New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (26 page)

"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 cut
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.

"Molly, can you dig out some
lights, power cables, the tools I mentioned, and a few hand tools and load them
in the temporary airlock with the patch?" It took a moment before she
replied. "YYeeess... Okay, I can get someone to do that. Why?" she
asked.

He grunted. "It'll make
working in here a bit easier."

"Right away. Part is done
and on its way, the lights are on their way too." He released the gravity
lock and turned. He had been tempted to float backwards, but had arrested the
temptation after remembering the ragged stalactites behind him. He scanned the
bulkhead, checking for holes. There were a few, small ones no bigger than his
hand. "I'm going to need dinner plate sized patches as well Molly...three
no five of them, probably more."

 He turned and toggled his OMS to
move to the temporary airlock. "Roger that. Parts and gear are in the
airlock." He waited a moment. "Airlock depressurized," she said
after a minute.

He opened the hatch to see a
suited Jennie, Rodriguez, and Robin on the other side. "What are you doing
here?" he asked just as Robin began to float.

"Oh oh!" She caught
herself with a flat hand against the top of the airlock.

"We thought we could help.
Besides, we need the experience right?" Jennie replied.

He chuckled. "Roger
that," he finally responded.

Jennie looked over to Robin.
"Well, to tell you the truth, I've done this a time or two before. So has
Rodriguez here."

 She motioned slowly with her
hands. Rodriguez had caught Robin and was quietly explaining her to move
slowly. "All right, but go slow and be careful. There are a lot of
shredded bits you can hole your suit on if you’re not careful,” he cautioned.

Rodriguez looked up and smiled.
"We'll be careful."

Jennie moved the plate up and
handed it to him. He felt the jerk of motion backward and toggled the OMS to
compensate. Robin was over her space sickness and pulled out a tape measure.
"The purser wants a report on the room; she's pretty excited about the
extra space," Jennie snorted. He could see her face lit up, she was
smiling. "We haven't even repaired it yet and they're already fighting
over it!" Rodriguez chuckled.

The Admiral looked over to Robin.
"You’re not going to get an accurate read with that. The compartment
measurements are in the computer.”

 He ran a scan, and then did the
math. "From my measurements, the compartment is one twenty one meters
long, thirteen point four meters wide, and.... twelve meters tall. That's this
compartment, the deck above seems to be compromised, so we'll get more space
there too once things are repaired." Robin's figure froze. "How did
you do that?" she asked.

He smiled. "I have a few
tricks up my sleeves," he replied. He checked the ship's blueprints.
"According to the blueprints this was the number one cargo hold. Above is
another slightly smaller, so she should get a lot of space." Rodriguez
ducked under a stalactite. "Careful there!"

"Yeah, I see that. Close
call Rodriguez." Jennie rebuked firmly.

"Sorry." She went over
to the rip and whistled.

He maneuvered the patch over the
hole, and then with her aid covered it. "All right, hold it for a minute
while I tack it." He reconfigured his arm to welder and tacked a few places
along the perimeter. "We'll need to patch this from the outside too, but
once we have a good seal, it should be okay for now," he explained. Jennie
looked over the plate, and then turned to the nearest hole.