Alexander peered into the engine cone of the Zephyr. It had been perforated in a dozen places and a large chunk was missing off of one side.
He was pretty sure he could fix it if he had a big enough printer. But he didn’t and that wasn’t the only problem. Other components of the engine were also damaged. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t exploded.
Alexander lowered himself using the industrial lift. It was time to break the bad news to Captain Daniel.
He found the man speaking to another member of his crew. The Captain noticed him approaching and patted his crew member on the shoulder before sending them off and greeting him.
“So, Alexander. Can you fix it?”
“I believe I can. But I do not have a printer big enough to make a new thrust cone.”
The Captain rubbed his chin in thought for a moment before responding. “How much for a printer?”
Alexander motioned for the Captain to follow him over to a terminal. After doing a quick search, he brought up a model that he was certain would be barely large enough to handle the largest component, which was the engine cone. It wasn’t cheap by any means but it was what he needed to complete the job.
The Captain took one look at the price before he stuck his credit chip into the machine and pressed purchase on it. “Alright.”
For a moment, Alexander just stood there. He thought for sure the man would balk at the cost. This was probably a stupid move, but Captain Daniel seemed like a standup man so he had to ask.
“Why didn’t you haggle or even bat an eye at the cost of the printer?”
The Captain laughed. “You haven’t been in business long have you?”
Alexander made his holographic face shake back and forth.
“I kind of figured. Even with the other costs you quoted me, including this printer, you are still only charging me a tenth of what the other quotes came in at. The reason I didn’t balk at the cost of the printer is that you are also the only person on the station who was willing to repair it instead of replacing it.”
“Is it too late to charge you more?” Alexander lamented, making the Captain laugh.
The captain clapped Alexander on the side since he couldn’t reach his shoulder. “We will both come out of this ahead, my friend. So long as your work is good, I will let you keep this printer.”
Now that wasn’t something Alexander had expected. The printer that Captain Daniel had just purchased cost more than an entire year's worth of rent for his small space. He needed to do more ship repairs, it seemed that was where the money was at.
Alexander smiled. “You are generous Captain. I will use this as a learning opportunity, and I will try not to disappoint you with my work.”
“Bah,” the man waved away his concern. “I’m sure it will be fine. And none of this Captain nonsense. My friends call me Jasper.”
“Thank you for this opportunity, Jasper.”
Alexander got to work dismantling the engine cowling while he waited for the printer to be delivered.
He wasn’t sure where he was going to store the massive machine after the Zephyr and their crew left, but that was a problem he would be happy to figure out later.
It took a full day for the printer to arrive. Considering the size and very specific use of a printer this large, it was likely stored in some dusty room on the second ring. Having it take so long to show up was fine with Alexander. He simply worked through the night, disassembling the engine and removing the damaged parts.
In some way, it just felt natural to him to be disassembling and fixing a ship. He had no memories of being mechanically inclined though so he wasn’t sure where that feeling came from. From what he could piece together of his old life, he was pretty sure he had been some sort of lab researcher. The specifics of that time were garbled though.
By the time morning arrived Alexander had the entire engine and cowling disassembled and laid neatly on the hangar deck in the order it needed to go back on. He had stopped by his shop at one point to print out a few of the smaller components that needed replacing. Other parts could have fit on his printer, but he didn’t trust the cheap printer to do a proper job for the more important components.
At about mid-morning the printer finally showed up. It took about an hour to assemble and test on the far side of the hangar. Although Alexander wasn’t happy with just a simple test. If he was going to do this job, he was going to do it to the best of his ability. He set about building the interrupter. Only this was much larger than his previous design. It needed to be to fit the much bigger printer and also produce a large enough interruption field.
It had been months since his early tests of the device that had broken his first printer. Alexander tweaked the design considerably since then. Assuming he did his calculations correctly, the new design should be much more efficient at canceling out the artificial gravity field. Although he hadn’t been able to test if that was true or not.
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It may seem like a dangerous gamble to use an untested piece of technology on this very very expensive printer. But the overall function of the interrupter device hadn’t changed. And he knew that at least worked.
As he added the adjustments, he was aware of a steady stream of Zephyr crew coming and going. It was much the same as the day before. Some would stick around to watch for a bit before heading off to the station or into the ship. If this had been shortly after he first opened his shop, he may have found the attention unsettling. He didn’t mind it so much anymore. The shift of attitude seemed to happen around the time when Yulia started visiting him. Without the girl, he may have ended up as a cranky old hermit, like Yuri.
With the final piece of his modification in place, he checked the bolts to ensure the device was securely fastened to the floor. He would have preferred to weld it to the deck, but this wasn’t his hangar so he couldn’t modify anything. He could only use the existing mounting locations which were thankfully standard.
He made his way over to the control panel for the printer and got it powered up. It beeped for a bit as it readied its material storage tanks. Once that was done the screen turned green and it flashed into the programming menu.
Alexander fed it a small component to start with. As it began to print, he ran into the same issue he had with the cheap printer. But he had already expected that to occur. He quickly adjusted the settings and started again. This time the printer hummed along happily as the component rapidly printed itself.
Once the print finished, a scanner quickly gave him a 3D view of the part’s internals. He wished his smaller printer had this sort of quality control feature. It made ensuring the part was functional much easier than sticking it on a separate scanner.
As the parts were completed, he set them off to the side and input the next one to get printed. He worked through the rest of the parts before moving the newly printed components over to a testing station. He was glad the hangars came standard with the devices.
As he was running the diagnostic tests an inconsistency popped up. There was a small variance in the efficiency output of his new components compared to the design specifications. Only 2% or so, but there shouldn’t be any.
He approached Jasper sometime around dinner to relay the issue. The Captain and crew were lounging in a break area on the far side of the hangar. “Excuse me for interrupting. Can I have a moment of your time, Jasper?”
“What’s up, Alexander?” the Captain asked after they walked a distance from the crew.
“Would it be possible for me to remove and examine some components from the other engines?”
“Why?”
“I found a slight variance and I just want to ensure it isn’t an error in the calibration tool.”
“I don’t see an issue with that. We aren’t exactly in a hurry to leave. Our next delivery contract was retracted when we failed to show up on time anyway.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Jasper waved away his concern. “Hardly your fault. This happened even before we docked at Petrov station. Besides, the downtime is appreciated by the crew. Even if most of it is spent making sure the ship is in tip-top shape.”
After the two separated, Alexander spent the night pulling apart the other two engines and testing the components. The testing device was correct. There was an even larger discrepancy with the old components, likely due to age or wear and tear. According to the device, his newly printed parts were better than the originals. That shouldn’t be possible.
It had to be due to the low-gravity printing process because he hadn’t changed anything else in the design. It was easy enough to test if he was right though. He disabled his modification and ran another set of prints. These new parts matched the manufacturer's specifications exactly.
He had to scratch his metaphorical head at this. Certainly, a company the size of Omni had access to zero-g printing. So how could they have missed such a simple way to improve their product line?
It was a question he had no answer for and it wasn’t relevant to his work. He did have a solution to the efficiency differences, in his design, compared to the original he had accidentally stumbled upon though. He simply printed out three full sets of the replacement components using his method. Alexander could have simply installed the original manufacturer-designed components, but why would he do that when he could upgrade the engines for the very same time, money, or effort?
By the time the next morning rolled around, Alexander had the two undamaged engines mostly back in working order. The Captain must have noticed all the parts lying around and came over to speak with him.
“Did we take more damage than I thought?” Jasper asked in concern.
“No. Remember that variance I told you about?”
The man nodded.
“Well, some of the components I pulled for testing were worn out slightly, I decided to replace them to bring all the engines in line with the new parts specs.”
“I appreciate the thought, Alexander, but that wasn’t in our original deal. We could have adjusted the thrust output aboard the ship to compensate. How much of a variance did you find?”
“The cost was negligible, it just took a bit more material and time. As for the variance, it was a small amount. Around two percent.”
The Captain’s eyes went wide. “Two percent? In thrust?!”
Alexander shook his head. “Efficiency.”
The man turned toward the modified printer. “And you did it with that?” he motioned.
Alexander nodded.
“I know you told me you never worked on ship engines before, but if I was skeptical about that before, even with your quick and efficient work, I’m not anymore. Alexander, a two percent increase in efficiency is huge.”
“It is?” Alexander asked in confusion. He knew it would make trying to balance the engines out annoying but other than that he didn’t see the big deal.
“Absolutely! If a new engine model comes out with a .25% increase in efficiency, the big shipping companies gobble them up. Do you know why?”
It wasn’t hard to guess now that Jasper had pointed it out. “Fuel.”
“Exactly. Using only a fraction less fuel per trip might not seem like much. But when you’re burning thousands or even tens of thousands of credits in fuel for each shipment, those savings quickly add up. My God man, you need to register this improvement so you can sell it. And so someone else doesn’t steal it from you.”
Alexander didn’t think he had done anything all that special but the Captain seemed to think he had. “I will do as you suggest. Thank you, Jasper.”
The man smiled broadly. “No, no. Thank you. With these improvements to the Zephyr, I believe I’m going to be outbidding a fair portion of my competition for the foreseeable future, and it's all thanks to you. I want you to have my personal comm ID. If you need anything. And I mean anything, you contact me. Got it?”
Alexander nodded.
Jasper went to walk away but paused. “Oh also, call me if you have any more improvements like this. I will happily test them out.”