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12
Almost enough
Marina watched Ingrid’s legs protruding from the access hatch inside the Tokomak as she worked slowly. Sofia and Lev drifting nervously in the weightlessness nearby. “What are we going to do about the jump? It’s in like thirty-six hours, we won’t have the repairs ready by then to turn the reactor back on. We’ll be drifting too long.”
Ingrid’s voice echoed from their earpieces as she spoke from inside the reactor, her voice just a short and powerful as she was. “So what? Jump is a jump.”
Marina cleared her throat. “It’s not that easy. We’ve been drifting at full speed here in the transit dimension. And for lack of a better way to put it, dimensions are different here in the transit dimension. We can cover a much further distance in light years here than we can normally in the same given amount of time.”
Sofia chimed in. “I think it’s that this dimension is younger or something like that, so it’s smaller, everything is still closer together.”
“Right, so when we come back out, we’ll have covered a lot more distance in Earth’s dimension,” confirmed Marina. “We’ve been moving this whole time. It’s not like the ship has slowed down. The speed we were going before the jump is still the speed we’re going in the transit dimension after the jump.”
“So if we jump later, even if only by a minute or two, we’ll be in a very different place than we should be.” Sofia finished for Mar.
“Yes, I’m friends with Tatiana on the bridge crew. I have known her since before the Stalingrad mission was even proposed. I think she said our target window for the return jump is less than a second.”
“So even getting this fixed, we’re still screwed, because there’s no way to get it done and online again before our jump window,” Lev said.
“Then why the hell am I even bothering?” shouted Ingrid from inside the reactor. “We’re fucked, might as well take a walk outside without a suit now and get it over with, because this isn’t going to be done in thirty-six hours. I’d be surprised if we’re done with adjustments by then, much less getting the thing powered back up.” The boots of Ingrid’s suit appeared in the hatch as she worked her way back out.
“Well, we gotta do something,” said Lev, urgency adding sharpness to his voice.
Sofia complained, “Lev, we’re doing what we can, what else can we do?”
Emerging from the hatch and shutting it, Ingrid pulled her helmet off and yanked the scrunchy from her hair. She shook her long dark hair free before smoothing it back again so it didn’t drift wildly. “What about the station’s reactor? It’s pretty big, right?”
“What does that have to do with us? We’re the tugboat that’s a separate power grid.” Retorted Lev. “Plus there’s like three hundred people on the station. The power’s for them, we can’t just rip out their reactor and take it.”
“Three hundred and forty-seven people,” Ingrid corrected him.
“What if we don’t have to move the reactor?” Proposed Sofia. Marina shut the hatch behind Ingrid as the stout woman finished wiggling out of her clean suit.
“What are you talking about?” Lev’s voice wavered between confused and angry.
“I was part of the crew who helped mate the station to the Stalingrad’s bow. It’s not just a mechanical connection, there’re all kinds of cables and hookups, there’s got to be a way to transfer power through them, from their reactor into our grid.”
His voice was much softer as he replied. “That actually might be crazy enough to work. Mar, is there a reason it wouldn’t, why didn’t we think of this earlier?”
She shrugged as Lev grew more and more excited. “What are we waiting for, let’s go run it by the chief?”
“No, he’s sleeping.” Marina warned him, “Sofia, your turn in the reactor. Even if we find another solution, this still needs done, so we’re going to keep working on it.” Marina, her voice no longer bothering her, felt her old command presence returning as she pointed at the hatch. “Lev and I will go hit the computers up for wire diagrams, we can look up specs and connections and see if there’s enough cable to transmit the wattage we need through, or if they’re just data cables.”
“Good, I needed the break,” yawned Ingrid.
“No break.” Marina waggled a finger at the shorter woman. “That counts as a confined space, you need to stay here and be Sofia’s safety watch.” Ingrid crossed her thick arms.
There was a tense silence among the crew members as they exchanged looks. Marina’s patience ran short as the ticking deadline in the back of her head stopped counting in hours and started counting in minutes. “Don’t make me pull rank. I am an assistant engineer. I outrank the lot of you, and only Chief Konstantine or one of the other assistant engineers from the other shifts can countermand me. Every second between now and the jump maters.”
Ingrid rolled her eyes as Sofia unpacked her isolation suit. Marina gave them both dirty looks as she made for the compartment hatch, Lev following behind. He waited until the hatch was sealed behind them. “You know, Mar, I couldn’t put words as to why, but that was kind of hot.”
She was in no mood for banter. “Not now, we’re still on duty, you dolt, and we will be on duty either until this is fixed, or it doesn’t matter anymore. You still have your terminal on you?”
He didn’t answer, but she heard the beep as he powered up the portable computer behind her as they navigated the passageways in tandem. The gray metal and white plastic paneling of the ship’s interior felt tenuous and thin. Marina feared she would blink and the ship would be gone. Dissolving around her, leaving her drifting in the vacuum of an alternate dimension.
Lev’s voice, softer after being scolded, interrupted her spiraling thoughts. “You said we needed electrical schematics, right?”
“Yes, but how much do you have access to as a technician?” she asked him as she stopped to work open the hatch to the reactor control room.
He shrugged at her as he thumbed through the interface. “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
“At least you’re an honest man.” Marina comments with a hint of dry wit as she swing’s the hatch open. Lev drifted past her without further comment. She followed him inside, finding Helena at the console. The tiny mouse of a blond woman stationed at the primary terminal, her deft but delicate fingers dancing with practiced precision, making a soft clatter of the mechanical keyboard. She looked up, said nothing, and went back to her typing.
Marina lead Lev to the secondary console and hammered in her passcode, repetition and muscle memory lending her speed on the keypad. “Helena?” She asked, “What are you doing right now? Can you spare your keystrokes to help us?”
Helena looked up, but before she could answer, Marina continued. “Yeah, doesn’t matter, this is more important. Pull up any blueprints or schematics you can that may be related to the colony station’s electrical interface with Stalingrad.”
The small blond woman blinked multiple times, but nodded and started working through the menus to open documents without replying. Marina started her own search, and Lev wedged himself into a corner of the compartment so he wouldn’t drift while he used both hands on his portable console.
***
Marina had too many windows open and flipped through them, trying to find the one they were talking about. Helen’s soft voice came over her shoulder as the little woman jabbed her finger at the screen. “No, this one, look at the note down here. That says the spec for the cables.”
“Just read me the document number, I’ll pull it up on mine so we don’t have to shuffle.” said Lev.
Before Marina could say anything, Helena gripped her shoulder, spinning around to face Lev. “We already found it, no one wants to deal with your little screen.” They made faces at each other as he clung to Marina’s other shoulder. Marina waved her hand dismissively.
Helena didn’t like what they saw in the schematic. “Judging by how much power we need, how much their reactor makes, my gut feeling is that those cables won’t be able to carry that much tickle juice.”
“Tickle juice?” asked Lev, amused.
“Yes, that’s what I call electricity, because it tickles when is zaps you.” She said smartly, her voice curling with her smile.
“Excuse me, what? Do you want to get electrocuted?”
“Not by that much power.” She replied, jabbing a finger at the screen.
“Excuse me, Helen, I had no idea of the game you were playing.”
“I’m not playing any games,” she snapped, “and don’t call me Helen.” She waved a finger in his face. Marina pushed them both away from her.
“Enough, both of you. We’re not arguing like school children, this is important. We have to make this work, everyone’s life is riding on this.” She looked at them both sharply and zoomed in on the part of the print she wanted. “These are pretty heavy gauge cables. We all know they weren’t designed for this purpose, but do you think they could do it?”
“I mean, they’ve got tolerances built into them, right?” Lev considered aloud.
No one answered, but both women turned to look at him. “Basic engineering principle, right? You design the thing to handle more instantaneous load than what is expected, to have a safety margin.” He continued, his voice unsteady as he questioned himself.
“Spit it out,” Helena demanded.
“Between how much power we need, how fat these cables are, how long the power is needed for, and assuming a built in margin for error in all the different parts of this problem, we might be able to back flow the electrical power from the stations reactor to the Stalingrad to make the jump.”
The women exchanged glances. “That’s a big leap. I get where you’re coming from, and in theory, that’s sound. But we have no idea if that would actually work. There’s a lot of math we would have to figure out, even just accounting for the resistance induced because of the length of the cable.” Helena states flatly, setting her jaw. They both looked at Marina.
Her mind was racing, full of numbers. “Yes, in theory, but this isn’t a thing we can just run off and do half cocked. We need to figure it out first. We have to be sure before we try it. This time we will need your portable unit.” She waved at Lev as he pulled the plastic and glass rectangle back out of the thigh pocket of his jumpsuit. “Calculator,” she commanded sharply.
***
The three of them spent nearly an hour working through math problems, and double checking each other before Marina made a decision and headed off for the bridge. Lev followed after her. The two of them working through the multiple decks of the Stalingrad’s cramped interior. The lights making her eyes hurt as she worked through the brilliant white hallways. Across the layers of decks. Much of Stalingrad’s internal space was filled with equipment, foodstuffs and raw materials. They had to feed the crew on both the way out and the return journey, and carried a significant excess of supplies and materials, intended to be transferred to space station once it was dropped off in the targeted colony system.
Outside the hatch to the bridge, Marina paused, looking back at Lev, who shrugged curiously, offering a small smile of encouragement. With her hands on the mechanism, she didn’t open it, just floated there, holding it, feeling the ship in her hands. “What’s wrong?” Lev asked her.
“I’m not sure if the ship has failed us, or if we have failed her.”
Lev looks at Marina, his faced confused, and eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
Marina slides her hand along the inside of the hatch’s frame, petting the cold metal of the tug ship. “The Stalingrad was built to last. The first civilian ship with two reactors, each with huge fuel reserves, designed to run for centuries. With plating, shielding, and reflective coating to handle all the rough environments in the depths of the galaxy.” Marina looked up to Lev, holding eye contact with him. “She’s supposed to be a tugboat for decades to come, to haul space stations all over the galaxy for the expansion of humanity, the glory of the federation, the propaganda would have you believe.”
“I didn’t know you felt so strongly about her, it’s just a spaceship. Yes, it’s new and has lots of cutting edge design features, but it’s just a ship” He glanced at her sideways as his skepticism ran its course.
She gave him a look, letting go of the hatch’s handle, to put her hands on her hips. “Ships are more than just the sum of their parts, they have souls, they have personalities. But fine, let’s assume it is just metal and plastic. It’s new, and like you said, cutting edge. We shouldn’t be having problems like this. It’s a new ship, we’ve got two reactors designed for redundancy like this, plenty of fuel and supplies, long sustained operations in deep space. Why are we stuck scrambling against the clock like this?”
He replied with. “I’m not sure, Mar. We shouldn’t be dealing with this, that I do know for sure. Glad you have such strong feelings for the ship, though.”
Marina started working the hatch open. “I have strong feelings? What about you, why don’t you have more feelings about it? This isn’t just a job, this is our life our home, and we’re carrying the space station, an entire colony, with us. We drop them off in the orbit they’re supposed to be in, we’re starting a whole new colony, inhabiting a whole new solar system. This isn’t something to be taken so lightly.”
His face scrunched up with indignation. “Taken lightly? I signed up for this mission too, I never said anything about it being just a job, I am fully onboard with this, I volunteered for this. Maybe I have more political motivations about it than it sounds like, almost spiritual for you, but I’m here, one hundred percent on board with the program. Yes. Pun intended.” He stuck his hand out, putting in ton the hatch, holding it shut now that she had the mechanism unlatched. “You may call it propaganda, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration. When the European economy collapsed, it was us, Slavs from the east, who came in with humanitarian aid, with fuel, electrical power, and rebuilding the flagging infrastructure all across Europe when their western allies were too broke to keep bailing them out. We save the western half of the world from collapse. The European federation was built on peace, on brotherhood, and has been the greatest bastion of civilized society, developing technologies, colonizing the whole solar system with our industry of democracy. The AACR has been built on nothing but violence. The communists have been spreading across Asia and the Pacific islands by force. Building their empire on the bodies of the conquered. How many have starved in the Eastern Hemisphere in the last seventy-five years because of the famine, much less their wars…”
“I know,” she swatted his hands away so she could open the hatch.
“So I want us to win. I wasn’t the galaxy to be full of federation colonies,” he said with a fervor she hadn’t seen in him before. “The European federation has been built on peace, an armed peace maintained by strength, so while it’s tense, it’s still peace. But I will do whatever I have to, for us to win, to defeat the AACR. I’m here, not because it’s just a job, but because I’m doing my part for the Federation.”
Marina let the silence hang as she acknowledged his commitment, holding his intense gaze. “Sorry, I didn’t doubt you, I just, I guess I think about the ship more affectionately than most people.” She pulled the hatch open, he put a hand on her shoulder before she passed through. Pausing, she put her hand over his, and they exchanged nods before she slipped in through the hatch, Lev following her in, pulling the hatch shut after them.
Marina started straight in on the captain. “Captain Mironova, a word.”
The chatter on the bridge stopped as the crew turned to look at the new entrants coming onto their deck. The captain put down her hand-held terminal and pushed herself up out of her command seat. “What, Marina?”
“We’ve been looking at schematics, and we think we can draw electrical power for the colony station’s reactor to power ourselves for the next jump.”
The bridge crew exchange surprised glances as Lev took up position next to Marina. “What are you talking about?” demanded Captain Mironova.
“Work on the reactor is still under way, but it won’t be done by the time we hit our jump window.”
“I know.” Replied the captain coldly. The bridge crew collectively gasping behind them.
“So, as a solution, I propose we draw power from the station’s reactor to perform our jump at the scheduled time and place.” continued Marina.
“It’s not designed to do that.”
“I hope there’s enough breathing room, engineered in margin of error that we can do it, if only once, it should be able to handle the instantaneous load.” Lev said on Marina’s behalf.
“Hope? Or do you know Mr. Lev?” said the ship’s captain skeptically.
“In this situation, Captain, hope might be the only choice we have.” He said evenly.
“Hope is not a course of action,” replied Captain Mironova. I’ll call up the station governor.
Now that the primary message has been transcribed, we can relate to you the updates. Progress continues on Book III Knowledge of Gods. The manuscript had been roughly 95% through the final developmental edit pass (by page count). Only 3 Chapters remain! Our line editor has fallen behind the eight ball and is only about 25% complete. The planned release date for Knowledge of Gods will be in August 2026, a specific date has not been selected.
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