Survey Says...

[WxMurray 0]

“How bad is it?”

 

“It certainly isn’t good.”

 

“Great.”

 

Murray looked over the little mess that Crewman Williams had created. They had pulled out various components to get to the bolting of the damaged hull plating. On top of that, they had also pulled out the clamp assembly of the failed Dorsal 7A docking clamp.

 

“Well, you’d better tell me about.”

 

“We were lucky. The disruptor burst sent shards of hull into the local EPS network. It shorted out the clamp’s power relays. We also think there was some splash damage from the disruptor shot. There’s some carbon scoring on the top of the clamp, maybe even some microfissures. This clamp is not safe to use.”

 

“Lovely. Go on.”

 

“The modified structural integrity field will keep us from flying apart. Luckily we lost clamp seven and not one of the end clamps. Then we’d have no choice but to stay in MVAM.”

 

Murray slowly walked around the area, surveying the damage. Williams’s damage control team had already started pulling out the damaged pieces of hull plating. Some of the damaged pieces could probably be cut down into smaller plates, or even melted down and used to make hull epoxy.

 

He walked over the access panels and consoles that had been removed to get at the clamp’s systems. He bent over and looked it. Some of the couplings had clearly been melted and fused by the short; scorching was evident on the inside of the housing.

 

“Sir, could you hand me that plasma torch?”

 

Startled, Murray stood up…and promptly drove his head into the top of the panel frame. He turned to look at the crewman that had spoken.

 

“What? Oh, sure.” He bent over and picked up the torch that he had been standing on and handed it to eh crewman. With his hand on the back of his head he sauntered back over to Williams.

 

“You’re right, it doesn’t look good.”

 

“I told you.”

 

“Alright. Repair status?”

 

“Well have the damaged hull plating swapped out in another six, eight hours. The clamp, on the other hand, is going to be a bit more in-depth.”

 

Murray removed his hand from his head, his head now having gone from having a shuttle land on his head to his head being stuck in a bass drum at a rock concert. He crossed his arms and gazed levelly at the crewman.

 

“We’re going to have to tear apart the assembly to replace the parts and especially to take care of the microfractures. Working at our best we can probably get it done in about two weeks or so. Like I said, the modified SI field will keep up from flying apart, and we can still dock and undock.”

 

“Understood. Get to work. I’ll inform the Chief.”