"She froze," he said.
The Chief came around the corner and stopped. She pulled her weapon and pointed it. "Just what the hell do you think you’re doing? Set her down now!" she commanded.
He eased the woman to the ground, and then thumbed the helmet off. "Miss, you're okay now, you can come back to us."
He tried to shake her, but she had a vacant stare. "What the hell did you do to her? I swear if you hurt her you’re going out that airlock with a pulser in your head." the chief growled. He could hear the whine of the weapon. Defender brought his shields up. The guards eyes seemed to clear, then she began to thrash and scream, eyes vacant.
He stepped back and opened a communication channel. "Medical emergency airlock four port side. We need a sedative and medical team here now," he growled. He nodded to the Chief. "She had a bad reaction to space, it looks like agoraphobia. Currently hysterical. Onset of hypoxia due to hyperventilation."
The Chief's eyes burned into his. "Roger that. Medic on the way," the answer from the overhead came, but he ignored it.
"Mind putting that thing away?" he said. He nodded to the gun. She just glared.
Jennie looked up from holding the sobbing guard. "He's telling the truth chief, knock it off." She rocked the girl, murmuring assurances that she was okay, safe. Her fingers stroked the girl's face and hair. He nodded. "You see, some people can take space, some can't. She can't," he said nodding his chin to the overwhelmed woman.
He grunted and got out of the way as the medic came in and sedated the guard. The Chief glared angry, not understanding what happened.
"She's agoraphobic," the engineer said, looking away.
"This is your fault," the Chief shook, hand on her pulser.
"No, it's yours," he turned to her, eyes cold and gray. "You ordered a rookie with no experience out on a space walk." He met her glare, watched as her jaw tightened.
His HUD lit with her thermal image. Defender kept his shields up. "How is she?" The gravelly voice brought them back from the brink. The Chief blinked, and then her glare slipped into a poker face. "Hysterical Captain. The medic sedated her," Irons replied. They turned to the Captain, who nodded, hands together.
"First space walk?" she asked after a moment. He nodded.
The Chief shot him a look then back to the Captain. She sighed. "Couldn't hack the black eh?" she asked, sounding sad. He nodded. "Why were you out there? She asked.
He sighed. "I need to do a survey of the hull, and make a few repairs that I can't get to in here," he explained. She nodded.
"Why not take the shuttle? It would've been safer," the Captain asked, cocking her head.
He glanced to the Chief then back. "I requested it, but was denied."
"Denied?" her glance turned to the Chief. An eyebrow rose. "Is this true?" she demanded.
The Chief jaw loosened and her nostrils flared. "It was a security risk," was all she said.
The Captain held her look. "Chief, we're in deep space, and that shuttle has a limited range, where would he go?" she asked patiently.
The Chief looked away. The Captain sighed. "Over ruled. Do the survey with the pilot, and check the shuttle’s systems out as well. I understand you've been making some progress with the computers?" she asked. She gazed at the engineer who nodded.
"Aye Captain. There were a lot of viruses and damage. I rebooted the firewall and security measures."
She nodded. "Good. See that the Chief gets a full briefing on what you've done, and the passwords," she said. She obviously had a bit more computer training then her crew. He nodded.
"Aye Aye Captain," he responded. She turned and left. "Well, that was interesting," he muttered. He nodded to the guard and Chief then picked up his toolkit.
"Where are you going?" the Chief asked.
"Boat bay," he looked over his shoulder. "Captain wants this done; I'm going to get it done." The guard gave the Chief a look and she returned a cool nod.
Chapter 6
“You want me to what??” the pilot asked, hands on her hips. He knew the pose, dominant and in control.
“I want you to wrangle some asteroids back to the ship,” he said patiently.
Her features began to cloud with anger. “Not on your life! Do you have any idea how hard it is to fly that beast in atmo, let alone try to dock with a hunk of rock? Why do you want it anyway? Don't they have enough rock on the ground?” the woman waved to the exterior hatch.
He shook his head. “No, I want it for us.” He tapped the metal bulkhead beside him. “I don't want any old rock; I want certain rocks that we can feed into the replicator,” he explained. She stared at him.
“You'll do it,” a gravelly voice said. They turned to the Captain sitting in her chair beside them. “Or do you think you can't handle it?” one eyebrow raised in challenge.
“I can do it,” the pilot said, nettled by the implied insult. She looked over to the Captain. “But if this stunt so much as dings my paint you’re going out an airlock without a suit.” She turned to glare at the Admiral. He snorted.
“Well, get enough rocks with the right composition and we can BUILD you a new ship,” he said as way of compensation. Her eyes widened at that. She looked from the Admiral to the Chief, and then settled on the Captain.
The Captain was also looking at the engineer, but returned the inquiring gaze with a nod. “So let’s get cracking shall we?” she asked. The pilot nodded, beginning to get into the spirit.
A few hours later he sat in the cargo shuttle, unsure if this was really going to work though. "See that one there?" the engineer called, pointing. "Your 11 o'clock low," he said. She looked in the indicated direction.
"Got it. I see what you mean, nice," she said. The cratered rock he had indicated had a flat section. It was a couple hundred tons of material begging to be turned into something useful. "All right, I'll line up with the flat section and use the tractor," she said. He nodded.
"Your ship," he said, sitting back.
"And don't you forget it," she muttered. Carefully she lined up on the asteroid and docked. The ship rumbled a little as she flipped a switch.
She studied the readouts then grinned. "Got it," she said triumphantly. Carefully she nudged the controls. "It’s like flying in sand," she said, groaning slightly.
She towed the rock to the ship over the next two hours. "Clear the bay, and rig it for zero g," he called in when they were lined up.
"Roger that. You could have said please," one of the radio girls responded.
The pilot rolled her eyes. "Please?" she snorted.
The bridge officer giggled. "Okay, cleared and prepped." They passed through the hatch and into the bay.
"Let it go slow," he cautioned after she corrected their speed. He watched as she touched the tractor controls and eased them down. "We're blind here, can we get some feedback?" he called over the channel.
A moment later someone called back. "Okay, you're floating there in the bay, the rock is huge! Bigger than the shuttle!" the woman said.
He grimaced, lips tight in irritation. "I meant, what's the rock doing, is it moving to the deck?" he said tightly. He waited a moment.
"No."
He let out a breath, patience about exhausted with her. “Okay, we really don't want that thing hitting the deck, it could go through it," he growled. The pilot's eyes widened. She gulped.
"You didn't say anything like that!" she said.
He grunted. "I'm going out to secure it. Make sure the grav plates stay OFF," he ordered. He unbuckled his harness and got up. He checked his suit readouts on his HUD, and then cycled the hatch. Outside he toggled his OMS and maneuvered away from the shuttle, then down. "Okay, looks good, we'll need to secure it with pitons, then break it down quickly before we get the next one."
He pulled a piton gun out of his bag. He lined up and fired it in. "What are you doing? The rock is moving!" the observer reported.
"I got it. Oops, no don't got it. There," the pilot said. The pilot jigged the
craft compensating then over compensating for the movement. Finally the rock stopped. "There."
He attached a line and then ran it to the side of the bay. "That line isn't going to hold it," the girl said doubtfully.
"Like I said, we're going to secure it, then break it down." He attached the free end to a clip, and then maneuvered to another axis. "I'm attaching five lines, three along the sides, one top and one bottom. That should do it as long as the gravity remains off," he reported as he worked.
It took an hour before he got the last secured. "Okay let it go," he ordered looking up at the shuttle. The pilot dropped the tractor and drifted.
"The rock is settling... Okay, do you want the gravity back on now?" the observer asked.
"NO!" he bellowed it.
"Just kidding! Sheesh!"
"That's not funny!" Molly called.
"Sorry," she said meekly.
He sighed. "Okay, pressurize the bay and get the team to work. I'm going to take a break." The pilot maneuvered out of the bay and to another, the exterior hatch sealed, cutting off the light of the distant sun and stars. The lights came up slowly illuminating the floating rock.
"What's with those bright ribbons? They glitter!" the observer called. He chuckled.
"That's a vein of mineral, most likely a rare one," he explained. He ran a scan. "I don't have a spectrograph, but..." Sprite pulled up a probability chart. "It is most likely copper."
He landed near the interior hatch. It cycled and a work crew came in. He stepped aside as women filed past and gawked. "I didn't think we could do it!" one girl whistled, another gasped.
"What, it's just a rock; we used to do this back in New Dublin," one of the other girls said, shouldering a jack hammer. He watched as they started cutting into the rock. He stepped past the line of girls with grav carts.
"So that's why you wanted them all fixed," Molly said, waving to him.
He nodded. "Moving parts is hard; use the tools that are best for that task," he said and smiled.
"Visitor coming." Sprite projected on his HUD.
"...And that's why memory leakage is such a problem. Now, why don't you look over the file packet distribution methods for a moment?" He turned as the door opened and a tech came in.
"Captain wants you on the bridge." she said. She was huffy and out of breath.
The engineer nodded. "All right folks, you heard the lady. Class dismissed." He gave a jaunty wave and followed the tech out.
The girl, Dorah from the look of the long red hair led him at a brisk pace to the officer's wardroom. “See you later mister engineer!” she called after thumbing the door. He chuckled as he stepped through the hatch. Within was the senior staff, sitting at the conference table.
“Have a seat, we were talking about the repairs and the purser asked for you,” the Captain smiled, nodding her head to an empty chair. He took a seat then gave the purser a polite look.
"Can we do anything to get more space?" the purser asked thumbing a stack of papers. "I noticed we have a lot more cargo capacity on the blueprints, but the sum of it's in breached sections." She looked over to Molly, Jennie and the engineer. “The colony has a lot more to trade; a lot more than we can handle with our current cargo capacity. We were talking about converting the rec areas or other compartments...”
She fluttered her hands...” But they're out of the way and small.” She looked over to the trio. “Since you three need a lot more material we've had to do a bit more trading to buy the material,” she said. She shrugged at their collective expressions. “Not that I'm complaining or anything,” she smiled a little. “The replicator has come in handy as well; we've been making parts for their farm equipment and spaceport, charging them of course,” she smiled again, this time with a hint of greed in the grin.
“And charging them a premium for making the parts, the materials and transporting them as well eh?” the Captain chuckled. The purser nodded eagerly. After a second the rest of the crew joined in the laughter.
“We need the extra space to hold the extra cargo, and the materials you said you need to make more repairs,” the purser said. The purser looked them over as the laughter stopped.
"Anything you can do about that? I seem to recall being promised the number one cargo hold a while back," her voice had a hint of challenge in it. Molly looked doubtful for a moment.
Jennie crossed her arms in front of her. "Sure," the Admiral replied.
Molly leaned forward and looked over Jennie to him. "Are you sure? There aren’t any airlocks..." He smiled and waved a dismissive hand about the problem. "Not a problem, we just make a temporary one," he answered.
She looked confused, but Jennie nodded and leaned over to her. "See, we use the compartment or corridor leading to the breach. Suck out the air with someone in a suit, and then they can get in and fix the holes," she explained.
Molly looked confused. "But we only have a few suits, and they're bulky things. Besides, only a few of us have ever done patches..." she noticed the Admiral's tapping hand and blushed. "Sorry, I forgot," she mumbled.
"Yes, you do have a wealth of experience don't you?" the Captain commented dryly. He shrugged. The purser gave him an intent probing gaze. He smiled politely.
"A life time of being a spacer lends you the skills you need," he said. He nodded to the Captain. She gauged his look and then nodded. "Get it done," she said simply.
Molly muttered a, "yes Captain." As she shoved off to leave.
"And one more thing." The gravelly voice made her pause. "Be careful," she said. The Admiral nodded as they left.
He entered the compartment and looked around. "Can you get the feed in here?" He did a quick scan of the compartment, and let Sprite build a 3D map.
"No, nothing is working in there," Molly sighed. "Wait one."
He shut the channel. "Sprite, feed my visuals to Molly's station," he said, looking around and eying the dangling shards of ceiling panels with wary disdain. Any one of the stalactites could breach a suit.
"Are you sure about this?" Defender queried.
He nodded. "Get it done."
"Aye aye Admiral," Defender said with a hint of disapproval over his order.
After a moment Molly opened the channel. "Wait, I'm getting something, wish I knew what I did...what the...WOW!" She gasped over the radio as he moved into the center of the compartment and did a 360. "Is that you?" Molly asked disbelief in her voice.
He chuckled. "Yes, this is me."
"This is how you see?" she asked in disbelief. He chuckled again.
"The basic and night vision yes." He sent the signal to his visual implant to switch to thermal. The room cascaded into alternate colors.
"What just happened? The picture just went weird; I think we're losing you," Molly responded confused.
"No, I switched to thermal for a moment. Now a composite." His visuals overlaid the thermal image. "Now I'll add the other sensors." He turned on the ultrasonic, and HUD. "The circles are from my HUD; they're identifying different things and keeping a running tally of my systems."
Molly snorted. "Yeah I see that. It has your heart rate, breathing, everything! Even shields... you never told me about that!" she said with a hint of wonder in her voice.
He grunted. "Oops," he sub vocalized. He moved to the outside wall, noting the long rip. He could see stars through the rip. "Looks like we have our work cut out for us here. Going to need to patch this before we can pressurize the compartment and get a work crew in here to do more repairs." He reached out with his right hand and pushed at the sharp edges.
"Careful careful!" Molly said, suddenly frantic.
"No worries Molly, I'm using my artificial arm." He pushed a bit, but had to stop when inertia pushed back. "One moment." He carefully pulled his body down, and then with his free hand keyed the gravity boots.
The boots vibrated for a moment, then pulled him down to the deck. "There, Gravity boots on. I can work now." He began pushing at the rip. "This would probably be better cu
t out and then patched over. Can you get an oblong piece oh... two meters long, and one hundred twenty centimeters wide at the girth?" "Oblong?" Molly asked.
"Yes, a deformed sphere," he replied, switching his hand to torch mode.
He began to cut the broken pieces, using his free hand to catch them before they floated around the compartment and into him. One by one he fed them into the bag at his side. "Yes, when I get this cut down we can patch over it. Then I can check for smaller holes." He cut a large snarl off and fumbled it before getting it in the bag.
"Okay, I added it to the queue. Why'd you have to anchor your boots?" she asked. He smiled at the question.
"Leverage. Since this compartment doesn't have working gravity and is in free fall, Newton's laws are in full force." He pulled at another piece, and then cut at a nibble he missed. "There." He put it in the bag. "See, Newton's laws are simple in theory, but take on a whole new meaning to space walkers."
His vision cut out the flare of the torch. When he stopped he watched the glowing parts cool rapidly.
"That's really cool how you can see like that!" she sighed in awe.
"Okay, one of Newton's laws is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So when I pushed on the piece..."
Jennie cut in. "It pushed back! But who's Newton?"
He snorted. "Go to the head of the class. Check out Newton's laws in the physics database I uploaded," he said. He pulled the last piece. "Almost done here, how's that plate coming?"
"Almost done," Molly responded.
“How are you cutting that?” Rodriguez cut in over the channel.
He snorted. “No, seriously, how? I tried a torch, nothing worked!” Rodriquez sounded exasperated. “And how are we going to get the welds to hold? Nothing worked before!” she said, clearly confused.
He shook his head. “Well, I'm using a nanite plasma torch for the first, and we'll use a little vacuum welding coupled with plasma, and nanites to do the welds.” He cut through another section. “Speaking of which, the tools should be about ready, I had them replicated. I can't do this forever on my own power, it's draining my systems,” he grumbled.
New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) Page 19