New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (28 page)

He checked back in with the class
after a couple hours. Rodriguez and Jennie looked up as the hatch opened.
"How's it going?" he asked, followed by the guards.

They nodded. "Good so far,
we're through the basic suit orientation, about to go to the next step,"
Rodriguez reported as she checked over her own suit. "I like these suits,
I'm glad you replicated them," she said with a grin. He nodded. "The
ones we have at the Pyrax station were modular types that smelled like sweat. I
had one that the legs were too long and covered in patches. My mom said I'd
grow into it," she said as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. He chuckled,
surveying the class.

They were suited up and looking
confident. "Okay ladies, we're going to try an exercise before we actually
go outside." He held up the holographic projector. "We're going to
get you acquainted to space without going outside," he said. More then one
person couldn't hack the black, it was best to learn that here in the ship
rather then outside.

Rodriguez nodded in sudden
understanding. "OH, good idea."

Jennie cocked her head.
"Hologram?" she asked. He nodded. He put the holographic projector in
the center of the room then motioned the guards out.

Xena balked. "I can handle
it," she said stubbornly. He just looked at her. After a moment she
dropped her defiant gaze and led her partner out. "We'll be right
outside," she said.

He grimaced and then turned to
the class. "Okay, in a moment we're going to project a space field in this
room so you can see what it will be like in space." He nodded to
Rodriguez.

"All right, listen up! Step
one!" she ordered, looking around the room. They checked their seals and
then each others. "Step two?" They turned and checked their partners,
then gave thumbs ups. She nodded. "Step three!" They checked their
safety lines.

She nodded to Jennie who had
positioned herself by the light controls. "Let’s do this," she said.
The lights dimmed and the hologram came up. In a moment the room was filled
with black, then stars.

"Oh my god it's so
dark!" one of the girls called, voice quavering.  The lights hadn't gone
completely out yet, not a good sign.

"Turn your lights on,"
Jennie called, putting words to action by flipping hers on.

Some of the girls around her
gasped at the light. "WOW!" One by one they turned the suit lights
on.

The engineer nodded. "All
right, we're going to give you a moment to get used to this, and then we're
going to cut the gravity," he said. One of the girls squeaked.

"Why don't we give them a
floor so they can orient for the first exercise?" Sprite said to him. He
nodded.

"Ship's skin?" he
suggested.

"You got it Admiral."
The floor wavered a moment, then the exterior hull of the ship formed.

"All right Jennie." In
a moment he felt the sensation of floating. "Remember; check your safety
lines, and those of your partner." They moved around, checking each other.
His enhanced vision picked them out, watching them fumble a little. He was
still classifying the fast learners with the slow, narrowing the list. Once he
was sure he would put the fast learners on the more difficult tasks, while
letting the slow ones build up with basic ones like fetch and carry.

"For your first few space
walks you’re going to do orientation exercises and survey work. We want you to
get used to being in space, and build the skills up to be comfortable working
in it," Irons said. Sprite had enough initiative to take a cue and run
with it. The floor image changed to an airlock and surrounding area. "All
right, when we come out, this is something like what it'll look like. We'll
move from here down the side of the ship to the stern. There'll be a shuttle
out in case of a Dutchman," he said. Diedra didn't have any qualms about
that. A few of the girls sighed at this. He took it as relief.

They could see the exterior of
the ship, and the burnt and buckled hull. "Is that what the ship looks
like?" one of the girl's asked.

"How are we supposed to fix
all that?" one of the other girls asked in dismay.

"One thing at a time. That's
the only way to do it. Prioritize what we need to fix, and then work on the
list, one item at a time. Besides, we have twenty people here, so we can break
down into teams and do three to four jobs for each mission." The
projection changed to the starboard sub light engine pod. "There are four
sub light engines, two of which are working. Now this run we're going to do
some minor repairs on this engine, and repair as many shield nodes as we have
time for."

He pointed to the ovoid sticking
out of the side of the hull. "Those are the shield nodes." He took a
moment to look around, noting that all the girls had reorientated to face the
ship. Good, less fear of the black if they focused on the mission. "Okay,
over to the starboard side of this shield node is a hull breach we can patch as
well." He closed the channel for a moment. "Sprite, feed them a karat
of things I indicate on their HUDs," he said, and then moved closer to the
hull. "As you can see, there are clips on the hull for us to clip
onto."

They spent the next two hours
going over the basics before he called a halt and they floated down to the
surface. A few had trouble orienting their OMS packs, but caught on after a
while.

"All right, get some food
and some rest. Tomorrow at 0700 we will all have breakfast, then get suited up
and do the first walk," he said to his tired but happy crew. The lights
cleared and the hologram shut off.

"Why not now?" one of
the girls asked sounding a little disappointed.

Rodriguez smiled. "Unlike
some of you, I'm tired and hungry!" A few waved off, not wanting to eat
since their stomachs were still unsettled.

"What if we have to go to
the bathroom out there?" one of the girls asked timidly.

He snorted and looked over to
Jennie, “Didn't you brief them on that?” he asked. She nodded, clearly
irritated. He turned back to the girl. "Then you go. OR you can try to
hold it. If you go, your suit will handle it." She gulped. "We'll
have teams and missions posted on the ship network later tonight."

A few of the girls looked up at
this. Rodriguez watched them as they unsuited and racked the gear. "Make
sure you put your suit back properly, and plug it in,” she ordered.

"Yes boss,” one of the girls
called over. Another started to walk away, then stopped and went back and
checked. She blushed then plugged the suit connections in.

"Good."

After the class had left the
remainder came in, led by Robin. Jennie nodded. "Here we go again,"
Rodriguez said softly.

He snorted. "Good
luck."

 She stopped him with a hand on
his arm. "Why don't you stick around?"

He snorted again. "I don't
think I'd be welcome when it comes time to undress and make the um... plumbing
connections."

Rodriguez blushed and took her
hand away. "Good point," she said.

He snorted. "Besides, Molly
wants a report, and I need to check the Dutchman exercise, the rebuild of
replicator three, and the electronics replicator is about to finish a shield
node computer module." Jennie looked excited. "Think we can get into
Beta?"  she asked. He nodded.

"We're going to shoot for
it. I know the Captain only wants to be here a week so we have only a narrow
window to work on the hull," he replied. He really didn't want to be out
on the hull with greenhorns while underway. She nodded. "You're going to
take charge of the shield node repairs once I know you can hack it," he
said to her as he turned to Rodriquez.

 "You’re going to work on
repairing the hull breaches," he told Rodriguez.

She sucked in a breath.
"Great, jagged pieces of metal in vacuum and babysitting greenhorns. Just
what I wanted to do for fun," she growled. Robin came over.

"Robin, you’re going to be
our safety officer, you’re going to keep an eye on everyone and make sure they
follow the procedures and check in on time," he said. She nodded.

“The others will be team leaders
doing survey work and doing minor repairs," he said. He motioned to them.
"Most of this class will be doing fetch and carry work for the first
couple of walks."

"Weeeee!!" One of the
girls called, spinning off.

"KNOCK it off! Sandy get
back here!" a few of the girls called out.

"STOW IT! This is
SERIOUS!" Rodriguez called, stepping on all of them. The channel went
quiet. "Get your pretty butts in line with the program or get back inside.
This isn't a joy ride, it's a job." She turned as the next group came out.
The engineer had already taken his team out and aft.

They could just make out the glow
from their lights. "We're going there?" one of the girls squeaked.

"What were you sleeping
yesterday?" one of the other's sarcasm was cutting.

"No, but it looks a whole
lot bigger out here now," she said with a slight tremor in her voice. She
looked around nervously. She tried to gesture and went into a tumble. Her
partner reeled her in slowly.

"Knock it off you two, we
need to get clear of the lock and to our site," Rodriguez called.
"Why me?" she muttered. A few of the girls stifled giggles at that.
"The first hole is twenty meters aft and three meters down. Right about...
here." Her jets pulsed and she came to a stop. A second pulse and she
drifted down to the deck. She unclipped her safety line and attached it to a
nearby clip. "All right, clip in here; watch that you don't foul each
other's safety lines."

She knelt carefully near the edge
of the hole. One of the girls whistled. "Nasty," she said.

The edges were charred and curled
up. Rodriguez pulled out a plasma cutter and checked it. "All right, I'm
going to cut each piece, then hand it to you Sally. Mary, take your tool and
start on the other side," she ordered. She motioned to Mary, who was
already moving. "The rest of you spread out and look for more holes."
She bent and got to work.

"How are things going?"
the Admiral called over the net an hour later.

Rodriguez looked up. "Almost
finished with this hole. I called the specs in, but it'll be a while before the
list gets down to it," she reported. He double clicked assent. "How's
your team?" she asked as she looked around. "So far they've found
small holes all around this one, it looks like a plasma hit from the last
battle. The spray did a number here," she said. He grunted.

"How's it on your end?"
she asked. He paused for a moment. "Jennie's emitter has an impedance
problem; it looks like a rebuild is in order. We'll have to detach it and bring
it into the ship to do that. Mine had a breach; it looks like an overripe melon
that burst, going to need a replacement," he replied. She pulled at the
last piece, then when it broke free, carefully stowed it in her bag.

"What about the
others?" she asked.

"I checked in a moment ago,
Robin said they're doing okay, they've surveyed a three hundred meter radius
around the lock. There are a lot of hull breaches, and a few places where
entire hull sections are missing," he said.

She sighed. "Held together
with bubble gum and rigger tape," she grumbled.

He chuckled. "I didn't know
that expression survived to this time."

She smiled. "Family saying I
guess."

"All right, when you finish
up, take a quick peek at the others then call in to see if they have the
patches done. Jennie has her pod detached and on the way to the boat bay
now." She looked over and caught the moving lights.

"I take it the pod is too
big for the lock?" she asked. He double clicked. "Roger that."

"Well, Mary and I are done
here; we'll go check on the green horns."

"The hull here's all
bubbled, what happened?" He looked up from the stuck bolt and around.
Sprite automatically fed a karat to his HUD, circling the caller. She was out
of sight.

"And who is calling?"
he said, exasperated. Sprite blinked the caller’s name, but he ignored it.
"Sorry, this is Nancy. I'm at um; frame four starboard near the keel
shield emitter. I found a patch of hull that looks bubbled."

He looked over to where she was.
"Be careful, don't let anyone near it. Make sure your camera is recording
and your lights are oriented to see it properly," he ordered. Nancy double
clicked. "All right, douse the lights, and switch the camera to thermal
and check again."

"Roger."

He waited a moment. "Scan it
twice, and then slug the files to Molly inside."

"Roger."

After a moment the channel
cleared and Molly came on. "What am I looking at here?" she asked on
a private line.

"Have the computer overlay
the thermal image with the visual, are there any hot spots?" he asked. He
waited a moment.

"By hot spots you mean
bright white glowing areas? Then yes, there's one near each bubble."

He closed the channel.
"Sprite get me that work party now!"

"Nancy, pull your team back
at least twenty meters or better NOW!" he snarled.

He heard scrambling and clicking
noises. "Why?" he heard noises. "It's bubbling more..."
"Nancy...” Molly called on the same channel, voice picking up as the urgency
registered.

"We're going, we're going...
WOW!" They could hear static for a moment.

"This is Gena; there was a
bright flash and plume near Nancy's position." He looked up and caught the
edge of it near the horizon of the ship's skin. He began to move in that
direction, unhooking the line.

"Sprite, get me a status
report," he ordered. Sprite pulled up a feed.

"I am getting a lot of
interference with team Nancy and team Gena. Plasma burst?" she asked
unnecessarily.

He nodded. "It must have
breached under the skin and bubbled, building up pressure until it popped like
a pimple when someone stepped near it." She fed him the video Nancy had
sent in a window on his HUD. He bounced along the hull, moving with practiced
ease.