April Emily Madden sat with the other department heads at the table that doubled as the captain’s desk. She was in charge of the communications section of the ship. When Decker found her she was installing communication equipment in ships, cruise ships, aircraft carriers, that sort thing. April had forgotten more about communicating than most people in her field knew and had specialized in satellite communication systems in school. Ten minutes after the power was cut to her section she was up and running again.

   “What’s the full extent of our damages?” Decker asked.

   “What seemed like one explosion was, in fact, several small explosions in key areas all over the ship, and if they had been more effective it would have shut us down completely,” Andy replied. “It was just dumb luck that I had the anti-matter reactor shut down or we would all be dead right now. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

   “Following April’s example, we have bypassed the damaged circuit panels and hardwired our key systems directly,” he continued. “So the good news is we are not going to die anytime soon. The nitrogen-rich air mixture we use is designed to suppress any fires we might have, and that was a factor in the containment of the fires the bombs started. While the damage looked pretty bad, to begin with, we have managed to bypass most of the affected systems except ship controls. So if we start falling out of orbit, we would be in trouble. However, we are, for the moment, good on that account.”

   “Have we learned anything about the bombs themselves?” Colonel Kessler asked.

   “I had one of my people look into that,” Andy said. “Because the bombs were very low yield in terms of explosive power, John was able to find and reconstruct most of the detonators. The bomb that took out our computer was the controlling element and was plugged into a communication port on our primary computer. The rest were just slaves tied into our intranet. As far as we can tell they could have been detonated from anywhere. I’d bet anything that whoever did this was safely on the planet when he or she pushed the button.”

   “How long before we are fully functional again?” the colonel asked.

   “The motors that keep the habitat section spinning and other ship controls of that nature will have to wait until we get our next supply shipment,” Decker replied. “Life-support and other crucial systems will be fully repaired by the time that shipment arrives. I would say by the end of the month all the damage we have sustained in the last few weeks will be fully repaired.”

   “You’re assuming that we can integrate the new computer easily,” Andy said.

   “Between you and April, I think you can handle it,” Decker replied as he looked over at Colonel Kessler. “Colonel, I’d be interested in your thoughts on how we can improve our security in the future.”

   “Well, it seems you put all your eggs in one basket with the way you had your computer system,” the Colonel said. “Give me a couple of days to think about it. Once my men finish searching for any more possible bombs, I’ll have a better handle on any recommendations I may make.”

   

If you have problems with one of our robots; please take it to or report it to our Robot Doctor so we can repair it, if we are able.

Sadly, it is too late to catch the maiden voyage of the Galactic Enterprise. But, you can read about their adventures in the abridged version of the ship’s log book, here.