[ TT ] You are an engineer responsible for maintaining your ship 's ion-propulsion drive . The problem is , you 're a car mechanic . You have no clue how elecrostatic ion thrusters work .

`` Electrical Engineering degree required''. That's what the position description said. Of course, maybe I fudged my credentials a little when I applied and my resume stated that I'd earned a degree in EE from MIT ( with a 4.0, no less ), but how hard could it really be? I mean, after all, I'd worked often enough on the electrical systems of the fancy new 2442 Tesla S models that ran through my uncle's shop for the last few years. I bet `` Ion propulsion'' was just some new battery they were using in their rovers or whatever. As long as I got out of that stupid town - and hey, if it meant going to space, then fuck yeah - I didnt care what I had to do. 
 
 I guess the ship captain, for one reason or another, hadnt been too keen on checking my background, and after one single phone call, I was hired. The ship was strange and smelly, some of the crew were even stranger, and smellier. It was quite the assortment of people: a couple veterans, a doctor, some crazy psycho chick, a priest, a muscleheaded bounty hunter, a prostitute ( who was fine as hell ), and a pilot. The captain explained their main mechanic had taken some time off to see her family, thats why I was there. So yeah, very weird, but, hey, I was on my way to space! 
 
 Well, it turns out lying about my experience may not have been the best idea. After making it through atmo on my first voyage off planet, a piece of the heat shielding broke off and the ship engine was damaged. You can imagine my confusion when the captain yelled at me to check out the problem. Fuck. What does he mean he wants me to check out the engine, I'm here to fix cars and rovers and shit?! Anyways, rather than give myself away I went down to the engine room to see if I could figure out what the fuck was going on. After about an hour of looking at the stalled engine, and failing to identify anything that was wrong, I found a manual entitled `` Troubleshooting: Boeing Ion Engine model XVI''. Well that's really fucking convenient. I spent another fifteen minutes flipping through the book, looking over the engine, seeing if I could find the problem. One section titled `` Engine Restart upon Auto-Shutdown'' seemed promising. It talked about causes of an automatic shutdown, if and when you restart the engine and some other shit. Whatever. I thought, `` I'm gon na restart this bitch, and it will all be good''. I went about the auto restart procedure, there were some heavily bolded NOTES in the margins but they did n't matter. Eventually the captain came down to check up on me. I finished up the procedure, and the engine churned alive again. 
 
 `` Good work rookie, lets get this old gal moving again.'' 
 
 The captain gave the order to move us out of orbit. I watched the engine whirring for a few moments, then went to the mess for a well-earned protein meal. The captain followed me into the mess, and we discussed what it means to have your own ship, and some shit. A loud crash boomed fromthe engine room. 
 
 The captain ran to the comm and blared, `` Wash, what was that?'' 
 
 Fuck. 
 
 
 Notes: Sorry this story isnt super coherent and the punctuation is n't perfect, its the first story Ive written in WP and Im on mobile. My grad research is in ion propulsion for satellites, so I just had to write something!: -D
