FK 8 - Chapter 6

[Cord Hurn]

A great weariness sweeps over Morn while she stares at Orn's body. She doesn't mind Orn being dead, but she does feel some dread about what his data-wiping virus will do to the ship. She realizes if she gets access to the computers she may finally learn about Captain's Fancy's destination, but she fears she's not equal to solving the problem of Orn's virus.

The crewmembers gathered in the mess are affected by the same dread of what Orn's virus will do. Mikka rallies the crew to get back to work and reminds them they've yet to see Nick defeated by a problem.

Mikka took a deep breath to steady herself, then repeated, "We've all got work to do. I want the firsts on the bridge. Mackern, you're promoted to data first."

Mackern was a pale, nervous man with a nearly invisible mustache. His only apparent reaction to his promotion was a desire to disappear into the bulkheads.

"That makes you second, Parmute," Vasaczk continued to the artificial blonde.

"The rest of you, get back to the overhaul. Shut it down--secure everything. I want us tight and ready for maneuvers in an hour. Anybody who isn't done by then can trade jobs with Pup."

The boy they called Pup met her threat with a flash of hope. For him, any trade would be an improvement.

"Do it now," Mikka finished grimly. "The timer is running."

I find Pup's reaction to be a moment of humor in an otherwise sobering situation, even though I don't much about him.

Mikka and Morn are soon alone, and the command second castigates Morn for causing the Orn incident, insisting it all could have been avoided if Nick had been advised. Mikka's attitude reminds me of the "blame the victim" mentality that I loathe, but her take on this event shouldn't surprise me. After all, Orn is one of her kind, an illegal, and Morn is still seen as one of the despised cops. Additionally, Mikka is likely very afraid of what Orn's virus will do to the ship. Morn tells Mikka that being raped repeatedly makes one not want to be rescued after awhile, just makes the victim want to kill the attacker herself or kill herself from the overwhelming burden of shame. Mikka relents and orders Morn to get to sickbay to treat her bruises, then go to the bridge to help them figure out how to tackle the computer virus.

Morn goes alone to sickbay, gets stimulants and an analgesic, and makes a discovery from the sickbay computer: she's pregnant. The child must be Angus Thermopyle's, she realizes. She postpones the decision to abort or keep the baby, edits the medical record, and heads to the bridge.

Nick has his crew checking systems for evidence of the virus, with no luck so far. Morn relates from her UMCP training that the systems need to be isolated from each other, and Nick orders it to be done. New data first Mackern runs a diagnostic which reveals no problems.

Then Nick reveals to Morn that he's out of money and needs to sell her to get more. Morn openly weeps at this revelation, and some of the crew laugh at her while she's crying. Nick uncomfortably clarifies that it's Morn's id tag that he needs to sell, not her personally. He also warns his crew that they're laughing at him when they laugh at Morn, right after he gets Morn's assurance that she'll cooperate in the matter of her id tag.

Mikka comes to the bridge to inform Nick that the crew is ready to do resets or unplug the systems. Nick warns the crew on the bridge of the dangers of a complete data wipe, then states he wants to test his command system. If his commands work, his plan is to attach other systems to the command system, and test each system as it's added. His command board works just fine, so he decides to take the maintenance computer off automatic.

As that happens, the bridge goes dark and all its power fails.

I commented in the previous chapter dissection thread that the Orn incident didn't seem to advance the plot much (for so it appeared to me when I first read the Gap Cycle four years ago, and I try to recover that perspective when doing these chapter dissections), but it can be seen from this chapter alone that Orn's demise is a very consequential development for the plot.

[Cord Hurn]

One thing I appreciate about this chapter is how SRD has Nick outline what is at stake if the computer system has its data wiped, so I know what I should feel nervous about:

Nick accepted the information with a nod. Leaning forward, he said to the bridge, "All right, let's get started. The sooner we locate our virus, the more time we'll have to work on it.

"We aren't going to lose function. All our equipment is hardwired." Everybody aboard already knew this: he was speaking to clarify his own thoughts. "The worst that can happen is that we'll have to reset everything. But if we get wiped, we'll lose anything soft. Including all our data. That means we'll lose the last of our credits." He grinned fiercely. "Maintenance will work, but the system won't know how many of us there are. It won't be able to balance out heat and air comfortably. We'll lose our logs. We won't know how much food we've got left.

"Targ will lose ship id," he continued. "That's not minor. We won't be able to program weapons accurately if we're attacked. Communications will lose all our codes. Which will make it hard for us to talk to anybody. But scan and data are the most vulnerable. Scan will still bring in information, but the computers won't be able to interpret it. And we'll lose anything we need for astrogation--star id, charts, galactic rotation, station vectors, shipping lanes. Hell, we won't even be able to tell where forbidden space is."

As I recall Avatar once saying, what I like about how the science fiction is written in the Gap is that there is never the assumption that space travel is relatively easy. The depiction of all the tricky details that must be solved in motion and planning destinations seems to me to be more realistic and more dramatically entertaining than is the case with many other sci-fi stories, from my point of view.