Story Summary: Current sub-plots in the story: Kallae has been released from suicide watch, but is restricted to the Bridge Deck. Cirres is helping search for more survivors during the day, and doing a shift on the Bridge at night. Five more groups of survivors have been found, adding 5 Master Maintenance Chiefs that had led as many as they could to safe areas, and kept them alive until rescue, 18 mechanics, 1 Doctor, and 1 nurse that had been in the tunnels to give annual physicals to the Maintenance Division’s K Sector team, 75 Maintenance crew members, and 354 Maintenance interns to the list of survivors. There are now 2,955 survivors of the accident. (There is one more survivor, but I won’t mention who. I want to write a full chapter about that rescue) It has been 13 days since the disaster that crippled the Morning Star. The search for survivors continues. This chapter is actually much longer, but I broke it in half for easier reading.

The Bridge: Cirres hunched over the navigation console with his forehead resting on the cool metal. He was lazily flapping his wings to a children’s song he was singing in an attempt not to fall asleep. "Flap your wings, cause your arms don’t flap… Flap your wings, cause your arms don’t flap" Master Maintenance Chief Galthaen, though everyone just called him Chief Galt, looked up from the Morning Star’s blueprints he was studying and motioned for Chief Gillian to look at the boy’s antics. “I know, he’s exhausted, but I have to make them do a shift,” replied Gillian. “The boys are sharing a room, but that room is prime real estate with a double berth, hot water, and a working toilet. So, out of fairness, I have to make them both work to justify keeping it, and it’s only a two-hour shift each before midnight, they’ll get enough sleep.” Cirres obviously overheard the conversation and changed his song. "I a sleepy little bird, sitt’n on a wall, when you gonna sleep, I don’t know when, I a sleepy little bird" “How about you grab a broom and sweep up,” said Gillian. “That should wake you up.” Chief Galt chuckled as he glanced back down at the blueprints. The boy had no intention of sweeping the floor, and only made a cursory movement as he half-pretended he was going to slide down off the chair and go get a broom. Cirres was hardworking, honest, and attended Temple regularly, but he was still a Rositite boy, and Rositite boys were either being good, or being bad, there was no in-between with them. “I have the numbers worked out,” said Chief Gillian, already having put Cirres out of his mind. Gillian knew Cirres was going to disobey, and to good reason. Cirres had been very good for thirteen straight days in a row, believing he and his brother were the last of the Maintenance Division and shouldering the burden of the ship’s safety without complaint. But now, with a quarter of the Maintenance Division rescued, Cirres could enjoy slipping into a little disobedience, just for the balance of things. “If we can lift the edge here,” Chief Galt stabbed a finger at the blueprints, “we’ll be able to slip new support ribs into place, and after that, it’s just a matter of attaching hull plating and sealing the breach.” “And there’s the problem,” replied Gillian. “The entire ring is twisted, and that tear is nearly a mile long. We couldn’t get enough Pods in synch to lift that much mass. The heavy cranes could do it, but there’s nobody left that knows how to fly them.” “How many cranes would it take?” asked Chief Galt. “Two, but it would take six months to train the pilots, and then they would need a lot of practice together to be able to lift the edge of the hull breach in perfect synch, otherwise, you’d never get the rib in place.” Chief Galt looked up to see Cirres, still only half off the chair and one wing raised as if he were in school wanting to ask a question. “Do you have something to add, young man?” Cirres lowered his wing and slipped the rest of the way out of the chair to stand facing the two Chiefs, just as students were required when addressing the teacher in school. “I guess it was two years ago, I think. Kallae and I started sneaking into the forward cargo bay where the Heavy Crane Ship Training Simulators are. We used the simulators to play war.” Gillian leaned forward and tapped on his computer. “To play war in the simulators, you’d have to be on the final Free Flight Training Module, and to do that, you’d have to complete all the training modules up to the Free Flight Module.” Cirres nodded. “We did. It took about eight months because we couldn’t go every day, but it was worth it. It was really fun.” “Seems odd you were never caught,” replied Gillian, his eyes scanning a document on his computer screen. “We were really careful, but the ship needs us, so, it’s okay if we get in trouble if we can help,” said Cirres. Gillian locked eyes with Cirres. “I didn’t see it the first time I reviewed your training record because it’s in the notes section, and not officially on your training file yet.” “Huh?” Cirres’ expression was one of confusion. “Let me read the notes from your records,” said Gillian Note 1: Notified by security of unauthorized use of two Heavy Crane Training Simulators, reviewed security footage and contacted Master Maintenance Chief Cael. Chief Cael states he authorized his sons to use the simulator, but forgot to file the authorization. States the paperwork is on his desk and will send it to the Bridge immediately – Executive Officer, Morning Star. Note 2: Received the authorization paperwork. Notified Security the boys are authorized to use the simulator. – Executive Officer, Morning Star. Note 3: Received Chief Cael’s sons Completion of Heavy Crane Operator Training from the Ship’s Computer. Notified Chief Cael that we can have the award ceremony at his earliest convenience. – Executive Officer, Morning Star. Chief Gillian leaned forward and tapped a button on the computer. The printer whirled and a laminated card emerged. Chief nodded at the card. “Your Heavy Crane Operator’s Student Permit. I’ll give Kallae his when he wakes up.” Cirres wings dropped to the ground while Chief Galt roared with laughter. “I would have given anything to have been at that award ceremony.” “Would Cael have punished them?” asked Gillian. “They did show initiative by completing the course, even if it was only to play war in the simulator.” “I don’t know,” said Galt. “He loved the boys and was always talking about their antics in the daily Chiefs Brief. We got a kick out of it. He started bringing them down to the tunnels when they were around 3 years old. They had play tools and would follow him around pretending to fix things. By the time they were six, they had real tools and really were fixing things.” Gillian nodded and looked back down at the blueprints. The two Chiefs resumed their discussion of how best to begin repairs on the Morning Star. Cirres realized the two men were done amusing themselves at his expense and grabbed his Crane Operators Permit. The license was worthless though, the Operators Permit even had ‘Student Pilot Permit’ printed across the front of it. He and Kallae had never flown a real Crane Ship, they would have to be verified by a Master Chief before they would ever be allowed to fly alone, which seemed unfair, since none of the Chiefs had ever attempted to complete even the simulator portion of the training. He went back to the navigator’s console, still with no intention of getting the broom and sweeping up; the day shift were slobs, let them clean up their own messes. The remainder of the shift crawled along with Cirres shaking his head every few minutes to stay awake. He glanced at the clock, it was already six minutes past shift change – Kallae was late. Ever since Kallae had gotten out of the hospital, he’d been acting strange. He hadn’t even wanted to go down to the tunnels and help continue the search for survivors; all he wanted to do was lie on his bunk and stare at the ceiling. At twelve minutes past the hour, Cirres was thinking about asking if he could go wake-up Kallae when something on the navigation screen in front of him caught his attention. He stared at it for a moment, then pressed a button to zoom in. The object looked like a very small ring ship, but not like any of the one’s he’d ever seen in the history books. “Hey, could someone come look at this?” said Cirres. “I think there’s a spaceship in front of us.” Chief Galt glanced up from the blueprints with a tolerant smile. “I got this, he probably sees a meteor, the Sun Shield will auto-fire and destroy it when it gets closer.” The Chief came around from Gillian’s desk, and walking with a limp, approached the navigator’s station. He’d lost two toes to frostbite while waiting for rescue in the tunnels. He had cut away the toes with a pair of metal shears by his own hand to prevent the spread of blood poisoning to his feet and legs. He really should still be in the hospital, but the man had a solid Rositite streak of stubbornness. Cirres jumped out of his seat to let the Maintenance Chief sit down, which he didn’t. Chief Galt reached across the control panel and pushed several buttons to activate the scanners on the front of the ship. Cirres wasn’t allowed to push those buttons because of the power consumption required to operate the deep-scanners that could peer inside asteroids and find precious metals, and apparently also inside alien spaceships. Chief Galt reviewed the data a moment longer before glancing back to Senior Chief Gillian. “It’s a small ring ship, no bigger than our early ring ships, but it is not Darian. The hull is advanced armor technology, it will tear the Sun Shield apart if it hits, but the interior is very primitive; solid state fuel boosters, a fission generator, and what I think are 300 stasis pods?” Gillian rose and came around the desk to see the image of the alien vessel. “We abandoned stasis technology eons ago, there are too many horrifying side-effects.” The Senior Master Chief stared at the image for a moment before nodding in agreement. “Our first encounter with an alien civilization, and we’re going to have to destroy them in 22 minutes or that ship will do irreparable damage to the Sun Shield.” “Ideas?” asked Chief Galt. Cirres raised a wing again. “I have an idea, let me take a crane ship out there and yank them out of the way.” “No, you’ve never flown an actual crane ship, your license is only a student permit,” said Chief Galt. “I can do it, we have to help those people?” “We don’t know what they are, or even if they’re friendly or hostile.” Cirres squinted his eyes, thinking about a passage from the Corvus Corax his mother would often repeat to him and Kallae. Cirres flared his wings as one would when called upon to read from the Corvus Corax in Temple. “Be kind and true to all you meet and return tenfold the kindness given, and twice less the harm.” Gillian gave Cirres an amused smile. “You have a good heart, Temple boy. Alright, you can try, but at three minutes before impact, I’m destroying that alien ship.” Cirres shot out of the Bridge like a lightning bolt before Chief Galt could find another reason to say no. Chief Galt glanced at Gillian. “That is the most misquoted passage in the Corvus Corax.” “Ah, but he quoted it correctly, and in context,” replied Gillian. “Maintenance Division will be fortunate if we don’t lose him to the Priesthood,” said Galt. “His father wanted him to be an engineer, but his mother had other ideas.” Gillian nodded. “Would that he could do both. With a hammer in one hand and the Corvus Corax in the other, there would be neither machine nor heart of man he could not fix.”