Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (22 page)

“I
know it will be hard to accept. Some things are, and should be. But you are
doing your best,” the Admiral said softly. “Don't give up yet.” He pulled up a
holo of the reactor. She turned.

“So
where, oh, one step ahead of me...” She smiled as she saw the holo.

“The
last control run will be installed as soon as we get these last four emitters
in. It's a pain in the ass getting it through the lock. It's so bulky.” The
Admiral shook his head as he watched a trio of robots maneuvering the curved
shape.

“I
still can't believe that is new.” Shelby said waving to it. He chuckled.

“Yeah,
but that is both a blessing and curse. We're going to have to tune it, and then
tune it to the others already installed.” She looked at him in concern. “The
others all share the same wear points and were in tune with each other from
installation. They should have worn evenly but this one is near the exhaust so
it took the brunt of wear and tear like the ones near the injector ports.” He
pointed them out.

“When
the fuel was changed to straight hydrogen or trinium, the fluid dynamics
changed. It got worse when you had a mix of fuel material in the matrix.” He
pointed out additional areas. Shelby nodded.

“I
know, we had the devil of a time keeping the bottle hot and stable,” she said.

“Well
the repairs should help, but you'll be right back to square one if the fuel
remains the same for long,” he replied as he studied the data flow on one side.

“Right.
Like we can change that. And where will we be without Io the next time this
happens?” Shelby asked bitterly.

He
shook his head. “One thing at a time. You'd be surprised what we can do with
the right crew and right gear.” He smiled. She nodded.

“I
heard Jorge is out of the Io's sickbay. He wants to take the new tug out but
his wife won’t let him for a couple days.” She chuckled. “I don't think he will
let her stop him though. He's itching to try that new tug.” She smiled at him.
“Sergio is flying until he drops; he's made three runs and is out on a long run
now. Word is he's going for a big rock.” She smiled. He nodded.

“He's
paid the Io back for the new tug, plus most of this.” She waved. “And I hear
you've got them making more?” She asked.

He
nodded. “I put the order in while I was inside. That is probably what the exec
is so upset about. I found the cargo manifest, he's got an entire cargo hold
full of salt and another filled with rare lumber.” He shrugged. “The captain
was glad to take it off our hands in exchange for parts for fusion reactor
three,” he smiled.

“My
you have been busy,” she said admiringly. He chuckled. “Dad was right about
you, you are a marvel,” she said under her breath. His enhanced hearing caught
it. “Yeah well, I... Wait, when did your dad talk about me?” He looked at her
confused. She cleared her throat.

“Dad
told us war stories all the time. When I was young it was great, we all loved
to hear it. Tales of a better time. But when I got older, it got... wearing.”
She shrugged helplessly. He chuckled.

“Got
tired of the same old same old? When I was your age... in my time...” he
teased.

She
smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, something like that.” They both laughed.

“Io
leaves in thirty five hours... think we'll make it in time?”  she asked after
they settled back down.

“At
this point? I am not sure.” He grimaced then shrugged.

“Maybe
I should book a couple spots for dad and I...” she joked. He shook his head.

“Don't
even joke about that with...” He waved to the hunched over techs. “Morale?” she
asked looking him in the eye. He nodded.

“Right,
so we get this fixed. I do regret not sending dad to the Io though.” She shook
her head.

“How
is he?” the Admiral asked.

“The
Doc received the nanites; I manhandled him back up to sickbay a couple hours
ago.” She grimaced, running her hands through her greasy hair. Like every other
engineer, she was in desperate need of a shower, a good meal, and eight hours
of uninterrupted sleep. “She said he's stable and is doing better. She has him
on blood thinners to prevent additional clots, but it is interfering with the
nanites.” She shook her head.

“The
ulcer is fixed, you patched the heart, and his aneurysm and the cancer was
caught in time. She says if we don't lose power then he will be okay. How much
is there when he wakes... if he wakes...” She looked a little bleak.

“Don't
worry about it now.” He reached up with his left hand and caught her free hand.
She looked down. “Your dad's a survivor.” She nodded. “Go find Liam and Yuri.
Get them started on fusion three while I supervise this lot and the final
fittings.” He sat back, letting her hand go. She nodded.

“Do
us both a favor and eat something though.” She looked down at him. “Mrs. Valdez
has been driving us nuts.” She shook her head. He chuckled. A tech held up a
protein bar to her lips then froze. She turned and tossed it onto his chest.
Shelby laughed as he fumbled it before he caught it.

“Here”
She stole a drink and set it down beside his free hand. “Pee in it when you’re
done if you have to,” she said. He gave her a look. She shrugged. “Dad.” He
sighed shaking his head.

“I
have a few hours before that is needed.” He took a bite, then a sip. “Gah,
remind me to fix the replicator.” He shook his head. Obviously the water lines
were clogged with heavy minerals.

 She
laughed and waved as she walked out. “I'll hold you to that!” she said.

“She
will too,” the tech whose drink Shelby snagged replied shyly. He chuckled. “Do
you have to remain jacked in?” she asked.

He
nodded at her curiosity. “I have... um a personal AI that is helping me. It is
controlling the third and fourth robot.” He motioned to the holo with the energy
bar. She looked at it then nodded.

“Can
we get implants too?” another tech asked shyly.

“Well,
Io hasn't started implant tech beyond basic IFF yet, but given time and the
right material, then your people should be able to do it.” He shrugged.

“But
first thing first is power.” He finished the bar, took a last sip then sat back
closing his eyes. “Back to work,” he said firmly feeling better.

“All
right, let's try this again. Cut the speed to half of what we had last time,”
he ordered. The nearby tech tapped at her controls then moved a slider down.

“We're
ready.” She nodded to him. He nodded. This was their nineteenth test. They had
managed the tedious tuning over the past five hours and were now trying an
ignition simulation.

“All
right, we've got three ways to get ignition. Lasers, focused gravity
compression, and a seed from the other reactor. I'd rather not use lasers or
the seed; they take too much power and time we don't have.” He shook his head
irritably. He knew he was getting edgy. Too much caffeine and lack of sleep
we're starting to wear even him down.

“Can
we do both?” a voice asked. He turned.

“What
lasers and compression?” he asked the russo, Yuri.

“No,
I mean a seed and compression. If we take a seed and compress it before it gets
too cold...” Yuri Blagovich asked. The shaggy giant smiled a gape tooth smile.
“May work,” the Admiral said in reply, rubbing his chin in thought. “Run this
sim but set up one with that in mind on your machine.” He waved to the young
woman. “Go.” She nodded and tapped enter.

After
a few moments they could see the holo begin to speed up with vector changes.
“Better... but...” The compression built. The fuel intake floated in the
chamber's toroid, streaming out. “Too much...” he muttered. The compression
began flattening it into a toroid but it was wobbling all over the reactor
space.

“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.

“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.