Today’s story is the first of two parts of “The Engineers Curse” by Tehrasha Darkon, who’s IRC chat room is now old enough to have children of its own.  More stories taking place around the characters in this story can be found on SoFurry.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and Today’s story is the first of two parts of

“The Engineers Curse”

by Tehrasha Darkon,

who’s IRC chat room is now old enough to have children of its own.

More stories taking place around the characters in this story can be found on SoFurry.

Please enjoy “The Engineers Curse”

by Tehrasha Darkon, Part 1 of 2 Elrod had only been an engineer's mate for three months and had already learned more practical knowledge than he had gained in five years of technical school.

He had learned that what was written in the design manual rarely had any bearing on how a system actually worked in the real world. He had learned that

'the right tool for the job' was any tool which accomplished the task.

He had learned to keep one eye on his clothes while in the shower.

He had learned to differentiate between a repair,

a patch, and a hack.

He had also learned that making repairs in zero gravity soon lost its novelty, and quickly became an exercise in frustration,

when tools and parts refused to remain where he had left them.

It was because of this,

that while working with the Chief,

he had also learned an entirely new vocabulary of swear words.

With the toe of his boot wedged under the lip of a panel

and his fingers stuck in the grating of an air duct,

he was able to anchor himself in place, while his free hand kept a firm grip

on the Chief's ankle.

The ferret lay horizontally up to his boots inside the wall,

grumbling about ground crews who couldn't do their job properly.

"Okay, pull me out,"

came a muffled shout,

and the wolf gently pulled at the Chief's foot,

trying to remove him carefully,

without scraping him down the walls of the access port.

The ferret emerged,

floating into the hallway with a toolbox in one hand

and a large roll of yellow tape in the other.

Once out, he reopened his tool box and verified that all of his tools were accounted for.

"Don't want to leave anything behind in there," said Chief to the younger wolf,

who nodded in agreement.

The ferret then closed and secured the panel covering the port,

placing a large yellow 'X' on it with his tape.

"Hack or patch?" asked Elrod.

"Patch. It will need a proper repair when we get back to port," said the Chief as he began to grumble again.

"Idiots probably didn't torque the lags,

and after who knows how many takeoffs and landings, they finally let go.

Ripped the wires right out of the coupling."

Chief secured his toolbox to the floor,

then maneuvered himself to lay down next to it.

Elrod did similarly on the opposite side of the corridor.

"Okay, Lance. Ready when you are,"

said Chief. The AI's pleasant voice rang throughout the ship.

"Artificial gravity restoration will begin in thirty seconds.

Please assume a safe position near the floor,

and watch for falling objects which may have become dislodged.

To reduce disorientation,

please refrain from moving about until the system is fully activated."

The Chief and Elrod

felt their bodies settle onto the floor, then gradually

become heavier and heavier

as the gravity was slowly brought up to normal levels.

When Lance signaled the 'all clear',

both engineers sat up,

groaning with the effort.

"It always feel stronger when they turn it back on,"

said Chief. "Oh good,

I thought it was just me,"

said the wolf. "Is everything OK, Lance?"

asked the Chief to the empty corridor.

"The captain is understandably ill,

but that should wear off in a matter of minutes.

No injuries reported,

but the galley is an absolute mess," said the AI.

Chief cringed, "So much for tonight's soup.

soup." "What about the toilets?"

asked the wolf, sounding slightly worried.

"The safety valves engaged immediately,

and they were unoccupied at the time of the failure,

so there was no 'damage',"

replied Lance. "Oh, good!" said

the wolf with relief.

"Be right back, Chief,"

he said as he pounded down the corridor toward the restroom.

Chief smiled to himself

and checked his list of repair items on his data pad.

"Oh no," he bemoaned,

"Is that all that is left?"

"Afraid so, Chief," replied Lance.

"Can this wait until after I retire?"

whined Chief as he trudged his way toward the cargo bay.

"Sorry Chief, you brought this on yourself,"

said the AI. "I know, I know," grumbled the ferret. ---

When Elrod found the Chief,

he was inside the atmosphere positive, Cargo Bay Three,

carefully disabling the motors on the main pressure doors.

"I swung past the galley on the way back.

Glad I don't have to clean that up," said the wolf shaking his head and making a face.

"The whole ship will smell like fermented soup until we get home and steam clean the place."

With a grunt of exertion,

Chief disconnected the last power cable,

then capped and locked it off,

before dropping it to the deck.

When he turned to the wolf, he found him stuffing small spherical objects into his mouth.

"What are those?" asked the confused ferret.

"Cookies! Or at least they're supposed to be,"

he said while chewing.

He tossed a couple to the Chief

and explained that they had been in the oven when the gravity failed

and had come out as little balls of toasted batter.

"And since they were in the oven, they were the only thing not contaminated by floating soup,"

said the smiling wolf.

"It must be bad down there," said Chief

as he popped one of the spheres into his mouth.

"I hope you like protein bars," said Elrod,

"They might be all we get for a while."

The wolf examined what the Chief had been doing while he was away.

"Why did you disable the pressure doors?"

he asked, gesturing to the large disconnected cables laying on the floor.

After eating the last cookie, the Chief approached a massive panel at the front of the bay

and began releasing the catches on its door.

"Because of this." "What is it?"

asked the wolf, dusting crumbs off of his hands.

"The engineers curse,"

replied Chief in a dark tone

as the door unlatched and swung open with a deep

metallic groan that echoed ominously through the cargo bay.

Behind the door was a stack of horizontal

meter wide palettes,

each on telescoping rails which allowed them to be pulled out,

so the arrays of relays and valves on them could be accessed.

Chief unlocked one of the pallets

and pulled it out from the wall until it reached its stop,

then allowed it to pivot downward till it was nearly vertical.

The exposed panel was covered with

little fluttering strips of yellow tape.

He then did the same for the palette located above it,

though this time folding its hinges upward till it locked.

Now a wall of yellow flags stretched from floor to ceiling.

Elrod's eyes grew wide.

"You have been busy,"

said the wolf. "Not just me,"

replied Chief as he pointed out several blue flags and a couple orange ones

hidden within the sea of yellow.

"The blue flags belong to Reg, back when he was the Chief engineer, before he became Captain.

The orange ones predate him.

All were put in place long before I ever came on board."

It's slowly dawned on Elrod

that he was looking at over forty years of repairs.

Patches, on top of patches, on top of patches.

"Engineer's law. You cannot remove another engineers flags unless your repair brings the system back to its original configuration,

or your repair negates theirs,"

quoted the Chief solemnly.

"You are looking at a living nightmare.

A hack which has withstood multiple attempts to repair it properly."

There was a small pop from the speakers in the cargo bay

as they went live. "Isn't

he a little young to be showing him this?"

came Reg's voice from the bridge.

"He has to know what's out there.

What he might find,"

replied the ferret.

"But Chief, this is bordering on abuse," said the captain,

"I couldn't sleep for a week after I attempted to fix it.

Just ask Lance."

"Actually you can't,"

injected Lance. "The only record I have on file for this panel and Reg,

is his request that I forget that he ever attempted it.

Which I apparently did."

"Come on, it can't be that bad.

It's just an array of logic gates,"

said Elrod looking incredulous.

"Yes, logic gates that have stumped four engineers, so far,"

said Chief. "Four?" asked Elrod, pointing to the colored flags,

"You, Reg, and orange. That's three."

Chief pulled out his torch,

and narrowed its light

to a near pencil thin beam, then aimed it back into the panel

where the pallets had been sitting.

Attached to the back wall against the bulkhead were two wires,

one black and one blue.

Each had been severed

and reattached to the other, blue to black

and black to blue,

then wrapped and flagged with white tape.

Chalked in large heavy letters on the bulkhead next to them

was a single word. 'DONT'.

"That's number four.

Nobody knows who wrote that.

It might have even been the manufacturer.

But that is the starting point,"

said the Chief. "Two crossed wires?"

asked the wolf, beginning to think he was being put on,

and that this was all some

elaborate prank to play on the new guy.

"Yes, two crossed wires.

They run the length of this cargo bay and connect to a single switch at the far end.

That switch tells the system that the door is closed and sealed,"

said Chief. "That is where the problem starts."

"That's it? Just swap them back," said the wolf.

The sound of Reg's laughter was abruptly cut off

as he disconnected the audio feed from the bridge.

The Chief handed the wolf his toolbox.

"Have at it," he said very seriously.

"See how far you get.

If you come out of this with fewer patches than before you started,

you will have earned

this," he finished, while handing the wolf a roll of green tape.

"I'll just let the two of you have some alone time, so you can get to know each other,"

he said with a grin,

then left the cargo bay. ---

Elrod stood before the exposed panel, still not entirely sure what he was looking at.

All of the relays on the pair of racks were operating normally.

Only the two wires buried at the back of the panel were out of place.

Shrugging he leaned into the panel,

with the flashlight held in his teeth.

When he unwrapped

one of the mismatched wires

and pulled them apart, several of the relays on the panels went dead,

or indicated a red condition.

He had expected that,

it made sense that disconnecting the safety switch on the main doors would cause errors to appear.

Then he disconnected the other pair, and everything remained the same,

just as expected.

Elrod began to shake his head as he reconnected the wires properly.

The first pair, black to black,

resulted in no change.

The relays still showing the same error condition

as when he had disconnected the first two wires.

When he connected blue to blue, the relays came back to life.

All of them cycling through their logical steps until they were all green again.

Except one. One relay was red, indicating an error.

Elrod tapped on it to see if it was stuck.

Then he disconnected the two blue wires and reconnected them again.

The relays cycled again,

but the same one remained red.

Returning the two wires back to their original mismatched configuration,

resulted in all of the relays displaying green. 'What

the hells?' thought the wolf.

Correcting the wires again,

he focused on the one relay displaying the error.

Pulling out his data pad, he paged through the schematics and traced the signal that fed the relay,

working his way back though the logic gates until he found where the signal was incorrect.

When he removed the logic gate, and replaced it with a new one from the Chief's tool box,

all of the relays cycled again

and the previous error now indicated green.

The wolf smiled, pleased with himself,

until he saw two other relays,

one of which was on the other pallet

were now red. Pulling out the new logic gate and reinserting the original resulted in a completely different relay coming up red.

Tracing back the signal from this new error

led to an entirely different logic gate.

Elrod looked at the schematics again,

then back at the panel. 'This

makes no sense,'

he thought, as he mentally retraced the circuit again.

Then his ears flattened.

"Lance?" asked the wolf,

addressing the empty cargo bay.

"Yes, Ensign?" replied the AI's voice.

"Are you and the guys just messing with me?"

asked Elrod. "Messing with you?"

asked Lance. "In what way?"

"As in, the way these logic gates are reacting.

Are these errors being injected remotely as a prank?"

"No, not at all," replied the AI.

"Those logic gates

are an isolated system.

While I can monitor much of what they control,

the only thing I can toggle is the power feeding the entire panel."

Frowning, the wolf pulled out the newly traced logic gate, and reinserted the new one into its socket.

Half of the relays in the panel immediately turned red,

and the decompression warning klaxon went off.

Elrod instinctively pinched his eyes shut,

took a deep breath,

and grabbed the rack before him,

awaiting the explosive rush of air as it left the cargo bay,

but nothing happened.

The alarm continued to scream

as he slowly opened

one eye, and saw the power cables to the pressure doors

laying on the ground where the Chief had left them.

With relief he released the breath he was holding and returned to the panel.

Putting the original logic gate back into the socket silenced the siren,

but left two different, completely unrelated relays on the panel red. ---

The next morning

Reg found the Chief in the galley munching on some dry cereal,

while admiring the abstract soup patterns left on the floor, ceiling, and walls.

"How goes?" asked Reg,

taking a seat opposite his Chief engineer.

The Chief just stared blankly.

"That well, eh?" replied the rabbit,

"Well it's only been one day,

and he's young." Lance's image flickered into existence, standing next to the table.

"He is doing well, in as much as he is doing it by the book,

but we all know where that will end up."

"The book that covers this, does not exist,"

said the Chief. "Maybe you could write one?"

suggested Reg with a grin.

The Chief directed an obscene gesture toward the captain,

which made the rabbit chuckle.

"I will keep an eye on him and make sure he gets at least minimal food and sleep,"

said the AI. "Thanks, Lance.

The last thing I want is to have Hender telling me how I am working him too hard," said the Chief.

"And don't let it spread,"

added Reg, "Keep the blasted thing confined to the cargo bay."

"Oh gods," exclaimed Chief,

"Don't even joke about that.

that." "I'm not joking. If the path leads him outside the bay,

it's done. No more.

I'll have the entire cargo bay replaced before I let that mess spread any further through the ship,"

said the Captain.

Lance’s image nodded.

"Yes, sir," he confirmed,

then vanished. --- On the third day,

Chief decided to look in on his protégé,

to check his progress and his health.

He was not prepared for what greeted him.

The pallets had been completely disassembled,

their individual modules

laid out on the floor with jumper wires running between each of them.

Several strips of yellow tape had been removed

and stuck to the surface of his toolbox,

but just as many, if not more, green flags had taken their place.

The young wolf sat at the center of it all,

with the wiring schematics laid out before him.

Chalk lines had been drawn on the floor between several of the modules,

with scribbled notes next to many of them.

It almost looked as though he were performing some

arcane rite, or exorcism on the system,

to rid the ship of this curse.

The Chief smiled at that thought. 'I

should have tried that', he said to himself.

"How goes it?" asked the ferret aloud.

The wolf startled,

so lost in thought that he had not heard the door open when the Chief entered the room.

"Fine, fine," replied Elrod in his usual cheery voice, now tinged with fatigue.

Chief knelt down to examine one of the modules.

"You know this should be over here,"

he began as he reached to pick up a power relay.

"TOUCH NOTHING!" snarled Elrod in a voice so aggressive that it startled the Chief,

making him stagger backwards

and fall on his ass.

"I know where everything goes,"

continued the wolf in his normal voice again,

never once turning to face the Chief.

"Why don't you take a break? Come down to the galley and share a beer with me and Reg?"

asked the Chief, as he cautiously picked himself up from the floor.

"You go ahead, Chief.

I think I've almost got this," said the wolf while still staring at the schematics.

The Chief backed his way out of the cargo bay.

Once the door closed he shook his head

and made his way to the galley, where he found Reg and Hender.

After grabbing himself a tray of food,

he picked a chair opposite the Captain and sat down.

"And?" asked Reg.

"He's definitely got it,"

said the ferret while biting into some fruit.

"Who's got what?" asked Hender, worried that some disease might have gotten aboard.

"Elrod, the wolf. The new engineer's mate," said Reg,

"He has the curse."

The raccoon gave Reg a sideways glance,

then turned the same look to the Chief,

who only nodded. "Males can't get the curse,

they aren't equipped," stated Hender flatly.

Reg nearly sprayed his drink across the table,

and only just managed to control himself enough to swallow, then devolved into a coughing fit.

The Chief just looked at Hender,

utterly confused.

"The Engineer's Curse!" Reg finally managed,

once his coughing had stopped.

"Have you ever treated a patient for an illness, only to have the symptoms suddenly change to something else?

Each time you change the treatment,

different symptoms appear?"

asked Reg. "I have never personally treated such a case, but some autoimmune conditions present like that,"

said Hender. "Well,

the engineer’s mate is currently treating such an illness right now.

But it's the ship that is sick,

and has been for at least 40 years.

years." said the Captain.

The raccoon looked incredulous.

"How is the ship sick?"

she asked. Chief and Reg

took turns explaining the situation, and how

every repair to the system simply caused another error somewhere else.

Sometimes across systems that were not connected in any obvious way.

While the source of the original error

had not been found,

it could be confirmed that each attempt to fix it,

only caused new unrelated symptoms to appear elsewhere.

By the time they finished explaining,

Hender was rubbing her forehead.

"I'm not even an engineer, and this is giving me a headache."

Reg nodded, "That's what the kid has now.

A headache brought on by logical paradox.

Everything he has been taught

is telling him that what he is seeing is simply not possible, yet there it is staring him in the face.

It's maddening." "And you attribute this to an unseen curse?" asked

Hender. "Do you really believe in that kind of superstitious nonsense?"

Reg and Chief both looked at each other,

then the Captain pointed to the religious icon that the medic was wearing around her neck.

"Do you?" This was the first of two parts of

“The Engineers Curse” by Tehrasha Darkon,

read for you by Khaki,

your faithful fireside companion.

Tune in next time to find out how Elrod

rids the ship of this paradoxical curse.

As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for listening

to The Voice of Dog.