The first few hours after the Pursuer III lost power were the hardest. Readouts on Minh-Chu’s crew, mission data, and scans made the space around him feel alive, but he knew that if he opened his vacsuit, hard vacuum would kill him.
He’d been adrift before, his strange luck stranded him on a station segment after the First Light destroyed a major enemy installation. There were times when he actually missed the home he made out of the place during his years of solitude, but those were sparse. It was easier to recall those first days, when he was always moments from panic, repurposing technology and salvaging whatever he could so he had what he needed to survive.
He heard that panic in the voices of several of his crewmembers. His efforts to keep them focused on getting the ship’s main power systems working again kept him focused. The only power anyone had was inside their vacsuits, which could keep them alive for a month at least along with some of the best recycling systems in the galaxy. All the power in the ship was gone.
“They left us for dead,” Carnie said minutes after the large ship that attacked moved on. The Pursuer III was adrift, passing into the rusty coloured iron cloud. By the end of the first day, they were so far into the thick iron particle cloud that no light could reach them. The fine particulates interfered with their efforts to seal the eleven hull breaches.
Thanks to contamination, it took four days for the whole crew to finish enough of a manual diagnostic to determine what they had to do to get the ship moving. Finn, having slept as little as Minh-Chu, was finally able to report. With everyone gathered in the crew quarters, drifting weightlessly around the table there, he explained. “When we were hit we only had point three percent energy shielding. The extended weapons modules didn’t have the right software version installed, so it reported that it had taken over shield power generation, and that they were at full charge when they were far from it. Our hull was taking nearly all the damage, and considering how hard that ship nailed us, we did extremely well.”
“What are you talking about? We’re dead in space,” Ike, one of Finn’s engineering team, said.
“Look around,” Carnie said. “We’re all alive. No shields, a big strike that would make a destroyer class ship think twice, and the hull held enough so we got a few small holes instead of a slag pile and a bunch of corpses.”
“He’s right,” Hot Chow said, nodding emphatically. “As soon as the lights went out, I wondered how many funerals I’d be going to.”
“We’re still dead in space,” Ike said.
“There’s a good chance we can get going again,” Finn said. “The problem is, all but one weapons module was completely burned out during the attack. A lot of the automated systems on board are dead too.”
“Avionics and navigational systems?” Minh-Chu asked.
“We’re going to have to make new connections between the flight control systems and half the thrusters on the ship. The fastest way will be to pull wire from the weapons modules before we jettison most of the components. We’ll be left with the missile launcher systems and our habitation pod.”
“Why would we jettison most of the weapons modules?” Minh-Chu asked patiently.
“They’re going to be in the way when we try to hot wire our last good battery set to the main fusion reactors. It’s going to take a couple days to build up enough of a charge in those to jump start, so the sooner the modules are out of the way, the better.”
“Then we’ll only have missiles?” Sticky asked. The smallest of them had also been the quietest, but Minh-Chu had watched her soldier on tirelessly.
“All the but one of the turrets work, Pearl,” Finn said. “It’s going to be surprisingly easy to wire them back in once the extended weapons modules are gone. The turrets are built into the basic weapons for the ship, so we don’t need anything from the modules to get them going again. I’ll even be able to turn up the juice quite a bit, so you can fire in beam mode, but I hope we don’t find ourselves in any firefights. The missile racks need to be checked and torpedo launchers aren’t trustworthy.”
“What about shields?” Minh-Chu asked.
“No problem, they’ll run as soon as the reactor is hot. They’re one of the only untouched systems on the ship. Since they were barely running before, they didn’t get stressed at all. That, and the lights, which we can get back online once we get the weapons modules out of the way. This battery will keep the lights on for weeks,” he said, holding up a centimetre long, slender cylinder.
“Thank God,” Sticky said with a sigh. “I feel like the dark is strangling me sometimes.”
“Life support should be back online about three hours later. I have enough portable batteries to prime then run everything for a few months. We’ll still be on reserve food until the reactor gets back online, but fresh air, water and heat will be enough until then. No gravity until the reactor is back online either.”
“What I’m hearing is that everything starts with removing the weapons modules,” Minh-Chu said. “How long will it take for you to salvage what you need so we can get rid of them?” Minh-Chu asked.
“If we all work on it, we can get it done in four hours, it’s not delicate work. My team will pull what we need, the rest of you can pass the components hand to hand through the corridors and store them here. Then we hand crank the module doors open and push the modules out. We may have to do some cutting if the metal has twisted.”
“Sounds easy,” Carnie said.
“Hell no,” Hot Chow said under his breath. Everyone looked at him, so he cleared his throat. “Sorry, it’s just that those mods are made to fit with the bays to within a millimetre, we’re going to have to do a lot of cutting.”
“Someone’s done the reading,” Finn said. “He’s right, we’ll have problems, but I know what I’m doing, we’ll get this done.”
“Let’s get to it,” Minh-Chu said. “We need to get this boat running.”
“You know, I had a nightmare that we got buried in iron particles, and I was the only one left when the Triton found us,” Ike said.
“Oh, God, why are you sharing?” Hot Chow said. “I’ll give you all the luxury credit I earn from this trip if you keep your doom-gloom to yourself, aye?”
“I was just sharing, it’s a good habit in stressful situations.”
“We’ll have a talk about that when we get back to the Revenge,” Finn said. “I’d take Hal’s offer and stop the dark talk for now. Let’s get the lights on.”
The crew set to work, and it wasn’t long before Minh-Chu realized that their main motivation was short term. Everyone understood how important it was to get the reactor charging, but the promise of having lights on throughout the ship was what people were really talking about as kilometres of thin cable, processing nodes and other components were passed up from the weapons modules. They managed to strip all the components they could in half the time Finn said it would take them, and only a few hours later, Minh-Chu, Finn, Sticky, and several engineering team members were working to crank the armoured module doors open.
The grit from the nebula made it difficult enough for the muscle augmentation in their vacsuits to activate while they were turning the emergency cranks, and when the sections of hull beneath the ship parted, they did so all at once, finally breaking through the fine iron particulate that was holding them back. To everyone’s relief, the large weaponry modules, each four metres long and two metres tall, slid free and out of the ship’s lower deck with almost no trouble. Only a little cutting was necessary to get the first one free. They were able to keep the habitation pod, missile launch system, and to everyone’s surprise, the manufacturing pod – a small tool and equipment room that was a part of the assembly but had to come out first so other sections could be extracted – fit back in with only a little extra coaxing. “We’ll need to make cables for this so it can be reconnected from here,” Finn said. “But we’ll be able to make parts. I didn’t think it would fit back in once we were done, so I didn’t mention it. Ike, start machining parts off the list, use a backup power cell.”
Minh-Chu watched as the doors closed beneath them. He could feel the vibration of metal grit grinding between them through the bulkhead. “We’re never getting those doors open again.”
“You’re right,” Finn said. “Good thing we have all this space to work in now.”
He looked up and turned his helmet light on, revealing the second deck of the ship. It was two-thirds empty and seemed cavernous compared to the cramped spaces they had been working in for days. Panels accessing all the systems inside the ship lined the ceiling, and Minh-Chu couldn’t help but be a little excited when he saw Finn drift towards one of the secondary systems boards above him. He felt a food square touch his bottom lip and took a pull on the tube resting near the other side of his mouth before taking it. The lemon flavoured square was chewy and savoury. He chewed as he watched the Engineering Chief work a panel loose.
Sticky and Carnie moved towards him slowly, coming to rest against the side of the manufacturing module. It seemed like a small room built in the middle of the large empty module bay. “Ohmygosh,” Sticky said with hushed excitement as Finn pulled a small battery module from his pocket and connected it to one of the circuit boards above. “Now, it’s just light, so we’re still sealed up in our vacsuits until life support is back online, but it’s something.”
The entire space illuminated, and Minh-Chu couldn’t help but smile at the cheers he heard on his proximity radio. Sticky embraced Carnie excitedly, squealing in delight. “We’re going to be okay,” Hot Chow sighed. “We just gotta keep making little wins, this is good, this is good.”
“All right,” Finn said, drifting down and handing a bundle of tiny batteries the size of his fist to Minh-Chu. “Get your people to connect all those batteries to the emergency ports down here. The heads-up display in their helmets will show them where they go.”
Minh-Chu looked up to see ceiling and the panels they needed access to. The modules were in the way of everything, but with most of them gone, his crew could get to almost all the ports they had to, and they’d have the task done in an hour or less. He could fit in the tighter spaces between the weapon and habitation modules, and if it was too tight, Sticky was even smaller than he was. The display in his helmet pointed to life support, main battery systems, and the last of the operable systems that were waiting for power. He handed Carnie and Sticky most of the batteries and pushed off so he started drifting towards the closest panel. “Get everyone down here, we need this done fast.”
“I’ll get ready to start wiring new flight control systems,” Finn said. “I need Dusty in the cockpit to verify that the navigation computer and the scanners are working as soon as the computer has power.”
“Aye,” Dusty replied. “It’s good to finally see some progress.”