“No... We’ve got leakers...” the tech muttered.
“Not as many as before. It looks like beta twelve and Charlie thirteen this time.” Yuri muttered as he studied his own readouts. A red streamer appeared as the field interactions caused a breach in the bottle. “Why does it do that?” he asked pounding his taped armrests as the sim failed.
“The fields focus on the compression but aren't tight enough to keep it all in. There is an imbalance that we can't work out in the time we've been at it.” the Admiral replied as he sighed.
“Looks like seeding is our only option,” Shelby grunted from the doorway.
He grunted. “Yeah. But getting that seed out and over here will irradiate everything in the area.” He shook his head. “I'm not looking forward to that,” he said shaking his head irritably..
“Or the clean up,” Shelby answered.
“Yeah, that too. We need a heavily shielded container, a robot to carry it, and a tap.” He fed the data into the computer and a map of the deck came into focus. “The working fusion core is across the deck from us, with the core in between. To get it we'd have to irradiate half this deck. Clean up is the least of our problems. In the time it gets here we will lose half the temperature and ignition will fail.” He shook his head obviously that wasn't going to work.
“Can we tap a nearby exhaust? What about one of the primary EPS feeds?” Shelby asked walking over to a nearby console. “If we reroute this one here, we can get it within one hundred meters of the reactor.” She typed for a few seconds. “Or we could back flush this conduit by rerouting it here and here at this Y junction. That would let us get it even closer.” She looked up from the readout to the Admiral who grimaced then nodded.
“Sim ready,” Yuri inserted. They turned to the man then back to the holo. He tapped his console and the holo cleared and refocused into the sim program. The seed was already in the center of the toroids race track, and slimmed down until it formed a ribbon.
The Admiral pulled up a temperature chart and checked. “Outside is the coldest. That is the blue area. Center is the hot zone in purple and white, its retaining heat better since it is under compression and not exposed to the outside vacuum.” He watched as fuel was added and the compression started.
The time scale moved up as the sim played out. The temperatures fluctuated as the fuel started to mix with the plasma. When some of it hit the core it ignited. Slower than it should but it spread like a fire. In moments ignition was achieved.
“Good job Yuri.” The Admiral nodded to the man. He smiled.
“We can get better results if we preheat the fuel too Admiral.” The big man waved to the port injectors.
“I think that is a good idea. Run the sim though. You’re going to lose some fuel compression, hydrogen doesn't compress like it usually does when super heated though so take that into account,” the Admiral pointed out. Yuri nodded.
“We can get a torch on the injectors,” Shelby said thoughtfully.
The Admiral looked at her. “Not a good idea,” he replied.
“Oh, not long term, just till ignition.” She waved to the sim. He nodded slowly. “I know it will take some design time off, but we need the boost and insurance,” she replied.
“Yeah, okay. Let's see...” He closed his eyes.
“I'll get a robot, container, and clear a path,” Shelby said. He nodded, eyes still closed. “Did you hear me?” she asked testily. He grunted.
“I heard you. Make it so,” he said then triggered the linkage once more. He felt a brief stab of pain and winced. He was near max linkage time; he knew he was over doing it. Flesh had limits. Hopefully they could get this done soon.
Chapter 7
“Seed is in the core,” the tech commented as she studied the readouts.
“So far so good,” Shelby muttered as she watched the readouts.
“Ribbon stage, initializing compression. Fuel injectors primed, fuel injection commencing. One nano meter feed on injector one... one point two on injector two... one point one on injector three... Injector four... error on readout.” The tech flicked the read out screen with an annoyed finger but then when it didn't change she looked up to Shelby.
“Sensor or clog Sara?” she asked.
The tech tapped at her console. “Sensor. I'm picking up a downstream feed, yes it's injecting.” She looked up.
“Log it. We'll have to figure out a fix later,” Shelby replied eyes intent on the holo matrix. The toroid ribbon was rippling with waves of incoming force, both in mass projections from the compression and from the incoming fuel feeds.
“Come on... Come on... ignite will you...” she said softly.
“I'm not sure it will, it may have cooled too much...” Yuri replied. “I...” Suddenly the ribbon flared and then stabilized.
“We have ignition! Shall I step up fuel by 1 percent?” Sara asked sounding triumphant. This was a day to remember. She could hear the others cheering in the hallway.
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Half percent every fifteen minutes until we have a stable flow. Right now if we add too much too fast it will either super cool the ribbon or destabilize the stream and cause a cascade failure,” the Admiral cautioned.
“We don't have that kind of time Admiral. We're losing decks!” Liam shook his head. The Admiral's jaw tightened. “Shelby!” He looked over to her. “Do something!” He indicated the Admiral.
“I am. I'm praying. He's right Liam, we can't risk it. We need a stable bottle, we can't rush it and be forced to scram it.” She shook her head. “We'd be screwed if that happened. No, like dad said, slow and steady is the only way to get ahead.” She looked over to the Admiral then back to the feed.
“And while we drag our feet people are dying!” Liam waved.
“You don't think I don't know that?” the Admiral asked softly. Liam looked at him then away. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to wait.” The Admiral sighed. “But not here. Not now.” Liam looked up confused.
“What do you mean?” he asked. The Admiral smiled. “One down, four to go of course.” Liam's eyes were wide. “You’re crazy! We don't, I mean, we can't. Shelby! Tell him!” He waved frantically to the Admiral.
Shelby shook her head. “What do you mean Admiral?” She looked at him.
“Well, all of us do not need to be here waiting with baited breath to see if this stabilizes into a clean feed. Io is monitoring it now as are Sara and Yuri.” He waved to each of the crew. “We have another crew working on reactor three, I'm going to eat, then see what we can do to get that reactor online as well.” He carefully and slowly got up.
Shelby nodded. “Don't you think you should rest Admiral?” she asked concerned. He chuckled.
“I took a twenty minute nap in there. It was refreshing.” He shrugged feeling like crap but not about to admit it. She looked like she didn't believe him. “Coming?” he challenged, looking from her to Liam.
“Your all nuts,” Liam muttered. “Where are we going to get the fuel?” he asked. The Admiral chuckled. “Leave that to the Valdez family. They are nothing if not highly motivated. Once we get things sorted out, you can restart the molecular furnace and the fuel refinery and start pulling deuterium out of the hydrogen. That will make things a bit easier in there,” he waved to the window. Liam looked out then nodded.
“One step at a time,” Irons said. “Coming?” hHe asked putting action to words. Shelby hastily followed. Liam cursed but followed with the other techs.
“So what are we doing? We don't have enough parts right?” Liam grumped. “I cleaned the control runs out, but it's going to take a lot longer than the twenty hours we have left for Io to make the emitters.” The Admiral was staring off into space as they looked at the reactor. “Admiral? I'm talking here!” Liam waved a hand in front of his face.
“Sorry, I was in the computer. I was checking the log. Yuri bumped the reactor up to two percent. Holding steady. Io had to adjust a few emitters to dampen a building wave pattern; hopefu
lly the dampening doesn't cause another one to form.” He shook his head.
“How?” Liam asked staring. “How can you know that? You’re not jacked in right?” He turned to Shelby. She was looking at the Admiral.
He tapped his skull. “Wireless implant. I can Wi-Fi with the best of them.” He chuckled at the looks on their faces.
“I can remote access any net that has a wireless router.” He pointed to a router in the ceiling. “That lets me in to check the computers. Logan was using his own IFF as well didn't he tell you?” He looked around to the others.
Shelby shook her head. “No I didn't know dad could do that. He told me he had to jack in.” She looked at him in disbelief. “I set up the encrypted link for you...” she looked confused. Irons smiled.
“Well he did for complex things, but his IFF is wireless. He hacked his own IFF to let him get into the net. Crude, but effective. It let him get a limited amount of data. Most of it was in burst form. I found his mods and his notes in the database,” he smiled.
“For a guy who said he wasn't much of a software guru, he did okay,” the Admiral nodded to Shelby. She hid her own smile.
“Yeah, dad was always groaning about his limits. I don't think he has ever realized how much we envy him. And now you.” She looked at him. The Admiral sighed.
“I want one. Seriously. We get out of this mess, that's my price for helping. I want implants. No more of this VR crap,” Liam hefted his helmet. “I am so tired of the migraines anyway,” he muttered.
“Amen to that.” Shelby nodded.
“One thing at a time,” the Admiral sighed as he lay back on the battered, tape covered couch. Techs were swarming the room. The control room had been picked over for parts over the centuries. Now with a minimum of new parts from Io they were trying to get the minimum controls up. The good news was that with all the new stuff they didn't have to worry about something old and broken being in the mix. Almost everything was fresh and new and just needed to be tuned and broken in.
“I'm in.” He said as his jack feed came up.
“Me too.” Liam called.
“All right, now that we know the drill, I'll get started on bringing in the emitters while you do the control runs right Admiral?” Liam asked. The Admiral grunted.
“Copy that. I've got my AI working as a gopher and fine work now.” He indicated the two robots that were already at work.
“How... damn, you’re quick.” Liam muttered.
“Admiral, Io reports reactor's four bottle is stable. She's ironed out a few glitches but so far so good.” The Admiral checked his HUD clock.
“Two hours... So, ten percent?” He asked.
“Actually, thirteen.” Sprite responded.
“Thirteen? Did I miss something?” He asked concerned.
“No, well yes. Io started speeding up the activation after the last round didn't hiccup. So far so good.” She replied. He sighed. “Boss I know you're not happy about going outside procedure, but Io is right, she can't be here forever and the system seems stable...” He held up a virtual hand.
“Stop.”
Sprite froze. “Any sign of instability?” He asked after a moment to get his anger under control. He knew he was tired, and popping off would be a natural release, but would serve no purpose.
“No, Not in the past thirty two point five minutes. We have a Boolean wave in reactor six though. It's forming and it's getting harder and harder to stop it. Each time she squashes one two more start.” She brought up the feed on the HUD.
“Damn.” He sighed studying the HUD. He felt fatigue; he knew his reflexes were getting clogged by lack of sleep.
“Admiral you need to rest. We're ahead of schedule with reactor four; this one is not going to be done anytime soon...” He held up his hand again. “Shutting up now.” Sprite replied. He chuckled.
“Right. Okay, yes I know I need to rest. How is the station life support?” He tried to check manually but fumbled the coding sequence.
“Here” Sprite fed him the data. “That last riot killed over four hundred people and sent nearly that many to sickbay. We've had two cascades since, one wiped out an entire sector. It looks like the security force locked the people in... Either that or the doors failed. It doesn't matter anymore; there aren't any more life signs in that sector.” She reported.
“Damn. Not fast enough.” He sighed.
“Well, the good news is the station is populated more than even I estimated.” Sprite reported. He glowered at her avatar.
“You’re kidding me.” He growled.
“No, we've been getting people coming out of the... well, out of every nook and cranny imaginable, and a few that shouldn't be.” She shook her head. “Head count is nearly nineteen thousand eight hundred and eighty three right now.” She reported sober.
“So, that throws our time estimates off for cascades by what factor?” He asked. “Um, a factor of three point two?” Sprite suggested. He snarled.
“Three?” He looked away.
“Yes, I know not good. On the other hand, it's a larger labor force for your next phase...” She said hopefully.
He groaned. “One thing at a time.” He shook his head.
“Sergio has come back with two more rocks. Jorge has finished testing the second tug and is on his first run. His wife is pissed.” Sprite reported dryly. He snorted.
“Deidra has fixed a few leaks in the hull, one that has leaked for nearly a century. Juanita has a crew of volunteers from the Io out helping as well.” Sprite reported. “They've patched and bypassed several plasma conduits, and even managed to tie in seventy four square meters of solar panels back into the grid.” She waved her hands and a holo of the station appeared with the repairs highlighted. “They have crews working here, here, here, and here trying to get more of the station's panels online.” She reported. He nodded.
“Shelby is running plasma conduit to reactor four. They apparently tore out a lot after it was scrammed. She's trying to get it sorted and tied into the central control net now.” Sprite reported. “She's running into problems though, there are a lot of radiation exposure, burns, and some pin hole leaks.”
“Have Io step up the reactor by double. … No triple my time line. One percent every five minutes unless she sees signs of instability or has a problem. Tell her to do it in increments, don't throw each increase at the system all at once. If she has to take the whole five minutes to do the percent then give it a minute or two to stabilize if necessary. Have there been any problems beyond that injector sensor glitch?” He asked.
“No, well, nothing serious.” Io appeared on his HUD. I'm pushing things now Admiral, my own bottles, hyper drives, crew, and now this? I'm glad you completely rebuilt my AI core or I would have tapped out a long time ago.” She shook her head clearly amused but looking frazzled.
“I think you need to sort out your own house as far as the computer is concerned, I can't keep this up forever. The captain gave me an extra twelve hours Admiral, that's twenty nine hours from now and we have to leave. No if ands or buts.” She shrugged helplessly.
“Right. Okay we're working on it. Sprite is still hip deep doing code surgery but it will take time and the AI can't get into this net. We may need a separate AI here. The step up?” He asked.
“Already implemented. We're up to fifteen percent. Holding steady. I have one emitter that is a bit slow though, I think either its electronics are addled, or it's almost at max impedance. I wish we had had the time to replace it.” She reported. He sighed.
“Log it. We're almost up here. Liam's replaced the injector feeds, Mary rebuilt the exhaust taps, and Proteus and I are handling the control runs. As soon as we get the last replacement emitters we should repeat the seeding method and get this reactor online.” He waved to indicate the reactor. Io looked around. As did Sprite.
“Great another one.” Io sighed. She looked at Sprite.
“Don't look at me! I'm not an engineering AI remember?” She waved to Proteus's avatar
busy in the robot nearby. “He is. He's tapped out anyway. Your right, we're going to need to work on the computer support. Or at least fake it until we get something better up. I have a copy of some of your fusion drivers; maybe we can spin off a bot for the reactor management? Or one each?” She asked. Io looked thoughtful.
“Discuss it amongst yourselves and the other AI and get back to me. Fab the parts once you have a list. If you have to, involve Shelby or one or more of the computer techs for hardware integration and support. Handle it.” The Admiral waved.
“Aye aye.” Both AI winked out. He returned to work.
“I'm surprised the crew of the Io haven't realized you gave Io herself a reserve commission.” Sprite said sounding amused.
“How so?”
“Well, you'd think they'd realize after your lectures that they shouldn't be able to build a lot of this without you in the net.” Sprite replied sounding patient.
“Never under estimate willful blindness.” The Admiral smiled tiredly. “Besides, I'm not so sure they don't know. I bet Jen or Faith or even the Captain suspect something.” He rolled his shoulders.
“Entirely possible. Shall we get back to it?” Sprite asked.
“Let’s.” He sighed. “I've got a meeting with the exec in an hour. Let's see what we can work out for the next ten then I need a nap.” He yawned.
“First smart thing you've said all week Admiral.” Sprite chuckled.
“How are we doing?” The exec asked as the Admiral strode onto the bridge. He nodded to the exec. Faith was standing near the doctor holding a tablet.
“We've delivered the last two loads; I hear the reactor is up to forty five percent and climbing. We've even got the other reactor nearly rebuilt.” Faith smiled wearily. “Your power problem isn't licked by a long shot but you have a fighting chance now.” She smiled and bobbed a nod to the Admiral. “Good to see you Admiral. You certainly know how to keep a lady busy.” She teased. The Admiral chuckled.
“Incoming call from the Port Admiral.” A communications tech said looking up concerned.
Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) Page 16
