The Apprentice Starship Engineer: Book One The Link by Daniel Hanks

can predict the future.” Jack shook his head. “Don’t worry, kid, just a bunch of shit. Take the rest of your shift off. Be here at six hundred tomorrow.” He went to his office and opened the cabinet where he kept his bottle. He looked up at me. “Get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Without taking the time to clean up, I grabbed my coffee cups and left maintenance. I stopped by the dining hall to return the dishes. As I headed to my dorm, I heard people talking about the double spiral cross.
    “I knew it. I shouldn’t have come on this trip,” one person said.
    As I walked, Margret reminded me of my appointment with Kathy. I don’t believe in luck, signs or jinxes. A few of the players on my high school baseball team did. They had all sorts of stuff they blamed their performance on—string, rubber bands, cards. As I walked toward Kathy’s cabin, I thought with everyone thinking the mission was jinxed, would they subconsciously set themselves up for failure?
    Kathy’s door opened for me. A voice said she’d be there shortly and I should make myself comfortable. After taking a seat on the couch, I pulled out Margret and asked her about a spiral cross. She pulled up several examples of spiral cross pictures. It was a good thing someone had drawn the spirals or I’d have missed them. I had her search the ship’s sensors and for a spiral cross pattern and she came up with an error, not enough information for the search.
    More searches found the history of the spiral crosses. It came from three ships that had disappeared. While reviewing their sensor logs, a man named Phil Sherman saw spiral crosses in each case and so began the legend.
    I said out loud, “People can be so stupid.”
    “You have no idea,” Kathy said as she closed the door behind her. “So I hear you’re going to align ring emitters tomorrow.”
    “Yeah, we practiced and trained all day,” I said.
    Kathy sighed. “When the union set up the training program, we had two parts. One was the knowledge or book learning. The second was hands-on with someone at your side, showing how to do the work. Management insisted trainees be given the chance to advance themselves faster than the time allotted by the union. So we compromised, and here we are. You pushed faster than anyone ever dreamed possible. You’re being given the pay and responsibilities of a third-year apprentice in your first year. I talked to everyone. You have to go out tomorrow and help adjust the ring emitters. This has never happened before, a first-year trainee being asked to work outside in space.” She studied me for a moment. I felt uncomfortable. “Be careful. Do what Jack says and no more,” she said. Still staring at me, she looked mean, and her hands shook. “Promise me that you’ll be careful and follow Jack’s instructions.”
    “Kathy, don’t worry. Jack has gone over what we’re going to do step-by-step several times. I promise you, I’ll be careful,” I said.
    She nodded. “Okay, I’ll make us dinner,” she said as she headed toward the kitchen.
    “Ah, Kathy, I can’t stay,” I said as jumped to my feet.
    Her brows furrowed and eyes went cold. “Why? Is it that girl?”
    “No, I want to be ready tomorrow. I don’t want to be working dumb. I want to know about emitters and what we’re doing with them.”
    She smiled. “Ha, figures. Stay, you can study here.”
    I sat in a state of confusion. Had Kathy been jealous of Jenny? Did I just see that? After tapping Margret, I opened up a lecture on the theory of warp travel. I soon found myself fighting to keep up. Repeatedly, I stopped the professor, asking him to explain what he’d said.
    “So as you can see we hold the opening just in front of the ship. The closer we get the faster we can accelerate, but the more unstable time becomes,” he said.
    “What happens if we come in contact with the opening?”
    The professor smiled. “No one is sure. A few propose you might enter another