It's a bit cold today outside the mining station...but then, it's usually pretty cold in hard vacuum this far from the sun. Negative 200 or so. Protected against this minor chill by a well-worn and scuffed working spacesuit, a fox labors underneath his still-icy disabled vessel, Eidolon. Twin work lights from his suit's chestplate reflect on the carbon-streaked hull surface in front of him as he clings to the ship's aft underside, his eyes examining the manual release controls for the hull plates over certain equipment bays. Nearby, protected by...nothing, something the fox is still getting used to, a female felitaur hovers and watches curiously.
Zephyr reaches out with a gloved paw and, having just keyed in a sequence of symbols on a nearby recessed keypad, grasps a similarly recessed handle. A turn of his wrist, then another, and the handle unlocks with a small puff of released vapor. The fox moves up to another, there being four spaced evenly around the panel he seems to want to remove. He turns to grin at the felitaur, his helmet's muzzle-curved contours only partially obscuring his features.
Leda looks over at this, her voice a bit distorted as the voder picks up her throat's vibrations and transmits them over the comm channel. "Need any help there?"
Zephyr, maneuvering over the hull surface with practiced ease, releases the second...then the third hull interlock. "In a second I will.", he answers, his voice almost as distorted, sounding tinny over his helmet's comm. "Once I get this final lock loose, I'm going to need stronger help to pull out this whole section...think you're okay with that?"
Leda nods, pushing herself in a slow coast towards the ship. "That's easy enough."
Zephyr keys his helmet mike again for a soft chuckle. "For you, maybe. I'm still getting used to you." He rests his paw on the fourth lock, then turns it. After the same puff of released gases, a series of dull thuds carries through his suit's arm as vibrations. He counts them carefully, then nods and moves to the center of the hull panel. "Okay, all the locks are disengaged, sounds like we're go for removal. There's a handle here, where I am. We're safe here, just watch for discharges around the edges. Okay?"
Leda twists herself in a very cat-like fashion around her center of gravity, using the wings as well as tail to shift said center as she moves. The result is she manages to flip herself over so her paws land first on the hull of the ship, just near where Zephyr stands.
Leda bends over and reaches down with one arm to grab the handle.
Zephyr blinks? and then grins, shaking his helmet slowly from side to side. "With no jets, yet. You are amazing." He chuckles, then braces himself and glances at the panel edges. "Straight back, slow...Tracks will guide it once it's moving. And...You're _sure_ you won't get in trouble for helping me?"
Leda says, "To build up momentum, we need jets, though we can get away without for really small jumps by using feathers. Just to turn in place doesn't require jets."
Leda grins as her hand grips the handle, and starts pulling. "As for trouble, nothing I can't handle."
Zephyr's eyes sparkle a little. "Think we have something in common there." He grins, winks, then quickly looks down to check readings on a small glowing wristpad. "No rad leakage. Looks like we're okay." He pauses, then, as the rising panel lets loose small fragments of charred material, the pieces tumbling and drifting away in the work light beams. He quickly cuts off his mike as he starts cursing in several different languages, then keys it back in again. "What'd I burn out up there?!"
Leda tries gripping the hull with her toe claws as she grabs for the pieces before they float away.
Leda says, "Let's see what it is."
Zephyr peers at the small pieces, then drifts lightly across the surface closer to one.
Zephyr examines a piece of debris close up. "Negative on keeping them. It's.. I can't tell what it is, but it's just lining of some sort. I've got specs on everything."
Leda scrambles a bit on the hull before hooking a grip with her hind feet, stretching her body out full to try and keep any pieces from escaping.
Leda hmmphs. "Well, don't want too much littering up the space around the station anyway." She puts the lining in a utility pouch.
Zephyr reaches out a glove to enclose one of the fragments. It promptly crumbles into smaller pieces that escape his paw. "Littering's illegal, huh?" He sighs and drifts back down to the hull, moving towards the panel edge. Now riding on tracks, it's almost clear of the hull and moving away from it. "Should be able to see how bad in a second or two..."
Leda says, "Not illegal. Just don't want too much stuff out here for people to run into. Might scratch up the viewports."
Zephyr glances over at Leda. "Or hurt someone out here. No debris-catching fabric layer." He 'stands' on the hull next to the pulling 'taur with the aid of his gravboots, then grins and softly brushes a gloved paw against her shoulder. "Don't think I'm ever going to get used to this. You don't feel cold at all? No surface capillaries break, nothing?"
Leda says, "There's some damage, yes, but not a lot; the body seals itself up fairly quickly. And we heal quickly, too."
Zephyr curiously examines Leda's sealed nostrils and mouth, then just stares at her. "Some damage...Yet you're out here. Must heal like..." He blinks, then moves a little as another dull vibration indicates that the hull panel's reached the end of its track. It's now about fifteen feet away from the hull itself. "Let's go see the damage..."
Leda pads over, her toes curling around the 'hand'holds on the ship's surface as she walks.
Zephyr releases his boots and drifts to the edge, then agilely catches the edge, and with the help of his own tail, flips around it to face the inner surface. He pauses...then swears quietly at what he sees.
Leda pushes herself up towards Zephyr, catching the opposite edge of the panel to look at it.
On the inner side of the hull panel are two identical modules on either side of a tall, narrow column..or what's left of it. The modules are fairly straightforward in their design, each a torus-shaped ring that looks like a fusion reactor, coupled to a complex-looking pump assembly. One on each side. Redundant, probably. The column in the center looks as if, when connected, it leads up to something on the deck above, something that uses fusion plasma, maybe? But the column is little more than a vague shape of shattered wreckage, cracked and heat-warped by incredible temperatures. Surrounding equipment is also melted or charred, which would make sense if fusion plasma had been released in there.
Leda looks over the tubing. "I see. Conduit breach."
Zephyr mumbles more profanities, then points. "That...is the fuel pump, basically. Those reactors take deuterium and fusion-preburn it, then it goes up through the transfer conduit there, by magnetic constriction rings, to the singularity containment chamber above. But the conduit...That's supposed to be _failproof_! That's why there's two pumps, but only one...How..." He drifts closer to inspect it. "This was _never_ supposed to be able to break!"
Leda taps on the material near the broken edge with a claw. "What's it made out of?"
Zephyr looks distracted as he pokes at the melted wreckage, shining his work lights over it. "What? Oh...The conduit. Um..Iridium, I think. And some other stuff. I forget what the coils were, I have to look it up." He glances back at Leda. "Do you think this is fixable? I'm not much of an engineer..."
Leda says, "Redundant conduits rarely work anyway, because the valve that switches between them is more likely to fail than the conduit itself."
Leda hmmms. "Not a design I'm familiar with... I don't see why it shouldn't be fixable in principle, but we'd have to get one of our own engineers on it." She chuckles a bit. "We're all part engineer; I could repair my own ship, but this is out of my league."
Leda goes "Iridium, hmm? About as dense as normal matter gets."
Zephyr lets his helmet bump softly against one of the fusion toruses, then again. "Of all the...the _conduit_ broke." He looks up, then at Leda's words, stares for a second...and then smiles. "Should be..." He chuckles too, and then nods. "I've fixed this one more times than I can remember. It's just that...well..it's never broken so badly that I had to lose half a century before, is all..."
Leda says, "No, I'd imagine not."
Leda taps at the conduit again, and peers inside. "I wonder what damaged it? Or if it just had a microfracture that took a long time to develop."
Zephyr drifts over near Leda's shoulder. "I don't know. It was supposed to be durable as a rock. No idea." He inspects the conduit a bit more, taking readings...then peers quietly over it at Leda. "I owe you for this, Leda... thank you."
Zephyr, glad for his covering ear-shields in that they're keeping Leda from seeing his ears blushing, grins at her again, almost playfully flirting before drifting down to pull release locks for the entire section's hull plate. "Um..think we can get this whole section into an airlock?"
Leda tilts her head in a way that's probably a smile. "I haven't done much of anything yet. Besides, how could I resist helping out someone as cute as you?"
Zephyr peeks up over a hose, eyes wide in his visor, then ducks down again. "Um...*cough* Cute?" He peers up again, giving another roguish, playful grin and tilting his helmet. "You're...sort of cute yourself, you know...Rather pretty, actually. Even in space." He looks embarrassed, then, and ducks back down under one of the pumps. o O {Oh, that was coherent.)
Leda can be heard to giggle over the comm channel.
Zephyr stays hidden under the pump. "Ah...this part looks okay." He peeks at Leda again, then summons up enough courage to giver her another quick wink and grin before going back to work on the release locks. "Um." He coughs, and chuckles softly over the comm. "I...er...Let's get this whole section inside so the engineers can have fun with it?"
Leda chuckles. "Sure. Nothing on here that would be damaged by the pressurization, I hope?"
Zephyr, obviously distracted and thinking about something, takes a minute to respond. "Huh? Oh...no, it'll be okay." He quickly maneuvers around the base of the equipment, releasing locks until the entire pump/column assembly, complete with its mounting platform, floats free of the hull panel. Then, securing himself to one end, he adjusts his backpack thruster and holds a paw out to Leda, grinning widely. "Let's go see if we can scare the airlock operator with some mass moving at high speed and a totally not-by-the-book braking?"
Leda purrrrrs. "Sounds good to me."
Leda grabs Zephyr's hand, and kicks off away from the ship.
Zephyr's tail tucks out of the way in its segmented sleeve as he checks to make sure Leda's with him...then fires his thruster. A few moments later, as the airlock operator is most likely in panic at several hundred tons of mass heading for their station, he flips over the top of the modules, tail counterbalancing, to cling to the exact opposite side and fire his backpack at max power, its thrust nozzle a blue white star as the fox clings with all four paws. The massive module loses speed velocity slowly...then...comes to a gently drifting stop just feet from the airlock portal. Grinning widely, Zephyr scrambles up on top of the equipment to apply gently steering taps of his thrusters. "That more your style, Leda?"
Leda chortles. "You saw how I came in with my ship. I only slowed down because the gate can really mess things up at times."
Zephyr keeps grinning and turns to look back and wink again, then focuses his attention on guiding the equipment into the lock. "I saw. You're very, very good. And you understand why you just _have_ to do that, I think." He giggles, then deftly spins free of the damaged module platform as it bumps against the deck with a gentle scratch. "Station control, point-2 grav, please, gradual increase. Just don't want this drifting off again. And yes, I know how I came in with it. Yes, that was on purpose. Have a nice day." He grins at Leda. "They were a bit critical of my approach. Happens to you too?"
Leda chuckles. "They've long since given up on being critical of me. Because they know for all my grandstanding I'm one of the better pilots here."
Leda adds, "And because they know I'm not going to change anyway."
Zephyr chuckles. "I'll agree with that." He giggles harder. "Well, good. Don't." As the airlock portal closes and sound starts to filter from around the room, faint at first, then normal, he waits for a green indicator in his suit before unsealing his helmet. "Gah. Suit air always tastes funny. Um... How long do you stay sealed up like that?"
Leda says, "About an hour."
Zephyr unclips a small transciever and places it in his ear so he can still hear Leda, then starts to remove his suit. "An hour? Not too bad, I guess... But all your openings seal up, not just nose and mouth? I mean..." he looks embarassed. "Like ears and all?"
Leda hmms. "Ears don't block up as much, takes less time. Eyes have transparent eyelids."
Zephyr finishes doffing his suit and carefully reassembles the components, then hangs it in a nearby locker. The inner cooling garment takes longer to get off, and leaves his fur a ruffled, fuzzed-up mess. "So it's a totally automatic thing, then? And...Leda, please tell me if I ask anything that's taboo. You seem pretty understanding, but I don't want to ask the wrong thing or _do_ something wrong and offend anyone." He grins sheepishly. "I am sort of new here."
Leda grins. "Oh, there aren't a lot of topics that offend us. There are a few, and I'll be sure to warn you off them if they come up."
Zephyr smiles and nods, then embarrassedly brushes at his fur. "Rf, I'm a mess. I need to go brush. But...I think I might owe you a fresh-pounced dinner first, as soon as you...ah...unseal? If you'd like one, that is." His tail swishes back and forth slowly as he grins, looking a little unsure, uncertain, but roguish and playful all the same.
Leda is brushing herself down as well. "I'd love one. See you soon..."