Quoted By:
That console is tantalizing - but if you don't get enough conduits in hand by the end of shift, it isn't even worth looking at right now. To that end, you decide to poke around the nearest light fixture instead, as electronics like that will have to have some conduits. Continuing to make a point of conserving boost, you pull yourself out of the viewing station, and punt your way over to the nearest light. The emitters have been taken out, but otherwise the unit looks like it is still in good working order - though lights are not particularly valuable. Using the copula behind you to orient yourself, you try to figure where the power plant of the <span class="mu-i">Highest Heaven</span> would be, relative to this light. If it is directly above you, you might be out of luck - or at the very least, you would have to violate the hold on cutting into anything structural. Lucky for you, when you cut open the drop panels, you can see that the conduit runs to the light from the fore of the ship. Unluckily for you, you can see that the <span class="mu-i">Highest Heaven</span> has well and truly earned her bio-hazard stamp. There are worms here, some of which are still alive. And they have really done a number on the wiring. Portions of it has been completely subsumed, replaced by worms as thick as a finger. Jesus Christ, if you were to follow Quimbix's advice about smashing them with your hammer, you would end up spending more time on worms then on wrecking. And if the wiring for a light is as bad as this, you can't even imagine what it is like near the engine, or the capacitors, or any other power intensive component. This hulk must either have a record setting infestation, or Quimbix was dead fucking wrong about it having an undersized power plant.
When you notice that some of the smaller ones are stirring like blown hair the presence of one of your wisps, you snap to attention. After you hastily withdraw the light, you get to your work with the wrecking torch. If you burn it close enough to the worms, you can heat them up quicker than their bodies can safely adjust to the temperature, rupturing their internals and killing them. It works really, really well - but there are two drawbacks to this method. First, you are burning cutting gas with no salvage to show for it. Second, the damn things pop when you heat them, and in micrograv, it makes an absolute fucking mess. And of course, you end up popping the dead or sleeping ones as well as the ones that are coming after you, so by the end of it, you are having a hard time seeing the conduit for all the mess, though at least some of that is viscera on your visor. You use one of the wraps to wipe it clean, then you flail it around in the portion of exposed ceiling to clear things up a bit. As you are now able to see what you are working with now, you end up making short work of the remaining conduit with tools and torch, pulling and wrapping the clean stuff in a second salvage wrap, and then substandard stuff in a third.
