Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2

by Michael Kotcher

  “That’s crazy,” Tamara said. “You’ve got to be able to give me one. We’ve got three machines, Quesh. I need one. Hell, we’ll use one of the class threes. Leave the class five and the e-rep off line.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Samair,” he said, turning to face her. His upper hands were holding datapads, showing different status feeds of the power distribution net. His lower fists were planted on his hips. “We do not have it. There isn’t any power to spare. Right now the reactor is straining to give us life support, passive sensors, communications, maneuvering thrusters and bare minimum shields. You want to trade one of those off?”

  “Chief!” Horace’s voice sounded strained. “Shield failure on the starboard side. The forward section, starboard side, power isn’t getting to the emitters. They’re going down.”

  Quesh slammed one of his fists into the bulkhead, which rang like a bell. “Damn it. You see?” he said, rounding on Tamara.

  Tamara pursed her lips, accessing more of the diagnostic feeds. “What about the aux reactor?”

  Quesh’s eyes brightened. “Yes!” He turned back to one of the empty stations. With so many dead over the last few weeks or now otherwise occupied, several of the engineering consoles down here were without operators, making Chief Trrgoth’s job that much harder. His lower arms immediately moved to the keys on the console, firing it up. His fingers flew over the controls and in less than ninety seconds, feeds to the auxiliary reactor were powering up.

  “It’s going to take three hours to get a hot enough seed to ignite,” Tamara told him.

  “I know,” the chief replied. “But that’s all right. I think we can hold things together that long.” He pressed a control on one of the datapads, opening a comlink to the bridge. “Bridge, Quesh.”

  A second’s delay. “Quesh, it’s the Captain. Talk to me.”

  “We need more power, Captain. I’m going to take communications offline. We’re going to have to route things like that to the boat bay.”

  “The boat bay?” the Captain demanded, clearly confused. Then he stopped. “Oh, okay, I see where you’re going with this. Let one of the shuttles or Tamara’s fighter deal with that.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the Parkani replied. “Apologize to Serinda for me, but we need every erg of power right now for other things.”

  “We’re showing the starboard side shields have collapsed,” the Captain said.

  “We’re showing that too, Captain,” the Parkani replied. “There just isn’t enough juice to get to the shield nodes through the damaged power relays. We’re losing too much through what are essentially leaky pipes.”

  “Understood.”

  “Captain, the main reactor is starting to fail. We have less than a day before it crashes and the lights go out.”

  “A day?”

  “Yes, Captain, a day. I’ve already started power-up procedures for the aux reactor. It’ll be online and ready to take over the power load in three hours.”

  There was a sigh of relief. “Good. Then what?”

  “Then I take a team in to repair the main reactor, Captain. Once that’s done, hopefully it won’t take too long, we’ll get serious about controls and power distribution. I’ve got what people I can spare working on that now, but they’re basically in a holding pattern. Every little bit of what they’re doing helps, but there just aren’t enough of us. Not anymore.”

  Another sigh, this one of frustration. “What can we do?”

  “We need to lower our power signature, take as much strain off the main and then later the aux reactor as we can. We need replicator support and right now there just isn’t enough power to bring them up to make the parts we need to fix things. We’re doing a hell of a lot of patch jobs right now, but they won’t hold up under the strain, to say nothing of the horrendous damage to the starboard side.”

  “All right,” the captain replied. “I’ll work on moving the crew to common areas; the mess hall, some of the lounges, crew berthing. We’ll power down absolutely everything we don’t need.”

  “Good, every drop in the bucket will help.”

  “Keep it up, Quesh,” the Captain replied. “Regular reports, please.”

  “Copy that, Captain. Quesh out.” He thumbed a control and the comlink shut off.

  Three long hours crept by as the engineering crews scrambled to keep the ship running. Tamara was assisting with routing functions around the damaged or compromised control arrays, allowing Ka’Xarian and his teams to get to work on them. For the moment, they were simply isolating the damaged parts of the ship, and just making sure that they could bring up the main systems. However, shields were a critical system, so the Parkani had deployed two of his techs to try and patch up a few of the power conduits in the starboard forward section to allow the shield nodes to get power. It had taken this long, but it looked as though the temporary fixes might hold.

  “We’re done, Chief,” one of the techs reported over the internal comms. “Patches are in, and we can power up, but...”

  “But it’s a temp job,” the Parkani said with a sigh. “It won’t hold long.”

  “No, Chief, it won’t,” the man replied. “I mean, it will do for the short term, in an emergency, but not for continuous use.”

  Quesh chuckled. “You don’t think this counts as an emergency?”

  The tech shrugged. “I guess it is, but I think you know what I mean, Chief.”

  “Yeah, I do,” he said ruefully. “I’ll inform the Captain. Good work. Get over to Ka’Xarian and give him a hand.”

  “On our way now, Chief.”

  Quesh rubbed his forehead with the fingers of one hand, while his other three worked the engineering console before him. Power up procedures on the aux reactor were going smoothly. The reactor had lit, a stable plasma stream was established and power levels were rising. The aux reactor was now at eighty percent and was ready to have the load transferred over from the main reactor.

  “All right,” Quesh replied. “We’re ready for transfer. Begin shutdown procedures on the main reactor. By the book, Samair.” He glanced over to the woman, who nodded, though her own gaze looked far away. Clearly she was lost in cyberspace, using her implants as well as her hands to direct the systems. He swallowed a stab of incredible envy, but there was no time for thoughts like that now. What they needed was to get the main offline and affect serious repairs. “Aux reactor is stable. Stella, are you ready?”

  “Ready, Chief,” the young AI replied. “The aux reactor is holding stable.”

  “Cutting fuel lines to the main reactor,” the Chief said. He pressed the keys and then rotated the appropriate dial. Power levels decreased rapidly. “Looking good.”

  “We have flame out,” Tamara reported. “Reactor is offline.”

  Quesh let out a long breath. “All right. We give it two hours to cool down and then we get in there in hardsuits and start stripping out the damaged components.”

  “I’m heading to the replicators now. I need to get as many parts out as possible.” Tamara stepped away from the console she was at and hustled out of Main Engineering.

  Quesh nodded as she left. He hadn’t given her leave to exit, but he knew she was right. They did need her to be getting the machines to pump out the parts they would need. Unfortunately, the raw materials bunkers would be just about tapped out after they got the parts needed for the reactor. Still, it was something that needed doing.

  “All right, how are we doing?” the Captain asked, a day later. Repairs to the reactor were nearly complete. According to Quesh’s estimates, another six hours and they would be ready to begin power up procedures. Finally, things appeared to be going right.

  Quesh flopped bonelessly into the chair on the side of the wardroom table. He was exhausted. “They’re going, sir. But we have a long way to go yet.”

  “I’m sure,” Eamonn replied. “Quesh, don’t take this wrong, but you look awful.”

  The Parkani let out a very low chuckle. “I feel awfu
l, Captain. And my teams are doing the best they can, but we can’t seem to keep up. The patch jobs we’re forced to do aren’t holding up as well as we’d like. We fix something only just in time before something else breaks. We fix that and then it’s something else. We’re barely staying on top of it.”

  Eamonn sighed. “What can I do to help you, Quesh?”

  “We need parts, Captain,” the chief replied bluntly. “We need in the very least to be getting some raw materials for the replicators.”

  “I’ll send a shuttle out,” the captain said with a nod. “Right away, but it’s a two day flight, one way. Give them a few hours once they’re there to wrangle up a rock and then haul it back here. It’ll probably be an additional six hours on top of the two days to get it back here because of the extra mass of the rock.”

  “Then send two shuttles, sir,” Quesh replied. “We’re going to desperately need the raw materials. Hopefully we can get what we need from the rocks.” He grimaced. “What am I saying? We already desperately need those materials.”

  “Then we’re going to have to move the ship. A four day trip is just too long, especially considering the state of the engineering division. I know your people have been working their asses off, Chief. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. But this nickel and dime stuff out here isn’t going to fly forever. Shortening the time it will take to get the materials will help,” the captain said. “Can we do it? Is the engine working?”

  Quesh shrugged, running two of his hands over his scalp. “Engine one is online, Captain. But I’m concerned about the structural integrity. We fire it up and push too hard, we’ll have similar problems as when the helm tried to compensate for that roll and nearly twisted us apart.”

  “I think we’re going to just have to deal. We’ll ease up engine power very slowly; try to keep as much stress off the hull as we can.” The captain nodded. “But you’re right. We do need raw materials and we do need to get in system. Floating around out here is only going to antagonize the locals. We need supplies, we need new personnel. Hell, a docking and repair slip would be nice.”

  “Hell yes it would.” Quesh pushed himself up to his feet. “All right, Captain. If you could get either a team from deck or cargo division out on two of the shuttles, I’ll check on the prep for reactor startup. After that, I’ll work on getting the sublight engine ready to fire up.”

  “Thank you, Quesh. Dismissed.” The captain waved to the door of the wardroom before also standing. Once the Parkani had exited, he walked around the table and out, heading to the bridge.

  “Stella, talk to me,” Quesh bellowed as he walked back into Main Engineering, two hours later. He had stopped by the mess hall to grab a quick bite to eat. The mess attendants there were doing the best they could trying to keep up with the demands for chow, even without Cookie there to lead them. They were doing a decent job, keeping things simple. Right now they were serving sandwiches, soup, things that could be whipped up quickly. When he left, it looked as though they were starting up several pans of some sort of casserole, to give the crew something hot and filling to eat. But right now, he was happy with a sandwich. He was exhausted but there was simply too much work to be done. He’d gotten a stimulant from the doctor, enough to keep him awake and aware and on his feet. But it did little to relieve the deep ache in his bones for having been awake so long.

  “Reactor repairs eighty percent complete, Chief,” the AI reported. “The remainder should be finished in two hours, then we can run diagnostics and bring the reactor up.”

  “Very good,” he growled, stepping back up to the console. The displays all confirmed what the young AI had just reported. He trusted her, but he wanted to see for himself, he wanted to see if there were any items that needed his immediate attention.

  “Raw material stocks are out,” he commented.

  Stella’s image on the edge of the display nodded. “Yes, Chief,” she said sadly. “The Captain launched the shuttles fifteen minutes ago, but yes, at this point, we’re tapped out. We just have to hold things together until we can get what we need.”

  “Hold things, together,” Quesh repeated. Then he nodded. “Right.” He started working the console, bringing up a full list of what the internal sensors, as well as the engineering teams and the ship’s AI, had found wrong. He already knew most of it, but he needed to start prioritizing.

  The hull damage was significant. Luckily, the breached sections were on the outer hull, as a result of the damage taken from the battle in Ulla-tran. That same damage had also caused metal fatigue and other weakness in the supporting trusses and beams. That was definitely something that would have to be addressed and resolved. For the foreseeable future, this ship was stuck here in Seylonique.

  Quesh continued compiling his list, which was growing with every minute. Power conduits, control lines and relays, consoles, life support systems, and the list went on and on. He was well over three hundred items and he knew that the list wouldn’t be getting any shorter for a long while. Stella popped up and added several hundred items to Quesh’s growing list. She also threw in several hundred more from Samair’s list, linking them together. He sighed. He liked it so much better when this ship was running smoothly and all he’d had to deal with was maintenance issues. For so long, this great hulk of a ship was barely holding on, dying a little more with every passing week, he and his teams trying to keep things going and he’d thought they were finally past all that. Everyone knew that the Argos Cluster wasn’t the safest place in the universe, no milk runs to be found here, but even still, it was nice to not have to worry about the gravity plating on the deck failing or the life support pumping out tainted air. Clearly those days were not as long gone bye as he’d thought.

  “All right, nice and easy,” Tamara called. “We’ve done this before. All the diagnostics look good and everything’s in the green, so we’re initiating power up procedures. Just like the last time, we’re going to introduce a little bit of the helium 3 fuel, activate the laser fusion initiators and compress the plasma stream, just like before.”

  She pointed and the technicians began their work. It was an agonizing process, but one that they knew well, as she’d said, they’d done it before. Several times, if they included the aux reactor in those figures.

  But it went without a hitch. Within six hours the reactor was online again, operating at sixty percent capacity. “All right,” Tamara said with a very tired smile. She blinked several times, stretched her mouth and her jaw to try and wake up a bit. “I need some more coffee, definitely.”

  Horace smiled over at her. “I think we all do. But at least the old girl’s heart’s beating again.”

  “Yeah, that is a big load off my mind.”

  “Should we power down the aux reactor?” he asked.

  Tamara considered. “Well, if it were up to me, I’d bring it down to a trickle charge to keep it operational in case we need it again. I’ll talk to the Captain and the Chief about it. For now, power it down to five percent and leave it there. Just enough to prevent it from flaming out.”

  “Roger that,” Horace replied, tapping a few keys. “Fuel’s down to a trickle, reactor holding at five percent.”

  “Good. Set the watch for now. I think we’re going to be slowing it down a bit for now, at least until the shuttles get back. Hopefully they’ll be able to bring back the materials we need.”

  He chuckled wryly. “I know I’m crossing my fingers.” Then the man frowned. “So, not that it’s going to really affect our decision making process at all, but how are we going to deal with the locals? I mean, we’re taking their rocks without permission.”

  Tamara shrugged. “No one’s said anything.”

  “So far!” Horace replied. “But our sensors are damaged.”

  “Xar’s been working on them for the last few hours. Starboard sensors are still shot, but the forward and gravitic sensors are all on good. We’re seeing a cluster of signals further in system, but nothing even remotely close. There are a f
ew ships, but they seem to be much farther in system, near the planet.”

  He turned a very skeptical look on her. “Tamara, you’re not seriously going to tell me that you don’t think that anyone is going to notice. Our arrival did happen with a bit of a splash.”

  “Yeah, the tachyon burst from our translation was pretty big and loud,” she admitted. “But doing what amounted to a crash translation like that certainly wasn’t intended.” Tamara smiled. “I think someone must have noticed that we’ve arrived.”

  “And you’re not concerned?”

  “Of course I’m concerned, Horace,” she replied. “But seeing as how there’s nothing we can do about it at the moment, I’m not going to waste time worrying too much about it. Eventually, there will be someone coming this way to investigate and we’ll deal with public relations or barter then.”

  The tech raised his hands to his shoulders, smiling and leaning back in his chair. “Hey, as long as someone isn’t shooting at the ship in general or me in particular, dealing with the locals is above my pay grade, at least for this sort of thing.” He pursed his lips, running a hand over his jaw. “Speaking of which, what would we pay them with?”

  Tamara got up from her station, crossed over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Above your pay grade,” she said with a smile, leaving Main Engineering.

  “All right, people, let’s hear it,” Vincent Eamonn said to the table at large. There weren’t that many people here for this meeting. No one from the steward division had been called or stepped up to try and take over for Cookie. For now, they were just making do and there were no serious complaints. Everyone knew that they were doing their best and the food that was coming out was still good, it just wasn’t as good or as varied as before.

  Taja, Quesh, Ka’Xarian and Turan sat at the table before him. Stella was standing to the side, hovering in a standing position above the holo projector on the floor. She didn’t look as spunky or radiant as she had in the past, though her physical appearance had not changed. She still had the stripes on her cheekbones and the three more red stripes running through her hair over the top of her head. She was dressed in the same type of shipsuit that most of the others were, but something about her hand changed. If she was a flesh and blood person, instead of an artificial construct, one might say she was depressed. Not that anyone could or would blame Stella for that, given everything that had happened in and since Ulla-tran.