Space Corps - Explorer (Book 1) by K. W. Matthews Page A

admiral.
    “Thank you.”
    Stopping at the main control panel for the ship’s primary engines, Ashley began punching in a series of commands. When done, power no longer flowed through the engine. Now safe to work in, Ashley removed a panel from the wall, and crawled into a maintenance shaft of the engine.
    With Chief Engineer Reynolds close behind her, Ashley crawled through the shaft. Though a tight squeeze, the lack of gravity made it easy to zip around. Several times, she turned and almost lost Reynolds. He spent many long hours working in the maintenance shafts. He knew them well and would never feel lost within them, but felt strained trying to keep up with the admiral. Despite not seeing the engines since they departed Earth, Ashley seemed to remember her way around the engine like her childhood home.
    At last, Ashley reached the power regulation site. At first glance, everything appeared to be just fine. All the status lights on the equipment shined green up until the very last one. The last status light was completely off.
    Reynolds looked at the light, then at the admiral. “Sir, that means the power isn’t being fed directly into the conversion chamber.”
    She knew he was just trying to be helpful, but Ashley couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that her chief engineer tried to tell her about an engine she designed from the ground up.
    Ashley removed another panel. From behind the panel, she pulled a glowing cylinder attached to a long tube. When she removed the cylinder from the tube, it stopped glowing.
    Working quickly, Ashley began to inspect the piece of equipment. Seeing no flaws on the outside, she twisted it and the cylinder came apart at the center. One side was hollow, but allowed the power to pass into the conversion chamber to combine with something else to create thrust for the ship. The other side of the cylinder showed a tube, an impressive group of wires, and four clear spikes.
    With no flaws in the tube, and no issues with the wires, Ashley looked closely at the four spikes. At first, they appeared to be in good working order.
    “Tom, I’m not seeing one in this tool belt. Do you have a set of calipers on you?”
    “No, sir.”
    Reynolds thought for a second, then pushed off the floor and floated down the narrow shaft. When he returned, he had a set of calipers in his hand.
    “Sorry, Admiral. I almost forgot we have a few tool stations in here.”
    Ashley mouthed the words ‘thank you’ as she grabbed the calipers from Reynolds. Immediately, she used them to measure the distance each of the spikes sat above their base. Three were exactly one-sixteenth of an inch from the base where the power injected. The fourth was slightly off at only one-thirty-second.
    Using a pair of soft pliers, Ashley moved the spike until it was at exactly the same distance as the other three. When it was in place, she carefully tightened it back down. After finishing, she set about putting the power injector assembly back in place.
    “Is that it, Admiral?”
    The final light in the sequence answered Reynolds’ question when it turned green.
    Ashley smiled. “For this part, yeah, that’s it.”
    “How did that get loose to begin with?”
    “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, it looks like I didn’t use a strong enough brace. I figured that, because the Explorer shouldn’t ever experience heavy gravity, the bracing didn’t need to be too bulky.”
    “And you didn’t count on an alien attack, did you?”
    “No, no I didn’t.”
    “At least we know for the next engine,” Reynolds said.
    “I guess we do. There is one more thing we need to do while we’re down here.”
    Reynolds would have asked what they needed to do, but Ashley already rushed down the shaft to another area. She stopped in front of a small door that she opened by allowing the computer to scan her right hand and eye.  
    Beyond the door sat a room that Ashley and her partner could stand in. Across the wall were many levers. As