The Optimum Project: Revised Edition

Noah's Boot Camp Adventures 1

Noah's First Demerit Duty

I couldn't believe I was doing this.

Well... I guess I could, because here I was standing in front of one of the station information desks waiting for the secretary to give me my assignment to clear off the demerits I had gotten from Sergeant Drake in class yesterday. Demerits, may I remind you, that I got from him because I was on Navy ordered medical leave.

The secretary, a pretty blonde woman with bags under her eyes that spoke of long nights and stressful days, came back and sat down in her chair, "Okay, so today the system decided to assign you to maintenance, you'll be working with a technician by the name of Carter Jones. He's worked with demerit earners before so just work hard and do your best and he'll sign off on your hours. I already sent the details to your tablet."

I smiled, "Thanks," my eyes caught the name on her ID card, "Whitney, I appreciate it."

She smiled and I left her to her work, pulling my tablet out and looking at the map and photo of the guy I was supposed to be working with.

He was a larger guy, not fat or anything, just solidly built. His blond hair stopped just before it reached his eyebrows, which sat just above his thick-framed glasses. He bore a genuine smile on his face as he looked at the camera, and his eyes were a warm and kind hazel color.

I looked at the map to see where maintenance was and found that it was actually right by engineering, the maintenance shop was literally two halls over.

Actually, why are engineering and maintenance separate?

I thought it was odd but I went with it, maybe it had to do with those "budget cuts" Pix had talked about, Carter might know the reason.

I took the same path to get to maintenance as I had that day to get to engineering, the only difference being I turned left at the junction and down two halls where a small door labeled maintenance sat.

I tried the knob and found it locked, so I knocked and waited...

Nothing.

I knocked again...

A clatter came from inside and a muffled voice called out, "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

A small avalanche of parts and tools seemed to occur from behind the closed door, until it opened and there was Carter, wearing a maintenance uniform and carrying a toolbox.

"Okay," he sighed, setting down his toolbox and locking up the door behind him, he turned to me, "You must be Noah, nice to meet you."

He stuck his hand out and I shook it, "hi."

He looked at me for a moment,"I'm guessing Drake sent you huh?"

I blinked in surprise, "yeah, how'd you know?"

He snorted, "Cause he only sends the kids that would actually show up, the others just skip and eventually get kicked out of the program."

I was kinda surprised at that, "huh." It seemed like the only thing I could say to that.

Cater shrugged, "Is what it is."

He gestured to his toolbox, "Come on, we've got a relatively easy maintenance job on one of the hypertrams today, what did you do before joining the Navy?"

I grabbed the somewhat heavy toolbox and followed him down the hall, "I actually did ship maintenance on my dad's freighter."

Carter nodded, "Awesome! A lot of those skills will carry over then, means I can teach you some advanced techniques and stuff without worrying about you blowing us up."

I laughed, though Carter seemed to be deadly serious.

---------

A hypertram was a transport system for large-scale stations, they were the horizontal distance solution to the general size of the station, much like the elevator was the lateral solution. Usually, the lines for these hypertram systems swung out and around the outer edges of the station, connecting the outermost constructs to each other through otherwise empty space.

Thankfully Carter and I were working on one inside the depot, and not out on the lines somewhere. I passed him a wrench as we floated around in zero-g, Carter had said it was because the depot wasn't occupied often enough to justify the cost, but that it was nice when we had to move 'heavy' things.

"So," Carter grunted, "These trams run off of electromagnetic propulsion via a few spools built into the chassis, easy to go, and when you want to stop you just reverse the polarity for a little before switching it back to the attractive polarity to lock it to the line while it offloads. The problem comes when the coils fail, tram won't stop, it'll just keep going and scrape against the lines until friction wins out."

"So... We're replacing the coils?" I asked.

Carter drifted up with a coil the size of a car tire in his hand, "Yup, it's fairly easy, just don't power them up or..." Suddenly he let go of the coil and it slammed into the bulkhead nearby, also picking up the toolbox and some various other magnetic bits. "That" he finished.

He unplugged the coil and everything began drifting freely again, "I've got some other jobs to do, if you get all the coils out of the tram I'll clear one of your demerits for the day."

I nodded and he grabbed his toolbox and passed me a wrench, "that ought to be all you need."

I turned and looked at the tram as he drifted out, the tram had six cars and each car had twelve coils, I had a lot of work cut out for me.

------A/N-----

There WertWert24  how's that? Not really a bonding thing with Peter, Sarah, Brea, Clipper or Pix but it's a start. ;)

So these chapters are not necessary to the plot, they only provide cool information, they won't have a particular ending, but really just portray some experiences from Noah's days at the Alliance Capital Station. If you're not interested in them just skip to chapter 15.

Let me know what you think of this since they're short and don't particularly play into the plot; they're quite a bit easier to write and I may do one or two when I have writer's block or won't be able to write a full 2000+ words chapter.

Thanks for reading!
Gmoney ;)