Page 26 of Radiant Exception
His family was right to be worried about his safety out in space. Put on the wrong vessel, with the wrong crew, and he’d be a ripe target for a hefty ransom. And regardless of my complicated feelings for Vaughn, it was clear he was a man of integrity.
I nodded in agreement. “Your father’s smart to go that route, but you’ll want to be assigned to a safe ship that does shorter runs,” I advised him. “IA requires Starlane to have a mandatory waiting period between journeys, and the sweet spot is a trip right around three weeks, because they automatically get rounded up to the required break for a month-long run, which is five days, so you’d get to do short runs and have decent time off in between.”
Chadwick’s lips parted. Clearly this kid hadn’t done much research on what he was getting himself into. “Our current route will run us over three months round trip, but ship maintenance only takes so long, so at best, we’ll have just under two weeks off, whichis annoying after being stuck in space for so long, but maximizes profitability for Starlane.”
He studied me for a moment, as if assessing whether or not I was teasing him, or possibly whether or not I could be trusted. “Got any other tips?” he hedged after a beat, deciding that my intel was legitimate and sincere.
“Yeah, stop correcting people when they call you Chad.” I chortled. “You don’t want to know all the nicknames they’ve come up with behind your back. And this crew is tame compared to some of the people I’ve met.”
A grimace flashed across his face, but was almost immediately wiped away when multiple alarms started blaring from my station.
“Move!” I yelled, practically shoving a wide-eyed Chadwick out of my chair so I could scroll through the various interfaces to see what was wrong.
“Oh fuck,” I hissed.
Multiple systems were offline or going into backup mode due to a malfunctioning engine component, which the system was currently diagnosing.
The trill of my comm pulled me from my focus. It was an emergency call from the bridge. “Answer that!” I barked at Chadwick.
He fumbled with the comm, accidentally hanging up on the bridge twice before I wrestled the device from him and called them back.
“LARK!?” Vaughn’s deep voice boomed through the comm, almost as loud as the alarms still ringing from my station. “Don’t you EVER hang up on me when I call you from this line.”
“It was an accident,” I said frantically, not having time to explain to him that it was dear Chadwick that had done so, not me.
“Status report,” he demanded.
“Multiple systems down. There’s a broken component in the engine. I’m working to reroute power to all systems and will be powering down the engine after the diagnostics confirm which part broke. Then I’ll go in and manually fix the part,” I spit out while I was still scrolling through screens and updating coding and settings to get the offline systems back on, reduce power all over the ship, and why the hell wasn’t the god damned system diagnosing faster!?
“We don’t have time to power down the engine,” Vaughn argued.
“It’s not safe for me to replace physical components while it’s still running.” I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to suggest otherwise.
“You’ll have to manage it. Restarting the engine will cost us time we don’t have.”
“Captain—”
“Officer Sterling,” he growled, “that’s an order. If you don’t comply, you’ll be departing the ship at the next port.”
I stared at the comm, huffing in disbelief. He was putting my life and limbs in danger. He had to know that. All for his precious deadline.
“Sterling. Confirm your orders.”
“Affirmative.” I seethed and ended the call.
Chadwick had pressed himself into the corner, watching me with horror on his face at the thought of us having to mend the engine while it was running. “I’m not touching it.” He shook his head.
I ignored him and kept working on the final system power rerouting until the engine diagnostic at last completed. “Fuck,” I cursed. “It’s the thermal regulator.”
And that shouldn’t have been a surprise considering all the shitty makeshift workarounds the previous engineer had been putting in place before I’d arrived. Of course the regulator was bound to have issues when Sully had likely been running constant power surges through the system to accommodate propulsion boosts or turning on and off systems that should be running non-stop.
I glanced at the engine, running just beyond the transparent panel of shockglaze that separated the mechanics of the system and the heat it generated from personnel in the engineering bay. Shockglaze was one of the patents that launched Starlane to its current pre-eminent success, in the early days of space travel in the system, allowing for spacefaring ships to be far more comfortable and safe for their human crews.
It wasn’t impossible to replace the burnt-out circuit the diagnostic had identified while keeping it running, and because it wasn’t impossible, I knew Vaughn wouldn’t let me turn it off.
I didn’t doubt he’d lock me out of the ship at Port Vesta, and any hope I had of working with him on our mission would be out the window. Doing a live fix was a risk I’d have to take.
I sprung out of my chair and bolted down the hallway to one of the ship panels I’d seen on the schematics, where I knew a non-critical circuit could be salvaged without much issue. I cut my hand trying to wrench the board out of place, but it clicked out a moment later, only to reveal an empty cavity.
