Chapter 3: Cold Start

Time: January 7, 9570 5:54 AM UCT

"It was a good idea, Commander. I thought we were going to find the problem here too."

Eliana stared at the dead consoles in front of her and replied back to her companion, "Basel, please log that command flow appears to be working, and that the problem appears to be internal to the fusion unit." She paused for a moment in the super-frigid room as Basel spoke into his suit's audio log and then asked him, "Any ideas?"

"Is there much else we can do? These packs are sealed assemblies. The Fusion Guild would go nuts if we opened one up."

"Oh, I wasn't suggesting that. Clean-lab-only for breaking fusion seals, I know the standards."

"Commander, I suggest we concentrate on getting our communications up. Maybe we can call Sidon for advice."

"Without main power, getting the satellite link up will take an hour..." Eliana frowned. "As a last resort perhaps. And I don't know what the fusion e-techs could tell us that we don't already know."

"Well, not just Sidon. We could ask to be evacuated."

"Oh, getting tired of my company already huh?" Eliana was trying to make a joke, but realized she was so tired it probably didn't sound that way. She tried to soften her voice and said, "Basel, part of the certification testing is not asking for help."

Eliana thought she heard Basel give a humph noise through his arctic survival suit. He came over and shined a light on a dark display by her side. "It's -59C in here! We'll have an even harder time getting certified if we're frozen to death!"

Eliana humphed back. "You're the one with the physics background! The prime power pack is supposed to be self-starting! Come up with something!"

"Acknowledged Commander! Working on it now!" Basel stomped over to the non-responsive power core and stood before it motionless.

Eliana thought his move was more to get away from her than to do anything constructive. "Oh hell," she thought. "Did I really have to talk like that? I came close to snapping at him! We've been at this for what, close to six hours now, and he's still looking to me for leadership. Well, not that he wants to..." Eliana sighed and thought again how tired she was, in addition to being numb from the super cold. Her arctic suit had superb insulation and the active heaters were protecting her from serious frostbite, but her tired mind and cold body were demanding that she take a nap, and that just wasn't possible now.

The last few days had been a whirlwind of activity. Zaafir had her flying a jump jet to Cairo less than 24 hours after she accepted her assignment. There was a huge amount of paperwork to go through to have Eliana become a registered member of the Animal Conservation Guild, and it was done in a rushed manner. Eliana later found out from Basel that a number of the construction Guilds that had built the Ranger station were furious with the Cairo Guild. They said it was not in their design requirements that the station would be left inactive and unpowered for so long in such a super cold environment. They were threatening to void their warranties.

Basel! Eliana wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but Basel certainly wasn't it. In general, men typically had an easy time socializing with women. Men could expect frequent offers for dating throughout their lives, sometimes from a single woman looking for a date, but more often from a pair of women who were interested in polygamy or often just a sexual tryst without any commitment at all. Eliana would sometimes laugh to herself as a child and wonder how ideal the men must think the setup was. But ten minutes after dropping in to introduce herself at Cairo, Eliana decided Basel was just as shy about socializing with the opposite sex as she was.

And here they were now, six hours into their 180-day test and off to a very difficult start. They were on Level-2 of the four-level station, one level below ground in a ten-meter diameter circular area filled with the central controls of the station. The only light was from their arctic suits plus an extra battery light Basel had brought down from Level-4 storage around 2 AM. At midnight when the jump jet had lifted off, they had both been expecting to climb down the access ladder and simply turn the station on and sack out in toasty comfort a few hours later.

Eliana stared at the back of her companion. "And he clearly was not expecting to be the subordinate member of the team. Give him some credit for adjusting to that."

The thought reminded Eliana how quickly she decided to accept this assignment without thinking of the practical implications. Ranger was a lifelong certification, but the Conservation Guilds had an age requirement of fifty years maximum for applying for the job. They had found through long experience that the older applicants as a group did not stay with the job.

"The Holy," thought Eliana. "I'm not considering this to be a permanent career either. And Basel! As a CL6 he was almost guaranteed to get a junior citizen as a partner, not a Commander. Eliana, you know the social norms. As a commander, how many women would be tempted to dominate Basel in a setup like this, perhaps even sexually dominate him? I'm not going to, but he doesn't know my character yet. Hell! I can't remember ever mucking up a leadership role this badly."

"Commander?"

"Huh?" Eliana turned to her partner. "Yes Basel?"

"What if it's not the power pack? I'm thinking your first idea might still be correct."

"It's not getting the command to turn on?"

"Yeah."

Eliana waved her arm at the disassembled control panel. "But we're getting strong output from the signaling lasers."

"Commander, strong doesn't mean correct. What if the cold is deforming the optics?"

"What? Oh! You think the power core is getting blurred commands?"

Basel shrugged, the gesture barely visible in the dim light and super-bulky clothing. "It's possible Commander. I've never heard of anyone trying to dead-jump a power pack this cold. Prime units are normally left on from the moment they leave Sidon assembly." He pointed to a control unit nearby. "That booster battery there is Sidon factory issue. I think it was meant to keep the power pack warm, but it's completely drained."