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Two facts lie heavy in Aeryn's mind. They have done for a while now, at least since her time on the Zelbinion. Definitely since the Flax. They're each so fundamental to her current situation that they're almost too obvious to notice, but tonight they're intersecting. And it's this intersection that's keeping her awake.
First: She has only the minimum necessary training on how to repair her Prowler, and none at all on its regular maintenance.
Second: any ship she would be able to commandeer to replace said Prowler would pale in comparison to the design she knows so well. Not to mention, that ship's original owner probably wouldn't take it well. Without the firepower of the Peacekeepers behind her, her long-term chances of success would be low.
Besides, Aeryn thinks, the last thing Moya and the others need is to become somebody else's target.
Aeryn turns over in her bed. Break the problem down, she thinks. Even outside of the Peacekeepers, her training can serve her well.
There are two things she needs, if she wants to keep her Prowler in good condition: parts, and knowledge. There isn't much she can do with the parts; she's limited to whatever is left on Moya and what she can buy or barter with others for. But knowledge... that, she can control.
If she can learn enough biochemistry to save Rygel, then she can certainly learn enough about her Prowler's inner workings to keep it running. And Aeryn remembers one other fact as well: while many of the finer details of Peacekeeper ships are need-to-know, the basic schematics and guides for Prowler maintenance are freely accessible in any Peacekeeper database.
With that, she resolves to access the database in the morning, and quickly falls asleep.
The schematics are fairly straightforward. Aeryn supposes her experience flying Prowlers is an asset here - she knows what each system does, and the pilot-controlled functions are as native to her as walking.
The rest of the manual is a different story.
This must be what it feels like to not have translator microbes, Aeryn thinks. Many of the terms are completely new to her. Others are ones she knows, but which make no sense in context.
Crichton, after a particularly rough day early into his exile into the Uncharted Territories, had left the group in the middle of their third explanation of how basic life on Moya worked. At the time, he had declared that his brain hurt. Now, monens later, Aeryn finally understands what he meant.
Aeryn considers her admittedly limited options, and realizes there’s one person on board who likely has experience with these documents. She packs up her data pad and heads to Pilot’s den.
“The Peacekeepers are nothing if not consistent,” Pilot tells her as he scrolls through the manual. “I haven’t paid much attention to these, but the format and level of detail fit the standard from the other documentation I’ve read.”
”Nothing’s wrong with it, then,” Aeryn says.
”If I may make a suggestion, Officer Sun?” Pilot asks. Aeryn nods. “I suspect that the format of these manuals is designed to be unintuitive. While I have no method of confirming, Command did institute countermeasures against outsiders learning their technology. The formatting and the reliance on abbreviations may be an artifact of this.”
”So a tech would learn how to read these before they ever see a real one.” Suddenly, tech work seems a lot more skilled than it did before. "I suppose having a guide on how to interpret these would negate the benefits of the policy?"
It sounds like a question, but Aeryn knows the answer even before she speaks.
Pilot takes a second. "I can't find anything about it in the data stores. But I do know that when Moya was under the control collar, the DRDs would often assist the onboard techs with repairing and maintaining the ships in the hangar. This is not innate to the DRDs in the same way that their knowledge of Leviathan systems is. So it's possible that the Peacekeepers uploaded further information into them when they placed the control collar."
"But you can't access it?"
"Unfortunately not," Pilot replied. "The DRDs operate autonomously, and while Moya and I can track their location and tasks, the information they store isn't in a format we can easily utilize or share. When techs would work on ships in the hangar, they would often have one or two DRDs on hand to run scans and point out issues.”
Aeryn briefly wonders how a creature as advanced as Moya wouldn’t be aware of everything her DRDs are doing. But as she thinks more about it, it makes sense. When Crais had been her commander, he would have had access to her location at all times, but that doesn’t mean he would have tracked her constantly. When dealing with that many factors, he would have to focus on the larger picture and delegate the individual tasks to those under his command.
Perhaps, then, Aeryn can do the same.
“As I continue this project,” she asks, “could I have a DRD on hand, then? I know they can’t teach or train, but some guidance is better than none.”
”Of course,” Pilot says. “Several of them are stationed near the hangar for this precise reason. And… may I make another suggestion?”
Aeryn nods.
“Crichton designed and built his module, and he has been integrating it with the technology he’s found in the Uncharted Territories. Of all Moya’s passengers, he’s perhaps the most qualified to help you in this.”
It isn’t a bad idea. Intellectually, Aeryn feels foolish for not having considered it before. But she doesn't say yes. There’s something that rankles about the idea of asking someone from such a primitive culture to help her understand her own technology. At the same time, the part of her that's been asserting itself with increasing power prevents her from saying no.
“I’ll consider it,” Aeryn replies.
Pilot’s demeanor changes, barely perceptibly, and he reaches one arm out toward her. If she were having this conversation with Zhaan, Aeryn might feel like she were being pitied. But she knows Pilot too well to believe that.
She steps forward and takes Pilot’s offered claw in her hand. Aeryn can’t quite bring herself to say anything else. Hopefully, here, her intentions are sufficient.
Roughly a monen after her conversation with Pilot, Aeryn has learned three things.
First: the DRDs are genuinely indispensable. Yes, they hold panels open and shine lights on her work, but Pilot was right about them knowing the inner workings of Peacekeeper ships. In the last weekens, they’ve pointed her in more than one right direction. One even beeped a warning when she had tried to remove a panel without first shutting off power to the section.
Second: the Peacekeeper diagrams make a lot more sense when she looks at them alongside the physical systems in question. There are still more questions than Aeryn is comfortable with, but it's easier to parse them when she can compare the schematic to the real thing. This alone has helped her figure out some of the symbols. There are even some surprises, like realizing that the glyph that the ancient Sebaceans had used to represent running water was being reused to represent electrical flow.
Third: there are some systems that she can't bring herself to touch. At least not yet. Running the diagnostics is straightforward enough, so she at least knows each system is currently optimal. She's studied the schematics for the life support system, but whenever she actually starts to look at it on her Prowler, the image of doing irreparable damage looms too large in her mind.
She's learning the value of "messing around," to borrow a phrase from Crichton, but this doesn't mean she's willing to make every mess.
One day, Aeryn pulls herself out from the underbelly of her Prowler and finds John Crichton a few mollens away, inspecting his module. She hadn't heard him come in. And, more strangely, he's said nothing in however long he's been here.
He looks up from his work and smiles at Aeryn. "Hey," he says.
"Hey," Aeryn replies. The greeting isn't as foreign as it used to be.
"Do you have the pulse calibrator?" Crichton asks. "I didn't want to interrupt."
Aeryn is grateful she’s still on the floor. It means she doesn’t have to bend to pick it up; instead, she slides it over to him. Crichton picks it up and starts working.
“This reminds me of working on cars with my dad,” he says after a while. “I started when I was five. Mostly I just held the light and grabbed things for him. I’m pretty sure I just got in the way all the time. But I still loved it.”
Aeryn knows that Crichton is aware of her own lack of technical training. She had told him herself in the Flax. Perhaps that's what makes her continue the conversation as she does. "I wish I'd done that. Maybe this would be easier."
Crichton takes a microt before he responds. "The Peacekeepers put you on the soldier track that early?"
"There's a series of aptitude tests and connectome scans at seven cycles, or upon conscription. Based on these, we're placed into military, technical, and scientific cohorts."
"Awful young to decide what you want to do with your life," Crichton says.
"Further specialization happens later on," Aeryn replies. "If I'd shown greater promise in strategy games or in leadership positions, I might have been placed elsewhere. But as soon as I got behind the controls of a simulator, there was no question about my path."
"Maybe it would have been nice to know that early. The PSAT didn't go into that much detail. But it also told DK that he should be a bulldozer operator, so neither of us really cared what it said."
At least two of the nouns in Crichton's statement aren't getting translated correctly, but she knows him well enough by this point that she doesn't need to ask for clarification. Instead, she grabs one of the other tools from the case next to her and finally asks the question she's been formulating for weekens. "I was thinking," she says, "that it might be of benefit to the whole crew if both of us learn how to work with Peacekeeper technology. Not just how to use it, but how it works on the inside.”
She doesn’t mention the pulse rifle Crichton had exploded. She doesn’t have to.
Crichton nods. “It wouldn’t hurt. Especially out here. At some point, one of us is going to be… hurt, or somewhere else, and the rest of us will need to fix something.”
”You did well with the defense shield,” she says. “And… like you said, you’ve been working on machinery since you were a child. You might even find things I’ve missed in my studies.”
Crichton’s eyes go wide. Aeryn braces for a sarcastic comment about how she isn’t perfect after all. But all he says is “I don’t know. Men aren’t supposed to read the manual. But I can give it a try.”
The smile on his face as he speaks is all the proof Aeryn needs that this is a good idea. At the very least, this work just got more interesting. And if she's truly honest with herself, she can't wait to find out what he thinks of the diagrams of the propulsion system.