Lt. Reilly 2321

Chapter 6: Rolling the Dice

The problem with the environmental systems was in the primary controls. Due to its crucial role, the system was designed with two additional redundant systems that should automatically take over if the primary failed in any way. It looked like the connection from the central computer was severed, and the system never got the signal. Something that could easily be fixed manually. Looking around I found the door I was looking for. The main control room for the environmental units was always housed next to the engine room because if anything went wrong with the system, you would want an engineer on top of it as soon as possible. I hobbled over to the door, my knee really killing me at that point, opened the door and found myself in a very confined space with a ladder leading up to the next deck.“Of course," I muttered as I took hold of the highest rung I could reach and hopped on my good leg onto the lowest rung. Repeating the process, I climbed up the ladder as quickly as I could until I reached the top with a hatch leading into the EV Control Room. I tried to open it, only to find that it would not budge. Looking through the small porthole-sized window in the door my gut sank as I saw two men with engineering insignias on their uniforms, dead. From the bloated faces, I knew right away that they died from a loss of atmosphere in the compartment. There was no way I was going to be able to get in there without an environmental pressure suit, and I didn't have time to hunt one down. My options and time were running out, and I considered making a run for the escape pods, but then I had a flash of an idea; a bad one, but it might work. Grabbing the sides of the ladder, I slid down and did my best to land on my good leg. I hobbled back into the engine room which was starting to fog up with the toxic gas. I made a quick inventory search on the ships manifest and found what I was looking for, but it was going to be a challenge to get to. Running the best I could out the main door and down the corridor, I found hatch 6-A5. I opened it, stepped into the tube-like space with the ladder that went straight down four decks and slid down, catching myself every ten feet or so with my leg as not to fall the entire way. At the bottom was a hatch on the floor. I opened it and climbed down into the clear ball that was a repair pot. The one person self-contained unit was used to make exterior repairs. It had a small thruster, about three hours of breathable air, four arms, and an onboard maintenance computer. The operator of the pod can use the ships umbilical ports to plug into a ship's computer system so they could evaluate the progress of their repairs without having to dock and go back inside. Before the war the systems were wireless, but for security reasons, all shipboard computer systems were changed to a hardwire access only. Launching the pod, I moved it over to the port side of the aft section near where the engine room would be located and found the nearest umbilical port. The two minutes it took me was enough time for the rest of the ship to reach toxic levels of the gasses that not even the rebreathers could protect me from, so if this didn't work, I was screwed. There was no way for me to get to an escape pod and the designers of the repair crafts never came up with a way to exchange people from a repair pod into an escape pod. This bubble with arms would become my coffin if I didn't pull a miracle out of thin air.

The data link worked, and the computer came to life with a flood of data, mostly about damaged and offline systems. I minimized all of that and pulled up the ship's internal layout so I could see exactly where I was in relation to the interior. I was just a few feet below and to the left of the environmental control room. I needed to do this right, or I would risk decompressing the remaining decks. With the upper right maintenance arm of the pod, I moved it into position over the hull and activated the cutting laser torch. With a white-hot beam and a hose blowing pure oxygen at the target, the Titanium shell cut like butter. With one eye on the schematics and another on the arm, I slowly cut away the outer hull until I had a hole that was about three-foot square. Then I repeated the task on the inner hull and then again on the compartment wall. When I was done, I had three, four-foot deep holes that led into the EVC Room. Since it was already compromised, I didn't have to worry about an explosive decompression pushing me out away from the ship. Not unless I cut in the wrong spot. 20 minutes had passed. I can only assume Kayla, and the young Ensign launched their pod and set a course for the other escape pods that had to be at least a hundred kilometers back the way they came and moving away. This little repair pod was designed for minimum speed to move around a ship. This was all or nothing. I used the lower arm to grab hold of the ship with a magnetic grip and then carefully guided the lower right arm into the compartment. The three finger claw on its tip was designed for grabbing and pulling objects and not pushing buttons. Add to that, from my angle I could only see the control station from the side so I would have to trust my memory of the standard layout to know if I was keying the correct sequence. The arm moved in and twisted around to point the claw down. I opened the three fingers so that only one was pointed at the panel. I didn't want to push more than one at a time. “Okay, Jack," I said to myself. “Primary control cut off," I guided the arm down to the large white flashing button that then went dark when compressed. “Switch to secondary," I said as I moved the arm and then stopped myself, “Damn it, Jack," I scolded myself. The oxygen was already starting to thin, and I had to work harder to focus. “You forgot that you first have to override evac protocols," If I hadn't of done that the entire system would have locked down as it was a security feature to prevent an enemy from capturing a ship after it had been evacuated. I keyed the override and then activated the backup system. The computer on my pod indicated the system was coming on. It took another 10 minutes, but it filtered all the toxins out of the air and was able to re-pressurize three of the five-decks that had lost air but were re-sealed with emergency bulkheads. Now my only problem was an impending court date and forgone murder conviction.