Raptor One – Chapter 78
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A week has passed since our return to Beta Stratta Station, on the first day we arrived I immediately got moving, searching for a place for my pack to undergo body reconfiguration, with the help of Jason, Crazy’s connections and surprisingly, Ade, the ‘adeptus mechanicus’ from the ‘Machine Cult’, with the help of those three I was able to get my pack into a good medical facility on the more secure parts of the station.
While I was waiting for my pack to finish their time on the medical facility, of which will take a week, I decided to keep myself occupied, first I took care of the ship, a entire day repairing and giving some subtle upgrades to it, after I found myself with nothing do do I decided to do some trading, and using my knowledge and finding the supply and demand I started doing some independent supply runs, earning me a lot of money, enough to buy a FTL module, I chose to install a Slipstream Sling, it’s a outer ring that rotates close to the ship engine block, being kept in place by six magnetic anchors.
After I got the ship decked out after four days of non stop work I decided to chill with the rest of the time I had to wait for my pack, so I resumed helping at Jason’s bar as brewing and all it’s intricacy intrigued me so I dedicated my time to research and understand brewing.
While I did go on working with brews most of the time, I did stop to learn other things while waiting for my pack, one of such stops where at Ade’s engineering sector where I got to know more about this side of the Adeptus Mechanicus and their Machine Cult, despite being called a cult they are very chill and dedicated engineers that deem the flesh insufficient, leading their members into unique and useful augments, most of the cult work at shipyards, but some, like Ade, dedicate their lives to maintaining the machines, or as Ade’s like to say, ‘Not let the machine’s blood runs stale and it’s spirit turn depressive.’.
The time I took to know Ade better I also got to know about the cult side of battle mechanics, the ‘Adeptus Medicalis’, special members of the cult that watched the machine spirits die in the never ending wars, which led these peoples into researching medicine as well as mechanics, forming a unique way, a codex of techniques directed at bringing both machine and flesh back to life, all of which intrigued me even more, and led me into a event of which I had to show my knowledge to save the lives of both organic and machine alike due to a dangerous reactor overload event.
No life was lost, be it biological or machine, this event was a pivotal factor that led Ade to share the Machine Cult’s ‘Adeptus Medicalis Codex’ to me, making my skill and knowledge advance a step further, and I only managed to solidify the purest of the basic, yet so much to learn...
Right now, on the 8th day of my stay inside the station I find myself operating the bar counter, making mead with imported honey from a off system agricultural station, I find myself absent minded while brewing this difficult recipe yet my hands keeps moving with ingrained movements as my mind send me back to my pack, today they are deem for leave from the medical facility and I'm missing the bunch of weirdos.
“Hey White! A round of recently made mead here!”
The voice of a client take me off my thoughts, making me look at the girls.
“Rodzher.” I reply before fishing three clean wooden cups and filing it with mead before sending to the girls, retrieving the used ones.
I myself take a cup and fill it with coffee and relax with slow sips, another day of peacefulness.
“HEYHEY! WHITE MY BRO! CAN YOU HELP ME!?” I hear the yelling of Crazy.
“Chert, *Hiss* there goes my peaceful day.” I say while finishing my cup of coffee, by the sound I'm hearing he just got his tiny termo electric reactor into meltdown.
I get up and walk into Crazy’s lab, a look at the side I see the tiny reactor slowly glowing yellow from overheat, it’s console giving a lot of red warnings and sound cues I'm very familiar with.
“THERE YOU ARE! HELP ME HERE! THIS THING HAS GONE CRAZY!” Crazy yell at me, rewarding him with a kick to the knee and a bonk to the head.
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“OUCH OUCH OUCH! STOP! I YELD!” Crazy say leaping out of reach of the console.
“Idiotka.” I say before getting to work.
First I resume the cooling and crank it to 4x, I learned from this idiot that what can go wrong will go wrong with him, so I made this termo reactor extra resilient and safe, I am curious, how did he manage to override the safety protocols?
With the cooling valves back online I get the reactor to lower it’s 18 control rods fully to help fasten the heat control but almost all the control rods are stuck, making me sigh.
“I want to hit you some more... *Hiss*” I say and get closer to the reactor, my mask releasing yet another hiss as I sigh.
The reactor is slowly cooling, but not fast enough to my liking, despite the blistering heat and the pain of my boiling ammonia blood I get the control rods back into work with a simple click of a button, the sound cue of a reactor SCRAM ring as I take my distance and watch the control rods low itself in seconds.
Despite the pain I return to the console and look at the reactor status, it’s strong cooling system working wonders along with the lowered control rods, seeing that the reactor is no longer about to melt I start a system check, this reactor is a three system module, the reactor, the cooling and the turbine, I flat out discard problems at the turbine, I installed internal system checks that override the console commands, meaning if it’s damaged or something is missing, it won’t start at all, that leaves the reactor and the cooling module.
I sigh yet again, I found no problem in both modules, meaning Crazy somehow managed to damage the connection valves between the coolant module and the reactor, a check show that the auxiliary cooling pipe was used, good thing I did not mention it to Crazy.
After some light work on the connection and making yet another hard lock on the reactor console I focus on Crazy.
“WHAT?” He ask me, looking away.
“Guilty idiotka, what do you want with the reactor? This tiny thing can power the entire neighborhood and have automatic energy control with no delay, it should not even get your eyes on it.” I say with half lidded eyes.
Crazy looks away, not daring to say anything, knowing I'll smack his head some more depending on the answer.
“*Hiss* Your specialty is medicine... And poison. Forget anything that is not related with poison or medicine, am I clear tovarishch?” I say with a sigh.
“BUT REACTORS COUNT AS POISON!” Crazy say, earning him a kick to the knee again and two more smacks to the head while it was low enough for me to smack.
“Niet it’s not! It’s the Fuel Canister inside the reactor that MAYBE counts! And I'm using a single Deuterium Rod to keep this as safe as it can get, yet you managed to FUCK IT UP!” I reply angry at his imprudence, I did not post a warning sign saying Crazy prohibited here for nothing.
Crazy stay silent, letting me recover before asking.
“What about my research? I need the power back.” Crazy ask me, much more tame.
“*Hiss* When the reactor self checking cycle finish it will start automatically and resume energy production, until that happen you go do something else.” I say with a sigh and walk back down to the bar, I think I need a drink.
Getting to the bar I start choosing a brew, after some thinking I decide for the most blunt and strong of the guys, the classic Vodka.
I grab the entire bottle and start gulping down, the clients of the bar giving a loud cheer at the display, they are used to Crazy antics.
“Hey handsome, leave a little for us!” A pair of female Avali say and I lower my bottle of Vodka with a chuckle.
“Hey, hey! Do the fire trick!” I hear one of the guys start asking me, making some of the new clients curious.
I chuckle some more, placing the bottle of vodka on the counter and lifting a hand to my mouth, giving the sign to hush, the bar get silent and as soon as my hands got a little distance from my mask I open my mouth, a breath of fire leaving with a monstrous yet tame roar, the sound akin to a dragon spiting fire.
A round of claps resounds along with cheers as I get back to gulping my bottle of vodka, I also almost missed my pack entering the bar, looking astounded my way.
I laugh after placing the empty bottle down, waving at my pack, giving the girls a little more courage to get closer, Avali never liked fires.
“Privet girls.” I say and give a nod as my mask don’t let me show some emotions.
“Hi Captain! What do you think about our new looks?” Li’luk ask me.
“Da, I like the new looks, you all kept your colors too, so that make it easier to know who’s who. Not that you all can hide from me, I know your mannerisms anyway.” I say and chuckle, leaning back on my chair and closing my red eye, trying to give a laid back vibe.
The girls grin seeing my change.
“Despite your mask, you can now show more emotions.” Su’ra’s tomboyish voice resounds, making me grin inside the mask.
“Heh.” I chuckle. “Feeling good?” I ask both Su’ra and Su’zu.
Su’ra just nods, while Su’zu give a impish smile.
“What are we going to do now?” Zu ask me while cutting Su’zu off, she know she was off to no good.
I lay back a little and close a eye while chuckling, something natural that I learned to show that I'm harmless and friendly despite the rough voice and looks.
“For now? We rest, I have your exoskeletons upstairs, yes all five along with rifles, knifes and ammo. I also made the helmets optional in case of non breathable air.” I say while getting my hands on another vodka bottle.
I raise the entire bottle up. “For sem’ya.” I say before drinking down my bottle of vodka, another round of cheers resounding...