New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (55 page)

She looked up and smiled a tight
lipped smile. “That so?” She looked at Molly and Jennie.

Molly eagerly nodded. “Yes Miss
Taki, we can make better fuel now, so we can have more power!” She bounced in
her seat.

Jennie was a bit more subdued.
“There'll be some new protocols in handling, and procedures to work out and
practice,” Jennie said. She nodded to Taki.

Taki nodded back. “Good to hear.
All right, when you get the hardware sorted out, let me know,” she said. She
nodded to the class, then the engineer and left.

He checked the port injector
feed. "Is it still sticking Admiral?" Jennie asked from her console.

He nodded. "By .01milimeters
it seems, usually it stutters. Might be a frozen servo..." he hummed as he
looked over the schematic. "No, from the looks of this, it might be a torn
gear, or ice," he said and then nodded. "Going to take a full rebuild
I bet."

She nodded. "I see we have
some new robots...”

He nodded. "They're designed
to work in the core to make repairs from the inside."

Her eyes widened at that.
"Rodriquez said something about that at anvil in Pyrax, can we control
them?" she asked. He nodded and held up a pair of virtual goggles.

"They're not as effective as
an implant feed, but they should work," he explained. She looked them
over. "The glasses read your neural impulses with this lace of wires along
the rim and around the ears and translate it into movement commands. It takes
practice to use."

She nodded. "So, is there
some sort of simulator?"

He shook his head.
"Unfortunately, no, not yet, I need to make one."

Sprite made a rude noise.
"You mean me right?"

He shrugged. "It's going to
take time," he said. He ignored Sprite.

"All right, what about the
fuel line to the starboard injector? We've had to splice it twice..."

He looked it over. "Yeah, I
see it, and there's a leak too."

She looked it over. "There
is?"

He pointed. "Right there,
pinhole leak. See the gouge in the deck? The hydrogen is spraying under
pressure, cutting into it."

She looked. "I can't, oh
wait. Damn. Okay, I see it. Another patch job?"

He shook his head. "No, we
need to replace the line; it's frayed and patched too much as it is." She
looked it over. "But we can't do it with the stuck injector on the port
side."

He nodded. "Right, we're
going to have to fabricate the parts for a new injector, shut down that feed,
drain it, and then break it down and swap the parts for the new," he
explained.

She looked it over.
"Okay."

He nodded. "I know, it
sounds like a lot, and it is, but it'll be worth it," he said.

She nodded. "Okay. What were
you saying about excess neutrons?" she asked.

He sighed. "Well, with raw
hydrogen as the fuel source the reactor is running at twenty percent
efficiency."

She looked it over. "Twenty
percent?" she asked. He nodded. "What happens to the other
eighty?" She asked brows knit as she frowned and looked at a tablet.

"Well, the other eighty
percent are neutrons. They bounce around, irradiating the inside of the
reactor," he explained. She looked alarmed. He nodded.

"Yes it's as bad as you
think. We're looking at a re-core or complete replacement. So far I've been
doing minor stuff, tune ups and minor repairs, but now we can do it
right," he said.

She squirmed. "Is that even
possible?" she asked. He smiled. "Silly me, of course it is."
She muttered then smiled in turn. "Okay, where do we start?"

"I see someone is enjoying
the holographic projection system in the right way..." he teased as he
came into main engineering. He looked over Jennie's shoulder to see a circuit
diagram floating above the desk. "Nice, but it looks like there's a short
in the bounce circuit here..." He reached around her to tap the indicated
area.

"What? Hold on...” She
highlighted the area then zoomed in. "Oh geese, how could I have missed
that!" she sighed sitting back. He chuckled.

"Trying your hand at
advanced diagnostics?" he asked. She nodded wearily. "It's good to
know, but a good engineer learns the basics, and then let's the machinery do
the work for them, then double checks."

She gave him a look. "That's
not what you said earlier."

He shrugged. "You have to
have the fundamentals down first of course, and you need to double check the
work, not follow the program blindly." She nodded.

“Sometimes it's a good idea to
take a step back, take a break, and get a fresh perspective to solve a sticky
problem. Turn it on its head works too, if you can't solve the problem, change
it,” he said. She looked exasperated.

Trisha looked over her to the
hologram. "She still at it?" she demanded. She glanced at the
Admiral. He chuckled as she sighed in exasperation and pretended to strangle
Jennie. "Hours and hours staring at little lines! Ugh!"

Jennie fought her off laughing.
"Look who's talking miss life support."

Trisha chuckled. "Yeah, but
I get air ducts, and scrubbers and heaters, anything electronic broke I send to
you for repair," she said. She ducked as Jennie tossed a towel at her.
"Meanie! Beating up on poor defenseless life support techs!" she
joked. The Admiral laughed with them.

“Lying little trollop,"
Molly sniffed as the minx walked by head high.

The Admiral popped his head up
out of the opening in the floor. "Is she gone?" he asked.

Jennie giggled. "Yup. Oops!
She's coming back." He ducked back down. When Molly called that the coast
was clear again he checked his implants to be sure.

"Sprite keep a track on her,
keep me away from her.,  he ordered. Sprite lit a green light on his HUD.

He looked up out of the hole.
"You sure?"

Molly laughed. "Oh get up
you coward." He sniffed. "Save entire worlds, face down raging Xenos
but afraid of a minx?" Molly demanded.

He stood up. "You betcha,
women are evil," he grinned when she scowled. "Present company
excluded of course," he said hastily.

She chuckled. "Oh, after a
crack like that I wouldn't count us out so fast..." His eyes widened in
mock fear. Jennie giggled.

"Admiral, if I may ask, why
did everything collapse?" a girl asked. He looked over to the girl in the
back. She blushed. "I mean civilization. We have this..." She waved
to indicate she ship.

He nodded. "Good
question," he stalled for a moment, crossing his arms and tucking his chin
into his chest.

"Power Admiral and
replicators," Sprite prompted. He closed his eyes then opened them.
"Civilian power cores need the right kind of fuel," Sprite hinted
again.

He made an O with his mouth.
"Okay." He looked up to the class. "The answer is four fold. The
first are the replicators. They're deliberately limited in what they can do,
and if you try to bypass them they shut down and scramble themselves," he
said. Several of the girls nodded.

"The next is training. The
war took the best percentage of people. It ate them up, either on the battle
field, or when the star systems were destroyed," he explained with a
wince. Some of the girls looked affronted. "No offense to your ancestors,
they were survivors," he added. A few looked relieved.

"And the third?" the
girl in the back prompted.

"Well, the third is
leadership. When most of the central worlds fell, leadership, and a majority of
industry went with them." He tapped the holographic controls to project
the galaxy, then the Federation as it fell. "When they fell the colonies
were on their own," he said quietly.

"And the last?" Molly
asked.

"Power," he said it
simply. "This ship has power in plenty, but that's because it's a military
ship. Military ships have adaptive reactors. That allows them to scrounge for
fuel when they're low." He shrugged. "We can run the reactor on just
about anything, including waste."

One of the girls smiled.
"Let’s try cookies green bean casserole!" The class chuckled at this.

He nodded. "Civilian fusion
reactors can't do that, they were designed to use deuterium and helium 3."
One of the girls raised her hand tentatively. "Yes Misha?"

She put her hand down abruptly.
"Did...” she stopped. "Um, didn't you say in chem class that
deuterium is made from water?" she asked.

He nodded. "Right."

"So, um, couldn't they just
use sea water?"she asked.

He shook his head. "In
theory yes, but you see, most fuel came from space. Stars emit massive quantities
of helium 3 and deuterium, which build up on the Jovian planets, and on airless
moons," he explained.

One of the girls looked confused.
Another leaned over to her and stage whispered. "He means gas
giants," she said.

She nodded. "Oooh."

He smiled. "Right, gas
giants. So when the space industry was smashed..." They began connecting
the dots...

"Fuel was lost..." some
muttered.

He nodded. "Exactly. The
replicators can't make parts for deuterium extraction; deuterium is used to
make bombs among other things," he explained and then grimaced. "So
without fuel, the reactors shut down."

 "But there are solar and
wind power right?" a girl asked.

He nodded. "And
hydroelectric,.” he said. “Each of those don't have a thousandth of a percent
the power ration of a planetary fusion reactor." Some of the girls looked
awed. "They could power a lot of things, and did, if they were still in
good shape. Remember, many of the colonies were flattened and scorched, cities
were nuked, and most of the industry was there," he said. Several nodded.

"The storms that were set
off probably flattened the wind turbines and covered or destroyed the solar
panels. Hydroelectric dams would have been destroyed from space or would have
burst as the climate shifted."

A few of the girls nodded.
"That happened on Airea 3 and Seti Alpha 4."

He nodded. "Right. Without
power the survivors were thrown back into the Stone Age. People with high tech
devices, suddenly tossed back into the Stone Age, with no foreknowledge,"
he sighed, shaking his head.

"What about those with
implants?" a girl asked.

He looked over, face bleak.
"No power," he said. She looked confused.

Molly cut in. "The implants
require power. Some can tap the body’s native ability to make energy, with
thermal or electric collection arrays, but most required a periodic jolt of
power," she explained.

He nodded. "A few like mine
can tap water as well, but for the most part, no power, no life."

"You realize you're spending
more and more time in the classroom? It used to be a couple hours, now it's
half a shift," Molly said as she adjusted her glasses. She seemed amused.
The class had just ended but his usual crowd had lingered.

"Yeah, how come?"
Trisha asked coming up behind Molly, munching an apple. "Not that I'm
complaining or anything."

He chuckled. "Well, it
started as a helping hand, to explain things, but it kind of grew." He
shrugged and thought for a moment.

"Give a man a fish he feeds
his family for a day, teach a man to fish he can feed them for life," he
parsed that out slowly.

The girls looked confused.
"What does that have to do with engineering?"

He smiled. "Old saying. It
means if I just helped you, the ship would be repaired, but after I left things
would slowly break down since you'd only understand limited things. But teach
them to you..."

Molly nodded in excited
understanding. "Oh, I get it!"

Trisha's eyes were wide.
"Yeah."

 He nodded. "And what you've
learned, you can pass on to others," he said. He looked them over,
suddenly serious. "That's my price to you, to teach others what you've
learned so they can grow as well."

Both girls froze, and then nodded
slowly. "Fair enough," Trisha replied, taking another bite.

"I like it," Molly
replied.

"I see you set up a machine
shop for antigrav..." Irons said.

He looked over to Jennie who
nodded. "Some of the girls are really taking to the antigravity theory and
hands on repair. So I asked the Captain and she approved," she said.

He nodded. "Good idea. So
they repair the grav plates and other things?" he asked. She nodded

"Yes, we can now send them
the components and they'll send us a rebuild," she said and then smiled.
"Much more efficient method then rebuilding them on the spot, don't you
agree? I'm working on setting up a similar shop for electronics as well,"
she said.

He smiled as she nodded politely
to him and turned away. "They're learning," he said softly.

"That they are
Admiral," Sprite said voice rich in approval as well.

"So, you’ve been with us for
nearly a year and five stops Admiral, but you haven't gotten off yet, dare I
say you’re going to be with us for a while?" Molly teased as she stirred
her drink idly.

He smiled. "I'll get off when
the work is done...or the Chief will throw me off." He cocked his head to
the two guards.

Jennie sighed. "You'd think
after a year, and all the work you've done they'd get the paranoia out, but
noooo..."

 Molly shook her head. "Ease
up, they're just doing their jobs." She gave the Admiral a guilty look.

He shrugged. "She has a
point Jennie, but then again,” he nodded to Molly, “So does Jennie. I wish they
would find a happy middle ground," he sighed.

Jennie leaned back sipping her
drink. "So, I hear you’re up for the next landfall Molly?" She gave
Molly a long look.

Molly blushed. "Well, it's
not like we haven't gotten a handle on everything, the doc has all but the
Chief engineer and doctor out of stasis and back on duty, so we're
covered..." she said. She wrinkled her nose.