Replicating Help (Part III)

Posted on Wed Sep 15th, 2021 @ 12:01pm by Lieutenant JG Ronnie Wolfe & 1st Lieutenant Kara Melo & Lieutenant Avery Paxton III & Lieutenant Dwight McCabe & Lieutenant Bela Swain & Ensign Satt

1,066 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Eye of the Storm
Location: Planetside

[PREVIOUSLY]

'A diagnostic would be good,' said Satt after a moment's thought, 'I can rig field repairs, but I can't decipher the insides of these machines one bit.'

[CONTINUED]


"Um, when can I let go?" Bela asked, her arms starting to tire, being quite unused to this sort of labor.

Satt looked over and saw the Counsellor struggling. 'You can let go at any time now it's been secured,' he said almost-affably.

"Oh, thank you!" Bela let go and then shook her arms to the side. "These arms were not meant for this kind of labor," she told anyone that cared to listen. Noticing that Lieutenant Paxton had stayed, she approached him and gave him a weary hug. "So good to meet you! Welcome to the crew!" she told him genuinely before breaking away. "How may I be of service?"

"Thanks," Paxton replied, doing her best not to tense up with the hug. She wasn't the touchy-feely type and preferred her personal bubble to remain intact. "Well, according to this, all that's left is to reconnect the mainframe and reboot it." Without hesitation, she knelt down and connected the single remaining cable. The main interface popped up on the side panel and Paxton entered the sequence to reboot. A few moments later and the large unit hummed back to life. "Looks like she's all set to go," she said with a slight smile.

Touching Avery with her right hand on Avery's left shoulder, Bela told Avery, "That was well handled. You and Ensign Satt have quite a bit of talent."

"You two did pretty much all of the work, I only connected a single cable," she chuckled. "Do you guys need anything else before I work on upgrading the power system?"

"Anything that I have is yours," Bela replied. "I'm here merely to assist."

"You're welcome to help me with the upgrade if you'd like, but I don't want to get in the way of whatever else Ensign Satt might have on his repair list," Avery smiled at the Bolian officer.

Satt shook his head, 'I'm a Security Officer, not an Engineer. I can jury rig some field repairs, but I'm sure the colonists will feel much better if you can get your hands on the equipment.'

"Come on, Satt," Bela replied enthusiastically, with a wave of her hand. "Let's go help!"

He nodded in the face of Bela's overwhelming enthusiasm for every task at hand. Following in her wake, he looked out for any equipment they could team up to repair.

The trio walked over to the power supply and Paxton began her inspection. Fortunately, the unit itself seemed in good condition; it just hadn't been doing that great of a job of keeping up against the ion storms.

"Everything looks good for us to get started. We'll need to add some additional relays, basically extending the load on the grid, and add some shielding. That should help it to withstand the storms better. Everything we need should be in that container," she nodded towards a large grey box to the side of the unit.

Avery lifted out the components needed to add a relay to the system and handed some to both Satt and Bela before loading up her own shoulder with equipment as well. "We'll start with adding a relay at the weakest point in the system, which according to this diagram is here," she pointed to an area at the far end of the underground. "I'm going to guess you know this place better than I do," she looked to Satt. "Do you mind leading the way?"

"Of course he can!" Bela spoke up for Satt. "And if he needs assistance, I will guide, as well. After all, we were both in the same places at the same time." She hugged Satt's arm closely to her chest. "He's just a little shy. I'll help him with that, too."

Frowning at the Counsellor, Satt said very deliberately, 'quiet doesn't necessarily mean shy, Counsellor.' He looked at the Engineer's map. After a moment he nodded, 'follow me then, Lieutenant.'

While others might have felt chided by Satt's statement, this only seemed to increase Bela's smile and pleasure. "We'll go with your interpretation for now, Mr. Satt." Obediently, she started to follow.

Meanwhile, the doctor kept himself busy removing some supplies from yellow containers. He noticed that he is working by himself because the others were working on the replicator, located in another area.

A young woman approached him to ask if she could help pass out the rations.

Dwight gave her a reassuring smile as he looked at her. She appeared to be in good health and maybe in the mid-30's by earth standards for age. "What is your name?"

"Betzy."

"I'm Doctor Dwight McCabe. You can just call me Dwight. If you would go to that red container at the far wall on that table," he pointed. "Pass out one package to everybody would be helpful. Don't worry about the ones that are very weak to eat. I have a solution to get nutrients in them," he showed her a fluid bag with a tube that was attached to a solid cloth. There is a hidden needle under the cloth that nobody can see it.

"Yes, doctor...er, Dwight."

After the supplies had been brought in and put on the table, Kara looked around. The counselor was helping the engineer, the doctor had one of the locals helping him, and things looked to be ship shape. She decided that since everything here seemed to be under control, she'd go look for the Commander. She signaled to another Marine of her intentions and headed out a side door.

Ronnie walked in and looked for the group. "I need to get back to the ship. There are no insects at all in the area and I need to run some soil samples."

Kara turned. "I'm not busy right now. I can take you."

Kara called over Peter. "Help the others until I get back."

Peter nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Doctors, I'm taking Lancaster back to the ship," Kara announced. "Peter here will help you."

(To be continued…)

Lieutenant Bela Swaine
Chief Counselor

Ensign Satt
Security Officer

Lieutenant Dwight McCabe
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Avery Paxton III
Chief Engineer

1st Lieutenant Kara Melo
Squadron Leader

Lieutenant JG Ronnie Lancaster
Entomologist

 

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