Flux Runners Read online

  cHAPTER 12

  Unknown Red Giant system

  2nd planet, Northern Hemisphere

  The Betty / Nova Star class mining transport / Machine shop

  May 25th, 2176 / Midday (Betty time)

  “O kay, I’ve got a good one for you. Do you know what the meaning of relative humidity is?” Fergus asked with a stifled snort.

  “Really?” Trae laughed. “I need to get this pulse relay rebuilt and you want to tell bad jokes?” He pressed a button on the hoist control, lowering the rigging hook. “Hey, reach over there on the wall and grab me the inch and a half wrench while you’re doing nothing.”

  “That one?” Fergus pointed at a series of wrenches hanging on the back wall of the workshop.

  “No, the one on the other side of the toolbox,” Trae said, pointing to the port side wall of the compartment. “It has an odd bend at the end of it. The thing is perfect for getting to those lower actuator bolts on these things. Alright, relative humidity. Knowing you, it has nothing to do with the pressure or temperature of water vapor.”

  Fergus chuckled as he grabbed the wrench and handed it to Trae. He climbed onto a stool near the worktable and opened a package of crackers. “How did you ever guess that?”

  “Hey Willy, can you pull those chains around and hook them in?” Trae asked.

  “No problem,” Willy said, reaching for the chains above his head. “Bring it on down.” Willy hooked the thick shackle over the hook.

  “Awesome. Thanks, Willy.” The hoist clicked and hummed to life once again. Chains clanked as they tightened, and the relay slowly rose from the dolly. “Alright, be careful, but give it a little push this way, please.”

  Willy set his shoulder into the side of the massive gauss relay and shoved it slowly toward the worktable.

  “Ok, Fergus. So, what is your definition of relative humidity?” Trae grabbed one of the chains secured around the relay and guided the dangling mass so that it hung squarely over the table. “That’s good Willy. Hold up right there.”

  “It’s the bead of sweat that rolls down your sister’s back when you’re banging her doggy style,” Fergus said, then chuckled.

  Trae lowered his gaze, shaking his head in shame. “See, that’s exactly the sort of thing that I expected from you.”

  “Yup, you love me. I know it.” Fergus laughed and offered Trae a cracker from the sleeve.

  “No, thank you.” Trae lowered the relay onto the worktable and removed the chains.

  Willy pulled up a stool next to Fergus and took a handful of crackers. The pair quietly munched, or as quietly as one can munch, on the dry crumbly wafers.

  “Okay. Give me one sec, I’ve got one for you,” Trae said. He removed the last chain from the relay and set the hoist to lift the mass out of the way. “Hey, Willy. Can you hand me that impact wrench behind you?” He pointed in the general direction of the workbench behind Willy.

  “Sure, no problem man.” Willy shifted on the stool to reach the workbench behind him. “Here ya go,” he said, handing Trae the tool.

  “Alright, here we go,” Trae sighed. “Three Georgia Tech engineering students were gathered together in a heated discussion of who must have designed the human body. The first one said, “It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.” Another, an electrical engineering major said, “No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.” The last one said, “No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer.” The other two engineering students looked at him, perplexed. “Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?”

  Big Willy chuckled, coughing on a mouth full of crackers.

  “Are you kidding me,” Fergus huffed. “That one is as old as dirt. I’ve got one that’ll make you piss your pants.”

  The impact wrench whirred to life as Trae removed four bolts from the side of the relay. “Whew, that stinks,” he coughed, waving a hand at the air-driven tool. “Might be a good idea to purge the compressed air system, Willy. It smells nasty. Stale and moldy like.” Trae threw a rag at Fergus. “Alright then. Let’s hear it, Mr. Comedian. What else you got?”

  “Alright, here we go. You ready?”

  “Spit it out already, will ya,” Willy said.

  “Alright. What does the sign on an out-of-business brothel say?”

  “No clue.” Trae shook his head as he continued to disassemble the relay.

  “I’ve got nothing,” Willy said.

  “Beat it. We’re closed,” Fergus delivered.

  Trae let out with a light chuckle. “That was absolutely horrible. Horribly true, but horrible none the less.”

  “Well wait, I’ve got more,” Fergus said. “What’s the difference between a tire and 365 used condoms?” He looked from Trae to Willy, then continued. “One’s a Goodyear. The other’s a great year.”

  Willy laughed and choked on the cracker he’d just bitten into.

  Andy descended the ladder at the aft end of the workshop. “What’s so funny?”

  Fergus grinned wide as he glanced to Willy, then to Trae. “Hey Andy, can ya lick it?”

  “Lick what?” Andy’s face twisted with uncertainty.

  “Ignore him, Andy.” Trae waved, “Trust me, it isn’t worth hearing again.”

  Andy stared at the trio for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay. Have any of you seen a half-inch brass pipe coupler? It’s the one with the triangle stamped on the side of it. I had it set aside so I could finish this thing for Mel and now I can’t find it.”

  “There’s a whole stack of couplers in the drawer over there,” Fergus said through spurts of cracker crumbs.

  “No, I need the one that I sat on the workbench,” Andy argued. “Did any of you use it for something? Did it get tossed back into the drawer?”

  The three men simultaneously shook their heads with a unanimous, “nope.”

  Andy rummaged around on the work counter, searching the small metal hardware drawers that lined the bulkhead at the back of the workspace.

  “If anything disappears around here, Cheezy is usually the one to blame,” Willy said. “I have my big wrench under lock and key now because of her. What is the world coming to when a man can’t leave his tools out on the workbench?”

  Fergus chuckled then munched another cracker. “I must just be lucky then. As much as she likes to play with my dick, she still hasn’t made off with it yet. Guess that’s one bonus to being hung like a church mouse.” Cracker crumbs flew from his mouth as he laughed.

  Trae dropped the impact wrench onto the worktable and caught himself on its surface. His knees buckled as he exploded with laughter. “Really Fergus? I’m trying to work here man. I do not want, nor do I need that sort of visual,” he stressed.

  The deep bass rumble of a pulse drive resonated from the deck below.

  “Oh shit, the boss is back.” Andy quickly closed the parts drawer that he was searching through, then scurried away through the aft hatch of the compartment.

  “I guess he was supposed to be working on something else,” Trae said. He shrugged, then picking up the impact gun returned his attention to the relay.

  “Yeah,” Willy laughed. “Cap put him to work purging the reclamation system before he went out scouting.”

  The low rumble of the Captain’s hoverbike ceased, followed by the sound of boots on ladder rungs. Doug’s head appeared from the lower deck hatch. “Come on you apes. I need everyone together in the rec room.”

  “Oh sweet, movie night,” Fergus cheered.

  “Not quite Ferg,” Doug said. “Though I wouldn’t mind kicking back for a few and becoming a vegetable.” Exhaustion and worry showed on his dusty face. He rubbed a hand over his face and shook the dust from his hair. “Willy, get on the horn and call everyone upstairs,” he ordered, then continued up the ladder.

  “Can’t, Cap,” Willy said hesitantly.

  Doug stopped and hung from the ladder. “Why the hell not?” He glared from Will
y to Fergus, then to Trae.

  Trae cleared his throat as the trio passed looks to one another. “Wes is rebuilding the master control panel.”

  “What? Why is it broke? It was fine when I left.”

  “Something about manually bypassing the lockouts on the intercom,” Fergus said between bits of cracker.

  “Seriously?” Air whistled through Doug’s sand caked nostrils as he banged his head against a ladder rung. “Run and gather everyone to the rec room.” His grip on the ladder suddenly weakened, he slipped but caught himself before he could fall.

  Willy leapt forward. “You okay, Cap?”

  “Yeah, just felt a little dizzy for a second there. Maybe a little too much sun.”

  “Yeah,” Willy mumbled, glancing at Trae. “Might just be too much sun.”

  “Get everyone together, I’ll be there in a bit,” he ordered then disappeared up the ladder.

  “Aye Cap,” The trio replied in unison.

  cHAPTER 13

  Unknown Red Giant system

  2nd planet, Northern Hemisphere

  The Betty / Nova Star class mining transport / Recreation room

  May 25th, 2176 / Afternoon (Betty time)

  A lright, so where in the hell is Doug?” Krista perched herself on the edge of the pool table of the rec room. “I’ve got important shit to be doing.

  A large screen that displayed a first-person view through crosshairs dominated the aft wall of the compartment. A home-built weight bench sat on the starboard side of the compartment, while oddly random couches and chairs dominated the port side of the compartment, near to the door that led into the mess hall.

  “Who cares man, I’m kicking some serious ass on this game.” Tiff crouched low; her head leaned oddly to the side from the weight of the virtual reality helmet. “Ha! This is so freaking easy man. That’s right y’all, PeAcHyCrEeCh is in the house!” The game monitors on the wall displayed a zoomed-in view of a uniformed soldier, rifle crosshairs centered between his eyes. “Just the tip,” Tiff whispered to no one in particular. The enemy figure’s head suddenly exploded in an exaggerated spray of blood and gore.

  “Rrrg,” Trae grunted through a heavy exhalation. Veins bulged across his arms and face as he pushed the bowed bar of weights upward.

  “Come on you, wussy!” Rachel shouted as she hovered above Trae, spotting him as he lifted. “Push the damn bar already! You’re killing me, man. My grandma has bigger balls than you!”

  “She ain’t lying either,” Fergus said as he jabbed the cue stick forward. Balls clacked and scattered across the table. “The old broad showed me this one time. Like down to her knees and shit.”

  “Ahhhhh!” The bar shivered in Trae’s grip but slowly it ascended. He dropped the heavy bar into the rack with a heavy clunk.

  “About damned time, wussy.” Rachel flung herself down onto a nearby recliner and kicked the footrest out.

  “Dear fucking god, man.” Trae sat up and laughed into his hands. “Visuals man. Oh my God, we’ve had this very discussion before. Visuals I do not need, especially when I’m lifting. What ...” He turned on the bench, “Four, eight, twelve forty-five-pound weights plus all the other shit Cheezy tossed on there.”

  “Ah, sure you do,” Willy added as he took his shot at the table. “That way you know what you have to look forward to, later in life.” Willy and Fergus chuckled.

  “Hey! Y’all spaz down,” Krista shouted.

  “Oy! Maybe all of you bloody bogans should calm down,” Lizz said, directing her words toward Krista as she strode into the room.

  “Hey now, that’s not very nice,” Krista pouted.

  “You’ll get over it, honey,” Lizz said. “Now where is Doug?”

  “I’m right here,” Doug said as he entered the room from the engineering access on the aft wall. He waved a long metallic probe about, that was tethered to a device slung across his shoulder.

  Fergus set his pool stick down on the table. “What’s with the rad detector, Boss?”

  “We have a slight problem,” Doug said as he examined the detector display. “It looks like we’re alright inside the ships. The hulls are built well enough to keep the radiation out, but if you go outside in the open for prolonged periods, you’re going to get a light dose of radiation.”

  “Bloody hell,” Lizz said as she took a seat on the home built sectional sofa.

  Maggie gasped.

  “It can’t be lethal if the alarms aren’t going off,” Trae added.

  Krista slid from the edge of the pool table and took a step backward. “Wait, what the hell are you doing in here if you’re radioactive?”

  “Don’t worry,” Doug said. “I hit the decon chamber and took a dose of Radiodine and a RemyRad. I’ll be queasy for a bit, but otherwise fine.”

  “Okay, so we’re stuck in here,” Andy said. “No foraging I suppose?”

  The room erupted in panicked questions and speculation.

  “Shut it you bunch of bloody bogans!” Lizz glared at the crew. “Let Doug finish.”

  Doug sighed. “This is just one more nail in the coffin.”

  Amanda began to sob. Maggie pulled her close and cradled her to her chest.

  Doug took a deep breath and continued. “I know that we can overcome all of this. Now, this does assume a lot. But if the ship’s systems hold up, then yes, we’ll be safe inside. We could stretch out our supplies for about six months by my figuring. And as long as the recyclers are functioning, water won’t even be an issue.”

  He paused in thought, “If we haven’t figured out that new drive system on the other ship by the six-month mark then we’ll either need to forage or grow what we need.”

  Everyone went silent. The low pulsing hum of the main reactor in the next compartment overwhelmed the uncomfortable silence.

  “Andy,” Doug barked. “Did you finish maintenance on the recyclers?”

  “Um … Well, you see.”

  “Oh, what the hell, Andy?” Mel slapped the back of his head. “We’re all about to die and you get sidetracked again?”

  “Melanie!” Doug glared at her. “It’s okay. We’ll get it done, but we need options. Like Trae said, if the radiation was lethal the alarms would have sounded on both ships by now. Long term I’m sure it would be lethal, but for the short term, it’s an annoyance to deal with. It doesn’t feel much worse than being stuck on a rock in the Belt during a solar flare.”

  “I could calibrate the sensors on both ships,” Wes said. “It might give us a better idea of the amount of exposure.”

  “Okay, good. What about the ship and its systems, Willy?”

  “I’d say at this point, it’s best to leave well enough alone. Swap out filters and such, but otherwise, I wouldn’t do anything. If we start messing around with some of these old systems, they’re liable to break on us.”

  “Fair enough,” Doug said. “Get with Lizz for any inventory items you need. See what you can do to make the filters last a bit longer too. No modifications or repairs to anything without going through me first. Got it, Andy?” Doug questioned.

  “Yeah, whatever you want,” he mumbled as he picked at a fingernail.

  “We might could use the suits for any outdoor activities,” Fergus suggested. “They work well enough on spacewalks.”

  Trae stepped forward and propped a foot on the wooden cable spool that the crew used as a coffee table. “It might not even be an issue with anything but exposure to the sunlight. Until we can do a little research, we won’t know exactly how much of that red giant’s radiation is getting through the atmosphere. If the air isn’t irradiated, we might get away with just covering up and de-coning our clothes.”

  “Good thought,” Doug said. “You and Ferg can work on that and see what you can come up with. Mel, I want you to cut rations and see what you can do to stretch everything out as far as you possibly can.”

  “Um, hello,” Mel waved her hand in the air. “Does that also include the Martians locked up in the other ship?”<
br />
  “Shit,” Doug huffed. “I totally spaced on those guys.”

  “I’d say float their asses out an airlock if we get to live that much longer,” Kara said, interrupting.

  Wes pushed Kara off of his lap. “Kara,” he said, shocked. “What the hell? Really? You’d float them?”

  “Yes, really,” Kara said. “Why should we waste our precious resources on them? They are just Martians, after all. They’d do the same to us without a second thought.”

  Doug glared at Kara. “No one is to lay a finger on them. I’m the Captain. It’s my call. Got it!” Doug looked about the room to each of them, daring anyone to say otherwise. He continued, “Tiff, help Wes to calibrate the sensor systems and start gathering data on this place. Rachel, I want to know where we are. If we need to get back into orbit, we can plan a launch later. Do what you can for now from here and see if you can get me a fix on our position.” Doug caught himself on the back of the sofa as his knees buckled. He straightened, then continued. “Witches, we are going to need more Remeys or whatever you can come up with to flush the contamination from our systems. Also, dig into your supplies and see what supplements you can come up with, so we won’t become vitamin deficient. Then I want any vegetable seeds you might have stashed away turned into Lizz for inventory.”

  “We have some basic seeds, I’m pretty sure,” Krista added.

  Doug nodded to Krista then adjusted his weight and leaned on the back of the sofa. “I found what looked like a set of hangar doors sticking out of the sand on the northside of this spaceport. I need to get back out there and check it out as soon as I possibly can. If it is a hangar, we could get ourselves underground and out of direct harm for a while.” He leaned forward over the sofa as his knees gave way again.

  “The hell you do,” Krista and Lizz shouted at the Captain in unison as they ran forward. Each one put a shoulder under an arm and held him upright.

  “I don’t give a shit what you think, you’re going to be doing,” Krista said. “I’m here to tell you right now that your ass is going to bed. That’s what you’re gonna do,” Krista ordered.