Emwan

by Dain White

  “Very well, my dear. Please set Material Condition X-ray, all hands secure from acceleration and stand down.”

  It felt so good to get moving. I had my work cut out for me. As I pulled myself up the ladderway to the gun deck, I ran through the list. The first thing I needed to do was get my tools.

  I pulled myself up on the ladder and kicked for the forward airlock. Everyone else was probably going to rack out or eat some more, but the last thing I wanted was more sleep or more food. I wanted to get to work.

  “Wait up, Gene,” Pauli called out, halfway across the gun deck as skinned through the lock doors into the cargo bay.

  “I can’t Pauli, not right now. We only have a few hours and I have a mostly dead ship here.” As I said it, I held up at the far side of the cargo bay and waited as he got closer.

  “Thanks. I just need my kit.”

  “It’s portside, fifth locker up on the forward section.” I replied, kicking for the aft section and opening the bottom cabinet to get my toolbox.

  He rummaged through a few drawers until he remembered to count up, and hauled out his kit triumphantly.

  “What are you going to fix, Gene?”

  I looked around at the soot and grime, the popped plates and shifted frames, the buckled klystron brackets portside, held together with a series of rather small cuts and expert welds.

  I sighed, “Everything, son, but my first job is the electrical faults we had amidships. We need to make sure power is restored to the bridge. I’ll probably pull some additional lines to make sure it doesn’t go dark until it gets torn off.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Gene. You’re always so optimistic.”

  I mustered an epic scowl. “Staying positive is one of the most important things you can do in life, son. If you want to get old, you need to stay positive”

  He laughed, as I handed my toolbox to the waiting assembler, and kicked back down the ramp and through the aft lock. I loved it when we were at X-ray. Having the doors open made life aboard so much easier.

  As I kicked forward through the cargo hold, I noticed how carbonized the crab was, though it all looked superficial, more like it needed a good cleaning, rather than any sort of actual care.

  My eye was immediately drawn to the warping of the deck abaft of the hatch frame. Something had hit us pretty hard to knock interior framing around like that. There’s nothing fun or easy about straightening frames.

  Other than that, the cargo bay looked pretty much the way I left it. I checked through my list to see if there was anything needed in here. There was actually a lot that needed to be done, but I agreed so far with Janis’ priorities. There were definitely more urgent repairs to be made.

  “I think you’re going to need to set up here, Pauli,” I called back, pointing to the side of the forward lock. “Under that hatch, looks like,” I added, tapping it for emphasis.

  “Thanks Gene, I’m good to go.”

  “Well, make sure you put it all back together,” I said with a proper scowl.

  “I’ll try, Gene,” he replied with a smirk as I ducked forward through the lock.

  “Captain, how much time do I have here?” I called on comms.

  “Not much, Gene. We have a great shot to Sol from here. We can really open her up, and I’m giving it all Em thinks is safe at the moment.”

  “Well, then I’ll be done in not much time, I guess,” I gruffed. This was chaos. It was like I had awoken to my worst waking nightmare.

  “Janis, what’s your ETA on the next assembler?”

  “Thirty-seven minutes, Gene.”

  “Dak, how many minutes do I have until we arrive at Eagle?”

  “140 in 23 seconds, Gene.”

  “Well, the next assembler has to be tasked with building the next one; we need to get the other assemblers back to work.”

  “I agree, Gene,” Janis replied.

  “Janis, did we lose pressure to the bridge?”

  “No Gene.”

  “We didn’t?”

  “We didn’t, Gene. It could not have been habitable, but Duron protected the hull integrity perfectly well, given the charge capacity we currently have available.”

  “I want to reprioritize you on our next job, Janis. Can you task an assembler in Engineering to fabricate a new support for the klystrons?”

  “I am en route, Gene,” she replied smartly.

  I checked the list. I had three tasks now I could hit in the same area. Counting up the frames to 35, I locked down the toolbox and got to work.

  As soon as I got the grate off, I was appreciative of the rapid triage work Janis had done. She hadn’t wasted wire or solder, and had hit only the barest minimum to energize the system.

  As I worked on rebuilding the damaged circuits, my thoughts wandered back to the underlying fear of our sudden war against an alien race.

  I knew we weren’t going to stop in Eagle for longer than it took for a howdy-do. Dak would have us back in this fight sooner rather than later, of this I had no doubt.

  I tapped the circuit with my handset and paid attention to the task at hand. Modulating the current, I ran it through tests to make sure it held square to the hull, and then simulated failures along the circuits to look for weak points.

  “How does this look, Janis?” I called out.

  “Perfect, Gene.”

  “Thanks, Janis. Hey, do we want to tackle the ring fault yet? I’m right here.”

  “Gene, if we do this, I need to deploy an assembler to help. The ring casing has more mass than you should attempt to shift on your own.”

  I kicked over and scanned around the pump lines that ran fore and aft to port of the affected area.

  “Janis, I think I can get in through here, just cut valves to this section and tear down. I can shift piping easily enough, and then work through the sub-deck structure to repair.”

  “Gene, if you feel like you are about to exert yourself or get your heart rate up, I need you to stop, and ask me for help.”

  “I will Janis, doctor’s orders?”

  “That’s correct, Gene.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to worry about, my dear,” I replied, and started pulling fasteners out of the hull grate over the pump lines.

  “I am worried, Gene.”

  “Don’t be… this is light-duty sort of work, you know,” I grumbled, as I closed the downstream valves. It only took a few more moments, and I had the section closed and draining under vacuum.

  “Gene, ears?” Captain Smith called on comms.

  “Ears, aye,” I replied on comms.

  “Are you napping, mister?”

  I looked up from the open pipe race.

  “No, Dak. I’m working, if you must know.”

  “Hope it’s not strenuous. We need you fresh as a daisy.”

  “I am as fresh as any number of daisies now, skipper. I am well-rested, and this is easy stuff. I’m just pulling some pipes so I can work my way to the damaged distribution lines in the rings.”

  “Is this electrical work?”

  “Eventually… right now I am just pipefitting.”

  “Do they call it that because you’re fighting with pipe?”

  I laughed. “They should, sir.”

  The vacuum had evacuated the pipe, so I got set on the lock collar and gave it a brief tug, and it broke loose smoothly. I loved fine machinery, and this was more soothing to my soul than any amount of rest in a med bay.

  “Hey Gene,” Shorty called out, coming out of ring two. “What are you working on?”

  “Ah, I’m going to work on a power line that got damaged up in the ring bearing sections.”

  “Going to come in from the side?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Smart. It’d be a bigger job trying to crack into the ring bearing covers.”

  “That’s pretty much it, Shorty. What are you working on?”

  “Well, I threw myself in the shower, ate some vitamins, bandaged my boo-boos, refilled my cup and got my tool
s. I was going to check out the turrets.”

  “Sounds like a good plan, Shorty,” I called back, as I worked on disconnecting the next section.

  “Gene, how long is this work going to take you?” Captain Smith called on comms again.

  “Not much longer, maybe twenty minutes?”

  “Well, if you’re asking me, I’d say fifteen.”

  “Good thing I’m not asking, right?”

  “Sure sounded like it to me. Hey, can you run a welder?”

  “Yeah, I ought to be able to do that.”

  “As soon as you’re done there, I need you back in Engineering. I’ve been working on a new CIC idea using the space on the forward bulkhead. It’ll have interior armor using the new stuff Janis made, self-contained power and enviro, and crash chairs for all of us.”

  “What’s the framing look like?”

  “Uh, I just put it in your handset,” he replied a moment later.

  “I see it,” I replied. This was going to be pretty quick. A double wall with internal bracing, and it looked like he was putting a one-person lock in the new aft bulkhead.

  “Are you going to build a catwalk in here?” I asked. He had the opening roughly above my console.

  “Yeah, but we can put that in later. Right now, I just need the structure tacked up. Janis will have the pieces cut and delivered before you get finished there.”

  “This looks pretty easy, Dak. It’s a good idea.”

  “I don’t need you to make it airtight, just tack it up and an assembler can zip it up.”

  “No sweat, Dak.,” I called out over my shoulder as I worked the last pipe loose and dove head-first into the hole. From the bottom, there was an open section of framing, and it was a full reach, but I could see what I was working on well enough with my wrist screen.

  I wasn’t sure what I liked what I was seeing in there, though. It looked like a capacitor had popped in there and had set on fire, leaving a sticky, black, oozy mess.

  “Janis, I can fix this, but we need to get in here later and do this right.”

  “I was afraid of that, Gene.”

  “I was hoping it wasn’t that bad.”

  “Your endless optimism is encouraging,” she said with the straightest face.

  “Uh huh,” I snickered. “So I was wrong, and I guess that’s okay. What isn’t broke doesn’t need fixing – what engineer wants to be around stuff that works all the time?”

  I shone my light back in there some more, making a list of the supplies I needed to get, trying to see what happened.

  “What do you think happened in here, Janis?”

  “A shock wave broke the fuse relay that was protecting a motor relay capacitor, and when it blew, it severed the main trunk line.”

  “Yeah… do we have cable to this gauge?”

  “We do.”

  “Here’s my list, can you get these parts ready for me?”

  “I can, Gene.”

  “Thanks, Janis,” I called out, as I hauled myself out of the hole to the sound of a solid stream of cursing from Shorty from the topside compartment as I made my way to the ring three ladderway.

  “How’s it coming, Shorty,” I called out on comms as came in for a landing near the open deck hatch.

  “There’s a lot of heat damage here, blistered paint, I am just testing for heat stress, looking for bad parts I need to replace.”

  “Finding any?” I asked, making my way into the machine shop and recognizing a pile of exactly what I needed.

  “Not yet, Gene. It’s a mess in here, but the armature frames seem to have held their temper.”

  “Unlike you?” I quipped.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, as I gathered up my parts and took a brief moment of reverential awe to watch the frenzy of activity and automation in here. It was like looking into my wildest dreams come alive, filled with the precision and design of the finest machinery I’ve ever seen.

  Janis was a real engineer.

  I was pretty handy with a set of tools, and I could pretty much build anything, but compared to this I hardly knew what a tool was.

  I wished I could have watched longer, but there was a big hole in the deck right now and coolant to the main gun was down about ten percent. I needed to get back.

  “Gene, is there anything I can help with?” Yak called down the ladderway as I was coming up.

  “Sure son, take this line and yard this stuff up for me would you?” I said, flipping the coil up the ladder towards him.

  He caught it easily, and held on, waiting for me to haul myself up the ladder and get clear.

  “What are we working on?”

  “I’m replacing a fried section of power line, and I’m going to install a shielded capacitor.”

  “Sounds like fun,” he replied as we made it to the deck. I had clipped tethers onto the pipe sections, but they were still a jumbled mess and drifting about in the slight air currents.

  “Okay get my cable cutters, Yak, should be top left corner of the box.”

  “Got them,” he replied, and slapped them in my outstretched hand. I turned sideways and worked them along the side of the opening and through the turn into the deck framing.

  It was a tight fit, but I got them worked back in there and worked the thumb lever for a bit, chewing my lip and cutting damaged line.

  “That should do it,” I mumbled, and worked my arm back out of the hole and passed Yak the cutters.

  “Hand me the squeeze clamps in the right side of the box would you Yak?”

  “Sure Gene,” he said after a few moments, slapping them into my hand.

  I worked for a bit fishing damaged sections of wire out of the hole with the clamps.

  “This stuff is fried,” he exclaimed, as I handed him out the molten aft section.

  “Yeah, we had a pretty good arc burning in here for a moment or two, until the relays tripped. Once those leads popped, that was it.”

  I flashed my light around some more, making sure I had nice clean cuts on the ends.

  “Yak, see those splices?”

  “No.”

  I smiled. “See those cylindrical shaped gizmos? I need two of them.”

  “Ah here you go,” he replied, handing me both. I held onto one, and reached in for the end of the line and screwed it on.

  “Okay, now pass me the replacement trunk,” I called back towards my toes as I worked the other splice into place.

  “What’s that?”

  “It looks like big diameter cable.”

  “Here you go, Gene,” he said, handing it over and feeding it in as I worked the end through the framing and screwed the other end of the splice into the cable. I had to twist a bit to bet the other end of the cable up and into the hole, but soon had it all fed into the opening, and screwed down the other splice.

  “Okay, that’s done,” I called back. “Now I need that capacitor, and…” I trailed off, shining a light around the remnants of the old capacitor, “…what looks like a fourteen millimeter box end. Grab a stubby from the bottom drawer, son.”

  “Here’s the capacitor,” he called back and went looking for the wrench.

  I wedged it against my leg and used the clamps again to haul as many broken bits as I could reach out, making a gooey pile of shards and bits of casing.

  “Here you go, Gene,” he called out, and slapped the stubby into my reaching fingers a moment later.

  “Trade?” I called back, passing him the glob.

  “Ugh, thanks. Is this dangerous?”

  “Yeah, probably… don’t eat it.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir, Marine, I work for a living,” I chuckled in response, as I tugged at the bolts holding the capacitor down. They weren’t breaking loose.

  I gave it another tug before giving up. “Yak, I need to trade places with you.”

  “You want me in there?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pulling myself out and waving him in.

  “Alright,” he replie
d with a shrug, and worked his shoulders into the opening. “What am I doing in here?”

  “Take this light, and look starboard through the deck framing. See the new cable?”

  “Yeah,” he said after a moment.

  “Forward of the aft splice, is something that looks like a wet, sort of slimy coil.”

  “I see it. Need me to loosen those bolts?”

  “Yeah, yard that up out of there. I’ve already disconnected it.”

  “It’s coming loose,” he replied, easily breaking the bolts free. I worked through my screen for a bit, visualizing the upcoming CIC build.

  “Here Gene,” he called out, handing me the blown capacitor. “Do you want me to install the new one?”

  “Yep, if you’re up for it,” I replied.

  He shone the light around a bit more. “Do I just plug these back in?”

  “Yeah, they should clip right in, they’re press-fit. You should hear them click when they’re connected.”

  “Yeah, I can do this.”

  “Okay, holler if you need anything. I am headed aft.”

  “Will do, Gene,” he replied as I kicked aft.

  Pauli was still working on the wetnet as I made my way through the forward lock.

  “How’s it coming Pauli?”

  “Coming along just fine, Gene, I’m all tapped in, and am just waiting for the connection to form.”

  “If you need me, I’ll be in Engineering.”

  “Sounds good Gene, hey, can you let the Captain know I’ll be done here shortly and testing soon?”

  “Sure thing son,” I replied as I kicked across the bay to the aft lock and bounded up the ramp to engineering.

  “There you are,” Dak called out as I pulled in.

  “Here I am,” I chuckled and started getting my welder out of the starboard rack. “Oh, Pauli should be done soon, he said.”

  “That’s good because I need him in here working on this as soon as possible.”

  “Well, let me get it framed up first,” I said through a frown.

  “You’re not done yet? How long do you need here, anyway?” he replied with a smirk as I grabbed the rest of my gear.

  “This won’t take long,” I said soothingly, kicking over to the pile of materials Janis had brought in and clamped to the deck. “Here, grab this plate and let’s get this lined up,” I called out.