Christian layed down in a chair and closed eyes in a darken room, emergency light was a sinlge source of light. He wasn't able to take a nap or sleep for a coupe of weeks. Just like most of crew onboard of the Vega last weeks were extremely intense. Everyone was exausted, but had to continue hard work to repair what was damaged. Christian poured some water in a coup and took few pills.
"Alright, here we go."
He took a pills and washed down by water, he yawned loudly and headed to bed.
"Medics says they are safe but hell I think they've lied..." Mumbled Chistian. "Hope Nomads wouldn't kill us until we get into Order space. So much losses... Even atheist would believe in god after what we've outlived."
Slightly smirked, he never thought that a body can keep that long with stimulants. He opens communication task to check current status across different levels.
"That give a chance."
He keeps swipe though many automated ship reports. Some of ship systems were marked as green and potentially full functional, literally a coupe of weeks back almost every subsystem was red flagged - damaged. He still goes though self-diagnose reports to acquainted with problem he worried the most, a heart of every ship.
"Main powerplant - still out of line..." The reactor of a Vega was an experimental powerplant which was based on knowledge Phoenix engineers over past decades on Livadia. Powerplant works on heavy water and got revolutinary power output even for a ship of such size. But as everything new without prior test it appeared that it got achilles heel - cooling and draining system. An unsignificant overheating and emergency systems stops the reactor to prevent any possible self-destruction.
"Launch deck is locked by automatics. Seems gateway is in worse condition that we thought before, oh my little poor Lyra". A Lyra is a Dromedary vessel, most used personal ship of Christian, it was stucked in gateway of Vega as the rest wrecks of other ships, preventing everyone from Hyperion flagship to come-in and come-out to sustain works on the Vega.
The Vega was damaged across almost on every level, although thick hull of warship gave a chance to survive and protect homeships. A whole crew onboard of the ship was busy to restart powerplant after works on drainage system. Without powerplant they were stucked in uncharted space. Without a light and barely working lifesupport systems.
While Chistian continued checking all the reports he accidentally fall asleep...
Vega and Hyperion still drifted in the cloud, remaining radio silence...
Christian swiftly opened his eyes. His body was cold sweating and he felt himself crashed. Probably it was a dream horror. That was one of the reasons why he decided to keep himself on the stimulants, after an open clash with the Nomads almost everyone onboard of the battlegroup wasn't able to sleep well. Perhaps it was the Nomads presence which exhausted their mind health. "Damn, how long have I slept?" He took a view on the clocks and swiftly stood up from the bed. "Connect me with the bridge now." Christian have commanded to the console. He was always been a man of action and used to keep things under his own control.
"Yes, commander?" Appeared a picture of a middle-aged man on the screen, with white short hair, aquiline nose and self-confident sight. "I told you don't treat me like that, Jim. We're one step in the grave the last thing we need is formalities." "Sorry Chris, almost forgot about that." He smiled, although he knew that Chris tends to have relationship in the team as family, especially in such critical conditions. But Jim, as ex-officer of the Navy tend to keep traditions of his past no matter what. "Why you don't woke me up? Under such circumstances every minute got a value… I even can't believe I've slept that long…" Jim interrupted him "You know you have done all you should already and deserved some rest". Christian sighed and said “Probably you’re right. But next time, if it would ever happen again, do the favor for me.” Jim shaked his head affirmatively and hideously smiled. While Christian walked around a room and headed to the bathroom asked “So what's the current status? I feel something good, you weren't in a good mood for a long time.” Jim said “Indeed, we have some good news. Nonetheless I will jump forward on this topic, the team on the Hyperion still cannot reach us.” Works on the Vega would go much swifter if a Hyperion team would be able to arrive, due to significant damage on docking bay level, lock system had been unpowered for unknown reason, currently we are unable to check. “Alright Jim, I’ll be on the bridge in ten minutes.” Christian finished communication and went into shower with his thoughts about accomplishing work on a bay level. A help from Hyperion could significantly increase speed of repair works.
As Christian left his apartments he headed to the bridge. The way from apartment block to bridge wasn't close as horizontal elevators as any insignificant systems were down due to powerplant maintenance. While he still be passing personnel level he met Charles, a team-lead of engineers, which worked on repairing draining system of powerplant. Christian waved to Charles and said “I won’t steal much of your time, what’s current status?” Charles said shortly "You can check the reports, boss." Christian did a step forward to Charles "You know just like me there reports do not represent situation as whole." Charles slowly sighed trying to cover his irritation and said "Works are mostly done. We are no longer should be worried of the draining system, works over the cooling system is in progress as report states… It won't take much time to mount new parts, thankfully we had them in the storage. The problem…" Charles laid down on the wall, as expected talk won't be short as he thought "Most of the wires were burnt or damaged. It’ll be simpler to remove all the garbage completely and mount a new ones. But it will take time for sure." Christian shortly nodded “Alright Charles, I won’t interrupt you anymore”. They shaken hands and drifted apart…
Finally Christian arrived to the bridge. He took a look around, everyone were doing their business. He find Jim and headed to him. “So I listen, Jim. ”. Jim rolled in the seat around and have been stand up and said "sir… Sorry, Chris. What exactly do you want to hear? All important information or detailed report?" Christian took a look on the console in the back of Jim seat "I see several improvements, but to be honest, I expected different results." Jim swiftly took a look on his back and said "Oh yeah, we currently stopped all scheduled tasks. We need more people in powerplant team, they need to wire up several hundred kilometers of wires to make powerplant work on full output… So we sealed all unnecessary levels with air leak, include docking bay… " Christian took a cold-eyed look on Jim " Jim, I gave you freedom to action, but please do not forget to my main orders. " Jim expected Christian react on this topic and without a doubt continued " Yes, I remember my obligations. But we got a new news from docking bay. Not much left inside. If not mention previous reports, both lock gates is blocked by mechanical case. Nonetheless, onboard excavators and other special equipment left undamaged. But a lot of wrecks on the path currently its nit possible to get in there. firstly we will need to get there by using exoskeletons to simplify things" Jim heard sound of new communication turned around to check its source "Chris, that's a salvage team just returned from docking bay. " Christian nodded and said "Accept, I want to hear news from them directly." Jim pushed a button and image of three persons appeared, in spacesuits with guns, as security protocols obligated. "Howdy commander, Jim" A man in middle nodded "We managed to get in room with equipment. But we need more people to clear up path for excavators, currently way reminds me of roller coaster but though hills of junk..."
As Christian and Jim finished briefing salvage team, Christian turned to Jim and said I'm going there with them. We need to finish works with powerplant as soon as possible and currently everyone doing their job, so I can be useful somehow." Jim nodded "Although it may be risky… I won't over-persuade you I know you for way too long. Just be careful, okay?" Christian smiled, he finally find something to fresh up mind, he's way too tired to stay on the bridge all of the time "No worries, I heard a walk though forest of debris may be good for the health…"
A couple of men surrounded a lock gate in spacesuits, the team stuck there for a couple of hours and most of the people were consumed by boredom, no one expected this would last that long. Christian, stopped leaning on the wall, shaked his head with an attempt to freshen up his mind and headed to John, an engineer who knew Vega systems and took his part in projecting ship systems, he was invited to the team just in case. So the case is happening. "John, what the hell is wrong with this gate? You told us it won't take much time" John was nervous, but has been trying to keep calm "I don't know… I've connected my console to ship systems and used the direct mode to open a gate, and system has reported success…" Christian nodded and said "But you know better than me what it does mean" John standed up from his console, which he kept his legs and turned to Christian "But… I doubt we need more damage" Christian smiled "Don't worry about this lock system, we have several more to the apartments level. Few decks less or more, it doesn't matter - we need heavy machinery to clean up the docking bay from the garbage to get help from Hyperion." John moved his eyes down like he had a deep thought on what have said Christian, but shortly added loudly" Alright gentlemen, we are going to blow this thing up. Seems junk inside of the launch bay somehow damaged servo mechanics and it's no longer capable of opening the gate" Christian added "Make sure you sealed your spacesuits, we are going to the open space! Almost." John took explosives from his box and mounted it directly on the place of gate mechanics, turned around and started to move in the direction of closet cover and said "This explosive is set up for direct damage on the gate, but the blast wave still can crush you, not to mention decompression". As everyone was prepared and hid behind the cover John pressed the button…
An emergency light immediately darken, and the vacuum started to sink into decompressured decks slowly. "Alright people, this won't take long as it will be depressurised. As everything went silent, the team enabled their garnitures and heard Jim saying something very loudly "... What the hell are you doing? Do you want to finish Nomad work?! " Some emergency lights lighten up and the team is able to see the result, Chrisrian said "No worries Jim, everything is under control. Do you think a weak implosive could do a harm for the battleship?" Jims started to redden and barely kept up his thoughts, afterall, Christian knew in what Vega was capable of absorbing the damage "You know like me an explosion inside could end just as disaster" Christian said "Jim, do your work, we do ours. Expect help from the Hyperion very soon". After the explosion dust finally scattered and the team tried to open the gate widely, as currently it was open enough to get fingers in between of doors. Alright, people let's push on it 1, 2, 3". Team started to push doors on different sides, at first impression it was impossible, but as everyone pushed harder it started to move slowly meanwhile on every centimeter resistance reduced and a team managed to open the gate wide enough to get inside.
Team lighten up their flashlights, as huge deck was absorbed by a dark. Team has started moving forward, trying to bypass wrecks and bodies... No one was able to escape from the deck. Christian was stunned "We are obligated to bury our brothers as soon as possible…" John replied "Ofcourse, we will. Let's head this way." The team has turn on left and headed straight to a light dot in the darkness "What is source of that light? I can't understand where we are now" said Christian and John replied "That's where we left a beacon before we have returned with the aid… As strike on this site was significant, Nomad beam burned several ships ships and it played as explosives. All non bearing walls were demolished completely or significantly damaged." Meanwhile the team has arrived to a gate, which is supposed to be an entrance of special trucks storage, they were loaded on the deck in case of finding a planet comfortable enough to build up an outpost."Arlight, we are in position. Activate your skeletons at full power, heavy duty is ahead. Hell, I don't know even how much of time it take. " Everyone has started working, carefully moves a huge spaceship details of hull, engines and what's left of the deck equipment. While Christian took a cockpit of Scimitar he find something familiar."Hold on boys, guess we find a bingo, I see Lyra name on the plate!" It was a Christian Dromedary, a well strengthen ship for deep recon missions. By first impression it was in perfect shape. The team took position of a half ring around the supposed ship position and started to work carefully. Christian took a big plate and thrown away huge Eagle plate and said "if we are lucky enough, we can free up the path to the gate just to move freighter, if it's still in workable condition. Freighter thrust should be strong enough." Team continued to work and finally reached its engines and cockpit. The cockpit received damage, but had look of drive able thing, but one of side engine was smashed."Alright people, you should keep your distance. I am going to attempt to start the engine and use it at full possible traction" rest of the team without a doubt agreed, no one was interested in taking the risks of being smashed. Idea was reasonable insanity, but the risk was justified.
Engines of the freighter were heated enough to pull the throttle to full traction. "What we are doing" thought Christian and dropped control stick throttle downsides. Perhaps it would be a stunning noises, but nothing can be heard in the vacuum. Freighter starts to move slowly, cleaning path to the desired lock gate. Something blew up inside of ship and suddenly lost its traction, behaving as dead as the rest of once parked ships, but for now useless junk. Christian jumped out of the cockpit and headed to his teammates. "That was a swift and clean work, boss" said John and Christian shortly replied "Just don't say anything to James, he's being too nervous last week." John nods his head and said "Don't take his blames too seriously , he just burnt-out, he took too much on his shoulders.” The team has moved to gate and initialized lock gates to open. Finally the team has reached heavy machinery deck and Chrisrian ordred to the team "Everyone, jump in the excavators and take out all the junk out of docking bay, throw everything out into open space, make sure there would be enough space to land several ships in size up to freighter. I'm going back to the bridge, report me as you will finish clean up." Christian gave a few more orders before to leave, took a view on the open space, though a former lock gates he’s seen a Hyperion flagship. “A little bit more and we’re one step to into Sirius...” he mumbled to himself and headed back to the populated part of the Vega …
A several hours later, onboard Hyperion flagship.
A few men have stood on the bridge, their faces were barely lightened by control panels “Sir, we indicate activity on Vega docking bay… Some machinery works out there, it seems their salvage team managed to get inside of machinery warehouse. Most likely we will be able to deploy on its deck several ships quite soon.” Another man shakes his shoulders and said “Do you think the deck is still capable of receiving transports?”, “Integrity shouldn’t be collapsed, this vessel was supposed to receive heavy damage without critical results to rest parts of the ship, the hull is thick enough to resist even harder damage. After all, it's a battleship” he briefly took a look on the panel and continued “They should send us another probe with a message soon, be prepared”.
In meantime onboard of Vega
As Christian had reached the bridge, he went straight to James, he was sitting nearby of console reading all the reports. As James noticed someone is coming, he turned around on the seat and said “Chris, how did it go?” without taking a look on him. Christian replied "Just as planned. Quite dirty, but fast. Thats was a mess. Anyhow... Contact Hyperion, we are almost prepared to take the guests with all needed heavy equipment and wires, gates would be widely open, at least what’s left of them." James asked several questions to Christian regarding situation in docking bay, then stood up and went away from the bridge to a closest lifeboat gate, which was adopted for a probe, transmitting communications between ships. This was a single way to communicate between two ships. As protocols obligated to maintain radio silence. Furthermore Christian thought that Nomads could listen to them. "Alright people, its about time to start all systems onboard. We need to finish all works fast as we can, help from Hyperion is coming. Engage secondary powerplants 2 and 5." a bridge , once a very quiet and dead silent now was similar to a hive, just as it was long before. All lights and control panels were lighten up and enabled, everyone were doing their job. "power to the transmitter I need to send a message to Akabat. Make sure it will hit recipient". Christian took a seat of captain "It's only left to wait. Sirius, we back again."
Salvage teams have been working for quite some time, but with excavators and other heavy machinery they managed to clear the docking bay for incoming ships to land in a short period of time. The Vega has various emergency locks, but they are not wide enough to accept oversized equipment and cargo, that's the main reason behind the importance of their mission.
Freighters have been successfully landed on depressurized deck, salvage team had helped Hyperion crew to unload the equipment and transfer to habituated parts of battleship. Some of the crew were discussing Vega project, John have been saying "Due to particular qualities of ancient Bismark battleship and reworked later by ourselves, it have been a valuable ship in combat, but required qualified personnel and expensive parts" another men from Hyperion crew replied "pretty much as every new technology. Phoenix invested superior Hyperion technologies in its construction but it was its Achilles hell", John countered "The time of repairs, right. While it was right decision to rework battleship for own needs due its importance to the family, before a real battle it was an unknown ship for us in terms of critical situation. We are still alive, so lesions learnt… What would happen to our homeships, if we hadn't Vega? " Silence was the answer to Johns question.
Christian was talking to James, both were discussing further actions. After receiving transmission from the Order, they have discussion regarding further repairs of the Vega. James was quite disappointed "... I've expected more warm welcome, to be honest. We have return from damn nowhere and Vega is bleeding, we need shipyard to finish its repairs." Christian understood his feelings about that, but he knew Michal and Order for quite longer time than James "They offered us a absolute safe zone for repairs. Yes, its not a shipyard, we will be anchored nearby but still… Everything have been left for us is repair ship to its full functionality. We will deploy our transports for battleship components…" James still pushed the line" What do you think of Livadia, the place where Vega had been reborn?" Christian was looking hesitantly, he was in his mind, choosing optional decision" No, James. We cant. As we left Sirius sector we don't know new administrator and how honest he is. We need to remain Vega unknown to wide public, until it will be full functional. So at this moment Omicron Epsilon is a single option. Later then, as several of homeships would arrive to the sector we can think of something else. Afterall, Order have got own battleships, whom need refit and repairs.. " they continued the talks, meanwhile more and more engineers and specialists and crew arrives to help with finishing construction main powerplant of the Vega.
Hyperion team brought all needed equipment and specialists to finish works ongoing with the powerplant, it's wiring, cooling and drain systems. As final result they were able to return battleship functionality.
John was looking at console parameters of the powerplant, meanwhile most of Hyperion crew were busy with finishing works with circle cooling system, it's setting up. They left John and Robert Vega specialists to control powerplant functionality. "So… according our calculations with new temperature sinkers we will able to output maximum of powercore capabilities." Robert was a quite young for a specialist, but had take action of construction new PHWR powerplant in replacement of ancient GMG powerplant, which was believed to be a standard Bismark powerplant but several improvements for its stability. Robert replied "Reactors on heavy water is common technology and to be honest quite ancient… But it was forgotten technology for us. While it's reliable and cheap on maintaining, lets see how the powerplant will handle load at its maximum. " John agreed "We have received coordinates to jump straight to Order space, let's see how this thing will handle that..."
As works with Vega were done Christian and James finished their duty on the Vega. They decided to fly back to Hyperion, as they wanted to reach remnants of the homeships fleet on the Hyperion, in a place they arranged on, to lead remnants of homeships back into Sirius. "Finally,
we had been able to move out of this damn outskirts of Sirius." said James, Christian smiled and said "Where is your patience, James? Recent problems opened you as a new person for me" James chuckled for a bit and said "Indeed, I'm off the rails. I need to take some rest, hopefully I'll find that onboard of Hyperion." They finally reached their ship which was prepared to fly back to the Hyperion, John had been awaiting them. They shook their hands and John said "I'm honored, Christian. '' Hopefully everything will go according to the plan." Christian waved away and smirked "You know this ship better than anyone, so you will lead its reconstruction works. As you jump back to Sirius, write a letter to us and Order, we will be prepared." James held out his hand for a handshake to Johns "By the way, when Vega will be ready to jump?" John had shaked his hand with James and Christian and replied "In a few days, I think. We still need to test powerplant capabilities before to use it at its maximum" Christian agreed "Yeah, run all self diagnostics before, we do not want any accidents anymore. As Vega had returned its defensive capabilities, Hyperion going to lead corefleet back into Sirius, we leave you alone here. ” John expected that “Sure, we can take care of ourselves. ” They took leave of and went to a ship.
John had been watching how his friends flew away to the Hyperion “Godspeed, my friends. I hope we will reach you shortly.” He turned around from the screen and headed back to the bridge. While he had been walking through a corridor bright light filled its space and a moment later it was blindly darken. Hyperion had jumped away and left Vega alone, though not for a long time.
John went through docking bay, space around hasn't much changed, it still was a huge dark bay, lighten up by several emergency lights, although together with Hyperion team the crew managed to repair lock system, it was noticeable that some of gate segments were replaced, but at last Vega crew was able to get inside of docking bay without spacesuits, as system now was able to keep needed pressure. While John almost went to the next sector, he met an executive of body works on Vega. He was a small man of average ages, his head was partially grey-heared. Probably John even wasn't able to notify him, but he limped on his left leg, due to casualties after the Nomad strike on Vega. "Alex, it's been some time! How are you, how is your leg?" Alex didn't like when anyone took attention to his casualties "Everything is fine. Honestly." John smiled and said "Alright, alright." then he leaned on his hand and said relaxed "As you know, I was promoted to lead reconstruction works on Vega and by the way I substitute captain James…" Alex wanted to salute the new captain but John stopped him "No need for formalities, just tell me how is going ship body repairs?" Alex was stunned for a bit, he didn't know where to start, as he had, one good and one bad news "Well, we are finishing body work quite soon. Pressure on almost every deck will be around normal values, but… It's not the quality of shipyard works. We haven't materials to remade the original hull, and I have mentioned replaced materials are commonly used on Borderworld technology, mostly on transports, so the hardness of Vega will be lowered, that's all what we can do at this moment… '' John nodded his head."Understood, that's far enough at this moment. We need to be able jump into Sirius, to make quality works, at least how it was before the strike, we need proper materials, staff and the shipyard." and Alex agreed "That's right, we need hull integrity to jump." John shaked a hand with a smile and said "Good luck, let me know when we are done with body repairs. See you later" and they parted ways.
As John almost reached powerplant deck, he noticed a slight smell of burnt plastic and rubber, while he moved closer to the deck, the smell was growing that it was even hard to breathe, John for a moment though that there’s yet another emergency though people around weren’t concerned on that and doing their work so did John. Finally he reached the hert of every ship, a huge deck, consumed by various pipes of different diameter and web of the cable, some of them were burnt, people around were busy with construction works so no one even noticed them, although many of them were his friends. John headed to the console, at least the remnants of it - all of them were opened up, tools were chaotic scattered on the surface of it, some people were busy with soldering “...how are you even able to confuse these 2 cables… These even are different colors! Of course they are burnt, the cable conductor was much smaller than the supposed cable conductor...” John finally reached a man, who’s was assigned from Hyperion team to lead reconstruction works on the Vega powerplant “Hello. My name is John Adams, I was temporarily assigned in time of Burton's absence...”, man turned around, wiped his hands on a handkerchief and held out his hand for a handshake...
“Jeremy Stevens here.” A man in his late 50’s reached out his hand to receive the greetings. He was bald yet long-bearded, the mixture of oil, dirt and sweat painted his head, giving it a strange-looking pattern. His disheveled facial hair and messy appearance suggested very long working days.
“I have received the information about your promotion.” said while swiping his nose with his forearm. “Mr. Burton sent it to us through the neural net.” He turned his head towards some tangled cables. As you see we do what we can to bring back this old lady to life. However I don’t know how much time we need. This Rheinlander technology differs a bit from…” Suddenly a big spark enlightened the room followed by a crispy sound and smoke. “God dammit Tommy!” shouted to the source furiously after a few seconds. “Don’t tell me you messed it up again.” scolded a young electrician assigned to cabling work. “If there will be another setback because of you I swear you will end up as alien food.”
He turned back to John. “I wonder how this idiot got his licence for a job like this. Standards are pretty low nowadays…” said cynically.
“Anyway… What I wanted to say Mr. Adams is things are going forward, and if some of my men will be so kind as to not kill us during the process, we can finish replacing the damaged cables with newer ones. This is the first step. During this time I’ll study the structure of the power plant to make our progress as swift as possible.” he finished.
A few seconds of thinking he sighed and with a forgiving tone he turned to Tommy. “Go, get some rest, boy. Jake will substitute you till then.”
John was unpleasantly surprised by Jeremy, he gave the first impression not as a nuclear specialist, but as a road worker after a hard day under the sun. That is not what he expected from a team of professionals from Hyperion. Although look can be deceiving. “I hope we won’t collapse in the middle of nowhere?” said John with mild irritation, then he tried to get a grip.”We have all the information required for the repairs, it's in our database. As you may know Vega PHWR powerplant is a new technology for us, it have the downsides, as any new non-tested technology” John took once again a look on the deck and said “If work process is well established, I could show you all required information, although I want to be sure that it won’t blow up in time of our absence...”
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