Chapter 33: 33. Questions

Sarah's five-day estimate turned out to be a little over-confident.

Our cute engineer admitted that her original expectations were based on working with a team of actual engineers. The reality of working with Piper and myself didn't quite live up to her ideal, so things didn't progress as quickly or smoothly as Sarah hoped.

It didn't go badly though. Piper had some experience, but she was mostly self-taught and didn't actually follow any sort of engineering best-practices. She also wasn't familiar with some of the terminology Sarah used. And I didn't really have any experience, but I made up for it by paying attention and picking up the terms and things along the way.

So rather than the day and a half Sarah figured, it actually ended up taking us four days to get the grav-sled fully assembled.

When we were finished we had a sleek-looking open-top craft just under five meters long, a little over two meters wide, and just over a meter high. It had two seats up front for the driver and a navigator, though the controls were arranged so the driver could reach everything. The second row was a bench that would sit two people comfortably but it could fit three in a pinch.

The back of the craft was an open utility space that could fit a bit of cargo or supplies, and the bench could be folded down or removed entirely to allow even more cargo space. There were two lockers, one on either side of the cargo area, where we could store things securely. The sled also had mount-points in the back, which both Sarah and Piper said were so the craft could be armed. According to our ex-marine captain, the two most common armaments were a heavy machine-gun on a turret or a small missile launcher.

The craft was fairly rugged and meant to take a beating, and it would serve as a convenient runabout so the three of us could travel around places like Port Ecclestone or that city at Rolandan-2 without having to walk or hire a ride. And we could use it for picking up or delivering cargo, or for hauling supplies when we needed to stock up the ship.

One negative was the sled had Imperium markings all over it, but Sarah took care of those. She used a cutting tool set to its lowest temperature, then carefully burned the markings away. We'd need to get some paint to touch up the finish, but that was a cosmetic thing.

Once we had it fully assembled we used cargo straps to secure it to the deck in the secondary hold, and that evening I made sure our dinner was a little extra special to celebrate the accomplishment. Then Sarah and I continued the celebrations together in our cabin that evening.

The day after that milestone Piper and Sarah and I were back to work again in the main hold. It took us another full day to carefully tear down the two shipping containers and prepare the parts for the next part of the project.

Days six and seven were spent enlarging and reinforcing that top shelf so it could safely house the sled. And finally the eighth day we shut down the ship's gravity and moved the sled by hand into its new permanent position. It was temporarily secured with straps, then the gravity was brought back online and that was our second milestone completed.

All in all it took us eight days to get to the point Sarah initially figured would only take five. On the other hand she still beat her guarantee of having it finished in less than ten days, which was the important thing. Both main and secondary holds had their decks clear long before our next port of call, and that made Piper happy.

The work hadn't been all that strenuous but it did keep three of us busy. After the planning was finished Jenny couldn't really help us much with the project, so she spent the time monitoring sensors and comms while the rest of us were in the hold.

Working with my girlfriend like that also gave me some good opportunities to observe her while she was on the job. Up until we started the grav-sled project, Sarah hadn't actually had that much to do on board the Demeter. She'd either spent most of her time off-duty, or sitting in the cockpit watching Piper train me.

I'd seen Sarah on duty a few times back on the Hammersmith, and I knew she was a lot more serious and didn't allow any rowdiness or misbehaviour in her engine room. Watching her at work in the Demeter's hold, I could see some of that no-nonsense hard-working chief engineer. She was still the same cute blonde with a smile on her face, but there was a lot less joking and teasing while she was on the job.

When we finished work for the day that serious side was gone and she was back to the playful mischievous teen again. Sarah would joke and tease and flirt with me while I cooked or as we were all sitting around the table in the mess. In fact she didn't limit herself to just me, she occasionally joked and flirted with both the captain and Jenny as well.

Piper seemed to take it in stride, she didn't get upset or act uncomfortable when our cute engineer's attention was turned on her. She even reciprocated now and then with taunts and flirting of her own.

Jenny on the other hand never teased or flirted back. She didn't seem to be bothered by Sarah's antics, instead her reaction made me think the AI was probably confused, or maybe a little curious. Neither she or Piper asked Sarah to stop though, which I was sure our engineer took as consent for her to keep up the teasing and flirting.

With the work on the shelf completed, and the grav sled assembled and stowed in its final position, the four of us all agreed it was time for another little celebration.

We got cleaned up then joined Jenny in the ship's mess. Piper and Sarah got some drinks out and I started preparing another good meal. We still had plenty of quality supplies after stocking up on Ecclestone's World, and I was determined to make the most of it.

A half hour later we were enjoying steaks with roasted vegetables and potatoes.

"You're going to completely spoil us Amanda," Piper commented as she ate. "It almost feels criminal, eating this good on board a ship."

I blushed slightly, "I'm glad you're enjoying it. Just keep in mind, sooner or later the quality ingredients are going to run out and we'll be back to the usual sort of fare."

Sarah gave me a smile as she said, "Even your usual fare's pretty good, cutie. We're definitely spoiled having you here to cook for us."

My blush grew brighter and I mumbled a quiet thanks then focused on my dinner for the moment.

Eventually Piper asked Sarah, "So we have two days before we reach our next port. Are you going to keep working on the project, or is that it until after we've finished up at the Hammersmith?"

"There's only two things left to do right now," Sarah replied. "Hook up a power feed so we can charge up the sled's power cells, and fabricate a set of sturdy clamps to replace the cargo straps. I think I can use the hinges and latches from the shipping container doors to make the mechanism."

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She had a sip of her drink then added, "If it doesn't work out that's ok, we can just leave the straps in place for now. Then when we're pulling the hoist system out of the Hammersmith I can have a look around for something else to use instead. Maybe I could even come up with a way to automate it, something we could activate through the hoist controller perhaps. Then nobody would have to climb up there to manually secure or release the sled."

Piper nodded, "Sounds good. I'll leave that in your hands, unless you figure you'll need my help for it?"

"I'm sure me and Amanda can handle it," Sarah replied.

The four of us talked a little more about the project, then there was some speculation on what we'd salvage from the Hammersmith on our next visit. I asked about our next stop since that was coming up before we returned to the shipwreck, but Piper didn't seem like she wanted to talk about it yet.

After we were all finished eating Sarah helped me tidy up, then we topped up everyone's drinks before rejoining Piper and Jenny at the table.

The engineer had a sip of her drink then fixed her gaze on the captain.

"Hey boss," Sarah began. There was a bit of uncertainty in her voice as she continued, "I know you don't like to talk too much about your past and I'm sorry to pry but I've got some questions about a few Re/Gen related things, and you're the only one who can answer them. Or, maybe Jenny could as well but you're the one with the first-hand experience. Plus I doubt she'd tell me, since it's kind of personal."

Piper frowned and had a sip of her drink. She finally asked, "What do you want to know? And how personal are we talking about?"

Sarah asked, "I suppose first off, did you experience any odd details relating to your age or renewed youth? We know you were a special-ops marine so I figure you had to be at least in your late twenties. So you probably lost a minimum of a decade, coming out at eighteen? I turned fifty-eight a few days before the Hammersmith was wrecked, I lost forty years. And I've noticed some effects that I've been attributing to suddenly being young again. I'm wondering if you had any similar stuff? And if you did, how long did it take to get used to it?"

Our captain had another sip of her drink as she looked thoughtful. Eventually she asked, "What else do you want to know? May as well get all the questions out of the way, then I'll figure out how to answer them."

"All right," the engineer frowned, then finally grimaced. "No easy way to say this so I'll just spit it out. Did you have to face the same sort of decision I did? Were you a man in your past life? I'm asking because I'm curious about adapting to a new body. Like... Actually I'm not sure how to phrase this. I suppose I just want to compare notes with someone else who's been through the process."

Piper glanced at me and asked, "I assume you've both compared notes already and want a third opinion?"

"Not as such," Sarah replied. "We've talked a bit, but Amanda's situation was completely different from mine. And in terms of the age thing, it was only about seven years for her? From twenty-five to eighteen isn't that big a change by comparison."

She added, "Plus it's been twenty-nine years for you right? Since the first time you used Jenny's capsule. So you've got almost three decades of experience of what it's like in a different body. You've also got the experience of going through that process multiple times, where both Amanda and I have only done it once."

"Right," the captain nodded slowly. She still had that thoughtful look on her face, like she was trying to decide whether or not to tell us, or how much she wanted to say.

After a minute or two of waiting, Sarah finally said "If it's too sensitive or you don't want to discuss it, that's ok boss. I'm sorry to put you on the spot."

Piper shook her head as she got to her feet, "It's ok Sarah. And maybe it's time I told you two the whole story."

As she talked she moved to one of the cabinets and pulled out a bottle of the hard stuff. She also picked up three shot glasses, then joined us at the table again.

She opened the bottle and poured the three drinks, then glanced at our AI crew-mate. "Sorry Jenny, I'd offer you a drink as well if I could. If you don't want to hear this I'll understand. You know it's going to get rough in spots."

Sarah and I watched quietly, and I couldn't help wondering how rough it got, and if she meant rough for herself or for the AI. Or for both of them.

"I'll stay," Jenny responded. "Incase Sarah or Amanda have questions for me as well."

Piper nodded, then slid two of the glasses across to Sarah and myself. She picked up the third, and knocked it back before setting the empty glass back down on the table. She winced as it went down, and finally said "Ok kids. Make yourselves comfortable, because this is going to be a story."

She continued, "I'll skip the Cumberland stuff, and skip the first decade with Gabe and the Demeter. The story starts about a year after we salvaged Jenny's capsule. We'd had a run of bad luck, money was tight, and we were forced to take some jobs that were a little riskier than we liked, just to try and make ends meet."

Me and Sarah both nodded. I had a sip of my drink while Sarah followed the captain's example and knocked hers back in one go.

Piper refilled Sarah's glass and her own, then set the bottle down. She took a deep breath and began her story, "So it was about twenty-nine years ago..."