Kaylee’s Lament

Part Twelve

Kaylee hummed as she disassembled the port condenser. The way it had been abused, it would have to be completely reset before they could push Serenity to full power again. The same was true of the starboard condenser, but she took them down in series to keep at least a little power trickling through the systems.

She was sitting cross-legged on the deck, the Engineering Manual open to the proper page, and she consulted with it every now and then. She wasn’t following procedure exactly, but it was interesting to note how it was supposed to be done, as opposed to how she did it.

“At it already?” Mal asked, poking his head through the hatch.

“You want me to take a nap, instead?” asked Kaylee. “I’d love me a nap.”

“Nah, you take care of the ship, first. Then I don’t care what you do.”

“Okay, Cap,” she agreed. She looked up. “Did I do good?”

“You done real good, Kaylee. You done perfect. Saved us all, again. You’re brilliant.”

“Thanks, Captain!” she said, smiling proudly.

“Now fix my boat. We got us a schedule to keep.”

“Yes sir!”

“You need any help?” he asked. “Not much good with tools, myself, but . . .”

“No, I need someone with small, nimble hands,” she said. “River or Inara maybe.”

“I’ll ask around.” He disappeared.

Ten minutes later she was down to the condensers’ core, a conical shaped bit with heavy ridges extending back along the length of the unit. Every one of those ridges needed to be re-adjusted, now, one at a time. And then the core needed to be re-lubricated, just to make sure it didn’t jam up. That would come later, though. Right now, she worked the first ridge – the book called it a “condensing point regulator” – out of it’s place and began scraping the carbon off. Burning out the condensers was always messy. Almost always reparable, but always messy.

She was surprised as anyone when Simon poked his head in.

“Captain says you might need a hand,” he said.

“Uh, yeah, I do. But I said River or Inara would do.”

“Wh