The morning was a lot colder than I imagined.
You would think that living on a desert planet, our weather would remain constant and filled with few surprises in this day and age...?
Don't bet on it.
Standing from where I was that morning, the wind was unnaturally cruel to me; biting at my face--causing my breath to vapor?
It was a good thing that I had the common sense to install heaters in the outshed awhile ago.
I'd think it was going to start snowing before too long if this kept up. (Yes, I know much about this rare phenomenon. The South Circle is the only place on this world of mine that has such a thing. A small patch of snow and ice measuring only 500 miles in diameter; shrinks during the summer and grows during the winter. Calis told me once that the world I lived in was much different so long ago. And I always wondered how he knew that; his fantastic tales of a dead civilization filling my mind from time to time. He says that the South Circle is the only remnant left of a world alien to me.)
The wind of course enjoyed playing with my long tresses--messing with each stray strand of hair. Naturally--as days had me--I didn't brush my hair as often as I should.
Out in the Golan Desert...what was the point?
But the skies above me where shockingly clear--devoid of anything.
Even clouds.
But I could still see the whispering bands of sand in the distance and the recalcitrant cloud bank some 500 miles distant. All light brown as one looked up--before vanishing into the skies--but at the bottom?
Dark and uninviting!
Not the kind of thing I would go joyriding in first thing in the morning.
But gauging the distance between me and that cloud bank, I would say it was not even close to Shark's Bay. Maybe in the Rail Mine area--where Old Coy used to sit. (Now abandoned.)
So no immediate danger to me.
That was a good sign.
Looking around, I saw that last night's action didn't do a whole lot of damage to the area around me.
The last one (from my childhood memories) took out a whole side to our old maintenance barn--leaving my father to rebuild it from scratch. Two years ago, another storm like it stripped off some paint--leaving it with an odd two-tone coloration that I couldn't fix in a moment's notice.
It still stood there--a lone and proud sentinel to a time filled with happier memories. But now, it was just a lurking ghost. A reminder of things lost and forgotten.
The outshed was built to withstand anything that Mother Nature could throw at it.
And that's where my destination was to be today. The storm may not have done any appreciable damage to the surrounding landscape, but my bike took a beating like none other.
Especially with all that sand still gummed up in the intake valves and filters.
I was sure that it wasn't running at peak efficiency. And the last thing I needed (as I jumped down the small flight of stairs--taking off towards to the outshed), was to be stalled halfway to my goal.
And that would really suck!
Getting the latch off to the door was easy enough. But the sand had piled up during the night and so I spent the next couple of minutes shuffling out as much as I could with my feet.
The winds picked up on my little game and played along with me--blowing what I shoveled back and around. For a small while, I was surrounding in a golden cloud of glittering sand.
Opening the door became easier after that--as I turned on the overhead light--bathing the place in a soft yellow glow.
Closing the door behind me, I heard the wind thumping miserably against it--desperate to come in and play some more. But I would have none of that.
If I was going to fix my bike, I didn't need anymore havoc for the time being.
Technology had made it so that fixing any problem would be a cinch. (That is, if you lived up in Stratos City.)
But down here on the surface, technology had become hardened and a stubborn mistress. It only worked if you paid loving attention to it and cared for it on equal terms.
With that in mind, I dragged my machine over to the diagnostic platform at the center of the shed: A circular dias next to a metal pole with a mushroom-shaped plunger button built right into the control panel beneath it.
Simple enough for me, no? Here, I didn't have anything fancy past the diagnostic computer. I couldn't afford it anyways. But out here, fancy and attractive technologies either was stolen underfoot, or...?
Killed by the harsh and unforgiving environment.
These days, I needed the hard stuff. I couldn't have survived without it. The luxuries up in that burnished top above my head would have to wait for a later time.
Hitting the button, I watched as the platform rose to a grinding halt--reminding me (later on), that I would have to oil the chassis beneath it.
Or fix it.
Whichever came first.
Stopping at eye-level, I reached over to play with the small interface on the junction box--which brought the back end of my bike to face me.
Nothing wrong there, I saw. So I changed positions again--this time, revealing the small access panel on the left side of my ride.
Instead of opening it, I went to the farthest corner of the outshed and lugged out a wheeled diagnostic computer terminal. The wheels screeched horrendously, but I was used to it. If they didn't...?
I would worry.
After a final visual inspection of my bike, I turned on the computer terminal and went to retrieve a connection probe off the work table close to the door.
Walking back, I undid the panel above the hover control chassis and jacked in one end of the connection and uncoiled the connector leads--carefully working out the kinks as I went.
I attached the leads solidly into the side panel of the computer terminal and entered an experimental command into the interface.
Everything checked out.
I then imputted another request into the system and asked for a Level 1 diagnostic of my hovercycle.
The machine hummered and whirred to itself in response--as it accessed my bike's onboard systems--and I had nothing to do for the next few minutes but wait.
(I hated this!)
A beeping noise grabbed my attention back to the present, and a beautiful tri-visual image resolved itself before me: An internal schematic detailing every aspect of my hovercycle.
The thing was in a green and blue overlay, which made things even more breath-taking. But the angry red flashes on some areas made me shit my pants--and I swore as a result.
What the hell did I do to piss off the gods with this bullshit???
This was really getting on my fucking nerves! I was expecting some minor problems--some things that the computer could correct on its own--but this...?
Stomping back to the work table in a huff, I grabbed my personalized tool box off the top shelf (the one adorned with a plethora of cute stickers and headlining sayings), and started back to my bike.
Piece of shit! I silently called it--as I popped the access cover off the engine housing--and set it down carefully. I undid the side panels as well: Exposing half of my bike's insides to the outside air and stray elements.
And sighed.
I was right: This thing was a piece of shit!
So what if I had too much faith in my bike? It was the only thing I had--besides my Viper X-1.
And I was the only one who could fix it!
Though...it would most likely take a few hours.
From my points of view, the engines and their manifold intakes of the Strokov-623 didn't look at all damaged.
Plus for me!
Carefully, I probed the divide seperating the two together--making sure that nothing out of the ordinary would present itself; once I began systematic repairs here.
I didn't need any more headaches than I already had.
Pulling my hands free, I ventured deeper into the machine, past the thrust initiators, past the various energy relays, some of the connection leads, and other things critical to the bike's operation, I quickly found the problem where the computer still displayed it as.
Certainly no easy task. That was for sure!
After untangling myself from the guts of my own bike, I placed a repair probe on top of the spot (to mark it) and then went back for my tool box.
I grabbed a magnetic decoupler and its companion auto-rotator head out of the tray (of specially designed tools), and undid the instrument probe attached.
I carefully threaded the decoupler through the maze of wires until I hit the spot in question: The connections holding air intake valves and the fuel-mixer components together.
The first connector was easily dispatched from where I sat hunched down--and I pocketed the six lead heads. Then I carefully plucked the tubing apparatus with a box-like shape attached to the end connectors on both sides.
I sat it aside carefully. And then repeated the process with the other three.
The engine core took on the appearance of a partially gutted fish--and I'm sure Calis would have a field day with me for doing this on my own. But I knew enough about my own road hog to take it apart and put it back together in one piece. (Luckily for me, the terminal would tell me if the thing was functioning--if and when I put it back together in working order.)
I removed the housing covers for the two fuel-regulator pumps and found the first to be okay.
The second?
Shit!
The computer was right: The internal components operating the micro-pumps had jammed from too much sand again.
But at least they weren't fused. If they were...?
I'd be shit out of the luck.
However, I wouldn't know the extent of the damage to the pumps and the surrounding filters themselves until I took the whole thing apart. But what pissed me off sorely was that the fuel pumps didn't come cheap. They were the second most expensive piece of machinery outside of the hover conversion system.
And as such, it was going to take me a hell of a lot longer to fix than just screwing something on and plugging it back in.
I fished out the delicate pumps from their snap-on foundations and set them on the driver seat.
Then I grabbed one of the air intake valves and began to work on the problem at hand--knowing that my day was shot to shit as it is.
Isis
