CHAPTER 19
The Pioneer
For the most part, Dr. Jenna Rees and Dr. Mario Rivers had managed to avoid fire. There had been a few times where there were smoldering manifolds or smoke diffusing from behind panels. They had managed to locate the sources of each and extinguish them along their way. The darkness of the aft port-side chambers of the ship made it extremely difficult doing anything intricate like wiring and circuit repairs. They had managed well enough with headlamps and tool lights, but overhead lighting would have certainly been a bonus.
Finally, they had reached the location of the blown-out conduit just aft and port of the engine room. Even though the absence of gravity made their movements awkward as they floated near the damaged section, Jenna was beginning to get the hang of it. Oh, there had been a few days here and there of microgravity back in the Sol system before they initiated the Samara Drive, and then there were a few days at the turnaround, but she had been in cryosleep for that period, so microgravity wasn’t new to her, but she wasn’t a pro either. New or not, it required practice to maintain proficiency and it had been a while.
“Looks like a real mess,” Mario commented as he examined the conduit shining his light from one end of it to the other. The conduit met with a cable manifold on a flange that had been blown apart from an extremely high voltage and high current surge. “We’ll need to replace this section in order to get the power flowing again, for sure. Look at that.”
“Wow, the wires are one big, welded mess.” Jenna peered into the fracture of the metal conduit. It had been blown apart by what was probably over a million amps discharging through it, turning most of the wires and metal fragments into molten slag—fused back together into a big metal lump. “So, what’s our plan here?”
“Hey, you’re the electrical engineer, you tell me.” Mario shrugged.
“We’re not sorting through that for sure,” Jenna said thoughtfully. “We need to cut every conduit at each end of the mess. Then we’ll reconnect each, one at a time. We can start with the main power first and work back from there.”
“Okay, cutting it first then, right?” Mario swiped at some icons in front of him, catching Jenna’s attention.
“I’m finding a circuit diagram for this section. What are you looking for?” she asked Mario.
“Tools. I’ll need a saw, a grinder, a torch, or something that can cut this. It’s in the inventory somewhere on the ship. I simply need to find it.” Mario continued to scroll through the ship’s inventory. “There. Metal saw, compartment, Aft Four Corridor, Seven-B Tool Shed.”
“Where’s that?” Jenna asked.
“Haha, good question. Hey, Orion, where is Aft Four Corridor, Seven-B Tool Shed?”
“It is not far from you now,” Orion replied. “I will show you on your map view.”
“Thanks.” Mario waited a second and then the map appeared in his virtual view, allowing him to locate it. “Looks like it’s back up the corridor and one compartment over. I’ll be right back. You good here by yourself?”
“Yes, but I should probably go with you in case there are fires or something,” Jenna told him.
“Come on, then. Here’s the map.” Mario made a swiping motion toward her, sending the map into her virtual view.
“Hey, that’s right by the conduit spares and the wire we need,” Jenna said. “We can kill two birds with one stone here.”
It took them another fifteen minutes to gather the replacement parts and the tools needed and then make their way back to the damaged power conduit. Fortunately, microgravity actually made that part of the job easier. The conduit by itself probably massed over seventy-five kilograms. Floating it down the corridor was a lot easier than carrying it in gravity, a fact that space travelers never really got used to. The only thing they had to worry about was the pipe’s inertia, which the two of them were able to manage fairly easily.
“Jenna, Mario, do you copy?” Evonne’s voice asked over the comms network earpieces they wore.
“Copy that, CHENG. Go ahead,” Jenna replied.
“Be advised that we are going to soon start opening several corridors and chambers to space to extinguish the fires. I’m sending keep-out zones highlighted on your VR maps now,” Evonne explained. “Keep an eye out for faulty seals on your end in case you need to take evasive actions.”
“Understood, Evonne,” Jenna said. “I think we’re far enough on the other side of the engine room that we should be good.”
“Roger that. But since you two are the only others down here on this end of the ship, if you can’t keep at least two hatches between you and us, then stop now and find some suits.”
Jenna looked at Mario, who was already swiping through the map Evonne had sent them. Sharing it with her, he highlighted in red the rooms the CHENG was about to evacuate. He then showed buffer doors in layers between them: marked with red if there were a vacuum on the other side, yellow if there was a red door between them and vacuum, and green if there was a yellow-and-red door or more between them and vacuum. They looked to have an ample buffer zone.
“Looks like we’re good to go, Evonne,” Mario observed.
“Good. We’re pressing onward, then. Several sections will be evacuated momentarily. Let me know how the progress goes with the power,” Evonne told them. “CHENG out.”
“Let’s get moving,” Jenna said as she kicked off the bulkhead and down the last corridor back to the hatchway entering the room with the bad conduit. The two of them set the replacement materials and tools afloat—but tethered to a handhold.
“I’ll get on with the cutting,” Mario stated, unpacking the saw and assembling the guiderails and clamps.
“Good.” Jenna nodded her head in the affirmative and started uncoiling lengths of wiring and cables that she was going to need.
Mario dropped the saw into the place where he planned to make his first cut. He slid the guiderail attachments on the conduit to either side of the cut mark and locked them down with the thumbscrews. He shook the saw back and forth to make sure it was appropriately fastened to the pipe.
“It ain’t going anywhere,” he muttered to himself. Then he set the blade about five millimeters from the surface of the conduit and turned it on. It started spinning with an electric motor hum. He then worked his feet into the holds beneath it and looked at Jenna, nodding. “If you can put any sort of pressure against my back, then that will help me crank the blade through the cut. The saw is attached and not going anywhere, but turning this crank will be like turning a doorknob in microgravity. I’m as likely to turn as the knob.”
“I’ve got you,” Jenna said, securing the wiring and connectors to a handhold near her and then floating into position behind Mario. She locked her shoes into foot rails on the floor and then put both hands on Mario’s shoulders. “Ready when you are.”
Mario turned the hand crank, pushing the blade forward into the metal conduit. As the saw hit, orange and white sparks flew and there was an ear-piercing screech of metal against metal. A few seconds later, it stopped.
“That was easy enough. I like this saw.” Mario smiled and then started releasing the thumbscrews. “We’ll cut right there next.”
The two engineers carefully detached the saw and then repeated what they had just done at the other end. Moments later, they were pulling the damaged conduit from the wall and securing it on the other side of the room with duct tape and straps. They then eased the replacement section into place to measure it.
“Okay, that’s how long we need. Make sure to allow for ten centimeters extra on each end so the repair conduit can be clamped over the old one,” Jenna said.
“Got it.” Mario took the replacement part across the room where he had fastened the saw to the handrail.
“You cut it while I start in on the wires,” Jenna told him.
“Copy that.” Mario went to work on the repair conduit. It wasn’t like a standard conduit. Instead, the repair conduit was split longways and hinged so it could be clamped around a set of wires after the fact rather than pulling wires through it. Once in place, the repair piece would be closed around the wires and the conduit at each end. There it would be bolted together.
“How’s the wiring going?” Mario asked, “Any idea what caused the blowout?”
“Wiring is getting there. These conductor repair clamps are useful,” Jenna said as she held two ends of wire up, one from the conduit and one of the replacement. The conductors were bigger in diameter than her thumb and very stiff. They were coated with a very thick insulation material designed to hold millions of volts at very high amperage current flow. Once in place next to each other, she placed a repair sleeve clamp over the two ends and depressed it. As the clamp activated, it released a chemical composition of liquid metals that welded the two ends of the wires together, making a perfect electrical and mechanical connection. The exterior of the clamp was covered with a thick insulator.
“Not sure of the cause yet. That will take some time to sort out once we get power back everywhere. Evonne might have a better idea about that than I do. We’ll have to wait and see.” Jenna shook her head, her brow furrowing in concentration. “Could have been a power surge or a malfunction due to the engine failure. We won’t know for sure until we can assess the damage to the rest of the systems.”
It took the two of them several more minutes to get the repair conduit cut to size and all the wiring replaced. Jenna tested the wiring for continuity with a signal meter placed at each end of the cuts and all looked like it was good. Then she motioned to Mario to put the conduit into place and clamp it down. With the new conduit in place, they initiated a test to restore power but only on one of the circuits they had fixed. Jenna had thrown the other breakers. She certainly didn’t want a repeat of that thing blowing out with millions of amps, especially not with them in the room with it.
“Okay, Orion, I’m closing one circuit. When I do, I’ll tell you to cycle the power,” Jenna told the AI. She flipped the breaker to the one cable into the on position. “Okay, Orion, cycle power from the forward power conditioning unit.”
“Very well,” Orion said. Then a soft hum filled the corridor as some of the systems slowly came back online and some of the lighting in the corridor and in the room came on.
“It’s working,” Jenna confirmed, relief washing over her. “Let’s get the rest of these lines reconnected and the power fully restored, and then we’ll see what the CHENG wants us doing next.”