By Tahlia

After Death

_______________ Chapter I ________________

Routine Maintenance

"Piece of fucking trash!" the young engineer grumbled at the realization that the power core in one the main engine's turbines had died. "Two fucking years they said, and you crap out on me after a week. Scumbag salvagers..." he muttered, tossing his spanner down to the grated steel floor in frustration.

The fact that a power core had failed wasn't too much of a problem. It was easy enough to replace if spares were available, which unfortunately there weren't. But even with one turbine offline there were three more to keep power to the main engine, and two turbines on each of the two auxiliary engines. The ship would be able to cruise along without much worry... well provided that the captain laid off on any fancy maneuvers or any other operations that required high engine power.

However, Eric was in a particularly raw mood today. He felt tired, over worked and crawling around in the cramped, hot, dark and dirty engine room didn't help. Add to that the feeling of having been ripped off with components he specialized in was just adding salt to the wound. He was frustrated, stubborn and determined to get the core operational again.

There was a heavy flow of sweat that dripped from his brow. Eric grabbed an oily rag that was in arm's reach, wiping it across his forehead and leaving a great dirty smear under his chestnut hair. With a pair of pliers in one hand and a flathead screwdriver in the other he forced the tip of the flat steel tool in one of the core's seams where the two halves of the metal housing met. With some prying and teeth gritting there was eventually a satisfying pop, the core's internals exposed themselves.

The blackened components around the main board were quite obviously the points of failure. The whole circuitry looked cheap and flimsy, like something an unskilled worker on a subtechnological planet would have cobbled together.

Thankfully, the component looked quite simple and Eric quickly got an idea of how everything was meant to work together. The mainboard seemed intact, along with the main power regulator which were the two things he wouldn't be able to replace. The only damaged components were minor and common parts. He knew he had plenty of spares in his workshop. This would be an easy, albeit temporary, fix.

While on his way, just passing by the cargo bay's entrance, he walked passed one of the few altered humans aboard the ship. It was a wolfman named Lucious, one of the ship's security officers. With his towering height and muscular build it wasn't too hard to understand why the captain hired him. His imposing physique belied the gentile and playful guy he was.

"Hey, you don't have to rub your face all over the engines you know." the wolf remarked with a grin as he walked passed. "How would you know? You ever done maintenance on a midclass starship's engines before?" Eric replied sarcastically, turning his head towards his crewmate and making eye contact, but keeping a forward pace.

In the workshop, the young engineer quickly gathered all he needed. The engineer took the time to properly examine every single part of the board to make sure he hadn't missed anything back in the engine room. He did quick work of removing the faulty components and soldering in replacements. There were some concerning singe marks around the power regulator that he hadn't noticed before but with a cleaning he noticed it was just superficial damage, probably burned by another component and not from the regulator itself.

After just under two hours he was done, confident he'd done everything right. Running a quick test he could determine that there were no short circuits and testing the flow of energy it all seemed to be functioning just fine.

Tinkering by hand like this, especially on such a crucial component, was generally frowned upon. But Eric had enough experience and confidence that he felt good reusing the cheap core in the turbine. At least if he made it last another week it will give him time to buy a proper replacement. Then again, if it did just fail again he could just toss the thing, swallow his pride and learn his lesson of not buying used components from shady characters in black markets.

The young engineer headed back into the depths of hell with the newly cobbled component in hand. As much as he loved the Narra, she was a fantastic ship, but she could be quite demanding. And as much as he loved the simplicity of her engine design the engine room was like walking into an oven on high. The ventilation system was notoriously terrible.

He started sweating instantly as he made it through the tight corridors and back into the main engine room. He wanted to get things done quick, bending down he tried to reset the core. It was a tight fit for his hand, and it looked quite dangerous to put his hand inside something that was meant to spin many thousands of times a second, but where the core connected was really at the heart of the machine, far from any dangerous spinning metal bits.

It all seemed promising. The core settled into it's nook with a satisfying click. With it came the buzzing of the machine, and though it might sound alarming to most it was music to Eric's ears. His repair worked and they were back at full power.

The young man was proud of his work, it was always frustrating to troubleshoot problems but a successful repair and the feeling of satisfaction made it all worth while. Placing the cover back over the turbine's exposed core, he started to tighten down the bolts.

All of a sudden, that buzzing sound turned into crackling, the turbine's whirring sound getting higher in pitch as it spun faster and faster. Eric's heart sank, he started to panic. The core was over powering the turbine, and he knew how dangerous that could be.

Quickly he unbolted the cover as fast as he could. The electric crackling getting louder and more violent. Removing the cover from the core he received a strong electric shock to his right hand, practically paralyzing it. The turbine was spinning so fast it started to get unstable, wobbling lightly on it's axis with a periodic thunk. The energy supplied by the core seemed to just shoot off with ever growing power. He had to shut it off or the thing was going to blow.

Then, without notice, his world went dark.