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// Beginning the Inkstar's Repairs 
// Story: Equus' Unexpected Future 
// by Robert Emerald Fountain 
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The morning after everyone had been rescued, it was time to look at how severe the damage was before the repairs could begin. After towing the Inkstar to a hangar, Twilight flew over the ship to assess the damage and then she came back down to give a report to the Squid Sisters. As she explained the severity of the damage, Taylor looked back over his blueprints of the Inkstar.

“From what I can see, the communication dish just needs to be reattached and welded back into place. The wings aren’t as bad as you thought, they only got jammed when the meteors hit them. The engines, however, are going to be a real challenge. They got torn up to the point of almost being destroyed.”, she said.

“Sounds like we can repair the dish and the wings first, then we can replace the engines after we take a tour of your world. After all, visiting you was our main intent.”, replied Callie.

“I agree with Mom, Aunt Marie. From looking at my blueprints again, we didn’t reinforce the dish’s shaft. That means it was only strong enough to survive a launch and an atmospheric reentry. I will get some metal plates and put them on a scaffold with a winch. That way, you can reel them up when you’re ready.”, said Taylor.

Callie and Marie put on their inkjets and flew up to the communication dish. Twilight followed them up and projected a bubble around the dish so it could be lifted up and moved back into position. Lizzie was waiting inside the ship for Twilight to move the dish over its connection point so she could rewire it. The dish was very heavy, but Twilight did not give up. Once the dish was at the correct orientation, she lowered it down carefully and then Marie called to Lizzie over radio.

“Okay dear, Twilight has the dish in place. Go ahead and reattach the cables.”

Lizzie acknowledged her mom’s instructions and began plugging the cables back in. Taylor had already removed the broken wires from the crash and had plugged new ones in. He had also told Lizzie which cables went where, since they were color coded. Following her cousin’s wiring diagram, Lizzie succeeded in reattaching the power cables to the communication dish. 

“Okay Mom, the cables are in place. Bring it down.”, she said to Marie.

Callie and Marie helped Twilight bring the dish into position and then they attached magnetic clamps. These clamps would brace the dish while they welded it back on. After putting on welding goggles, Marie started fusing the two ends of the shaft to the top of the ship. Once she had done all of the areas between the clamps, Callie took them off and Marie welded the spots that the clamps had blocked. Then, Callie pulled up the plates that Taylor had readied for them on the scaffold. After those were welded on, Callie went inside the ship to weld more plates to the shaft’s interior. These plates ensured that the dish would never break off again. 

Once Callie and Marie confirmed that the dish was secure, Taylor and Lizzie moved on to get the wings unstuck. As they examined the wings with flashlights, they saw that there were bits of the meteor shards lodged in the joints between the flaps. In order to clean out the debris, they would have to take off the flaps first. Twilight helped them lower the flaps once they were disconnected. After putting the flaps on the ground, Taylor and Lizzie pulled out two air hoses and blasted the shards out of the joints. 

After the joints were cleared, Taylor and Lizzie shot lubricant into the spaces to keep the flaps from getting stuck, and then they reattached the flaps. To save time with repairing the engines, Taylor siphoned the coolant and unhooked the lines before attaching a magnet on the hangar’s gantry crane to lower them to the floor. For safety, he and Lizzie removed the engines one at a time. Now that the communication dish was reinstalled and the wings were repaired, it was time for the crew to chill out and take their tour of Equus.