Chapter Three – Pete
“Easy does it, now,” Lieutenant Commander Bradford murmured to the young engineer at his side.
Pete glanced nervously at his friend and mentor. He could see the encouragement through A.B.’s salt and pepper beard. Even after working with him for over two years, Pete was feeling rather nervous. Officially, he was still in his first week on the job.
Pete forced himself to look out the viewport in front of him. As always, whenever he found himself looking down on the space station, the first thought that went through his mind was just how much it looked like a doughnut with a cross through the middle of it. He took a moment to enjoy the view. When you lived inside a space station, it wasn’t often that you were able to see it from the outside.
Closing his eyes, Pete took a deep breath and forced his eyes down to the controls of Work Pod Nine. Gently, he touched the thruster controls. The view of the station slid off to one side. Nowhere near far enough. He frowned. His brother Nick made it look so easy and he was two years younger than Pete himself.
“Just a touch more and you’ll have it,” A.B. encouraged. “Look where you’re heading and fire the thrusters again. Feel the engines; let them tell you how much power you need.”
Pete resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his commanding officer. For as long as he had known him, A.B. had been telling him to feel the engines or feel the machines he was working with. He never could. Admittedly, he knew that he was already a great engineer, even though he’d only just turned thirteen. He worked more on instinct than feel, although A.B. seemed to think that there really wasn’t much difference and that he should be able to feel the machines.
Over the past two years, ever since A.B. had started teaching him on his off-duty hours, Pete knew that his knowledge and skills had grown amazingly. At least, he wasn’t blowing things up as much as he used to and when he took things apart, he could almost always put them back together again so that they worked just as well, if not better, than before.
The pod was now edging closer to the space station. Pete brought his whole attention onto his board. It would never do to bump the station – his father would never forgive him. Pete forced the image of having to face Captain Ian Daniels and tell him that he was the one who had damaged his space station from his mind.
“Work Pod Nine to Control,” Commander Bradford spoke into the communicator on his board.
“Control. Go ahead Pod Nine.”
“We’re approaching Section Ten, now. Latching on in two minutes,” A.B. informed the station.
Pete gave him a startled look. Sweat beaded on his forehead, making his scar itch, a relic from one of his earliest engineering attempts. He ignored it as best as he could. As far as he was concerned, there was no way that they’d be latched on in two minutes. Ten minutes, maybe. Five if he really pushed it. He fired the thrusters. The station suddenly loomed ahead.
Much too close; far too fast. Quickly firing the reverse thrusters, he brought the pod to a halt, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Alright, Pete, extend the arms,” coached Commander Bradford.
Pete swivelled his chair to the board at his side and flipped the switches. Immediately, the servos responded, whirling away above him and to each side. Pete craned his head to see out the viewport. Two long metal poles extended out in front of the pod. He glanced to the side and flipped two more switches. The electromagnetic claws locked into place.
“Now, ease us in,” commanded A.B.
“Yes, sir,” Pete responded.
He looked down at his board. Distance, claws to hull, twenty-seven metres. He eased the thrusters on, keeping his eyes fixed on his board. Twenty metres. Fifteen. Ten. He cut the thrusters and let her coast. Six metres. Four. Two.
“Appling reverse thrust and activating the magnets,” Pete announced as his fingers moved over the board in front of him and the one to his side.
A soft clunk and it was done.
“Control, this is Work Pod Nine,” said Commander Bradford. “We are latched on to the station.”
“Confirmed, Work Pod Nine. Nicely done, Commander.”
“It wasn’t me, Control, I’m just a passenger here. It was all Crewman Daniels.”
“Acknowledged. Well done Mr Daniels.”
Pete activated his communications system. “Uh, thanks, Control.”
“Will advise when the work has been completed,” said A.B.
“Acknowledged. Control out.”
“Well done, Pete,” smiled A.B., “I doubt even Nick could have done any better.”
“Thank you, sir,” Pete grinned back. He couldn’t wait to get home that night and boast to his brother about flying the pod. Pete knew that he’d be sick with envy.
“Okay, then. What’s the next stage in carrying out the repair?” the old engineer asked.
“Moving the pod so that the tools are in position,” Pete replied confidently.
A.B. raised his eyebrows.
Moving to face his sideboard, Pete depressed the controls that released the lock, allowing the pod to rotate. With the magnetic latches and arms firmly attached to the hull and in their extended position, the main body of the pod was able to slowly rotate downwards and around. The view of the station swung up, leaving a clear view of space. As soon as the board showed a clean one eighty turn, Pete locked the pod back into place.
The viewport abruptly switched to screen mode as A.B. touched a control. They were now looking back at the section of the station from a few moments before, only this time, it was upside-down. At least the gravity on the pod kept their feet on the floor.
“Activate the lights,” A.B. ordered.
Pete obeyed and six high-powered beams shot out from the rear of the pod, lighting up the bare grey metal.
“Alright, let’s get to work,” said A.B., rubbing his hands together. “Move us into two metres from the hull.”
Pete flipped the correct switches and watched the indicators as the arms slowly retracted.
“Two metres,” Pete announced.
He stood and followed the engineer to the rear two control boards. There were chairs for these stations, but at the moment they were folded away under the floorboards. Pete stood with his mentor and watched as the engineer expertly manipulated controls, bringing the various tools on-line and opening up the boards ready to work.
“Our first job is to get that panel off. I’ll take care of that while you slip into the storage bay and make sure that the power couplings, relays and generators are ready to go,” A.B. instructed.
Pete opened up the hatch in the rear and soon lost track of the time as he and A.B. settled into a pattern of work. Working from the inside of a pod, with only the pod’s exterior tools to do the job was a very different experience for Pete. He was used to putting his hands inside a machine, taking it apart and being able to turn it around and around to see how it worked.
Each piece of equipment had to be carefully removed, brought aboard the pod and then replaced with a new part. Pete was assigned the task of unloading and then reloading each part as it was needed. He found that there was enough time while each section was being manoeuvred into place by A.B. to have a decent look at the old parts that had been brought in.
The first two relays and power couplings were just as he expected, only some minor fuses blown. Easy to fix. He used the tools in his engineer’s pouch to work on them while he waited.
“A.B., we could put these ones back in,” Pete suggested as he ran his scanner over the coupling that he’d just finished working on, “they check out fine now.”
The engineer poked his head into the storage bay. “I’m sure we could, but regulations are regulations. We’ll replace these parts and go over them back in Engineering. Mind you, after you’ve finished tinkering with them, I’m sure we’ll find they all check out. You’ll probably have saved us a few hours work.”
Pete be
amed, pleased with himself. “Yes, sir.”
“Just this last generator to go, then we can seal it up and head back in,” A.B. announced. “We should even be back in time for your lessons.”
Pete groaned. Being out there with his friend, working on machines, was what he wanted to be doing, not sitting back in class doing schoolwork. He’d half hoped that getting off-station to work might have meant that he’d miss school for the day, or at least to have been a few hours late.
He should have known better. He was working with the Chief Engineer of Space Station Cygnus after all.