“Alright work crews you have your orders. We have less than to fix everything on our lists. The bonus is good for early completion. The fees for late delivery are bad.” Sammiss, the head of repair operations, announces to the Nautilus’ landing deck filled with several thousand techs from several different disciplines. “If we fall behind as things progress we will have to implement mandatory shifts, as opposed to standard ones, so let's not fall behind!”

*-*-*

Major electronics team 14 looks down the, for lack of a better term, power corridor. “This thing is huge! We don’t even have to unload the tool floaters!” One member says, after a few moments of staring.

“True. Makes you wonder how much power this trunk uses once it is fully up and running.”

“Let’s not be here when the test is being run” a third pipes up from the back.

“Alright, you lazy lets get started. You know the drill.” The squad leader says.

All respond, “ If it isn’t connected, connect it! If it’s hooked up, check it! If it shows signs of neglect, replace it!”

“Alright! MOVE OUT!”

*-*-*

“Would you look at the size of these fuel tanks! This one reads 0.05% of capacity. That's still of fuel!”

“All the rest read completely empty. They really were on their last legs, weren’t they.”

“Gentle beings, attention please! Team 1, get this tank emptied; teams 2-11, get the pressure tests started; Teams 12 and 13, check the fueling lines and replace the faulty ones.”

“Yes Sir!”

*-*-*

"And they have been running on the backup Hyper Drive for how long?" Crew Chief Klacc asks, voice filled with dread, antenna twitching.

"About 1000 years, sir." Someone responds from behind her.

"How in the 17 did they survive?" Klacc looks around. "Alright, as soon as main power is back on, we need to take a fine manipulator to each of the main drives. See what needs to be cleaned, or replaced. Our orders specify that these backups are not to be touched. I know that rubs some of us on the wrong leg, but them's the orders."

Several hundred workers behind her scatter. Except for one, who approaches, "Ma'am, you ever worked a job this big?"

"No runt, I never have. But we, here, are the best repair crews on the station. If we can find the parts for something this old, we can do it!"

"Funny you should say that, chief. I was poking around in the storage bays over here, and there are literally thousands of parts just sitting there, like they just came off of an assembly line. I would call them 'New, old stock' if I were going to sell them." Runt says, pointing a grasper towards the starboard wall.

Klacc flicked her antennae towards him, "If you do that, I will have you boiled and served as a meal for the Dirt-Rockian. That said, if they are the right parts, we can come in so far under budget that most of us could retire.”

*-*-*

Engineering crew 8 was staring at the immense workspace. The dimly lit cavernous area seemed unending (It only actually stretched for some 2000 feet). Finally one of them spoke up, "Can you believe the size of this place?"

Then the lights came on, illuminating floors, catwalks, power conduits (that a small truck could drive down), as well as stairs, lifts, and ladders. What really caught everyone's attention were the machines, all the machines. If there was a machine that was needed for any manufacturing or engineering job, it was here. If it was an important machine there were two or three of them.

Finally someone with authority spoke, "Alright you slobs, let's get our section of heaven up and running before crew 3 gets here and tries to take it!"

There was much yelling and cheering, as the crew charged forth.

*-*-*

The string of lithium salt reactors was massive, standing almost 3 decks tall. As the engineers stared up at the ceiling far above, the eldest of their number spoke up. "Well, you don't see many of these any more." Looks that could be easily understood as confusion were turned to the speaker.

"What? Everything is now high-density anti-matter. Nothing like this has been made in millennia." The elder said.

"What's so great about these pieces of history?" A young one asked.

"Well, if you crack the housing on one of these, it just shuts down. No explosion, no nothing. Just 'pop' and it turns off. Anti-matter? It goes boom." The elder looked at the reactors fondly. "Sure, these aren't the most efficient, but for a warship? Can't beat 'em."

The rest of the repair crew looked upon the old reactors with a little more reverence than before.

*-*-*

The rancid smell was the first thing Kyro, Bio-Engineering specialist third class, noticed upon entering the environmental control algae station 38. "This place is rank!"

"Yup." His work partner, Luvsek, responded. "Makes my antenna itch."

"When was this place last serviced?" Kyro asked, "10 Stan-years ago?"

"According to the review on the data chit, closer to 8,000 Stans." Luvsek replied.

"How many do we have to do?" Kyro asked, nose quivering in disgust.

"We are responsible for the 28 tanks on this level." Luvsek, antenna quivering, responded.

"Seriously?" Kyro asked, more of a comment than a question. "At least this is a hangar deck, as opposed to one of the living quarters."

"Yup." was Luvsek's only reply.

They set to work, cleaning out the old, and surprisingly still live, algae matrices from the grow ponds. The old filters were replaced, the pipes inspected and replaced in most circumstances, then new growth liquid was added, and finally the new algae sample started. All in all it was a full day's work.

"That was quick and easy!" Kyro exclaimed.

Luvsek shook an antenna, "That one was, yes. But it was the smallest. The next one is twice as big, and they double in size from here on out. We need to get better and faster, or we won't be able to keep up."

Kyro threw his head up and back in surprise, "The 17 are you saying? This one is more than enough for the entire deck!"

"Redundancies. If you had read the data chit, you would know that this was, and still is, a warship." Luvsek gave his species equivalent of a sigh, "At least we didn't get stuck on the bottom five decks. Those are supposed to be haunted. Something about dumping stowaways out the airlocks."

Kyro gave a full body twitch, "Then let's not get done too early, I don't want to get reassigned."

Luvsek gave an affirmative twitch of antennae, "Yup."