Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3306-01-23 07:20 Galactic Standard Time
Danny O'Brien sat at the small table of his apartment eating a bowl of noodles and watching an historical drama from the Federation. He wasn't a huge fan of history, but it had enough action scenes and sex scenes to hold the fourteen year old's attention. Besides, he was too broke to do anything fun and didn't feel like working out, so there wasn't much else to do. He worked as a low level henchman for the Red Branch criminal faction. It was run by the Cullen family as long as anyone remembered and they operated in this part of Wilson port for generations. Apparently, there were Black Branch and Golden Branch Cullens at one point. Danny had no idea if they still existed, but if they did, then they stayed well away from Tewanta. The Red Branch operated out of an area of the station that was known as New Holborn, and made their money making running protection rackets, underground gambling clubs, and smuggling. They also manufactured and sold bootleg liquor. This was what Danny worked at: it was his job to operate their covert distillery. It wasn't a very demanding task, and in return for doing it and doing some deliveries, Danny got a small weekly wage and his share of rent paid on the apartment. Technically, it was a two person apartment, and a small one at that, but he shared it with three other members of the gang, or Knights of the Red Branch, as they called themselves. He hot bunked with Conn Murphy. It could have been worse: if Eoin Cullen, the head of the Cullen family, hadn't taken him when his parents didn't come home from work one day when he was seven years old, he'd have been a station rat and would have starved, been murdered, or worse. He owed the Red Branch his loyalty.
The door of his apartment opened and one of his flatmates, Michael Kelly, stepped in, looking flustered and rushed.
"Story, bud?", asked Danny.
"A station maintenance crew started working nearby about an hour ago. The Hound sent me to tell you to go up to the still and make sure they haven't broken anything, and to fix it if they did."
"Ah bollix!", said Danny. He wolfed down the rest of his noodles and left the apartment. An order from The Hound was not something you ignored. The Hound, that is, Patrick MacDonagh, was Eoin's right hand man. He was a large brute of a man, with an unforgiving nature and absolutely no tolerance for disobedience. The title was a traditional one in the gang for generations and was normally held by the toughest gang member that wasn't a Cullen.
The still was up a level, that is, one level closer to the axis of rotation, in the station and about a kilometer away from his apartment. He weaved through the crowds and headed to a less used area in station. People preferred to avoid that area as the air quality was normally very poor. The Official Tewanta Order hadn't bothered to fix whatever was wrong. It could have been one of many things: bad air filters, broken pumps, blocked or damaged ducting, or just that the equipment was stolen. Or maybe, sensors weren't working. Whatever it was, the Official Tewanta Order didn't think it important enough to fix. They chalked up the inhabitants' headaches, illnesses, and lethargy, to laziness and disobedience, and dealt with the issue using visits from the commissars instead.
Danny ducked down a side passage, and when he was sure nobody was about, removed a maintenance panel. He climbed into the crawlspace that it covered and quickly replaced the panel behind himself. He then crawled eight meters along the crawlspace before it came out into another passageway. This passageway was dark and was not normally accessible. Decades of modifications to the station had resulted in a small set of passageways and rooms becoming lost to the station, their entrances covered over by new shops, "temporary" bulkheads, etc. On the ground beside the crawlspace entrance was a backpack containing flashlights and an oxygen mask. The air quality in these passageways was normally very poor. Today, though it seemed fresher than normal to Danny, and he imagined he felt a slight breeze. He put the oxygen mask on anyways and turn on the flashlight. He then followed the passageway round corners and bends or about two hundred meters until he came to a ladder. He climbed the ladder towards the central axis of the station. Once he reached the next level, he knew immediately that some thing was wrong. The pipes in the ceiling were creaking and rumbling.
"What have the gobshites done? If the current batch of poitÃn is ruined, The Hound will kick the snot out of me!"
Danny hurried down to the end of the passage way until he reached the door to the gang's brewery and distillery. In reality it wasn't very sophisticated. It was constructed from scavenged materials and used syphoned off water and power. Enough to get the job done, but not so much that the station authorities would notice. In addition, the sensors for that part of the station had been shut down, bypassed, or hacked decades ago. If they hadn't the fumes from the still would have brought down the full force of the authorities. It needed constant maintenance so Danny stored oxy-acetylene welding equipment, sealant, and tape in there, along with the starch powder, sugar, and yeast that they used in the manufacturing process. He unlocked the primitive padlock on the door and grabbed the large handle. It was warm to the touch. He thought that was a bit odd, but yanked the handle down anyway. The door flew open slamming into him and knocked him off his feet. A fraction of a second later he was engulfed in a wall of flame.
Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3306-01-23 08:15 Galactic Standard Time
Progenitor Eisley Woodward connected to the operations incident video conference channel and announced herself.
"Eisley Woodward, joining. What's the current situation?"
"The fire is contained and should be out within 30 minutes.", replied Liu Fong Wu, the station operations chief, and current incident co-ordinator, "It has caused extensive damage to the air distribution system in about 8% of the station, however. The back draft took out two reprocessing plants. In addition a lot of electrical cabling and minor control systems have also been damaged. It turns out that previous management of the station cut all sorts of corners with maintenance, using the wrong materials, and not keeping up with replacing damage and removing dirt build up. Immediate threat to the station inhabitants is low, though, a few dozen people died from smoke inhalation or suffocation in the New Holborn area at the height of the incident."
"You said there is no immediate threat. Is there a long term threat?"
"The air quality, station wide, is reduced. Citizens with breathing difficulties will be at higher risk and long term all citizens will suffer from health problems unless we do something."
"Understood! Do we know the cause?"
"Due to years of neglect by the Official Tewanta Order parts of the station had terrible air quality. We had identified this as a serious health risk for some citizens and had initiated repairs. However, in some cases, the air quality had dropped low enough that the it was below Minimum Oxygen Concentration for some combustion processes. With the fixes to the air purifiers and pumps implemented, the air quality increased from about 8.5% oxygen to a normal level near 20%. This allowed combustion to take place again. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem: minor fires would have been dealt with and it would have been a minor inconvenience. However, a minor criminal gang, Knights of the Red Branch, was running an unlicensed distillery. When the oxygen level reached 10.5% percent, the ethanol vapour in that room ignited causing an explosion which in turn ignited other chemicals nearby. It got hot enough that the bulkheads started burning. Add to that, the fact that sensors in the area had been disabled and that a lot of the ducting in the station was cheap flammable plastic, it meant that the fire was able to cause a lot of damage before it was noticed."
"This is Station Security, Paul Braun. We have identified the gang leadership and bounties have been issued."
"Good work, Paul. Okay, what do you need to fix this?", asked Progenitor Woodward
"Firstly we need to clean up the toxic mess the fire has created. Trained staff with H.E. suits would help here."
"Frank Bonetti from Outfitting here. My team has recently completed hazardous substance handling training and has volunteered to do double shifts to help out."
"This is Samuel Singh, Tall Base Operations Chief here. We unfortunately have a lot of experience here with that type of clean up operation. We are still busy with our own work, but we can spare a few team leads to help you avoid some of the trickier pit falls."
"Thanks, Frank, Samuel!", said Progenitor Woodward, "That will be a big help."
"In addition to personnel in H.E. suits, you should also consider robots.", said Samuel. "Especially in deeper areas, maintaining a safe egress for personnel is the main thing that slows down work. Robots don't need that. Speeds things up considerably."
"Noted! Thanks! Liu Fong, would more robotics components and H.E. suits help?"
"Definitely!"
"Then you'll have them! After the clean up, what needs to happen?"
"Well, firstly, well need to put in proper fireproof air ducting, with fire suppression cut-offs and working sensors. Well need a lot of ceramic composites, CMM composite, and micro controllers. Then we'll need to repair a lot of the electrical systems, which will require more micro controllers, in addition to insulating membranes. If we want to do it properly, then superconductors and microweave cooling hoses would help too."
"Okay. We'll put out orders for all of that."
"We'll need millions of tons though, we probably won't have capacity at the docks."
"I am declaring an emergency. No non essential commodities will be bought at the commodities market, and no sales will be made. In addition, since Tall Base already has repair needs and Macomb City and Grimwood Port may have similar issues, I am making the emergency system wide. We'll open up the work to independent pilots: The Buur Pit pilots will likely pitch in to help. And one last thing: make sure your teams get to eat and sleep! Bad judgement and sloppy work lead to this issue. Lets not compound it with fatigue and hypoglycemic induced mistakes. Lets get to work!"