Unspoken Cowboy Reference

<snip>
"Thirty minutes" Cass insisted "Much quicker if you can - if you don't manage it, we are really in the shit!"
"We'd better step to it" White wolf said and ended the call before stuffing the pad back inside his cheek.
</snip>

"I need to ride you down to the hangers." Jamie said, bluntly. White Wolf stared at him for a moment.

"What? It's the only way to get there fast enough to make a difference."

"He's right." Candice said. "You two know what you need to do down there, the faster you get there the better."

White Wolf sighed, and hopped over the terraforming probe.

"Just don't pull out any fur." He said, grudgingly.

"I also promise not to mutter any cowboy references." Jamie added, trying to hide his grin. He climbed on, and held as best he could without grabbing hold of clumps of fur.

Riding on the back of a giant hamster was just like riding a toad on Fernandos. the hopping and leaping was exactly the same. He tried not to think back to those memories, that probably wouldn't happen again, and focus on the task at hand.

"How long do you think it'll take to get to the hangers?" Jamie asked, speaking up as the speed was making what little air was still around rush past his ears.

"About ten minutes." White wolf replied, bouncing off a wall on a right angled corridor to maintain speed and momentum. Several times, Jamie thought a leap would tear his head off as he scraped the ceiling, but he managed to keep low enough to keep his cranium intact.

Just as they arrived, White Wolf's pad rang again, White Wolf explained how far they'd got, and put it away.

"Were you able to expand on the crude plan Cass put forth?" White Wolf asked, not mentioning the ride at all. It made sense to never mention it again.

"No. The plan as she put it will take two hours, as I said. We'd need to get emergency power, route it all through, and the system would take time to power up again. We can kill emergency lighting no trouble - killing that circuit will take a minute tops. She wanted weather control." Jamie said, running over the schematics that Cass had sent again.

"Do we have enough power for that?"

"Oh, Hell no." Jamie said. "That's why it'll take two hours routing power from other unnecessary circuits." They were walking while they talked, looking at the available ships.

Of course, it remained unspoken that they were in the hanger instead of the weather control room. That was the genius of this plan.

"There she is." Jamie said as they rounded a corner of Starbugs. By this point, fifteen minutes had past from the initial call.

Another Phone call.

"Now would be good." Cass said, to which White Wolf replied "We have a plan. We'll be on time."

"You figured out my plan?" Jamie asked, with a sly grin.

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out a mad plan." the Huge Hamster replied.

"In that case, get to the cockpit of the Raven, and the moment you see power, switch off everything. I don't want to fry circuits that we might need to fix the 'Dwarf."

"And you're going to the ships core?"

"You got it."

Eighteen Minutes.

The two split up. Jamie headed to the core of the Raven. It was the largest ship in the hangers of the Blue Dwarf, and always had been. A tactical bomber, most would call it. Though with the record of the pilot, it was more likely to be the Bomb. Big, heavy and well armoured; the three reasons that it was still working, and not a pile of scrap by now.

"please work, please work." Jamie said, a chanting mantra to whatever powers there might be to control when an old ship still works. He pulled the power switch.

a hum began to build up slowly. No celebrations yet. Then the lights came on.

Jamie grabbed cables, attached them to various points on the console, and dragged them out to the flight deck. He ran to the nearest wall, and attached them to the sockets. Soon, White Wolf joined him outside.

"All circuits are off, the only thing running is the core." He said, a successful mission.

"Good. You're faster than me, get up to that control room," he said, pointing up at the hangers controls. "and route these sockets back to the weather control room."

"Ok." He said, skeptically, but hopped up onto some boxes, then to the crane used for moving ship components, then up to the control room.

"Sorry guys. You're in the hands of fate, now." Jamie said, having done all he could.

<Ok. The plan is in effect! Carpe Diem!>