The Legend of the Crystal Dragon by Bill Parker

Chapter 1
    Jessica sat in the now quiet office of
StarQuake Engineers, Inc. The sign on the building said, “Union
Certified Starship Engineers. Redesigns, Upgrades, Repairs: No Job
too big. No job too small.” Mornings here were chaos. Jack and his
Uncle Henry, who everyone called Hank, organized work crews for the
various projects on starships in orbit. Well, they called it
organizing. Jessica only saw the chaos, but what did she know? This
was her first job since returning home to Benara-3 from college on
Etron. She busied herself with the next pile of estimates that Hank
left for her to do. Jessica much preferred it when young Jack was
around. While she took a break to get some java she ‘wandered’
through Jack’s office. His degrees were on the walls in nice black
frames. That is where his sense of organization seemed to crash and
burn. His desk was awash in papers and drawings. A picture of
Jack’s parents barely peered over the stack of papers in front of
them. They had been killed in the Jag wars. Hank told her that it
was still heavy on Jack’s soul and a subject to be avoided at all
costs.
    Uncle Henry’s desk, on the other hand, was
much more organized. It wasn’t exactly clean, but everything
certainly had its place. There were books in strange alien
languages on his bookshelf next to some equipment catalogs. And
then there was that small crystal dragon. It sat out of the way
where most people would not even notice, but it reminded Jessica of
why her father had warned her that old Henry Morgan “did not have
both oars in the water.” She had to admit that he was certainly a
very odd person, but he was very nice to her and never said
anything at all to make her feel uncomfortable. He was incredibly
intelligent. All of the starship engineers trusted his technical
advice absolutely. In fact, she had answered calls from some very
exotic places for Hank’s expert advice. Even so, there was that
crystal dragon… and that workshop door with the padlock on it. Hank
didn’t even trust the office computer for its security. Now that
was odd.
    “Jess?” she heard the call come in from
Jack.
    “Yes,” she replied across the room to the
videophone on her desk.
    “I ran into a problem here. I need you to get
me these supplies.” The list was already printing out.
    “Can you do that?” His dimples deepened when
he smiled at her. She blushed.
    “Of course, I can. I have an Engineering
degree, remember?” She recovered.
    “Of course, you do. Okay, I need it on a
shuttle up here as soon as possible.” The screen went black.
    What was going to be Jessica’s quiet morning
turned back into chaos as she now pressed suppliers for equipment
and fast deliveries. None of them was used to taking the orders
from her. They wanted word from Jack or Hank, but she stood her
ground and got her supplies.
    It was late afternoon before she knew what
time it was again. Crews were beginning to come in. That was a bit
odd too. The work crews were made up of humans, not androids. Why
were humans doing heavy labor in this day and age? It certainly
wasn’t necessary. And they all seemed to call each other by some
very odd nicknames. She was sure that she had heard them refer to
Jack as ‘One-Eyed-Jack’ despite the fact that he obviously had two
perfectly fine eyes, at least by Jessica’s observation. There were
a few women amongst the contractors, but it was mostly men. Except
for the reprogramming jobs, work aboard the starships was mostly
hot, heavy, dirty, dangerous work. The contractors were all milling
about, talking and laughing and filing their job reports and time
sheets. Chaos began all over.
    In the midst of this chaos, a woman in dirty
green millwright coveralls and grease on her face made her way
through standing groups of men to Jess’s desk.
    “Hi, Calamity!” Jess greeted her when she
looked up. Her real name was Laura Jane, but everyone called her
‘Calamity.’ Calamity leaned down so that only Jessica