“We’ll have to rotate him off,” Herzer replied, looking at Megan. “You okay, honey?”
“I don’t like being out on the surface,” Megan admitted. “Too big, you know?”
“I know,” Herzer said. She looked so wan and unhappy he wanted to hug her but now was neither the time nor the place. “Get some rest. Bus, for the time being, station somebody by the port airlock as well. I’d like some warning if they come at us on the surface. When Cruz gets back we’ll put somebody down in the belly, as well. Then we just hang tight. Everybody hook their systems up and recharge on air. We’ve got control of four shuttles. Sooner or later they’re going to figure that out and then we’ll see what they do.”
“Let’s cut through the ring,” Nicole said as they approached the rear structural ring. “It’s shorter and it’s less likely to have orcs hanging around. And our icepacks can refreeze. I don’t know about you, but I’m heating up.”
“Works,” Cruz said. “Which airlock?”
“Ninety-six,” Nicole replied, pointing towards the underside of the ring. It looked like the top from where they were standing. “Cut through the EVA room then we’ll hand-over-hand on the support strings.”
The EVA support room had an oversized hatch and all nine of them could fit in at once. The hatch had large arrows pointing to “down” for when gravity came on.
“Ah, that feels better,” Sergeant Nasrin said as they settled to the bottom of the airlock. As the air went out, the gravity came on, slowly. By the time the airlock was fully pressurized, the room was at full gravity. “Down is a wonderful thing.”
“There’s an inner hatch down the way,” Nicole said, leading the way. The EVA room had clear-faced lockers for suits, all of which were empty, and at both ends were sets of thrusters. Those were in place.
“Think we should pick up a thrust pack?” Nasrin said, gesturing to the devices.
“Those things are about six hundred years old,” Nicole replied, walking over to the inner-ring hatch. It was set in the rear bulkhead of the room, between two of the suit racks. “You really want to trust one?”
“On second thought,” Nasrin replied.
The group piled into the airlock and in a minute they were back in microgravity.
“As a shortcut, this leaves a lot to be desired,” Triari Sergeant Dhanapal growled. The group of Blood Lords had paused, staring into the inky blackness.
“That line,” Nicole said, pointing to the nearest support string. “Take that to the inner juncture, take the second one to the right when we get there and that will take us right to Maintenance.”
“You’re sure,” Cruz asked, considering the distance to the support string. There were handholds on the wall of the inner ring and he first hooked on his safety line, then reached for one of the rungs.
“I’m sure,” Nicole said. She hooked her safety line next to Cruz but instead of using the rings she pushed herself off lightly towards the support string.
“There are old spacemen and bold spacemen,” Cruz said. “Watch your pretty neck.”
“I am,” Nicole replied, catching the support string on her way by and correcting her spin with her grip. She pulled the release lanyard and carefully retrieved the safety line. “But what we need for this is something like a locking ring.”
“We’ll link up,” Cruz said. “Hook the safety lines together and go up it in a string. If a person gets loose, we’ll retrieve him. Everybody careful touching these things; they’ve got to be cold as hell. Don’t damage your gloves.”
The support string was just big enough around to grip, about ten millimeters in diameter, and appeared to be constructed of plastic.
“What is this stuff?” Cruz asked as the group slowly moved up the string.
“Carbon nanotube,” Nicole said. “Very strong, very light.”
“Same stuff dragons use in their wings,” Josten said. “Cool.”
“But this is a millennia or so old,” Nicole noted. “If there are any breaks in it, it’ll puncture the suit gloves in a heartbeat. So keep a careful eye out.”
“Handy safety tip,” Cruz replied dryly. “Thanks for telling us after we took the shortcut.”
“If there are any orcs down here they’ll have their lights on,” Nicole pointed out. “So we’ll be able to see them… across the whole ring, probably. And down here, we’re not getting bombarded by radiation.”
“And sunlight,” Cruz said. “We spent most of our time in the sun. Our icepacks were about used up. We had to keep going into the shade to freeze them down again.”
“But the shuttles are well and truly screwed,” Evan said. “All the injectors except for shuttle one are spinning off in space.”
“Mission more or less accomplished,” Cruz said. “Now all we have to do is stay alive to make it back to Earth. And hold onto the shuttles we control, of course.”
“And Linda apparently pulled the power busses to the engines,” Nicole said. “There were orcs headed for Engineering. I wonder if they’ve got them back online.”
“She said they hid them,” Cruz replied. “It’ll be interesting to hear where…”
“Be glad you were in sun,” Van Krief said, shaking her head. All of the teams were back in Maintenance and, with the exception of the attack on Team Massa, there had been no casualties, for which everyone was thankful. Since most of the teams had spent the better part of two hours out in the beyond, they were thankful to be back in pressure. There were air rechargers in the maintenance section and everyone had refilled their oxygen bottles. The CO2 scrubbers were good for a couple of days. “We were working on the shadow side of the ship. It was like working in a mine. It’s incredible how black it gets. And cold. At first, before they maneuvered, we were getting some reflectance from the Earth. But after they maneuvered, we got nada. It was suit lights all the way.”
“Try having your icepacks melt and the nearest refill being the other end of the ship,” Cruz pointed out. “We were glad for shade.”
“I spent most of my time hooked up to the shuttle systems,” Courtney admitted. “I don’t know why I was even along; Megan had the override down pat.”
“In case there was a snag,” Megan said, smiling. “And to hold my hand; I really didn’t like being out in the vacuum.”
“Okay, everybody, listen up,” Herzer said. “They can’t get through the doors and they can’t get the shuttles working. And the main engine and thrusters are down.”
“Dead,” Linda said. “Of course, they might find the busses,” she added with a grin.
“You hid them, right?” Herzer asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Linda replied, grinning wider. “I dare even Evan to find them.”
“Just as a bit of useful information,” Evan said, dryly. “Where are they?”
“Where are they?” Gomblick snarled, looking around the engineering space. The six main power busses were completely removed.
“What do they look like?” Tur-uck asked, looking around. “How big are they?”
“Pretty much like…” Gomblick said and looked up at the massive latticework of power busses that led to the ion cannons. “Pretty much like every single one of those…” he said, pointing.
“They’re jammed in to the auxiliary power junctures,” Linda said, smiling. “One per engine between the fifth and sixth juncture. They look just like all the rest of the busses and since there’s a gap there they look totally normal. I dare them to find them in that tangle. You’d have to get out the schematic and look for busses that aren’t supposed to be there.”