Intergalactic

Shadows danced around the reactor room, bathing most of it in utter darkness. The light they cast was much weaker and more yellow than what the engineers working frantically to restart the reactor were used to. Three oil lamps was all that could be found on short notice, and there was another man standing next to each of the engineers holding the lamp so that the others had both hands free.

Their task was made even more difficult by the fact that gravity had slowly declined to a fraction of what it used to be. Two of the teams had already secured themselves with ropes to hooks built into the controls exactly for this purpose.

„Two, maybe three minutes before we reach zero-G.“, the lamp-holder of the third team said, „We should really strap in.“

„No time for that.“, the engineer he was assisting growled, his eyes narrowed and focussed on the controls in front of him. Ricky Sarron was relatively young, just 28, but he had been around machines for all his life and loved tinkering with them. His head, and essentially whole upper body, inside the reactor control unit, measuring currents, inspecting wires and connectors, figuring out why the damn thing didn’t start despite it should, was all the heaven he needed to be happy.

„That’s odd.“, Ricky stated, a circuit board in his hand. The panel he had opened to extract it was still open, showing the slot it had been in, with thin traces of scorch marks. „That’s the frequency modulator. How did that get fried?“

He extracted himself from the reactor and turned to the man holding the lamp: „Steve, get over to the spare parts cabinet. Second shelf from the top. Should be a few of these.“, he said, handing the circuit board to the man. Steve nodded and pushed himself off towards the cabinet at the side of the reactor room. With gravity approaching zero, jumping was easier and faster than walking. Behind him, Ricky hollered to the other teams: „Check the frequency modulators. Mine was fried.“

Steve reached the cabinet and pulled it open. It took him only a few seconds of rummaging to find a box with two circuit boards identical to the one he had in his hand. He pulled it out and jumped back towards the reactor, missing his target spot by about two steps but quickly recovering. He handed one board over to Ricky, who immediately disappeared into the machine again.

The jumble of cables and controllers inside the control unit surrounded Ricky again, just as he felt his legs floating and only returning to the ground after several seconds. Gravity had dropped so far that small balancing changes turned into jumps.

„More light here.“, he ordered Steve, with a calm voice. With a series of directions he guided the other man until the light fell straight into the box behind the still open panel. He pushed the spare circuit board inside, making sure all the pins aligned correctly. Then he closed the panel and pulled himself out of the control unit.

„That should be the last replacement. Let’s try again.“

With a nod, Steve turned to the outside of the control unit and pressed a series of buttons in carefully orchestrated order. This time, unlike the ones before, the reactor went through the cold start procedure and the sound of the coils creating the magnetic fields inside announced their success.

„Got it.“, Ricky let the other teams know. „90 seconds until we have emergency power.“

„Thanks Ricky.“, a voice out of the darkness answered. At the closer reactor, the engineer closed the panel he had been working on and moved over to the control unit, preparing a regular start. Once the third reactor supplied power again, starting up the other two would be much easier.

„You still got the fried board?“, Ricky asked Steve, now that there was nothing immediate to do for him.

„Of course. Here.“, Steve said, handing him the damaged frequency modulator board.

Ricky inspected it in the light of the oil lamp, then shook his head slowly: „Not enough light. I’ll take this to the workshop once we got power.“

A holler came from reactor two. „Hey Ricky. My modulator is fried as well.“

„Get the second board to number two.“, Ricky told Steve, followed by a curse as he started floating away from the reactor, pushed by a small movement of his feet. He extended his arm and grabbed a railing, holding on. The gravity field had collapsed entirely in the meantime and Binary Bloom was under zero-G.

While Steve floated away, Ricky tucked the fried board into his belt, then used his now free hand to adjust the startup sequence by pressing buttons and adjusted dials, as needed. Inside the reactor, the controlled fusion started up again, and with a flicker and a dozen clicks, the lights inside the reactor room switched on.

„Powering up number one.“, resounded through the room, followed by „Powering up two.“ As the other two teams went through the startup sequences on their respective reactors. They were swinging from the ropes attached to their belts on one end and the control units on the other.

A short distance away, another engineer floated towards the exit. Without the usual wireless communication, the technical team of the station had to return to messengers to exchange vital information.

Half a minute later, shortly after the messenger had exited the reactor room, reactor two completed the initialization process. Steve had pushed himself back and was on his way back, and the messenger was exiting the reactor room.

A holler came through the room: „One is still failing. I’ll check the modulator.“

„No more spare boards.“, Steve shouted back.

Meanwhile, reactor two was spinning up.