Wincing noticeably, the crew chief pulled his finger away from the pipe and, wetting it, stuck the digit between his lips. He eyed his crew.
“Yep, it’s over heated alright.”
Smitty was the chief engineer aboard the new Pandora-class minelayer. From a long line of space faring men, his family had no claimed home planet so transient was the nature of life in the void. He had come by the job through the Gestalt Colonies and found himself working under contract with a mixed crew of Colonial and Kashan non-commissioned officers. At only twenty four years old he had attained the highest rank in his station and had even been offered a commission though the Colonial Defense Force.
His auburn color skin was smeared with grease.
For their part the rest of the stokers, his subordinates on Core One, tried not to roll their eyes. They wore varied expressions the general consensus of which seemed to be; Duh! The five men shrugged.
A heavy series of thumps echoed through the hull. As one, the men blanched.
“It’s okay,” said Chief Smitty in comforting but not totally confident sort of voice. “None of the warheads have been armed. They’ll just keep stacking up until the hopper gets stuck open.”
These new Pandora-class minelayers had been repurposed from Action IV bulk transport freighters. Because they were not purpose built the line had developed a number of problematic quirks, quirks that had earned the ungainly ships the dubious nickname “lunchbox”. The men who served aboard the vessels were regarded as “meat heads” by the rest of the Kashan-Gestalt JTF; a humorous moniker that was only part of a unique operating dynamic. Life aboard a Pandora-class minelayer was exciting, if nothing else.
“We need to shut down the plasma stream.” He scratched at his jaw, resident to a day’s stubble. “If those mines get superheated it won’t matter about the redundant shut down. At the very least they’ll melt and we’ll need to replace the entire hopper mechanism… at the worst, we all die.”
Remote Mine Operations Vessel “Ramona” RM01N4 had been operating as part of a five ship squadron assigned to secure this portion of the Gestalt-Kashan hyperlane when it experienced a fatal systems failure. They had been responsibly positioning and repositioning their own units in conjunction with those deployed by the rest of the tenders. The mission was being conducted in apologia with the JTF and in the best interests of the peoples of Kashan and Gestalt.
The hyperlane had been increasingly busy these recent months and had received top priority from both governments.
Immediately following the error the ships commander sent out a priority distress report which was in turn distributed throughout the military ships in occupation of the hyperlane. Due to the hazardous cargo aboard the munitions deployment vehicle and the abundance of explosives in the vicinity, yet to be properly configured, flight control had chosen to redirect all incoming traffic. A squadron of HyperFighters which had been patrolling the route was directed to reconnoiter. They would arrive shortly and in the mean time the other Pandora-class vessels were to beat a hasty retreat.
A Kashan cruiser, the Resolution had also been dispatched.
Despite the dire circumstances, Chief Smitty remained cool and composed. His confidence inspired strength in his crew and it showed.
“The auxiliary power conduit runs by that junction,” Smitty informed the others while tracing his finger along the ships blueprint diagnostic. It zoomed in and out at his touch. “If we shut down the adjoining corridor here and close the circuit here, a man could fit into that conduit. Cut through the pipe here and directly switch off the plasma flow here…”
“It’ll work,” he rounded on his group. “Toni and Lemugh, I want you two to get down to engineering and keep an eye on the regulators. When I give the signal I want you to reroute primary power through these back ups here. It’ll take both of you. Jermi will assist me…”
“You’re going in?”
Smitty had developed a reputation. He never took risks with the lives of his men.
“I’m going in. Someone contact the bridge… they’ll need to know what’s going on.”
“This is Hyper Squadron Alpha flight leader to RM01N4, do you read?”
The fighters had dropped out of hyperspace only moments earlier. Because of the abundance of mines yet to be linked in they had been forced to plot their reversion some distance from the stricken freighter. From this distance nothing looked amiss.
“This is Ramona, Lieutenant Pok commanding. We have experienced a fatal failure in our ordinance deployment system.”
He sounded anxious. No time to waste…
“Calm down Ramona,” ordered the fighter pilot. His own rank exceeded that of the ships commander. “We have been apprised of the situation. How long do you have?”
In perfect formation, their Azimuth thrusters firing, the squadron of HF-10 starfighters moved in careful to avoid collision with any of the mines clogging the area. The pilots knew that if the tender went, she would go big and bright. The long, swift fighters were not well suited to maneuvering through the artificial asteroid field.
From the seat of his HyperFighter the flight leader spied obvious external damage on the Pandora’s port side. His flight helmet automatically focused on the area. He began recording the images and prepared to uplink with the freighter.
“We have a man in the pipes,” reported the ships captain. “Our Chief says that he can get it nailed down in about ninety seconds… Unfortunately we’re reading about sixty seconds to critical.”
“Roger that. Fire your pods and we’ll begin moving as many people out of here as we can. The Resolution is still three minutes out.”
Seconds later a dozen escape pods shot away from the Pandora. It was SOP (standard operating procedure) to stuff all non-essential personnel in the emergency units in such a situation while only that crew with skills relevant to the discovery of a quick solution stayed behind; in this case, Chief Smitty and his men.
The HyperFighters moved into positions around the escaping pods and, with their much more advanced sensors, plotted safe escape vectors. It took an additional forty seconds to clear the danger zone.
Checking his chronometer the lead pilot keyed open his microphone. “How are you doing over there?”
No response was forthcoming.
He twisted around in his cockpit to visually examine the freighter. Kilometers away, he could nary distinguish the ships lines.
“RM01N4?”
And then space lit up. It was like the birth of a star.
The pilot flinched and pressed his eyes shut as though the blast shield were not enough. His cockpit darkened automatically.
A tragedy had unfolded. Ten men were dead, ten men dedicated to Kashan/Gestalt unity. And in death they would become heroes and icons if, together, their nations could grow from it.
He did not regret not firing his weapons.
