200-Valkyrie’s View: A Year Among the Stars
July 18th, 2552 – Jumpgate navigation
Scout Pilot/travel agent/Chef Kat “S-Kat” James Reporting
You’d think the command staff would understand the concept of downtime, and maybe they do, but usually under the heading of ‘no rest for the wicked.’
While metallurgy and astronomy were focused on the belt, and bio and agriculture were focused on the planet, theoretical physics decided that now was the perfect time to study the well and how the Jumpgate works.
They’re trying to take out the human factor so that the navigation is all mechanical the theory being that computers don’t suffer fatigue and would, therefore, be able to jump more; faster; better than a human.
The problem is, part of what gets you to the well right now, is the human factor.
Needless to say – we had several discussions before they decided that I was goldbricking and were working on writing me up when we had the first miss-jump and almost lost a pilot, a craft, and a theoretical physicist. They started arguing that I influenced the pilot, but Fipps had the presence of mind to get the pilot into an MRI and what they saw was… more than a little disconcerting.
Skip’s brain activity looked more like the gate than a normal brain and after about an hour – it was back to well… Skip’s brain. They’ve agreed to only do one trip per day per pilot, and after each trip, we get an MRI and a lollipop.
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