He felt as much as heard the sudden surge of power as the weapons discharged their fury. Several indicators shifted into the warning zone before slowly fading back to less dangerous levels, although not as low as Rusty would have liked.
“Sanderson,” he called out. “You and Xi go check the coolant levels. I don’t like how hot those relays are running. And wear gear!”
The last thing I need is two of my techs turned to jelly by a coolant leak.
He mentally shuddered at the memory of a young engineer trapped in the engine compartment of a cargo transport when the coolant lines ruptured under too much pressure. The young man’s screams were mercifully brief, but Rusty still heard them in his nightmares.
“On it, Chief,” Sanderson shouted back, signaling to Xi.
Rusty heard the steady thrum-thrum as another set of weapons fired on the starboard side. Their power status lights returned quickly to green after flashing briefly amber as the power spiked right before discharge.
He slapped the intercom control. “Klieg,” he called into it. “Any luck on Bay Four?”
“Not yet, Chief,” the technician’s voice crackled over the speaker. “It looks like the servo system is completely fried. We—”
“. . . can’t replace it when there’s ‘pedo in the tube,” Rusty finished for him.
“Not unless you’re planning to fire us out with it,” Klieg said. His hoarse laugh sounded like a burst of static. When Rusty did not respond, he added, “You’re not going to . . . are you?”
“Thinking,” Rusty replied, just barely loud enough to be heard over the din of the next weapons discharge. “Are you going to stop dropping my tools down the shafts?”
“Chief . . . ?” Klieg’s voice rose in pitch now.
“Stay at the manual controls,” Rusty told him. “We’ll worry about it later.”
If there is a later . . . he thought sourly as the deck shuddered underneath his boots.
“Aye, sir,” Klieg’s voice cracked over the speaker and then it went silent.
The power generators thrummed again.
“Bailey,” Rusty called out without looking. “Don’t touch that.”
Behind him, at one of the starboard panels, Ensign Alexandra Bailey turned away in surprise just as heat shimmered from the power conduit she was about to rest her hand on.
“Cheng, redirect the power from primary starboard conduit eighteen and then check the flow regulator,” he told the engineer. Tapping the intercom again, he said, “Bridge, watch your starboard emitters. We’re having to reroute some of the power while we make repairs.”
“How much time will that require?” Hawkes asked.
“As long as it takes,” Rusty replied, and then shut off the intercom. The deck vibrated beneath him again.
Or maybe longer . . .
0 comments:
Post a Comment