Chapter 59

Attayear
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***Possibly a double update or something?  I've been updating a lot recently, so make sure you've read all the latest chapters!  (You will be missing out on cute BaekJin fluff if not and this chapter might not make sense.)***

 

 

Junmyeon had rejoined them and they were by the ladders down into the engine rooms when Baekhyun put out a hand and pulled Jinsu behind him, waving for Junmyeon to stop.  He turned curiously.

“I can hear Youngdo talking,” Baekhyun murmured.  “Is that Junho with him?  I totally forgot he existed.”

All three of them listened.

“What do we do?” Jinsu asked in a whisper.

“I’m not having him wandering around freely while we try to do this,” said Baekhyun grimly.  “He’s already tried to kill you once.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Junmyeon.

Baekhyun glanced sideways at him, but his main focus was on the ladders down to the floor below.  “I’ll need your help.”

 

It turned out they needed Jinsu’s help too, because Junho stormed into Youngdo’s rescue when Junmyeon and Baekhyun tackled him as he came up off the ladder, and it was only Jinsu jumping on Junho’s back from pure impulse that saved Junmyeon getting a nasty crack in the back of the neck.  Two unconscious boys later, Baekhyun and Junmyeon were both breathless and Jinsu was doing her best to ignore the sweat glistening off Baekhyun’s temple in a more-than-attractive way.  After him pinching her cheek and calling her cute, she was having a lot of difficulty looking at him or even listening to his voice without butterflies erupting in her tummy.

Hyunwoo was almost unconscious when they got down, his left arm hanging at a nasty angle and a number of bruises visible.  Junmyeon attempted to make him comfortable and after some persuasion convinced him that he could sit out for a bit.  In the other engine room, Baekhyun found Jisung, who looked pretty shaken up by something and was more than happy to join Junmyeon when he was asked to.  Baekhyun turned to the engine and winced at the heat coming off it.

It was time to get down to business, though, and he rolled up his sleeve paws – and then shoved them right the way up to his elbows, exposing lean, toned forearms.  Jinsu gulped and hastily looked away.  His left one was badly bruised, but despite that, why did he have to be so attractive?

After that it was just a haze of activity and heat so blistering that Jinsu could hardly breathe or think.  Baekhyun would ask her to run over to Junmyeon every so often with instructions, or to see what was going on, and then to monitor countdowns for him as he and Junmyeon tried to work out the best way to start limiting the fuel injection not just simultaneously, but also to get the injectors on both engines injecting the same volume which – they discovered fairly early on – hadn’t been the case when they arrived.

The biggest problem was that Minhwan or somebody else must have decided that the simplest way to increase the fuel injection and therefore speed, when it was almost impossible to reach any part of the mechanics except the nozzles right up at the top of one of the boilers due to the heat, was to sear off part of the conical structures, leaving them with an awful lot that needed doing and very little to work with.  After several attempts at trying to close, narrow or replace the nozzles and divert the fuel, Baekhyun took Jinsu up on her suggestion to try clogging up the shorn-off pipes bit by bit instead.

“I know it’s dangerous and the pressure could make it all explode out,” she said when he opened his mouth, “but realistically, what else can we try?”

She had a point.

Jisung got one better, though, when Jinsu went over to explain the new plan to him and Junmyeon.

“The metal caps on Hyunwoo’s chair are made of brass,” he said.  “Brass has a really high melting point.  If we can get the caps off, they might be the right size with the metal grasp leggy-pin bits to put on the nozzles and stem the flow and we can slide them up or down over the openings to control the fuel consumption.  The only problem’s securing them so they don’t fly off with the pressure.”

While Junmyeon thought it was a brainwave, Baekhyun was as dubious about that one as he was about Jinsu’s idea.

“It’s the securing it against the pressure that’s the problem with both of them,” he grumbled.  “Plus we need at least sixteen of those chair leg caps per engine.”

“That’s eight chairs,” Jinsu pointed out.  “Find a way to fix the caps while I find a screwdriver and the chairs.”

She didn’t give him the opportunity to argue, but she thought he might possibly have called her name as she headed off.  It was difficult to tell when the engines were so loud.

The chair caps weren’t perfect, but they worked well enough.  Hyunwoo had managed to find some thick brass wire, potentially which Yixing had used for some things in the stupendously hot engine room, and the best part of an hour later, they were beginning to notice the effect it had had on speed and noise.

“How do we know when we’ve got it down to Temp 2?” Junmyeon asked.  Jisung was practically passed out beside him, head lolling back against the wall and covered in sweat.

“We don’t,” said Jinsu as Baekhyun shrugged.  They’d all gathered in the engine room Junmyeon had been working on.  “The only thing we can measure it by is feel.”

“And what about lowering the vacuum wards?  How do we go about that?”

“The computers will need to be on briefly,” said Baekhyun, “because I need to ratify that.”

Hyunwoo piped up from the floor.   “What time do you think we’ll land in?”

“We’ll find out.”

 

Jisung clearly felt like the odd one out of the group despite his intelligent contribution and despite getting them all water to keep them hydrated down in the stiflingly hot engine rooms.  He largely kept to the fringes, only doing things he was asked to do or silently getting on with something he could see needed to be done.  He sent curious glances Jinsu’s way every so often when she was in his and Junmyeon’s side, but it was only when she paused there for a sip of water before dashing back that he spoke up for something unrelated to the task at hand.

“Youngdo and Minhwan said you’d agreed to stay behind to guarantee we could come back if people aren’t okay in the present.”  It was a statement, but he was clearly looking for some kind of explanation.

“They lied,” Jinsu said shortly.

“There’s been friction between them,” Jisung added.  “Minhwan’s been all shaken up since they came back from the tribe on the last day before we set off.”

He still looked like he wanted some kind of response.  Jinsu was flummoxed.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked, helpless.

Jisung seemed to think about it.

“Forget about it,” he mumbled.

 

Forty-five minutes later, they’d managed to reduce the fuel to a slow, steady trickle, though Baekhyun said this was in part because the oil was beginning to run low and that they were soon going to run out.  Once they’d been going at the new low speed for the best part of ten minutes, Baekhyun decided it was probably the best time they were going to get to lower the vacuum wards and invited the others to come up with him.  Junmyeon wanted to stay to make sure everything was okay with the engines, and Jinsu would have remained too, except for Baekhyun saying something about needing her for confidence that she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard and Jisung offering to stay with a quick glance at Hyunwoo, who was in dire need of painkillers and practically in tears.  Instead, Jinsu found herself up on the main deck as Baekhyun started up the main computer.

“I found the codes for the wards pretty easily last time to put them up before we left,” he mumbled, “and they didn’t look corrupted.”

“They had the strongest firewalls,” Jinsu babbled for want of something to do that made herself loo

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Korekrypta
It's EXO's 4th anniversary today, so four chapters will be going up in a bit!

Comments

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Hyeji1990 #1
Here I am again..
Mitsukiii #2
I remember I had read this story about 10 times on my last account. Years later, back to do the same thing....
evaporous
#3
Chapter 20: Ik Jinsus family basically ruined baekhyuns life but he is just so mean to her
evaporous
#4
Chapter 19: 'I tried to withold this chapter. I failed. ' what does this mean Korey
evaporous
#5
Chapter 16: United We Spy? Is that the Gallagher Girls series? I love it! Wow, I can't believe a quote from that made it here.
evaporous
#6
Chapter 10: "Go away before someone sees you fraternising with the enemy"
HARRY POTTER-INSPIRED QUOTE from Goblet of Fire
Bbhfever #7
Chapter 97: Now I believe this is the 4th time I’ve read this all the way through! Going back to reread favorite scenes because it’s tradition at this point lol! I always forget how emotional I get reading this! You really did not let my girl rest… she faced problems after problems!!
Bbhfever #8
Chapter 12: And here I am again… I should really keep count just to see how many times I’ve actually read this 🤣.
Imthtdiamond95 #9
Re reading this fic 3 years later, can honestly say this is my favourite story on the platform, it’s just soo good. Your writing is seriously amazing, thank you for this story!
Justanother-girl #10
Chapter 97: Re-reading this again a few years later, and it’s still as good. Thanks korey for the wonderful story. 😍