Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3306-06-18 14:35
Daisy McGrath checked the coolant level of the volatile cargo temporary storage system on pad seventeen and swore under her breath.
"Hey John, come 'ere!", she bellowed to her shift partner.
John walked over with a perplexed and nervous expression on his face. Normally Daisy was pretty chilled and relaxed, but now she looked angry. Which meant that someone, probably him, had done something dangerously stupid.
"The coolant levels on the volatiles storage system are low. You need to keep an eye on them, especially these days, with all the tritium passing through here."
John checked his hand terminal. "They are at the bottom of the tolerances, but that should be okay. We have run the system at this level before. Lower even. It never caused any problems so far"
"Until the day it does cause a problem and the we..."
"... have a hydrogen fuel fire on the docks.", John finished wearily.
"Not just a hydrogen fuel fire. A radioactive hydrogen fuel fire. In addition to the normal hazards of explosions and invisible firestorms, add in completely contaminating the water reclaimers and air scrubbers in the entire dock area. Normally, low coolant levels wouldn't be so bad, but there are six to eight fleet carrier megaships in system at the moment, all stocking upon tritium. Thousands of tonnes of the stuff passing through here each day. We need to be more careful. This stuff is radioactive, so unlike normal fuel, it is heating itself up. The cooling systems need to be operating optimally."
"Okay! Okay! I get it! I'll top up the coolant. You know, you are starting to sound a bit like George."
"Well in the ten years he worked here, have you ever heard of an accident happening on a pad when George was working there?"
"Well he did get injured just before he left!"
"Station security vaporizing a terrorist right next to you with the station pulse lasers hardly counts as an accident."
"You have a point."
"Besides, George stopped Commissar DeBurgh from smuggling nerve agents onto the station. That counts as a few million lives in George's favour, if you ask me. I was there and I missed it. I shudder to think what would have happened if George wasn't there being the cautious and careful guy he is."
"Yeah", John replied pensively as he instructed an automech to retrieve a container of coolant for him. "That could have a total horror show. He was a little bit odd, but despite that I miss the guy. I wonder what he is doing now?"