T-Plus 14

Joey arrived shortly after them, gripping their shoulders. From what Oliver could see through their tinted visors, the intern had on the most panicked expression he’d seen on him yet. Oliver looked around them with alarm. This wasn’t like within the dark corridors of the Station. This was out in space, and nothing could hide from the Sun’s light for long. From what he could tell, there were no signs of aliens anywhere. He glanced back at the intern, wondering why Joey looked so alarmed about something.

If this was as usual, he’d just ask him via the suit’s built-in radio. Oliver paused in his thought, wanting to smack himself for forgetting. The suits had built in radios. They hadn’t tested it out back in the hangar, but better late than nothing. He patted his chest, pressing the familiar button on the outside of the suit.

A crackling static filled the helmet, sounding into his ears. Thank the stars for built-in batteries. Daniel noticed his intentions and started up his own suit’s radio systems, and soon the other technician’s voice was heard through the connection.

“Oh, they work.”

The two motioned for the intern to do the same, and Joey smacked the front of his own suit, reeling back in surprise when their voices were transmitted into his helmet.

“Woah! There are radios? Can you hear me?”

“Not sure how long these will last,” Oliver said with a nod. “Forgot to check their battery levels before leaving.”

“We’re out here to scout anyways, so it should be fine,” Daniel replied, motioning back to the bigger problem at the moment. “What do you think happened?”

“Looks like whatever crumpled the vents inside, crumpled the vents out here,” Oliver said, staring down the nearest hole in the column.

The steel exterior had peeled outwards, revealing the contents it once protected. A tangled flurry of wires were splayed out from their protective wrappings, floating without the Station’s gravity to keep them down. Several of the finer wires were beyond repair and would need replacements, but Oliver already knew from a glance most of them weren’t pertinent for their current task. Back when they first strung these together, they’d color coded every wire, each color signifying a different aspect in the Station. Yellows were for the lights in the corridor and reds were those that powered each room. Those were the two they needed to pay attention to for this task. Most of those were intact, but they’d have to comb through just to make sure. The biggest issue was the lack of solar panels out here to power the transformer.

“I’m going to see if I can find those panels,” he announced into the radio.

Daniel gave a nod, pulling Joey to his side to inspect the wires still inside column. Oliver made sure his tether was still attached, looked behind him to see the white rope floating from where it connected him to the inside of the hangar and stepped out a bit further away from the column. He squinted into the distance around the Station. Without some powerful force, most debris wouldn’t float too far away from its initial starting point. And as he figured, he saw one of their stray panels not too far away, but distant enough to make it difficult to retrieve it in their current state.

“Found one,” he reported. “It’s out over by the Elevator. We’ll either need a longer tether or a collection drone.”

“We could tie two tethers together and get down there,” Daniel spoke through the radio.

“That’d only allow one of us to get over there,” Oliver said.

“Ah, we need two people to grab that panel, huh,” Daniel said, realizing his error.

“You think it’s faster just finding the extra panels in one of the storage rooms?” Oliver asked.

“If they’re not broken.”

Oliver calculated the length of the column. Since this was what powered the emergency power, there weren’t too many panels on this end of the Station in the first place, just enough to power the clinics, the central elevator, and the low-powered lights in the Corridors. One panel powered each floor, and there were usually four panels out here to collect power in case they were ever needed. The fourth was in case one of their emergency power sources had issues. Much good that did in this situation.

If they were unlucky, they would have to search for three fully intact solar panels from one of the storage rooms. If they were lucky, they’d only have to find one. Granted, Oliver didn’t want to have to go searching through those completely ruined storage rooms at all. He made a note to himself. Once they got out of this situation, they should tether the solar panels to the Station itself, so they would stay within the vicinity of the Station in cases like this.

In hopes they wouldn’t have to go foraging again, he continued his search for thHe checked the other direction, straying to the full length of his tether to check around the rings of the Station. He found a panel on the outer ring of the Station, just barely within the range of where the tethers reached. He peered closer, judging its condition with a cursory glance.

The panel itself was a giant, flat block metal that conducted the heat from solar energy. Blue and gray in color and much too large for one person to pull over the edge by themselves. Other than a few scratches and dents along the edge, this particular panel looked fine. Granted, with delicate technology like this, it was highly likely there was something wrong beneath the surface.

“I found another panel,” Oliver radioed.

“Can we reach it?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah, just barely. How’s the situation over there?”

“Bad news or good news first?”

“There’s bad news?”

“Yeah, so you know how there’s a dent in the transformer?”

“That’s what the bad news is about? Give me a second, I’ll come back.”

Oliver noted the location of the panel before making his way back to where the other two were waiting. He half bounced, half bobbed his way back, keeping an eye on the tether in front of him. It swayed back and forth as he moved, struggling to hurry over to them. As he did, Daniel continued to describe the situation.

“The dent’s on the side where all the power comes from.”

“Please don’t tell me all those ports got damaged,” Oliver seethed through the radio.

“You think we have replacements for these in one of the storage rooms?” was Daniel’s only reply.

“If they’re not broken,” Oliver parroted Daniel’s previous answer to his earlier question.

Oliver reached them, holding onto the bars that stood on both sides of the transformer for inspection purposes. Joey scooted over, giving him more room to see what they’d already seen. From afar, he’d only seen the indentation that damaged its top, but it actually reached down the back as well. Most of it was negligible and only considered minor damage, but near the top of the box was where the wires were connected. Several of the outgoing ports that would transfer the converted energy to the Station were damaged and bent, while the ports that transferred the raw energy from the solar panels were empty.

“That’s not too bad,” Oliver said, inspecting the overall damage. “I think we kept an extra in the Bay, since Toast and the boys damaged this the last time with the drones. That isn’t the good news, right?”

“No, the good news is none of the major wires are damaged.”

“Great, best news all night,” Oliver muttered. “Let’s head back.”

This time with Daniel in the lead, the three of them retraced their path along the side of the Station, holding onto the handlebars. The outer doors to the Station were still open, and the three alighted down from their floating positions. Daniel grabbed hold of the last handle, pulling himself down so his feet could touch the floor. He flipped inside, letting Joey enter the Station after him. Oliver dove inside and helped Daniel force the doors close by leveraging off the walls. Once the doors were closed, they crashed to the floor from their floating heights and returned to darkness. A chorus of pained groans echoed in the headsets as the three rubbed whatever hit the ground first. For Oliver, it was his knees.

Oliver patted his suit’s radio off, so the blip of light that shone marked his location in the room. Daniel’s suit lit up beside me, and Joey’s followed. They were clustered together in the corner of the room. Oliver took a few steps forward, turning on his radio again, summoning the static back in his ears. Two blips of light beside him echoed back, and Daniel’s voice filled his helmet.

“Ugh, we should’ve brought a flashlight.”

They moved forward again, continuing on with the same pattern, so they wouldn’t run into each other like last time. Eventually, Oliver’s hand reached the far door, and he quickly found one of the handles. He hit the button for his radio, turning it on.

“Found one.”

Joey’s suit glowed for a second opposite of him before his voice replied to Oliver.

“Found the other one.”

Together, the two opened the gates, allowing the Chief and Toast’s lights to appear into the room. Daniel squeezed through the door, propping one of the doors open from the other side while the other two took the other one. Oliver waved Joey in first before following. Once the gates were closed and all of them and their tethers were back in the hangar, Oliver took off his helmet.

He shook his head, breathing in fresh air. He set the helmet on a nearby crate before plopping down beside it. Daniel and Joey did the same, taking deep breaths after being freed from the suffocating confines of the helmet.

“How was it?” the Chief asked, his arms crossed.

If Oliver didn’t know any better, he would’ve sworn there was a grouchier edge to the Chief’s voice when he asked the question. Toast couldn’t have annoyed him this much in the short amount of time the three of them had gone out there, right?

“All the solar panels got loose,” Oliver reported.

“Transformer’s back ports need to be replaced,” Daniel added. “Wires look worrisome, but they should hold long enough for what we need them for. We should look for replacements, just in case.”

The Chief nodded his understanding, standing to stretch his arms.

“I guess it’s time to start opening boxes again.”

Oliver blanched, picking up the flashlight he had discarded when he climbed into the suit. He swept the light over the sea of boxes. Somewhere, in one of those boxes, was a new back panel with the appropriate ports for the transformer outside.

“So, Joey, you remember how the panel outside looked like?” he asked, turning over to the intern that had only been along for the ride during their outer space excursion.

The intern nodded almost on reflex, his eyes widening at the realization of what Oliver was insinuating. He hopped off of the box he was sitting on, shaking his head in refusal.

“W-Wait! You can’t be telling me that I have to go through all these boxes!”

“Not all of them,” the Chief corrected. “Just until one of us finds that panel you need to fix the transformer.”

“I found the suits,” Oliver said.

“I’m the one that’s going to install the panel,” Daniel added quickly.

Faced with the reality of being the lowest in the pyramid of authority yet again, Joey could only sigh and started opening the boxes they were resting on. The Chief rolled up his sleeves and joined him as the role model superior.

“Come on, lab coat. You might as well be useful for once and help.”

The technicians watched in awe as one sentence from their Chief got the mad scientist to move of his own volition and began opening crates on the other side of Joey and the Chief. But then he paused and looked up from his task.

“Wait, what am I looking for again?”

“Just... keep opening boxes, and don’t close them,” Oliver sighed, unzipping his suit so he would have more mobility.

It was time to go back to opening boxes again.

***