Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 53 - Cascading Failures (Patreon)

“What moron forgot to cap this valve?” demanded Maya, already going to work on fixing the egregious mistake.  “And why am I the one to find it?”

Her wrench turned, the threads of the bolt sliding seamlessly into place.  They corkscrewed around, one revolution after another, and with metronomic precision.  Such was the advantage of spending decades as an Engineer.  That wrench was part of her as surely as a sword was an extension of a Warrior’s arm. 

A few moments later, the valve sealed and the cloud of ethera began to dissipate.  Finally, she turned her attention to the other nearby workers.  They were all good at their jobs, but that was only when they bothered to focus.  That was the great issue with Engineers.  So long as they had a crisis, they were quick-witted and motivated.  But when it came to maintenance?

She’d have rather had just about anyone else working under her.

That wasn’t how the world worked, though.  She couldn’t just go find some manual laborers.  They wouldn’t get anything out of working on the engineering level, save for when they were required to move heavy things.  Even then, their efforts at progression would be diluted by a lack of suitability. 

Engineers got experience for it, though.

So, the expedition had attracted the best Earth had to offer.  Which meant that they all wanted to be working on new designs, building fantastical machines that changed the world. 

Not performing routine maintenance that a child could do.

Wandering minds and sloppy work was the result, and fighting the battle against those factors had become the biggest part of Maya’s job.  And just like all the other Engineers, she hated the mundanity of it all.  The only difference was that she was just obsessive enough to overcome the tendency to lose focus.

That was why she was the boss.

Unfortunately.

“So?  No answers?” she asked, turning to face the others.  They were all dirty, sweaty, and dog tired. 

“Numa didn’t show up today.”

“Huh?  That’s not like her.”

Numa was one of the rare sea elf Engineers, and she was so dedicated to her craft that she avoided many of the stereotypes that affected Maya and the others.  The Chief Engineer often cited Numa as an example for everyone else to emulate, which was one of the reasons she’d gotten the job as head inspector. 

Her days were mostly spent checking and re-checking the systems, looking for even minor issues that everyone else would miss.  There were two other inspectors working under her, but they were only as dedicated as Numa made them be.

In short, she was the lynchpin of the redundancy system they’d implemented after the danger of sabotage became clear.

Without her, standards wouldn’t be nearly where they needed to be. 

So, of all the people Maya expected to have missed a shift, Numa was the last one on the list. 

“Anyone hear from her?” asked Maya, already reaching into her coveralls pocket to retrieve her phone.  She was immediately greeted by a thousand alerts and messages, most of which she intended to ignore.  The system was set up to automatically update her as to the Vengeance’s status, but she didn’t need it.  Her abilities gave her all the information she needed.

So, she swiped past those and called Numa.

The other woman didn’t pick up.

That was when alarm bells started to ring.  Not the metaphorical kind, either.  A literal alarm klaxon exploded across the engineering deck, echoing off the pipes and fighting for their attention. 

“What the –”

Maya never got the chance to finish her exclamation before something rammed into her back.  Her legs immediately stopped working, and she fell to the ground.  As her cheek hit the metal grate, she heard screams.  But they sounded so far away.

So, so very far.

And they were fading a little more with every passing instant.  Time felt like it stood still as her face dug into the hard metal.  She tried to move her legs, but they wouldn’t respond.  Her upper body was still capable of movement, but a creeping cold had begun to travel up her spine to infect the rest of her body.

She had seconds to react.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a countdown began.  Even as chaos erupted all around her, she got to work.  The first step was to trigger her failsafe.  A little device loaded with one of Biggle’s healing potions and tied to her phone.  She only needed to press a button, and it would inject that rejuvenating liquid into her flesh.

It would go to work from there.

The only problem was that her phone had fallen a few feet away.  Just out of reach.  Maya gritted her teeth, then reached out.  Or she tried to, at least.  Her arms twitched a bit.

But they didn’t really move.

An explosion rocked the engineering level, sending blistering ethera through the atmosphere.  More people screamed, in pain, alarm, and giving orders.  Maya barely heard them.

She couldn’t even see them.

But she did see that her phone had jostled a little closer.  It lay only a few inches from her face.  Cold crept up her spine, squeezing it.  Her chest constricted as breathing became more difficult.  Her diaphragm seized as she hyperventilated. 

Focusing her considerable willpower, she managed to move her head.  Just a couple of inches, but it was enough for her nose to hit her phone.  With tears streaming down her cheeks, she used that unsuitable appendage to navigate to the appropriate screen.  Then, at last, she pushed the button.

She didn’t even feel the prick at her waist as the little needle extended, but she definitely felt the potion scorching its way through her.  The frigid invasion creeping up her spine fought back, but the potion had been made by Biggle himself.  Not one of his apprentices.  He was the most powerful Alchemist on Earth, and he hadn’t achieved that designation because of his powerful friends.

He was a master.

And his potions were the proof.

Still, it was barely capable of countering the invasive ethera, and then only because of Maya’s natural regeneration.  If she’d lacked a few levels or even one body cultivation tier, she would have already died. 

However, it still managed the job, albeit incompletely. 

Her legs were still numb and useless, but she recovered enough to move everything above her waist.  Moreover, her mind cleared, and the panic of being on death’s door faded into the background, allowing her to take stock of the situation.

It was chaos.

Whatever panic she’d felt paled in comparison to the absolute hysteria that had gripped everyone else.  Half the engineering level was on fire.  The other half was progressively flooded with volatile ethera, thick enough to burn anyone below middle demigod.  And it grew thicker with every passing second.

Through it all were shadows that could only be saboteurs.

Assassins.

Enemies.

Fortunately, the alarms had brought a response, first from the Vengeance’s security team, who arrived with heavy weapons.  Then, the big hitters descended.  Even as people like Miguel and a group of other demigods fought, Maya dragged herself upright.  Clinging to one of the rails, she took stock of the engineering level.

A cursory glance told her that seventeen pipes had burst.  Three tanks had been cracked open.  And at least one of the pumps had been destroyed. 

Four of her team lay dead, their blood dripping through the metal grates to accumulate far below.

But just as many were alive.  Not well.  Injured and in terrible shape.  But alive nonetheless.  Getting them on their feet was the first step. 

Maya dragged her useless legs forward, then, one by one, activated her team’s emergency potions.  Even then, she was too late to save two others.  Jackie and Phil.  She felt their deaths in the pit of her stomach, but she didn’t allow herself to react.  Instead, she slapped Ricky across the face, snapping him out of his shocked state.

“Get to those pipes!” she shouted.  “We fix those, or we’re all dead!  Got it?!”

He just nodded.

She shoved his wrench into his hand.  He’d dropped it from numb fingers after the assassin’s attack.  Taking it, he regained some degree of confidence.  His nod firmed, and he set his jaw before heading off to do what he needed to do.

At that very moment, the Vengeance shook as something attacked it from outside.

Maya lost her grip on the railing and once again fell face-first into the catwalk.  Groaning, she grabbed a cutting tool from her toolbelt and dragged herself back upright.  Only then did she start hacking the railing apart.

To someone who didn’t know her, she might have looked like someone throwing a fit.  And with her limp legs dangling uselessly below her, they probably would have understood her frustration.

But Maya wasn’t in the midst of a tantrum.  She had a goal, and it presented itself after only a few moments when she used her abilities to tie everything together.  A little ethera injection, and the crude contraption came alive.

Her spider-like legs clanked against the catwalk as she rested in a hastily belt harness.  Keeping the thing active was an exercise in minute ethera control, and even then, it was incredibly taxing.  She couldn’t keep it going for more than half an hour – unless she built a true engine, rather than constructing it from her own ethera.

For now, it would work, though.

It only took her a few minutes to put together, but by the time she’d finished, the assassins were dead, overwhelmed by sheer firepower and the best combatants the Vengeance had to offer. 

They couldn’t stick around, though.  More alarms blared throughout the ship, evidence that the sabotage hadn’t been limited to the engineering deck.  The ship shuddered, falling a few hundred feet before the backup systems came online. 

Maya, who’d held on with the little grips she’d built onto her legs, shouted, “Get back to work!  Fix those pipes!”

They’d drilled for just such a catastrophe, but a real emergency came with a level of terror that no one could replicate.  Driving the attack home was the fact that the ship continued to shake with every attack on the outside.  Doubtless, the defenses held.  Otherwise, they’d have already fallen from the sky.

But that wouldn’t remain the case if they neglected their jobs.

So, just as she’d instructed her people to do, Maya went to work mending the damage caused by the saboteurs.  Almost immediately, it became apparent that the attackers had been watching them for quite some time.  They knew precisely which pipes to weaken, which fuel tanks to rupture. 

The only reason it hadn’t been more effective was because of the sheer number of redundancies they’d built into the system.  Even Maya had lost track of each layer of defense. 

However, that did nothing to mitigate their desperation.  Ever failure brought them closer to oblivion.  So, mounted on her metal, spider-like legs, Maya picked a problem to fix and started working.

One pipe after another, she mended.  Doing so only exposed more problems, which she addressed, one-by-one.  The saboteurs were thorough.  And they were subtle.  Some of the issues she found would have been missed by just about anyone else.  But Maya had built most of the engineering level, so she knew exactly where everything was supposed to go.

Still, there was a limit to what she could do with her limited amount of time.

Never did that become more apparent than when the last dregs of her reservoir of ethera petered out, and her crude machine fell apart.  She managed to grab a rail before she hit the deck, but only barely.

Her muscles trembled.

So did the Vengeance.

“Someone take her to a Healer!” shouted Ricky, who’d regained his composure.  Solid, dependable Ricky.  Then, to her, he said, “We got this boss.  Get better and come back when you’re healed.  We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Maya didn’t have the energy to argue, and she lost consciousness almost as soon as one of her coworkers threw her over their shoulder and began the long trek to the infirmary.  One thing she did see was that the worst of the damage had been repaired.  The ship wouldn’t function at peak efficiency, but nor would it fall from the sky.

That would have to be enough.