Chalenge #00536 - A161: Mercy Maintenance

I’ve made jokes about “Reboot… with steel toes” and “troubleshooting with a 12-Gauge - PULL!” plenty of times! – RecklessPrudence

A certain sign of doom amongst engineers is whistling backwards. It means something expensive is about to happen. When they hiss through their teeth whilst breathing in… there’s very little to be done.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” asked Rael, off-the-books-apprentice.

“Eh,” the engineer currently in charge shrugged. “Pass me the hammer.”

Rael obediently did so. “I’d have thought it couldn’t be saved by percussive–”

SMASH!

Rael stared, terrified, at the mess of parts and shattered pieces. He was certain he’d gone silver from stress, but daren’t move to check.

His tutor put the hammer down. “Now we write in the report, attempts at maintenance accidentally destroyed the part and it had to be replaced.” He nodded in satisfaction. “Honestly, if we had repaired it, it would have been a last-gasp situation. Which, considering that this is a freighter, means lives are at stake. Sometimes, a quick and clean kill is the only medicine available.”

Rael cleared his throat and quoted the famous stop-and-go mechanic, “Just shoot this shit, it’s only fair?”

“Nailed it,” said his tutor with a grin and a snap of his fingers.

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