Orphans - Kevin Killiany [17]
These things should come with libraries,he thought. Then, being an engineer:Okay, wise guy, where would you put it?
He began running a diagnostic, more an inventory than anything else. These suits were so well thought out, finding space for a library without redesigning…
“Sir?” he said abruptly.
“Yes?”Tev and Kairn chorused.
Stevens paused for a moment, waiting for one or the other to say something else. When neither did, he went on: “My suit is using more power than it should.” He double-checked his figures on the heads-up display inside his helmet. “Every task is using about four percent more power than normal.”
“Your suit is malfunctioning?”Kairn asked, his voice ominously neutral.
“No, sir.” Stevens bet Klingons regarded their suits as part of their arsenal; failure to maintain a weapon probably carried the death penalty. “I can’t localize it, but the drain is coming from outside my suit.”
“Halt,”said Kairn. “Suit diagnostics.”
Soloman was the first to answer. “Confirmed. My suit is also experiencing an additional drain on all systems.”
“My suit is fine.”Pattie’s chuckle was crystalline.
Abramowitz snorted and Stevens grinned as he shook his head. Impervious to vacuum, the Nasat engineer was of course naked to space.
“However,”Pattie added, “my utility harness seems to have lost about eight percent of its reserve power.”
Stevens frowned. Her harness, which included the vibration microphone which allowed her to speak and magnetic boots along with a selection of potentially useful tools, used only a fraction of the energy a full environmental suit did. On the other hand, most of that energy was used in highly active systems.
“Double-check, everyone,” he said. “Is most of your loss through active systems or storage?”
His theory was quickly confirmed as everyone reported active system drains.
“Energy collectors,” he said. “Or maybe just one big one. Something that sucks power out of active systems. That’s why our communications are breaking up.”
“Aceton assimilators?”Kairn suggested.
Stevens shook his head. “Aceton assimilators project the energy they steal back at the source as deadly radiation. Ambient radiation levels are unchanged.”
“On the other hand,”Pattie said, “either we’ve traveled six hundred kilometers, or the beacon’s signal is being absorbed as well.”
“The pull of such accumulators is usually exponential,”Tev said. “High projective energy devices such as tricorders should be used sparingly.”
“That means our phasers are probably useless,”Lauoc said.
Stevens nodded inside his helmet. Tkon accumulators absorbed phaser fire so rapidly the beams never reached their targets.
“We should go to minimum power levels,” he said, “to reduce drain.”
“Agreed,”said Tev.
There was a pause as everyone made their adjustments.
“Tactical systems specialist,”said Kairn.
“That’s me,” Stevens answered.
Kairn grunted and resumed his march toward the entrance.
Effusive in their praise, these Klingons.Stevens trudged behind. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.
* * *
With a final twist, Stevens activated the pattern enhancers.
Without waiting for a system check, Kairn gave the order:“Transport now.”
“Transporting,”Shabalala confirmed.
A shielded generator appeared, gravimetric grapple already engaged to grip the spinning surface.
If we had beamed one guy down with a pattern enhancer,Stevens thought as he helped Lauoc break the framework back down again, the rest of us could have beamed straight to the surface without risking our necks on the landing.
“Recharge.”Kairn was speaking to Pattie, who was being held to the surface by Tev and Abramowitz.
“Gladly.”The Nasat tethered herself to the generator before connecting the power feed. Almost immediately her boots clicked firmly to the surface.
Two kilometers from