A Military Science Fiction thriller, currently being written by troper Thunderchin.
In 2085, humanity's first FTL ships are a few years into their operations in the U.S. Navy. Many new stellar systems are charted, and the seeds of the new colonies are just beginning to bear fruit. There's a Russian crew aboard the USS Little Rock, undergoing training in preparation for their country taking delivery of one of the new warp-capable vessels. From the point of view of ship's engineer Nathan Charles, all is going well.
That is, until the prisoner Medusa escapes the ship's brig during the return voyage, enthralling anyone who locks eyes with her as she takes control of the ship and holds everyone else aboard hostage. A game of cat-and-mouse follows as Lieutenant Charles evades capture and tries to stop the Medusa before her plan succeeds.
Below Decks provides examples of the following:
- Air-Vent Passageway: The maintenance access tunnels serve this function; unlike actual air vents, they are actually designed for human beings to maneuver through.
- And I Must Scream: Those under Medusa's thrall are fully conscious and aware of what their bodies are doing, as relayed by those who survived to have it wear off.
- Anyone Can Die: Evelyn Charles, Chief Smirnov, the entire command staff...
- Artificial Gravity: Downplayed in that only the biggest ships have it. Nathan is noted as being exceptionally skilled in microgravity maneuvering, which comes in handy when he pulls the plug on the gravity generators.
- Artificial Limbs: Nathan is revealed to have a robotic right arm from the elbow down. Attempting feats of super strength aside from super-grip is noted as risking nervous and spinal damage; however, he uses this to his advantage in fistfights he otherwise has no business winning. An EMP later kills all functionality, but fortunately, he remembers where he keeps his spare.
- A-Team Firing: Nathan with pistols. He even cracks a joke at his own expense:The position error for the average warp jump is roughly the volume of Jupiter, which isn't half bad for a giant middle finger to the laws of physics. I'd be happy to have that kind of accuracy on the pistol range.
- Brainy Brunette: Anastasia is studying to be a ship's engineer, and is every bit Lt. Charles' counterpart. Her mastery of both English and her native Russian also makes her well-suited for translating the ship's immense documentation.
- Bulletproof Vest: Nathan dons one halfway through. Subverted when he's shot in the chest, as he explicitly mentions how painful it is for practically the rest of the story. Turns out he toughed out three broken ribs from the bullet impacts.
- Benzaio also has one on under his space suit in the climax. Of course, actually making use of the vest renders the space suit useless.
- Chekhov's Gun: The fuel leak, initially the reason Little Rock leaves Betel III two weeks early, becomes a severe hazard to Nate and the Mooks that chase him through the fuel gallery.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Pretty much everyone is a source of these.
- Cool Ship: The entire line of New York-class warp-capable ships.
- Cut the Juice: Done to the ship's gravity and warp drive, among others.
- Die Hard On A Spaceship, as the author himself describes.
- Disability Superpower: Nathan is badly nearsighted, and has to wear glasses. Their optical properties slow down the Medusa's mind-control power, which allows him to fight back.
- Duct Tape for Everything: One of the first things Nathan grabs when raiding the Engineering supplies is a roll of the silver stuff, which he then uses most of during the events to follow - from patching up a broken strap on his bag all the way up to sealing a hole in the ship. Okay, so he had a chunk of metal lying around to plug the hole, and the tape was used to seal the edges, but still. He and Anastasia even have a discussion comparing Duct Tape to Jesus.
- Fake Russian: An In-Universe example, as Nate has to fake such an accent to avoid being identified. It helps that he's been talking to actual Russians in the months previous, and the person he's talking to is actively helping him pass it off.
- Hyperspace Lanes: Established as a method of controlling traffic and giving the best possible places for ships to cool off between jumps while avoiding hazards.
- In Medias Res: The framing device of the book is Nathan, now a Shell-Shocked Veteran, writing his autobiography after the fact.
- Laser Blade: There exist battery-powered handheld plasma torches that can serve as a variant of this trope. As Nathan discovers during the Engineering escape, it makes an ideal close-combat defensive weapon.
- Lecture as Exposition: The audience learns about how the warp drive works as Nathan explains the basics to his kids. This is built upon during the conversations in Engineering.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: Nathan only wins the fight with the possessed Smirnov with the sacrifice of his Artificial Limbs.
- Location Theme Naming: The New York-class ships are all named after cities - New York, Denver, Seattle, Orlando, Wichita, Little Rock, and the under-construction St. Petersburg and Shanghai.
- MacGyvering: Once per chapter at the very least.
- Medal of Dishonor: Nathan sees his Medal Of Honor as a grim reminder of the people who died that day, and his Purple Heart as laughter in his face, that he lived and they died.
- Minovsky Physics: The Workman-Lenne superluminal drive and the Medusa's effects on her targets both operate strictly under physical laws set out in the story.
- No Gravity for You: The natural conclusion of villains unaccustomed to microgravity and an engineer who can control the Artificial Gravity while moving gracefully within it.
- Our Medusas Are Different: This one mind-controls her marks instead of petrifying them. There also seems to be an upper limit to how many she can have at one time, as it apparently wears off until eye contact is made again.
- Papa Wolf: No matter how good he is at no-selling any attempt to emotionally manipulate him, do not get between Nate Chuck and his family. Benzaio nearly gets away while Nate gets his kids aboard the evacuating shuttlecraft.
- Power Source: The New York-class ships have four 100MW nuclear-thermal reactors providing shipboard power as well as propulsion. Of course, the only time it needs all four running at once is during actual superluminal operations.
- Science Hero: Nathan uses his intellect, intimate knowledge of his ship, and a few improvised creations from whatever he could find lying around.
- Minored in Ass-Kicking: He also possesses standard military training, and is at least competent with rifles.
- Shown Their Work: Anastasia Vladimirovna Romanova not only has a proper Russian name (birth name, patronym, surname), but her Poirot Speak is rare and only shows up where it would make sense, such as precise technical terms.
- The symptoms of microgravity exposure are also correctly portrayed, from the urgent need to relieve oneself to the chance a particular person might suffer nausea.
- Slave Mooks: Everyone under the Medusa's thrall.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The fuel gallery, for one. Rigging a safety switch to explode in the enemy's face turns out to be a bad idea near an active fuel leak.
- Subspace Ansible: To get around that pesky "radio waves travel at lightspeed" problem, the ship's warp drive can be used to fire small "data drones" - basically flash memory carried aboard small drone ships. The drone ships have their own miniature drives but require an external source of exotic matter to make their jumps. Nathan manages to fire one off with an SOS in it.
- Technobabble: Justified Trope. The main characters are engineers, speaking to one another in technical terms and leaving the audience to figure out what the terms mean by context. To his credit, Nathan explains the plot-relevant stuff in his narration.
