I looked across the 'field',which was really a large indoor space covered in mats, noticing the clock was winding down. I looked back, and had to slow to wait for the ball. Three steps at half speed later it came and I snagged it from the air, vaulting over Eric, who seemed to forget I could jump and had thus went low.

A little too low; He was trying to take out my knees.

Home free and nothing but daylight, as my grandfather might have said; an open field and no defenders. Winning touchdown well in hand I sprinted for the other side to make a statement.

Somehow however, Roger caught up to me.

Slower than I was, much larger than I was (let's face it, everyone was larger than I was, so no surprise there) he nonetheless took the optimum angle to from across the field. Likely before I was even halfway through my route he had deduced where I'd be.

He crossed my peripheral vision at the 12 yard line though (why were they even called yard lines anyway?) and came in for the tackle. I didn't waste time, but cut into him and low...very low. One knee was almost scraping a mat low.

That knee actually did hit the mat as Roger sailed over me, somehow managing to hold on at the last second as I spread out
to tip the ball over the goal.

Due to the extra weight and drag however, as well as my small size...I fell one yard short.

And then the structured exercise period was over, and our teams had tied...again.

"Damn mouse, good moves. you almost had me."

He got up, taking his helmet off and revealing the face that caused all the ladies to swoon...some of them literally old
enough to be his mother, if the rumors were true.

"I did have you, till you sat on me."

I smiled to take the sting out of my words, removing my own helmet. Which revealed my own less than magnificent visage. Everything that roger was physically, I was not. Not that I really cared...much.

I was proud that I could kick ass with my small stature; Roger was really the only one better than me at anything I chose to actually focus on, much to my chagrin. especially when, as now, most of our generation was watching Roger smear me into
the figurative dirt.

Of course the vapid cow Lissa was there, batting her eyes at him as usual with the rest of her clique. The supposed best looking
of our generation, with her hench women Carla and Milla.

I didn't really see it of course; sure she was pleasant to look at, but I couldn't help remembering that she was supposed to be our chief botanist and manager of the garden...and only a few months ago she had poisoned half our tomatoes with a stupid, elementary mistake because she was too busy staring at Roger.

You just cannot do something like that on a generational ship. A simple mistake can spell death.

"You're glaring at her again."

"She should be exercising, not sitting on her butt staring at you."

"You can't be working all the time mouse, I keep telling you. You need to relax."

I grinned then gave in to the old joke between us, screaming out at the top of my lungs:

"I AM RELAXED!"

He grinned and made a show of sticking a finger in his ear as we walked to the showers.

"Not everyone has to work as hard as you. You'll never make captain if you can't take personalities into consideration."

"She spends all her time staring at you, you lady killer...which means she barely works at all. As my dad would say, you pull your weight or you get off."

"Well she doesn't have that much weight to pull."

"About ten kilos more than you might think; I've had to re-calibrate her showers' grav plating, I know."

"No way!"

OK so it might have been from her mom or dad using the shower instead of her; who could really say? I can be petty! I'm allowed
too, darn it!

"Well;' Rog said starting up his sonic shower, 'she carries it well; all I'm going to say."

"Can't really argue that."

I started up my own shower, thinking they were kind of made for each other. One was the tall blonde just coming into the hourglass shape her mother already possessed, ripening with a speed unmatched by any other child currently on the ship. She looked sort of like a few of those actresses playing Juliet in the old movies we were all but forced to watch on movie night...and acted like her too, or as much of that look and act as she could successfully carry off. (Not much in my opinion, though she got snooty down to a T.)

The other a perpetually laughing dark haired youth beginning to fill out into a bluff bear of a man. At not quite fifteen and already over average size, with muscle to match. He was the knight, the football hero, the baseball star....the Romeo. He could and did carry it off successfully, without even trying.

Me? I was one part goofy sidekick, one part psychotic action hero. My skin was the color of light chocolate, revealing either an African or middle eastern heritage. (my father said Israeli, which I was inclined to believe.) My eyes were a color my mom referred to as hazel, and said came from my gypsy heritage. (Her side of the family.)

My features were best described as small and large. Small body, small nose, small ears, small hands, small feet. I couldn't seem to pack much muscle on either, though I had the agility of a monkey, and the speed of a cheetah...or so my mom said.

My largeness came solely from my eyes and lips, both features I was a bit embarrassed about. All in all I looked pretty stupid, though mom said that before the ships my look was considered cute by women...grandmother called it "bisho" something. Of course she also said I had to be taller to carry the look off. I was the shortest child of our generation, by 2 cm.

Either way didn't help me now of course. The end result was that I looked pretty goofy, an awkward mix that by general agreement was just not considered attractive. My size did however make me perfect for engineering work, as I was one of very few that could fit in the various ducts and tubes that an engineer needed to access. Add to that my natural intelligence, granted by genetics. The sole reason my grandparents were included on this ship at all, and I was almost a natural to be voted in as chief engineer.

Of course I was aiming higher...I was the one other person in striking distance for captain, being the only other child in the running for the old man's hat, even if I was second on the list to Roger. I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't make as good a captain as Roger in any case, and I knew I had a few supporters by the straw poll that had been run a few months ago. Unofficially of course.

Our current captain, my father, had led Ark 14 (named the Magellan after some explorer or other...history wasn't really my strongest subject.) for 30 years give or take a few months, and was due to step down along with his entire successful generation and go into cryo with our grandparents, the last generation to actually see earth with their own eyes.

Why would a successful captain and parent leave his ship in the hands of a bunch of kids? Even his own kids?

Simple answer really, resources. The Magellan was a generational ship, with plenty of space, manufacturing facilities, and raw materials stocked. But none of it was infinite, and we needed a large population if we were to colonize. Food especially needed space to grow, and a certain amount of resources to be provided. Growing food for 150 people would stress the ship's capabilities beyond breaking.

Sixty was as good as we could ever manage, so of course we planned for fifty. Any extra we vacuum packed (plenty of vacuum in space) and stored with the samples and cryo'd animals we'd brought from earth. Sooner or later, it would get used.

So all of us were trained early, much as the current crew was. We started at nine however, a bit earlier than the fifteen my parents started at. We also got cross trained in as many jobs as we could handle, to avoid any type of tragedy caused by the loss of one of us.

The mining accident a few years ago had driven the point home for the adults. Space is a dangerous place, even with the best technology. Some children however, refused to get the point.

Dressed and on my way out, my eyes found Lissa still wandering in our designated gym...she was perhaps six minutes from being late to her station, and waiting for Roger to come out of the sonic showers. I shrugged and picked up my own pace; engineering station 3 was nearly across the ship, I was cutting it close myself, and I wasn't captain yet.

Even with my access tube shortcuts it took my 5 minutes and 24 seconds to reach station number 3. I popped the hatch to stare up and into the raw boned and ruddy face of the man I knew only as Cargie. I knew it wasn't his real name of course, but my dad wouldn't tell me his real name no matter how I asked. He was our current chief engineer, and as such my boss of the last year.

"To be fair son, you're late. I expected you ten seconds ago!"

"Fashionably late as always, which is to say early by 20 plus seconds. So what's on the work order today?"

He made a show of staring at the messy clipboard in his hand; no doubt he already knew what it said by heart.

"Investigate strange rattle in hallway 1-A; quote: "It sounds like a gremlin is scraping nails on a chalkboard again."

"Again? Isn't that the hall we replaced the fan cowling on last week?"

"Aye son it is indeed. Which is where we will be going, so I can show you something I forgot to check."

I raised my eyebrow as we suited up in coveralls and grabbed our tools. Maintaining a proper raised eyebrow for that long was a talent, but Cargie wasn't impressed by it anymore.

"Oh it's nothing life threatening if I'm right, just a wealth of experience over that turbo charged noggin of yours. You
missed it too after all."

We walked down the A hall, taking the first elevator needed to the correct floor. As soon as we stepped out of it we could hear the scraping...it was faint, but could be clearly heard over the soft rushing of air.

"Is that the vent fan? It is, isn't it?"

Cargie wouldn't speak though, unscrewing the ventilation shaft grate and motioning me to enter. I did so, eyebrows raised again, and immediately went to the fan we had worked on last week. The cowling guarding the blades was brand new, but had slipped a bit somehow, and the fan blades were making the most awful racket scraping against the cowling itself. the fan motor itself smelled a bit hot, but luckily the drag hadn't burned it out.

I removed the cowling and took it back out to Cargie, where he pointed to the screw holes, which looked a bit off to me.

"Sometimes the parts we order come back manufactured a mite off specifications, or too soft, or with other minor flaws. So then we replace the parts, and as in this case, the shifting of the motor itself causes the flaws to become an issue. How would you solve this?"

I thought for a moment, testing the side of the cowling with my thumbnail, then with one of the screws used to secure it.

"Well it seems to be the right metal, or near enough. The holes seem to be slightly elongated. So...I think I'd putty it and see if that doesn't solve the problem. Oh and I'd give the motor an automated break and a good oiling; it's a bit hot in there."

"Good son, good. We'll make a proper engineer of you yet. Go to it."

"There is one other thing I'd do."

"And what's that son?"

"Go check on the manufacturing plant...machine number 37 according to the bar code, it obviously has some flaw."

He stared at me aghast.

"Damn son, that's a right proper job! You want to be on duty all night?"

"If we have to. I'd really hate to depend on machine 37 to machine the proper part or tool at a crucial time and have it
fail to deliver."

He heaved a large sigh.

"Well, you're not wrong....it's just that some of being an engineer is listening and adapting; machine 37 has been out of
true for a good twenty years, but it's never failed to deliver what it's been asked for."

He looked up into my disbelieving face.

"Seems I'll have to show you what I mean. Very well, lesson number one so quickly. To the plant we go then, you lead."

The walk to the plant took a good twenty minutes, with only our boots clacking on the deck plating to mark the silence. The machines that manufactured a large amount of our various goods were located in the center of the ship, in the area of smallest spin and therefore weakest gravity.

Such an area was the worst for human habitation as extended low gravity exposure cause health problems. So of course this was the best place to store heavy metals, raw materials, and the large machinery used in manufacture. Only issue was you needed to tether or tie such items, as they might drift and ruin a bulkhead. That had happened once already, so I was told.

"Hey mouse."

"Hey Claire."

Claire was a real beauty, not a fake like Lissa. Soft brown hair, average height among our generation, a medium bordering on slight build, Claire's mom was the quartermaster, the keeper of all necessities of life, as well as our few luxury items. Some positions seemed to be hereditary, as Claire seemed a natural at her mom's post. She had a head for figures, and a no nonsense attitude I admired. She also dressed down, not wasting her various ration allotments on make up and impractical clothes.

"So what's up?"

"Just here to check a machine; It's a bit off kilter."

She perked up suddenly.

"Oh? which one?"

"Machine 37; the small parts fabricator."

She quickly returned to her normal bored look, and her book. Which had a half naked man on it's cover. I pretended not to notice.

"Oh that one. It's working fine."

"no it isn't, it's manufacturing tolerances are off. Likely a programming bug."

"Working fine, but suit yourself, I'll buzz you in. Mom! We got customers, hope you're ready!"

She smiled at me from the intercom as I blinked at the outburst. Her mother, one Ruth responded in kind.

"Put the smut down and let them in already!"

Cargie and I ignored the shade of pink Claire turned as the door opened; it was just common sense. Ruth herself bustled to the door to greet us, taking great strides as the low gravity beyond allowed. She was an older copy of Claire, looks showing no hint of fading. My father had dated her, he once told me. According to lore, she had been a real firecracker when young, almost the polar opposite of her daughter.

"Cargie and mouse! To what do I owe this break in monotony?"

Claire coughed and spoke up.

"They are here to check machine 37."

"Ahh...that time is it? Alright well according to regs I have to escort you...so let's go."

The trip to the machine took another 4 minutes, with us flying through the halls as gravity became weaker. Soon enough we reach berth 37, perched like all the others, on the outer reached of the core, surrounding the main drive shaft and fuel cells. there was of course, 50 meters of space between the shaft and anything else save the brackets, to help reduce the potential for mayhem in case of a malfunction or worst case, an explosion.

The outer controls of the fabricator were a mess; literally a jury rigged splicing of wires taped together with some sort of black adhesive. My eyebrow came up again.

"It's called electrical tape son, an early form of the nanite paste we now use. It was made from a form of plastic."

"Well, looks stupid. Who did this patch job? Looks sophomoric."

"I did."

"OK I'll bite, why?"

"Make 5 cowlings, of the type we just fixed."

I tried to stare him down, and he didn't budge. Ruth knew something too, but was remaining silent. So I ran off the parts, paying special attention to the window that allowed one to watch the process. The melted metal, glowing a nice shade of red, was poured into a specific mold, which was then spun at high speeds to cool it; we avoided use of liquids, as they could crack the part itself.

I made four more in succession, making sure to note the specifications listed on the console, as well as the process. Once they were complete and cool I took all five out and looked. there had been slight flaws in the holes for screws, obviously caused by the metal grade, which was too base to be used in refined work. Perhaps as high as 2% less steel involved in the process? An easy thing to tell when you saw the color the metal took when hot.

The actual process did not meet the requirements listed in the specs, the metal mixture was too debased. On purpose.

"Why? this could lead to serious faults if used for engine housings, pistons, or..."

"We know son, we know. but we're spacers. We don't always have access to the best of materials, and EVA is dangerous. You have to choose your battles lad, and many times the best you can do is...make do."

"Make do?"

"Yep, much of what we do as engineers is making the best of a bad situation. How long do you think that fan cowling we just fixed will last?"

"Well with the nanite paste holding it to the screws, some time...years?"

"Decades my boy, decades. The first one I replaced that way, at the request of my father, our first engineer...well it's still there. Hall C3, at junction 4, and you'd never know."

"OK I get that, but why this clumsy bypass? and why only this machine?"

"Because this machine is classified as nonessential to the functioning of the ship; it's not required. As to why that matters, well the oddball is why."

the oddball was a gift; each Ark had one, a blending of alien and human technology which oversaw many of the more difficult functions involved in running a generational ship; the navigation, object detection, main engine core cooling, etc.

Without the oddball, none of the Arks could function, as they would need far more people (and space) to function in any capacity. And failing anything else the oddball controlled the small fleet of general purpose robots the ship could field. The oddball also manufactured the more complex nanites and treatments that were involved in prolonging our lives or treating our injuries.

No one currently awake truly understood the inner workings of the oddball, other than that it was, well...odd. It controlled many of the manufacturing, recycling, and environmental (Air manufacture) problems that would take many of us weeks to calculate out. Most importantly, it regularly used robots to repair the outer hull from the myriad of small impacts that inevitably hit us.

Thus saving all of us from a very messy and possibly slow decompression death, multiple times a week.

"The oddball likes everything nice and neat...to specs at all times, everything to it's place boy. There is a time and place for that...but this is the real world we deal in. That would mean more dangerous EVA and more mining than we currently do. While the parts we used today won't last forever, they will last just as long as a fully standard part would.

It isn't ideal, it isn't pretty, but it works, and it works well. The oddball doesn't like us getting away with such things, but the truth is simple; you do the best you can with what you have. Never is there a bigger truth for an engineer."

I thought about it while feeding the cowlings back into machine 37 for re-smelting.

"I understand. But I'll be damned if I'll take any chances on the engine or environmental...barring a disaster of course."

"All we ask lad, all we ask. Now lets make our rounds of the popsicles, and you're done."

"What do you mean done? It's a bit early to be knocking off."

"Half day lad, we old timers are joining the popsicles soon; we put it off as long as we could, but two weeks...you lot get two weeks left to be vetted, captains orders...mine are for you to take the rest of the day off. Nothing on the docket."

"You'll call if you need help, right?"

He sighed.

"I've been doing this job mostly alone for years lad, I think I can handle one more. But yes, I'll call."

Back at the main lock, I shot through and waved to Claire.

"Just casing the joint for the big theft. you understand don't you Claire?"

"Sure, that's when you grab all the ladies underwear you can and parade through the decks wearing it while singing, right?"

"Absolutely."

She rolled her eyes as her mother appeared, giving her the thumbs up.

"Later mouse, enjoy your day."

"Later Claire, enjoy your pornographic book."

I ran before she could think of a suitable response...or shoot me. I waited for Cargie at the elevator, and breathed a sigh of relief when he appeared alone grin plastered on his face.

"Lad, you..."

I gave him my best 'who, me?' look and gestured towards the elevator.

"You surprise me sometimes lad."

"I'm all for having fun, I'm a regular barrel of laughs...as long as the job is getting done."

He shook his head, then brightened.

"Oh right lad, before I forget...we went into zero G today so what do we do?"

"Exercise later, and take our pill?"

"That's right, we take our pill."

I eyed his growing paunch for a minute as he fished out the small tablet container from around his neck.

"you left out exercise Cargie."

"Indeed I did lad; get yours out. I want to make sure you take it."

"I only forgot the one time, sheesh."

The pills were our answer to calcium and iron depletion, zero-g sickness. Humans were not meant to live in a vacuum, and long term exposure to such environments tricked the body into thinking it didn't need to build up muscle or bone, or worse, could even cannibalize it for resources. The pills were our answer for that, a cocktail of hormones, nanites, and raw chemicals designed to combat hundreds of thousands of years of outdated evolution.

Left untreated zero-g sickness shortened the lives of every human to catch it...and on this ship, that was all of us eventually, so we all had them. There were even versions designed to combat the more resistant diseases we'd brought with us from earth.

In space no one can hear you sneeze.

We rode the elevator down to B4...and there it was, another large gym like area, also padded, and lined floor to ceiling with doors, that looked for all the world like those metal shelves in morgues. Cargie had showed me a movie with those once, and excepting that ours pulled out to show a human under glass and a control panel, they looked exactly the same.

It'd be more creepy I suppose if we buried our dead.

At any rate, there were 500 shelves total; 10 generations of service personnel, each one the children of the last, till the tenth's shift was completed, after which the the shifts would circle with the 1rst crew (my grandparents) taking over for ten years, then my parents, then us again, and so on...till we all died of old age or found a suitable planet.

We laboriously checked the readouts and ran the diagnostic on each and every active cryo tube. This would be done at least once a day to each of the 92 full tubes (accidents happen....). these held our families after all.

And in two weeks, I'd be checking all 136 of them alone. My father would be in one, my mother next to him.

With the last one checked and in the green, my shift was over. I waved to Cargie and made my way to the commissary.

The commissary, or mess hall as some called it, was another large area. One part eatery (complete with kitchen, and a cook on duty) and one part place to blow off steam. Old game machines, pinball machines, even a pool table, lined the walls. This was the place to go to blow off steam, and be with ones' peers.

And speaking of ones' peers....

"Hey you two, what's up?"

I walked up to Seth and Joe, both EVA miners in training, both almost as big as Roger was. They had to be, to run all that equipment. One of the few things I wasn't good at. They were also both on my team earlier, as center and tackle respectively. They had given me the opening I needed to run. Both were kind of lazy in my opinion, but they did good work, when driven to it.

Seth answered me first. "Hey how's it going mouse? you're off early."

"Yeah Cargie let me off with good behavior."

Joe chimed in, waving his pool stick; "want to play a game?"

"Nah think I'll try that racing one in the corner again; I hear Rog topped my high score again."

"Heh, you guys need to give it up or get a room or something. It's beginning to get a little disturbing."

"I won't rest till I've beaten him at all video games, you know that Seth. I am clearly his superior, and I'll get him
to acknowledge that."

Joe chimed in again.

"Whatever man, just don't be pissed if he makes captain."

"Why? you going to vote for him then?"

"What? No man, you know you're my man for the job. While the rest of us were goofing off, you were studying. That counts in my book...along with the little modification you made to our suits."

I had designed a modification to the seals the EVA suits used when at 12, I made my first trainer EVA...I Found the type of seal currently used could actually cause the suit to kink around it, reducing oxygen flow. A known problem, but not one I knew of at the time. So I designed a sort of movable seal that allowed the tank and suit to move without reducing the airflow.

The first year, miner production had tripled. Seems not having to worry about their suits binding them up or readjusting them, allowed them to focus on actually mining, spending less time outside for better gain. Who knew?

I turned to Seth.

"Me too man, you got my vote; I happen to think you're the smartest guy on the ship. Even the adults. Problem is, you don't have the chick vote. Like, none of it."

I pondered this. Twenty seven men and 23 women among our generation meant fifty votes, but the women were a sizable block. I could either get every guy (not going to happen, I knew for a fact 8 of them supported Roger...possibly more) or those I had and most of the girls. But I was fairly sure I had at most, one Girl.

Looks counted in politics...most of the time more than substance.

"Well best I can do I suppose is lead by example and hope. Kind of depressing really."

"I hear ya man. Good luck at the game, an we'll do what we can to make your case."

I left them to their game, going to the one I currently favored. It was larger than most, being a simulator...that had a game loaded into it that allowed one to realistically race something called a 'car'...an internal combustion driven personal vehicle...at high speeds under supposedly realistic conditions.

And there, at high score, my name under it, was Roger's name, taunting me. He didn't even know this game existed a week
ago, I was sure.

I settled in and hit start, determined my name would top his before I left. I had after all, read up on the cars mentioned in this game since I played it last, and about some principle called 'drifting'...I was fairly certain this game was designed with that in mind, and determined to put my physics to the test.

(TBC)