One Day on Mars

His last boat assignment change had been more than seven years ago and it stuck. Bill was transferred to the Thatcher, where he had continued to stay on, learning everything he could about the engine room and what made the giant spaceship function, and more specifically, what was unique about this spaceship. All the spaceships, supercarriers, had little nuances about them that were different and Bill knew all of the Thatcher's. Even after he had been sent up above to the command crews, he kept up with his teams down below.

Then his wife got sick and he took all the leave he could until she died. He considered the Reserve so he could stay with his wife longer, but she was strong-willed and wouldn't allow him to do that. They had had twenty-two wonderful years together and they were both happy for that time. Then she lost the fight against the one cancer that resisted the rejuvenation treatments that had beaten basically every other terminal or chronic illness known to man. Bill had thought several times of ending things then but never could take the final step because there was always the nagging thought in the back of his mind that there was something on the Thatcher that wasn't battened down just right or that some punk fireman's apprentice was about to royally fuck up his beloved boat. So he stuck with the engine room, his only other true love. It had taken the CO and the previous COB months to convince him to take the CMC Program, but finally, reluctantly, he did and then his engine room was down below and out of reach. Oh, he could wander through it and inspect it and visit it anytime he wanted, but he couldn't get down there and get 'intimate' with it.

Well, now he could. He was there with his true love and was absolutely going to keep her running until his last breath. The flow loops for the coolant were leaking like a sieve since major chunks of the ship had been completely destroyed by the enemy missiles. Liquid metal and other fluids on the port and aft sides of the ship were spewing vital coolant out into space. CMC Edwards had a DTM virtual sphere around him that displayed the entire boat coolants and electronics that were connected in any form or fashion to the propulsion plant. He had locked down leak after leak and rerouted the flow loops through systems that were still intact or at least partially intact to the point that the flow could be routed around the leaks or missing sections of conduit.

Bill ran from panel to panel throwing breakers that the software couldn't trip because of a malfunction or a missing circuit. A couple of times he even had to use a crowbar or a BFW to close a gap across high-voltage power couplings.

Mimi, how long to impact? he asked his AIC

Twenty second,s Bill! You need to strap in, she replied.

I've got to keep the propulsion systems on line!

Bill, strap in, please!

Remind me at five!

A missile impact or secondary explosion or whatever the fuck it was caused a short within one of the power generators that in turn caused a voltage source to have a path of zero impedance for current to flow through. Since Ohm's law means that the current through a wire is equal to the voltage of the source across that wire divided by the resistive impedance of that wire and the voltage source was a large finite value and the impedance of the short-circuit within the power generator was approaching zero, there was a problem. A finite voltage divided by zero resistance is equal to infinite current. So the power coupling conduit through that part of the engine room from that power generator had a spike of infinite current through it for a millisecond. A millisecond is how long it had taken for the power cables to melt, explosively. It also threw the oversized breaker and blew it into a million pieces. He would have to close that open switch somehow, probably a crowbar or BFW, once he got the cables replaced.

'This is gonna be a rough ride! Everybody strap in for impact now!' the captain squawked over the 1MC. The CO sounded nervous. But she could see what was about to happen and Bill couldn't. It was about that time that the propulsion system went offline, lost power, and was overheated to boot. Then shit got really bad.

Five seconds, Bill! his AIC screamed in his mind.

'Shit!' Bill made a mad dash for the nearest station and pulled the chair restraints over his shoulders. Just as the safety belt harness went click he was slammed forward hard into the restraints. He kept his arms crossed and held the restraint straps with both hands and cursed with every breath. Even though Bill was being shaken like a rag doll in his chair he managed to pay at least some attention to the DTM virtual sphere ship health monitor. Red highlights started appearing all over the virtual image of the ship in his mind, most of them on the forward decks of the ship. Sounds rang out with horrendous screeches of metal against metal and odd natural frequencies vibrated throughout the engineering room. The safety chair Bill was strapped into had reached a harmonic vibration and was singing like a crystal wineglass. For what seemed like an eternity, the engine technician command master chief was shaken and rattled and vibrated until his teeth hummed, but otherwise the engine room inertial dampening fields had done their jobs and protected him. Finally the ship came to a stop and normal gravity returned to the room. The jolts and the jarring were gone. So were the main propulsion units.

Bill quickly unstrapped himself and checked back on the power generator that he was about to fix. There was a blown superconducting inductance coil bank that was used to store the power from the vacuum fluctuation energy collectors. Without the storage coils there wouldn't be enough power storage to bring up the main propulsion plant. Bill raced through potential solutions in his mind. He needed to replace that coil, but the goddamned thing weighed more than four hundred kilograms.

I can't replace the goddamned coil, Mimi. It's too fucking heavy. Any suggestions?

Yes. Don't move it if it is too heavy.

That might work but I'd need a shitload of high-power-rated conduit. Where is there enough for that? Bill flipped through manifests of materials and parts in the stores but didn't see what he needed.

You're right. The only cable rated for that type of transfer is in the DEGs and it would take too long to get to them and scrounge it.

That's it! Fucking Christ! That's it. The DEGs. We'll use them.

I just said that we don't have the cable to get from there to here. The nearest junction to the DEG power cables are two bulkheads port and one deck up.

Then we won't use the damned cables. Get the DEG with the closest junction up and running and storing power and map for me the best way to get to it given the present damage to the ship.

Roger that, COB.