26,646 / 50,000. THe Hump has been passed.
Chapter 15: All's well?
The look on Shannon's face looked like she had been let loose in the toy shop. She proceeded to climb on top of Robert and give him another 'death grip' hug. "Ohmygodohmygod!" she was practically squealing. "I'd better make sure, just to make certain. Hold still." She clambered up so that she was sitting on his chest, and put her chest on his face. "Um..." was all that Robert could say, mostly because on of Shannon's breats was blocking his vision and the other was providing one hell of a distraction because it's nipple was in his ear. She chanted something softly, and Robert felt some form of draining sensation from him. A few seconds later she practially ripped his head off in another hug as she exclaimed, "Oh, It's TRUE! IT'S TRUE!" Robert felt a warm sensation on his chest. He took his hands, and firmly but carefully lifted her off of him. Holding her in the air, She immediately calmed down somewhat. "Oh! uh, Sorry 'bout that." Robert set her back down on his chest, rotated his head so that he was facing her, and said, "Care to explain why you just orgasmed all over my chest?"
Shannon explained while they shared a shower. They were both due in the Drydock to work on his ship in 45 minutes, and they had no time to seperately shower. "How do I explain this? You are basically a battery for another mage. You have this genourmous energy pool, but the only spells that you can cast, If I remember correctly, are energy taps. You can give engery to a mage, take it away from them and add it to your own pool, and you can tap mundane sources for energy and convert it into manna. Properly trained, you can provide a mage with a HUGE amount of energy to perform rather large effects." He nodded. "So, do we have anyone on board that can train me properly?" She shook her head. "Unfortuantely, wellsprings are VERY rare. Only another wellspring can properly train you, or someone who has worked closely with one. We don't have anyone qualified on board, I think. I'll ask Ch'Mee, he knows all sorts of people." They stepped out of the shower and put on fresh jumpers. Shannon looked at him as they went into the corridor. "Have you ever pulled a maintainence on a 'G' series?" Robert shook his head. "I know the differences, as they briefed us about a week before I was assigned to the Hillery, but I've never pulled one on a 'g' before. I've done everything up to an 'f', though." Shannon nodded. "Good, you won't be totally useless, then. We might even get done in under three hours, then." They entered the 'dock and found the rest of the repair team sitting around. "What's the hold up?" Shannon said. Zhal, the only male in the group, shrugged. "We are waiting for Stores to bring up the new cannon barrels, the modification gear, and new vanes." Shannon said, "OK. Keep your comms handy. I'm sure you've all got other stuff to do while you are waiting. Corlo and I will pull the routine stuff while we are waiting, and I'll call when the shit shows up."
The team almost immediately scattered, with some of the ladies snickering as they left. Robert noticed this. After they left, he asked, "What was the snickering about?" Shannon said nothing but closed her eyes. Robert could suddenly feel something radiate from her. It grew in size until it encompassed the entire drydock. This took 30 seconds, after which she opened her eyes. "I wove a privacy field around the drydock area. while having the rest of the team around would make this go so much faster, They really do have other things that are more important to do then pull routine maintainence on one fighter. We can bang this out in probably two hours if you are as good as you say you are, maybe even less." She winked at him. "Plus, we can talk about whatever we want. The snickering was because they think we are going to do some hanky panky while we are waiting for some of the lengthier processes to finish." Robert started laughing. "Like that's gonna happen! Besides, we can do that later!"
The process was mostly automated, but within 15 minutes they had all the inspection covers off, and were going over the bio-filtering plant. Robert started the purge of the recovery systems, and Shannon was surprised to hear the small printer in the compartment chung three times and go silent for 30 seconds before it repeated. "How did you know about the printer? None of the pther pilots ever use that thing!" Robert shrugged. "It's how I was taught. hang on a second." He plugged the lapel mike he was wearing into one of the lin in jacks on the open panel. "Gertrude, Please begin monitoring the purge process. Alert us if it goes out of spec, please." The small speaker built into the computer bay sounded off. "Affirmative. Estimated time remaining in prcess is 15 minutes." Robert unplugged and started on the next panel. Shannon looked at him. "Wait a minute, aren't we supposed to monitor that process?" Robert nodded. "Yep. And I'm doing just that. Gerty will signal if any of the readings go out of spec, and if that happens, I'll check the tally printout to see what happened. In the meantime, I can be doing other things, like checking the wear indicators on the RCS snappers, although I have a feeling that we are going to have to replace those anyhow, if Gerty's numbers were right. The nice thing is that we can replace those."
He plugged into yet another line jack, and then looked at the small dials in one of the quads. "Gerty, run diagnostic snapper checks on RCS 1, please. The speaker sounded off again. "Working." The thruster made several popping noises. "Gerty, run test 15 on RCS 1." The RCS made several series of rapid popping noises. Robert repeated the process on the other RCS pack on that arm before unplugging the mic. "Those are OK for one more sortie. You wanna help do the other arm, or are you going to let me do this by myself?" Shannon giggled and moved to the other arm. "Lemme show you how a pro does it. She plugged her mic into the line in on the computer bay. "Gertrude, run snapper checks on RCS packs 7 through 10, please." The port side of the ship made many popping noises as Shannon ran the checks. "Hmm, they sound ok to me. Test 15, same set." More popping noises. Robert finished his side at the same time as Shannon pronoused that the port side was OK. Robert grinned. "Gerty, Test 3, RCS 7 to 10 please, in order. The As the RCS packs in question started emmiting nitrogen, Robert noted which ones didn't fire as quickly. "ok, we'll replace the valves on 7-1, 8-2, 9-1, and 10-3. Gerty, same test, Packs 5 and 6." The packs on the top and bottom of the ship came alive. "Hmm, ok. Thanks Gerty. How is the purge going?" Gerty answered that everything was well within tolerance, and Shannon muttered "Ought to be, brand new fricken tub". She sounded cranky as being second guessed. Robert pulled the appropriate valves from he spare parts drawer kept in drydock and swapped out the valves.
By the time he finished, Shannon had finished the reamainder of the work required, and Gerty announced that the purge had completed. Handing the worn valves to Shannon, He asked Gerty to run internal maintainance, and he started to button up the bio bay. "This will take a half hour. Anything else to do? I think the rest of it we are waiting on the crap from Spares to bring up." Shannon was still staring at the valves, and shook her head. "Nope." She looked up at him. "Let's go have a seat and talk more." They used the half hour while they were waiting to talk more about what Robert's capabilites were supposed to be, and Shannon described more about the magics she was capable of performing. Some of these caused Robert to turn beet red, as she spoke frankly and stated that some of the effects required a willing partner to perform some form of sexual act with her. He got over it quickly enough, though, and the Equipment from Spares arrived about ten minutes before Gerty announced that she was finished.
Several hours later, the fighter looked in excellent shape, although it was now sporting six cannons instead of four. It also had a uprated power supply, and some redesigned steering vanes for the main engines. Shannon and robert also spent some time working on the paint job that sat atop the fighter, patching blast marks in the paint, and replacing a few of the armor plates that had taken serious damage. After they were done, they all locked down the drydock, cleared out, and put in the commands to cycle the fighter out and back into it's dock bay slot. They went up to the Mess and had lunch. By a stroke of luck Ch'Mee saw them and winked at Shannon. The rest of the meal was spent in silence, but instead of going back downstairs, they went up to Level Three and over to Room 55. They entered to find Jackson, Stromson, Ch'Mee, and another Tigerean dressed in a long grey cloak, and carrying an ancient looking staff. As they closed the door, The newcomer spoke. "Good afternoon, Robert Corlo and Shannon Ortiz. I take it the work on the fighter went well? Robert stayed absolutely motionless. Shannon asked a question. "Who are you?" The tigerean chuckled. "I am the Trainer of Wellsprings. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end. The fate of worlds hinge on my actions and choices. I am that which the magic community calls the Nexus. I am that which the Shivans call Death Incarnate. You may call me Tigra. I am here to teach you, Robert Corlo, how to empower your mate with the energy to help save the galaxy."
(1715/1667)
The look on Shannon's face looked like she had been let loose in the toy shop. She proceeded to climb on top of Robert and give him another 'death grip' hug. "Ohmygodohmygod!" she was practically squealing. "I'd better make sure, just to make certain. Hold still." She clambered up so that she was sitting on his chest, and put her chest on his face. "Um..." was all that Robert could say, mostly because on of Shannon's breats was blocking his vision and the other was providing one hell of a distraction because it's nipple was in his ear. She chanted something softly, and Robert felt some form of draining sensation from him. A few seconds later she practially ripped his head off in another hug as she exclaimed, "Oh, It's TRUE! IT'S TRUE!" Robert felt a warm sensation on his chest. He took his hands, and firmly but carefully lifted her off of him. Holding her in the air, She immediately calmed down somewhat. "Oh! uh, Sorry 'bout that." Robert set her back down on his chest, rotated his head so that he was facing her, and said, "Care to explain why you just orgasmed all over my chest?"
Shannon explained while they shared a shower. They were both due in the Drydock to work on his ship in 45 minutes, and they had no time to seperately shower. "How do I explain this? You are basically a battery for another mage. You have this genourmous energy pool, but the only spells that you can cast, If I remember correctly, are energy taps. You can give engery to a mage, take it away from them and add it to your own pool, and you can tap mundane sources for energy and convert it into manna. Properly trained, you can provide a mage with a HUGE amount of energy to perform rather large effects." He nodded. "So, do we have anyone on board that can train me properly?" She shook her head. "Unfortuantely, wellsprings are VERY rare. Only another wellspring can properly train you, or someone who has worked closely with one. We don't have anyone qualified on board, I think. I'll ask Ch'Mee, he knows all sorts of people." They stepped out of the shower and put on fresh jumpers. Shannon looked at him as they went into the corridor. "Have you ever pulled a maintainence on a 'G' series?" Robert shook his head. "I know the differences, as they briefed us about a week before I was assigned to the Hillery, but I've never pulled one on a 'g' before. I've done everything up to an 'f', though." Shannon nodded. "Good, you won't be totally useless, then. We might even get done in under three hours, then." They entered the 'dock and found the rest of the repair team sitting around. "What's the hold up?" Shannon said. Zhal, the only male in the group, shrugged. "We are waiting for Stores to bring up the new cannon barrels, the modification gear, and new vanes." Shannon said, "OK. Keep your comms handy. I'm sure you've all got other stuff to do while you are waiting. Corlo and I will pull the routine stuff while we are waiting, and I'll call when the shit shows up."
The team almost immediately scattered, with some of the ladies snickering as they left. Robert noticed this. After they left, he asked, "What was the snickering about?" Shannon said nothing but closed her eyes. Robert could suddenly feel something radiate from her. It grew in size until it encompassed the entire drydock. This took 30 seconds, after which she opened her eyes. "I wove a privacy field around the drydock area. while having the rest of the team around would make this go so much faster, They really do have other things that are more important to do then pull routine maintainence on one fighter. We can bang this out in probably two hours if you are as good as you say you are, maybe even less." She winked at him. "Plus, we can talk about whatever we want. The snickering was because they think we are going to do some hanky panky while we are waiting for some of the lengthier processes to finish." Robert started laughing. "Like that's gonna happen! Besides, we can do that later!"
The process was mostly automated, but within 15 minutes they had all the inspection covers off, and were going over the bio-filtering plant. Robert started the purge of the recovery systems, and Shannon was surprised to hear the small printer in the compartment chung three times and go silent for 30 seconds before it repeated. "How did you know about the printer? None of the pther pilots ever use that thing!" Robert shrugged. "It's how I was taught. hang on a second." He plugged the lapel mike he was wearing into one of the lin in jacks on the open panel. "Gertrude, Please begin monitoring the purge process. Alert us if it goes out of spec, please." The small speaker built into the computer bay sounded off. "Affirmative. Estimated time remaining in prcess is 15 minutes." Robert unplugged and started on the next panel. Shannon looked at him. "Wait a minute, aren't we supposed to monitor that process?" Robert nodded. "Yep. And I'm doing just that. Gerty will signal if any of the readings go out of spec, and if that happens, I'll check the tally printout to see what happened. In the meantime, I can be doing other things, like checking the wear indicators on the RCS snappers, although I have a feeling that we are going to have to replace those anyhow, if Gerty's numbers were right. The nice thing is that we can replace those."
He plugged into yet another line jack, and then looked at the small dials in one of the quads. "Gerty, run diagnostic snapper checks on RCS 1, please. The speaker sounded off again. "Working." The thruster made several popping noises. "Gerty, run test 15 on RCS 1." The RCS made several series of rapid popping noises. Robert repeated the process on the other RCS pack on that arm before unplugging the mic. "Those are OK for one more sortie. You wanna help do the other arm, or are you going to let me do this by myself?" Shannon giggled and moved to the other arm. "Lemme show you how a pro does it. She plugged her mic into the line in on the computer bay. "Gertrude, run snapper checks on RCS packs 7 through 10, please." The port side of the ship made many popping noises as Shannon ran the checks. "Hmm, they sound ok to me. Test 15, same set." More popping noises. Robert finished his side at the same time as Shannon pronoused that the port side was OK. Robert grinned. "Gerty, Test 3, RCS 7 to 10 please, in order. The As the RCS packs in question started emmiting nitrogen, Robert noted which ones didn't fire as quickly. "ok, we'll replace the valves on 7-1, 8-2, 9-1, and 10-3. Gerty, same test, Packs 5 and 6." The packs on the top and bottom of the ship came alive. "Hmm, ok. Thanks Gerty. How is the purge going?" Gerty answered that everything was well within tolerance, and Shannon muttered "Ought to be, brand new fricken tub". She sounded cranky as being second guessed. Robert pulled the appropriate valves from he spare parts drawer kept in drydock and swapped out the valves.
By the time he finished, Shannon had finished the reamainder of the work required, and Gerty announced that the purge had completed. Handing the worn valves to Shannon, He asked Gerty to run internal maintainance, and he started to button up the bio bay. "This will take a half hour. Anything else to do? I think the rest of it we are waiting on the crap from Spares to bring up." Shannon was still staring at the valves, and shook her head. "Nope." She looked up at him. "Let's go have a seat and talk more." They used the half hour while they were waiting to talk more about what Robert's capabilites were supposed to be, and Shannon described more about the magics she was capable of performing. Some of these caused Robert to turn beet red, as she spoke frankly and stated that some of the effects required a willing partner to perform some form of sexual act with her. He got over it quickly enough, though, and the Equipment from Spares arrived about ten minutes before Gerty announced that she was finished.
Several hours later, the fighter looked in excellent shape, although it was now sporting six cannons instead of four. It also had a uprated power supply, and some redesigned steering vanes for the main engines. Shannon and robert also spent some time working on the paint job that sat atop the fighter, patching blast marks in the paint, and replacing a few of the armor plates that had taken serious damage. After they were done, they all locked down the drydock, cleared out, and put in the commands to cycle the fighter out and back into it's dock bay slot. They went up to the Mess and had lunch. By a stroke of luck Ch'Mee saw them and winked at Shannon. The rest of the meal was spent in silence, but instead of going back downstairs, they went up to Level Three and over to Room 55. They entered to find Jackson, Stromson, Ch'Mee, and another Tigerean dressed in a long grey cloak, and carrying an ancient looking staff. As they closed the door, The newcomer spoke. "Good afternoon, Robert Corlo and Shannon Ortiz. I take it the work on the fighter went well? Robert stayed absolutely motionless. Shannon asked a question. "Who are you?" The tigerean chuckled. "I am the Trainer of Wellsprings. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end. The fate of worlds hinge on my actions and choices. I am that which the magic community calls the Nexus. I am that which the Shivans call Death Incarnate. You may call me Tigra. I am here to teach you, Robert Corlo, how to empower your mate with the energy to help save the galaxy."
(1715/1667)