“Gants?” Bill asked.
“Pinch bottle reaction, sir,” the PO replied, his face stony.
“Pinch bottle…” the CO said, then turned pale as Weaver. “Damn it!”
“Pinch bottle…” Gestner muttered, flipping through the manual. “M… N…”
“Try looking for ‘discontinuous lobular reaction series,’ Chief,” Bill said, furiously. “Look under ‘Critical Emergency Conditions.’ The bottle was out of alignment, causing the primary reaction mass to form in a non-smooth fashion. The whole thing is a hydrogen bomb trying to go off. It’s a barely controlled sun, Chief Petty Officer! The magnetic containment prevents the power from destroying the ship. It only works if the power is maintained uniformly across the interior of the bottle. When you get a pinch bottle reaction, you’ve got most of your power forming in a small area that places undue stress on the local containment cluster. And when that portion finally fails, as it will, the whole thing goes ‘boom’ in a very unfun fashion. But a two percent drop in the third series doesn’t explain that.”
“I know, sir,” Gants said, clearly tuning everyone else in the room out. “The only thing I can figure is that the primary optical drivers are out of alignment, but they show as aligned.”
“Well, my recommendation is that the system remains down until we figure out the fault,” Bill said.
“Concur,” the CO said. “Eng, I want my fusion plant working. Which means fusion explosions going on inside the containment bottle not outside. Soon. We’re going into a partial chill while you work on it. If you can’t get it up, this mission is a scrub.”
“Okay, sir, I’m buggered if I can figure this out,” Chief Gestner said quietly.
The portions of the fusion bottle that could be taken apart had been taken apart. The compartment that held the actual fusion reactors was a “clean” room since the slightest contamination would just make the problem worse. In fact, the first check they’d made was for contaminants in the injection series and the fuel. Both had come up clean.
“Unfortunately, Chief, so am I,” Commander Oldfield said with a sigh. “And with it down, we’re going to take nearly twice as long to get back to earth as we did coming out.”
“Injectors are cleaned,” Red Morris said, walking over. “Lasers are aligned. Software is nominal. Mags meet specs and are aligned. Fuel is to spec. What next, sir?”
“Put it back together and see if it comes up properly,” the Eng said confidently. “If not, we’ll go to secondary methodology.”
“Which is what, exactly, sir?” Gestner asked as the machinists got to work putting the fusion reactor back together.
“Damned if I know,” the Eng admitted.
“And we have ignition,” Gants said, his clean suit still on.
“Power to ten percent,” the Eng said, looking over his shoulder.
“Power to ten percent, aye,” Gants said, bringing up the power on the system. “We’re going to need somewhere to put it soon, sir.”
“Somewhere to put it, aye,” the Eng replied. “Route power to main engine. Chief, tell maneuvering they’re going to have to start running for us to see if this is back in spec.”
“Got it, sir,” Gestner said.
“Forty percent, sir,” Gants said.
“Shut it — !”
Before the words were out of the officer’s mouth Gants had hit the cut-off switch.
“Bigger surge than before, sir,” Gants said, pointing to the replay. “That one was close.”
“Concur,” the Eng said, then sighed. “I need to think on this one…”
“Gants, tell me you put this thing together right,” Gestner said.
Gants was attempting to carefully insert the injector bore into the fusion engine’s wall. The injector wasn’t actually secured, it simply slipped in. Various jokes were made about it, especially since it very definitely could not be lubricated.
But the point was that it had to fit precisely. Which the petty officer could not do with his hands shaking in anger. So he set it down very carefully; the slightest scratch on its surface would make it impossible to insert.
“Chief, with all due respect, you carefully and completely supervised the disassembly of the fusion engine,” Gants said, breathing deeply and trying not to lose it. “You then paid just as close attention to the checks, the adjustments, the tests and the reassembly. Not to mention the second disassembly. If I did anything wrong, please feel free to tell me right now as I’m doing the most fiddly part of the second reassembly, Chief Petty Officer!”
“We’re all frustrated, Gants,” the chief said, for once placatingly.
“You know why I’m really frustrated, Chief?” the petty officer asked, picking up the injector.
“I don’t supppose it has something to do with a certain linguist,” the chief said, sighing.
“If there is one person on this ship who could maybe figure this out, Chief…”
“Fine,” Gestner said, throwing his hands up. “I see nutting! I hear NUTTINK!”
“Oh, no, Chief,” Gants said, finally getting the damned thing aligned and slipping it in. “Not this time.”
“Gants…” the chief warned.
“What? Are you suggesting that I disobey a direct order of the captain, Chief Petty Officer?”
“You’re going to push this, aren’t you?” Gestner said.
“I’m not pushing, Chief,” Gants said, getting the injector seated. “The manual is very clear on that. Just ease it in, don’t push.”
“Grapper,” Gestner muttered.
“That would be Petty Officer Grapper, Chief Petty Officer,” Gants said with a grin as the chief stomped out.
“I don’t know,” Miriam said.
The chief had brought with him all the records of the repairs, which in true Nuke Navy fashion meant every single step had been documented and recorded. What had taken nearly a day to accomplish and what the chief had to admit to himself would have taken a professional nuke officer an hour to review had taken the linguist twenty minutes.
“That’s not good to hear,” Gestner replied.
“I would have thought you’d be happy to hear I’m stumped,” Miriam said, flipping back through the pages.
“Not when the ship is on the line, miss,” the chief said. “You’re sure you don’t know…”
“Oh, I know what was happening,” Miriam said. “The injector had gotten misaligned. It probably was misaligned from when we left and slowly shifted out of position more as it was used. There’s a record of a strip-down and repair, normal maintenance, done two weeks before we left. I’d guess it wasn’t properly aligned then. That caused a bubble reaction. What I don’t get is why it’s still malfunctioning. Realigning the injector should have fixed it. Could you do me a favor?” Miriam asked, looking up and grinning winningly.
“Of course, miss,” the chief said. “What do you need?”
“Bring the injector to the science section,” Miriam said. “Oh, and the third sector battery of electromagnets. I think I might know what is going on.”
“Miss, this is the last magnet,” the seaman said, setting the fifty pound device down carefully on a table.
Miriam had opened up the clean room in the science section and was bent over the electron microscope.
“Thanks,” she said absently. “Can you get Chief Gestner and PO Gants for me, please?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the seaman said, darting back through the blower.
“Odd…” Miriam muttered.