New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (6 page)

Jennie nodded in understanding.
"And the ODN cables only carry light so they're tiny and don't need as
much space."

He nodded. "That's right.
Each computer system has its own redundant network, communications, navigation,
engineering, and so on," he said highlighted each.

"But each can also share in
the other networks if their own goes down. But there is a loss in
bandwidth."  He ran a scenario showing this. Graphs of usage popped up.

Molly looked them over and
nodded. "And that's what's happening now?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yes, we have a lot of
systems out because of damage to the power conduits or optical network, so some
systems have to be rerouted or do not run at all." He highlighted the
affected areas. "Now, if we can patch in new conduits and cables, we can
repair some of the less damaged systems, and the ship will be able to adapt
better."

Jennie nodded. "Okay, I get
that, but what about this? And how do we get the materials?" she asked.

He looked over to where she was
pointing. "That's a broken conduit to a trio of shield emitters on the
port side. Once we fix the line, those shield nodes may come back on line,
allowing the shields to balance better, and taking some of the excess load off
of the other nodes."

She nodded. "And the
material?" she asked. He sighed.

"Well, ODN cable is easy, it
is extruded plastic. We can get a lot from recycling," he explained.

Molly nodded. "I saw that
you’re making spools of it," she said.

He nodded. "Yes, and we'll
have to have some crew do the splicing for the connections."

She sighed. "Is it
hard?" she asked.

He shook his head. “No just
tedious,” he said. She grimaced.

"Okay, I'll get Misha and
Dorah on it," she said coming to a reluctant decision.

He nodded. "Okay, the
conduit is a bit trickier. We'll have to shut down the leaking sections,
isolate them, then remove the damaged or destroyed conduit and recycle it or
rebuild it," he sighed. What he was describing was a lot of work.
"It'll take time, plasma is nasty, and can be radioactive." Some of
the women shuddered at that.

"Unfortunately,
superconductors have an impedance issue; they shut down after they are used for
a time under load and need to be replaced," he said patiently.

Molly looked up from her tablet.
"Is that why they fail?"

He nodded. "Well, that's one
reason," he admitted.

She nods. "So, we'll need to
recycle some of it, and rebuild as much as we can." 

He pointed to the antimatter
lines. “Since these aren't needed, we can recycle them for now,” he said. Molly
nodded.

"What about these other
lines?" Trisha asks, pointing to them. Sprite highlighted them.

"Oh, those are the other
systems. Coolant, water, sewage, air conditioning..." He pointed to them,
one by one.

Jennie nods and slaps the table.
"When do we start?" Some of the others jump up excitedly. The Admiral
handed each of them a tablet.

"Wow! There is so much to
do!" Molly looked at the list dismayed.

"That's just page one. There
is a lot more," Jennie pointed out, touching the top button to scroll to
the next page.

"A hundred pages? How are we
ever going to get through all that?" Molly practically screeched.
"One thing at a time," the Admiral replied with a chuckle. "That
is how we do things; we prioritize, and then work through the list, one at a
time."

Jennie nodded as Molly frowned,
clearly uncertain. "And we won’t do everything on our own, and the entire
crew will help, and learn as we go,” Jennie said. She waved to some of the crew
nearby who nodded. Some looked eager, a few wary.

"Still, that's a lot of
work!" Molly waved the tablet. "We don’t have parts for all
that!" She waved. "And I don't even know what half these things
are?" she sighed.

The Admiral snorted. "You'll
learn. What we don't have we will make."

She looked up surprised and then
smiled. "I forgot about the replicator!"

He nodded. "And we have
others to fix too."

She looked stunned. "I
forgot about those too!" She turned to the crew. "Come on people! We
can do this!" She waved the tablet up in the air. The crew cheered.

"Okay, let’s start small,
with some basics so I can assess your skills and set a learning curve...” the
Admiral said as the cheers began to fade. "Trisha, you’re into life
support, so I want you to handle that starting with the most critical things.
Jennie will handle computers." He nodded to her. "Um, Shakira?"
You're on lights and electrical with um... Jordan right?" Sprite was
rather helpful with names hovering on his HUD over each person.  The AI must
have picked up the names from hearing conversation.

The girl nodded.
"Right."

"Okay, ladies, let's get
started."

"Well well, it looks like
you've been promoted. Congratulations FLEET Admiral." Sprite's voice was
bubbly, with a hint of suppressed mirth.

"What?" He turned his
attention inward. "Show me," he growled. She pulled up the fleet
records from the ship's deep files, scrolled through them to his name and
highlighted.

"MIA, Fleet Admiral. Nice.
It looks like you were promoted when you were MIA for a year." Sprite
pulled up his bio. It was a thumbnail brief, enough to identify him on a fleet
ship with a brief look at his career.

"Huh," he grunted. 

"I bet it was the
bureaucrats, giving you a send off for propaganda purposes," Sprite
commented, clearing the record.

"Probably," he replied
with a snort.

"The... what do you call
it...? A roster?" Molly asked, wrinkling her nose.  They were in her
office going over things.

He nodded. "The roster looks
good. I think we have a lot of the bases covered." She looked confused for
a moment. He smiled.

"Where does that saying come
from?" Molly asked him suddenly, adjusting her glasses.

 He chuckled. "Baseball, an
old sport. Pre-spaceflight I believe," he said.

She nodded. "Oh. Well, life
support is completely covered, but we're light in some of the other departments
like drives and electronics." She shook her head. "Life support is
shaping up, but then again, we had that one covered before." He nodded but
wisely kept his council on whether it had been handled right.

"The roster has to have
three to four shifts. But we need to keep a day and night cycle so the normal
biorhythms aren't affected negatively," he explained.

He looked up from the tablet to
see Molly and Jennie exchange looks. "Biorhythms? Day night cycle?"
Molly wrinkled her nose.

Jennie shrugged. "I think he
means we need to keep to a daytime nighttime schedule so it doesn't mess up
sleep," she said. Molly nodded then turned to the Admiral.

He snorted. "Pretty much. We
learned before space flight that even ships needs a day and night routine, some
semblance of order to keep the body’s clock working right. Plants need it as
well."

Trisha looked up from reading her
tablet and snapped her fingers. "That's why the Gardener shuts the lights
off for a shift!"

He nodded. "Right, too much
sunlight can kill a plant. They need down time to process things." Molly
nodded. "Okay, so two normal shifts, morning and afternoon, and one
night?"

He nodded. "A night shift is
called a graveyard shift."

Jennie wrinkled her nose.
"Graveyard?"

He shrugged. "That was when
graves were dug."

Trisha shivered. "Ew, can we
call it something else?"

Molly shrugged. "Okay, so
I'll take first shift, Jennie, you’re on second, and let’s see... She looked at
the tablet then at Trisha.

"Don't look at me! I like my
beauty sleep!" Trisha put her hands out to ward her off.

"I was going to suggest
Keisha," Molly adjusted her glasses.

"Oh, Keisha? Yeah, she might
work." Then Trisha thought for a moment. "Hey, wait, why didn't you
want me?" She accused.

Molly sighed. "There's no
pleasing everybody," she said rolling her eyes. The Admiral chuckled.

“So, where do you get your
parts?” The Admiral asked as he sat back studying the girls.

“Well, we have a machine shop on
deck six, but if we needed something fabricated we had to wait until we could
reach Pyrax,” Molly said. Molly shook her head, frowning at her tablet. She
tapped in a command, and then looked up. “The best they could do was basic
stuff, mechanical parts, cables, or electric motors, nothing complex or
electronic,” she sighed.

“They charged a bloody fortune,
even when we provided the materials,” Jen snarled, shaking her head. “Damn rip
off if you ask me, they're no better than the pirates,” she sighed as Molly and
the Admiral gave her a long look. “Well, they are.”

"Molly, is there a problem
with the heat exchangers on deck one?" Molly and the Admiral looked up as
the doctor came in, hands in his pockets. "I'm getting reports of heat
exhaustion."  The man had long black hair and was wearing a trademark
white medical smock.

Molly went over to a life support
console. "What's going on over there?" she asked, suddenly waving her
arms. "No, this isn't right; it is dumping excess heat up there!"

The Admiral looked alarmed.
"Too much heat and it could fry the electronics." He started for the
door.

"Not to mention the crew on
the bridge." The doctor observed.

"It's more than that doc, if
the electronics on the bridge fry, we're dead," the Admiral said over his
shoulder.

The doctor froze. "Okay, not
good."

Molly grabbed a kit. "Come
on!" They ran through the corridors, guard escort following. "Get out
of the way, make a hole will ya!" Molly called ahead. Crew members
flattened themselves to the bulkheads. "Move!" Molly elbowed a girl
aside.

She snarled something but Molly
was already past. "This is an emergency, get out of the way!" They
got to the life support compartment for deck one and swore as a pair of women
were sitting nearby drinking water. "What are you two doing? Molly
demanded.

"Oh, sorry Molly we ran into
a problem, it got really hot so we took a break," the girl said. Molly
looked inside and then reared back. "Don't go in there, it's
sweltering!" One girl was dripping in sweat.

"I can see that!" Molly
slapped the door jam. "What did you do?" she demanded as she whirled.
"Oh um, ah, we..." the first girl said. The doctor was leaning over
the second examining her.

"We don't know." The
second croaked.

"I think we need to get them
to sickbay," he said quietly. "Dehydration, this young lady has
stopped sweating, not good."

He took her pulse with one hand
while the other fished out a med scanner. "I can't get in, whatever they
did it is hardware, not software, and I can't fix it out here," the
Admiral said suddenly.

Molly looked over to him and
nodded grimly. "So, what do we do? Brave the furnace?" She waved to
the door.

"I have an idea," he
said as he turned to the guard.

"Get someone to get me my
suit and another for Molly fast. Mine is in Molly's office." The guard,
Tara obeyed, calling in on the communicator. "Molly stay clear of the
door. Doc, get your patients out of here." He turned to Tara. "Tara,
get everyone out who is not important." She nodded and began to make
calls. "Molly, get someone in life support to reroute the cool air to this
deck, it may help."

She scowled. "That's like
putting a band aid on a broken leg!" she said. He nodded.

"Every little bit helps
though." He turned to Tara. "I'm going in, when the suits get here
have Molly suit up." He rushed past Molly into the room before she could
protest. He shut the door behind him. "Okay..." The heat was
stifling, over one hundred fifty degrees on his HUD...and climbing a few
degrees every second. "Ideas Proteus? Anyone?"

 Proteus highlighted the heat
exchange. He checked it over. "Well, this is not good. Every single one is
in backward!" He sighed and reached for the first.

"Careful hot!" Sprite
warned. He paused, then clenched his left fist and brought it to his side.
"Thanks." He concentrated and sent a neural command to cut his right
hand's pain receptors. "Okay, let’s try this again."

Beads of sweat were on his face,
his coverall was soaked. Salt stung his eyes. "Next time head band or
suit." He pulled the retaining clips off, and then pulled at the exchange.
"No good, they jammed it in." He turned and used his left hand to get
the rubber mallet out of a nearby kit. "Damn, hot." There was no use,
he had to use it. He tapped the exchanger, then harder and harder until it
dislodged. "That's one," he said.

"Admiral, your core temp is
one oh three and rising; you’re in risk of overheating," Proteus reported.

He sighed. "Yeah, I
know." He removed the retaining clips for the next two exchangers, and
then whacked them out. "Whack the heat exchange. Beats whack a mole,”
Sprite commented. "We can't use shields; you need to use your hands after
all. Temperature is rising fast. "

He slammed the next one.
"Don't you think I know that? I can read my own HUD!" He unclipped a
stubborn retaining clip then tried again. He noted the shredded coolant lines
on the deck. The door opened and Molly came in in a patched suit. "How bad
is it?" she asked.

He grunted. "Just about as
bad as it could be. They hot wired a few things backwards, burning them out,
and put these in all backward," he explained. He pulled at another clip.

"Admiral, let me do that,
you go get a drink and get into your suit." She took the hammer from him.

"Okay, but watch it, it's
hot." He stepped back and out the hatch.

"Here Admiral," Tara
said as she handed him a drink. He realized  the temperature was only twenty
degrees cooler out in the corridor.