“What happens when you stomp your feet against the comet, Two-Gun?” Weaver replied. “Or bring a ship and gravity field in close to it for that matter? And don’t forget that you and the ship are hot.”
“Huh? Oh, I see.” Berg realized that the disturbance of the ship landing had forced a cloud of debris particles up around it. The gravity of the comet was so slight that it would take months or even years for the dust to settle. And the heat radiators from the belly of the ship were probably melting off ice and causing a microclimate to form around them as well. Space was a delicate, although harsh place; the tiniest variance in temperature could create interesting changes.
“This damned thing looks like some sort of demented garden tiller,” Machinist Mate Gants said. Behind it a Seaman’s Apprentice rolled a large coiled-up thirty-centimeter-diameter flex hose. The spooled flex hose would be fifty meters long when stretched out.
“Yeah, or maybe a miniaturized combine tractor.” Miriam laughed then pushed at the compressed, coiled, and tied-up flex hose with her foot. “I assume that someone has noticed that flex hose is not the smartest thing you could use in microgravity!”
“Well, ma’am,” Gants said, grinning. “You know what they say about assuming…”
“That’s the last of the cables, Two-Gun.” Himes attached the loop on the end of his Spectra 1000 polymer cable onto the carabineer connected to the chipper. The cables stretched out like spokes of a wheel about the ship for about thirty meters in every direction. They would be used to help guide and hold down the ice chipper.
The ship had been carefully belayed down to the point where the elevator was in contact with the surface of the comet, then lashed to additional harpoons. As long as none of the forces about to be unleashed exceeded the rated strength of the materials, in near absolute zero cold and pretty solid vacuum, everything would be well.
If not…
“Secured to the winch up here, Chief,” Berg said. “I guess the only thing left is the flex hose.”
“Got it,” Lurch said pulling the oversized zip-tie cinched tight around where the hose fit over the output end of the chipper. Then he cut the zip-tie that was holding the hose compressed.
“No wait!” Two-Gun yelled.
It was too late.
The flex hose expanded out under the ship like a bullet, flailing like a snake with its head cut off and kicking up more ice particulates, thus making the fog even worse. But the hose quickly damped itself out to minor oscillations and lay limp floating a meter or so above the surface of the comet.
“Huh? It just stopped,” Himes said. “Why the hell did it do that? I figured it would go on forever!”
“Conservation of angular momentum,” Berg said musingly. “Should’ve thought of that. You knew that, didn’t you, Lurch?”
“I read about this experiment once called the Inflatable Antenna Experiment,” Sergeant Lyle said. “You let loose floppy things in space and one side flops one way so the other flops the other way to conserve angular momentum. Eventually, it stops flopping. No harm, no foul.”
“You’re trying to out Alpha Geek me, aren’t you?” Berg said, grinning inside his Wyvern.
“Not a chance, Brain,” Lurch said. “You can keep particles all to yourself. But, I mean, don’t all Marines read Space Daily?”
“This maulk hurts my head,” Himes said.
“Welcome to the Space Marines,” Lurch and Eric chorused.
“Commander Weaver, we are ready to commence chipping down here.” Weaver scanned as best he could in the fog at the surface, the winch cables, and the Marines. “Everybody clear out and man the flex hose. I’ve got the chipper.” The chief put his large burly space-suited hands around the ice chipper handlebars and depressed the start safety switch. The switch was a built-in safety disengage like a bicycle brake lever or, well, like the safety disengage on a garden tiller, and if it were let go, the chipper blades would stop turning. Miller stepped up on the operator’s platform, which was nothing more than two metal plates for him to stand on. As the safety lever closed, the electric engine whirred to life, spinning up the chipper blades.
The oversized and demented looking garden tiller started jumping and bouncing and would have thrown itself along with the chief off the surface of the comet and out into space were it not for the winches on either side of the device connected to polymer cables, which were, in turn, harpooned into the surface of the comet.
“Yeehaw!” Miller shouted sarcastically as the chipper bit into the icy surface of the comet and dug deeper into it, chewing up the comet debris and spitting it out through the flex hose. The chipper dug down a meter until the blades were completely under the ice. Then it started heading forward, continuing for twenty meters in less than fifty seconds.
The hose whipped taut and filled as the ice chips were forced through it. Like a rocket engine out of the other end of the hose a spray of ice flung the flex hose hither and yon. It was all that Lurch, Two-Gun, and Himes could do to hold on to it even though their feet were tied down to harpoons on the surface. The ice spray splattered across the opening of the elevator and only about two-thirds of it actually made it in.
“Hold up, Chief!” Two-Gun cried. The chipper stopped bucking once Miller let off the safety lever. It slowly flopped back and forward but was otherwise limp.
“Maulk, Two-Gun can’t you keep it up longer than that!” Himes laughed, but he couldn’t have held on any longer either.
“Shit, that was a ride,” Miller said. “I can’t fight this thing and hold down that damned safety lever at the same grapping time. Who designed this grapping thing anyway?” The chief was a big man, but in a matter of less than a minute the machine had caused him to sweat profusely and his hand and forearm muscles burned. Somehow, he just knew the Blade’s redneck astrogator had something to do with the design of the thing. “Ain’t like tilling garden soil, that’s for sure.”
“What’s wrong, Chief?” Spectre asked. The entire operation was considerably entertaining to the former fighter pilot. And for now it appeared to be safer than letting hydrogen gas seep into every nook and cranny of the ship.
“Uh, well sir, I’m not sure yet but I think I’m gonna need a foot long zip-tie, and some other stuff.” Miller looked back over his shoulder. “What’d you need, Two-Gun?”
“No problem that more Marines couldn’t solve. Even with Wyverns, keeping this hose under control is nearly impossible.”
“Did you get any ice, Chief?” Weaver asked.
“I don’t know. Hold one.” Miller turned slowly, releasing his carabineer from the cables harpooned into the ice. He was careful not to launch himself in the microgravity and inched his way back the couple of meters to where the Marines were strapped down.
“Any ice in the elevator, Marines?” He shined his suit floods at the elevator opening and saw a mountain of ice before them. He had to get within a half a meter to see it with all the fog. “What the grapp?”
“Will you look at that?” Himes leaned forward to inch closer to the elevator door.
“Uh, yes sir,” Miller said. “The elevator is completely full. And then some.”
“Good work, Chief! We’ll extract it and empty it for another round,” Spectre said, jovially. “EVA, retrieve the elevator.”
Weaver hit the elevator controls and was unsurprised when a red icon appeared on his screen.
“I was afraid of that.”
“What?” Spectre asked, leaning over the console. “Mr. Miller, did you break my elevator?”