Resurrection

He had been hired on by Frost, the First Officer. What a character, with his accent, which was a little like a Coreworld British but more closer to the old Earth Irish accent he had seen in the movies. Hiring for the Samson wasn't exactly complicated. Frost checked for a criminal record, glimpsed at his educational transcript and he was assigned to a repair post aboard.

His quarters consisted of a locker, a lower bunk, and a trunk at the end of the bed. There were six bunks crammed into the small cabin and a man to each. He was thankful that the fellow who slept above him, a large man who smelled like engine degreaser, worked on the opposite shift. He had only met him the one time while he was settling in.

Having served on an ore hauler, he was used to a noisy ship, so the quiet of the Samson was a little unnerving. It was an ugly, heavily modified ship that looked more like an insect with its engine pods, the maxjack grappler and cargo train hookups at the back. He couldn't believe how well maintained the ship was on the inside. It was all unpainted decking and grating everywhere with low lighting to save power, but mechanically he had never been on such a ship.

The near silence in most areas was still unnerving. There were twenty eight aboard but he hadn't seen anyone for hours. Not since he had started servicing the starboard inertial dampening system. At first he didn't understand how he could work on them while they were in hyperspace, but then he took a look at the electrical diagram. There was a backup for the backups, so if he took something offline another part of the system would compensate seamlessly.

He finally figured out how to move the core inertial director he was working on. It was a bulky, square component connected to secondary power in at least three ways. Half of its casing was removed already so there was room for the modifications that had been made. Finn shook his head and crawled between the bulkheads, laying on one side with his arms over his head so he could fit and reach the component. As he had seen, it looked like if he moved the whole director box up, then away from him, down and forward it should just pop right out.

It took four tries. There was a latch behind that locked the whole component in place that he hadn't seen until he was under it. After that it came right out into the hallway. It took him several minutes to extract himself from the cramped space, then he just stood there looking at the part for a moment. 'What the hell happened to this thing? There's a reserve capacitor and God knows what else,' he muttered to himself.

'Looks like Captain built a whole backup control circuit inta it. Look there, it's a wireless receiver,' Frost pointed out. He was chewing a greenish meal bar.

'It's attached to a very old processing unit.'

'Doesn't need much of a brain to relay commands.'

'True, I have to admit; it's ugly, but ingenious. There's a primary and two backup systems built into this little unit and I couldn't see it ever completely breaking down.'

'Then whys it out on the deck all in the open like?'

'Oh, a status panel on the bridge said it was running hot by eleven degrees.'

'That'd be the capacitor kit built right up against the bottom of the casin' I'd imagine.'

'Yup.' Finn carefully picked up the unit and turned it over so he could see the capacitor kit, a small, heavy box built right up against the inertial director unit. It was painted black at one point in time, but you could barely tell from the dented and scratched casing. 'This thing looks older than I am.'

'Probably is. Does it hold a charge?'

He scanned it and nodded. 'Enough to keep this unit powered for five or six days if the mains go out. I bet if I add a little insulation right between the director and capacitor casings it'll stop overheating.' He put the unit down, being careful not to disconnect any of the cables leading back into the crawlspace, and started to remove the capacitor casing. 'Does the Captain modify a lot of the ship systems?'

Frost laughed for a minute, nodding. 'He built this rig from a hull and a pile o' parts in the cargo hold, if you believe the stories. He was an engineer for some military outfit.'

'How long have you been aboard?'

'Little over three years. Started as a gunner.'

'What do you do now?'

'Tactical, not because I was a good gunner, but because I run that maxjack like no one he's found.'

'Those big clamps right?'

'Well, that's part of it, there's also automated plasma cutters, pry arms, a fortified airlock and other stuff ye should just hope ye never hafta repair. Ever seen one work before?'

'Nope, this is my first tour as a mercenary. All I know is that we go after people who are running away from the law or owe our clients credits.'

'You mean lots o' credits. Captain doesn't go after debts under a hundred thousand unless he gets to keep whatever he finds. Bounties since I've been aboard are mostly for serious crime and we do almost everythin' else. He's no slaver though. Anyway, a maxjack grapples onto another ship then uses cutters and that hard airlock ta bust through a door or make a new one. It's a hell of a show, pirate's dream.'

'I could imagine. Did the Captain build it himself?'

'Nope, he said he got it from a scrap yard. He's made improvements, sure, but mostly he had to make sure the rest of this old cargo hauler could handle the stress and impact it goes through when the maxjack is doing what it was made for, crackin' hulls.'

'This was a cargo hauler?'

'At some point in time, aye. Makes sense that you don't recognize it though, with all the armour platin' and extra manoeuvrin' thrusters.'

'Not to mention the rail cannons and EMP turret.'

'Yup, there's nothin' else like her. Customized past designation and rock hard. A lot like her Captain.'

'He seems that way. How long has he had this ship?'

'Last time someone asked him he said he was hatched here. At first I didn't believe it. Since then I've seen enough to know it's been awhile. This ship is as much part of him as his right arm. No one knows it like him, no one could run her like him.'

'Well, I can see he already thought of my solution. There's already insulation between the capacitor kit and the main director box, it's just been worn through,' Finn said as he pulled what was left of the grey-blue insulation layer. 'It just needed replacing.'

'Well, if you're thinkin' like the Captain while servicin' his ship, it'll be hard ta go wrong. You're doin' better than the last man standin' in your place already.'

'What happened to him, anyway?'

'He bought a ship the Captain picked up on a job. Makin' his own way somewhere now. Didn't take long, he only lasted five months. Pretty normal for repair crews ta go through members though.'

'Well, if the whole ship's like this then I could see why. Without the proper training someone couldn't last at this. Everything's done a certain way, it's all made to work a long time. Bad workmanship shows when the Captain rebuilt the ship himself.'

'Yup, last Chief Engineer we had discovered that the hard way. Haven't had an official replacement since.'

'What happened?' Finn asked as he started putting the whole inertial director back together.

'Well, that's a sore point with some of the crew, so you'll have ta keep this to yourself. His name was Nokilla, good fella really, smart. He was lazy though, and kept the repair crews running hard so he didn't have to get his hands dirty. There was this one recovery that almost went bad. We took a lot of hits from this ship who thought they could get away from us because they had a plasma cannon and a beam or two. We got 'em anyway, but got shaken up real good. Lost a couple repair guys and a lot of grunts. Only way to get the ship back in shape was to get everyone in on the repairs, Nokilla included. I remember it like yesterday. A whole section of our main starboard power relay was hit, you can still see it if ye look.'

'I think I did, that whole section of the inner hull is a different colour.'

'Aye, ya have me and Torres to thank for that, we patched that hole. We couldn't run the new cables for power though. I might have a pretty good idea of how that stuff works but I'm no specialist. So Nokilla had ta do it. Well, he rushed through so he could move onto the next job and was just finishin' up. He added a few power distributors to the circuits so he didn't have to manually hard wire any of the main lines, knowin' that he would be short on other work that needed doin' closer to the engines. One of the repair guys, well this one was a girl, called