“So did I. We must go there, to that Captain’s gig which is docked by those great engines,” Sigmond replied.
“Well, Free Ranger, how do we get there?”
“I guess this Exterior Repair Station XV610 was just a sign pointing us in the correct direction. Now we find a hanger bay, outfit a shuttle and fly it over to the Captain’s gig or dock on the needle ship,” Sigmond replied.
“How far away is a shuttle for you to fly?” Hugh asked.
“Not far. It may take a bit of work to unpack a shuttle, a runabout is all we need, and there should be a hanger bay close by. Come on, we are on the search.” Sigmond stood and walked to the door.
Hugh stepped back and let Sigmond enter a code into the color pad near the pressure door which led to the corridor. The door slid sideways, and Sigmond stepped forward and into the corridor. He was grabbed and slammed up against the sidewall. His tools and equipment went flying in every direction.
“Animals have no vanity and pride!” shrieked a foul sounding voice. The Roe was holding Sigmond by both shoulders.
“No!” Hugh yelled and punched the Roe as it pulled Sigmond back and tried to slam him into the wall again.
“Animals have no vanity and pride!” The Roe screamed as it dropped Sigmond and swung a meaty fist at Hugh.
Hugh ducked and jabbed, but missed the Roe. It grabbed him by the backpack and shook. It slammed him face first into the wall, and only by slipping out of the backpack was Hugh able to get away from being battered again. His supplies fell in a mess as the Roe whipped the backpack like a club at him.
Sigmond got shakily to his feet and looked around in astonishment.
The Roe had been a short and fat man with giant jowls and a thick heavy mustache. Now its face was contorted and twisted in pain and its orange eyes blazed in fury. A deep red colored scar ran down the side of its head where one ear had been traumatically ripped off of it. The shirt and pants it wore were speckled in blood and other fluids. Its shoes were caked in dried gunk. For its size the Roe moved entirely too quickly for Hugh or Sigmond. Its punches knocked Sigmond backward against the frame of the pressure door.
Hugh tried to draw out his revolver, but the Roe quickly swatted at his arm and the revolver was smacked down and fell from his bruised hand. The weapon clattered across the deck away from Hugh.
Sigmond kicked the back of the Roe’s leg, but that just energized it with more violence. It leaned forward and back kicked. This caught Sigmond off guard and he was struck in the stomach by the Roe’s foot.
“Oompf!” Sigmond toppled over in pain.
The Roe spun about and grabbed Sigmond by the belt with one hand and shook him. The thing was immensely strong. Sigmond hammered his fists down on the Roe’s large hand, but could not break the grip.
Hugh jumped in with a burst of strength and punched the Roe as fast as possible in its head and chest. The Roe stumbled back, releasing Sigmond and blocking many of the blows. It began swinging the remains of the backpack around itself. That gave the two men a moment of freedom.
Hugh and Sigmond grabbed onto each other as they scrambled away and back inside the Exterior Repair Station. Sigmond pressed his hand against the color pad entering an emergency override code. The door slid shut. The Roe was just seconds to late and it pounded on the pressure door. The muffled blows could be heard by both men.
“That thing was so strong,” Sigmond coughed as he tried to regain his breath.
“Yes, and I lost my revolver,” Hugh replied. He had a large bruise rising on his wrist and one cheek. “How injured are you?”
“No broken bones. Bruises everywhere, but wow, that Roe can fight. What about you?” Sigmond was breathing better now.
“My hand is sore, but the arm is not broken. My eye may swell up. How do we defeat that thing? Are there weapons in here?” Hugh looked around, but the control chair was all he could see.
“There might be something in the supply area. I lost the steel rod somewhere with most of my other tools.” Sigmond looked down at his belt and realized that his pouches had been ripped open, and the strapped on tools were gone. His cloak was also missing. He walked over to the side wall and looked at that pressure door marked, ‘Storage’. He hesitated before he opened the door. “Are you ready, Trooper? We did not know that Roe was outside in the corridor, there may be a surprise in here as well. Tagalongs can get into most everywhere.”
Hugh raised his fists as he had no other weapon. He looked at Sigmond, “We are in this together, Free Ranger. Whenever you are ready.”
Sigmond listened. He could still hear the Roe pounding on the entrance door. He looked back to the storage room door and nodded. He opened that door. Several shelves were against the wall, and three spacesuits were stacked neatly on them. But there was no Roe, no tagalongs.
“So this room does not lead anywhere else?” Hugh asked as he looked around. “I see no weapons anywhere in here, just these odd suits. Should we try that other door? Perhaps it is a way to escape?”
“Trooper, that other door leads to the airlock which opens to the vacuum of space. There is no other way out of here. Look at the walls, those ventilation air exchangers are far too small for us to go through, but a tagalong could get inside, if the grille were off. The way that Roe in the hall is beating and kicking around, the grille covers may already have been bashed off in the hallway. With the screaming and the pounding that Roe is doing, tagalongs are sure to be here soon.”
Hugh stared at the green two piece suits which were stacked on the shelves. “These items remind me of the Marine Pressure Suits the divers use in Lake Orsk. Rasi was one of the first to be killed by the alien Jellies. He used a MPS to investigate Lake Orsk and was killed,” Hugh recalled. “Will these give us protection from that Roe or allow us a means of escape?”
Sigmond smiled. “Well, they could give us a means of escape, if you are willing to use one.”
“Certainly. Will it protect us from the blows of that Roe?” Hugh asked.
“Not really. These are spacesuits and they are tough stuff. See the bubble helmets there? Those are from clear permalloy and that would protect only our heads. The way that Roe ripped apart your backpack, I doubt the suits would prevent it from grabbing us and bashing us around inside these suits. I do not want to think about getting my head whipped around by that Roe,” Sigmond replied, but his smile grew. “There is another way.”
“So we take that other way,” Hugh replied. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Sigmond was staring at Hugh. “I think I know a way to get distance between us and that Roe. But it will be a leap of faith for you.”
Hugh looked back at the entry door where the Roe was still pounding. “I am willing to try. What do we do?”
“These are spacesuits for use outside the hull of the Vanguard. I am very familiar with them, but you are not. If we go out the airlock in these suits we escape the Roe, and we can travel along the hull until we get to a hanger bay or somewhere else away from here. There may even be a way to go directly to that Captain’ gig if we can find some personal thruster units. I do not see any of those here. The suits look intact and they are fully charged.”
“The child said we need to go. So what do I do?” Hugh pointed to the spacesuits. “Teach me about them.”
Sigmond explained to him how to fit the suit on. Fortunately two of the suits were ‘Men Large’ models and that was the size needed. The third suit was a ‘Female Small’ which would not work. Sigmond carefully helped Hugh get into the two pieces of the suit and then put his own on. He checked the seals and apparatus to ensure both suits were operational. He then grabbed two of the bubble helmets and holding them in their hands they walked out of the storage room and across the chair room to the airlock.
“We will put on the helmets and then work on the airlock. I want to make sure these suits are working before we get somewhere that is depressurized,” Sigmond taught. “When we get inside the airlock, then we will lose gravity
manipulation. When that…”
Hugh listened carefully as Sigmond explained the use and operation of the suits as well as the controls on the airlock. Hugh continued to be reminded of the Marine Pressure Suits and moving in zero gravity sounded a lot like swimming.
“Trooper? Are you ready to act like a Free Ranger?” Sigmond asked.
“I am not ready to smuggle any goods somewhere, if that is what you mean.” Hugh laughed, “But I am ready to go on this adventure outside the Vanguard.”
“I will snap the helmets in place. I have set up a local radio communication network between our suits. Just talk normally and I will hear and you will hear me.”
With the bubble helmets in place, the sound of their voices changed a bit, coming through the communication system, but they easily heard each other. Sigmond opened the interior door of the airlock. There was still atmosphere, pressure, and gravity manipulation inside. He pulled the interior door closed. Its gasket sealed around it.
Inside the airlock there were several cargo crates, each about a meter long. Sigmond opened one and found various mechanical parts. The second crate had two dozen tube shaped canisters which were labeled ‘Stabilized Argon-fluorohydride’.
“What are those?” Hugh asked. “Contraband to smuggle somewhere?”
Sigmond laughed. “No, just industrial chemicals and some excess machinery. I was hoping for weapons or a personal thruster unit. A PTU would be handy right now. Hold onto the handrail. I am going to depressurize the airlock. Let me know right away if there is any indication of a loss of suit function.”
There were two buttons inside the airlock near the interior pressure door. One was marked, ‘Depressurize’ in blue color and the other was ‘Pressurize’ in rust color. Sigmond pressed the blue button.
Immediately gravity manipulation was shut off and both men felt the loss of the sensation of weight. To Hugh it was only remotely like swimming, but he managed to stay in control of his complaining stomach. He felt his space suit shift a bit as it adjusted to the loss of atmosphere around him. Except for Sigmond’s voice, and his own breathing, there were no other sounds. A yellow light began flashing and a display appeared over the exterior door. On it scrolled a message. ‘Exterior door will open in 5-4-3-2-1.’
The exterior door opened. The view that had been see only through the chair’s display was now seen just past their clear permalloy bubble helmets.
“You okay, Trooper?” Sigmond asked.
“Yes. No problems at all. Lead us on,” Hugh replied. He did not mention the flipping of his stomach or the disorientation he felt at not knowing what was up and what was down.
Sigmond pulled himself along the handrail and out the now open airlock door. “Do not let go of the handrail. It is easy to float away.”
“Understood,” Hugh replied as he followed Sigmond’s example.
Together they stopped at the edge of space and looked about. The main engines were immense, but looking around they could see the vast expanse of the Vanguard, even though not all of it was visible from their location. The hull looked bigger than anything Hugh had ever seen before. It dwarfed the view from the Governor’s palace down into the Velky Weap Canyon.
“There is so much space!” Hugh sighed out.
“Yes, space is huge! I will make a Free Ranger out of you yet.”
“But how do we get way across there?” Hugh pointed to the main engines.
“Well, I was thinking we might just work our way around in the hull. It would take time but we can basically pull ourselves along to hull all the way to the Captain’s gig. However, that plan will not work,” Sigmond said. He then pointed.
Along the route they would need to traverse if they followed the hull around the habitat cylinder and across a constituent joint and onto the needle ship, there were two glowing purplish blue oblongs. The light coming from them was strange and their outlines were fuzzy.
“Those are Jellies!” Sigmond and Hugh both said nearly simultaneously.
The Jellie spacecraft were hovering right near sections of the hull where the constituent joint connected the habitat cylinder to the needle ship. Each one had a tight, pink-colored beam that was cutting sections of the hull away. The fractured debris was floating off into space.
“What are they doing?” Sigmond asked aloud.
“It reminds me of cleaning salmon,” Hugh said. “They are slicing those sections open and removing what is unwanted.”
“Trooper, I think you are right. They may also be severing away the constituent joint. That was the route I hoped we could take. It is the shortest path along the hull to get to the needle ship. Nonetheless, we cannot travel that direction now or get anywhere closer to them. I hope they have not seen us.”
“Well, you are the expert out here, but from what I can see, we are a long way from them. Those Jellie ships must be gigantic to look so big from this great of a distance. To them, we are just two small specks. Like hunting a stag with telescopic sights, you have to know just where to look before you fire a shot. The stag never sees it coming.”
Sigmond paused. He wondered why Hugh had used that illustration. ‘Does he know what I did?’ he asked himself. He clearly remembered the last time he had sighted down a rifle, it had been Larissa as the target. It was etched into his memory firing those shots at her and seeing her body stuck down. He tried to dismiss the memory, but he was conflicted about it all. So he replied, “That is a good point. We would look quite small compared to them, and from their vantage point, but if we try to move along the hull, the closer we get the more likely they will see us. Also, if we searched and found a hanger bay, the opening of any hanger bay doors would be a giant signal to the Jellies telling them we are here. There also would be no guarantee of finding a shuttle, nor time to prepare one for flight.”
“So where do we go? The child said we need to get to that fancy shuttle you called a Captain’s gig. How do we get there?”
Sigmond considered it all. His mind pondered the potentials. “We could return and try to fight past that very aggressive Roe.”
“Without weapons, we might defeat it, but I am not either of us would be in any condition to continue after that fight,” Hugh answered.
“And I am sure there are tagalong animal now. Those and that Roe have us trapped.”
“And the child did say we need to go to that Captain’s gig,” Hugh reminded him.
“We could search for a way back inside the Vanguard, but again we would not be following the child’s instructions,” Sigmond answered. “Or we might try to work our way around the Jellie’s spacecraft to reach the needle ship. That would take a long and tedious amount of time. I am not sure our spacesuits have that capacity.”
“I am not ready to quit. Not at all. If we must fight that Roe to continue, then we will do it. I am sorry I lost the revolver,” Hugh said. “We can use those canisters in that crate as clubs. It might make the difference, and clubbing the tagalong animals would be better than fighting them by hand.”
“Those canisters of the Stabilized Argon-fluorohydride?” Sigmond said aloud. “They are under pressure in those. I wonder….” He turned and pulled himself back inside the airlock. “You mentioned hunting and sighting, are you a good shot?”
“Yes. But what does that have to do with our situation. I just meant to show that the Jellies are a long way from here, and we will look small to them.”
Sigmond picked up one of the canisters and looked at the valve at the end. “Trooper, what if we just shot ourselves straight from here to the needle ship? Those main engines are enormous. If we can get anywhere on those, we should easily be able to climb to the Captain’s gig.”
“How can we shoot ourselves over there?” Hugh was confused. “You said something about some personal thruster gear, but we do not have that do we?”
“No. We do not have a designed PTU. But with the gas in these cans, we can make our own personal thruster unit. That way we can just shoot ourselves across from here to t
he Main Engines.” Sigmond had a strange smile on his face as he said that.
“Free Ranger? Are you suggesting we be the bullet? Have you seen a bullet after it strikes a stag? I have dug bullets out and they are always misshapen and sometimes hardly recognizable after impact. And a stag’s body is a lot softer than permalloy.”
“Trooper, I fully understand inertia, momentum, and kinetic energy. We will not just crash into the ship. We can carry several of these and use one to launch, and another to slow the approach and steer to the target. Let me show you.”
Sigmond took one of the dark green colored gas canisters. Holding it with his one hand, he turned the value just a wee little bit. A stream of whitish gas came out which propelled him across the airlock. He struck the sidewall before he could turn and stop his flight.
Hugh, still holding the handrail, laughed as he watched Sigmond rebound off the wall. “Yes, you showed me exactly what I was thinking would happen. That gas made you move quickly, and you smashed into the wall.” When Sigmond did not respond, Hugh became concerned. “Are you injured?”
The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle Page 182
