[center][b][u][color=white][h2] The Arcadian - 24 September 2190 - Main Engineering Deck [/h2][/color][/u][/b][/center]

[center][b][u][color=white][h2] Douglas 'Hobby' Hobbs [/h2][/color][/u][/b][/center]

Hobby stood in the center of the engineering deck, surrounded by a half cylinder of holographic projections. Each  screen was at twenty percent mask, easy enough to read but translucent enough to maintain situational awareness. Two tech were working overhead, diamont tipped saws screaming against metal as they cut into the primary conduit trunk of reactor 4. Brilliant rooster tails of sparks flew from the blades, showering Hobby and half the deck with gorgeous color. Here and there a spark struck exposed skin, but to an old engineer the sensation was a natural as sunshine. The engineering team was taking advantage of the lull to trouble shoot their power leak. It was always like this, you could fly a ship around safe space for half a life time an narry a thing would go wrong but the first time you got out into the deep dark every bloody thing would go wrong. They had to take number 4 off line, but the five remaining reactors left the Arcadian with more than enough power.

“Lev, the fuck is going on with the recompressors in the subsidiary array?”

“Don’t know chief, it is like all the vacuum tubes are shot, but like all at once,” the young tech replied.

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense, I should be getting some readings from at least one of them,” Hobby called back.

“Yeah well you aren’t” Lev snarked, pointing a multisensor into the cavity as the other techs, suspended from lines, pulled the armored plating away, its edges still growing with heat. But not glowing enough. Hobby’s eyes narrowed.

“Chalkin, get a mass spec on that I think…” But Lev had already reached out and pulled one of the offending vacuum tubes free. One of the sparks blossomed into a pale white fireball. Chalking was pitched out of the way like a sinker on a line a half second before a second much larger fireball ripped from the junction, sparing his life. Two hundred kilos of armored junction housing whipped upwards, parting its supporting cables with a sound like gunshots. It reached the top of a short ballistic arc then plummeted to the deck below. It crashed to the deck with a sound like anvils fucking, barely slowed at all by Hobby’s right arm.

“Chief! Chief are you alive!” Kodomashi, one of the engine wipers, yelled as she rushed towards him, spraying the hot metal with  a fire extinguisher that gouted retardant foam. Lev Chalkin was only as second slower, shimming down his line like a monkey despite the blisters on his face. The stink of burned hair was strong even over the chemical stink of the fire suppression systems which were, by now, pouring from the ceiling. 


“CHALKIN! You god-damned idiot!” Hobby demanded as he sat up.

“Chief!” Chalkin called out, the relief in his voice so obvious that he seemed almost to deflate. Hobby brushed fire suppression foam from his face and flicked it to the ground.

“The helium from the drives, its small enough and neutral enough that it  infiltrated the vacuum tubes..”

“Chief….” Chalkin interrupted, sounding queasy.
“.. then the scrubbers pumped in extra oxygen to compensate for a bogus reading…”

“Chief you uhhh…” Chalkin tried again, Kodomashi also was looking rather pale.

“...and then when you pulled the tube it exposed almost pure oxygen to the air and.. Boom.”

“Chief!” both techs said at once. Hobby finally shut up and followed their gazes to his arm. It had been amputated just above the elbow but instead of a bloody ruin pumping out his life blood, there was a sparking series of shattered components and loose wires. It didn’t exactly go quiet. The fire alarms were blaring, the bridge was calling for updates, and circuitry continued to sizzle and pop. Even so it seemed that the drama narrowed to a bubble of semi silence.

“Well fuck,” Hobby breathed, then began to sieze violently as current arced across his core, dropping him to the deck in a series of random spastic contractions.