New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (52 page)

"And more!" Molly as
excited. "We can do so much more, so let’s get this ship fixed!" They
chuckled at her exuberance.

"Hello Tara, how are things
down here?" Jennie asked.

Tara looked up from peeling
potatoes. She hated having starch all over her hands but had gotten used to it
by now. "Oh not bad. Just a different kind of crap to put up with,"
she said. She waved to the sludge tanks. One of them was leaking at the top.

Jennie wrinkled her nose. "I
can smell that," she said. She shook her head. "Well, I'm sorry to
see you in durance vile." She waved to the room. "I'll try to get you
on a work crew soon," she promised.

Tara nodded. "I was thinking
about trying my hand at engineering, but I'm not sure I have the
patience," she said, uncertain.

"Well, let me see if I can
work some magic on that tank and make it a little more bearable in here,"
Jennie commented, going over to study the tank.

"Please," Tara sighed.

Jennie grunted as she tugged at
the seal. "This thing is stuck." She grumbled as the pulled at the
seal. "Can you give me a hand?" She turned to Tara who was finishing
a potato.

"Sure, give me a sec,"
Tara said, glad of the break. She tossed the potato into a pot then got up
wiping her hands on her apron. "Don't know why I'm bothering cleaning up,
just gonna get dirty again," she grumbled. She looked over the pot.

"It stinks closer up. Wow!
What is that rot? Rank!" Tara said.

Jennie shrugged. "Sewage.
The engineer said to check with the sensors before cracking the seal, but why
bother? It'll just say it stinks," she said wrinkling her nose. She
regretted not having a mask. She banged on the seal with a screwdriver and
mallet. "All right, that loosened it,” she said.

“So what do you need me
for?" Tara teased.

"Well, I'll pass you the
parts as I take them off. Here, here's the seal," she grunted as it came
off. With a hiss the top loosened then gunk began to bubble out.

"Oh gross!" Tara said.
"Stinks too!" She grabbed the seal then stepped back.

Jennie faltered and coughed.
"I don't feel so good."

Tara looked up to her in alarm.
"What's wrong, your face is blue!"

Jennie crumpled. "Oh
crap!" Tara cried, pulling her apron up over her mouth and nose. She
grabbed Jennie's arm and tugged. Her eyes watered. She yanked the girl down and
onto her shoulder then got out of there. She slapped the hatch closed behind
her then sealed it. In the distance she could hear an alarm klaxon.

Her head was pounding. She felt
weak, like she had run laps around the ship. She tried to carry Jennie away
from the hatch but faltered then collapsed. The engineer came at a run.
"Shit. Get them to sickbay fast," he ordered, taking the look of them
in with a practiced eye in a single glance. He looked up. "Medical
emergency deck three galley! Hypoxia and poison gas exposure, one severe, one
moderate. Get a medical team here stat!" he growled. He turned around and
found the emergency breathing kit and yanked it off the wall.

"Breath," he ordered.
He held the first mask over Tara's face. Oxygen blasted into her face, at
positive pressure it forced its way into her lungs. "Good, again," he
ordered as her chest heaved. He fumbled the second mask over Jennie's head.

A crew member came pounding up.
"What's going on? What happened?" she asked. He waved her back.

"Poison gas. Tell the ops
officer to get that compartment's life support shut down and get the gas
filtered out fast," he ordered. He pulled Jennie off Tara's shoulder and
carried her out past Cookie and a scullery maid. "Everyone out now,"
he ordered. He waved his head. "Get Tara out of there,” he called back. He
laid Jennie down and checked her pulse.

"Shit no pulse," he
snarled. He slammed her chest, and then instituted CPR.

"What are you doing to
her?" The maid said alarmed.

 "One... Two... Three.. come
on kid, breathe!" he yelled as he pumped her chest with his hands. He
checked for a pulse. "No pulse. Going to have to defib," he said. He
yanked her coverall open, ripping the seam, exposing her chest. The women's
gasps were distant unimportant things.

Tara laid down next to her.
"Can I help?" she asked blearily.

He shook his head. "No, get
back." He set his right hand over Jennie's heart and looked up.
"CLEAR!" he ordered, sending the mental signal.

Proteus fed an electric pulse
into his palm then into her chest. "No pulse, heartbeat erratic
Admiral," Sprite reported.

"Again. Amp it up. CLEAR!"

He glared as the maid tried to
grab her clothes. "I said CLEAR!" He slapped her hands away with his
left hand. She moved back. The zap made her body jerk and quiver.

"What are you doing?"
Tara asked.

"Trying to restart her
heart," he growled. He checked her over.

"Heartbeat detected
Admiral... Pulse is weak. BP is low. Toxins are being emitted from her body and
clothes," Proteus reported.

He sighed in relief. "Okay,
she has a pulse, but it's weak,” he said.

He looked over to Tara. "She
was checking the tank that was leaking and popped the seal, she just
fainted," she said.

He grimaced. "I saw it once
before on a station. They said it was toxic waste," Tara said. She
grimaced through the clear mask.

He sighed. "I take it she
didn't check her sensors?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I think
she was going to when the top was off," she said.

He grimaced and looked the girl
over. "Talk about learning the hard way," he said. He shook his head
as the nurse came running up, the doctor behind her. "Toxic gas
exposure," he explained, stepping back.

He moved back as the nurse moved
in. He watched as the two set in to check Jennie over, changing the emergency
mask for the paramedic version. The doctor checked the readout and blanched.
"Damn, what a stew! She's lucky to be alive," he said. He gave Tara
look. She waved as she breathed through the mask.

He handed her another. "Keep
breathing the pure O2," he ordered her. A pair of girls dressed in
paramedic coveralls arrived carrying litters. The corridor was getting crowded.

The engineer moved back a little
and linked in. "Sprite kill the klaxon," he ordered. He sighed in
relief as the jarring sounds quit. "Open a channel to the bridge," he
said.

"Captain, this is the
Admiral, Jennie and Tara was exposed to sewage chemicals and had a bad
reaction, doc and the nurses are on scene."

He waited for a moment. "Are
they okay?" the Captain finally asked.

He grimaced. "No. Tara is
ambulatory and alert, but Jennie got a full face of it. There's some skin,
lung, and toxic damage. The doctor will have his hands full," Irons
explained. The doctor grunted, and didn't look up.

"Get me a report when things
settle down," the captain ordered.

He nodded as she cut the channel
on her end. He looked over to see the passage filled with people. "All
right people, time to get out of here and back to your stations, this air is
contaminated. Let's give the doctor room to work and the girl’s room to
breathe," he ordered. The guards normally with him were just as bad as the
other looky loos.

He waved to them. A few
reluctantly turned and left, a few moved a bit slower, taking looks over their
shoulders and murmuring. He grimaced again. The med team had both girls on the
litters. Tara protested but the doctor put his hand on her shoulder to restrain
her. "Tara there could be lingering effects, the less you move the less it
will get into your bloodstream," the doctor said. He looked worried. The
first team was already moving off with Jennie.

"Make a hole!" The lead
girl called to the looky loos ahead. The nurse followed, carrying the pack and
IV.

"Jennie, whatever possessed
you to pop a seal when you knew better?" the Captain demanded. She was
standing at her bedside holding her hand. Tara had left after a cursory exam.

"Sorry ma'am," Jennie
slurred. She was bandaged, with an oxygen mask muffling her rough voice.
"No talking I said!" the pixie like nurse came up eyebrows knit. She
waggled a finger at the patient then the Captain. "She has severe damage
to her larynx and esophagus, not to mention soft tissue damage to her mouth,
lips, face, and gums."

The Captain patted her leg.
Jennie let tears slip under her bandages. "We'll get her into a Regen tank
in a little bit. We have Kendra in there now after that plasma burst two days
ago,” Mindy said. “Don't worry, it won’t mess your face up!" the nurse
cooed, patting her hand. She checked the read outs then flounced off.

"Sometimes I wonder about
that girl," the Captain muttered. She sighed. "All right Jennie, get
some rest. I think you've learned a valuable lesson, and been punished enough.
I'll see you at dinner tomorrow," she said. She patted the girls hand as
she weakly nodded.

"That was a really stupid
thing to do," The Admiral glared. Jennie ducked her head and muttered a
sorry. He grimaced. "Talk about a grizzly lesson to the life support
techs. You could've been killed." That ended with a growl. "Or killed
others," he said with another grimace before relenting. "All right,
let’s see if we can get this life support fixed. Or do you want to work on
something else?" he asked. He was unsure if she was ready to get back in
the saddle yet. She looked up. Tears sparkled in her eyes.

Her skin was smooth; a dip in the
Regen tank cleared away a lot of skin damage. "I think I can handle
it," she said, voice still rough.

He nodded. "I think we'll
start with the hardware first." He led her down the corridor to a work
station. A pair of techs were there. "Ladies," he nodded to them.
"Okay, pop quiz. What's this?" he pointed to a graph.

"Ammonia," one of the
techs said, looking at him like he had asked a stupid question.

“Got it. Why is it important to
monitor?" he asked. She looked confused. He turned to the other tech who
also looked confused. Then Jennie.

Jennie shrugged. "It's used
in the garden, and is a byproduct of solid waste," she answered.

He nodded. "Yes, but it's
also a poison," he said. She paled. "Mix this with the wrong
ingredients like bleach, and it gets nasty," he said with a grimace.

"One of humanities first
weapons of mass destruction was that gunk," he said. He tapped the
monitor. The girls looked at the readout.

"And we have a ton of it?"
The first white haired tech asked, paling.

"Yes, we do. That's just
this deck, and it's a bit high," he said. He shook his head.

“Three... two... one... Downward
translation complete, we have breakout in the Proxima system!” Lessa reported
triumphantly. It had taken them less then two months to make the journey.

The Captain smiled and nodded.
“Good, good, do we have any news from our sensors yet?” she asked. She looked
over to the sensor tech.

“Nothing on neutrino or the
tachyon detectors Captain,” she frowned at her plot. “Wait, I'm getting a faint
source from the planet, two of them. Most likely a fusion reactor.”

The Captain nodded sagely. “Yes,
well, we all knew they were more advanced than the other colonies, their
ancestors must have converted a reactor or two to work for them before the
fall,” she said. She sat back watching the bridge crew.

“Captain, inner system course
plotted, ready to execute on your command,” Lessa said.

“Well, that was certainly fast,”
she said with a small smile of approval. She gave Lessa an approving nod. “Make
it so helm,” she nodded to Shandra.

“Now we can get those smelly
animals out of my ship,” the Captain muttered.

“Here here!” the chief replied
softly

The Captain looked up to her
granddaughter and smiled. “Don't get too anxious; we still have several days
before we get there.”

“Well, actually Captain, we have
three days before we make orbit,” Lessa turned nodding to the Captain with a
small smile.

 “Only three days? My my, we have
come a long way,” the captain murmured and then nodded. “I seem to recall
taking weeks in subspace, now only three days?”

“It'll be a lot shorter after the
next round of repairs Captain. We have to rebuild the thruster cone on the port
side. Once we do that and some other repairs...” Shandra pulled herself out the
tank and pulled her goggles up. “We'll be the fastest thing in the universe,”
she grinned. “In or out of hyper.”

The Captain chuckled. “Well, we
have three days to orbit; I suggest we make the best use of that time. I'm only
planning a week in orbit,” she said. Shandra nodded as she pulled herself out
of the tank.

“I'm going to fly one of the
shuttles to grab as many asteroids as we can. I can't believe I got talked into
letting Hibiki ride shotgun with me,” she said wrinkling her nose. She shook
her head.

One of the girls giggled. “Well,
I think he'd prefer you over Dorah!” someone else laughed. The chief scowled.
“As you were,” she growled.

“All right, get on it. I want the
unloading expedited as well,” the captain ordered. She sighed. “Goddess knows
we've been burning through fuel. We may soak the reserves just buying more.”

Kendra looked up and shook her
head. “Not really Captain, the Admiral's going to lasso an ice ball for us to
mine,” she informed her.

The Captain looked up. “An ice
ball?”

“Comet.”

“Oh.” Her eyebrows beetled
together. “Now how's he going to do that?”  she asked thoughtfully.

“Very carefully as I understand
it,” Shandra replied, exiting the bridge with a parting grin.

"Things are looking up; we
have a complete ship for once," Jennie looked excited. "I mean, every
deck is solid now, no leaks, and no breached sections. We even have a couple
full cargo holds that we didn't before!" She smiled to Molly who nodded.