Murphy is laughing at me.
28 Apr 2017Da5id Weatherwax
I hadn't planned to stay here this long. On the way into dock the Noodle had developed this nasty little corkscrew that had me dancing on the thrusters to stay aligned with the pad on approach. Nasty, squirrely and intermittent, just at about the right - or wrong - frequency that if I'd had any dirtsider passengers they'd probably have been blowing chunks. Uneven fuel flow. Had to be."No problem!" I thought. "Only a twenty minute job to pull the feed lines and then about half an hour to flush and rebalance them. I'll have that done before they've even finished unloading."
Sure enough, only twenty minutes to pull them but once I started the flush the bad news hit. They were still perfectly balanced. That left only one possible cause. Since the deviation always began to starboard, it had to be the internal feed on number 2 main. This was a job for the shop. Not a huge job, certainly well within the capability of dozens of shops on this big industrial station but it meant pulling the module and opening it up and that took time and money. I still wasn't too bothered, it shouldn't have taken more than a day in the maintenance bay and I was pretty flush after finding a buyer from down on the planet who desperately needed the canisters of Animal Monitors I had hauled in. It was winter down there on the only colonized continent and they'd had a very mild summer. Mild enough that the population of one of the local predators had risen sharply. Now it was winter, they were hungry, and the colonies livestock was taking a hit. He was happy to pay through the nose for immediate delivery and I was equally happy to take his credits, so I took some of those credits to a shop that the word in the pilot's bar said did decent work and booked the Noodle into their maintenance bay.
Problem was, they gave the job to the rook.
I wandered back into the bay just as he was starting to button up the hull. It all looked perfectly fine but something wasn't right. It took me a second to realize what it was. I could smell coolant. Nothing unusual about that in a maintenance bay, but what was wrong was that I was smelling hot coolant. A quick look through the hatch to their test shed was all I needed.
"Hold it!"
"Sir?"
"Pull it again. I need it inspected before I fly it out of here.."
"We've got that covered, Sir. The inspection reports are over by..." I cut him off with a raised hand.
"No, I mean I am going to inspect it. My ship, my life, my eyes. No arguments, kid. Pull it. If I don't see what I think I'm going to, you get paid the extra hours. On the other hand, if I do find what I'm expecting both you and your boss are going have to talk real fast to stop me shoving your biggest wrench up your arse and then suing the shop."
"I don't know what you're implying, but..."
"Oh, shut up and get to work and while you're at it, I'll explain that I was chief engineer on a 'conda before I went freelance and I know exactly what had to happen in order to leave that much coolant on the floor of your test shed and for it still to be too hot to clean up. ok? When you have that engine back on the bench I'm going to see a big bright weld in what should be a seamless primary casing, aren't I?" If I hadn't already been certain, the way his shoulders sagged and he blushed so deep that his zits stood out like navpoints would have done it.
It had probably gone just fine for the rookie socket-jockey until he put the finished job on the test rig. They made thrusters here, he'd probably seen plenty of class 6's before. Only problem was that the hottest 6's they made here were type C. He'd calibrated the rig for that and then started the runup and test program on my type A. Suddenly the engine was pulling about 1.3 megawatts more than the rig was calibrated for, the interlocks had tripped and everything had gone into emergency shutdown. Unfortunately the cooling was calibrated for a type C too, so was already pretty much at its limits. An unclean shutdown had been just too much for it to damp out and the thermal shock had fractured something, dumping the coolant out of the engine. For it to be that hot as it came out, it could only have come from one place. The kid had cracked my primary drive casing.
To add insult to injury, rather than 'fess up to the boss he'd "repaired" it and was about to send me off into the black with one main engine carrying about a tenth of the structural integrity of the other. It would maybe have lasted a dozen taps on the boost button before shitting itself again, all over my deck. I was not a happy camper and was already on the com to the shop's owner, who turned up half an hour later, dressed for a night out and almost as pissed off as I was.
After I pointed out to him that under the circumstances, station security would probably give me a pass if I decided to use his shop for target practice he promptly refunded my deposit and assured me that he'd replace the engine at his own expense.
"...and if you'll bear with me a moment, Commander, I have one other thing to take care of. Travis? Stop what you're doing, gather your tools and get them out of my shop. I'd say you can pick up your back pay at the office tomorrow, but I don't think that'll cover the cost of a new thruster, will it? Be thankful I'm not coming after you for the rest of it because you'll need your savings to ship out. If I have anything to say about it there's not a shop in this system will hire you."
This guys attitude explains why his shop had such a good rep. I was there the following morning when he gave instructions that nobody but his top mechanic was to lay a finger on my ship. The one thing he couldn't change was that there wasn't a spare 6A thruster to be had on the station and the nearest place that manufactured 'em wasn't exactly close, so I'd be here a while.
He's paid for my lodging at a more upscale place than I'd normally be prepared to drop the credits on, but I'm itching to get flying again. My engine should arrive in two more days and they can't pass fast enough for me.
You see, Murphy hadn't finished with me yet. A week is sometimes a long time in intrasystem politics and I got stranded here just in time for it to all go to hell in a handbasket.....
(to be continued... )