Chapter 18: Dead in Space

--March - Week 13 --

It took Kyle and the helm crew nearly four days to get the ship stopped.

Lee was doing her inspections the night after the accident. She wasn’t happy with the primary cooling pump motor for FRD1 and had it shut down and bypassed. Terry and Little Bear had to strip it down to find what Lee said was wrong.

They found one of the rollers in the drive bearing had disintegrated and the rest of the bearing wasn’t far behind. So, Terry and Little Bear had to change the bearings out and reassemble the motor. It took the guys most of the shift to get it fixed.

They no sooner had the pump up and running again, when Lee had FID3 drive shut down. Terry and Little Bear found the issue in the fuel system was a kinked pipe, and the filter container was broken and needed replacing. They had to leave it for the new afternoon shift.

Poor Abe got a crash course in the operations of the ship. Lee had him and Jim going through every control room and making sure every control card in the various PLCs were in working order, correctly seated and screwed down and any extra cables were attached.

Abe was somewhat surprised by Jim’s careful adherence to Lee’s instructions, and he methodically pulled, checked and then screwed down every card in every rack and waited for the PLC check response before doing the next card.

When Abe asked him why he was being so careful, Jim grinned at him. “Abe, Lee wouldn’t have sent us to look if she didn’t think something was wrong.”

Two cards later, Jim was proven correct when he pulled out a control card and half of it was left in the slot. They had to pull each card that bracketed it to get the broken half out. Abe didn’t argue after that.

Jim chuckled at the end of the shift at the pile of cards he and Abe had stacked into Lee’s ‘Fix me’ boxes in the workshop. He knew that he and Lee and probably Abe were going to be kept busy fixing them all once the rest of the problems were fixed.

Sean barely saw Lee over the next four days. She seemed to be everywhere but in his bed. She would disappear for about three hours to grab some sleep, every fifteen or so hours and then she was up and going again.

After the first night, she even had him help Jim and Abe to get some of the systems back in working order. There were still lights out, all over the place. They also had to fix the broken lift and check the electrics in the rooms that had been flooded.

Sean soon decided he hated the metre-high crawl spaces between the levels, he was at least thankful for the false ceilings and got very good at popping and replacing them. People had been bunking on the floors in each other’s rooms until they received the all-clear to use their bedroom again.

Having the water systems shut down for over eight hours, and the loss of their water had caused all sorts of other issues. The circulatory system to keep a certain percentage of water moving through each bladder had to be reprogrammed.

Otherwise, the water radiation shield wasn’t effective in protecting them. Anita and Griffo, the afternoonshift plumber, had to install even more pumps to increase the flow rate. This severely reduced their spares as it was found that not all the parts could be replicated as they didn’t have a copy in the system.

The scientists and other crews had the replicators and the recycler working their hearts out. The clean-up had resulted in a lot of smashed equipment and items needing to be replaced.

By the start of the second day, Lee had put a halt to their activities and requests for items unless they were critical. She told them that they had to wait. The ships primary systems and medical had priority.

People soon found that there pleases, and whinging fell on deaf ears if they approached the Captain, Philip or Sean. Most people were smart enough not to ask Lee after her ship wide announcement.

Lee was finally getting on top of the workload. With all the systems that had been affected by accident. It had been a mammoth task for everyone. She was very proud of the engineering crews.

They had all worked together, no matter which shifts they were supposed to be on. Many of them had even turned up off-shift to help the other teams or stayed latter before going for their break. Other also went and helped their partners who were in different teams.

Sean’s SOER team had made things a lot easier for Lee to as she could use about half of them to help those people in her shift-crews who were still battered and bruised from the jump. They were also great at helping with general clean-up and structural repairs under Gary’s direction.

Now the most critical work in the ship was done, and the ship was flying in a straight line again, they have to do the most dangerous work, being outside the ship. Lee had a heap of different jobs to be completed and knew she would need at least three teams. They had two sleds and the teams doing the welding would need them.

Sean had argued that the teams should be made up of his people as they were all space qualified. In the end, they settled on four duos. Each made up of one member from engineering and one from the Army.

Two of the teams would fit-out the sleds and do the welding jobs. Team Three would be in charge of re-painting and patching the ceramic coating on the hull. Abe and Lee would fix the sensors and re-seal the dome. The Helms fore telescope was also out of alignment, and Abe said that he knew how to fix it.

As Lee’s old team was now dayshift, she used mostly them. The Captain had ordered they all were to have a good night sleep before they did the outside repairs. So once Lee got the new nightshift setup she went and crashed.

Lee happily crawled in with Sean and wrapped herself around his warm, naked body. “Who is this satyr in my bed?” he asked sleepily as he felt her warm body curl around his.

“I’ve come to suck out your manhood,” Lee answered with a terrible vampire voice. Sean laughed as she threw off the covers and turned so she could take him into her mouth. Sean put his hand up between her legs to finger her cunnie while she breathed him in.

He let her suck him until he was very hard and she very wet and wiggling on his hand. “I want you in my arms,” he said.

So, Lee turned around and climbed on top of him. She kissed him as she rubbed her cunnie over his cock. He gently pulled her up so he could suck on her tits. He had missed those luscious cherries.

She placed her cunnie just over his cock head and clenched. She let him slip back out to her cunnie lips before repeating the action. Sean tried pushing further into her with his hips. Lee kept teasing him until he grabbed her hips and dragged her down over his willing shaft until they were pubic bone to pubic bone.

Sean pumped up into her each time she came down on him. He still managed to catch a wiggly tit, as she lifted up and down on him and rode him until the feelings of coming overtook her. He felt her stiffen and then start to pulse on him.

He flexed his hips into her fast for several strokes and then slowed until she quietened. Sean rolled her over and fucked into her again slowly as he kissed her senseless. Once Lee stopped shaking so bad and started humping back, he increased speed.

He wanted to bury himself into her, as deep as he could. He pulled his knees up and lifted her legs, so they were along his chest and grabbing her arse. Sean rammed his cock into her slippery tight gripping cunnie. Lee tried to stiffen as she came again, but he was walloping her and fast she simply erupted and quaked all over him.

Sean finally couldn’t hold out any longer. He grunted out and blew in her flexing hard. Lee shuddered several more times, as Sean emptied his load into her with several sharp grunts. Sean dropped her legs and slid back his knees.

He then lay back on top of her as he slowly rocked his hips into her. Enjoying her as she came down from her high, and he regained his breath. He loved the sensations of having Lee back in his arms and his cock back in Lee. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

Lee laughed softly and ran her fingers through his hair, “I got that impression.”

“So, tell me again. Why it is that you that have to do the spacewalk in the morning?” Sean asked her softly.

“Because I am the most qualified. It is as simple as that my darling,” Lee told him and then kissed him softly.

“Bugger and damn. If I lost you, Lee,” he trailed off when she kissed him again.

“I’ll have Abe with me, and you told me he is good, so I’ll be safe. I always work safe, you know that.”

Only slightly mollified, Sean rolled off her, and he pulled her into his arms, so she was lying across his chest. He loved having her as close to his skin as he could get her, and he hugged her tight.

They were asleep in minutes.

The team got suited up for their walk.

The spacesuits the team wore had been specially designed for the maintenance crew. They had strips of magnetic material around their forearms, on the back of their palms, on the knees, under the toes and heels of the boots and several on their butts.

The strips on the forearms were doubled up with replaceable sticky strips. These strips were designed for holding loose tools. The worker simply stuck them to their arm as they used another tool. Thin cords attached to each tool and they could be clipped to the loops that also ran down the top of their sleeves.

The strips on their butts, knees, forearms and palms, let them cling to the ship as they worked. The ones under the toes and heels let them walk on the hull. Lee and Abe also had special tool belts that had strips inside the pouches, so the tools and small parts couldn’t drift out.

The sleds were really cool to use. They looked a bit like auto-mechanic beds for getting under cars. Except that they had twenty-four jets aimed in all directions that exhausted compressed nitrogen. Six lights were mounted on them.

In the front was a short handlebar similar to a bicycle, except it worked more like a joystick. It turned left, right and pushed forwards to go down and pulled back to go up. A ‘throttle’ was on the right handlebar for forwards or backwards movement.

The best way to use them was to straddle the sled to drive it to the job. Then attach the magnetic clamps and lanyards and tether the back or side of it to the hull, so it acted as a platform or a seat. The worker could then sit, lay on it or even stand on it as required.

The sleds were rated at eight hours of use without recharging the batteries or the gas. The boys had pulled them out of storage the day before and had given them the once over to make sure they were usable. They regassed and recharged them.

Lee and Abe would use the ski poles. They have a combination of electromagnetic and sticky strips on the bottom. You used them to help you walk across the hull.

They attached to the walker’s wrists with straps and had tethers that clipped to their belts. The walker could release the wrist straps, and then they stayed tethered between the poles at the destination.

All of the crew also wore a Self-Rescue Unit (SRU), should they accidentally get detached. You were simply supposed to point yourself at the ship and hit the button, so the thrusters jetted you back to the ship.

By 09:15 hours, the teams were on the hull. Lee and Abe probably had the hardest job as they had to walk all over the shell and the dome to fix the sensors and the dome seal.