Coffee Cup Dreams (A Redpoint One Romance) (6 page)

Nothing threatening at all. In fact, they were
rather cute with their small heads and eyestalks, and the larger
rounded main body. Like a big white ladybug.

"Ready?" Mr. Getty asked, standing next to the
open door at the front of the pod.

She slipped into the front-facing bench seat.
"Thank you, Mr. Getty."

"Call me Arthur. We don't go on formality
around here," he said. "We work too closely together for
that."

Tish nodded, not surprised. He didn't seem
like the type who would insist on formality. Not like some of her
former bosses who preferred the employees always be reminded who
was in charge by how they addressed him.

"Sector 1157." His shoulder brushed against
her as he settled into the bench seat next to her while the pod
surged forward. "I want to apologize."

Tish started, turning her attention away from
the small tube the pod was heading into. "What?"

"You're new and usually I would not ask that
you come on such a repair for the first several weeks."

"This is an emergency?" she
guessed.

He nodded. "We need to track this problem down
and fast. Otherwise we're looking at a large-scale evacuation of
the sector. I would prefer not to do that."

Which brought to mind all the horror stories
of living in a space-based environment. Stories she didn't need to
bring to mind, but that she had to face head-on if she was going to
be a maintenance technician.

Which she should focus on. Really, she should.
She might be going into a dangerous situation.

But, the heat coming off him, the feel of
where his arm brushed hers. Going down that avenue of thought was
just as disturbing, even if for entirely different
reasons.

"Okay, what am I doing? Following and
watching?" She asked, getting rather furious at herself.

"And asking questions. Ask all you
want."

With his voice softer and his face not so
tense, she felt better about it than at first. While she hoped the
situation on the station, of being so short handed, had been the
reason for his anger early on, she couldn't shake what he'd said
about his brother.

It sounded as if Neil pulled strings with his
brother to get her the job. While she'd needed to leave Earth right
away, she would have preferred getting the job on her own merits.
If previous training hadn't been needed, well, she could qualify
for that all by herself!

And wow, did she not have training or
experience, she reminded herself as she stood in front of a wide
wall of pipes, wires, and cables weaving in and out of a wall with
angled protruding boxes. They joined two other men in front of it,
with introductions quickly made, and for a moment all of them
looked up at the wall. She couldn't see anything leaking, leaving
her no clue what held their attention.

Damien Lysander pointed out one junction.
"Past this it's fine, but I haven't been able to trace it up to
this system."

"Bots giving any clue?" Arthur
asked.

"Bots have been useless, like usual," the man
on the other side of Damien said, glaring at one of the bots
running past them.

"Ricardo, they are not useless," Damien said
with a shake of his head.

"The bots don't know where the problem is?"
Tish asked. The ones she could see certainly were busy enough. They
looked like they knew what they were doing, like the ones running
along a big pipe near the tall ceiling.

"This system isn't native to the space
station. We humans installed it to make the station more
comfortable for us. Sometimes the bots pick up on the problems of
human-built systems, sometimes they don't," Damien said, casting
her an appreciative glance. "I see we have a new
trainee."

A glance that usually would have made her
blush considering how handsome he was. Short sleeves and well-worn
pants fit snugly over a well built and muscled body. Thick dark
brown short hair spiked at the top, unusual green eyes. But oddly,
she didn't feel anything by it. She much preferred Arthur's lanky
frame to Damien's more compact build.

"Brand new from Earth," Arthur said,
continuing to study the jumble on the wall.

Tish returned her gaze to it helplessly,
knowing she would never have a chance of understanding how it all
worked. The more she studied it, the more nervous she became about
her choice to come to the station.

"I don't see how we have any choice. We start
tracing the lines one by one and hope we're dealing with an easily
dealt-with coolant leak and not a blockage. How long do we have
before sector life-support failure?" Arthur asked.

"Maybe till tomorrow morning," Damien said
with a shrug. "If the problem gets worse, sooner. You'll be the
first to know."

"Simon and Rachel already working on other
areas of the system? Good." Arthur turned a speculative look on
her. "Ready to get dirty?"

The wall didn't inspire any confidence, but
she nodded.

Ricardo gave her a hard half-grin. "Good luck
on your first day. Most don't survive it."

"Ricardo, the south line," Damien said curtly,
pointing down one of the corridors. "Watch the connections between
levels."

"I know what to do," Ricardo said with a
scowl, moving towards one of the maintenance corridors. A black and
white bot trailed off after him.

Damien turned back to Arthur, nodding in the
other direction. "Can you take the north-west lines?"

"You got it. Let me know if you have any
further problems with your apprentice."

Damien's frown deepened. "He has potential if
he would stop with the attitude. I'll deal with it."

Arthur nodded, gesturing to Tish for her to
follow him. As they moved out of the area and into the smaller
maintenance corridors he said back to her, "Attitude means a lot
more with this job than with most."

"Yes sir," Tish said quietly.

No attitude, watch, listen, and ask questions.
She ducked under a bundle of low pipes, wonder how anyone found
their way around if nothing was ever marked.

Why did such simple things feel so
overwhelming?

CHAPTER FIVE

TISH DID HER best to study their twists and turns, but she
couldn't find any rhyme or reason to them. A few minutes in and she
felt like they were going in circles, yet the differences in the
patterns of pipes told her the feeling was wrong.

She made sure to keep Arthur in sight at all
times. If she lost him now, she might be lost in the belly of the
station forever. "How can you know what direction you are heading?
What is north, what's south?"

"Entrance into the transit hyperspace
radiation tube is south. Exit is north. Or did you not see that
part of the station before docking?"

He turned down a branch from the main tunnel,
studying the walls and ceilings as he did. All of which looked the
same to her. What was he looking for? "Yes, I was in the cockpit.
Saw all of it, including the pirate chase."

"Right, you mentioned that. The east-west
parameter is more difficult, but is aligned with the main bridge of
the station. You'll get used to it as time goes on."

"Map?" She asked as they turned
again.

"A map won't help. Too complex, and some of
the corridors change with time."

Like in the movie. Changing behind people,
trapping them with nowhere to escape. Drat, she really regretted
watching the thing. Why couldn't she have gone to see a children's
movie?

"Are you claustrophobic?" He asked.

She started. "No, not that I know
of."

He ran a finger along a ridged black and gray
pipe as it turned into a smaller corridor, one not much taller than
her. One that looked to her to be nothing more than a
cubby-hole.

"This could be one of the problem areas. Take
the flashlight and follow it through. You're smaller so you'll fit
easier. If the access corridor branches, stay to the left. Look for
any breakage, leaks, or spills." He pointed down the corridor
they'd been following. "I'll track another supply pipe and meet you
where they meet."

And with that he left.

She sighed. Fine. She could do this. Follow a
silly pipe and stay in the main corridor. Look for anything
dripping. No problem.

Crawl-space, really. Barely enough room for
her to slip through sideways. The flashlight in her hand cast more
than enough light for her to see the pipe and find her way in the
small space.

The pipe stood out from the others. First, it
was always on the surface. Second, it had a distinctly different
appearance than the rest of the piping. Third, it didn't feel like
it belonged.

It made her wonder about the station. What
kind of life-support system did it have before humans came? Was it
still active? And the big question no scientist had yet been able
to answer: what did the aliens who built the station look
like?

She was guessing they'd been a really small
species, if the corridor she inched down was any indication. No
wonder Arthur sent her in. Not only was it narrow, but the ceiling
came down so low that some of the pipes and conduits brushed the
top of her head. Someone as tall and big as Arthur wouldn't have a
chance of getting through the narrow points.

A small white shape zoomed pass her at
eye-level making her jump with a sharp squeeek.

"Okay in there?" Arthur asked, his voice
echoing down the small corridor from somewhere in front of
her.

"I'm fine. No leaks yet," Tish shouted back,
realizing what she'd seen. Just in time for another miniature bot
to race past her, the body not much longer then her thumb. Still
the same shape as the bigger bots, but so small.

And cute.

She couldn't help grinning as she continued
tracing the path of the pipe. The small size made her itch for a
little bit of paint to paint them with the pattern of a ladybug. It
would be perfect for their size.

Okay, no threatening bots waiting in the
shadows just waiting for the right moment to attack and swarm over
her. She really shouldn't have gone to watch the movie with
friends.

Bright pinpricks of lights from the miniature
bot eyestalks bounced up and down above her from the ceiling. A
chorus of tinny calls echoed down the corridor.

She stopped to shine a light at them. "What
are you doing up there?"

A drop hit the top of the flashlight. Tish
jumped back, angling the beam along the ceiling, looking for where
the fluid might be coming from. The side of the pipe she was
tracing was wet, but on one side, not the bottom as she would have
expected. Angling the light better, she found a small patch of
moisture glistened from the light-gray pipes of the
station.

No, not pipes. It was a conduit. The moisture
must be coming from further up.

Another miniature bot raced by, joining the
other group of small bots. As one they gathered together to arrow
further down the corridor.

"Hey, come back here," Tish said before she
realized what she'd done.

The bots paused on their journey, turning
around to look back at her. She gestured upwards. "There is a leak.
We need to fix it before it eats through the power conduit and
life-support pipe."

Three of the bots altered course, heading
towards the problem area. Two more bots joined the first before she
realized what she'd said.

Eat through the power conduit? The pipe wasn't
marked. How could she have known the pipe was a conduit?

Just then the flashlight blinked out
accompanied by a sizzling noise.

She dropped the flashlight and backed away.
Away from the drip and the puddle that must be on the floor. She
hoped the bots could handle whatever substance was leaking and
eating through the pipes, because she wasn't about to take the
chance of it hitting her skin.

"Did something fall?" Arthur called
out.