Character Perspective: Sullivan

“The Neutrino? Well, I’ve certainly heard worse names,” Commander Allen said, standing at the edge of the common room after having instructed us all to sit back down. “Who came up with it?” his eyes swept across us, and I found my hand raising.

“I did sir,” I answered. “A neutrino is so small that if one were to pass through a block of lead nearly a lightyear thick, it’d have only a 50% chance of hitting another atom. Essentially they are unstoppable so it kinda felt like a good fit for a ship that we all want to be the fastest and farthest exploring in the Star Launch fleet.”

“Neeeerd,” Julio groaned as he leaned his head back onto the couch behind us and the Commander raised an eyebrow.

“And what was your suggestion then?” Commander Allen asked, seemingly choosing to ignore Julio’s comment. I let out a sigh, I was used to Julio’s antics of course, I had known him for a huge portion of my life at this point after all but having another person in charge who just ignored the random comments was not something I was looking forward to.

“I suggested the Astronomer,” Julio said, putting his hands behind his head and leaning into the couch with a satisfied smirk.

“Now that is in fact the worst name I’ve heard for a ship,” the Commander responded near instantly and I found myself choking up a laugh that came as a look of shock passed over the room. “Captain and Second, stand.”

Curtis and Vicky both popped to their feet, the moment of levity passing as the Commander stepped in front of each of them for the briefest of moments, pinning a different silver emblem to each of their collars.

“I am officially placing you two in command of the SLS Neutrino, both virtualized environment and, in time, the finished ship,” the Commander stepped to the side and a light round of applause came over the rest of us. “Now now, this was just a formality, you all already figured this out in the first place, don’t start with that. Captain, have you already distributed the Bridge forms?”

“Yes sir, we are all planning to bring them with to Dinner Mess to work on while we eat,” Curtis responded.

It had been Vicky’s suggestion, but it was always the Captain’s responsibility to make the final reports up the chain of command. Of all the positions, I felt like I had it the easiest, I just had to conduct experiments and ride along. Though that didn’t mean that I couldn’t help out, I had purposefully taken engineering courses to try and learn how to integrate the two fields together, but our understanding of Dark Matter and Light-speed travel was only barely scratching the surface and I was eager to continue my own research.

“Good, then lead the crew over to the Ramsay building, one row over from Admin, and claim your table for Dinner, Sullivan please wait back for a few minutes, I need to show you to your lab and confirm delivery of your ground side trials, Doctor Mendez please make sure you have a plate ready for him, so he doesn’t have to wait in the mess line. We will go over the next week when you all return, dismissed,” the Commander instructed, and a chant of “aye” crossed the room as the others all got up to depart.

“I got you, hermano,” Mendez elbowed me in the ribs as he stood and followed the others out the front door.

With just the Commander and I left, I stood, and he nodded to a hallway on the opposite side of the room. “Normally we would have gone over this earlier, but apparently you had a system that required extra preparation for launch?”

“Dip and Chale sir,” I explained. Throughout our ground school in the Science field we were expected to be constantly experimenting, constantly using the scientific process to practice the types of things we’d have to test on the fly while we traversed the stars. To that end, we were given more of a free reign during our Senior year in ground school, and using my knowledge of engineering, I designed built myself a set of helping hands.

“You named them?”

“Of course sir, they might have cybernetic augmentations, but they are still pets,” I explained.

“But… Dip and Chale, given that they are chipmunks isn’t that a little… you know, I mean you could have just used-”

“Trademarks sir,” I cut him off, ”Given that Star Launch is its own business, technically speaking, anything I built was going to be considered under the Star Launch banner and couldn’t violate the trademark of another business. All the same, I couldn’t help myself because it’s a dumb joke and I was encouraged by my mentor to follow my stupid ideas sometimes,” I explained. Though to be completely fair, they had just been the name of my actual pets before I decided to reuse the names for my bioengineered project, “I believe every ship should have a Dip and Chale of their own, but that’s part of one of my ongoing tests and I still have to setup first bridge simulations before I can give you a full briefing, with respect sir.”

“You’re the Science officer here, that’s your call to make, though your Captain always has the right to request updates at his discretion,” Commander Allen replied as he stopped at a door with another hand scanner. “This room is coded for only three people in this building to enter. You, your Captain, and me, oversight of course. It also has a direct connection to your crew’s training ship down below, so when you need to have your experiments transferred back and forth for trials, you won’t have to worry about lugging them back and forth. Gotta appreciate the convenience factor.”

“Of course sir,” I stepped forward, raising my hand tentatively before looking over to the Commander, “May I?” I asked and he nodded.

The door swished open, revealing a crisp white room, lined with shelves, drawers, and metallic silver counters. From the corner of the room, two small creatures zipped over, leaping into the air and landing on an island in the middle of the room, coming to a stop and saluting as we entered.

“Salutations,” They said in a synthesized robotic tone.

“Well that’s, unsettling,” the Commander muttered. “You made them talk?”

“Easier to communicate sir, their hands are too small for sign language,” I said, accidentally slipping a joke I used to make to my classmates and my hand clasped over my mouth.

Commander Allen let out a genuine chuckle that turned into a hack of a cough, “Now that was a good one,” he said when he finally caught his breath. “All the same, you should do something about the tone, you’ll get enough of that kind of voice from the ship’s internal systems AI. I’ll be interested to hear the full briefing when you are ready to present it.”

“Yes sir,” I replied as I walked into the room and started to take it in. In one of the corners, several large rubber containers were positioned, and I was sure they were all of the experiments I had registered to bring up. “Dip, can you retrieve the Miniature Hadron from container Z-229, we will need to get it calibrated prior to the first bridge simulation,” I commanded.

“In a jiffy,” He replied, and darted off the table, leaving his white and amber furred brother behind, awaiting his own instruction.

“That’s interesting,” Commander Allen replied, having been standing to the side watching curiously. “But haven’t other bio-engineers attempted to use small animals as lab assistants for space travel?” he questioned.

“They have but… okay well I don’t want to give you the full rundown yet, I do in fact believe the best explanation is to see them in full action. They are not actually chipmunks. They are simply modeled after the two that I had when I was a kid. The chipmunks you see here were lab grown, integrated with specially designed electronics that increased their skeletal and muscular growth. I also integrated a microchip into their brains as they grew to increase their intelligence, with a voice box specially designed to allow them to communicate based on the electronic pulses of that microchip, something most other prior test subjects never had the ability to sufficiently do,” I found myself rambling, unable to not just spill the features as they started to come.

“And that’s the short version?” he laughed, “But that still doesn’t really explain how they are truly different from prior shipboard tests, but you did already relent a bit and I think if I keep you here any longer your food might get cold.”

“Grounds you’re right. Chale, help Dip get the Collider prepared, I’ll be back in a few hours, and I’ll also need to have my hard drives hooked into the lab’s internal systems, try not to plug in the wrong one this time please,” I ordered, and he saluted before darting off himself. “Thank you, Commander, if I didn’t give them orders they would have tried to set it up in the wrong order,” I said as I turned for the exit.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” Commander Allen sniffed, following me out the door, a lock clicking as it shut behind us, “Now go on, I got my own dinner waiting in my quarters and I’d like to take a power nap before you all get back.”