by Ginger Booth
To Darren, Remi replied, “Chief, I think one of the engine nozzles has a clog.” He displayed the two flow images to Darren. “We have…23 burns remaining until we land.”
“That many! Huh. And how long have you noticed this?”
Sass supplied, “Three burns now. It’s getting stronger.”
“Question is,” Remi elaborated, “do we stop to clear the nozzle? Or do we trust it is safe to continue?”
“What’s involved in clearing a nozzle?” Sass asked. She’d never heard of this chore. She visualized the engine burns as blowing her nose. The star drive built up – power, plasma, something – and then she told the ship to sneeze. If blasting the star drive at power level 4 didn’t clear the sinuses, what could?
“Good question,” Darren allowed.
“And what the hell do we clean it with?” Remi pressed.
“Hm.” Knees bent and head bowed by the chamber’s low overhead, Darren leaned on the back bulkhead and pulled out his tablet. Disconcertingly, he stared into space, only using the device as a touch pad, and his glasses as the display. “I don’t know what to search on…”
Sass and Remi also bent to their consoles, dreaming up database queries. As usual, Remi guessed right first. “Nozzle build-up. This can’t be right.” He flicked his find to the other two.
“Vinegar and a crowbar,” Darren read. “Well that’s easy. Just two hours to cool the nozzles and then apply with…” The nozzles were open to vacuum. He couldn’t very well sponge vinegar out of a bucket.
“Purple gel,” Remi supplied. “To apply water-soluble. Need to mix and tube it. Twenty minutes.”
“Right,” Darren conceded. He was less fluent on space goops. “To answer your question… Yes. Power down the drive. We should fix this.”
“The royal ‘we’,” Remi noted. “Or will you join us outside this fine morning, oh lordly one?”
Darren scratched his nose sheepishly. “I probably should. Though I’d be least valuable player.”
“That’s alright,” Sass assured him. “Clay’s going out with you to compensate.”
Remi grinned. “Maybe I should sleep in?”
“No. If none of us knows what we’re doing, I want both of you out there.” Sass sighed, tempted to leave Clay on the bridge and go out to watch this herself. But captains weren’t supposed to do that, fun as it sounded.
She tapped the Saggy’s screen. “Recalculate. Should we do a bonus burn before we shut down the engines to cool?”
“Oh.” They bent their heads to it.
11
Around 04:00, Clay led his pair of engineers and crewman Joey on EVA to the nozzles. “Remember, keep your eyes on the ship,” he cautioned them, as Joey froze staring at the oncoming planet. “Joey, shift your clamp to the next hold.”
Given concrete instructions, the redshirt got his face pointed in the right direction and continued aft. Darren and Remi, intent on their eagerness to see ‘nozzle dirt’, matter-of-factly clamped at the base of the engine outflow and pulled themselves up the meter and a half to peer in. Darren didn’t plant his mag boots firmly enough on the hull, so his legs started to drift out, his momentum carrying him into space.
Clay yanked him back and secured him with a second line and clamp. He wasn’t worried about Remi. The miner was adept with his flying jets if his line failed. Joey was a different story. The first mate double-clamped him, too, and explained that his job was to retrieve tools on request, and supply them handle-first.
His charges secured, Clay cautiously played out some line to float behind the Saggy engineer to watch. The yawning black tube of the nozzle itself offered no hand-holds, and its ceramic alloy was non-magnetic. The aperture was nearly 3 meters across, the interior inky black. “Found anything?”
Remi floated motionless relative to the hole, each slight shift of his helmet light compensated with a twitch of a hand or foot to keep him steady. “Not yet. Lot of surface to inspect.”
“How the hell do we brace ourselves to work on this?” Even Remi’s preternatural spin control would fall apart if he tried to apply force.
“Darren, work on that, would you?” Remi replied. “Bungee cage.”
“I don’t think I’m coordinated enough to do that,” Darren confessed.
“Get the bungees out and secured,” Clay ordered. “Design the thing. I can string the first cords in place.” Once they had a handhold established, he and Joey could brace themselves between that and the nozzle walls to secure the rest. “Remember to leave space for us to climb in and out of this cage.”
The springy scaffolding was nearly complete by the time Remi reported success. “About 2 meters in, a nodule the size of a marble. Toward the ship centerline. Crowbar.”
Metal bar acquired, he ‘stood’ on the bungee webbing, head into the engine, with Joey and Clay holding his safety lines taut. But his first ten jabs at the obstruction failed to knock it loose.
He set the crowbar to sit in space and extracted his custom tube of purple gelled vinegar. He applied it liberally at the base of the lump. Curious, he also drew an ‘R’ for Remi on the wall, then wiped it with a cloth. The cloth came away blackened. The smeared R remained as black as its surroundings, but faintly shiny instead of matte. “Huh. Why vinegar?”
Darren assumed the question was directed at him. “No idea.”
Remi decided the gel had enough time to work, and applied the crowbar again. No joy. So he wiped the previous goop off, and applied it again. He set his rag drifting lazily toward his helpers, along with the empty purple tube. “Need another rag and gel.”
Clay expected Joey to grab the debris – it flew closest to him – only to see the trash sail right past him. “Joey…” Clay snatched the trash, lost his toehold on the bungee cage, and had to reel himself in. “No space trash! This stuff is dangerous. You want the ship to crash into this and hole the hull?”
“Not possible,” Remi opined. “Still waiting for tools. You guys are very slow. Everyone pass me your rags and purple gel!”
He was securing his second tube when suddenly the ship jerked violently, slamming the engineer into the nozzle wall.
Clay frantically strained to pull Remi to the bungees rather than let him rebound against the other nozzle wall. “Sass, report!”
Sass sat on the bridge when her ship lurched sideways. The door behind her slurped shut. The tiny chamber flooded with red strobe lights. She yelled over the emergency klaxons, “Computer, damage report!”
“Explosive decompression, approximate location 5.4 aft, 4.6 up starboard.” Coordinates were cited in meters, relative to the middle of the central trapdoor in the hold. “Securing pressure doors. Failure to secure compartments crew-1, crew-2, crew-3.”
Over this, Clay demanded answers. She ignored him because she didn’t have answers yet.
Her eyes glued to the display which backtracked the trajectory of what hit them. In seconds, this found another ship, tracked its trajectory, and Sass fired with her biggest gun. Because the offender was moving so fast relative to Thrive, she laid on continuing fire along a line until the laser’s capacitors were exhausted.
But the target was out of range before she began firing. She’d love to follow up, but she had other priorities.
“All hands! Into pressure suits and into the hold! Medic to med-bay!”
“Aye, captain. How many injuries?” Dot asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Sass replied grimly.
She rummaged at the back of the bridge, but no, she didn’t have a pressure suit here. Well, this would suck, but she’d live. That might not be true if anyone else tried it. “Computer, emergency override, unseal captain’s cabin and the bridge.” She took a deep breath and held it as the air whooshed away.
She slipped through the bridge door the moment it opened, and dashed for her cabin and her closest pressure suit. She was getting dizzy by the time she got her helmet on, but no worse injuries than that. Her nanites made quick work of skin damage and broken capi
llaries.
This was no subtle leak. The air in the hold was gone. When she had air to speak again, she hailed the EVA team. “Clay, massive decompression caused the lurch. We were attacked. About to look for survivors. Status.”
“One injury, Remi. I’m carrying him to the trapdoor. Darren and Joey to complete nozzle clearing project.”
“Belay that. Insert Remi into trapdoor. Call Dot to retrieve. I want you back with Darren and Joey. I need those engines back online ASAP. Captain out.”
By now she was face-to-face with the first 4-crew bunkroom. The door wouldn’t budge. “Computer, is crew-1 pressurized?”
“Crew-1 is open to space,” the computer replied in unconcern. “No pressure in crew-1, crew-2, or crew-3.”
Sass assumed crew-2 referred to the 8-person shared bath. Three rooms in series took up the width of the ship at the aft end of the catwalk, the bath only accessible through the bunks. She trotted to the far door, crew-3, but couldn’t open that either. “Corky? Status.” The housekeeper and Remi likewise shared an intervening bath between their two single cabins on this side of the galley.
No response. “Computer, what compartments currently hold air?”
“The galley, the engine room, single-1, and officer-4. An airlock is being erected on med-bay.”
Bless you, Dot! Sass didn’t even bother to glance down, instead hustling to the the single cabins just up from crew-1. The first door, Remi’s, was stuck. But Corky’s door finally opened.
Covers thrown off the bed. No one in the room. Pressure suit cabinet open, no suit. Sass tried the bathroom door, which didn’t open. She banged on it, then recalled there were no pressurized bathrooms on Thrive. So she braced a boot on the wall for leverage and hauled harder until the door slid open. There Corky stood in tears, yelling and pumping her fists.
“Corky, can you hear me?” Judging by her lips, the housekeeper yelled back, ‘Of course I can hear you!’ “Switch to damage control channel to reply, Corky.”
“– Oh, hell! Ohmigod, Sass, I thought I was the last person left alive on the –”
“Mr. Graham!” Sass barked at her. “Control yourself! Where is the air leak in that chamber!”
Corky promptly shut her mouth and backed up to let Sass through. She pointed to the back upper corner of Remi’s chamber. Sass didn’t spot it immediately, but got closer. The join between the inner and outer bulkhead was shorn away, open to space, gaping less than a centimeter at its widest.
Sass tried a fist through the pressure bulkhead to crew quarters. Her punch broke straight through. The far side of this bulkhead was burned away.
Unfortunately, that didn’t make it any easier to get in there, but hopefully she could look –
Damn, I’m an idiot!
“Computer, display camera feeds from crew-1 and crew-3, nearest monitor.” The view came up on a screen above the foot of Remi’s bed. The first image showed Joey’s empty bunk. Above it lay a single crewman, facing away, wrapped in his covers looking peaceful under the lurid strobe lights. The camera angles were never intended to peer closely at sleeping people.
The next image looked out toward the hull. A jagged hole gaped a meter across. The laser entered the port side, clipping Remi’s corner as she saw. The beam all but vaporized the bunks on the forward side of the cabin, passed into the showers, and out the other side.
No bunks survived in crew-3, the coherent beam having scattered by then. The exit hole to starboard spread even wider, having drilled clear through the ship. At a guess, the attacker used an asteroid-carving gun on them. They aimed at her engines and missed.
“Computer, time elapsed since laser strike,” Sass asked dully.
“Five minutes, sixteen seconds.”
No one survived in crew quarters. No urgency remained here. Sass stared at the screen, paralyzed in horror.
Corky, bless her, jogged her elbow. “Three above!”
Dammit! That’s right, she still had three crew in cold storage. And judging by the damage trajectory, they might yet survive. “Go, go!” Sass urged her.
The captain started to follow the housekeeper, but paused. Was that her most urgent concern? Corky was on it. “Clay, status.”
“Just closing the trapdoor now with Remi inside. Done. How’s the damage in there?”
“Catastrophic.” She scrunched her eyes in anguish, and described the damage. “The engine room is secure. We need to perform the next braking burn soon. Get it done out there, Clay. Sass out.” The act of issuing orders steadied her.
She switched to a private channel. “Dot, do you need a hand with Remi?” The nurse would need no time to cycle the airlock, going from vacuum outside to inside the hold.
“I think he’s just dazed. Vitals consistent with a concussion. How’s crew berthing?”
“No survivors in crew berthing.” Assured there was nothing more pressing to attend to, Sass headed after Corky. “Checking cold storage. Those compartments are fully pressure-sealed, yes?”
“Checking vitals. They look perfectly safe. Don’t open those drawers.”
Sass flicked her gravity and hopped up to join the housekeeper crouched on the roof of the crew quarters. Corky pointed to the green lights promising all was well within. Thrive had one geologist and two grad students still tucked away, all the science talent they were able to recruit for this decades-long adventure. Despite the carnage open to space below Sass’s feet, they looked safe enough up here.
The captain patted Corky on the shoulder, and thought hard. Training the cook as an emergency deckhand would only waste time. “Do you know how to rig an airlock, Corky?”
“No, sar.”
Constructing the real portable airlocks took mechanical skill. But the Sagamore emergency air bubble kits were fool-proof for uneducated slave labor. “Would you prefer med-bay or the galley?”
“Galley, please,” Corky begged.
Sass hopped down to the catwalk and escorted her there. She positioned Corky in front of the door, then blew a tight bubble around her, stuck to the floor and bulkhead around the doorway. Seal accomplished, Sass ordered the computer to open the door to let Corky in, then sealed the galley after her. “Keep your suit on and your helmet at hand for now. I’m sure everyone will be grateful for your excellent cooking soon.”
Minus the seven dead.
12
Clay tucked one of Joey’s feet into the trapdoor, and entered himself. Once he was clear of the aperture, he immediately hit both door controls to let them straight into the hold.
This was the first he realized that the ship was depressurized. His heart fell, yet again. Fat lot of use he was as first mate.
Bereft of their space-savvy engineer, the three of them flailed like monkeys inside the engine nozzle to work free the obstructing nodule. Clay didn’t choose to preoccupy them with scary thoughts. They could barely apply a crowbar in the right direction. Sass hadn’t told Clay much, probably for the same reason.
Clay felt a sudden and burning need to step up his leadership game.
He steeled himself, and thrust his helmet into the hold first. Aside from lacking atmosphere, it looked OK at first glance. The scrubber trees were safe in their gas-tight tent, automatically deployed. A suited Sass maneuvered a steel plate forward. The med-bay sported a new external airlock. His eyes drifted to take in the bubble-lock to the galley, and the door gaping open to Corky’s cabin.
“Welcome back,” Sass hailed them. “Darren, any concerns about the nodule you found?”
“Oh, that was fascinating –” Darren began. Clay stuck a flat gauntleted hand in front of his face to interrupt. The engineer regrouped. “Good to go?”
“Thank you. Gentlemen, take a seat.”
Clay simply sat on the floor, legs dangling into the trap lock. The other two followed his lead.
In soft tones, the captain informed them of their status. “Joey, I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll take time to mourn, but not now.”
“Yes, sar,” their lone
surviving crewman breathed. His girlfriend was among the dead, and naturally all his peers.
The captain continued, speaking over their comms channel instead of joining them. “Darren, can we perform a braking burn with holes in the hull?”
“Certainly not! The plasma…hm.”
“The ESD field doesn’t protect us from plasma leaking in?” Sass pressed.
“I need to look that up.” He clambered to his feat and made for the engineering console.
“I’m prepping hull patches,” Sass explained. “Help.”
Clay gave Joey a minute. The size of Sass’s hull patches – plural! – was daunting. Then he stood and pulled the crewman up, with a half-hug. “The rest of our lives depend on this, Joey. Ready to work?”
The younger man sniffed and nodded. Clay knew from sad experience how badly it sucked to cry inside a helmet, with no way to blow his nose afterward. He considered sending the guy to one of the airlocks just to mop off, but decided against it. Better for him to keep moving.
Darren reported, “Captain, it depends on the size of the hole. Anything bigger than my fist, the ESD field is too weak across the gap.” He paused, probably taking in the size of the plates Sass toiled over. “We have…two holes over fist-sized?” That was an enormous hole for a spaceship hull.
“Yes,” Sass bit out.
“Right. Sass, I’ve never… Is Remi…?”
Clay had never either.
“I’m curving the patches to design spec now,” Sass explained. “You’ll have to reshape to current reality once you’re out there. But I thought you’d appreciate a break indoors for a few minutes. Make it very few.”
Leading Joey by the elbow, Clay joined her forward, where a plate of high-tech steel lay on rough sawhorses made from Mahina spruce. Sass used a laser sight affixed to one edge as her straight-edge. A flat robotic gizmo crawled the surface, which curved upward slightly.
“You’re waiting for the first plate to be shaped,” Sass informed them. “Then you’ll carefully coat it completely with a weld-prevention compound. This is crucial,” she paused to eyeball her progress for a moment, “because in space, steel welds to steel automatically between clean surfaces. Clay, I need you to figure out how to carry this plate outside, into position, and hold it both touching and not-touching the hull for final shaping, testing, cleaning, and cold welding.”