File 5.8 - Practical Problems

Wells arrived back in the truck with another delivery. He stepped out of the cab calling to the others. “Elle! Noinel! Help out the rookie!” They passed each other while he went into the ship. He slid a peek over at the Jiaolong’s lining the wall. The machines had an eager look in their eyes. It would have to wait still.

Walking through the main hold, he didn’t find him. The side port was open, giving him the clue he needed. Wells popped out to see wires and parts scattered everywhere. “I see you’re hard at work, Rinn.”

The Lieutenant stood up and wiped away sweat from his forehead. A lot of dirt and grease covered his work clothes. “Harder than it needs to be. None of these damn parts match without jury-rigging everything.” He killed a metal plate in his frustration.

“We can’t expect them to be using the same standard as us. We knew this would be a risk.”

“It’s not that. The parts they make are too small!” He lifted up a couple of the stolen parts to show him. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this? It’s like trying to thread your finger through a needle.”

A narrowed expression lowered into Wells’ face. It was something he brought up with them before during the raids for the Commander’s rescue. “It’s the same as I said before.”

“Yes, I know. There’s nothing we can do about it. Their level of miniaturization is on a completely different technological level than us. What’s worse is their output is even higher on most of these things. I’m having to run multiple redundancies just to make sure we don’t blow ourselves out.” Rinn stared down at the still broken port exhaust. “You know what this means.”

Glancing back towards the city, Wells understood. It was a conclusion he was coming to already. “An ominous storm’s on the horizon. We’ll need to do everything to be sure we’re ready for when it hits.”