Jirik looked thoughtful. "Maybe, If the hole were big enough. It would have to be about a meter in diameter to make the decompression too fast for the men to get to their suits, or to hit an alarm."
Bran shrugged. "If I remember correctly, each power pack contains a kilojoule of energy. I'm not sure that a single pack would make a large enough hole, but if I attach two or even three power packs in series, I imagine that I could guarantee a meter, and maybe even more. How many fully charged packs do we have?"
Jirik grinned. "That's no problem. I have about three dozen, and I keep them all fully charged. Assuming that you can do it, that leaves three problems; how do we place them, how do we keep them from being spotted, and how do we set them off?"
Bran sighed. "Deity, Captain I don't have all the answers; I'm not even sure that we have all the questions. All I'm saying is that I think I can rig some sonic bombs that could take out the plascrete huts and the men inside them. We'll have to work out the other details."
Jirik grinned again. "Relax, Bran. I never require more than one miracle per day from you. We'll figure something out."
That "night," after local midnight, Tor nervously suited up and left the Lass, half expecting the alarm to be raised at any moment. He walked slowly toward the Comm hut, frantically hoping that he appeared casual. Inside, he was damning himself for being the one to make friends at the University. Now, everybody was counting on him, and he was sure that he was going to screw it up. He nearly panicked at the thought that if the crew was detected getting the weapons, they were all dead. He had to keep Fyk's eyes away from those monitors, no matter what!
He had just decided that if all else failed, he'd physically attack Fyk when he arrived at the Comm hut.
His terrorist "friend" met him at the inner airlock door. Tor fumbled his helmet off. "Hi, Fyk," he said, "I couldn't sleep, and then I remembered that you had duty tonight. I thought I'd come keep you company. That's all right, isn't it?" He prayed to no particular god that his nervousness didn't show.
Fyk shrugged. "Naw, Tor, it's no problem. Oh, we're not supposed to leave the monitors, but nobody told me we couldn't have visitors!" He grinned with the air of a young man putting something over on his seniors. "C'mon," he continued, "I gotta get back to the monitors in case somebody checks."
Fyk's friendliness made Tor feel uncomfortably guilty, but he accompanied the terrorist back to the monitoring room, chattering gaily
When they arrived, Fyk waved toward the bank of monitors occupying most of one wall of the hut. "I saw you suitin' up. I Figured you were bored. Actually, I hoped you'd come over. It doesn't get much more boring than staring at empty compartments and listening to snores!" He glanced quickly at Tor. "Hey . . . uh . . . I'm sorry about spying on you, but it's orders, you know?"
Tor shrugged. "No offense taken, Fyk. I guess you gotta be careful." With a surge of panic, Tor saw motion on one of the screens. Jirik's broad back appeared and hurried to the hatch of the weapons locker. "Help me out of this damned suit, will you?" he added, to divert his companion's attention
Fyk, facing his visitor, had not seen the motion. He set about helping Tor out of the clumsy suit, while the two talked. Jirik's image disappeared and the hatch closed silently only a moment before the terrorist's eyes scanned the monitors. Tor pulled a chair to near his "friend"s padded seat, forcing Fyk to swivel away from the monitors to face him. They played a few rounds of "Do you remember so-and-so?", and "What happened to so-and-so?" before settling down to comparing notes on mutual female acquaintences. Meanwhile, Tor watched with fascination as Jirik reappeared with his arms full of belts and holsters. Bran and Valt hurried into view, accepted the armloads of weapons and power packs that Jirik shoved into their arms, and hurried off.
Jirik relocked the hatch, turned and winked at the spy-eye, and then hurried out of view. Tor's relief was both visible and audible, by way of a huge sigh.
"Hah!" Fyk crowed, making Tor jump, "I thought you were pretty fond of her!"
"Who?" Tor replied, confused
"Who?" Fyk mimicked, "Rayla, that's who! The one that can make you sigh just by remembering her!"
"Oh, yeah. Rayla." Tor replied, this time concealing his relief that Fyk had misunderstood his sigh. "Yeah," he continued, "She was kinda nice. Cute, too. What happened to her?"
Fyk grinned. "I told you, you idiot She's one of us! She'll probably be here in a few weeks! Man, you've got it bad!"
Tor flushed. He had rather liked Rayla. She'd been a good dancer, had a good sense of humor and, like him, had been struggling against Boondock's terrible gravity. Tor hoped that the terrorist conspiracy would be broken up before she got in too deeply.
The two talked for another half hour before Tor felt it safe to stretch and yawn, commenting that he was getting sleepy, and that he'd better be getting back to the Lass.
Jirik was much more hopeful, now that they had weapons. They'd managed to retrieve lasers, needlers, and vibroblades for each of them. The lasers would effectively take care of the inflatables and, he hoped, their inhabitants. That left the problem of the rigid huts. Reluctantly, Jirik summoned the crew to a predawn meeting in the Engineering dead spot. Bran had done some research, and was able to describe his idea more completely.
"If I rig two packs in series, I'm sure of getting at least a one-meter, and probably a two-meter hole in the plascrete."
"But," Jirik interjected, "We still have to work out a way to place the things, a way to conceal them until we're ready, and a way to trigger them. How big do you figure that they'll be?"
Bran shrugged. "The power packs are each about 15cm long, 10cm wide, and 2cm thick. The circuitry should be about the same length and width, and about 1cm thick. That means a package 15 by 10 by 3, just slightly too large to conceal in one hand."
Tor spoke up. "Can you camouflage them to look like part of a suit's normal gear? That would let us get them to the huts undetected."
Bran nodded. "I think so. The hard part's going to be placing them in physical contact with the hut, and preventing the terrorists from noticing them before we're ready."
"Well," Valt put in doubtfully, "It's pretty dark out there. Maybe nobody will notice them; especially if they look like cast-off equipment.'
Jirik wasn't so sure. "I dunno, Valt. If somebody sees a piece of suit equipment just lying on the ground, I think they'd be more likely to pick it up to see what it was. Valt is right, though," He added more briskly, "It is pretty dark and glarey out there. I don't think anything very sophisticated is necessary. Bran, what do you think of just pieces of dark-colored cloth thrown over them? If we got the color even fairly close, I think the chances of their being found would be small."
Tor was getting excited. "Sure! All we'd have to do is walk up, drop them, and drop the cloth on top of them. That shouldn't be a problem!"
Bran chuckled. "I don't think it'll be quite that easy, Tor They have to be placed in physical contact with the huts, with the circuitry touching the plascrete. I think you're right, though, Captain, about concealing them. Cloth would probably work, especially if we kicked some dust over them. The riskiest part is actually placing them."
"What about triggering them?" Jirik asked, "Have you come up with anything on that?"