Project Charon 2 Patty Jansen (readict .TXT) 📖

It only got a little less cramped when they arrived at the big atrium.

“Look, over there,” Rex said.

On the other side of the hall, over the heads of a mass of people seated on bags, stood a couple of men. They were tall and broad-shouldered and wore dark jackets made from a thick material and broad belts with loops that held various knives, clubs and other weapons. Real pirate belts.

One of the men displayed a glint of metal in the space between his shoe and trouser leg where he clearly had an artificial leg. Another man had mottled grey skin. He carried two guns and a stunner.

“That’s the first pirates I’ve seen,” Rex said.

“Even all the time you’ve been waiting in the office?” Tina asked.

“Yes. All the people there make a real effort to tell everyone they’re not pirates.”

“They’re trouble. Don’t catch their attention,” Thor said.

“Those men can see and hear a lot of things that normal people can’t,” Jens said. “You have to be careful around them.”

“You mean they have enhancements?” Tina asked.

“I’ve never seen any electronic ones,” Jens said. “They’re just very dangerous people. I had a friend who was walking in a group a couple of rows back from one of these characters, and he said something, and the toad just turns around and whacks him in the face with those dangly bits that hang off his chin. It made a red welt on his forehead. He’s still got the mark. It’s turned brown now, but it happened a few months back.”

“Do they often attack people?” Rex asked.

“Only when you’re trying to be smart,” Jens said.

“They go for the kids and the other weaker people,” Thor said. “They’re cowards, sowing fear within the poor classes so they won’t start a rebellion or help Federacy troops.”

When they came back to the ship, Finn sat at the table.

He got up as soon as they came in and greeted Jens and his father. “I’m David,” he said.

He looked sideways at Tina while he said this, warning her he didn’t want to be called by his real name.

Tina said, “This is Jens and his dad Thor. He’s a mechanic and is willing to have a look to see if he can fix our inverter. Why don’t you show him where it is?”

Finn preceded the pair down the narrow ladder into the maintenance shaft that held the electronics.

Tina remained at the top, looking down on the small space, which grew very crowded with three people in it.

“Do you know these ships well?” Finn asked.

“I know all the ships,” Thor said. “There is not one I haven’t taken apart and put back together.” He ran his hands over the control board.

Finn looked up, frowning at Tina. No doubt he was wondering how Thor could do this work while blind.

Tina shrugged. She saw no reason to distrust Thor, but she couldn’t explain all that in one look.

Thor opened the electronics panels. He removed two panels and set them on the floor beneath the openings, but kept the third one attached to the wall so that it made a table. As he removed circuit boards from the inside, he placed them on this makeshift table in a neat grid. Each time he used a tool, he put it back in the same position in his belt.

He extracted a device from his bag that tested currents. It came with an earpiece that he clipped on. A tinny computerised voice called out readings as he probed each circuit board and slotted the ones he tested and found in order back into the cabinet.

Eventually, he was left with one panel.

“Just as I thought,” he said. “These chips burn out really quickly.”

He retrieved his backpack—which he had placed under the makeshift table—and produced a foldable heatproof surface and a battery-operated heat gun. He turned the offending circuit board upside down and, with a few quick moves and a blast of air from the gun, removed the chip.

A clear plastic box from inside his pack contained an assortment of chips. He ran his fingertips across the top of each package until he found what he needed, unwrapped the replacement chip and slotted it into the board, which he replaced in the cabinet.

“Can you turn off umbilical power?” he asked.

Tina went to the controls and turned off the mains.

The light flickered and then came on again. Great. Tina went back to the top of the ladder.

Finn said, “Well, that obviously worke—”

The light flickered off. Darkness.

Thor’s voice came from below her. “Hmm. I may need to take this one in for a closer look. You said you hadn’t run the ship for many years?”

“Fifteen.”

“Hmm. I’m surprised it works as well as it obviously has to get you here. These old boats are tough.”

Tina didn’t say anything about nearly missing the jump window.

Rex produced a light from the tip of his metal fingers and shone it down the ladder, but, being blind, Thor had already pulled the board back out.

Tina switched back to umbilical power. The light came back on.

Thor shut all the covers and carefully put the circuit board into his pack, all without once asking for assistance.

“Since I ripped out the power feed because it’s on the circuit board, you’ll probably have to reload the software. I’m an electrician, not a computer person. You’ll have to find someone else to do that.”

“It’s all right. I can do that myself,” Tina said.

“Are you sure?”

“I am an expert in installing and fixing security systems. I reboot electronic systems all the time.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting.”

He asked her about the work and her shop while he packed up his tools and zipped up his backpack, and then produced a tiny battery-operated vacuum cleaner and swept up the little bits of wire casing and bits of metal he’d dropped on the ground.

“I know these little specks of rubbish can create a lot of trouble once you cast off from the station.”

Then he was done and came back up the ladder, followed by