The Maintenance Engineer

(Extra Interior Cover Art reprint, for systems that don’t give you the Cover Art)

New Cover art © 2021 by Steve Nelson

By Steve Nelson With special technical assistance from Shirley Ann Nelson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by Steve Nelson on Smashwords

The Maintenance Engineer Original story Copyright © 2010 by Steve Nelson All Rights Reserved ~ Revised Edition © 2021 by Steve Nelson

Thank you for downloading this eBook. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This story is a work of fiction. This book is Fun! FUN!! FUN!!! Fantabulous Far-Out Fantastic Futuristic Fiction for ALL AGES! The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Steve Nelson~ 464 E. 1750 N. ~North Ogden, Utah ~84414~ USA

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Something Has happened!

Chapter 2 Our Rough Position

Chapter 3 I Think Some Thing is Out There!

Chapter 4 I Meet My Enemy!

Chapter 5 Recon Patrol

Chapter 6 Medical

Chapter 7 The JENI System

Chapter 8 When in Doubt, ATTACK!

Chapter 9 Onward to Engineering!

Chapter 10 The Fight for Engineering!

Chapter 11 Getting the Ship underway

Chapter 12 A Rough Ride Ahead!

Chapter 13 The Ride!

Chapter 14 Fixing Humpty Dumpty

Chapter 15 War council!

Chapter 16 Readying for battle

Chapter 17 Round 1, Aboard the Alien Ship!

Chapter 18 Round 2, Aboard the Alien Ship!

Chapter 19 The Whole kit and Caboodle

Chapter 20 Bye, Bye, Spiders!

Chapter 21 A Nice ride Home

Chapter 22 Get Off My Ship 1

Chapter 23 Get Off My Ship 2 or I’m Go’in Huntin!

Chapter 24 I Meet the Queen

Chapter 25 We’re Not Out of the Woods Yet

Chapter 26 Smooth Sailing, Well Almost!

Chapter 27 I Have a Really BIG Idea!

Chapter 28 Hi There!

Chapter 29 Country Fried Pirates

Chapter 30 It’s Only Me

FUN GLOSSARY

Other Books

Chapter 1 Something Has Happened!

At the edge of the Galaxy a Huge Starship cruised serenely. The crew was happy and confident but a little tired due to the long cruise which was soon to end. They were unaware of a dangerous unknown force that approached the ship. It was cautious, it was deadly, it was many and it meant harm!

WHAM! I was knocked out of my bunk! I hit the deck plate with a thud. My head hit first and I saw stars where they shouldn’t be. They swirled about my head like a swarm of Calsonar Bees.

Groggily I got up. The main power seemed to be off. Momentarily, red Emergency lights came on. My cabin was dark except for those red Emergency lights. There was air and gravity, so my immediate area it seemed was secure.

I got to my hard shell exterior work suit in the nearby closet & struggled into it as fast as I could. My head seemed sticky as I felt a painful spot there. Ouch! It hurt!! It really hurt!!!

Activating a battery powered light over the cabin wash basin; I saw in the mirror that I had a gash on my head that was slowly oozing some blood. I quickly but carefully sprayed some AntiBio on it and again carefully but quickly extracted a padded bandage from the Medikit mounted to the side of the wall by the mirror and covered the wound. I strapped it in place with some Meditape that was handily there in the kit.

I put on the rest of my work gear. First the Gravboots then with my suit secured in place I clamped on the bubble helmet. I left my hands free to get the rest of my gear strapped on and secured. My leg tool pouches came next and I made sure I was fully loaded with everything I might need in them, and then I snapped them in place just above my knees. Then my utility belt I strapped on about my waist. I made sure my tools on it were all there. Then my handy LaserCutter gun I holstered in its own spot at my side. Then I got to my backpack and made sure my Oxipacks were full up.

I strapped the back pack on making sure the Biosensors were activated. It wouldn’t do to have the doctor, that nauseating quack, complaining again that I wasn’t sending him the right Bioinfo. No Sir!

I was just about through when another WHAM! Resounded through the ship. The deck rocked and I was thrown against the wash basin. The Gravity plates were still operating so I could stay upright. I held on as the ship rocked again with another Loud WHAM! What is Happening? I called out to no one! It must be some kind of attack, I thought.

Then my next thought was to report in. I got on the wall mounted intercom & keyed for the Captain. No response! I tried the Exec. No response! I’ve got to get to my station on the bridge! I thought. I strapped on my Wrist Com and it activated automatically. I tried it; there was no response from anyone! Not even the Engine Master would respond!

With everything in place, including my Clear Steel bubble helmet, I slipped on my work gloves and activated the suit Enviro system. I had no idea what lay beyond the bulkhead door to my cabin. Was there an atmosphere breech or no? I wasn’t finding out the hard way.

I moved to the door and disengaged the locking mechanism. It should have come right open. NOTHING! Well I’m going to have to do this manually, I thought. I got out my special tool for stubborn doors, my utility hammer, and wrenched off the cover plate to the door electronics. With a metal wrenching grind and then a clanging thud the plate dropped and impacted the floor plating.

Carefully I looked about inside the open panel. I found there was some power so I tripped the mechanism and the door came open. The corridor was empty and dark except for the red Emergency lights spaced at even intervals along the passage way. Red warning lights flashed repeatedly at the end of the corridor next to the Personnel lift entry.

That would definitely mean a breach had occurred. I would have to climb if the Gravity Liner in the tube was operating. If not, I would need to operate in Zero-G.

My stomach began to twist. Good thing I hadn’t eaten anything, I tended to lose my lunch in Zero-G from time to time. I put that thought very far out of my mind!

I reached the Personnel lift door and found it was operating but locked so I hit the override, and the door came open. The tube was empty. No car waited to swiftly whisk me to the bridge. The tube was dark except for red Emergency lights placed at long distance intervals throughout the length of the system. This left long sections dark. The Personnel Lift tube isn’t supposed to be a walking corridor you know, I thought to myself.

There was no indicator to tell if the Gravity Liner was operating so I’d have to just get in and see if there was any gravity in the tube. I gingerly reached over and took hold of the nearest service way rung. I held tight and stepped onto the service way ladder. I felt the lack of gravity immediately! I steadied myself for a few moments and calmed my nerves. Then I gently pushed off and headed toward the bridge entry several decks above.

I calmly sailed through the empty tube as red Emergency lights passed by slowly at regular intervals. Large silver service ducts ran the length of these shafts throughout the ship, wherein there was all sorts of wiring cables and fluid transport piping. Doing maintenance on a ship like this, I have seen these types of service shafts and worked in them often. Of course I would never work in one of these shafts unless the Personal Lift was definitely shut down for the duration of my work. That could prove rather dangerous to life and limb, and I was real big on Safety. Real big! Did I mention my record of safety? Well you can’t be too careful when it comes to working on a space vessel these days.

Anyway, after several minutes of smooth sailing, I reached the entry to the Bridge Module. The door was solidly locked; it would not open no matter what I tried.

At special key junctures there was emergency equipment stowed throughout the ship for atmosphere testing. I opened the control box mounted on the bulkhead next to the Personnel lift door. These emergency testing units had their own power source. I activated the sensor viewer. And it came on momentarily.

There was air where I was but no gravity. But what was worse was what the screen showed on the other side of the bulkhead. As I peered into the blue safety viewer screen, I was shocked with the sight that presented its self to me. The Entire Bridge module was GONE! Just Plain GONE!!

As I became conscious of the damage, I could see twisted metal braces were all that was left of the mountings that had once held the Bridge Module securely at the head of the ship. Without the bridge controls the only way to operate the ship was at the Auxiliary Bridge near Engineering, and those several consoles there in Engineering were clear at the aft end of the ship! Well, I said to myself, Guess where I’m going? There maybe a few stops along the way though I thought.

The next thing I thought was again, What had happened? We must have hit something, or ‘Something’ had hit us! Whatever happened? I must know! Knowing what had caused this event would be the key to affecting any repairs.

And so, gaining solid control of the ship was my next priority! I looked in the viewer again and saw a large circular mass rotating some distance from the ship. It was the Bridge Module. I focused the viewer in on it as it rotated slowly and observed it closely. It was also departing the ship at a good clip so it was hard to keep it in focus. Then I saw it as the section rolled end over end, onto the other side. A Huge hole was blasted into the metal skin. Then as the section rotated, the exit wound was shown on the viewer. Blown out the other side was a large amount of debris with jagged edges of metal from the module extending outward into space. Then I saw Bodies! Oh my! I had to catch myself and steady myself as the sight was just awful! All the bridge crew ejected into the frozen depths of space! An eternal sleep for them all… I was lost in thought for a few more moments, and then my mind snapped back to the tasks at hand.

It must have been the entire bridge crew of more than 20! But it seemed like there were somehow more of them than there should be. Then I realized that it was parts of bodies I was seeing. These plus other odd items clouded space beyond the module. Like I remembered as a kid, back on Earth, shooting cans with my rifle. This hole in the module and the exit wound on the other side looked just like a blasted pop can. Something somehow undetected had hit us!

Out of habit, I tried my Wrist Com. Still no response. I checked the limited range censor viewer before the Bridge Module was too far away and read the words that appeared on the small screen.

No Heat Signatures, No Humanoid Life Signs, was the message silently displayed. In shock I think, I remained silent for yet another moment, as I tried to calmly and rationally think of the dead.

And then getting back to the task at hand, I scanned the length of the ship as far as my adjustments to the viewer could go anyway. And I saw more huge holes drilled right through our ship! My Beautiful Ship! What has been done to My Beautiful Ship? I wondered to myself in feeling a bit of shock and awe at the whole spectacle. My ship looked like it was hit with Buckshot! After staring in shock for several more valuable minutes, I had to pry myself loose from the scene and I began to mentally map out the course I’d need to take to get myself to the Auxiliary Bridge, way at the aft end of the ship.

Chapter 2 Our Rough Position

For some time we had been charting planets and planetoids out near the rim of the galaxy and currently we were passing by a gaseous planet with rings rather like Saturn back in our home system. We had been cruising at just a hair under light speed through this rather boring system. It only had desert planets and this big gaseous one, not much to this system at all.

The Captain had just finished a thorough and very routine inspection of the ship. Our Captain was always thorough, paying strict attention to every detail. For he knew that the difference between life and death out in deep space, could very often depend on the smallest of details in every operating system of the ship. And as Lead Maintenance Engineer I