Chương 233: 91. Nerd's Moment to Shine 2

"Engine-room basic maintenance simulation," translated into normal language, meant: Throw a bunch of non-engineers into a space full of high-temperature piping, warning lights, pressure gauges, covers, and standard toolkits, and tell them not to hit anything like a monkey. The sim zone sat just outside the main engine hall — a sealed-off training circuit. We weren't touching the live core, but just standing in front of those teaching rigs was enough to scare half the humanities majors in here.

Each pair got a maintenance panel, a section of scaled-down heat-exchange loop, a standard tool set, two error lights, and a process sheet. Victor stood by the master console, one hand on his flask, the other on a pointer, voice loud enough to make it sound like the whole engine room owed him money.

"Look at the steps. Not the tools. Before you pick up a wrench, use your eyes to confirm whether what you're about to grab will send you to join your ancestors!" D had just picked up a wrench. He put it down again, very quietly. Roy murmured, "First time I've ever seen you grow self-awareness off one sentence."

"This isn't self-awareness," D said, stricken.

"This is survival instinct." Over on their line, Harvey's world looked completely different. Victor had barely finished explaining the first manual calibration step and Harvey had already skimmed the whole flow chart. When the error light on their panel flicked on, he went for the pressure gauge first like it was a reflex, then reached for the correct valve without hesitating. Aida had started in helper mode. Within minutes she'd been demoted to handing him tools and double-checking steps.

"Slow down," Aida said at last.

"You're making me look redundant."

"It's not you," Harvey said without looking up.

"This alarm is just obvious."

"... That's worse." Victor gave their bay a long look and actually nodded.

"Harvey's team. Acceptable." Everyone else felt the pressure crank up a notch. Because when the instructor drinking on the job is saying someone else "looks acceptable," everyone who hasn't heard their name called automatically starts feeling like an accident report in progress. Maki and I drew "Secondary Heat-Exchange Branch No. 2: Flow Joint Replacement plus Cooling Pressure Restoration Test." Sounds impressive.

Translated: take the old joint off, put a new one on, make sure the seal's straight, and bring the pressure back up to spec. The catch is that if you skip even one line in the flow, the next screen says why does this gauge look like it's about to blow. I crouched by the pipework and checked the sheet.

"You dismount, or me?" Maki already had the toolbox open, pulling out a standard open-ended wrench and a seal gauge.

"I'll pull it. You watch the seal."

"You're very quick to assign roles."

"You just spent three seconds staring at the seal ring."

"... Exactly how much attention do you normally pay to other people?" She didn't answer. Just seated the wrench on the collar, dropped her shoulder, and cracked the joint loose in one smooth pull. Rock-steady. Steady enough that I caught myself thinking she wouldn't look out of place down here full-time.

"Don't drift off," Maki said.

"Seal."

"Yeah, yeah." I popped the old ring, checked the surface, and slid the new one in. The metal was warm under my fingers even through the outer casing — a little bleed from the real heat inside. That was the most dangerous thing about Victor's class. He was too clear. Clear enough that you started to feel these things were no longer background or set dressing or someone else's job. Every joint, every bar of pressure, every loop of seal started looking like one more reason this ship still had a heartbeat.

"Done," I said, handing the new joint over. Maki took it, seated, tightened, brought the line back up. Too smooth. Smooth enough that for a second I forgot this was a graded exercise and not the two of us negotiating shower time. Across the aisle, Jess and Lan were having a rougher go. Jess had strength and speed — too much of both. Victor had barely said "don't crank it all the way down in one go, find the seat first" when Jess was already torquing the bar hard enough to make the metal sing.

Lan cut in, flat: "Any harder and we get a live demo on catastrophic joint failure." Jess bristled.

"I know what I'm doing." Lan eyed the bar that was starting to glow with murderous intent.

"Your 'knowing' is currently more dangerous than Takenaka's patience." Victor heard the pitch of the metal from halfway across the bay and barked without even turning around:"Whoever's over there trying to solve everything with brute force — back it off half a turn! You're fixing a joint, not wringing someone's neck!" The room froze for a beat. Then D cracked up — right up until his own error light screamed in his face. Beep — malfunction.

"What the — why?!" Roy stared at the panel, sounding half-dead.

"Because you hit the manual reset on the backup cooling pump like it was a vent purge." D looked down at the button he'd just mushed, with the expression of someone who'd personally signed off on a maritime disaster.

"They look exactly the same!"

"They don't." Victor had materialized behind them at some point, booze and professional weight dropping over them together.

"One gets the system back. The other gets you tossed out of my engine room." D snatched his hand back.

"Understood, Chief. I am now redrawing the entire button map in my soul." Akari and Evelyn weren't having a great time either. Akari grabbed the gauge probe with total confidence — then read it upside down and nearly turned their entire loop check into performance art. Victor actually pointed Harvey at the rest of us at that point.

"You, engineering boy." He gestured with the flask.

"Go keep this lot from turning my training rigs into percussion instruments." Harvey blinked, then lit up.

"Yes, sir!" If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. D watched him walk over with deep spiritual confusion.

"Great. He's not just a student now. He's a junior instructor." Harvey took one look at their panel and D's hands.

"You skipped a step."

"I did not."

"You did." He tapped the chart.

"Confirm back-pressure here, then switch the pump. You switched first." D stared for three seconds.

"... I am beginning to understand what humanities majors feel in an engineering lab."

"You should've understood that already."

"You're being very harsh today."

"Because the Chief is watching." Too true to argue with. When Maki and I finally brought the pressure back up to standard value and watched the fault light step from red to amber to green, I felt an odd wash of satisfaction. Not the rush of beating an instructor. Something quieter — the specific satisfaction of having taken something that was wrong and moved it back to where it was supposed to be.

"Cleared," I said under my breath. Maki checked the gauge and then the joint edge again.

"Mm. Your seal seated more evenly this time." I glanced over.

"That a compliment?"

"That's feedback."

"What kind of feedback?"

"That you didn't put the ring in backwards."... For fuck's sake. This person is constitutionally incapable of saying something like a normal human being. And yet I was still smiling. Victor came by, tapped our panel, thumped the joint with his knuckles.

"Acceptable." He nodded.

"At least you didn't give me a leak." Out of someone else's mouth, that might not mean much. Out of his, it was basically praise. The whole module wrapped in a mess of clanging tools, booze fumes, metal ringing, Harvey radiating smug competence, and D getting repeatedly slapped by the error panel. When Victor finally announced, "Hands off. Stop abusing my equipment," every one of us exhaled at once. Then he smiled in a way that made my stomach tighten.

"Good," Victor said.

"Indoor toys are done."... Wait. Indoor toys? He pointed toward the hatch.

"Next up. Zero-G exterior repair training." The group fell silent as one. Only Jess's eyes lit up. Only Harvey looked genuinely relieved there was a second phase. The rest of us — myself very much included — were all thinking the same thing. The Federation had no interest whatsoever in the concept of gradual. The zero-G extravehicular repair training area was not what I'd imagined. I'd half-expected something big and sleek and sci-fi. Instead it felt like a deliberately cold, hard industrial bay.

Outer wall was a large observation window, looking out on mock external plating and training gantries. Inside, a full line of repair suits, mag-tools, attitude jets, safety tethers, and standardized repair packs hung in order. Just that wall of gear was enough to make it clear: if you embarrassed yourself today, it would be a full-body experience. Victor stood in front of the racks and, for once, reached for the suit instead of the flask.

"Look closely. Hull work is not romance. It's math." Even Jess raised an eyebrow at that.

"You have no up out there," Victor went on.

"No down. No floor. You have vector, inertia, the tether, and whether or not your brain's still with you." He tapped the small attitude thruster pack mounted on the suit's back.

"This is not for looking cool. One tap is velocity. Second tap is loss of control. If you puke in your helmet, I'm not cleaning it up." D's face froze.

"Chief, that warning was… very specific."

"Because it happens every year," Victor said, not even glancing at him.

"More than once." Roy stared down at his harness, going pale.

"I no longer wish to be educational material."

"You've been that since yesterday," Lan said. Victor demonstrated the double-clip tether lock as he listed hazards like menu items:"One. Lose a tool, and now you've got a projectile. Two. Miss a tether, and now you're the projectile. Three. Thrusters firing wild — congratulations, you're in a washing machine. Four. Panic and grab for the wrong thing, and you'll drag your buddy with you. Five. Don't assume having a partner makes it safe. They might be the one who pukes first."

The pedagogical philosophy of this course was admirably concise and completely without mercy. We suited up. The EVA suits weren't about attack or defense the way combat armor was — more like a thick, heavily functional second skin. Retention rings, magnetic clips, attitude nozzles, tool interfaces, life-support modules — everything strapped to the outside until you felt like you'd been packaged as a high-value replacement part. I clicked the gloves home. Maki was already behind me, checking my rear tether ring.

"Right-side latch isn't seated," she said.

"You grow a third eye back there or what?"

"You hesitated when you clipped it." She pressed the hardware in until it snapped with a clean clack.... People like this are genuinely a problem. You know they're just doing the job right, and your heart still does something unnecessary anyway. Jess passed by from the other side, caught the moment, and gave a low whistle.

"Second-class comes with after-sales service. Nice." I didn't look up.

"Do you physically need to stir the pot every ten minutes to keep breathing?"

"This isn't stirring," Jess said, sounding offended on principle.

"This is observing shared operational chemistry." Maki ignored her completely and hooked the tool pack onto my belt.

"Wrenches are on your left. You grab tools right-handed — don't cross-grip out there."

"... Understood." Victor checked us over one last time, then announced, with zero transition:"Alright. In." No take it easy. No get used to it first. Just — in. The training bay opened and we went in by pairs. The second the mag soles let go and my feet left the deck, the first thing through my head wasn't danger. It was: right. Bodies really do forget where down is. No weight. No fall. Just directionlessness, and my own breathing turning careful all on its own.

Right in the middle of that philosophically loaded moment, D became today's first casualty. He must have wanted to do a smooth, confident push with the thrusters. He misjudged the force and started rotating in place. Not fast enough to be dangerous. Worse. Slow. Steady. Completely visible. Entirely undignified. Like a keychain that had lost its self-respect. The comm line went quiet for a beat. Then Jess cracked up.

"D, what are you doing — giving us a 360-degree tour of yourself?" He tried to sound dignified, still spinning.

"This is... tactical field-of-view expansion." Victor's voice cut clean into the channel.

"Tactical my ass. Micro-burst right, short pulse. You're not squeezing toothpaste." D fumbled through the correction, overshot, and stopped the spin just in time to drift sideways across the frame until the tether snapped him back like a badly thrown yo-yo. Roy shut his eyes on another line.

"I finally understand the washing-machine metaphor." Harvey's lane was the opposite. He froze for one heartbeat on entry, then found the rhythm — pulse, settle, grip, move. Not pretty, but controlled. Victor watched from the observation bay and actually nodded once. Jess adapted faster than anyone.

She has a dangerous affinity for any environment that qualifies as not normal but fun, and within minutes she was threading between gantries on controlled puffs, looking like someone born to flirt with the risk curve out here. Our task was "External Panel Swap plus Surface Flow Line Reseat." In plain language: drift to the marked spot, pull a faulty panel, mount the new one, snap a loose airflow guide back into place. Tech wasn't the problem. Zero-G was.

Get one push wrong and you're not fixing the panel; the panel is quietly judging you.

"Lock yourself first," Maki said over comms.

"I know."

"Reminder. Not accusation."

"It sounded like both."

"Call it redundancy." I sniffed, but still double-clipped the tether before pushing out toward the mounting frame. Maki was even more economical without gravity. Not fast. Not showy. Just stripped down — every move like she'd pre-solved it. Thrusters only burned the minimum. Grips tight, wrist angles small. Watching her felt like watching someone delete every unnecessary frame. The upside of working with someone like that is you feel safer.

The downside is you feel very much like the average viewer in a training video. I braced at the panel edge, locked my position, and reached for the first latch.

"Don't pull the upper-left yet," Maki said.

"Why?"

"It's carrying the flow line tension. You pull it now, the panel pops." I stopped, looked. She was right.

"... How did you spot that?"

"It was vibrating."... Of course. By the time I got the first fastener off, disaster had landed elsewhere. Akari, either overeager or trying too hard to look good, grabbed a handhold from the wrong angle and launched herself backwards, yanking a probe clean off her belt as she went.

"Ah— wait— wait—!" The probe floated away at the exact wrong speed. Evelyn made a grab for it and almost pulled herself off-line. Victor's voice detonated in the channel.

"Forget the tool! Lock yourselves in! What did I just say in there?!" Harvey was closest. He burned over fast and stabilized Akari. Another tech speared the drifting probe with a telescoping mag-rod, reeling it in before it became permanent space junk. D stayed quiet for two whole seconds, then said, very small:"See? At least I was just spinning."

"You proud of that?" Roy said.

"I'm re-benching the shame scale." I bit back a laugh and slotted the new panel onto its seat. Maki floated the fasteners over.

"Hook."

"Got it." We ran smoother than I'd expected. Not heroic, just aligned — you do your part, I do mine, and we both happen to know what the other needs three seconds out. Zero-G slows everything down and amplifies every tiny mistake. Which also means when it does come together, you can feel the alignment that much more clearly.

"Flow line," Maki reminded me.

"On it." I pressed the loose guide back into its track and reached for the clamp — misjudged the angle a bit, and drifted half a body-length off. Maki's hand closed on my harness, quick and precise, and hauled me back into working angle.

"Don't rush." I stared at the metal in front of me and nearly said "I'm not." I didn't. Because I had been.

"... Copy."

"Mm." Just that. But in zero-G it sounded closer than usual. We finished the swap, locked the flow line, and watched the indicator cycle to green. When my boots hit the deck again, my back was soaked. Zero-G maintenance eats more of your head than it looks like. When we were finally reeled back into the bay, everyone else looked like I felt. Alive. Not pretty. D was still moaning that his spin shouldn't count as an incident, just a "stylistic malfunction." Akari was quietly repenting the nearly-lost probe.

Harvey, still catching his breath, was asking Victor if that one interface really used Kushima's new seal-lock. Victor looked over the lot of us — scattered, scuffed, tempers frayed — took a drink, and snorted.

"Good." Every head came up.

"At least nobody managed to fix themselves right off the hull today." The bar was low. But low or not, it actually hit. Because if Victor Borodin was willing to call something at least you didn't throw yourself into space, that genuinely meant we'd crossed his passing line. Helmet off, taking the first breath of air back under normal gravity, I had one thought: The third assessment had finally stopped pretending. No more hitting. No more chasing. No more cutting. Something quieter.

The kind of thing that goes wrong without noise — and because of that, exactly the kind of place that takes the unspoken, half-formed things between people and forces them, little by little, into the light.