Jessica solar's Arc

Chapter 4 of 15

The dragon's body was gone by morning. Jessica had dragged it out the airlock herself, then washed the deck plates until her sleeves were black. The crown sat crooked on her head. She left it there and went down to the power core because nothing else on the ship mattered until the core turned over. The core sat in a shielded well three decks below the gantry. Its housing was cold to the touch. A hairline crack ran across the containment ring, thin as a hair, long as her forearm. She traced it with a grease-dark finger. Cold meant no tools. No tools meant no welder, no lift, no scrubber, no lights past the emergency strips. She could not rebuild a ship by hand in the dark. Michael came down the ladder behind her, sketchpad already open. He said nothing. He drew. "Stop drawing and hold this," Jessica said. She pushed a fiber patch into his hand and climbed into the well. She knew the crack would not hold a cold restart. She had to warm the core first, seal the ring, then bleed the coolant lines slow. She pulled the patch tight across the fissure and clamped it. She rerouted a battery cart from the emergency strip and fed current into the starter coil by hand. The coil hissed. The housing began to tick as it warmed. The patch held for six seconds. Then it split. A jet of plasma-lit coolant sprayed up the well. Jessica threw herself flat. The spray hit the bulkhead and froze there in a bright, layered bloom, petals of frost fanning out like a lantern flower stuck to the wall. Beautiful. Useless. The core was venting. "Seal," she said. "Michael, the sealant gun. Red grip." He passed it down. She fired two lines of sealant across the ring, then a third across the split patch. The hiss dropped. The tick steadied. She fed the coil again. The core caught. Light came up along the strips in the ceiling. The lift motors thumped alive one deck above. Her welder, three decks up, began its warm cycle with a low hum she felt through her boots. The tools were hers again. She climbed out of the well shaking. Her hands were bleeding at two knuckles. Michael was drawing her hands. "Don't publish that," she said. "I won't." A chime pulled her head up. The outer hatch panel. A delivery had been logged at her airlock while the core was down — no crimson coat on the camera, only a crate left on the plating. Stenciled on its side was the mark of the enemy faction. A tag hung from the seal. She did not need to open it to know what it was. The debt had sent someone after all. The core was hot. The ship could build. And whatever was in that crate would decide what she built the scavengers raided during this time but Michael also planted some plants near by the wolfs liked these plants the scavengers and the wolfs fought well this was happening