The Scrapper, Ch. 4

Tak gave me one last wave, I gave a smile and a wave back. The airlock whizzed shut between us and then I was alone.

    “Kal!”

Well, almost alone. Kind of alone? In my head I was alone. Externally however-

    “I still need to tell you about what I found!”

I had a very excitable new roommate.

Back inside the ship and on the main deck, the aftermath of my going-away party was strewn everywhere. I collected some of the garbage into an ever-growing pile and desperately wanted to request a cleaning bot. Would they even come through if the maintenance alert was active? I should probably just take all of this out myself.

I ran a hand through my hair and bumped against the autostitcher I’d long since forgotten. The edge was hard, crusty, and before I had a chance to wonder how painful removal would be the whole thing crumbled to pieces. I flicked my hand a few times to dislodge the larger flakes and then ruffled that spot of hair to (hopefully) remove the rest. “Son of a…” probing the scar I discovered my fresh bald spot. “I’m lucky I woke up if they hit me that hard…” I groused. Usually the patches would work around hair, but if enough skin was missing or the wound was wide enough the patch would recycle what it needed.

Then again, why would StationSec hold back on a nondex. I sighed and meandered back towards the mysterious access panel Din kept chirping about. 

    “Alright,” I pried it back for the third time in so many minutes, “what am I looking at here besides the lines and the pinhole near my fuel port?”

    “The frame itself, of course!”

I stared at the frame, it looked like metal. I reached down to prod it with a finger; it was cool to the touch, the same general temperature as everything else around it (minus the pinhole leeching heat into the void). I sat back and looked up, as though Din lived in the ceiling now, “It’s just the frame, I don’t see anything wrong?”

    “No no, inside the frame!”

“Din, I don’t know what kind of knowledge you have of human capabilities, but I promise you: I cannot see through metal.”

    “Oh, right! It’s an alloy!”

    “Of course it’s an alloy, if they just sent raw iron into space it would twist itself into scrap before it breeched atmosphere, what are you trying to tell me? Stop being coy.”

    “The alloy is the part that is special! It contains rubidium!”

    “…what?”  That froze me in my tracks, a rubidium alloy? I’d never heard of that before. I stared down the access hole at the frame again, it looked like any other ship frame I’d broken down. Crusty on the outside, dark gray on the inside, but I suppose an alloy wouldn’t necessarily look different.

I got up and grabbed my tablet, popping open my code database and running a search. The only Rb things showing up were… blackboxes. The whole way down, nothing about an alloyed frame anywhere to be found. My collection was far from complete, but even hunting through some additional scrapyards on station (and archived inventories from a few off-station) didn’t turn up anything. This ship was far, FAR from new but this seemed… different. Maybe even unique.

    “Okay,” I said, scratching absently at my bald patch, “so what does that mean? Does it interface with a blackbox or something?”

    “I’m unsure at this present time! I have never come across a configuration like this!”

    “So, you just wanted to point it out then?”
    “Correct!”
    “Consider it pointed out.”
    “TING!”
    “What was that?”
    “I vocalized a check mark!”

Of course they did. The panel slid back into place with a satisfying clunk and I turned my attention to the pile of gear and garbage occupying large portions of the deck.

My tablet blipped as I walked towards the airlock, a message from Tak: [Maintenance switch has been flipped, I’ll swing back in an hour or so and get the temp seal installed so it all looks legit, you good on your end?]

I sent back: [Good over here, about to move all this trash out for the ‘cyclers to pick up. Will move the seal gear out then. I’ll ping you, you ping me when it’s set and then… I’ll catch you later I guess]

[Ack n’ flap, bromigo. Fly safe, keep your head on]

I put the tablet away and exited back through the station-side airlock. The hovering display had gone from angry red to a grumpy orange-brown, and I could read the 

MAINTENANCE * * NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL * * 

scrolling across the top alongside a thesis on why you shouldn’t pass through this barrier, doing so constitutes acknowledgment of this risk, etc. My waiver’s on file, Mr. Display, the Big3 won’t be held liable for what I’m about to do.

A nearby hover-pallet was my target out here. I found one parked a bay over, firmly stuck in wait-mode for when its renter came back. Its timer was still ticking down, whether it was being used or not, so I figured someone ought to get their credit’s worth from it.

I tapped the display built into the handle and the panel woke up. “03:42:11 REMAINING” it flashed. Next to that was the bay it had been assigned to and what looked like the initials of whoever rented it. I stole a look around the rest of 2A, thankfully most of the tourist crowd stuck to the upper levels but there was still the occasional passerby, whether it be civilian or station personnel.

It was empty enough for me to pull this off. Fun thing with these skiffs: if you could overcome the massive magnetic force keeping the pallet locked to it’s rail, or (much easier to accomplish) kill power to the rail itself, the pallet would go back to default and you could use them like normal without having to pay.

That might be an issue for tourists, but for folks like me that grew up inside the maintenance ducts where all the inner workings got tucked away, this was just part of life. I traced the scuffed paint that ran parallel to the rail to a junction panel in the floor, popped a few screws, and there it was: the power hub where all the magrails and a bunch of the other electrical junk down here connected.

I pulled out a voltjumper, something I would normally use to short out a jammed door that didn’t have power on a salvage ship, and started applying one side of it’s metal blade to the individual power conduits in succession. The lights winked out on my bay, so it’s not that one… The display two bays down went next, okay, so probably skip this next cable and this one…? That was the primary lights for the whole dock. What first-day-tech wired this thing? I resolved to test each cable in succession until I found the one that made hover-pallet start to dip like it was going to crash to the floor. 

    “There you are!” With a decisive stab I plunged both ends of the voltjumper into the cable. Sparks shot out from both sides and the plastic components of the jumper started smoking. I let it run for as long as my hand could take the heat, ripping it back out just as the outer casing was starting to deform in my grip. The pallet itself was rocking back and forth, each of magnets having trouble finding their balance as the magrail struggled to maintain power. With a final explosion of sparks from where I’d stabbed it, the rail ran out of power, the floating pallet rocked itself stable and I could see the panel rebooting from where I was crouched. Smiling, I replaced the access panel and the screws. As I returned to the flatbed, I drafted up a MaintReq for the cabling to be repaired and forwarded it along to Tak. He sent back an eye-rolling picture.

Back at the hover-pallet I checked the display. 

[SYSTEM INIT - WELCOME TO BRK-GL1! PLEASE USE THIS COMPLEMENTARY SKIFF AS A TOKEN OF OUR GOODWILL. PLEASE RETURN THIS SKIFF TO CHARGING BAY 2A-FF WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED, AND HAVE A PLEASANT STAY!] 

Got it.

I grabbed the handlebar and spun the whole thing around to face my docking bay, leaning into it to get things floating in that direction. You’d think they would turn up the sensitivity on these so they’re easier to push. Then again if they eased up on the electromags keeping these upright, the local gravity would probably throw them around a lot. That or folks would go joyriding the mag rails. 

I stopped and pulled my tablet back out, making a note: “electromag-boarding?” and returned to pushing the heavy flatbed over onto the rail in front of my bay. 

The maintenance display flashed adamantly at me as I floated the pallet through, something about “NO CIVILIAN ACCESS ALLOWED, OFFICIAL STATION PERSONNEL ONLY” which I ignored. The airlocks whizzed open for me and I was back to trying to clean up my messy deck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An hour later I’d gotten everything picked up and loaded onto the flatbed I wasn’t planning to reuse and I’d set an auto-path outside to the recycling pickup, one less thing to worry about. While that was floating along through the docking tube, I fetched one of the emergency scaffolds, the beamwelder, and stuck a few pieces of sheet metal together with a pair of mag-blocks so I could walk them out in one go. Despite being a “lighter” alloy these sheets were still a hefty 30kg or so. You’d think the lesser gravity up here would help with that, but when you grow up inside of it your muscles don’t develop like they would planetside. At some point heavy is still heavy no matter what kind of gravity you’re in.

I roll-walked my way down the docking tube, holding the panels against my hip with both hands and pivoting to the opposite foot every other step. My boots clanked with every step and I watched every grate section bow under the weight as I crept forward. The airlock to the station whizzed open as I got closer and I heard a concerning groan from the tunnel supports. No sense in worrying about the structural integrity when this entire assembly is going to need replacing soon anyway, I guess.

The plates fell heavily to the floor once I was on the other side of the door, my arms properly on fire from the exertion. My breath came in short gasps, note to self: check the O2 levels back on OLGa, that pinhole might be leaking more air than I thought.

A group of tourists stood nearby, talking with each other, looking through their tablets for local shops and trying to figure out why their eco-class tour shuttle dropped them off down here. One of them saw me looking, made eye contact, and started walking towards me. Great, here we go…

I made myself look busy, tipping the metal plates down onto the ground, each of them let out a puff of air just before they made full contact with the floor. The beamwelder I brought with me was fully charged and ready to go, but of course I left my goggles in my tote back on the ship, But the footsteps were already too close, I couldn’t sneak away now. Dammit.
    
    “Hi there! Excuse me? I was just wondering how we get up to the main concourse? We seem to have been abandoned down here in the… sorry are you a local?”

    “Hi, uh… yeah, I am,” a sigh escaped before I could stop it. “Where are you trying to get to?”

    “Oh perfect! We’re looking for the Gilded Harper?”

I ran a hand through my hair, crossing over that stupid bald patch again, trying to feign the old ‘deep thinker’ routine, in reality my head was just starting to hurt. “Gilded Harper… pretty sure if you head up the ramp there and get on the main elevators, it’s topside around…” this was hard actually, I really only knew the area by maps. “I think it’s in sector F3?”

The tourist cocked their head to the side, a little green charm dangled out from beneath their hair, glinting in the light. “F3?”

I nodded, “Yeah that’s… sorry I’m not super familiar with the area, but if you take the main elevators from the concourse up to the top floor, that should get you close. Hopefully someone there can get you the rest of the way.” I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly.

They gave me a sweet smile, thanked me, and ran back to their group. They seemed nice, here’s hoping they don’t get mugged on the way.

I turned back to my endeavor and replayed my next steps, because apparently I’m tired and have to remind myself constantly about what I’m trying to accomplish. Right, goggles in ship. Gotta hike back through. One whizzy door, through the tunnel, next whizzy door, grab my tote, grab my goggles, toss them around my neck on the way back out the whizzy door, down the hall, whizzy door…

Back in the dock and most of the people had cleared out again. Good, I don’t need folks asking me questions. I pulled my goggles up over my eyes, tapped the trigger on the welder a couple times to test it and the goggle’s auto-dimmer, all good. I knelt down and held the trigger, watching the metal slowly turn into a puddle as I dragged the nozzle across. In a short few minutes I had a single panel of sheet metal, made of the 4 smaller ones. Just big enough to cover up the circular airlock with some overhanging corners. 

I pulled my eye protection down and checked the weld beads for holes. This was pretty thin material so it wouldn’t be surprising if I had punched through. Worse yet, depending on how much air pressure the station was pushing, the weld itself might just break when suddenly exposed to vacuum. There’s emergency bulkheads for stuff like that, but it’s going to set off a sector wide alarm. I’m not StationMaint so no one’s going to fine me for not following proper welding specs, but the bulks closing would definitely tell StationSec something was up.

I propped the panel up next to the airlock, along with one of the emergency scaffolding kits. I put the mag-blocks next to the scaffold and panel and triple checked everything was here for him. Tak should be able to turn this into a reasonable seal, and I had plenty to do on OLGa while I waited for him.

Back on deck and things were looking better. The trash was gone, my gear was (more or less) where I wanted it and things were going about as smooth as I could hope for. 

    “Welcome Back Inside! For the [FOURTH] Time!” Din announced.

    “I really wish you weren;t counting every time I cycle, there’s bound to be a lot more.”

    “Apologies, there’s just so much going on now it’s hard being cooped up and unable to Join In!”

    “Definitely a lot happening, that’s for sure. I’m about to go do for walk outside and I’m sure this new suit has a radio. We can chat while I’m doing repairs outside, how’s that sound?”

    “THAT SOUNDS GREAT!” I could hear the additional inflection and presumably voltage Din was putting into how they spoke, it was fascinating to watch as it actively learned communication styles.

I approached the shiny new suit that Tak and I had stood up in a corner. I didn’t have a proper chamber to set this in to prep it, let alone to jump in if there was an emergency, but this corner was close to a couple outlets and air lines to resupply from. I held down the external display button and waited for the system to boot. Fans whirred in various places both inside and outside, lights starting from the feet flashed and worked their way up to the headlamps which flashed through different modes including a full power beam that left me with holes in my vision. Note to self, don’t stand in front of the suit while it’s booting.

I looked away, shaking my head and blinking to try and get rid of the spots. The external display finally loaded and a dim green holodisplay shot up from small projector that folded out from the suit’s front panel.

Reading backwards was never difficult for me, but this display kept buzzing in and out. “Probably just needs charge…” I muttered, reaching around behind to one of the outlets and pulling the cable from its spool. Ratchets engaged to keep the cable length where I wanted and I dropped the magnetized plug on the charge port of the suit. A moment later I thought better of it and swapped it to the backup battery. If I was lucky, something this high-end would have passthrough and I could still work on the suit itself while the backups charged. If not, I’d rather have the backups ready to go when I did want to get in.

Speaking of backups… I circled around to the back of the suit and disengaged the helmet lock. I expected a hiss of gasses equalizing but was mildly surprised when all I heard was the mechanical release. I haven’t run this in vacuum yet so it shouldn’t have been a shock that it wasn’t pressurized. Lifting the helmet up to peer inside, I saw exactly what I was hoping for - an ear piece. It detached, thankfully, and already had some battery based on the lights glowing at me. 

I popped it into my ear, definitely a snug fit, going so far as to put pressure against my ear drum. It wasn’t very comfortable, but I’m willing to bet it feels better once it was under pressure inside the whole suit. Circling around to the front I poked at the radio module, waiting for the successful connection beeps between the two devices. *DING BLONG* Perfect, now to pair this to the ship itself…

    “Are You Setting Up The Radio, Kal?” I could practically hear Din bouncing around.

    “Sure am, just gotta figure out what frequency to settle on,” I made my way up the stairs to the cockpit, adjusting the earpiece as I went, seriously this thing needed a pressure relief valve.

    “I Can Help With That! I’ve Already Been Scanning Available Channels!” I could see the displays and terminals lighting up along the control panel. Din brought the nearby radio frequencies to the center display, it’s synthesized voice beaming with digital pride, “There Are So MANY Conversations Happening!”

    It wasn’t wrong, there was a dizzying array of open mics, poorly secured feeds, and… “Din, are these unsecured cameras? INSIDE other ships??”

    “Correct!”

My brain shorted out. There were at LEAST 85 camera feeds ranging from cockpits to galleys to bedrooms to medical suites, shit there were even a few stationside cameras.

    “Din did you hack these? We can’t do that, it’ll get us flagged by StationAI!”

    Din made the digital equivalent of a HMPH, “I did not connect to these by any illegal means and I am insulted that you think I would.” Neat, the baby AI can pout. “As I said before, these are available channels meaning they had no secure access requirements. Maybe I should have been more specific.”

    “Maybe you should have… in the future, can we discuss things like this beforehand? I bet StationAI would give you a pass while we’re here, but on other stations I don’t know how forgiving they’ll be.”

    “… What do you mean?”

    “Well… suppose you’re a StationAI and someone comes to visit. You’ve got cameras and conversations and private things happening… and suddenly this visitor is looking at all of these things without asking.”

    “So, you’re saying we should Ask First?”

    “Well… in an ideal galaxy, yes, we would Ask First. Things are usually more complicated than that though… so let’s talk it out between us before we start accessing unsecured cameras and displays, okay?”

I could hear electrical things clicking and chunking inside the control panel and that worried me. Electrical fires in space were bad. Just as I turned to find my extinguisher they stopped. The central display suddenly cleared itself and I was left with what I wanted originally: the radio frequency scanner. 

    “I will Ask Kal First for future scanning access. Registered.” Din sounded a bit defeated, sad even.

Keeper, I really was going to have to babysit this program until it learned how to self-regulate. Flashbacks to my own childhood and helping raise literal children in the sublevels came flooding back to me. I pressed my eyes together and tried to shake the memories from my head.

    “Don’t pout, we just need to be careful, Din. It’s just you, me, and Our Lady’s Gambit. We need to work together as a team to stay safe. It’s actually good you did this now, I didn’t know you were so capable with just the built-in sensors here. Better to find that out now than when we’re on a hostile station and people are trying to break down the airlock!” I laughed nervously to myself, that was still a distinct possibility.

    “Understood. We will work together As A Team! COLON PARENTHESES” 

    That last bit caught me off guard… “Did you try to speak a smiley face?”

    “Yes!”

I nodded, yep. Baby AI. Babysitting a Baby AI. The price of freedom was being chained to a thing learning how to exist. Keeper help me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Din, find me a channel that’s not populated so we can get the suit and ship linked up, yeah?”

    “On It!”, the frequency scanner lit up, rolling through a few different spectrums of noise before it settled on one. “Encrypting feed…”

    *Kssh* my earpiece suddenly making noise, “Can You Hear Me?”

    I smiled, “Loud and clear, Din.”

    “Yay!” it cheered.

I stood up and made my way back downstairs to the deck. “Now we can keep in contact while I’m in range, but it might get a little choppy as I’m going back and forth.”

    “I Will Try To Adjust For That!”

My pile of goods had become my supplies, just a few things on deck that I was going to need soon. I picked up half of the directed explosive charges and refreshed myself on their directions.

- Remove all packaging from exterior *KEEP THESE DIRECTIONS* -
- Press and mold DEC to desired shape. Remember: Cones Blow Holes, Flat Makes Black -
(Is that supposed to rhyme?)
- Place included charges as close to center of mass as possible -
- Sync charge radio with included Detonator *SYNC ALL CHARGES BEFORE CONTINUING* -
- Retreat to a safe distance, arm Detonator, and pull trigger -

This all seems obvious, but trust me when I say there are people who have tried to “test” the detonators before actually placing the charges. Those people were found in pieces, occasionally with a massive hole in their hull. Thankfully I’ve used these before, and NO I haven’t lost any fingers, thank you. (We aren’t going to discuss the time I almost hit Tak through the wall of a salvage vessel, he didn’t talk to me for a week after.)

I scooped up the moldable putty, the charges, and the detonator and headed back through the tunnel towards the station. Halfway there, when the airlock would normally trigger, I noted that it stayed closed. “Oh good, Tak’s probably setting up.” 

When I reached the door, I gave it two pounds with my fist. After a moment, I heard two from the other side. That’s Tak alright. I pulled my tablet out. 

—————————————————————————————————————
>>SPERE.MC>Strakes: hows it coming out there?
>>SPERE.MC>TakItOrLeaveIt: about done. you sure this panel is thick enough?
>>SPERE.MC>Strakes: yeah I’m worried about that too. bulkheads should catch it if it’s not though
>>SPERE.MC>TakItOrLeaveIt: will that give you enough time to jet?
>>SPERE.MC>Strakes: only one way to find out
>>SPERE.MC>TakItOrLeaveIt: oy, gimme another hour and let me reinforce it at least. dummy
>>SPERE.MC>Strakes: I still need to install the solar catchers so thats good
>>SPERE.MC>Strakes DISCONNECTED
—————————————————————————————————————

I put the tablet away and ran a hand along the frame of the airlock. Regular gaps where I had pulled the bolts a few hours ago told me where I needed to put the putty. These ten boltholes wouldn’t sever the tunnel on this side, but they would reduce the amount of cutting I’d need to do. I made sure to get the directed charges specifically, otherwise I’d just be setting off explosions next to a vacuum. Very strong chance of fucking something up. 

    *Kssh* “What are you doing out there, Kal?”

    “Just reducing my work load,” I answered, “we can discuss all the nuance of this after we leave.”

    “Noted: Discuss Nuance of Escape!” I was on my tiptoes, pressing putty into an empty bolthole at the top of the ring.

    “Not… what I meant, but close enough…” I set back flat on my feet with a grunt. “Speaking of, you’ve got access to the forward senors, right?”

    “Affirmative!”

    “Do me a favor and plot us from here to.. Damn what was the callsign on that station… IP.. FR something?”

    “Searching… I have 5 stations in the local system, closest matches are: MCJ-IFR and ISP-FL”

    “The second one, we don’t want to go to MCJ.” That was the Mining Cluster Jail - Interpass from Radum. We do NOT want to go there.

    “I Will Plot Out the Astrometrics! Do you want me to inform you when I’m done?”

    “Sure, I’m gonna keep working out here.” I turned and had a thought, “Feel free to keep watching me with OLGa’s cams though, I don’t mind that.”

    “Understood!!” excitement from a synthesized voice, how and where did it learn to do that?

I pressed an explosive charge into each of the putty masses and retrieved the detonator from my belt. I made damn sure the safety latch was hooked on the trigger before messing with anything else, but the process of syncing each charge to the device was simple. Ten lights flashing in front of me, ten lights on the detonator display. Perfect. 

Passing through the airlock on my side I wondered if I should set the other charges now, or wait until I was a safe distance away, or I could try and save them and try to just cut through the airlock screw? It’s not like I’d be flying in-atmo anytime soon, so having the tunnel still attached shouldn’t be a huge issue… I’d just look like an escaped convict until I actually got it detached. Docking with that wasn’t going to happen either. Too many steps ahead, first things first: I need to break the connecting rods or I’m not going anywhere.

I felt giddy for the first time in a while, it was time to suit up!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Benevolent Gilt Mk.3 Space Suit slipped on like a glove, a thick, battery powered, exo-skeleton supported, atmosphere-recycling glove. Stepping in I was worried about fitment, but then the auto-adjust kicked over and man, this thing is worth every credit. Small padded sections pressed against me, probably backed by the air it was cycling through to keep pressure. I discovered I was right about something too- no way I was going to be able to sleep in this.

Din was in the suit immediately and I could see them excitedly flicking through all of the various features. My headlamps clicked on and off, the holodisplay burst into my view with code excitedly scribbling itself on terminal windows that opened and closed before I could make any of the commands out. The worst was when all of my RCS thrusters fired simultaneously. The suit immediately threw several very loud alarms in my face and ears while I struggled to remain upright.

    “Din, buddy! Please stop for a second!” I was frantically pressing buttons and flicking switches on the chest control panel, trying to get the strobing alarm to stop murdering my eardrum.

    “Apologies!” Din, muted the alarm and a second later managed to cut the alerts. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and tried to let the anxiety flow out of me. That new suit smell flooded my nostrils and I was in heaven for a moment… you can’t synthesize that. I opened my eyes again and tested out my flexibility, mobility, took a couple laps around the deck to get a feel for how the exo-skel was helping. It was a bit like wearing a heavily padded coverall and walking through water, except this could keep me alive in vacuum.

I’d been mulling over how I was going to get outside with my airlock out of commission, and after a lot of consideration I felt there was only one real option: I’d have to go out through the housing on one of the thrusters. Our Lady’s Gambit was too small to have multiple airlocks, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t seal off the various sections inside to maintain atmosphere.The door to the engine bay was the only option, but I could cycle myself by breaking through the housing and leaving the door shut. Was this advisable? Not at all. I wasn’t entirely sure this suit would fit without me having to dismantle more of the hull than I wanted. But, I figured, getting outside in the first place would give me more than enough room to pull the rest of my equipment through and do whatever I needed to do from there.

I hooked the beam welder to my suit belt, and secured the PlasSaw to the convenient holster on the back of the suit. Thankfully these saws are relatively flat so it wasn’t adding too much extra bulk. I stepped through into the engine bay and the door whooshed shut behind me. I looked back and pressed the “Lock” button, waited for that to cycle, then pressed the “Seal” button next to it. Circular panels in the door spun, blocking this room from the atmosphere of the next.

    “So what is your plan, Kal?” Din asked in my ear.

    “The plan,” I said, tugging unsuccessfully at the housing on the bay to my left. “Is to get outside, through here.” For how crusty this ship is, it’s strange how resilient certain pieces still were.

    “That does not seem like a Safe Idea,” a lilt of concern coming through over the static.

    “Yeah well, neither is setting off explosives so close to the station. Desperate times call for desperate measures.” I kicked the panel and the edge of finally popped up. I grabbed on with both hands and felt the exo-skeleton kick in, helping me rip the rusted chunk of metal down to the ground. 

Now I was staring at the thruster body. These were some kind of titanium alloy last I knew, designed to handle the intense heat coming from the Chalox fuel, the stuff everyone used for local space travel. One of these days I’d have to figure out what exactly that was, some kind of formulation with liquid oxygen in it.

I let out a sigh, venting atmosphere was never a fun process. I pulled out my adjustable auto-wrench and started disassembling as many of the hull plates as I could reach from here, setting them down into the engine bay as I went, eventually climbing in further until I reached the glasstic wrap most of ships used. At least that’s what I expected to see, what I found was a much older rubber-foam compound. This stuff got sprayed on ships before they attached the external hull plates to help keep things sealed tight. Keeper, that puts this ship at… 80 years or so? How the hell has this thing survived so long?

No matter, just makes the cutting process easier. I pulled the beam welder from my belt and (after a few test blasts) started burning my way through the seal. Smoke poured out from the mass of foam as it bubbled and burned. I was very thankful to be in the suit at this point, it’s no wonder we moved away from this toxin spewing junk.

My breath hitched and my entire body clenched as I punched through and suddenly the smoke was being sucked out of the ship along with the rest of the rapidly condensing air. I took a second to steady myself, letting the pressure fully drop and the frost on my visor to clear up so I could finish this correctly. 

    “Alert! Hull breach!” Din relayed, thankfully in a mostly calm way this time.

    “Acknowledged, that was me. I’ve broken through to outside and I’m going to make this hole bigger now.”

    “Understood, please be careful!” It was weird to have something (someone?) suddenly caring for me so much, it was annoying in a way. Who was this program that thought it cared about me? I’m just the babysitter here. I was getting distracted, stay focused, Stra’kal, there’s more important things to deal with.

My eyes flicked down to my status readout, a convenient series of bars being projected on the bottom left of my helmet visor. Batteries holding at 94%, remaining air supply approx. 118 minutes, thrusters check, suit exo-skeleton check. Everything running as well as it could be. I was stalling.

I pulled the hefty power tool off my back now that I had a good clear view of what I was working on. The miniature laser accumulator in this thing would actually heat the tip of each passing blade until they were near plasma themselves, but they spun at such a frequency that the plasma disbursed itself and became a thin layer of raw cutting power. PlasSaws could cut through anything, if you had the time.

I hoisted the tool above my head and began pressing through the black foam near the smoldering hold I’d made. Again and again I dug straight lines until I had a nice “me” sized square to work my way out of. I punched the panel, harder than I wanted to, and the newly liberated chunk went flying off into the void of space. 

    “Probably should have tried to hang onto that,” I panted to myself. My breath started to condense on the visor but then a tiny fan kicked on and whisked all that humidity away without any input from me. I love this suit. What are the legalities on marrying a suit? I reattached the saw to my back and awkwardly clambered up and then out onto the hull of my ship.

Here I could see OLGa in all her glory: rusted, but still very functional, and now with a fresh maintenance access hatch. Distractions, focus, first things first: I hooked my safety line to one of the maintenance rails that extended the length of the shuttle. There were fewer than you’d find on a bigger vessel, but that’s because shuttle maintenance usually happened in-atmosphere, usually a dock, not free-hand in space. Still, these would get me where I needed to be.

I pulled myself along the convenient hand holds, swapping rails so I could approach the docking tunnel and actually get around to all sides of it with the PlasSaw. I stood up and the length of the tunnel extended “up” away from me. Looking towards the “top” of the tunnel, through some observation windows, I could just make out the orange glow of the maintenance alert. 

    “Hey, Din?”

    “Hello, Kal!”

    “Any messages from Tak?”

    “Are you allowing me to access and read those?” Was Din pouting, or just being thorough?

    “As long as you don’t give those messages out to anyone else without my permission, sure. That also goes for any talks you and I have.”

    “Understood! Accessing… . . . No new messages.”

    “Thanks, I’m going to get started out here. Let me know if anything comes through.”

    “Acknowledged!”

I pulled the PlasSaw out and eyeballed the eight rods hooking my end of the tunnel to the station. Normally I’d just get permission to undock, those would un-hook from their slots on my ship and then retract. For my current situation it was easier to just cut all these at the hinge.

In my head the saw made a loud, whirring and screeching noise as I attacked the first hinge. In reality the saw didn’t make any sounds and the sparks that flared away into the darkness were freezing as fast as they were made. I finished the first arm and went to the next, then the third, fourth, fifth… 

I checked my HUD again: 76% battery, approx. 40 min remaining air, thrusters check, exo-skeleton check. Apparently I consume more oxygen more than I thought. I was almost through all of the arms and had circled to the underside of the tunnel. My tether was taut, so I holstered the saw and started climbing back to the top. As I crested the tunnel and started crossing over I saw a flash of red from the station. I looked up, straining my eyes to see, but the observation windows had auto-dimmed. I looked at the other ships docked at this bay and saw the normally green lights above each bay turn red, then begin flashing. 

    “Uhhh, Din? Did something happen?”

No immediate reply. A beep in my ear, I ignored it and tried to cycle the suit radio to pick up any chatter. All I got was static, when I tuned back to OLGa’s secure feed Din was immediately in my ear.

    “-ert! Alert! Something is wrong!”

    “What’s going on, Din? Why’s everything locked down?”

    “I do not know! Suddenly I was blocked from station communications and now other ships are sending the same general alert!”

    “What alert?”

    “WARNING: SECURITY LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT, SHELTER IN PLACE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE”

    “Shit that’s not good… can you get a camera inside the dock?”

    “But you just told me I should not do that without permission!”

    “This is an emergency, you have my permission, Din! We need to know what’s happening!”

I was already climbing to the poor-man’s hatch I’d made in my hull. The difficulty in maintaining the mental wherewithal to actually make the proper rail changes was infuriating. Why was safety so tedious and slow?! I unhooked from the rail and slung one leg down the hole I made, misjudged my footing and immediately my chest slammed into edge, knocking the air from me. I was lodged in there so I wasn’t in any danger of falling off but dammit, this is why safety was important…

I collected myself and squirmed back down the hole and into the engineering bay. I reached to unseal the hatch and remembered none of this was sealed back up yet. I turned to look for a piece of metal I could maybe weld in place if I had-

    “Kal! Hurry! I have a Camera but it looks like Tak is in trouble!”

Shit, no time. I’d have to swap as quickly as I could and deal with it. Thankfully I was still suited up. I faced the door and held down the button until the alarm lights started flashing and the seal broke. The gush of air blasting past me made me instinctively squint my eyes, though my helmet was keeping all of that from me, but I still had to plant my feet to keep from being thrown back. I wedged through the doorway as soon as it was wide enough and immediately held the seal button on the other side. Thankfully this was a much faster process and the door slammed shut with an unexpected amount of force. I’m glad I wasn’t standing there but I still lost all cabin pressure in the process of getting back inside.

The air circulator blasted an emergency flush to return breathable air and suddenly the entire deck looked like a giant red cloud from the air condensing and quickly shifting pressures combined with the flashing red alarm lights. I climbed the stairs to the cockpit two at a time and started scanning the control panel. One light stood out, hovering above the engine bay to indicate it didn’t have seal and, yeah, that’s gonna stay that way for a moment. I skimmed the remaining info, looking for whatever feed Din had found. 

    “Well?? What’s going on? Did you find Tak?”

Din pulled up a camera display that overlooked 2A and sure enough right in front of my bay was Tak arguing with Odie and what appeared to be a few additional StationSec grunts. Nearby my shoddy maintenance plug was leaned against the airlock, scaffolds and magblocks still on the ground. Odie emphatically spit-talked at Tak while Tak appeared flustered, but holding his ground. The two guys in the back had weapons drawn and kept cycling their aim between Tak and the airlock. The dock was empty expect for these few people, an automated message scrolling across the welcome board.

* * WARNING * *
* * STATION SECURITY EVENT IN PROGRESS * * 
* * DO NOT IMPEDE OFFICERS * *
* * PLEASE SHELTER IN PLACE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE * *

This is bad… I haven’t severed enough of those arms to get out of here in without massive damage to my ship, but Tak can’t hold them off indefinitely… 

Suddenly the feed went dark. I tapped around the screen, trying to see if the window had been hidden. “What happened? Where did the camera go?”

    “I am sorry,” Din said, “my connection has been severed.”