Resistance is futile (IX)

A week later and repairs were rapidly progressing, far beyond the pace that Matt had anticipated . Nick had lived up to his reputation, solving the cause of the power drain problem within a few hours of starting work. It had turned out, that the sabouter from the original crew had attached a device that endlessly looped the power throughout the conduits. Because the conduits drew a small amount of energy from the plasma stream to maintain containment, it was the perfect way to reduce power flow to minimal amounts without actually using it for anything in particular. Nick said it was a stroke of genius and he was lucky to figure it out.

After that Nick had sent to work on fixing all the structural and hull related damage, straightening the structural supports had been intensive but fairly straight forward. The hull damage however had proven to be a significant problem until Nick had come up with the bright idea of ionising the water as it was drawn from the aquifer. He was able to preferentially filtrate all the heavy metals in the water that until this point had just been prevented from entering the hydrolisis rig. An hour of work and five days of waiting had produced enough metal traces for Nick to begin synthesising the heavier hull alloys.

Matt sat in the galley sipping a steaming hot cup of tea. Finally the ship's food synthesisers were producing edible human items. Although he didn't think he'd ever get over seeing chicken being produced like the great big chunks you saw in kebab shops. He looked at his watch, it was rapidly approaching 0900hrs, time for the morning briefing.

Anna appeared as the door that lead to the quickest route to the command deck opened. She was dressed in a freshly pressed uniform that they had found on the first day in most of the crew lockers. Matt along with Anna wore grey and blue duties, rank insignia and a black band of fabric at the collars and the cuffs showing that they were stationed in CIC.

Matt looked at his watch again, 0903hrs. He sighed and was about to ask Sam where they were when the main set of doors opened and in strode Nick and Ian. Matt looked at them with a slightly waspish expression before he said. "Finally, we'll begin as usual with a status update on the repairs."

Nick looked tired, as if he'd been up most of the night and had barely managed to catch a couple of hours sleep before the briefing. He walked over to the synthesiser and extracted a cup from the locker and placed it in the synthesiser. A moment later he had a hot cup of coffee that he picked up, inhaled it's aroma with a smile and turned back to face Matt. His green duty covers were wrinkled, he'd probably slept in them.....again.

"Well Captain," Nick said as he walked over and sat down with a bone weary look on his face, "The saboutage devices have finally been accounted for. All power and internal systems are now safe to use without restriction. I've even managed to somehow repair the crippled fusion reactor, it's output is holding at around 94% which is just shy of it's recommended operational range. With this reactor up and running again, Auxillary power has been fully restored. Structurally, with the help of Ian's custom designed nano-bots that we applied to the outer hull, all the breaches should be repaired within the next 24 hours. Basically, within another week, three days at the most she'll be flight worthy again."

Nick paused for a moment to close his eyes, take a sip of his coffee and then he exhaled slowly, "Of course I nearly killed myself doing that much. But here is where we run out of good news. The Main reactor is unrepairable." Nick held up his hand as Matt was about to make some protest. "Everything else, with time and materials could have been fixed by the original crew. Even if they were as creative as a tree stump. But the Chief Engineer's original assessment was accurate. We can't just whip up another Magnetron*."

Matt frowned but grudgingly he nodded, Nick had been worth every cent of the two hundred grand he had paid to get him and Emily out from under the thumb of the loanshark. If Nick said it couldn't be done then it just couldn't be done. "So what, are we destined to fly this thing through space on 1/10th power. Being able to use the shields or the weapons and then at their lowest strenght.

Ian stood up and went to get a plate of breakfast from the dispenser. Bacon and Eggs, well it tasted like bacon and eggs if you shut your eyes and didn't mind the fact that your bacon looked like a lambchop and had the texture of powdered eggs. He was dressed in a loose fitting deep blue, form fitting top that looked more like a jumper then a shirt. He too wore rank and insignia, with red at his throat and his cuff, indicating that he was a scientist who specialised in space. If you were to combine a astro-physicist with a high energy particle physicist you wouldn't be far off the mark.

Ian spoke between mouthfuls as he spooned food into his mouth. "I think...there I might....have the solution." He paused the process of shovelling nutrients into his mouth and said, "I got the idea while watching Star Trek last night. Anyone know how a Romulan Warp Core is supposed to operate?" Matt just shook his head in a offhanded manner without saying a word. "Basically, we have a annhilation reactor. You put a peice of matter and anti-matter in the reactor in a controlled way and BOOM we get massive energy according to E=MC^2. This boom generates energy up to a scale of 1x10 to the 17th power. Or alot...." Ian said with a smile.

"That's all the energy there is in relativistic physics. However, when quantum physics came along we figured out something called Lorentz-field energy or Zero Point Energy. Imperial science is wonderously alot further advanced then us in terms of practical science applications. But in terms of cosmology, formation and structure of the universe, what they knew amounts to a teacup compared to our theories and mathematics."

Matt interupted him for a moment before he really got started, "You were saying you had an idea how to fix the main reactor?"

Ian grinned, "Not fix, replace. With a whole new system, infinitely safer and capable of generating energy on a scale of 1x10 to the 32nd power."

Matt gaped at him, when he was finished he said, "Maybe you'd better explain from the beginning then. Before my head explodes from all the technobabble if you please."