by Jacen Aster
Henry stared for a moment. “You're not kidding, are you?” He sighed, sitting up and shaking his head. “Lovely, now I'm never gonna get you to drop the princess thing, am I?”
“You weren't going to manage that before, Henry.”
“I could dream, couldn't I?”
Jack chuckled. “In any case, Elana is going over the rest of the cast of characters we have, just in case your usual level of crazy has attracted more malcontents and villains then normal. So, hopefully, this will be a nice, relaxing break from the hero's life. Though, we might have to rig an explosion. Just so Sam feels vindicated.”
Henry slumped for a moment at that reminder. Straightening with a weary sigh, he tried to change the subject. “Alright, you've had your mischief. Now how about lending a hand?”
Jack shrugged and rolled up his sleeves. “Gladly. It'd be nice to escape the politics for a bit. What do you need?”
Henry pulled up a schematic on his portable to show Jack, and they got to work.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Command and control was busy. The area had been expanded several times over, having originally been intended to hold only a handful of scientists and the station's command crew, placed together in an unusual but necessary move. Many of the experiments and the instrumentation to perform them, as well as the advanced scanning gear the station was packed with, would need ready access to and communication with the station controls and command crew. The area had been expanded, twice, to account for additional science teams.
Eventually, they had been forced, in order not to overwhelm the station command crew, to allow only a single member of each team into the area. Those individuals would have to handle information relay to and from their teams. It was honestly an awkward setup. The result of the research station being given far far more attention than Jack had anticipated when he designed it.
Henry was all but hiding at a terminal off to one side, and Jack was surrounded by a swirling, ever changing, mass of people from two dozen races as they all vied for a word with him. Some wanted to argue for more space or access, others just wanted to pick his genius brain, still more wanted to complain about something or other. Jack's nerves were rapidly fraying and he was just beginning to contemplate throwing Henry to the sharks and escaping in the confusion, when he was unexpectedly saved.
A loud ping drew the attention of the room and a dozen power intensive instruments flickered on, causing the station lights to dim for just a moment. An excited voice called over the suddenly still room, “Fusion! We've got fusion, people! Get moving!”
The result was, of course, complete anarchy as everyone scrambled to their positions and began calling out orders to their teams. The command crew was quickly under assault with conflicting requests for shield frequency alteration, instrument orientation, and altitude and vector changes. John Wright, Jack's choice to keep order, began prioritizing requests by pre-determined importance and shouting down the dissenters.
Jack, on the other hand, somehow extricated himself and joined Henry at his terminal. He wasn't surprised, was in fact quite pleased that he had guessed right, when he saw that Henry had set up his own private feed, splitting off the station functions to side screens in order to watch the star for himself. There wasn't much to see yet, of course. The fusion would have begun at or near the heart of their proto-star, but the projections of what the scanners were showing were beautiful in their own right.
Jack and Henry watched the first steps of ignition in the new star with wonder. Here was an event that had been recorded only once before, and not very well on that occasion. Jack ruined the moment a bit when he whistled and said, “That's one hell of a firework.”
Henry just rolled his eyes.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Jack watched in delight as another jet of radiation and matter lit up the scanners. This one, at nearly a hundred and fifty million kilometers, was the largest yet. Thankfully, their buildup was obvious, so they could move the stations out of the way of the narrowly focused jets. Radiation spikes of that magnitude would blow right through any shield that had ever been made by man or alien, so that was rather a critical point.
It had been nearly thirty-six hours from first ignition and the star was coming along at a truly staggering speed. If they hadn't had previous data to work with, they'd have likely been caught completely flatfooted by the rapid speed of progress post-ignition. Jack was still admiring this latest data when Henry got his attention. He was standing at the same terminal he'd been manning since the first report of fusion. Jack wasn't even sure if he'd slept.
Henry's voice was tight when he spoke. “Jack? Would you come over here? We seem to have a small problem.”
Only long experience with Henry told Jack that they should all probably be running around in circles, waving their hands, and screaming that they were going to die. Needless to say, he quickly strode over to Henry, though he tried to make it look casual. He wasn't entirely sure he succeeded. He kept his voice low as he asked, “Henry? What's wrong?”
Henry's voice was grim as he subtly pointed Jack's attention to a few displays. The station keeping thruster displays. “The ambient radiation has reached ridiculous levels. It's penetrated the armor you designed for the thruster assemblies. They just lost thirty-five percent power from a set of relays burning out. I goosed the power quickly enough that no one noticed, but they're still losing more. We've already lost the ability to break free. When we lose more, and we will, we will start falling into the star.”
Jack had turned pale. He subtly moved Henry out of the way and tapped at the displays. He cursed when he found what Henry had. There was nothing they could do. Not directly anyway. “I'm open to ideas, Henry,” he said quietly, almost too quiet for even Henry to hear.
Henry shrugged. “The only thing I can think to do is take a pair of grapplers out to each site and manually bypass the circuitry that fried. Weld new connection rods in place and fire the engines full power. If the rods hold, it will get the station far enough out for a couple of the ships to come in and play tug.”
If it was possible, Jack had gone even paler. “Take grapplers out into THAT? Henry, that's crazy, even for you!”
His voice had risen just enough at the end to attract attention, so they both remained quiet for a few moments, until curiosity subsided. When it had, Henry spoke again. “I know, Jack, but I just don't see any other way. The shields on the grapplers will protect the pilots long enough to pull off one repair. It'll have to be two grapplers though, the shields will never hold long enough for one pilot to complete both. The repair wouldn't hold long enough either, for that matter. I'll take one, of course. Who should take the other? Robertson?”
Jack shook his head. “No. I'll take the other myself.” He cut Henry's protest off with a sharp cut of his hand. “No Henry. You know it has to be me. There just isn't anyone else here that we can trust to pull off this kind of crazy ass move. None of them have the experience to make this work.”
Henry looked like he really wanted to protest, but after a few moments, he sighed. “You're right, as always. Should I prep the grapplers?”
Jack looked over the data one last time, hesitating for a moment, hoping something brilliant would come to him, then nodded firmly when it didn't. “Do it, Henry. I'll prep Robertson for what he needs to do on this end, then leave a time delayed message for the researchers. I'd rather be in the middle of this when they realize what's going on. I'd not tell them at all if I could trust them not to do something foolish when they realize the station is moving.”
Henry nodded, put his hand on Jack's shoulder, and simply said, “Good luck.”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
It had taken Jack a good fifteen minutes to get everything in place, and he had felt every last second of it. He reached the small maintenance hangar, purely there to store a trio of maintenance grapplers and a few repair mechs, at a near run. A glance showed him that Henry had only just finished the prep they needed in
that time. Though it was amazing he had done so. It normally took ten minutes to prep each grappler, plus he must have needed time to retrieve the connecting rods for the repair.
Jack didn't let that thought slow him. It was Henry, after all. He just did that sort of thing. He made for the closer grappler as Henry was climbing into the other. He swiftly snapped his harness in place and ran his eyes over the controls. It had been awhile. He tapped the comm controls, opening a closed circuit with Henry.
“Ready, Henry? Everything green?”
“All green, Jack. The connecting rods are secured in slot five. A quick run of the numbers showed it is the best shielded. Speaking of shields, I did what I could to boost them. We'll have twenty minutes once we leave the station, at my best estimate.”
Jack shook his head as he checked the readings, even if he knew Henry couldn't see it. “Damn, Henry, you don't mess around. That's what, a seventeen percent increase?”
Henry's response was smug. “Seventeen point five, thank you very much.”
Jack couldn't help but laugh, despite everything. “Right. How could I possibly have missed the point five?” He engaged the startup sequence on his grappler, seeing Henry doing the same. “Alright, Henry, break down the plan for poor, slow Jack. You're obviously way ahead of me here.”
“No time for anything fancy. You did good when you designed those thrusters, Jack. You kept them nice and simple. You take the one portside, I take the one starboard. We open the armor, rip out the control circuits that fried, and replace them with the rod. It'll hardwire them all-or-nothing, but that's what we want anyway. I already changed the station settings to compensate.”
“Of course you did,” Jack said, amazed at Henry in crisis mode. Jack hadn't seen it that often, and it always made him feel mildly inadequate, not a feeling he was used to. When it came right down to it, Jack might be smarter, if he did say so himself, but no one worked better under pressure than Henry. No one. “So, I assume you've covered the large, gaping hole in this plan? Namely, how do we prevent the rest of the circuitry from frying once we pull the armor off?”
There was a moment of silence. “Yeah. About that. That would be the real reason I didn't fight you being the other grappler pilot. This is going to take good timing, and possibly a couple levels of badass.”
Jack winced. “I'm not going to like this, am I?”
“Well, not when you're doing it, no. Afterward, it'll make a pretty awesome vid though.”
Jack's shoulders slumped. “On a scale of one to ten, how much am I about to hate you?”
“Probably at least a seven.”
“Shit.” Jack let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, Henry, what bat-shit insane thing are we about to do?”
Jack could almost hear the manic grin in Henry's voice. “Oh, you're gonna love this. You remember those shield outriggers I built?”
Jack slammed his head on the control panel as he engaged hover mode, lining up behind Henry at the exit. “No, Henry. Please no. Please tell me we aren't going to cut the outriggers free and use the shield generators to protect the circuitry while we work.”
“Alright, I won't tell you.”
“Damn it, Henry, this is at least an eight. Will this even work?”
“Yep. Probably.”
“Probably?”
“The shield projectors have an emergency onboard power supply. I ran the numbers, and as long as the star doesn't massively surge, there is enough power to protect the circuitry for the kind of time we need. That is, if we can transplant them without busting anything on the projectors. Also, as long as we're fairly fast with the whole operation. We really can't take our time to measure twice and cut once, as it were. We'll mostly have to eyeball it.”
Jack groaned. “I hate you sometimes, Henry. Is it too late to make Robertson do this?”
“Do you really think he could?”
Jack didn't respond to that. They both knew the answer. Both grapplers were lined up on the dock exit and the outer doors had just opened, leaving only a weak force field between them and the void.
“Alright, Henry, let’s go be Big Damn Heroes, or however that goes.”
Henry just chuckled over the comm as he punched the throttle and his grappler shot out of the hangar. Jack was only seconds behind.
As they both exited the maintenance hangar and broke seamlessly for their own sides of the station, Jack suddenly chuckled at an absurd thought. “This really takes me back, Henry. Ernie would be apoplectic with us putting this sort of hacked ass fix on one of his babies.”
Henry's laughter came strong over the comm. “I guess it's a good thing he decided to retire a few years back then. How's that been going for him anyway?”
Jack’s target popped into view as he rounded the edge of the station, he grinned as he zeroed in on it and answered Henry. “It's not. He managed to retire to a nice island paradise on Melntoni III.” Jack paused for effect. “For about six months that is. Last I heard, he was fixing everything in sight at some run down charity corp an island over. He's probably busier than he's ever been.”
Henry chuckled. “Good engineers never retire, Jack. Their hands just won't stop itching for something to do.”
“True enough, Henry, true enough.” As he closed on the shield outrigger, he asked, “Alright, Henry, anything I need to know about this thing?”
A data transfer with schematics of the outrigger appeared on his heads up display. “Your best bet is to cut it at the joint a half meter below the projector. I took them offline before we left the bay, so no worries about getting zapped. Once you have it, move to your thruster and weld it to the thruster frame within five meters of your work zone. The packet I just sent has the remote codes to bring them online in the right configuration. I excluded the grappler's shield frequency, so you'll be able to pass in and out.”
“Damn, Henry, you make me feel slow sometimes.”
Reaching the outrigger, Jack swung the grappler's right arm out and clamped onto the shield projector's housing. He lit the plasma cutter on the other arm and cranked it to max power. This was no time for finesse. He sliced through the aforementioned joint. Immediately pushing off from the remnants of the outrigger, he fired his engines again, angling for the port thruster. Reaching it in under a minute, he landed heavily and immediately surveyed the target zone for a good spot. Spotting a clean section of armor, he fumbled the projector into place. Wincing at his clumsiness, hoping he hadn't damaged anything in the delicate hardware, he fired up the welder and got to work. A quick weld later and he took a deep breath before triggering the remote start sequence. His breath caught for a moment when nothing happened, then it slowly flickered to life and his breath came out in a rush as a dome of energy solidified around him.
As Jack moved to manually disengage the armor, he spoke into the silent comm. “I'm set up, Henry. Shield's online, tackling the armor.”
Henry grunted. “Careful, some of the armor on this one fused a bit. The port side wasn't as bad though, so hopefully you'll get lucky.”
It figured that Henry had pointed him at the less damaged thruster. Still, as the armor popped off without fighting him, Jack silently acknowledged he was grateful for it. Silence fell for several minutes as both of them bypassed the armor and started the far more intensive portion of the repair. Jack was nearing completion when he heard his own voice coming over the general broadcast frequencies. His prerecorded message for the station.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and other assorted beings, I'm afraid our time is being cut short. We've experienced a malfunction due to the intense energies being given off by our new friend out there. Chief Engineer Harper and I are already effecting emergency procedures to move us away from the star before the failure cascades and we are unable to retain altitude. Please do not panic, but gather what data you can in a swift fashion. That is all.”
Amusement filled Henry's voice as it came over the comm in the wake of his message. “Nice, Jack, you make it sound like we actually planned for
this. You done with yours?”
“Almost. Hold on just a sec.” Jack finished welding the last connection and addressed him again. “Henry, don't think I didn't notice the other little flaw in your plan.”
“Ah, you mean the part where we have to stay out here and jumpstart the connection when the engines fire?”
“Yes, Henry, that part. I take it you knew that the onboards didn't have the juice to make the initial connection themselves?”
“Of course I did. That's the other reason I conceded to you coming out here instead of Robertson. He might be a good man, but there's no way he's got the nerve for this.”
“You ran the numbers on the grapplers’ engines?”
“Yeah, they've got the power, if only just, to get us free. So long as we don't exceed our time limit. That's why I couldn't boost the shields any further. They'd have cut too far into our reserves for us to make the burn out of here.”
“Yeah, I thought as much. Seventeen percent is only impressive if you take that into account.”
“Seventeen point five.”
“Whatever, Henry.” Jack took a deep breath and clamped his grappler's arm down on the connection rod, preparing to feed it juice. “Ready?”
“Yep. Why don't you call it in?”
“Sure.” Jack tapped the comm panel a couple of times, cutting Robertson and the control team into the loop. “Robertson, you got the sequence ready?”
“Ready, boss!”
“Alright, fire it on my mark.” Jack hesitated, said a silent prayer, and began counting. “Five, four, three, two, one, mark!” He slammed his hand down on the power transfer controls, waited half a second, then cut his connection and blasted away from the station, heading up and over its side in a hard burn away from the newborn star. He saw Henry's grappler a half heartbeat ahead of his own, just out of the corner of his eye. He grinned, pleased he'd gotten so close to his younger friend's reflexes.