Astraeus 5 Page 11

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  Mel had been making good progress but when he tried to check the inter-system communications, they were clearly not working. He had gone over all the equipment in the comms room several times but had been unable to find any faults.

  He had checked the cables and junction boxes as best he could but, again, hadn’t been able to find any problems. He was beginning to think he would never get to the bottom of what was wrong. As it was, he’d already spent one night sleeping in his ship and didn’t fancy another. While it wasn’t unpleasant in there, he was missing out on what he had planned would be a busy weekend with his family. His only conclusion was that the problem lay outside, which would make it harder to locate and fix the problem, as he would need to work in his suit.

  Attached to the outer wall of the building there was a junction box that distributed the cables from inside the comm building to the various dishes and aerials, so he decided that he had little choice but to check it out. As he approached it, he could see that, since he had first checked it, a small meteorite had gone straight through the door and into the cabinet. As soon as he opened the door, he could tell immediately that the whole thing was fried. "Damn!" he exclaimed "There’s no way I can fix that in any kind of a hurry." The damage in the junction box was so extensive that everything in it would need to be replaced and he knew he didn’t have the spare parts with him, other than, possibly, one circuit board. Under normal circumstances, he might have been in with a chance but with all the other repairs he had had to do, his spares collection was now minimal.

  He closed the door and returned to the comm building, so that he could see if he could get someone to bring a replacement controller box. Even if there was one back at HQ it would be a while before anyone could get one to him and them it would take several hours more to install it. So much for his weekend plans!