Among Stars

Disc Adjustment

The floor of Travelstar's engine room looked like it was still under construction. Piles of floor panels in one corner, random bits and pieces here and there, and thick and thin wires going everywhere, even out of the ship. Naina sat in a hole in the floor with her waist on floor level and was concentrating on screwing shut something small in her hands that had a bunch of tiny wires coming out of it.

"Quera," she said and stuck her tongue slightly out of her mouth and twisted the screwdriver ever so slightly. She glanced at a wall. "Does it work now? Are you getting a signal?" she said.

"Negative, Captain Melcey," Quera said.

"Oh, for...!" Naina muttered and then mumbled some words that sounded more like she was trying to summon underworld beings than actual words. She turned the screwdriver again, and flipped a switch with her other hand, while her legs tried to move something down in the hole.

"Connection successful, Captain Melcey," Quera announced.

Naina squealed out of pure joy and gingerly put down the box in her hands on the floor. "YEEES!" she screamed triumphantly, "finally! It's been like two days!"

"I am estimating that with our current energy reserves, we can power the station's network for 23 minutes and 47 seconds," Quera said. "If we power up the generators and run the engines, we can extend that by 47 minutes and 18 seconds, after which the ship will shut down and I will go offline."

"That's over an hour!" Naina said, grinning. "That should be plenty enough time for adjusting the disc, and kick-starting the conversion on this end once the disc has been adjusted," she said and rose up.

"I'm going to see if Perez found anything," she said. "Yesterday he told me there's some kind of controls in a room that he had no access to."

She walked out of the room and glanced at a mirror. Her blonde hair was tattered, and it was filled with dust and black soot, among with various amounts of grease and unrecognizable hyperdrive fluids. She sighed deeply.

"Daew, I look like an Ulleain's backside," she said, grimacing. She shook her head and washed her hands in the nearby station. Muttering something about just having had a bath, she walked out and went looking for Perez.

She found him inside a small room that had so many buttons, levels, and knobs that you could have replaced everything in the Travelstar twice over. Most of it was dead and silent, only a couple of lights were on.

"Hi, Perez," Naina said, stepping into the room. "How's the search going?"

"Hello, Ms. Melcey," Perez answered with a cautious smile on his lips. "I think I found something," he said and pointed at a section on the wall. There were a series of levers and buttons, with a label above them that said "Manual Adjustment."

Naina nodded and walked to his side. "That does sound promising," she said. "Everything is finally ready on my side. All we have to do now, is to power the station, turn the disc, and then I need to run back and switch the direction and polarization on my... uh... creation, and we should be good." She chuckled. "Yeah, 'all' we have to do is just that."

"Captain Melcey," Quera said. "I should be able to power on just part of the network. There's a section called maintenance network on the station. I am assuming that by powering that, you would have access to some features of the station, and you could find out in advance if you have the right controls."

"That's a brilliant idea, Quera," Naina yelped. "Do it."

"Of course it's brilliant, Captain Melcey. I came up with it," Quera said. "Now powering the maintenance network..."

The room sprung to life, and various displays that were hidden in the wall lit up. Knobs, levers and switches illuminated. Naina walked to a console and tapped it with a determined face.

"Let's see," she muttered. "This all looks standard, but, like, super advanced from what I've gotten used to... I guess a decade makes a difference, even now." She twisted a couple of knobs near hear as she watched the screen. She nodded approvingly.

"Yes, we have the correct controls," she said happily. "Now, let's see..." she muttered and walked around the room, poking things and watching the screens intently. Perez watched her go with a smile on his face.

"Found them," she said after a while. She stopped in front of a section of a wall that had a couple of levers and a whole bunch of various knobs and switches, accompanied by a plethora of indicator lights. She looked at Perez.

"This is it, Captain," she said and gave him a smile.

Perez smiled back weakly. "This is it, Captain," he repeated and nodded.

Naina looked at the switches and tried to make a mental image of what did what, so she wouldn't waste time. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Letting it out very slowly, she opened her eyes and put her hands near the controls.

"Okay, Quera," she said with a determined voice. "Power her up."

As the Travelstar's hyperdrive fired up with a purpose it wasn't designed for, sparks flew here and there, but everything seemed to work. Lights popped up around the station, elevators hummed to life, and the great disc in the middle groaned slightly. The room where Naina and Perez stood suddenly filled up with distant sounds and screens displaying immense amounts of data.

Naina's eyes were fixed on the display in front of her, as her hands and fingers danced on the controls, trying to position the disc as she wanted.

"Quera, give the angles," she asked, and glanced at her wrist. Numbers started to roll, and Naina's hands worked the latches and levers to match the numbers on the display with those on her wrist screen.

A great whoosh went through the station, and the disc started to slowly rotate, after Naina pressed a button. The screen went black, then came up with a text. "Adjusting disc. Time remaining, 37 minutes, 23 seconds."

"Daew!" Naina cursed. "Quera, fire up the generators, we need more time!"

"Affirmative, Captain Melcey," Quera said.

"Inform me immediately when the disc is aligned. Reroute this display to my wrist," she said and turned to Perez. "I need to run back now. Wish me luck," she said and started running back to the Travelstar.