Too Much on Her Plates

[Mreh K'hal 0]

Having a strong stomach had its advantages, and Kara Simpson had often taken advantage of that in her high school days with frequent visits to the local amusement park and trips on the various roller coasters and other thrill rides. She'd grossed out her friends by bringing gagh and even less appealing dishes to school for lunch as well. It had not taken long once she'd enlisted for the trainers to notice it as well.

 

It was nearly two years later that she found herself in an EVA suit going over the exterior of Camelot Station. Again. Since she had the best stomach and head for space walks in the department she was nearly always tagged for maintenance of the outer hull of the station, and since the bigwigs had ordered a complete review of the exterior she'd been going EVA every day for three weeks straight now, with little end in sight. Even with the assists possible by advanced technology it was still very hard work and a drudgery, forcing Kara to admit to herself that she'd be happy with an assignment in the jefferies tubes for a while so she didn't have to wear the suit.

 

The section of the hull she was working on today needed some new plates. Hovering nearby was a pair of Sphinx workpods; one to snag the old plate and one to place the new one in its place. The problem with the whole affair was that the neutronium plugs that kept the plates in place had been put in wrong and weren't releasing. She'd tried everything she was allowed to do to no avail, and eventually she'd had to call for permission to cut around the plugs to remove the plate so she could work on releasing the plugs from the back.

 

The permission had been given, and the high-precision phaser torch had been brought out to the site and fitted to one of the workpods. The heat generated by the process meant she'd had to climb on the other workpod, perched on the machine like some sort of space cowgirl at a robotic rodeo as it made its way down to the nearest airlock so she could grab a new air pack.

 

Fifteen minutes later she arrived back on site as the cutter workpod began working on the next odd numbered plate. Transferring from the workpod to the station was an awkward process that meant ignoring some juvenile remarks from the Sphinx operator. After finding herself back on solid metal once again she made the rudest gesture she could manage in the EVA suit and trudged her way to the missing section of plate. Climbing into the narrow gap between where the outer plate would be and the insulation layer she squeezed in with a jack, a hyperdrill and a thermal manipulator.

 

She started with cutting out a five by five centimeter hole into the plug, the vibration of the process causing her arms to sing with discomfort. Then she inserted the thermal manipulator and waited until the plug's temperature decreased enough to cause sufficient contraction of the neutronium. After a few quick breaths she then retracted the manipulator and inserted the jack while praying that it would kick out the plug before it expanded once again. Thankfully the plug cooperated, but her work was hardly done. She had five more plugs to kick out on this side alone, then she'd have to head over to the other side and repeat the process. Just for this one plate, and there were nine more affected by the same shoddy construction.

 

It was going to be a long shift.

Edited June 4, 2008 by Mreh K'hal