The team boarding the extractor with Dueliet moved through the airlock in two groups of six. Once outside they re-arranged into groups of four. They headed from the observation platform, down the stairs onto the craft’s secondary arm.
With the crates, it had been easier for those in exoskeletons to pull them straight off the deck and into the cages below. The crew and academics could climb down a ladder and onto the now steep steps of secondary claw’s walkway.
Four of the engineering crew jumped in a waiting cage. It started moving once they were in and had closed the cages door. The next cage descended and shuddered to a stop after swinging around the bottom wheel. Martin got into the cage with three of the visiting academics. They were clipped in with safety lines, then the wheel groaned as it started moving again.
The cage shuddered as it slowly gained momentum with the cable pulling it from the craft’s arm towards the loading platform. Even in the still conditions it swayed on the cable looking unstable.
As they waited for the next cage a small person in an envirosuit and exoskeleton walked down the observation deck stairs.
“Ah, Officer Dueliet, Gurney asked me to report here to get some experience,” the quiet person said.
Dueliet replied, “Thanks for coming to help Hosej. Gurney had passed on that you were on your way. Stu will make sure the next cage heads up to the extractor as well. Once on the loading platform you will wait till Caz comes to get you.”
“Since you’ve missed the main briefing I’ll caution you that this extractor has a much larger aerial than the one we stabilised last. You will only work on the cell charging level. Do nothing unless Caz instructs you.” Dueliet said.
“Yes Ma’am,” Hosej replied.
The next cage approached.
“Actually Mean could you ride with Hosej on the cage after this,” Dueliet asked adding a smile.
Then she, Sophie and new young crew member walked into the cage. The new crew member was clipped in. Then once the cage door was shut, it shuddered up towards the loading platform.
“Oh wow, this s-sure moves a lot,” the new crew member stuttered as the cage headed away from them.
Hosej apologised while they waited for the next cage, “Sorry you’re stuck waiting with me. I’ve only been trained for manual handling with the exoskeleton so far.”
“Nah, thanks for helping,” Mean said. “The faster the cells are switched over to get the extractor back to an idle, the better.
Temporary disengaged extractors feel creepy, even if Gurney is the only one that agrees with me, Mean though. The best extractors are ones that are disassembled on scrap heaps.
“Right here we go,” Mean said as the next cage shook to a stop for them.
Mean helped Hosej clip in at the chest mounting point on his exoskeleton and a head height anchoring point in the cage. He shut the door and grabbed onto a rail in the cage. With the door closed, the mechanism driving the wheel groaned again as it got things moving.
The cage swayed as it moved around the wheel and headed back up toward the loading platform. The slack in the cable at least stopped most of the shuddering of the drive system being transferred to the cage once it was moving upward.
The cages swaying meant that Mean’s senses automatically went into overdrive analysing all the movement and vibration as they headed up to the loading platform. He had just got used to riding in a cage again when they approached the platform.
As the cage shuddered to a stop at the loading platform Mean unclipped Hosej and hung the strap with the others in one wall of the cage. As they got out Caz was working his way towards them through beams and a stairway, like a four legged mechanical spider.
“Hey guys,” Caz greeted as he dropped back into a standing position beside them on the platform. “Thanks Mean, we got things checked out really quickly up here. If you head up to the stairs you should catch up to the rest of the team triple checking things before they enter the main chamber.”
Mean jogged up stairs.
Caz’s conversation could be heard as he continued up the stairs, “Right mate, your first official assignment operating an exoskeleton aye. Let’s head along this walkway, the cell charging chamber is just ahead”.
Mean could just hear them clomping away as he continued up the steps. He arrived back on the main platform and sure enough the team with Dueliet was still outside. They were waiting at the main door of the round chamber in the centre of the platform.
Next to where he emerged on the platform, the first group of engineers were hauling up one of the crates with a simple pulley system. They slid the pulley along it’s support rail and lowered the crate onto the decks industrial mesh.
The four engineers lifted the crate by it’s handles and carried it to the main door of the central chamber. Despite the weight of the crate and the four carrying it, the mesh didn’t move under them despite the generously spaced supports below. They started unloading the crate where the team was waiting by the door.
The main extractor chamber was a dome structure emerging from the centre of the platform. The exhaust vent jutting from the top of it was charred. Forming a wider ring around that, six rods protruded up feeding bundled cables that split evenly to connect to the shell. The chamber’s cladding looked like it had started as a sturdy fabric surface that had been layered with patches and then turned to metal.
From the crate they had grabbed a couple more scanners and a red plexiglass cased keycard. It was not known how old the extractors and related technology were. Even the more ‘recent’ modifications were hard to date. Despite the technologies age, the crystal identifier was still working and the door chamber’s main doors slowly slide open once the card was waved over it.
The engineers almost crept into the chamber watching their scanners despite the first team having given the all clear. Once those inside had triple checked all the readings, the rest of the team followed.
The large rods tied into the aerial outside hung from the ceiling in the chamber. They were arranged around a central shaft that went straight down into the planet’s crust. These arc rods were equally spaced around a twelve step wide circle. The large rods had metal spheres on the end of them and coils that wrapped around them back up into the ceiling.
Some of the crew went straight to connecting equipment onto the coils. The crew working with academics focused on connecting a command unit to various console stations against the chamber’s walls. Dueliet checked off progress against the list on her clipboard.
The chamber was too still. Mean preferred it when there was the dull vibration of a pilot arc streaming from the shaft into a key and then jumping between the rods. He watched as most of the team worked around the circle engraved into the floor. The new young crew member however walked right into the circle.
Martin commented first, “Charlie it was repeated several times in the briefing to stay out of there till the command unit has run.”
“No it’s fine, I saw this on a video,” Charlie said. Then he picked up a chunk of steel and dropped it down the chute.
The chunk of steel clunked as it bounced down the shaft.
“GET AWAY,” Dueliet yelled.
Mean grabbed Sophie and another academic that were just inside the circle by the scruff of their suits necks. He jumped back hauling them out.
They made surprised noises. “Hey what’s the meaning of…” Sophie started.
“Cool,” Charlie said, listening as the clunks continued reverberating as the metal bounced deeper down the seemingly endless shaft that made it all the way into the planets crust.
PSZAP
A bolt of energy shot up the shaft and into what looked like a giant half moon key mounted in the ceiling above in a large fitting. Smaller rods were positioned around the key. The two nearest Charlie crackled with charge.
Pszazap
The bolt of energy had split in two heading through Charlie to the two rod’s spheres behind him.
Only legs left were left stiffly standing. Everything else that had been above what would have been Charlie’s waist had been vaporised.
“Phwoar that is one acrid stench,” Milly commented being one of the first to recover despite being dragged out of the area by Mean.
Oh, of all the people to have saved, Mean groaned to himself.
Those that had been gathering data off the hanging rods were hesitant to reconnect. Even Dueliet was stunned.
Mean wandered in and grabbed the stiff pair of legs. On the way back he passed one of the crew hesitating to reconnect their console to a coil. He dialled in Gurney on the comms unit attached to their console.
“Hey Gurney, you there?” Mean asked.
“Mean, what’s happening?” Gurney asked.
“We’ve had someone imitate that shaft echos video,” Mean reported.
“What flea brained, son of a monkey poop, born yesterday kind of idiot would do that?” Gurney growled.
“No use cursing the dead,” Mean said. “Do we need to do anything to re-stabilise the area?”
“Oh,” Gurney paused. “No just keep on working at getting the command unit running so it can fully discharge the aerial. There might be an extra fried out breaker to replace, but nothing else will have changed as far as engineering is concerned.”
“Cool thanks for that,” Mean finished
“No worries,” Gurney replied.
People started shuffling back to work and Mean walked out of the chamber still holding the legs upright.
Mean wandered to the side of the platform and held the charred end of the half corpse over the rail. Once he had un-clipped and removed the boots, he flicked the legs into the ocean. He wondered what would happen to the sinking legs.
No animals were in the near vicinity to eat them. Waters close to extractors became sweltering among other things and animals wouldn’t live there. Bizzarely there was a ring a couple of clicks out around the extractors that became warmer, more comfortable seas.
If these warm rings met bays or reefs not in the dead-zone; you could find interesting varieties of fish, sea life and even sharks that wouldn’t usually live in the area.
He guessed the legs would just float down and be broken down by bacteria on the sea bed. Mean wandered back to the crate and put the boots in it. He started back towards the chamber but Dueliet met him on the way.
“I appreciate that you are keen to keep things moving and help with hard decisions,” Dueliet started. “But sometime you need to wait and let others make decisions to work things out properly. You will have made that more difficult for some of the people in there. Go help the crew on the level below sort out the cells and relays thank you.”
Dueliet spun around and headed back into the central chamber.
Bummer she’s stressed now, Mean realised. It’s not just her jaw, her fists are clenched too.
He headed down the stairs toward the boarding platform and along the walkway into the next level.
“Mate, we haven’t even been here half a demi and you’ve already been sent back to us,” Caz called from the doorway.
“Could you use that trolley to start moving those stacks of cells we’ve disconnected into the cages.” Caz continued indicating to the stacks of cells lined up inside the door. “We want sixteen stacks strapped to the centre of the cage before you close the door.”
Mean entered the cell charging level. The cells stacked by the door came from a walkway between two wedge shaped arrays of cell shelving. The shelves were about waist height and connected cells in three layers.
The wedge like pattern of the cell shelving came from eight evenly spaced walkways that spread from the middle of the room.
In the middle of the room the external casing of the shaft that went through the cell charging level and ended in the main chamber above. There was a walkway around this that the other eight walkways linked into.
Four bundles of chunky cable came down from the aerial through each corner of this extractor’s ceiling. The high voltage cabling went to two plasma ionising tanks on the level below. Each ionising tank had four cables that came back up through the floor to a charging station in each wedge of cells.
Looking around Mean guessed about a third of the cells, about three hundred odd, were fully charged by the stable green glow they gave off. Although there must have been dead cells filling the rest of some shelves because Hosej had just hefted three shelves high over his head.
Caz burst out laughing. Once he had composed himself he talked Hosej through things. “Mate, I know it’s fun that the skellys can give you pro weight lifter ability, but we actually want to keep loads small and low when possible.”
Hosej looked confused.
Caz smiled, “I know a lot of the crew goof off moving things that way and if you need to see things clearly, holding the weight high above your head sometimes that has it’s place. It’s best to get into the habit for working in rough conditions like we just had. Working past seventy percent functionality puts a lot of strain on you and the exoskeleton on long jobs. You’re almost guaranteed to fall and scatter things everywhere if you try to maintain that output during difficult assignments.”
“Here watch this,” Caz said as he unbolted the next two shelves with only charged or dead cells. “If I stick to one or two shelves it keeps the load light on the skelly and easy for you to manage over a long shift. Your posture and drive cuing is fantastic so I won’t go over that.”
Caz had lifted two more shelves waist height off the ground and backed out of the aisle demonstrating looking over his shoulder. “See this way everything is stable and I can still see where I’m going. Then when I get to the aisle I can do one final head check, then spin and place the shelf; like so.”
Hosej watched and nodded seriously.
Caz sighed, “Sorry mate, didn’t realise you were the serious type. In that case keep in mind that challenging yourself when you have safe conditions to practice and a short focus time is great. Most people just seem to want to show off or go at a hundred percent the whole time.”
Hosej nodded seriously again.
“I’ll tell you what,” Caz started. “Once you’ve done your basic hours, if you find me a box of beers I might teach you a couple of tricks like this…” Caz smoothly picked up two of the disconnected shelves in each hand then walked holding them away from his body. Once at the aisle he swung them smoothly together at the end of the row neatly placing them down.
Caz then leapt up and smoothly caught onto the girder overhead. He then did a slow motion upside down cartwheel gripping the girder with the exoskeletons ‘toes’ halfway through. Then he dropped smoothly to the ground and gave a bow.
Hosej smiled, “Cool.”
“Cool, now let’s get this section swapped out,” Caz said as he got back to sensibly adding shelves to the row in the aisle.
Ah, that was a clever way to get the kid to relax, Mean thought. Maybe I’ll have to practice goofing around more.
Mean loaded two stacks of cells onto a sack-barrow and rolled them back to the loading platform. Once at the waiting cage, he split them back into two stacks of three in the back corner. He repeated the trip again and the cage was a quarter full.
Mean was loading the third sack-barrow for the cage when Caz and Hosej approached carrying a couple of shelves each.
“Hey Mate,” Caz said. “There are way more dead cells than we realised. For this cage we’ll put shelves in opposite corners then if you can put your next two loads in the last corner. After that can you ride down to the observation deck again please?”
Caz continued, “Because we have so many complete shelves to load up the power trolley and forks have just brought out the cage lifter to set up on the platform. Can you please haul a prepped batch of cells back to engineering with the pallet-jack and start loading shelves for them in engineering?”
“Once they’ve brought a couple more cages to the observation deck they’ll need all the shelves we’ve got loaded with fresh cells,” Caz finished and then walked outside with Hosej.
When Mean rolled the next sack-barrow load to the cage he found Caz had filled the empty back corner with the two shelves he had. Hosej was just placing his second shelf in the opposite corner.
“Nice mate, smooth as,” Caz said cheerfully.
They headed back inside and Mean unloaded the sack-barrow into the last corner. After one last load filled the cage he jogged the sack-barrow back to the door, then ran back and clambered onto the cells. When he closed the door behind him, the cage shuddered and started travelling down on the cables.
As Mean’s shaky ride headed back down to the observation platform he could see what Caz had meant. The power-trolley and forklift had deposited the components of a small crane an the platform. The cranes main base was bolted down and it looked like Stu was lifting it’s arm into place with the help of his exoskeleton.
The cage was stopped just short of the wheel and Stu called out, “Just jump or climb the cable from there. We’ll grab that cage with the crane and load it straight to the power-trolley.”
“You deliberately trying to make it hard for me?” Mean called back.
Stu laughed.
Mean launched off the cages rail and caught the edge of the observation deck.
“Nice that’ll work,” Stu commented. “I was just meaning to drop down onto the arm. Can you hall that pallet over there to engineering and help them there. They are far more interested in how the craft has changed and don’t want to be bothered by moving equipment at the moment.”
“Typical,” Mean joked. “Right, on my way.”
“Thanks Mate,” Stu called as his attention returned to the crane arm that had yet to be secured.
Forty eight cells were waiting for Mean on a pallet. After a few pumps on the pallet-jack it moved and he rolled in through the automatic door of the airlock that was now fully functional again. In the airlock the auto-scan went without a hitch and he was let out the other side.
Mean rolled the trolley down double size corridors back to engineering. As he got closer he had to weave around a couple of engineers strolling briskly with their noses stuck in their consoles.
Man I know Stu said they weren’t interested enough to stack stuff, but they could at least be interested enough to watch where they are going, Mean though.
He went through the vault door. It didn’t feel as oppressively hot and unsettling now that a lot of the plasma systems were on standby. What was the engineering office area was crammed with crew today. There was a lot of discussion going on. Some of the crew were pretty much yelling at each other.
Gurney yelled, “Right settle down you lot. We either have the weirdest extractor discharge response in history or the energy wave that hit the extractor is responsible for the craft’s change. Focus on the craft scanning or extractor blaydar analysis task you have been given. If you find anything unusual or other factors involved let me know immediately.”
Mean rolled the cells he had past and rode the iron trunk elevator down a level. He unloaded the charged cells in their shielded storage area. Then he rolled two doors along and loaded up forty eight fresh cells on the pallet.
As he arrived back no-one had set up the shelves yet. He called out. “Hey Gurney, who’s in charge of the shelf layout, do I set them up in a side corridor outside?”
Gurney called back, “No-one is, we are all running around like headless chickens. Essentially the craft has changed. It is two pallet lengths shorter and has a couple of underutilised areas have had major upgrades when we engaged the extractor today.”
“Is that good or bad?” Mean asked.
“Considering that we probably should be dead I’m calling it a win.” Gurney replied “Set the shelves up in any of the floor area not marked off by yellow paint. Stack against this office first because seas are calm and the power-trolley won’t need access in here.”
“Cool will do,” Mean replied as he grabbed a couple of shelves and started assembling them nearby.
Mean headed into the main storage area and found the stack of sixteen strap-packed shelves. As Stu had said they would use those in no time. Once he loaded up four shelf packs, a wrench and a drill with a bolt fitting onto a long trolley, he left the storage area. As he set up his trolley near the office area he got a few annoyed glances.
Those in the engineering office were more focused on their work and it was quieter despite the odd bit chatting between people sharing tables. Two engineers near Mean started talking as he assembled shelves.
“This energy discharge from the extractor has to be it,” one voice said. “We’ve never seen this sort of output hit a craft without doing serious damage.”
“No look at this,” another objected. “The energy wave that seems to be from out of the dead-zone clearly hits the extractor before then. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Someone else wandered by and joined their conversation, “You guys, this could finally prove it, it has got to be aliens.”
“Shut up Ivan,” both engineers replied.
Everyone went back to their own tasks. Soon Mean had all sixteen shelves assembled in pairs with fresh cells stacked on them.
Mean was busy for the next demi. Stu brought loads on the power-trolley and took shelves of fresh cells away. Mean sorted the cells and equipment onto pallets. Any shelves he cleared he moved to the line and stacked with fresh cells.
Half a demi in they told Mean that they had enough shelves so the floor-space in engineering gradually became less cluttered as he disassembled the incoming shelves and strap-packed them onto a pallet.
As Stu dropped of his next load he updated Mean, “You’ll be pleased to know everything in the extractor is all hooked up again and it is idling away happily.”
“Cool,” Mean called back. “Can’t wait to finish this and have another stupidly long shift over.”
“I hear ya,” Stu replied before he rolled out of engineering on the power-trolley.
Tidying up the last of the equipment dragged on. Mean’s movement would occasionally become more sluggish.
“Thanks for that,” Gurney said as he headed over once Mean finished.
“No worries, just glad the shifts over and I can finally get some sleep,” Mean replied.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, there’s going to be a test run of the craft to see how well it still functions,” Gurney said. “Ronnec’s asked for you back on the bridge. It sound like they searched Yarg’s quarters and found some worrying items to confiscate.”
“Argh really,” Mean said. “Right, on my way.
Gurney smiled before heading back to his station.
Dezhanite Drafts 