Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

“Three’s
good.”

“Five. 
Good here.”

“Drone team,
give me your relative speeds, please.”

“Drone super
here, we have 0.83 metres per minute.”

“Keep it
there,” said Askel.  “Mount team, stand by.”

“Copy,
standing by.”

The bulk of
Askel’s
work on this particular job was now done.  The
engine was aligned and now slowly moving into position in the engine bay of
Ephialtes
. 
She spent an anxious ninety minutes checking and rechecking all the information
coming into her headset and making verbal enquiries to the three major teams on
the operation.  When the engine was in place temporary mounts tightened
around it.  The clunks as the mounts fell into place reverberated around
the huge vessel.  Askel only heard them second hand through her com. 
When the eighth and final mount clunked into a locked position Askel heard the
cheers too, and the clapping of hands.

“Askel, I
think we have a new engine.  Thanks very much, you can come on in now.”

Askel
smiled.  “You have the engine.  Now we just have to wire the damn
thing up.  Well done all of you, but we’ve a long way to go yet.”

She stayed a
while to look at the engine and hoped she would be able to deliver on all she
had promised.  She watched the construction drones make their way back to
their bays and finally spun around for a view of the Earth.

“It’s amazing,
isn’t it?” she said into her com, to no one in particular.

“It is
amazing, Askel, but we need you back in here.  Propulsion have a question
about the mounts.”

“Okay,” said
Askel as she made her way to the airlock and prepared to get back to work.

Askel’s
plans had been thorough and well thought
out.  They had gone mostly to schedule with only a few minor delays. 
There had been some personnel issues too, but that was behind them now. 
Once the work was under way Askel was busy every waking moment.  She knew
her plans were good, but they were only plans.  The real world, and
‘problems arising’, were where the real skills came in.  The world as it
was and as it was represented in the plans, schematics and records diverged
somewhat.  Thinking on the fly and reacting was what Askel was good
at.  Improvising and making the best choices given the limitations and
materials available.

Now the
engine was in position she had some real meat to work with.  Real world
data to mix with her plans.  The engine was mounted on temporary
mounts.  They would need to be replaced with stronger permanent mounts,
which in themselves were a little miracle of design, accommodating the original
specification of
Ephialtes
with the newer spec of the prototype NFJ
engine, where the mounts were in a different position.

She set at
the work with abandon, pulling extended shifts and often working long into the
night.  When she wasn’t at her terminal she could be found in grimy
overalls, deep in conversation with the
engineers
right there, getting literally hands on to any issues arising.  Askel
could solve problems and muck in with anyone from grease monkeys to senior
project engineers.

Work was
progressing.  They had slipped behind their schedule but only by a couple
of days.  It was a huge project, involving manual labour, software design,
cabling as well as man management, accounting and above all engineering.

Less than a
week after the NFJ engine had been fitted it was fired up for the first time,
albeit briefly, for some cursory testing.  More real-world data for
Askel to work with.  She plugged the data into her models and refined
here, re-jigged there then retested, then back round again.  Test,
process results, refine design, rework the system and back around to test.

Askel had
enjoyed running marathons back on Earth.  She applied the same mentality
to the huge task in front of her.  Head down, concentrate on the immediate
task.  Forget what’s happened, don’t think about what might happen,
concentrate on now, make it work, move to the next task.  She processed
her work like a machine.  She held her consciousness off to the side, like
she was blocking out pain.  Her mind was tightly focused on the
task.  The task was all that mattered.  Each task was a sequence of
small tasks.  Take each task, break it down into smaller tasks, do the
task, move to the next one, carry on.  One foot in front of the
other.  It was tiring, oppressive but also strangely liberating.

Two weeks on
from the installation of the engine the permanent mounts were finished. 
The major cabling to the new engine was complete and the overhauled software
control systems were at beta stage two.  They had caught up, as
well.  They were now just one day behind schedule.  With the engine
installation nearly complete Askel could spend more time working on the other
systems.  Life support, food, oxygen, waste processing and auxiliary power
all had to be more resilient for interplanetary travel.  From low Earth
orbit it would be possible to, in effect, bailout to the Earth below.  The
dropships were designed to get to the surface of the Earth in minutes.  In
an emergency it would be possible to evacuate the mothership.  A hundred
and forty million miles away from home there had to be alternatives should things
go
wrong.
  The NFJ engine needed only a fraction
of the fuel that the chemical engine needed.  The extra space gained was
utilised to make more resilient
fallback
systems for
anything critical to the survival of the crew.  Additional space was
needed too for munitions; at such a long range there would be no opportunity to
be restocked from a friendly bone-shaker.  The ship was being made
into a self-sufficient long-distance spacecraft carrier.

One evening
Askel was working at her terminal when she received a call from Rawls. 
“How’s it going?” he said.

“Good. 
There have been wrinkles - you heard about the spill duct - but
we’re on top of it now.  I estimate we’ll be done pretty much as estimated
on the work schedule.”

“That’s
incredible,” said Rawls.  “When we sold that to Andrews I thought you were
kidding.  I don’t think we’ve ever brought a project in on time.  I
thought it would be twice as long as the estimate, minimum.”

“Is that the
extent of your faith in my abilities?”

“Well, I have
to be honest, maybe it was, but it certainly isn’t now.  I knew you were
good Lund, I just didn’t realise you were this good.  I guess I’m going to
have to give you a raise.  That or fire you; you’ve got me looking over my
shoulder.”

Askel
smiled.  “You don’t have to worry about me, Rawls.  Should it ever
become necessary I’ll stab you in the front, not the back.”

She heard
Rawls chuckle down the line.  “That’s good to know,” he said.  “Can I
take this date to Andrews?  I doubt she’ll really believe it either. 
I’d love to see the look on her face.”

“Well,” said
Askel, “it’s still only an estimate, but go ahead.  We’ve done all the
heavy lifting, as it were, although we did do some actual heavy lifting. 
The next four weeks are really snagging and finishing off.  I guess it
might be Murphy’s Law that some minor thing will hold us up for weeks, but it
shouldn’t, not on paper anyway.  Take the date to Andrews.”

“I’ll do
that.  Anything you need from me?”

“Just your
ongoing support.”

“You always
have that, and you know it.”

“I do Lewis,
good night.”

“Good night
Askel.  I’m going to look out the window and see if I can see you. 
My own little star in the night sky.”

Askel hung
up.

While Askel
had been working on
Ephialtes
Adam Speight had been overseeing the
refits on
Otus
. 
Otus
was a week ahead of
Ephialtes
.  As lead designer Askel had been
tied up making plans before she could leave.  Speight had left for
Otus
almost immediately and had begun work on
tearing down the chemical engines and the fuel store areas. 
Otus
was the newer of the two ships and had only
been in service for a matter of weeks.  In some ways that made her easier
to work on.  There was still some snagging going on and the crew had yet
to settle into their routines.  They were easier to disrupt and didn’t quite
yet have the sense that it was their ship that Speight was messing with. 
He was fast, too.  He lacked a little of
Askel’s
imagination but he made up for it with ruthless application.  Like a
terrier he would worry away at any job and not let go until it was done.

Speight’s
data was mixed in to
Askel’s
from
Ephialtes
. 
The two ships were virtually identical, with only minor differences. 
Small problems that came to light on
Otus
could be avoided on
Ephialtes
, where those systems had yet to be
implemented.

Although
Askel had never worked closely with Speight she knew of his high standing at
Helios.  He was known to be thorough and had something of a reputation for
ruthlessness.  Like Askel, he had risen rapidly at the company. 
Unlike Askel, he had left some bad feelings in his wake.  To some it
seemed he had climbed to the top over the bodies of those he’d used to get
there.

Askel hadn’t
chosen Speight for the
Otus
job.  He was
Rawls’ choice.  Rawls was a good judge of character and although he
disliked Speight on a personal level he knew that he was a great choice for
this job, which required absolute attention, diligence and perseverance. 
Some feelings might get hurt along the way; so be it.

Askel had had
daily briefings from Speight, mostly in the form of messages, but occasionally
she would have to make contact via video link to discuss specific issues in
depth.  She didn’t mind his curt manner and slightly aloof air.  In
fact, it made things easier for her.  There was no time wasted on the
social niceties; they could get straight down to discussing the important
matters at hand.  That suited Askel.  For these few months she wasn’t
about making friends or sustaining relationships.  She was strictly
business, so Speight’s manner was fine with her.

On this
particular evening he had called early.  They had scheduled the
conversation to take place at 20:00 but he called at 19:40.  Askel was
sitting at her terminal tweaking a subsystem of the navigation software. 
She took the call.

“Askel, I’ve
sent you the data from our test burn earlier today.  All looks good to me,
can you give it the once over and get it back to me?”

“I’m doing
that right now, it should be back to you within the hour.”

“Good. 
How about the navigation software?  We might be in a position within the
next ten days or so for a run out to the Moon.  Would it be ready for
that?”

“Maybe. 
I’m working on that now, too.  If you need to go to the Moon just
go.  The current system will handle it just fine.”

“But if we
have the new software we can test that, as well as the engine.”

“I
know.  But the engine is the priority.”

“Anything
else for me?”

“Will you be
doing a full burn on the Moon trip?”

“Not a full
burn, it would be too much.  About point five for a free return.”

“No braking?”

“Not
yet.  You think we should?”

“Maybe
not.  The data from a point five burn will be incredibly useful.”

“It
will.  It will tell us everything we need to know.  We can
extrapolate the data to a virtual full burn.”

“Okay.”

“Speight
out.”

Askel didn’t
have time to say goodbye.  As he spoke Speight had lent towards the
terminal and tapped the screen to end the conversation.

Steiner,
Foley and Johnson had been in the refectory watching the streams from Mars when
news of
Venkdt’s
election to the Martian presidency
had come through.  Johnson had immediately thrown a cupcake towards the
screen.  “Get off my damned planet,” he had said, to laughter from the
others.

“That fella
needs an ass-whooping,” said Foley, “and I mean to give it to him.”

Steiner
slapped Foley’s back.  “Politics by other means, my friend,” he said, “and
we are most certainly other means.  In fact, we’re one mean other means.”

“What are you
talking about, fool?” said Johnson.

“I’m talking
about our upcoming debate with Mr Venkdt there,” said Steiner.  “He’ll be
using ten dollar words and we’ll be using plasma rifles.  Should be an
interesting discussion.”

“I’m not
debating
nothin
’ with that fool,” said Johnson. 
“I just want to kick his ass for being
un-American
. 
I can’t even stand to look at his face,” he said as he launched another cake.

“You trying
to feed him to death?” said Steiner.