“What you should do,” he continued, “Is kind of straddle the cylinder, and lay on it. Try to keep your body aligned with its long axis, to keep from tumbling too much, and keep one of the smaller cylinders in your hand. The nitrogen is compressed to five hundred atmospheres, so you should have adequate maneuvering reserve.”
Edro stepped forward and handed Toj what appeared to be a collar for a very large animal, with a large stalk projecting from it. “Now, sir,” the engineer said, “This is the passive sensor Edro designed. It will detect almost any kind of radiation, but it doesn’t emit anything. It fits around your neck, and the stalk sticks up in front of your helmet, to give you a display that will let you home in on Atropos.
“Oh yes,” he continued as Kas donned his helmet. “Your heads-up display has been programmed with the layout of Atropos. That should help you find a vent or a small lock near your landing site.”
Kas nodded. He was beginning to wonder if he was crazy to try this. He was risking the lives of every man and woman aboard both his ships. He sighed. Crazy or not, it was necessary. It was obvious that no ideas would be coming from Prime, and Pankin’s advisors had come up empty, as well.
Still, it was a big risk. Reluctant or not, Kas had no doubt that the guard ships would open fire at the first sign of a boat or launch leaving either of his ships. Moreover, he had no doubt that the surrounding ships kept a close watch.
However, he had noticed that the guard ships ignored routine waste dumps. It was a normal procedure for ships to jettison wastes into a system’s sun. The guard ships never considered that such dumps might come under the heading of “nothing leaves those ships.”
In a few minutes, they were going to dump waste again. This time, Kas would be in the middle of it and the load would not be aimed directly for the sun. Once clear of Vir Rekesh, Kas would orient himself toward the huge bulk of Atropos, and use the gas cylinder to boost himself in the direction of the dreadnought.
Kas had not cleared his plan with Pankin. It was better that the Fleet Admiral be able to deny knowledge, even under probing.
Finally, the moment arrived. Kas clumped over to the waste lock. Toj handed him the gas cylinder, and showed him the controls and the handles he had affixed to it. Then Toj closed the lock’s inner door. Kas felt his suit stiffen as the air pressure fell. Finally, the outer door opened, and the last of the air in the lock swept the waste, and Kas, into space.
Kas was slowly spinning and tumbling. He hugged the gas cylinder and began scanning for Atropos. There! Nothing could be confused with her massive bulk. A few short, well-timed bursts of nitrogen, and the huge circular image steadied in his detector’s ring-shaped display. Taking a deep breath, Kas triggered a long, hard burst of gas from the large tank. He turned slightly, and could see the bulk of Vir Rekesh receding into the blackness of space. He gulped. He was committed, now. The fate of every man and woman on his two ships were in his hands. When Ta-Lank learned he had left Rekesh he was sure to order both ships destroyed. And that could be the end of the Empire. Unless his wild plan succeeded.
Time dragged. Minutes became hours, but Kas didn’t dare accelerate too much — it wouldn’t be wise to trigger Atropos ’ meteor defenses!
Nearly six hours had passed, and Kas was beginning to become concerned about his air supply when he realized he could see the dreadnought’s bulk even without Edro’s detector. He also realized that he was approaching it much too fast. Frantically, he threw his weight around, finally coaxing the tank’s mass into a slow tumble.
Steering was more complicated this time. Space suits are not designed to provide wide-range vision. In particular, they are not designed to let the wearer see his feet.
Kas gulped and then began carefully slewing his body around, trying to rotate on the tank and face its nozzle without losing contact with it. He finally succeeded, and with a relieved sigh began venting gas to slow himself.
With a huge sigh of relief, he brought himself to a stop relative to Atropos ’ hull. The pitted antirad coating was almost within touching distance — a few meters at most. Kas simply hung there for a few moments, panting with relief and released tension.
Then he called up the image of Atropos on his heads-up display. He was… there! Yes, there was that particle beam projector, and over there, that sensor array.
There should be a maintenance lock nearby that array. After a few moments, he located the circle that indicated the opening. He nosed the tank as close as he dared, then pushed off it in the direction of the lock.
Judging by the micrometeorite pitting of the lock controls and the hatch itself, this lock had not been used in a generation. He nodded with satisfaction. If he was lucky the lock would still work, but the bridge indicators would be either out of order or simply ignored. Of course, there might also be an indicator in Engineering…
He swallowed noisily and ignoring the normal lock control, began to crank the manual mechanism. After what seemed hours but must be less than a minute, a red light indicated that the lock’s atmosphere had been evacuated. More pumping, now accompanied by panting, and the outer door reluctantly slid aside. For a heart-stopping moment, it ground to a stop after about fifteen centimeters, and Kas strained at the crank. Finally, the door gave with a jerk, and slid easily the rest of the way open.
Kas carefully climbed into the lock and hurried to the inner door, half convinced he would see an armed squad on the other side. However, what little he could see of the passageway through the tiny window of the inner door was empty. He turned and began pumping the interior manual control. The outer door slid smoothly home. Kas whooshed in relief and turned the control that flooded the lock with air.
He skinned out of the spacesuit as quickly as possible. Then he checked his watch. 0450. Good. He had time. Beneath the spacesuit he wore an oversized enlisted man’s shipsuit, and beneath that the undress khaki uniform of a Commodore. No sense attracting attention until he was ready.
When he opened the inner door, he was relieved to note that there was still no indication that his entrance had been detected. Good. He had been counting on the fact that, until this mission, Atropos had been nothing more than an orbital fort for half a century. He had been hoping her crew had become sloppy — and apparently, he had been right.
It seemed this whole area of the ship was unused. Dust lay thick in the passages, and he saw no one. He moved carefully. It was important that he wasn’t detected before he was ready to reveal himself.
He had spent much of his five-hour “flight” studying the layout of the dreadnought that Edro had programmed into his suit’s comp. Even so he wandered for almost half an hour before encountering a location he recognized. He checked his ring watch again. A little after 0500. A little early, but well within the margin of error he had established.
He surveyed his surroundings. The entire area was still mostly unoccupied. A dreadnought’s battle complement was more than eight thousand people. However, he knew that the standard crew allowance was “only” twenty-five hundred.
That meant that most of the huge ship was usually empty. He wandered a few passageways until he found a door labeled “Second-Level Port Aft Gunnery Officer.” He opened the door and slipped into a large, comfortable stateroom. A thick film of dust covered the furniture and bunk, but Kas did not care. He just needed somewhere to hide out until reveille in just under an hour. He stripped the bunk, and used the lower sheet to wipe the dust from the lone chair and the comp terminal. Praying to any god that happened by that no one would notice, he activated the terminal and began gathering information he needed.