like the front lines, after all. To be more direct: The two cousin species of Tactical Engineers do not like each other. More granularly, the Fielders hate the Suppies and the Suppies don’t care what any thought of them.
Condition lights and periodic public announcements were rousing the sedentary support staff to a state where they could fulfill their battle-time duties. There had been a complete information blackout on the flotilla–especially censored was the news of Alexander’s struggles with the main fleet which had been under a strict information blackout… no one on the Vulkan’s Pride knew what was next however a feeling pervaded the flotilla: A major battle was imminent.
Aboard the Vulkan’s Pride Massive lines of Tactical Engineers flowed and flexed into the situation room like tiny particles in a stream each driving to his destination against the friction and backpressure of the crowd. The situation room was a vast cubical farm where the support Engineers conducted operations. Although in look each cube station was nothing cube-like, but more like a negative hemisphere, each decorated with a lovely fattened tactical engineer in the center and the accommodation was small… Tactical Engineering stations were less entered and more worn.
Among those people particles one Lester Mann surfed the starts and stops reluctantly homing in to his destination. He was–as all are in those moments–lost in thought. Scenes of the past and dreams of the future played in his mind: a collage of trauma, regrets, triumphs and goals just as any who share the human experience reviewing and renewing how he thought of himself, others and the things that made him who he was at that very moment.
He remembered something and made a sudden pivot. His request to move his station had been approved so now he oriented towards the promised land and proceeded forward.
Then the dream ended. He saw something. “Ed Greely”, he said acidicly and under his breath. And indeed, settling into an adjacent station was one Edward Greely – the very reason Lester had requested transfer.
Edward was not alone but surrounded by a cadre of cadets; trainees and future Tactical Engineers not recognized by Lester. Two scrawny kids and one giant one.
“Here he is!” Ed barked excitedly. “He’s the one! Less! Hey, you moved. Don’t worry, I told Gage we always sit together.”
He extended his index finger and pointed in a semicircle: “Meet the guys!”
He then slunk into the ‘promise land’ with all the excitement of diving into a hellhole.
"Here we got Grey, Jet and Bodgie" … He leaned forward and spoke quieter but still loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear," Bodgie’s my favorite, but Greys got the best eyes for spotting things! What fun! I’m the new ambassador to the cadets here as you know!"
Some sort of smile facsimile cracked on Lester’s hardened face. He slunk into his station and activated his terminal… he was immediately surrounded by holographic interfaces, but not cloaked to an extent that he couldn’t be seen.
"Mr Holmes!" Jet blurted. Ed launched his right hand in placation of Jet and Less. "Lester Mann not Lester Holmes", Ed corrected. "You can just call him Less."
"Sorry, Mr. Greely", Jet said sheepishly. Lester’s head ticked up a few angles, and he stared straight forward and into nothing for a moment with unusually wide eyes.
"It’s fine!", Ed continued, "Everyone makes mistakes. Less is the shimmer guy! Didn’t I tell you Less and I invented the shimmer"
"The one that commander Alexander uses!", Grey spouted.
"Now don’t make ole Less cranky, Grey, Less is modest and his brother doesn’t like him too much...Did I tell you guys Less and I have been best friends since High school?" The cadre of numb skulls nodded out of sequence.
"We’re like family! All of us!"
Bodgie pushed his giant head through the plane of holographic interfaces protecting Less making his question impossible to ignore: “Mr. Less, I’m a fan of your innovations in regard to nanobots. In particular your creation of the shimmer effect. I was wondering if you can explain exactly how that works.”
“Ha! That’s my Bodgie! Yer gonna love these guys, Less.”
Less sat back in his chair and dimmed his console in surrender. That and it was actually a good question from Bodgie.
"Well, the bots are released into space and diffuse like a gas. Because they hold a slight attraction to each other they can maintain a cloud shape in a vacuum. Each bot is capable of bending a tiny amount of electromagnetic energy… i.e. light the sheer volume of bots makes this effect multiplicative to the extreme."
"The oscillating perturbation of energy plus the random motion and orientation of the bots disturbs the flow of light to such an extent the image of anything behind the shimmer from the observer's perspective into pure chaos. The observer can see there is something there, but cannot determine what it is or what it is doing."
"But why can WE see what is on the other side of the Shimmer!", Bodgie Asked.
"I thought only I could see on account of I got such good eyes.", Jett inserted.
"Such wit! —" Ed continued to dote but Less cut him off:
"The bots broadcast their positions and oscillate in a random but predetermined pattern. We are able to reverse calculate the perturbations and generate a reasonable facsimile of what is on the other side."
"That’s why you are my favorite, Bodgie!", Now Ed wasn't even trying to be subtle.
An alarm sounded. All the Tactical Engineers scurried to their assigned positions.
Chief Engineer Peter Dartanian appeared as a giant lifeless hologram in front of all and started to deliver a briefing. There was talk about the Zell… breaching the Zell line…. Some sort of big explosion…. As the talk went on Lester became incapable of listening.
It was time for Lester to engage his greatest superpower… he activated his cybernetic implants and sank deep into his dreamworld while at the same time activating a subroutine that kept his body upright and eyes open. His superpower was essentially the ability to sleep through meetings without anyone noticing. The human race was sure to be saved by this fellow.