Layover On Triad
By The Pakkrat
Being a tale of T^5 starship construction
I.
I was deep into some local market reports that I had downloaded from the Triad Local Net when they stepped from the lift and started casting about the lounge for me. I did not see them approach me as the lounge was busy with patrons, crew officers, and servers cycling back and forth from the bar and the grill adjacent to the lounge with orders. The prospects were looking up when my sniffer, my nose, warned me of them. I can smell when someone wants to kill me, hire me or just plain come within my olfactory range. It’s a strange sense to describe, a combination of scent, pheromones, endocrine raised to the surface, body language and psychic intent. My psionics tutors who tested and trained me said I had developed, as a result of opening my mind, an olfactory synesthesia variant of clairvoyance. I could smell the intent of those around me within range of my sense of smell.
Yes, I am an ethnic Vargr, that lupine Major Race Coreward of the Third Imperium. It says Senior Scout Gevaudan “Gev” Cannagrrh on my suit-and-tie Hazardous Environment Suit. I wear it now like a Human wears a business suit. It says to the curious that I am used to space travel and have repeatedly lived through some interesting times. The leader of this group of Travellers finally caught sight of my white, lupine pelt and nodded to his beta, a suspicious-looking woman who put her hands on her hips as the group sidled up to the bar as the lead pair approached me. They had just had a meal and it made my stomach grumble. I had not. The cologne was subtle to him and his lady friend, but it grated on my preferences. We Vargr don’t care for wearing scents but our own. But he immediately won points for initiating the encounter with my native Gvegh language, the Vargr racial tongue spoken throughout the Spinward sectors of the Vargr Extents. With the typical, anatomical accent and lack of guttural pronunciation, he began.
“Excuse me,” the man greeted. I looked up from my reports. I had already conned him as they approached. Not an enemy, said my nose. “Is that your Far Scout docked on the field?” It is a great tie-in to get me talking no doubt. I do love my vessel, my baby, the Sixth Horizon. Since the man seemed Gentlemanly, I put down my hand tablet, switching it off. His con became even friendlier now that he had my attention. His friend nudged his elbow with her own elbow when I nodded in the affirmative to his question.
“Introduce yourself and satisfy Charisma, Jason,” cautioned the lady friend. The man nodded with a small surprise and produced a business card in solid plastic the kind meant to be kept because it generally reeks of Imperium credits. I say this because the card has those computer interface slot connections so that a person can slot it into a memory stick port on my tablet. I did so since his name was still forthcoming. He beat the tablet to the load screen.
“Jason Carson Hathaway, Senior Scout,” he began. “I am pleased to see such a captain of a fine ship.”
“Not for sale,” I said, handing him his business card back as his public Universal Personal Profile displayed on my tablet displayed.
“Oh, I don’t-, I mean we aren’t interested in buying your ship, sir,” Business Suit Jason corrected. “Rather it looks like a variant when we were perusing the Downport harbormaster’s roster. Did you design it? The maneuver drives look huge for its frame. It must be fast.”
It was fast, the Sixth Horizon. Capable of six gees and a four-parsec jump, it was never meant as an exploration Scout, but instead I had varied the baseline schematics for-. So, yes, I had been the architect of the ship in question. Jason’s lady friend noticed my affirmative musing and spoke up.
“Celesta Hathaway, Jason’s sister, Senior Scout Cannagrrh,” the woman interrupted indicating the man trying to make headway with me. Humans look so alike to me that determining siblings is generally hard when you don’t know them or aren’t of their race. “Not to extend this, but we are looking for a starship architect here on Triad and you’re all we have found on the local net.”
“I am expecting the monthly maintenance on my ship to conclude soon,” I tried to lightly brush them off. Now that I had a full nose of them, they were friendly but I didn’t want to commit to anything that might delay my return to my home polity of the Dzen Aeng Kho, the Society of Equals two subsectors to Coreward. I still had some way to go in my exile from the Domain of Deneb and my mission to return my Sister-Dame home to the Pack Cannagrrh. But that was another tale. The Third Imperium was at my Rimward back and I was bound deeper into the Vargr Extents for home.
The man, Jason, nodded adding, “We can pay. We want to hire an architect to design an ‘Adventure Class Starship’ for us and our crew over there at the bar.” The crew was six Humans, Client State Imperium variety but they seemed okay to me. Travellers. The Adventure Class Starship sounded like a vocabulary term Jason pulled from a book to sound sophisticated.
It has not been so long ago that I would have rated myself as a Traveller. I did my adventuring days in the Spinward Marches in a mercenary and mercantile group of adventurers trying to stay disconnected from the Fifth Frontier War, its aftermath still cooling in a post-war simmer. Now, I could again say that I was once again a Courier, my original career before coming to the Domain of Deneb. This group was in the market for a vessel for adventurers with money to burn.
It certainly precluded my need to consult the local markets. My ship’s cargo capacity was too small to be playing with speculative commodities anyway. I could spend a couple of weeks to draft a sufficient blueprint for these Travellers seeking adventure. A ten percent commission on a 300-ton hull could be worth the task. My current passengers would also love to continue their shopping spree on this world as I sat over a drafting tablet. Starship stats began presenting themselves to me as I stood up.
“I think I can give you a fortnight, Gentleman Hathaway,” I agreed. Given the home polity culture I grew up with, it was our habit to call anyone who was not a full Equal a ‘Gentleman’ as they had not undergone the rigorous testing of the Society of Equals to rate as an Equal. It was a polite honorific instead, a slight step down while maintaining Charisma. “Let’s talk to your ‘crew’ about what you can use, tolerate and get along with. I am hungry.”
The brother and sister pair smiled. Likely this was their first true negotiation with a Vargr even though there were plenty of local Vargr here on Triad just Coreward of the Third Imperium.
After a hearty meal in which eight Humans got to watch me eat, not a thing I usually allow but I was on the clock as it is said by working class citizens, they sprung an issue on me. To this day there always seems to be a catch. I almost walked out away from the negotiation table at their declaration.
I normally draft with the current and well-worn GooseScribe™ starship construction when drafting for systems and deckplans. I had used the Goose to work up my Far Scout variant. However, Jason Hathaway explained with all the Imperium haughtiness that his factor would only fund drafts using the new, post-War program, the T^5 construction designer. I had heard that after the Fifth Frontier War that we could expect new changes in the way the Third Imperium did things, but did they have to reach all the way into an architect’s realm with this? With an unreadable agitation, I accepted the very thick, hard-copy manual the eight Humans wanted me to use. This would be a painful two weeks. I would have to learn the book at the same time as I drafted this crew’s new vessel. At least I would not have to lay around for the actual construction of the ship I was to design.
By The Pakkrat
Being a tale of T^5 starship construction

I.
I was deep into some local market reports that I had downloaded from the Triad Local Net when they stepped from the lift and started casting about the lounge for me. I did not see them approach me as the lounge was busy with patrons, crew officers, and servers cycling back and forth from the bar and the grill adjacent to the lounge with orders. The prospects were looking up when my sniffer, my nose, warned me of them. I can smell when someone wants to kill me, hire me or just plain come within my olfactory range. It’s a strange sense to describe, a combination of scent, pheromones, endocrine raised to the surface, body language and psychic intent. My psionics tutors who tested and trained me said I had developed, as a result of opening my mind, an olfactory synesthesia variant of clairvoyance. I could smell the intent of those around me within range of my sense of smell.
Yes, I am an ethnic Vargr, that lupine Major Race Coreward of the Third Imperium. It says Senior Scout Gevaudan “Gev” Cannagrrh on my suit-and-tie Hazardous Environment Suit. I wear it now like a Human wears a business suit. It says to the curious that I am used to space travel and have repeatedly lived through some interesting times. The leader of this group of Travellers finally caught sight of my white, lupine pelt and nodded to his beta, a suspicious-looking woman who put her hands on her hips as the group sidled up to the bar as the lead pair approached me. They had just had a meal and it made my stomach grumble. I had not. The cologne was subtle to him and his lady friend, but it grated on my preferences. We Vargr don’t care for wearing scents but our own. But he immediately won points for initiating the encounter with my native Gvegh language, the Vargr racial tongue spoken throughout the Spinward sectors of the Vargr Extents. With the typical, anatomical accent and lack of guttural pronunciation, he began.
“Excuse me,” the man greeted. I looked up from my reports. I had already conned him as they approached. Not an enemy, said my nose. “Is that your Far Scout docked on the field?” It is a great tie-in to get me talking no doubt. I do love my vessel, my baby, the Sixth Horizon. Since the man seemed Gentlemanly, I put down my hand tablet, switching it off. His con became even friendlier now that he had my attention. His friend nudged his elbow with her own elbow when I nodded in the affirmative to his question.
“Introduce yourself and satisfy Charisma, Jason,” cautioned the lady friend. The man nodded with a small surprise and produced a business card in solid plastic the kind meant to be kept because it generally reeks of Imperium credits. I say this because the card has those computer interface slot connections so that a person can slot it into a memory stick port on my tablet. I did so since his name was still forthcoming. He beat the tablet to the load screen.
“Jason Carson Hathaway, Senior Scout,” he began. “I am pleased to see such a captain of a fine ship.”
“Not for sale,” I said, handing him his business card back as his public Universal Personal Profile displayed on my tablet displayed.
“Oh, I don’t-, I mean we aren’t interested in buying your ship, sir,” Business Suit Jason corrected. “Rather it looks like a variant when we were perusing the Downport harbormaster’s roster. Did you design it? The maneuver drives look huge for its frame. It must be fast.”
It was fast, the Sixth Horizon. Capable of six gees and a four-parsec jump, it was never meant as an exploration Scout, but instead I had varied the baseline schematics for-. So, yes, I had been the architect of the ship in question. Jason’s lady friend noticed my affirmative musing and spoke up.
“Celesta Hathaway, Jason’s sister, Senior Scout Cannagrrh,” the woman interrupted indicating the man trying to make headway with me. Humans look so alike to me that determining siblings is generally hard when you don’t know them or aren’t of their race. “Not to extend this, but we are looking for a starship architect here on Triad and you’re all we have found on the local net.”
“I am expecting the monthly maintenance on my ship to conclude soon,” I tried to lightly brush them off. Now that I had a full nose of them, they were friendly but I didn’t want to commit to anything that might delay my return to my home polity of the Dzen Aeng Kho, the Society of Equals two subsectors to Coreward. I still had some way to go in my exile from the Domain of Deneb and my mission to return my Sister-Dame home to the Pack Cannagrrh. But that was another tale. The Third Imperium was at my Rimward back and I was bound deeper into the Vargr Extents for home.
The man, Jason, nodded adding, “We can pay. We want to hire an architect to design an ‘Adventure Class Starship’ for us and our crew over there at the bar.” The crew was six Humans, Client State Imperium variety but they seemed okay to me. Travellers. The Adventure Class Starship sounded like a vocabulary term Jason pulled from a book to sound sophisticated.
It has not been so long ago that I would have rated myself as a Traveller. I did my adventuring days in the Spinward Marches in a mercenary and mercantile group of adventurers trying to stay disconnected from the Fifth Frontier War, its aftermath still cooling in a post-war simmer. Now, I could again say that I was once again a Courier, my original career before coming to the Domain of Deneb. This group was in the market for a vessel for adventurers with money to burn.
It certainly precluded my need to consult the local markets. My ship’s cargo capacity was too small to be playing with speculative commodities anyway. I could spend a couple of weeks to draft a sufficient blueprint for these Travellers seeking adventure. A ten percent commission on a 300-ton hull could be worth the task. My current passengers would also love to continue their shopping spree on this world as I sat over a drafting tablet. Starship stats began presenting themselves to me as I stood up.
“I think I can give you a fortnight, Gentleman Hathaway,” I agreed. Given the home polity culture I grew up with, it was our habit to call anyone who was not a full Equal a ‘Gentleman’ as they had not undergone the rigorous testing of the Society of Equals to rate as an Equal. It was a polite honorific instead, a slight step down while maintaining Charisma. “Let’s talk to your ‘crew’ about what you can use, tolerate and get along with. I am hungry.”
The brother and sister pair smiled. Likely this was their first true negotiation with a Vargr even though there were plenty of local Vargr here on Triad just Coreward of the Third Imperium.
After a hearty meal in which eight Humans got to watch me eat, not a thing I usually allow but I was on the clock as it is said by working class citizens, they sprung an issue on me. To this day there always seems to be a catch. I almost walked out away from the negotiation table at their declaration.
I normally draft with the current and well-worn GooseScribe™ starship construction when drafting for systems and deckplans. I had used the Goose to work up my Far Scout variant. However, Jason Hathaway explained with all the Imperium haughtiness that his factor would only fund drafts using the new, post-War program, the T^5 construction designer. I had heard that after the Fifth Frontier War that we could expect new changes in the way the Third Imperium did things, but did they have to reach all the way into an architect’s realm with this? With an unreadable agitation, I accepted the very thick, hard-copy manual the eight Humans wanted me to use. This would be a painful two weeks. I would have to learn the book at the same time as I drafted this crew’s new vessel. At least I would not have to lay around for the actual construction of the ship I was to design.
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