"I'm getting another voltage spike in a port drive pod," Sergio reported. "Which one?" the Admiral asked.
"Beta ring, two B I think," Sergio looked confused.
"I don't, Admiral, these controls are insane!" Gutierrez motioned to the holo. Controls flashed. "Damn it! What'd I do wrong this time!" Gutierrez sounded annoyed and dismayed.
"Firefly reduce controls to minimum. Let's give them time to adapt." He watched as the controls shifted to the bare minimum.
"There, that's more like it." Gutierrez nodded. "Now, show me this voltage spike." He tried to pull it up then started to growl. Firefly fed him the data. "Oh. It looks like the governor's are out. Power it down Sergio, it's shot." He shook his head.
"Right, powering that pod down. You think it's software or hardware?" Sergio asked.
"Most likely hardware," Firefly replied. "I am getting the same reading remember,
and there is little wrong with my software." Firefly sounded miffed. The Admiral nodded. Sergio's shoulders hunched defensively. "Don't be afraid to speak up if you don't know something or have a problem Sergio, it could be critical." He patted the young man on the shoulder. “But try to balance that impulse with the situation.” Sergio nodded.
"Okay..." he gushed. "I'll try the other port pods starting with the alpha ring. Angie said the port side took the most damage, so that may be why there are so many problems there." He shook his head.
"She'll just spin in circles till we get her evened out," Gutierrez growled.
"Not necessarily, once we get some pods up Firefly can shape a course to Anvil using them in sequence... and we can still work on repairs on the way," Irons replied studying the helm engineering report.
"Right, starboard alpha ring is up, I'm not getting any problems, Firefly? Can you check me?" Sergio asked.
"It looks good Mr. Valdez. I've checked my port side alpha ring. There are a lot of leaks in the ring. I don't recommend using it until we can get it sorted out." Firefly projected the damage report on the overhead holo emitters. The trio of human looked at the report then Gutierrez shrugged.
"Someone else's problem, I'm just here so I can tell my grand kids someday." He smiled at the Admiral who chuckled softly. "Well you have to admit, something like this only comes along once in a lifetime! he waved. The Admiral smiled.
"Well, we'll see about that. I'm here to rebuild the Federation." He nodded to Firefly's crest. Sergio froze.
"You mean..." his voice rose in wonder.
"Once we get back to the station I will be taking volunteers to induct into the Federation Navy." He nodded to Sergio. Gutierrez rubbed his whiskered chin.
"Seems you might have your work cut out for you then." He sat back. "If'n I was a might younger and less set in my ways I'd take you up on it," he said softly.
"Where do I sign?" Shelby asked from the open door. The Admiral smiled.
"No seriously Admiral, I want in." She locked eyes with him. He nodded slowly. "Even if it means an officer's commission?" He raised his eyebrow to her.
"I was thinking chief engine wiper or something... but officer?" she asked in disbelief, clearly stunned.
He chuckled. "Why not? You're one on Anvil, so I don't see a problem." He shrugged.
She nodded. "Maybe. But you're right, we've got to get there first." She nodded her chin to Sergio. "Sergio we're getting a lot of reports of leaks in the port alpha drive ring, so I don't think you should try it anymore. We're bleeding plasma and it's going to suck our reserves fast." Sergio nodded.
"We've already cut power to that half of the ring. Angie is checking the stern drive pods and the primary drive nacelles now. We've got two of the four fusion engines up but I didn't want to use them with our limited fuel supply." He looked questioningly at the Admiral who shook his head.
"Wedge first, plasma drive only with the exhaust." He turned back to the plot.
"I have a course for the station plotted with the working drive pods we have currently checked. I can adjust course and speed as we bring others online," Firefly reported. Sergio looked at his holo emitter and nodded.
"Looks good. Can you change it a little here and here?" he pointed.
"There is a rock there," Firefly warned.
"I know, but it's a carbonaceous chondrite. A big one. If we can snag some of it..." Sergio looked up and over to the Admiral. The Admiral nodded.
"Good idea. Make it so." He sat in at the communications station. "Firefly, all stations." He tapped the controls.
"All stations channel open," Firefly replied.
"All right folks we're getting underway. Brace for maneuvering in two minutes. Lock down anything in danger of causing damage. I am not sure how our inertials will handle this." He cut the channel.
"Inertial dampening is tied to our gravity plating Admiral. I am initializing critical areas now," Firefly reported. Shelby sat at the engineering station and checked her controls. She quickly reconfigured them to a simpler layout, then customized it to her own liking.
"She's quick and smart," Firefly commented over the private link to the Admiral. He turned to see Shelby, then back to his own station.
"That she is." He tapped the controls and reconfigured them for sensors. "Maneuvering in five, four, three, two, one..." Sergio counted down. They felt the gravity plates kick on just as the drives powered up. They were pressed into their seats for a few moments before it eased.
"Inertial compensation achieved. You may now move freely about the ship," Shelby reported with a smile. "Next time Sergio, let me finish booting the inertials before you go off half cocked," she warned. The young man blushed but gave a curt nod. She studied him for a moment then locked eyes with the Admiral, then turned back to her station.
"Course for asteroid set. ETA two hours, twenty two minutes, thirty nine seconds," Firefly reported.
"Captain you have the con, I'm going to see about getting what we can from the collectors." The Admiral climbed out of his chair and stretched.
"Quarter grav is the best we can do," Shelby looked up. He nodded. He could feel some inertial changes from the drive, the uneven pods were throwing the inertial systems a complex set of calculations to work out... They were only partially succeeding. Hopefully they would be able to fix it soon.
"This is Angie, Wally is going around with some food and drinks for everyone. I'm on power room watch until someone relieves me. I don't see any problems. Jimmy is checking the drives but he's not really a drive guy. Admiral can you check him please?" Angie asked from the overhead. "Dieter and O'Reilly are busy trying to get the compensator's on deck eleven sorted out," she continued. He grimaced.
"I was going to check the collectors, once I do that I'll lend him a hand. We've got a few hours before our first stop," he replied.
Chapter 15
"Admiral, how are we going to get this bad boy on board? We've vampired the tender and launch remember?" Shelby asked.
“Are you kidding me? That thing is bigger then the ship!” Sergio said staring at the view screen. He was still in a little awe over how fast they had come here. They'd traveled half the distance Betsy had done in less then sixteen hours. On minimum impulse power. If they got the wedge and drives fueled and online... the mind boggled at that. He wasn't sure if he was excited or terrified.
"This was your idea remember?” the Admiral chuckled. Obviously the kid had underestimated the mass even though he'd been on the money about the location. He shook his head. “Oh ye of little faith. It's a carbonaceous chondrite which means a lot of water, oxides, silicates, and other materials all locked up in it's chemical matrix remember? It's relatively soft and not very dense. Just watch." He motioned to the screen. "Ready Firefly?" he asked.
"Ready Admiral. Forward graser mount powered at ten percent. That's a petawatt of power. Shutting down all nonessential systems to reroute power. Target lock. Firing." A blast of invisible coherent energy slammed into the asteroid, changing it's normally slow tumble. A cloud of debris started to form. The light
s on the bridge dimmed slightly. "Attenuating for debris cloud. Tractors and bussard ram scoops initialized. Maneuvering... got it. Power reserves down to three percent. Firing second pass." On the overhead they could see the highlighted path of the beam as it chewed the rock up into small bits. Some of the bits were super heating into gas. Some of the concrete materials were reaching their molten points. "Tractors engaged. Ram scoops are pulling in the debris cloud now. Initializing molecular furnace. We're getting about a thirty nine point nine percent return over energy expenditure Admiral. I expect that to go up as we hit high concentration pockets," Firefly reported after a few minutes. Sergio was staring at the holo emitter in awe.
"Damn," he said softly over and over.
Shelby chuckled. "I think he's hooked. I know I am. It beats staring at a fusion reactor's read outs all day any day." She shook her head. “Where are we going to put it all?”
“The material we can't use we'll either store or use as reaction mass for the reactors or the plasma drive. Most likely the plasma drive,” Firefly responded. The asteroid was quickly disintegrating before their eyes. “The additional mass as fuel will accelerate our transit time to the station.”
Gutierrez moaned a half hour later when there was little but rubble left. "Damn, that was fast!" He looked at the Admiral. "We've got how many ships with weapons like that coming our way?" he asked.
The admiral's hand flexed. "Too many. But none can match Firefly once the ship has been repaired and has a proper crew," Shelby answered for him. "Checking. Most of the gases are hydrogen and oxygen with some traces of nitrogen and argon. For helium it looks like we're getting an average of one hundred twenty parts per million. There is a slight amount of helium three, barely a kilogram." She shook her head. "How did it get there?" she looked up then shrugged and went back to her station.
"It was most likely deposited on the surface by the solar wind over the eons. I tried to pick some up but it is too diffuse for my collectors," Firefly replied. Shelby grunted.
"Right, well, we're getting a good return." She looked up at the Admiral. "We should be about half done with the collection phase in an hour. Jimmy is taking a nap, do you want me to wake him? Have him start up a replicator?" She raised an eyebrow.
"No need. I can do that," Firefly replied. "I have the critical list up. I do not have the material for most of it, but I can skip down to the ones we can replicate with the material on hand. The first part is under construction now. I am stacking the parts on the tray and warming up another replicator so we can begin running two at the same time." The Admiral nodded as Firefly opened a side window view of the replicator. A countdown was displayed under the window.
"Give Jimmy until the parts are out of the replicator to rest then have him eat and pick them up. Is Angie up next to rest?" He looked over to Shelby. She nodded.
Gutierrez yawned. "I could use some coffee," he muttered. Shelby smiled.
"Me too." Sergio got up then looked over to the Admiral who nodded. He went over to the bridge food replicator and tapped in an order of coffee. After a moment it lit and coffee mugs appeared. He handed one each to the others.
"God I love modern tech." Shelby smiled in appreciation as she took the steaming mug. Gutierrez chuckled and saluted Sergio with the mug.
"Thank you lad. I agree with the Sheila, it's a wonder." He took a sip then studied the mug. "Needs sugar though," the battered captain growled. Irons and Shelby chuckled.
"Admiral we're receiving a broadband hail from Anvil." Shelby looked up at the report from the ship's AI.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked.
"Most likely wondering why we haven't checked in," Gutierrez chuckled.
“Well, we have been a bit busy to call in,” Shelby said shaking her head. “Seems like they are worried.”
"Probably. Open a channel Firefly," the Admiral nodded.
"Is this thing on? Um, Admiral Irons can you hear me?" a nervous woman asked. “We're getting worried here. Are you coming back?” He knew the laser's return message would take the better part of a three hours to get back.
"We read you Anvil, this is Admiral Irons. We are en route to the station. Updated ETA is...” Sergio tapped his controls and an ETA came up on the overhead. "Just under twenty one hours from now." He nodded a thanks to Sergio.
“We've been a bit busy getting the systems sorted out to report in," he turned to Shelby who shrugged.
“We're in Firefly. She's a bit banged up but functioning as a ship once more. We've even started on repairs. Make sure repair teams are ready when we dock." He sat down at the communications console and tapped the control. "We're uploading a list of parts we need now. We're going to need them ASAP. That's as soon as possible. The sooner the better. Also ask the Doc to meet me when we dock." Sprite flashed an "Upload complete," on his HUD. "File sent. Make sure the exec and Logan get it and get on it." He turned to the Captain with a shrug.
About six hours later they got a response. "Um ah, roger Firefly, We'll be waiting," the communication tech's voice changed. "I can't believe it! This I gotta see! The docks are going to be jammed!" Voices from ops could be heard over the link. Gutierrez grimaced.
"Hot mike Anvil. Firefly out," the captain growled then cut the channel then shrugged. "Looks like we're going to be popular," he chuckled. He ran his hand over the side of his burnt face. "Think the Doc will be ready for me?" he asked.
"She should be, it doesn't take that long to clone skin grafts. The arm and leg are a bit more complex, especially the hand. I'd say she'll need another week or two to finish the arm." He waved it off. "Don't worry about it. I've had it done a time or too, it takes some getting used to at first but it's a lot better than in the past," he grimaced.
Gutierrez nodded. "Right, back to work." He tapped the controls with his good hand. "We've got another pair of rocks just off our course to the station, should we divert to pick them up?" he looked up to the Admiral.
"Let me check the sensor feed," Irons replied. He tapped the controls then frowned as the spectrograph lit. "No.. no, the first rock is iron and gold, not something we really need," he said slowly. "The second..." He tapped in the request. "No it's a soft platinum. We could use the rare material, but the iron won’t do much for us, and the platinum can be picked up later." He shrugged.
"Right, besides we don't want to divert and cost time," Gutierrez nodded. "Admiral this is Angie, we've got the harmonic in pod three stabilized now. You were right it was the sensor and drive software. Jimmy found a couple of loose connections too. Firefly is running another diagnostic now. We should have it up soon." Angie signed off with a click.
"Pod three? Did she say three?" Sergio looked up.
"Starboard stern. She's third in on the ventral side." The Admiral tapped his link and fed Sergio's station the location.
"Right so when we bring it up, will it destabilize the wedge or should we cut back while we initialize it?" Sergio looked up confused. The Admiral pursed his lips.
"Let me check." He ran a sim. The first sim was with drive coming up while the ship was under power. The pod quickly destabilized the wedge and inertial dampeners. "Well, that won't work," he muttered as he reset the sim. He dropped the sim to half power then brought up the pod with the others. The wedge fluctuated then stabilized.
"Right, when they are ready drop to half our current speed, drop the port pods in the stern ring to maintenance levels then sync the entire stern pod group and bring them up together. That will sort it out. I'm shooting you the sim now, he nodded. "Just in case Shelby, you better have O'Reilly beef up the inertials in case we get a fluctuation or harmonic." He looked up to Shelby who was busy tapping at her controls and talking into her ear wig. After a moment she gave a thumbs up.
"Got it," she said.
"Program ready," Sergio nodded.
"Angie, we're ready to reinitialize the stern group on your go," Irons said into the overhead.
"Roger, we're ready on our end."
"Then m
ake it so Mr. Valdez," Gutierrez surprised them all with his formality. The Admiral smiled as Sergio tapped his controls.
"Right it's coming up, it's unstable... "
"Don't try to chase it Sergio, let Firefly handle the sub harmonics," the Admiral cautioned.
"Right. I have better sensors and response time then you fleshies do," Firefly responded. The overhead showed the wedge field fluctuate for a moment then stabilize. They felt a ripple of nausea as the inertials stabilized.
"Sorry," Shelby said.
"Don't be. It worked," Gutierrez gasped.
"Revised ETA to station fifteen hours thirty one minutes. I will inform the station," Firefly reported. Irons nodded.
"Good work people. Let's see if we can do better after a break." He nodded to Sergio. "Why don't you go take a couple hours off and get something to eat. Firefly and I can mind the store while you’re gone." The young man looked a bit mulish but then his stomach groaned. He grimaced, clutching his traitorous belly as Shelby chuckled.
"A couple of million kilometers away and mom still finds a way to mother me... even if it is with an avatar." He shook his head as he got up. He was a bit shaky.
"Rest in the captain's wardroom. It has a food replicator too. Make a few blankets while you’re there if you need," the Admiral waved. Sergio nodded and waved back as he walked out. Gutierrez stretched carefully. "I think I'll join him. I think I'll get the blankets from my ship though, save on power." He picked up his crutch and struggled to his feet. Carefully he limped off bouncing in the reduced gravity.
"We're making final approach to the station Admiral. And I thought I was damaged," Firefly commented wryly.
Irons chuckled. "It's looking better than it did when I first got here. We still have a long way to go however." He shook his head. The station drifted on the overhead holo projector. Slowly it turned in place. He could see small craft, most likely work pods and hardened EVA suited workers out working on the hull.
Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) Page 31
