Day 56: Bill's Hardware (noon)
[from here]
The hardware store was full of equipment, packed on shelves. Taura kept her elbows tucked in; the aisles were big enough for her to move in, but she still felt very visible -- like her height alone would betray their mission.
She'd wondered, before coming in, if most or all of the equipment would be so primitive as to be unrecognizable. Turned out there were only so many ways to make an open-ended wrench -- they hung on hooks rather than antigrav failure-friendly magnetized racks, but she could find everything she could need to field-repair anything from a plasma mirrorsuit to a shuttle's rockets. All she'd need was the mostly-intact pieces, and a lot of free time. She wasn't a mechanical genius. But she could get by.
The powered equipment was a little more exotic -- big buttons and dials everywhere, which was good in an emergency but there were so many of them on everything -- most of this stuff was manual, she realized. Electric assist for power, but nothing programmable. Huh. Mele probably needed something completely unpowered -- the flashlight batteries wouldn't do much even if they were compatible, and the staff weren't going to charge power packs just because they asked nicely.
Taura found a set of small wood chisels, with sharp ends. She flipped one end-over-end, and put it back. The handle was comfortable to hold, but it wouldn't fly worth a damn. "These are useless. You having any luck?"
The hardware store was full of equipment, packed on shelves. Taura kept her elbows tucked in; the aisles were big enough for her to move in, but she still felt very visible -- like her height alone would betray their mission.
She'd wondered, before coming in, if most or all of the equipment would be so primitive as to be unrecognizable. Turned out there were only so many ways to make an open-ended wrench -- they hung on hooks rather than antigrav failure-friendly magnetized racks, but she could find everything she could need to field-repair anything from a plasma mirrorsuit to a shuttle's rockets. All she'd need was the mostly-intact pieces, and a lot of free time. She wasn't a mechanical genius. But she could get by.
The powered equipment was a little more exotic -- big buttons and dials everywhere, which was good in an emergency but there were so many of them on everything -- most of this stuff was manual, she realized. Electric assist for power, but nothing programmable. Huh. Mele probably needed something completely unpowered -- the flashlight batteries wouldn't do much even if they were compatible, and the staff weren't going to charge power packs just because they asked nicely.
Taura found a set of small wood chisels, with sharp ends. She flipped one end-over-end, and put it back. The handle was comfortable to hold, but it wouldn't fly worth a damn. "These are useless. You having any luck?"