Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 10

And here's the remainder of Chapter 4, bringing me, as of last night, to 19,287 words!

* * *

"I know each and every one of you new Peas are ready, no, eager to jump right to work and get OPS-1 up and generating power by 1200 Zulu time tomorrow." their guide told them, as he pulled himself along the corridor. "However, we prefer to follow the plan. And if you entertain any hopes of staying here, you too will follow the plan. You will come to love the plan, is that clear?"
A ragged chorus of assent rose, from the recent arrivals as they struggled to keep up with him. Several had lost grip on the pull bars and floated in the middle of the passage. Two, including Dermot, were attempting to 'swim' close enough to either a wall or another group member to grab on. He and the other new crewperson had just about reached their goal when the guide, also known as Assistant Third Shift Supervisor Robert Mitchell, realized that part of the group had fallen behind.
"Hold up! Everyone stop right here." he commanded, his voice carrying contempt in it. As they worked to cease their forward motion he continued, "Did anyone notice that some of your fellow Peas came loose and drifted out of range of the pull bars? Well? Did anyone?"
"I did" said Nancy Smith, popping into his view about half-way down the line.
"Any others."
Choruses of, "Me. I did, too. And me." floated out along with the hands and faces of those who spoke.
"That's wonderful." He spoke with a slight smile pasted on his lips, a smile that didn't make the journey to his eyes. "So each of you, each one of you, who saw your mates were having problems chose to ignore their plight and continue onward. Do I have that right?"
"No." one man replied.
"No? Can you point out which person you helped. Is it the person right in front of you or the one right behind you?"
"I didn't mean it that way. I didn't abandon anyone. We're in a hall. It's not as if they're in any danger here," the man responded. "And it's not as if..."
"Stop right there!" Mitchell thundered. "We're in a passageway, surrounded along it's length by space. Look at that 'wall' and look at it closely; it's a mere half-inch thick. Sure, it's the toughest layered composite structure we could make for it's weight, but a simple 3 inch nail could puncture it." With each sentence he pounded the skin of the corridor, causing it to flex outward. By the end of his statements, the entire length of the tube was flexing, forming a standing wave. More of the group lost hold and floated to the middle of the tube, including the target of his anger. As the vibrations stopped two moved as if to help the floaters.
"Don't move!" he shouted. "Do not help them. Now, Mister..." he read the name tag on the skinsuit as he pulled to just far enough away to be out of the man's flailing reach, "Duggins. Could you tell me the lesson you've just learned from all this?"
"Uhhh... Don't let go?" Duggins asked, hope and fear warring in his eyes.
"Wrong. Would you care to try again?" Mitchell floated less than an arm's length from the wall. "I have all shift, so take your time," he taunted.
"I don't know, all right! I don't know."
"Then you get to hang there until you or one of your fellows gets it right. Since Mr. Duggins doesn't know the answer, anyone else who wants to can have a go at it." He twisted around, looking at all of them. "Anyone? Anyone at all? C'mon, someone better answer or Mr. Duggins is going to soil himself right here and now. He's already worked up quite a sweat."
Ellen spoke up. "Sir? Is it not to abandon a team mate?"
"Yes! Exactly right! We never abandon a team mate." With that, he reached out and hauled Duggins to the passage wall. "Do you get the lesson, Duggins? Do you all get the lesson?"
He made another slow 360-degree spin, searching for confirmation they had heard. "You never abandon a team mate. Not out here; it's too dangerous. Just working on a huge construction project would be dangerous enough, but we're working in an environment that will kill a man in less than a minute. That means you're working in a twice-deadly zone. You don't add to that by being careless of your friend, co-workers and team mates."
"There's an unwritten rule for everyone working up here. Leave it down below. If you find out the guy next to you is cheating at cards and stealing your money, you stop playing cards with him and you deal with it down below. If your boyfriend cheats on you with your roommate, deal with it down below. If you and a co-worker both want the last dessert, and she takes it right out of your reach for the fifth time in a row, handle it when you get down below!" At that last statement, one of the women tried, without success, to stifle a snort of laughter.
He whirled around to her. "You don't believe me? You don't think you'd start a fight over the last butterscotch pudding cup? What's your name?"
"Rachael Montgomery." she answered, still smiling. "And no, I'm not that desperate to fight over a pudding cup." Her look dared him to prove her wrong.
He reached up to a large pin on his collar, tapping it twice. "Rachael Montgomery has chosen to give Assistant Shift Supervisor Robert Mitchell her evening dessert rations until further notice." He tapped it twice again. "When you decide I'm right, you can have your desserts back."
"You can't just take my desserts away, arbitrarily!" she shouted, launching herself at him. Several of her fellow workers tried to stop her, but she slid right past them - into his reach.
He engulfed her wrists in one of his hands, jerked her arms up and whirled her around, wrapping his legs around her waist.
"Now what are you going to do, Montgomery?" he said, his mouth next to her left ear. "You're trapped, floating, no source of leverage and you've just attempted to strike your supervisor. If I put this in your employee file, you'll be spending four years down below working off your commitment, with no chance of ever getting back in space. Are the desserts worth all that? More important, do you really want to start a fight here and now?" He looked at the rest of them. "Well? Your team mate is in trouble. You have two, no, three choices. One, you can try to attack me, get written up and be grounded for life. Two, you can walk away, abandon her to whatever I want to do. Or three, you can try to convince her of the truth behind my words, as well as promise me to do your best to teach her to be a solid team mate."
"I'll do it." J'Shawn said. "I'll take responsibility for her."
"So will I," added Tom Duggins.
"Me too." said Xiu Lin Chiang.
"We all will. She's worked too hard, and so have we, to get here." Dora said. "Point taken. Lesson learned."
"Do you agree, Montgomery? Your mates are willing to stick their necks out for you." Mitchell asked. "Will you work with them, or will you let them down?"
"Yes." she growled. "I'll do it. You can let me go. But you're unfair. What you just did was rotten."
Swinging her to the bar, he released her. "It was unfair. However, life can be unfair. And you just had a lesson in how unfair life can be. Pray you never have to face a tougher one." He tapped his communicator again. "Rachael Montgomery loses dessert for only one week." he said and tapped it off.
"I thought you said I would lose them indefinitely?"
"That was just to help the lesson along."
"Then why do I still lose desserts for a week?"
"Would you rather I took official notice of your attack? If I must write you up, you pay a heavy cost, so decide, which would you rather have, instant, and off-the-books or an official punishment?"
"Oh. The lost desserts," she pouted. "I'm not stupid."
"Look alive, Peas!" he turned and shouted at the rest of them. "You've got mates hanging in the middle of the passage who can't reach the walls. Are you just going to float there, or are you going to help them?"
Those who weren't floating free, moved and stretched out to those still stranded, pulling them to the bars.

* * *

After the cramped warren of dorm rooms, cafeteria, briefing rooms and corridors, Ante-Orbital Egress and Docking Bay, called 'A Dock' by everyone except the specifications manuals and the planners back on Earth - Post Orbital Egress and Docking Bay was known as 'P Dock' - was unsettling in it's expanse. It measured a full 45 meters wide by 60 meters long, it's ceiling never getting closer to the deck than 12 meters. Most of it jammed with positioning jigs, frame parts and bustling workers, a tiny corner held about one third of the group of new workers that had just arrived on-station; the rest of the group had been split evenly between first shift and third shift.
As they had requested to be a team, Dora, Dermot, Ellen and J'Shawn had been assigned together on second shift. All four were sealed in their suits, trying to stay close to the rest in order to stay out of the way of the more experienced workers as they listened to the leader assigned to bring them up to speed on the day's assigned task. Some of their group had chosen to float somewhat higher in order to see over the helmets of their friends.
"Has everyone switched to Channel 17?" asked Second Shift Tow Pilot Etienne, their mentor for the day. "Shove up a hand if you can hear me. And look left and right to your team mates to see if they've done the same. If they haven't, get their attention, switch back to Channel 15 and tell them to get on with it."
Only two failed to raise their hands and had to be told what to do. When everyone found the right radio channel, their instructor continued. "Today, we're going to take a walk outside. Now I know you've all done a walkabout while in initial training, but that was a kiddie day trip compared to this. We will cable together in pairs. Then two pairs will join me and my fellow tow pilots on these handsome tow boats for a ride out to an empty stretch of space - where we won't be in the way. There we will debark from the tow boats and learn to handle the tools and components used to assemble the solar array frames. You've all got fresh tanks which are good for eight hours and this little class won't last more than two hours, out and back."
"The frames and parts are already at the site, so clip together and jump on the boats. Let's hustle people, we're wasting daylight!"

* * *

"J'Shawn, can you hand me that tape gun?" Dora asked. "I've got the spreader in place and I need to tack it."
"I gave you the gun just three minutes ago."
"That's right. I forgot." She tried to find it but couldn't. "Did you see where it went? I can't find it."
"Ms. Rodriguez," the voice of Bethany M'Butu, one of the instructors, broked into their conversation, startling both of them. "Did you lose something?"
"Ummm... I don't think so. I mean, the tape gun was right here by me." She scanned with frantic haste around her. The tape gun was gone!
"Perhaps you might try looking up."
Doing so, she and J'Shawn saw a black shape framed by the sunlight. One outstretched hand held the missing dispenser. She started to reach for it, but was pulled up short by her line to her team mate. The instructor hadn't moved.
"There's a reason why each and every tool you use has a small, self-storing lanyard and clip. It was designed that way so no worker would lose valuable tools and even more valuable time," M'Butu lectured. "Had I not noticed this drifting away, and retrieved it, you would have been unable to complete today's training and OPS would have incurred the expense - not a minor one I might add - of shipping a new dispenser up from the surface. While the dispenser only costs $30, the shipping expense would have added $700 to that cost. On top of that, you're carelessness would have delayed your training and that of Mr. Williams by a full day, delaying productivity and adding more than $28,000 to the final cost of this project."
Handing Dora the tape gun, she finished, "Try to be more aware of what's happening around you and less careless of your tools." She drifted away to the next trouble spot.
"Whew! I never knew we were that valuable," Dermot commented. "Fourteen thousand a day? I know I'm not getting paid that much."
"I heard that Mr. Hardin. That figure includes your food, your air, the supplies and power you use up during one day as well as the transportation cost of getting all that up here." M'Butu paused, minus, of course, the $800 they pay you per shift. If we could use robotics we would. But they need somewhat more supervision than you do."