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“Draanthing hell!” Vaarn hissed and wondered again why he’d agreed to take on the role of chief engineer aboard the station. It wasn’t as though he was an engineering hall favorite. In fact, he was pretty sure his name was still trall in those hallowed halls after his miniaturization projects. “So, what happens to the matrix when that B’Kaar gets reassigned?”
He heard Maax’s shrug. “I assume that, without the sub-routine it would sto?—”
“Yes, yes!” Vaarn said as he turned another corner and checked the location code printed on the wall. He wasn’t far from his target now. “It’s going to stop working, I get that. That’s the point. How are we supposed to keep this station running when half the control systems just up and walk off.”
“Well... technically, they wouldn’t walk off. They’d fly off in a ship.”
Vaarn closed his eyes and contemplated murder. He’d never seen it before, but some Lathar were so god-damn literal. “True,” he said. What did they say about the non-functional matrix?”
“About what you’d expect.” There was the slightest growl of irritation in Maax’s voice. “They reported that the matrix was working within parameters. I pointed out that it is now, while the B’Kaar with the sub-routine was aboard, and then asked what would happen when they left. They denied that was their responsibility and that if the matrix broke after they left, they advised me to speak to the chief engineer aboard the station.”
Vaarn reached the intersection noted on his repair report and set his toolbox down.
“Which would be me,” he said with a grunt as he removed the cover panel and looked inside. As expected for a B’Kaar ship, it was immaculately laid out, its neat and orderly construction making his engineer’s heart sing. The other side, which liked to invent and tinker, could already see three areas to make modifications.
“Indeed.” There was a pause, and he heard Maax’s amusement over the comm. “So what would you like to do about it, boss?”
“What… you mean other than finding a couple of B’Kaar and bashing their heads together to try and knock some sense into their metal-addled brains?” he asked, pulling a small flashlight from his pocket and starting to trace the wiring through the panel, looking for the problem.
At least three people had reported that the power was out in their quarters. They’d been bumped to the top of the list, even though there were communal facilities on this level, and he had a job list longer than his arm. But… They were potential mates, so this job was now his top priority. Half of the new mates had never been in space before, so any little problem, power outage, or strange noise from the station around them made them panic. The fact that there had been attacks on the base a few months ago didn’t help at all, not with the rumors flying around that there were still purists aboard.
He grunted as he finished inspecting the outer layer of wiring. He couldn’t see a problem, no cross-wiring, which meant the issue was hidden deeper in the panel. Great, he was going to have to go in.
Moving his toolbox out of the way, he dropped to his knees. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned his head as a small group crossed the corridor intersection two doors down. A latharian male had his arm around the shoulders of a human female, a beaming smile on his face as he looked down at the youngling whose hand he held. Vaarn estimated the female youngling wasn’t more than six planet rotations old. Her shy smile melted his heart, as it obviously did the warrior, who bent down to scoop her up into his arms, and they carried on on their way, the picture of a happy family.
Vaarn grumbled as he wriggled on his back into the gap under the panel and snapped the torch on again. Happy families were good for the empire, but even though he was signed up for the mate program, he’d asked them to set his profile to inactive. He had far too much to do with the station to even think about courting a female at the moment. Perhaps ever.
His eyes narrowed as he studied the underside of the power unit, sticking the end of the torch between his teeth. Reaching up, he used deft fingers to move the wiring aside, and… yes, there it was.
He grunted as he pulled free a damaged chip. It was a TX-14. Taking the torch from his mouth, he shone it over the chip. It was all blackened with heat damage on the back. No wonder it had blown.
“Maax,” he initiated the comm again. “How many TX-14’s have we had go?”
“Just today? Or…”
“All told,” Vaarn replied, still looking at the chip. There was movement outside the corridor, but he didn’t pay it any mind. If they couldn’t see his legs poking out from the maintenance hatch, then they deserved to fall over. One of the higher-ups would no doubt squawk at him over any of their precious human females getting bruises, but the corridor was carpeted. They’d live.
“Hmmm… hold on."
In his mind, Vaarn could see the big engineer tapping away on the console tucked away in the corner of the main engineering he’d claimed for himself. “More than I would expect. Over twenty out today alone.”
“What’s the usual failure rate on the TX series?”
“A lot less than twenty a day, even on something this size.”
“Okay, can you?—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence as something hit the side of his leg, hard, and there was a startled female cry right before a thud. He sighed and closed his eyes. One of the females had, indeed, tripped over his legs. Draanth his life.
“Okay, check which shipments they came from,” he said as he wriggled out of the hatch. “I’ve run into a problem—” Or it had run into him. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
* * *
Late. She was always late.
Sadie huffed to herself as she all but ran along the corridors of the human section of the station, hurrying to get home and get dinner on before she had to go and pick Ollie up from nursery. She was making casserole tonight for them all… herself and Ollie, as well as her sister Halle and Halle’s mate, Kaas.
She cooked most nights or tried to. Her way of saying ‘thank you’ to Halle and Kaas for everything they’d done for her and Ollie. Because without her sister’s sacrifice, selling herself into the Latharian Mate Program, and Kaas’ expertise as a healer, she wouldn’t still have her son. He’d be dead, a victim of Doctor Crane’s sick little scheme to wring credits out of loving parents. Those few hours had been the darkest part of her life. It was the only time when she’d wished that Ollie’s good-for-nothing father, a petty crime lord in the lower rungs of the city, hadn’t been killed in a drug deal gone wrong before he was born, so she could sic him onto Doctor Crane. But then Kaas and his friends had arrived to save Halle. If they hadn’t?—
