49-Valkyrie’s View: A Year Among the Stars
February 18th, 2552 A new Project
Shuttle pilot/Lab Rat/mechanic’s apprentice – Katherine ‘Kat’ James Reporting
It seems that before I can work on adding an arm to the Gumbo, I need to work on the arm on Big Momma. It started malfunctioning during some of the training runs for taking samples. So, I have to repair her, with Mac watching me/training me/working with me/letting me make mistakes in the interest of ‘learning’— I think he does it so he can take a smoke break while I clean up my mess.
After spending half the day fixing her and then reinforcing the arm to take more abuse, Cookie deemed me ready to work on the arm of the official landing craft – giving it the same reinforcement I’d given Big Momma – So I worked on the Pavane, with a very anxious Dancer hovering over my shoulder.
At least she didn’t try to explain what it needed to be able to do. On the bright side, after all the mistakes and missteps with Big Momma, the Pavane was – easy.
I was still very careful, but I knew the order and I knew when to tighten what.
By the time they let me loose on the Gumbo – I could have done it in my sleep, granted it was late enough I almost did do it in my sleep.
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