Attachment(s): <<We have your percolator.doc>>

Sponners,

Don’t panic about the kit: we’ve been told by Requisitions the replacement parts are on the way, although the Captain’s demands that the freighter shipping them be accompanied by a fully operational battle group with very very loose rules of engagement didn’t get through, apparently.

I am not plugging the tricorder in until we’ve got the OSBN up and running, never fear. We’ve had three serious injuries, one first degree burn and a couple of minor sprains this week amongst the engineers. That’s an all-time low for us, and I don’t want to jinx it by trying anything premature. The Captain’s not happy, but I fobbed him off with the old ‘multi-ohm board not being able to take more than a 4.2 milli-Streicher increase before it blows’ routine we used to use. So we’ve got a couple of days before he gets round to checking that and realising I’m talking gibberish.

I’ve managed to get my hands on the percolator, so we’re good to go on that front. I did think about our old filing cabinet solution, but even after 75 years the reprimand for that is still on my file, along with the restraining orders and prohibition from attending any social event on Mars, so I figured that might be a bit of a high risk strategy. I’ve come up with a far less risky option. My boss thinks the percolator’s now in the hands of a gang of inter-system antiques thieves who specialise in turn of the century kitchenware. Incidentally, can you resend the ransom demand attached to this message back to DS13 via a couple of different places to disguise the transmission point of origin? It’ll help keep the story going for while longer. Ta.

Followed your recipe for the bio-mechanical gel to the letter. Sponners, old son, you should have been a cook! Admittedly, I had to sacrifice a perfectly good sandwich to the cause, but we’ve now got a big old gloopy pile of the most evil-smelling substance I’ve ever come across. I’ve run a couple of tests on it, and we’ve managed to control the auxiliary cargo bays doors through it. After a couple of false starts where we accidentally chopped a cargo container in half, we figured out how to regulate the flow (it’s all in the plankton concentration), and I reckon we’re about ready to give this a try.

One last question before I turn this beast on: In the event the station has to, erm, move at all, what do you reckon the chances of everything going BANG! are? I know you would think that’s unlikely, but for reasons I can’t really go into I’m having to take that into account right now.

Cheers,
Pete Barfoot! Pete Barfoot! So good they named him twice!

PS: Write back quick, Sponners, it’s all kicking off down here now.