Chapter 48: 48. Littlehammer

By the time I woke up the following morning I was in a good mood. My spirits remained up as I made breakfast for my crew-mates and myself, and not even the knowing smiles Rebecca and Jenny gave me could dampen my mood. They did make me blush a bit though.

Sarah was right, post-crisis sex turned out to be really good way to burn off the left-over tension and stress that lingered after our show-down with the ISS Kennington.

I'd been a bit reluctant at first, but Sarah took her time and gently got me started. That actually didn't take long, and we both pretty much gave up the whole gentle pretence right off the bat. It was a bit of a wild night, but considering how I was smiling and humming as I made breakfast there was no way anybody was going to complain about it.

And even if they did, I wouldn't let it bring down my mood one bit.

Once breakfast was out of the way, the four of us had a quick conversation about our plans for the day.

Rebecca and Jenny would get a head start inventorying all the salvage in our holds, while Sarah and I would see if we could get the Hammersmith's boat up and running. The Demeter had already come out of our level-zero jump, we were now cruising along under conventional drive only. Jenny would be keeping an eye on our sensors while the four of us split up and got to work.

Sarah grudgingly put on some pants and shoes, I was already wearing leggings and comfortable footwear. Then before we boarded the ship's boat she modified the Demeter's artificial gravity field so it extended far enough to cover the boat as well.

Finally the cute engineer grabbed a toolkit and a portable lamp and the two of us headed to the starboard airlock.

The boat seemed dead as we boarded it. Sarah already confirmed the craft was airtight, and the atmosphere inside was safe. With the lamp in her right hand and the toolkit in her left she led the way aft.

"I've been meaning to ask," I said as we moved into the dark quiet craft, "Does this boat have a name?"

Without any power we had to manually force open a few hatches, then as we passed through the passenger compartment Sarah replied "Not officially. The Navy doesn't name small craft, they just have designation numbers."

Stopping to force open the next hatch she added, "Of course unofficially everything gets named sooner or later. Some craft get more than one, depending who's flying it or who's talking about it. And this boat's no exception."

"So what's it called?" I asked as we got the hatch open.

Sarah led the way into the small engineering space, then grinned "It's the Littlehammer, of course."

I smiled back as she handed me the light and got to work.

She got started opening up all the access panels and maintenance covers, then began inspecting everything in a slow, methodical routine. She worked silently, focused on the task at hand. It seemed like most of the inspection was by eye, though a few times she reached in and felt around with her hands.

There were only two or three occasions where she used a sensor probe from her toolkit.

The whole inspection process took about fifteen or twenty minutes, and when she finished she stood in the middle of the small engineering space with a thoughtful frown on her face.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Can it be fixed?"

Sarah sighed, "My guess is the reserve power coupling's fried. Normally there'd be enough power to operate all the auxiliary equipment, including life support. And the reserve power is necessary to fire up the power plant. I'm assuming the fuel tanks are full, since that's standard operating procedure to keep the ship's boat ready to go at a moment's notice."

She paused for a couple seconds, then added "I'm sure we can fix it. I just have to find the problem and bypass it. The next concern is if the reserve cells are still charged, or if they drained when the coupling fused. And if they drained, are they still usable or are they toast?"

I nodded slowly, then asked "So what's our next step?"

"Get to the cells and check their status directly," she decided.

That involved removing floor panels then crawling down into an access space under the engineering deck. Sarah took the lamp from me so she could see what she was doing down there, and soon I couldn't see anything but her feet, dimly illuminated by the reflected light under the deck.

Her voice was a bit muffled as it came up from the narrow space below, "You know I could never have done this before? I'd have had to send an ensign down here and trusted them to know what the hell they were doing. I really love this body."

That made me smile, and I teased "Oh I know. I love that body too, Sarah."

She giggled, then made her way back till I could see her hand. "Amanda can you please give me the power probe?"

It took all my willpower to keep a level voice as I replied, "If we're talking about the same power probe you gave me last night, then I think that's going to have to wait till we're back in our cabin."

The next minute or so there was nothing but laughter from below the deck, while I crouched down and placed the tool she wanted in her hand.

Once Sarah finally stopped laughing she thanked me, then added "Gosh I walked right into that one didn't I? Not that I'm complaining though cutie. Far from it."

She couldn't see the big grin on my face, but she could probably hear it in my voice as I told her "I've been learning from the best."

Joking and teasing aside, she made her way deeper into the tight space again to test the reserve power cells. That took her a minute or so, then she finally squirmed her way back out.

She sat on the deck with her feet down in the crawlspace and straightened out her hair while she said, "The cells still have power. So if I can replace the coupling we might just bring this boat back to life. Or at least, we can wake her up and find out what else is wrong with her."

I sat down on the deck next to her and asked, "So how can I help? What do we do?"

"We need spare parts," she replied. "I doubt we'll have the right coupling laying around, but I can try and fabricate something."

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With that decided, the two of us got back at it. We headed through the airlock into the Demeter, and I let Rebecca and Jenny know what was going on while Sarah made her way to the ship's workshop to get what she needed. Then the two of us returned to the boat's engine room so we could get back to work.

Once again I was acting like Sarah's assistant while she did all the work. She pulled out some main breakers on the boat's electrical distribution panel, then squeezed under the deck again. Meanwhile I sat on the floor by her feet, and handed her tools and parts as required.

After a few minutes I commented, "So I guess I'm wondering if you ever did have that chat with Rebecca? I know our time at the Hammersmith was cut short, but you and her had a few days of work together there."

"Yeah we did," Sarah replied from under the deck. "Day before yesterday. Actually while we were working to get this boat out of the hangar? We had a long EVA with both of us cutting open the hangar doors, and we spent a lot of that time talking."

"So how'd it go? Was anything decided?" I asked. "And I guess, is it ok for you to tell me how it went?"

She was quiet for a bit, though I could hear the sounds of her still working under the deck. It sounded like she was unbolting something.

Eventually she responded, "Rebecca's definitely interested. In both of us. But there's some good reasons why she's not making any moves. First and formost is whether she likes the title or not, she's still our captain? It makes things tricky. There's no problem between you and me since there's no ranks here, neither of us have authority over the other? But she's the boss, and that adds a different dynamic."

"Right," I nodded slowly. It made sense of course, and that's exactly why the Navy didn't want fraternizing among ships' crews. "So was there any kind of decision?"

Sarah replied, "Nothing definitive? Basically if anything's going to happen with her it'll be very slow. Beyond the whole boss dynamic she's still working through her own stuff. She reminded me that it's not just six years she's been flying alone? But the twenty-odd years before that when it was just her and Gabe... She wasn't exactly alone, but she just had the one friend. And that was a complicated relationship, with Gabe basically going from her friend and equal to acting like her dad. Or her grand-dad."

"Ah," I sighed quietly. "So this really is a big adjustment, having us on board. Especially having us being very obviously in a relationship."

"You mean having us running around acting like horny teens," she stated, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "Which to be fair is what we are now."

A moment later she added, "I think the fact that she's basically a horny teen herself is the main reason she's interested. But she also has the mental age and maturity to know this is something she needs to take slowly."

The conversation paused for a bit as Sarah handed me the fused coupling, then I gave her the makeshift replacement and she got to work forcing it into place.

That took another thirty or forty minutes, mostly because of the cramped quarters she was working in.

Afterwards she handed back a few tools, then I passed over one of her test devices so she could inspect her work. And when that was done she finally squirmed her way back out from below the deck.

She sat next to me on the floor and took a few moments to straighten out her hair again, as she commented "So far so good. Next step is to run power through it and see what happens."

When she was ready we both got to our feet, and she went back to the power distribution panel, then popped the main breakers back in.

There was no bang, no sparks, just a gentle whirring sound as some of the boat's equipment started to come online. Low-level lighting flickered and came on throughout the craft, and a diagnostic panel lit up, with data flowing across its screen.

Sarah moved to the panel and started reading it. She hit a couple buttons on the panel, then frowned at the response.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

The engineer's frown shifted to a grimace after a couple seconds and she sighed "I forgot it doesn't recognize us anymore. No identity implants, so it thinks we're strangers."

She opened another panel that revealed a keyboard, then used that to punch in her override code. Being the Hammersmith's chief engineer meant her code would get her access to pretty much anything on the ship. After all she was responsible for all the maintenance and repairs.

And sure enough the ship's boat accepted the code and a few more of the engineering controls came to life.

Sarah commented, "I imagine we'll have to mess with the computer on here to get it to release all the controls. I'm not qualified to fly this thing, so my code probably won't let us take it for a spin."

"Is that going to be hard?" I asked.

She grinned, "Nah. It's the sort of thing that'd get me reprimanded or demoted in the Navy, but hot-wiring Navy materiel isn't much of a challenge. Not for me, anyways."

She continued working on the diagnostics panel, and after another minute or two Sarah commented "Ok I think we've got enough here to report to Rebecca? There's minimal structural damage, a few sub-systems look iffy, and the landing-gear are shot so we're not taking this thing planet-side. The biggest problem was the reserve power coupling, and that's been taken care of. The only other immediate concern is half the manoeuvring thrusters are offline. I'll have to run through some more detailed diagnostics to find out if they're really broken or it's the sensors acting up. We might actually be able to take this thing for a test-drive before dinner today."

"That'll make the boss happy," I commented as we made our way back to the airlock.

We found Rebecca and Jenny down in the secondary hold where they were still working on the inventory. The two of them stopped what they were doing while we delivered our report.

"So what do you need?" the captain asked. "What's your next move?"

Sarah replied, "I need to have a closer look at those thrusters. I might need to do an EVA so I can inspect them in person. Then we'll bring the power-plant online and run the engines through a pre-flight check. After that, the last step is take it for a little shakedown run."

After a few moments to think it over, Rebecca replied "If you need to do an EVA call me and I'll come out with you while Amanda keeps track from the cockpit. Then we're going to disconnect the boat before testing the power-plant and engines. You and Amanda will be over there to handle that, while Jenny and I stay here."

She looked at me and added, "I know you've probably never flown a craft like that before, but I'm sure you'll do just fine."

I grimaced but kept quiet. I couldn't help thinking that the captain had more faith in my abilities than I did.