Blueprints
21 Nov 2022Claude Lecardunoie
It had been 3 days since my arrival at Farseer Inc., Deciat.Three days of experiments I made to improve the range of my FSD and three days of failures. Jérôme Cynar, one of the local FSD experts had been trying to show me how to start, with no success and he lost patience:
- "Just go grab a lunch and leave the work to me. Honestly, I'd like to teach you but I am working faster without you around", he said, very abruptly.
The cafeteria was packed: some of the locals, but mostly "guests", like myself: other pilots or other experts on visit. The only table where a seat was available was already occupied by two other people, two local engineers.
- "Hi. Cmdr Lecardunoie. May I seat here?", I asked.
- "Of course. You are that pilot working with Jérôme on your FSD, right? How is it going?", asked the older one
- "Difficult. He just kicked me out of the workshop"
- "Ah ah ah!! What a suprise!", he laughed, "Our Jérôme is normally a really nice person, but when it comes to work, engineering and FSD in particular, he can be a total jerk. Just too perfectionist. But he is greatly appreciated by Mrs Farseer and obviously, he has a real talent. I am the professor Khan, and this young lad here is Christo Laganakis, my assistant. Listen, why wouldn't you work with us for a while, we are DSS experts. Would you like to learn about probes optimisation? Then, you'll be more experienced and more confident to go back to work with Jérôme".
Of course I accepted. As we were lunching, the Pr. Khan, his assistant and I, kept chatting. They had been living and working here for 2 years now. A simple life, dedicated to technology and engineering. Jérôme arrived earlier explained Christo. He came from Sol, Mars actually. He was a bright student in Physics at the Martian Institute of Technology, one of the most famous institution in the Core Systems. It started as a small campus, created on Mars by the original MIT, but as the planet population and economy grew, so did the "Massachusets Insitute of Technology on Mars". Nowadays, although not official, the MIT acronym actually refers to the martian university.
Anyway, this was were Jérôme met Felicity Farseer. She already was a famous explorer and was doing conferences here and there to scientists, engineers, students on her various expeditions. Jérôme was impressed by Felicity: she was not a scientist, barely an engineer. Everyhing she knew, she learned it by experiments. So, when she asked if he would join her and her team here in Deciat, Jérôme dropped the MIT.
I was more successfull working on Discovery Surface Scanners. Mr. Khan and his team were really helpful improving its performances. In the afternoon we had the visit of Felicity Farseer herself. She was visiting every engineering departments to announce the visit of one of her colleague, Juri Ishmaak the next day and wanted to know if there were progress we could show him:
- "Yes, Felicity", said Khan, "we just confirmed, thanks to the help of the Cmdr Lecardunoie, that we can improve DSS accuracy and range using small quantities of germanium. We were following this lead for some weeks already, but the sample she brought us from Tau-3 Eridani just has the perfect concentration".
- "Excellent", she said, "You'll setup a demo for tomorrow for Juri".
On that evening, I shared my meal with Khan and to my surprise, Jérôme Cynar joined us. And out of his lab, he was rather charming. He even made some appologies:
- "I was a bit harsh on you the other day. Actually, modifying your FSD was difficult, even for me.", he started, "We are Federation here, and therefore more used to Core Dynamics manufactured devices. I had to adapt for your Lakon Spaceways Asp XP. But I made some progress. Stay one more week, and I'll explain you, ok?".
The day after, Juri Ishmaak arrived. As much as Felicity Farseer looks austere and cold, her engineer colleague always has a little smile and appeared to be more friendly. He was really interested in our work on the DSS and actually told me to visit his labs anytime.
As Jérôme suggested, I stayed one more week. And that was worth it. Being more confident in my technical abilities and Jérôme more patient, we improved my FSD module range to nearly 38ly. I had a final meeting with Felicity:
- "I am impressed", she said, "Please, make sure to visit us more often, I think you could learn from us some other tricks".
On my final evening, I invited Jérôme, Khan and his assistant for a fine diner. It was late and I was in my room, Jérôme passed by with a hardcase:
- "I forgot to give this ealier...", he said, "It contains the necessary tools and specs and also microchips with various preset parameters for the FSD firmware so that you can work on it on you own. Some sort of farewell gift."
- "Oh, this, a farewell gift! You've got ways with women", I joked, "And how often do you bring it yourself, after hours?".
- "And how often do let your colleagues in your room after hours?", he replied.
- "Well, I haven't let you in... just yet", I said, smiling and opening the door wider.