Horus Makkan - Rank:Chief Petty Officer - Shop: Maintenance; Engine
Public Log, Entry 1
I've decided to keep this log because, well, there's nothing else to do out in the black. I apologize in advance for the shite story-telling. My late wife always told me I was terrible at recounting stories.
Although, I do like the idea of being able to give a perspective of what happens out here to those who can't or are too afraid to venture into the black. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to comment. I would be happy to answer them.
Anyway, here goes nothing.
Sol-Date: 2415-51-03
For any land dwellers, Sol-Date is the military's way of keeping a standard date between star systems. The first set of numbers refers to the cycle of the galaxy. I think it's a load of bull. If you ask me, the minds that developed it started with a number pulled out of a hat and they increase it every time the next two numbers reach 100. More than likely, whoever thought up the system started with the year we left the Earth, 2240. The second set of numbers represents what were called months on Earth that was. It is kind of a nod to our history and where we came from. It's a shame that it has nothing to do with the antiquated system. The last numbers are measured by a work day or our sleep cycle. After a certain amount of time, the computers click it up.
There's no way for us to tell time out here, except with our computers. Most of you land dwellers use seconds, minutes, and hours. We mostly do, but because of a lack of a rotation around an axis, there is no sunrise or sunset for us and we must rely on what we're told. If I remember correctly, it's based on the half-life of a certain atom that now determines how long a "second" is. Sounds like a load of shit to me, but then again I am just a dumb mechanic.
Moving on; I relish our time in hard-docks, when we get to shuttle down to planets with real gravity rather than thrust. I hate not being on dirt. And there is nothing compared to the warmth of the sun.
Last night was interesting. I had to shimmy my way into a tight maintenance shaft to check a pump and nearly got stuck several times. By the time I got to the thing, I had gone through all of the swear words I knew three or four times. I had been there for two hours working on the pneumatic pump that had stopped working on our C-class Vega; it's a cruiser class. Nothing like the loadout of a destroyer, but it's still capable of defending itself well out in the black abyss of space. The pump that went out damn near caused the Hadron engine to fail catastrophically if my apprentice Garrett wouldn't have caught the issue. The pump is one of the few that keeps the fusion engine cool so it doesn't melt and dump radiation on us all.
This helped me a bit in tech school when I learned how to fix these engines. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/hadron.html If you're curious. It's an old 21st-century website, so it may not work on your modern tablets. If I understand correctly it uses the energy from the negative pion decaying into a muon and a muon antineutrino. Or maybe it decays into an electron and electron antineutrino. I dunno, I leave the physics to the experts. I don't know what that means exactly, but it makes me feel smart when I can get a small understanding. Jeff, one of the fusion engineers, has been teaching me about our engines on the Mineya. He told me the other day, "Even though you don't completely understand the science behind it yet, you can understand the process better than a lot of my superiors." That made me feel pretty good.
Moving on.
Whoever was in charge of designing where to put this son of a bitch pump box needs to be shot. Damn near one of the most important parts of the engine and it's back in the corner of a tiny ass duct that only the smallest of mechanics can get at. I had barely enough room to bring my arms down to my work belt.
The engine is a layer of tungsten and lead alloy with some other metals added to it. I won't get into specifics. All you need to know is that it protects the ship from the radiation it produces while still retaining a high melting point. In between the engine and the hallways/general living quarters is a small duct-like cavern that surrounds the engine and has all sorts of components and wiring to keep the thing running. We called it The Cave in school. Yeah, the pump is inside that area. On the floor. Under a plate that held other components.
The pump looked like it was leaking. There was a pool of viscous fluid underneath the casing where it was bolted to the bulkhead. I've never seen or smelt the fluids they use inside the pumps. I work mainly with the engines and leave the pneumatics to the pneumatic shop, so I wasn't certain whether this fluid came from the box. I popped the casing off and took a look inside. Wouldn't you know it, the fluid was everywhere inside the casing.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
I found what looked like a probable cause. Probable is an understatement. One of the couplers inside made from a titanium alloy for extra strength was completely shattered. I had never seen anything like it. I probably never will again. I asked the Maintenance Commander after and he said the alloy used on the part has a tensile strength of 175,000 PSI and 1210 MPa. For those that aren't aware, tensile strength is the amount of force required to break or fracture an object. And the little 6" coupler was shattered into a couple dozen pieces. He wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't shown it to him and pieced it together.
After I got the fluid cleaned up and coupler replaced, I started wriggling my way out. “You need help?” My underling, Garrett, said. He was damn near fresh out of basic and school but he catches on fast.
“No,” I called back. “Just fucking annoying getting through here.”
This may seem off-topic, but you never know the pants-shitting terror of something until you think you're experiencing it.
As I shimmied through The Cave, I felt a rumbling from the engine, not remembering my lock-out tag-out was still in place with Garrett's and the captain's. I thought the fucker forgot or just decided it was time to fire the engine up before it was fixed. Needless to say, I hauled ass out of there before anything bad could happen to me. As I reached the maintenance hatch I used to access the compartment, the rumbling slowly died as if fail-safes had been engaged. Christ. The engine itself does not allow radiation to escape the inner-most compartment, meaning I was completely safe, but damn that was scary in the moment.
"Did you feel that?" I asked, sitting up from the floor. I was met with wide eyes and concern. He nodded. I nodded back and sighed. “Alright, meet me back at the shop so we can disengage the lock-outs," I told Garrett. "First, I need to go change my pants.” Garrett chuckled and acknowledged my order. He left and I made my way to the bridge. The captain should be informed of the fix. And I thought about giving him lip about trying to start the damn engine.
I reached the area of the ship where the bridge is located. It's in different areas on different classes of ships. For class C it's generally towards the rear. They're different to keep the enemy guessing, I think. Or at least I had reasoned. I'd wager a week's pay anybody wanting to kill us will know where it's at on every class.
Anyway, after we made ready the engine, we went to speak with the captain. He and a navigation officer, Paul I think his name was, were discussing something; on the Mineya we're not terribly disciplined when it comes to calling others by their last name - the captain never understood the point. By now, last names were as common as first names.
What they were discussing sounded like how far behind their projected timeline they were. I try not to eavesdrop when it's not my place. I waited patiently for him to wave me over, and he did. Ships are considered no-salute areas, regardless of where you are at, but we still recognize other aspects of rank.
“Tell me you figured something out, Lieutenant.” His voice was annoyed and disappointed. Captain Daniel Saito was of Japanese descent, from Earth. Though the Japanese these days are nothing like those before we expanded to the stars.
“Yes, sir.” He was about the only one I called sir. He was one of the few on the ship that outranked me. As far as seniority and respect, though, I bet if I asked him to jump he'd ask 'how high?' out of respect. I've been at this over 20 years, received my Ensign commission three years ago and have been working at commanding my own ship it ever since. I figure if I don't know how to fix the ship, how should I know how to command one. At least it makes sense to me. I still have a lot to learn about tactics in vacuum.
“A coupling shattered inside of one of the coolant pumps. Fixed now and should be operational."
He nodded and smiled. "Good work Horus."
"Any time. Oh, and next time Captain, try to wait for me to give the all-clear before turning the engines on.”
“I haven't touched the power sequence since she went through the emergency shutdown.” His face was quizzical. I'm sure I looked just as confused. “You OK?”
“I think that remains to be seen, sir.”
“Have you thought about retiring?" he asked. That might have been a quip at my age. Not many spend more than 20 years in. Come to think of it not many survive that long in the service.
“Every day, sir. Let me know if I can help in any way.”
“I've told you, Horus, you can call me Dan.”
“Yes, sir, I'm aware. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”
I turned to leave and I swear I heard a mumbled “Old habits, my ass.” That made me grin. He called after me, "Make sure you go and see a shrink!" I waved it off, not turning back to face him.
The elevator was quiet as I descended the decks. Left me to my thoughts. The engine shouldn’t have begun to spin up without the captain activating the power sequence. So what was that rumble inside The Cave? The elevator doors opened to one of the lower decks. Probably just the Black getting to me in my old age. I still need to wash this fluid out of my hair. It turned it the color green instead of the usual silver and grey. Probably should have done that before writing - I'm pretty sure this shit is toxic. I didn't trust that I wasn't going to forget details later on, though.
As I said above, if you have any questions don't hesitate. It would be nice to hear from you grounders.
Anyway. Horus, signing off.