The Juggernaut (Juggernaut #1)

Fourteen

The next day they gathered at Malachi's workshop to see what he had learned from the chip.

The workshop was always a mess, and Tila remembered why she avoided it. Apart from her unsettled relationship with Malachi's father she hated the disarray. She liked things neat and ordered.

Malachi sat at one end of a low hangar on a high stool in front of a workbench covered in diagnostic tools. The space behind him was only large enough to accommodate one small transport or two personal vehicles.

Row upon row of metal racking filled the walls either side of him, apart from the doorway, and every inch of shelving was filled with boxes. Each box contained spare parts, or other basic components. Some boxes contained larger items that were either being assembled or disassembled. It was impossible to tell the difference.

Tila had peeked inside the boxes once. They were neatly organised. Malachi and Theo could easily find any item they wanted very quickly, but apart from their stores, the rest of the room was a mess.

Cables, wires, pipes, tubing, iso-chips, computer cores, broken AI modules, damaged ventilation systems, hydration units, air-filtration housings, waste recycling processors (they all stayed clear of these) and the like, covered almost every surface.

The third wall was home to stores of lubricants and other exotic, and possibly toxic, liquids.

It was partly this lack of space which meant that Theo had to travel as much as did. There was very little room left to bring the work home.

Tila wondered why, for example, someone would need sixteen, apparently identical, tools to remove worn bolts. Theo had once tried to explain to her the difference between clockwise and counter-clockwise threading. The advantages and disadvantages of quad, hex and octo shafts, and the different electrical properties of each type of metal, and why these details were so very important, but Tila had failed to grasp these inscrutable facts.

She had become bored and confused. Theo had become impatient and frustrated, and together they ended up turning something that should have brought them closer into something which drove them further apart.

Tila preferred Malachi's approach to technology. This involved him looking at something, fixing it, and giving it back. She suspected (rightly) that her bored expression had somehow been interpreted by Theo as disrespect, but that couldn't be further from the truth. She had a great deal of respect for Malachi's father. She just didn't like him very much.

Filling the limited space between all these things was Theo's ship. It squatted in the centre of the workshop, its angular bulk hiding the bay doors on the fourth wall.

The ship was clearly built with utility in mind rather than anything that could be mistaken for comfort.

Although an old design it was still eminently practical. Large gull-wing doors on each side of the craft allowed easy access to tools and equipment.

At one time, Theo had considered replacing the gull-wing mechanism with a sliding door to save space. Malachi had instead cleverly redesigned the doors so they could provide easier access to their gear. Now the open doors saved space instead of consuming it.

Bunks inside the ship enabled a crew of three to work on location for extended periods. It was not a luxurious place to spend time, but it made it possible for Theo to undertake work which would not be practical in his workshop, located as it was some distance inside the hull of the Juggernaut.

The fact that the workshop was difficult to access from the outer hull was one of the reasons his family had settled in this area. What it lacked in space and practicality it made up for in the price.