[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 284: Overcharged

The first set of mining equipment went up within the hour. The Whalers didn't bring much gear, and much of what they acquired must have been third-hand equipment at best.

As predicted, the machines quickly broke down.

"Ves!" Someone called out over the local channel. "Come over and help us fix this piece of junk!"

With quiet resignation, Ves stopped his inspection of a mech that hadn't been able to start up and jogged over with his bulky hazard suit. The mining gear in question consisted of an anchored drill meant to dig its way into the ground in a slanted angle. It didn't cost very much due to its low-tech principles, but the drill bits often wore out quickly.

"What's the problem?"

"The machine crashed right as it was about to get past the top layer!" The techie in charge of the gear complained. "I kicked the control box a couple of times but it isn't doing anything!"

"Maybe it will help if you refrain from kicking the control circuits." Ves grumbled to the man. "Let me take a look at this rusted junk. My guess is this thing is already at its limit."

The amount of people who still believed they could fix a broken machine by slapping it around could form an entire first-rate superstate. Even mech technicians fell into this belief sometimes.

Contrary to his belief, the mining drill had been acquired relatively recently. Whoever sold it to the Whalers did a decent job at patching it up. Its endurance should have been sufficient to operate at these conditions.

"The machine is sound." Ves carefully scoured the exterior of the drill. "Nothing seems out of place. It's worn, but not broken. Maybe it's just run out of power."

"That's impossible! It just received a fresh energy cell!"

Ves called for a scanner while continuing to inspect the drill. It hadn't hit anything hard and it didn't look like it had been tampered with. Nothing had jammed the mechanisms eithers.

He wanted to check the programming of the machine as well, but the lack of power prevented him from doing so. He'd have to pull the processors from the mining gear in order to inspect the software, and that was a lot of hassle for a single broken drill.

Once someone brought over a man-sized scanner, Ves used it to inspect the innards of the machine. Even though he didn't specialize in designing mining equipment, the simple drill in front of him didn't pose any challenge to him. He easily identified most components and reasonably surmised they didn't look broken.

"I found nothing strange so far." Ves concluded after he finished scanning the entire drill. "The hardware looks okay. I'm inclined to say it's either the software or the power supply that's at fault."

"Maybe the Glowing Planet did something to the drill. You know, like overload its processors and stuff."

"There's no sign of any damage to the processors, but perhaps it's programming has been tampered with. I'll have to extract the chips and bring them back to the temporary workshop that's being set up right now."

Still, Ves had a suspicion that the power supply might be at fault. The drill did shut down completely as if its power had disappeared. Ves carefully called for some tools and began to expose the energy cell powering the drill. He carefully inspected the amount of energy.

"This doesn't make any sense. The energy cell is at two-hundred-and-thirteen percent capacity. That's impossible!"

Ves carefully placed the energy cell back into its slot and backed away quickly. An overloaded energy cell could easily blow up in his face. Even his hazard suit and strengthened body wouldn't survive the sheer amount of power released by the explosion.