Part XII: Repairs

Mereda—Two Tyrorken years earlier:

“You’ll like him,” Craig assured Jyra as they walked toward the shabby building in one of Mereda’s run-down neighborhoods. “He comes on strong at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

Jyra followed Craig toward Jed’s Garage, second-guessing the apprenticeship with every step.

They entered the small office and the door closed behind them with a loud bang. The temperature was at least twenty degrees warmer than it had been outside. A desk covered in invoices, many marked with greasy fingerprints, took up most of the office. Craig and Jyra looked at the man sitting behind the desk. A small bald spot on the top of his head reflected the sunlight streaming through the open aluminum shutters mounted on the window. The man was busy writing, his head bent low, so his eyes couldn’t be seen. The sleeves of his stained work shirt were rolled back, revealing his oil-smeared forearms.

“Jed?” Craig said. Jyra glanced back at the door. Jed was obviously used to the noise it made; he hadn’t so much as flinched when they entered.

“One moment,” Jed replied, stretching the words out as though counting down to the moment they’d have his attention.

He lifted his pen, slammed the point on the paper, and threw himself back in his chair.

“All right,” he said in a booming voice that filled the office and nearly made the shutters rattle. “This is the new apprentice?”

Craig nodded and stepped aside. Jyra took a step forward, extending her hand.

“Jyra, sir,” she said, aware of how soft her voice sounded compared to Jed’s rambunctious one.

“Swap the ‘sir’ for ‘Jed’ and I think you’re hired,” Jed said, standing to shake hands. He caught sight of his own and seemed surprised by the oil. “Guess we should save it for later. Hand’s a little grayer than it should be.”

“My hands will be getting dirty sooner or later,” Jyra said, keeping her arm over the desk. Jed stared for a moment then shook her hand and smiled.

“I like your attitude. Might be a good change around here. Word is I come off as too intimidating. Do you believe that?”

“Hard to say, I haven’t even known you for a minute yet.”

Jed laughed. It was louder than he talked. He stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his overalls, which appeared just as soiled as his work shirt. The whole outfit seemed stretched over his portly figure. Jed’s pale blue eyes glimmered against the tan skin of his round face.

He clapped Craig on the shoulder as he passed him then turned at the door. His smile had disappeared, the gleam in his eye was gone.

“We’re way behind on work,” he said. His voiced sustained the same volume, but it contained a chill that seemed impossible given the stifling conditions of the office.

“Craig, go over what’s what in the shop and then you two get your asses in gear. I’d like to keep the customers we’ve got who aren’t put off my intimidating nature.” The door slammed as he left, as if to fortify Jed’s commands.

“You did well,” Craig said. “Let’s get to work.”

The shop building was more bedraggled than the office. The ceiling sagged and the walls leaned to the left. The front and rear of the shop each had a large articulated door that could be raised on tracks. When Craig pushed them up, Jyra saw the ceiling flex as it took the weight of the doors.

An extra wide skiff occupied both service bays. Two old workbenches ran the length of the shop, one on each side. All the tools and supplies had to be stored below, on, or above the benches since nothing could be kept in front of the doors. The smell of grease-cutting solvent filled Jyra’s nose. The overhead lights buzzed as the lamps blinked to life.

“Not too hard to see what we’re starting with today,” Craig said, closing the cover over the light switches and laying a hand on the skiff.

“Fuel powered,” Jyra declared, walking closer to the machine. “More expensive to run than electric. Who can afford something like this?”

Craig pulled a rag from his back pocket to scrub the grime near the nose of the skiff, which revealed the logo for Tyrorken Fuels.

“I should have guessed,” she said.

“It’s better to not call attention to it actually,” Craig said. “Jed’s not too fond of TF. He’s been turning down repair offers from them for months, but they’ve got plenty of machines that need service and the money to pay for it.”

“Why didn’t he want their business?”

“The same reason most people don’t want to get involved with TF,” Craig said, shrugging and turning toward the workbench to the right of the skiff. “A company that big might start out as a customer, but before you realize it, you’re working for them. Jed’s worried they might take his shop.”

Jyra couldn’t quell the sense of unease that settled on her as she pondered this information. Her parents, both TF employees, rarely spoke about what they did at work. Recently, they looked more exhausted than ever when they came home. Dario said they were working harder than usual, but it shouldn’t last. Jyra sensed something more to the change than just her parents’ declining behavior. An aura of anxiety seemed to follow them and spread to whatever room they occupied. Their silence in the midst of the vague lurking turmoil only added to the ominous feeling Jyra felt when she woke up every morning.

The clatter of tools freed Jyra from her thoughts. She realized she was gazing at the cracks in the drooping ceiling and the slanted walls. Few things seemed to distract her lately more than a mention of TF.

“Understand I’m delighted to be an apprentice here, but why would TF want this place?” she said, glancing overhead.

“I’m sure they could find a use for it,” Craig said. “Probably be better off tearing it down and starting over, but until that happens we’ve got a few repairs to make.”

They crawled under the skiff and lay on their backs while Craig gave an overview of the work they had to do. He directed his flashlight beam to parts of the machine as he talked.

“Fuel power means more maintenance, but most of that work it purely mechanical,” Craig said. “We hardly need to do any programming on this thing. The work order calls for a larger fuel tank, so you can get started pulling this old one off.” He slapped the side of it and a low metallic note reverberated inside it.

“Where do I start?” Jyra said.

“I’ll get you some wrenches. You’ll need to unhook the fuel lines here”—he indicated the disconnects with the beam of his flashlight—“then you just unbolt it from the frame. Grab that jack over there and put it under the tank so it doesn’t fall when you loosen it.”

The first part of the task went well. Jyra managed to unfasten the fuel lines in a few minutes. She raised the jack until it started to press on the bottom of the tank then she began looking for the mounting bolts. Sand and dirt covered the head of each one, but the large brackets welded to the tank made the bolts easy to locate.

The grime, however, nearly fused the bolts in place. Jyra had to tug on the wrench with both hands to make any progress.

The last bolt was hardly accessible. Jyra had to place the wrench inside a narrow cavity and align her body next to the tank. Anticipating resistance, she yanked back on the wrench. The bolt gave way immediately. Her hands slipped free and the back of her right hand struck the corner seam of the tank.

She crawled from beneath the skiff. When she raised her hands to push stray hair from her face, she felt a warm wet rush on the back of her wrist.

“Oh,” she said automatically. Blood flowed over her dirty hand where it had hit the fuel tank. Craig looked over from the workbench and saw Jyra’s bewildered face before noticing the blood advancing down her arm.

“What happened?” he said, dropping wrenches and rushing around the skiff to take a closer look.

“My hand slipped,” Jyra said. “I cut it on the tank.”

Craig took her wounded hand and examined it briefly.

“That’s exactly what you did,” Craig said, with a sharp intake of breath. “We need someone to stitch you up. Come on.”

                        *

The injury became the most memorable part of the day, so much in fact that Jyra completely forgot about meeting Jed and his attitude toward TF. She didn’t return to the shop for two days on the medic’s instruction. Her hand felt stiff, especially around the wound. Jyra had never before appreciated how much she depended on the flexibility of her skin between her wrists and fingers.

When she was able to work again, Jed was the first person Jyra saw in the shop. Craig hadn’t arrived yet. Jed wore a ratty pair of coveralls and held a stack of papers in one hand and a pen in the other as he circled the skiff, examining it. Craig had finished removing the old fuel tank and the new one now sat under the skiff, waiting to be secured in place.

Jyra stood near the door, not wanting to break Jed’s concentration. He slapped the stack of papers into the same hand as the pen and shook his head.

“Breaking even’s a thing of the past,” he said as he approached. “Write that down. It’ll be on the test.”

“I’ll remember without writing it down if that’s all right,” Jyra said with a small smile.

“Not up for too much writing?” Jed said, pointing at Jyra’s stitches.

“Not at present.”

“It’s tough work,” Jed said. His voice deepened, becoming more serious. “Patching up ships gets harder when you need patching up, too.”

“Sorry, sir,” Jyra said, then remembered. “I mean, Jed. I’ll be more careful.”

“No need for apologies. That’s a thing of the past, too.”

Jyra nodded and glanced at her stitches. Something caught her eye beyond her hand. Jed’s boots were covered in vibrant red dust. Jyra had never seen dirt that color, but she had heard of it from Dario.

“What were you doing out on the Crimen Plains?” she asked. She motioned her head at his boots and Jed lifted one of them.

“My brother just started working on the oil platforms,” Jyra added. The Crimen Plains were full of the rich red soil. As far as anyone knew, it was a natural phenomenon located to the west of Mereda. The brown earth turned red for several square miles. TF had just set up an operation to drill three test wells there. Jed didn’t reply immediately, and when he did, his voice was quieter and he spoke slower than usual.

“I was checking on some opportunities,” he said vaguely. “I’ve been looking for some extra work outside of the shop.”

“Are you working for TF?” Jyra said. Jed looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Then he set his papers down on the workbench and leaned against it with a sigh.

“Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve had to look to the big business for help,” he said. “I thought offering TF shop service here might get ends meeting again, but so far it’s a wash. I went out to see about becoming a field tech.”

Jed frowned and his shoulders rolled forward, tipping him into a defeated posture.

“What wrong with that?” Jyra said.

“TF is what’s wrong,” Jed said, his tone becoming heated. “It’s taking control of this whole world. It’s got the money, influence, and resources to do it. All I ever wanted to do was make a living with my damn garage and now I can’t even do that!”

He stepped back from the bench and kicked one of its wooden legs. Dust billowed off his boot and the tools clattered from the blow.

“Sorry,” Jed said wiping his flushed face with a grimy hand. “It’s not easy being civil all the time when you feel like you have no control over your own affairs. TF is the only source of additional income around here. I hate that company but I’ve got no other choice.”

The door opened and Craig walked in. Jyra thought he hardly looked in better spirits than Jed.

“You made it,” she said, trying to smooth the tension from Jed’s outburst.

“Sorry I’m late,” Craig said. “Trouble with my folks this morning. How’s your hand?”

“It’s been better,” Jyra said, turning it so Craig could see the stitches. He approached and extended a loose fist to her.

“Can you do this?”

Jyra made the same fist with her wounded hand and nodded.

“Great,” Craig said. “That means you can pick up that wrench and get the new fuel tank bolted in.”

Valiant Conductor II—Present time:

Jyra never forgot Jed’s temper and the disdain that filled his voice when he discussed TF. After that day in the garage, she never saw him much, presumably because he had found work in the Crimen Plains. A few months into the apprenticeship, Craig mentioned Jed had received a promotion with TF. This meant Craig had to take over managing the invoices and scheduling repairs for customers—essentially doing all the work Jed used to do.

Not long after Craig undertook his new duties, Jyra thought about how Jed had been promoted so quickly. For someone who despised TF as much as him, it seemed odd that he had managed to make such an impression on management. The way Dario told it nearly every week at dinner, it seemed the Plains were the place to be. The first three wells had yielded more oil than even the loftiest predictions and TF had focused its workforces below the mysterious red soil. Amid all the activity and qualified people, TF selected Jed to advance to a grander position.

Jyra stared at the text on the screen, her mind racing to find words. She was completely transfixed by feelings of loss coupled with disbelief.

“Craig?” she said. The chill of the surroundings crept into her tone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Jed sabotaged the ship,” Jyra said. She couldn’t take her eyes off the screen, reading and rereading the message.

“What?”

“You heard me. He left a note on the bridge. It’s signed with his name.”

“Who is Jed?” Shandra asked.

“My former mentor at a repair garage on Tyrorken,” Craig said. “Jyra worked there as an apprentice. It’s the same garage where we launched the ship that brought us to Drometica.”

“Why did he, or at least why is there a message claiming that he deliberately undermined this ship?” Berk said.

“Is there anything in the message about how much he hates TF?” Craig inquired.

Berk and Macnelia looked at each other then both fixed Jyra with a stare.

“Did you know anything about this beforehand?” Macnelia said. Jyra began shaking her head and even though he was on the opposite end of the ship, Craig picked up on the beginnings of an accusation.

“I knew nothing about the message,” Craig said quickly. “But Jyra can confirm Jed made no secret of how he felt toward TF.”

“Could someone please read the message?” Shandra said. It suddenly occurred to Jyra how frustrating it must be sitting in the cockpit of Mastranada listening to the proceedings while being so removed from the action.

Berk read the message. Leonick broke the brief silence that followed.

“If the message is authentic, it seems like we can work out what he did to the ship so that we can go about fixing the modifications, as he calls them.”

“If it’s authentic,” Macnelia said.

“What he mentioned is consistent with what we’ve seen,” Craig said. “Not even the bulkhead doors engaged. He probably loosened the wall panels back here, too. Leonick was right about the screws being removed.”

Macnelia frowned, but Berk nodded.

“All right,” he said. “Our goal here is to get this ship back in order. The message raises new questions, but it’s not something that needs to be resolved right now.

“Wait,” Jyra said. The screen bearing Jed’s words suddenly flashed and the words ‘transmission complete’ replaced the message.

“Transmission to what?” Macnelia said, stepping in front of the monitor. “We need power on the bridge now,” she said. Jyra glanced at her. The way Macnelia spoke sounded more like an order than a request.

“I am already tracing the circuits,” Leonick replied, his voice as level as ever. “The severe atmospheric shift caused most of the breakers to trip. It is a standard safety feature.”

“Just get it done,” Macnelia said, cutting off Leonick’s rambling.

Berk moved to the back wall of the bridge, inspecting it with his flashlight. He opened a hatch in one of the wall panels and flipped a number of switches.

“Local breakers,” he said. “Once the power surges up here, we don’t need it damaging the processors.

After several tense minutes, Leonick’s voice came through the earpieces.

“The bridge should have power restored.”

“We’ll let you know,” Berk said has he leaned into the electrical panel and activated a switch. Lights sputtered overhead, casting a dull glow over the bridge. Berk immediately cut their power.

“Darker is safer for the moment,” he said. “Tell me when the monitors turn on.

The third switch he tried caused all the bridge screens to flash brightly as electricity flowed into them. The hum of the processors filled the silence.

“Got it,” Macnelia said. “Now we can find out where the transmission went.”

The keyboard lit up as the computer came online and she went to work. Jyra couldn’t make any sense of how Macnelia did what she did, but after another few minutes, a list appeared on the monitor.

“Other TF ships,” Macnelia said, the glow of the screen reflecting on her face.

Berk lowered his flask with a telltale swishing sound and approached the console.

“He broadcast the message to the fleet,” Berk said.

“If they believe it,” Jyra said, considering Jed’s words, “they’ll think this ship is lost or at least unoccupied.”

Macnelia pushed herself back from the console with a heavy sigh.

“Hopefully it throws other ships off our trail until this one is ready to go after them,” she said. “Let’s head back to Mastranada, gather our supplies, and get to work.”

                        *

Jed was on Jyra’s mind for other reasons besides his message. An hour later, she was working on routing cables in the engine room back to their original terminals. The task wouldn’t have been so difficult if her arm wasn’t injured. Jed’s phrase filled her head every time pain shot through her arm: “Patching up ships gets harder when you need patching up, too.”

Jed had managed most of his sabotage by crossing wires or unhooking them entirely. Doing so had compromised many of the systems designed to protect the crew in the event of a hull breach.

Leonick was busy inspecting the engines for signs of damage. Jyra caught sight of him occasionally when he crossed one of the catwalks in hurried strides, eyes focused straight ahead. Jyra remembered the disciplined fashion of how he performed maintenance in Mastranada’s engine room. In this much larger setting, Leonick seemed to become part of the machinery, finding his place and methodically completing tasks.

Everyone else besides Neeka and Derek were testing and repairing the doors throughout the ship. Many had been damaged by the relentless pull from space. Sometimes a door just needed to be refitted onto a track or a pair of glides. Others needed several strikes from Berk’s hammer to bend them back into shape.

A small clock in Mastranada’s cockpit was all that reminded Jyra of the passage of time. The resistance worked an entire week, rarely stopping for meals or sleep. Jyra caught sight of Tyrorken through a porthole once her work took her out of the engine room. Her home planet spun against the black canvas of space. Valiant Conductor II had drifted far enough that the ruined ships around dusty sphere were no longer visible. How had such an insignificant world hosted so much pain? Jyra turned away from the porthole, and returned her attention to the panel.

The sound of approaching footsteps caused her to set the soldering iron aside, but before she could meet the person, he rounded the corner.

“Hi,” Derek said, still leaning on his crutches. “Macnelia said I might be able to help you.”

“Maybe,” Jyra said, raising her eyebrows at the crutches.

“I’m healing up just fine now that I’ve got proper care,” Derek said. “Just tell me what do.”

Jyra fought back a slew of questions she longed to ask in order to show Derek what needed to be rewired. They hardly got into the work, however, before Jyra’s curiosity overwhelmed her.

“How did you do it?” she blurted. “How did TF never suspect you?” This wasn’t how she had envisioned this conversation beginning. She had thought of it for so long, imagining different situations when she might interview Derek about what happened. She felt like lunging at him, as though it might help get her questions answered faster.

“Are you all right?” Derek asked, leaning away from her. “You look crazed.”

“I’ve wanted to talk to you since we got you back,” Jyra said. “I’m sorry, I have lots of questions about the resistance, you, my brother, and all of it really.”

“Well, to start with your first question, TF agents definitely noticed something wasn’t quite right about me. It was easier to keep a low profile until I started leading the mining expeditions. Do you—?”

“Macnelia told me about that assignment.”

“Yes. Well about the time that began, I was definitely under close scrutiny, especially after the ship I piloted to Drometica went down.”

“Do you think they rigged it to fail?” Jyra said. Derek nodded.

“That’s when I realized they must know I was up to something. They kept me on Tyrorken after that. I met your brother and he, Craig, and myself began working on an offensive strategy. I knew TF was keeping an eye on me, but we had larger problems. The most significant was a lack of participants and how do you recruit people to rise against the corporation that sustains them? Or they think sustains them,” he added bitterly.

“I had my rig team to draw from, but no matter how loyal they might have been to me, it would only take one detractor to ruin everything. My frustration replaced better sense at this point and there’s no doubt I started making stupid decisions because of it.

“Giving my team the day off for the funeral and coming to see you were the right things to do. They weren’t smart, though, especially for someone like me. I was already on the wrong side of TF, but I didn’t realize how much I lost their favor. They got a tracer on me and the night of the launch, they knew right where I was. They probably even knew I’d gone to your house. I should have been more careful.”

Derek paused and turned back to his panel. Jyra picked up her soldering gun, reflecting on the new information.

“What was Dario’s attitude toward the resistance?” she said, as wisps of smoke blew away from the cooling solder.

“He thought it was a great idea,” Derek replied. “He was working to get the oil platforms networked. If that had happened, a single glitch could cause them all to malfunction. Dario should have been the leader. He had the charisma, the energy, and the gift for getting people to see his point of view.”

“Do you think TF was responsible for his death?”

“I have no idea,” Derek said. “I don’t think we’ll ever know that.”

“I’m going to find out,” Jyra said.
“That might be harder to do now that we dropped a bomb on TF headquarters,” Derek said. He turned and their eyes met. “I’m sorry for all TF has taken from you. I understand your need to do what you must, but I’d hate to see TF consume your life, too.”