Cap punched some numbers into the console. “There must be a way to coax enough power out of the maneuvering thrusters to get us within range in under sixty-four hours. There must be, damn it! We’re not going to bloody well suffocate out here! Not if I have anything to say about it.” His face was knotted in determination. “Sixty-two hours would be even better, to give us some margin for error. Let’s see….” Cap punched in some more figures. “Sixty-two into 6,458 is…just over 110.6 KPH that we’d have to average. The thrusters could get us there given enough time, but we have to begin decelerating at the half-way point. Can we build up enough velocity by then?”
“Let’s not forget that the thrusters were never designed to operate continuously for hours at a time,” I added. “The last thing we want is to have one thruster fail and the other one send us into a spin. We’ll have to pulse the thrusters intermittently, or alternate them, or something. Given the maximum rated thrust, I don’t think we’ll be able to achieve more than maybe eighty KPH before we have to begin decelerating.”
“Crap. If we use the full sixty-four hours, that gets the average speed needed down to just under…107.2 KPH.” Tom pointed out, doing his own calculations. He ran a hand through his hair as he concentrated.
“Maybe so, but it might as well be a thousand and seven KPH!” Cap snapped, and then relented. “Sorry, lad. It’s not your fault.” He paused a moment to compose himself. “So how the hell do we coax another…what?…thirty-plus percent out of the thrusters? We could use a little magic right now.”
“You’ve got me, Cap,” Tom said. “I’d guess we could squeeze out a few extra percentage points by enriching the fuel mixture, but nowhere near the thirty-four percent we’ll need. Of course, the rated thrust assumes a fully laden ship, and we’re running empty. What do you think, Swede? That should buy us a little extra acceleration, shouldn’t it?”
“Sure. I can run some sims, but no matter how much I optimize the fuel and tweak the efficiency of those two thrusters—even without cargo—there’s just no way to increase their acceleration that much. Not without designing and building new thrusters from scratch. We might be able to do that if we had the time, but we don’t.”
“I know we don’t have the time, but….” Cap froze for a moment, his eyes glazing over. Just when I started to worry that he’d had a stroke, a grin slowly spread across his deeply lined face, accentuating the crow’s feet. “How many thrusters did you say?”
I frowned at the odd question. What was he getting at? “Two, of course. You know perfectly well how many thrusters we— Wait. I know that cat-that-just-ate-the-canary look. What are you getting at?”
“Who says we only have two thrusters?”
I looked at Tom, he looked at me, and we both smiled as the light bulbs winked on in our brains. Of course! But could we make it work?
* * * *
After a few more minutes of discussion, Cap headed back to the bridge to join Sparks, leaving Tom and me alone to sort out the details. Guido was still hard at work trying to cobble together a feasible air scrubber to tie into the ventilation system.
“We can’t just slap our spare thruster on the hull anywhere we want,” Tom said. “Put it in the wrong place and it’ll tear the ship apart.”
“I know that.”
“And if we don’t put it in just the right place the unbalanced thrust will make the ship almost impossible to steer.”
“I know that too, Tom.”
“And if we add a third thruster, we’ll have only two-thirds the fuel burn time of two thrusters.”
“I know that three, Tom. That’s why I’m working up two simulations. The first will tell us where to put the thruster for best effect and with the least stress on the ship. The second will help us figure out the best firing sequence for three unbalanced thrusters. And then we have to figure out how to weave this ship through the asteroids between us and our target.”
It wasn’t mere coincidence that we had a spare thruster aboard. Thrusters are essential gear on any ship, but they so seldom fail that it’s easy to forget they exist. In fact, not one of us had ever experienced a thruster failure in our many collective years in space aboard nearly a dozen different ships. Still, it’s nearly impossible to maneuver with only one. As a result, any Cargomaster worth his salt will ensure that any ship he provisions will have an extra.
Cap interrupted our conversation via intercom: “All right, lads, I’m about to trigger the thrusters and quickly ramp up to max power. We need all the head start we can get.
“Right, then. In five…three,” Cap counted down, “one, mark!” The ship shuddered slightly, accompanied by some prolonged creaks and groans from the bulkheads as the thrusters did their best to drag the sizable bulk of Shamu along with them. Shamu was a tough old bird—make that whale—and she took the additional strain in stride.
“So far, so good,” Cap said. “Go back about your business. We should be fine for a while.”
“Swede?”
“Yes, Tom.”
“Okay, what gives? Did I miss something while I was in the head? I thought we were supposed to be down here working on a way to get the third thruster attached and running so we can get to A11 at top speed. But Cap already has us under way with two thrusters. What’s going on?”
I shrugged. “We really didn’t have much choice. Say we just sit here on our butts while the sims are running, and don’t build a hardpoint to support the thruster until the sims are done. By the time we go outside and attach the thruster, we’ll have lost precious hours we can’t make up. Not to mention that it takes a while to get this much mass up to speed from a relative standstill. We had to start out immediately, with what we had, and then add the third thruster later.”
“Ah. Sure, that makes sense. Wait a minute! Are you saying that we’re going to attach the third thruster while we’re under way?”
I nodded. “What choice do we have? Besides, at first we’ll barely be moving at a jogging pace back on Earth. Pretty ironic, considering that not too long ago we were zipping across the galaxy essentially at translight speeds.”
“But how are we going to get the thruster out there without a pod? Neither one’s flyable at the moment. They won’t be for who knows how long.”
I shrugged. “We’ll have to find a way to do it manually.”
“Whoa! Hold on a minute! You expect someone to not only crawl around on the outside of the ship while it’s moving, but also to drag one of those massive thrusters around behind him? And to do it without falling off?”
“Thanks for volunteering to help me.”
“But—”
“Look, Tom, Cap has to fly the ship. Sparks is manning the sensors so we don’t crash into anything. He’ll also be working the radio while we’re outside. Guido’s the best qualified to work on an air scrubber, and that’s just as urgent as mounting the thruster. That leaves you and me to do the thruster. As you say, there’s too much mass for one person to manage. Besides, there’s no atmosphere out there, so you don’t have to worry about getting blown off by the wind.” I paused to grin at Tom, who smirked. “We just have to figure out a safe way to get the thruster outside and over to wherever we mount the hardpoint and then attach it. Piece of cake!”
Tom snorted. “Yeah, sure. Piece of cake. A piece of cake surrounded by hard vacuum, just waiting for us to make the tiniest mistake.”
* * * *
I called the bridge. “Cap, the first sims are complete. It looks like the best place to mount the thruster is over the northern centerline brace, between the cargo holds. That gives us the best combination of strength and maneuverability. By mounting on the brace we avoid having to reinforce the inside of the hull. It’s also about as close as we’re going to get to a fuel line that we can tap into.
“Good work!” Cap’s voice showed more enthusiasm than it had in hours. “Is Guido still working on the scrubber? I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping closer tabs on the rest of you, but I’ve been busy dodging roc
ks. With the shield at minimal power, we can’t risk taking another hit.”
“Not a problem. Yeah, he is. I’ve got Tom working on building the hardpoint and attaching the thruster to it. That way we can mount them as a unit instead of separately. That’ll speed up the attachment process when Tom and I get outside. He should be done by the time I finish the second set of sims—the ones for the firing sequence once we light the candle. After he finishes with the hardpoint, he’ll work on running a fuel line to the spot on the hull where we’ll attach the hardpoint and thruster. He can probably use some help with that.”
“Consider it done. The region ahead of us is fairly clear. I’ll turn the controls over to Sparks so I can give Tom a hand. Keep me apprised.”
“Will do, Cap. At some point we still have to tackle the problem of the damaged pods. How can we extract the hematite without a working pod?”
Cap sighed. “One thing at a time. If we don’t get the third thruster mounted and running, it won’t matter whether the pods work. We’ll never get to the ore in time.”
* * * *
“Exiting the pod bay,” Tom reported.
It seemed to take forever, but we finally got the thruster assembly and hardpoint constructed and ready to install. Maybe we couldn’t use the pods, but the pod bay still made a convenient egress point for our endeavor.
“Be careful, Tom. Remember, we’re moving.”
“No kidding, Sparks.”
“I just don’t want you to forget, go for a stroll, and step out into space.”
I chuckled as Tom snorted into the radio. Having something constructive to do that might just save our lives was a huge morale-booster. It allowed us to momentarily ignore the ticking of the time bomb as we concentrated on the tasks at hand.
My earlier idea of permanently plasma-welding the thruster to the hardpoint had turned out to be unworkable, simply because we couldn’t possibly strong-arm that much mass into place. Fortunately, Tom came up with a better idea.
He constructed a two-piece quick-connect ring that would allow us to join the thruster to the hardpoint faster and more easily than my way. One half of the ring went on the thruster and the other on the hardpoint.
Tom’s a pretty fair mechanic when he puts his mind to it, but then, that’s to be expected of anyone crewing a deepspace ship, where the nearest spacedock might be dozens of light years away.
It wasn’t easy, but Tom and I had built a boom to extend out through the pod bay doors. The boom had a zero-gee version of a block and tackle at the end to support the mass of the thruster, which on Earth would have outweighed Tom and me both. Sure, in space the thruster had no weight, but it still had the same mass and therefore the same inertia that it would have back home. That meant even for two of us, hauling it around wouldn’t be easy.
But first things first. Before mounting the thruster to the hardpoint assembly Tom had built, we had to mount the hardpoint to the hull. The hardpoint was smaller and less massive than the thruster; still, it wasn’t a walk in the park to move around. It was made of reinforced durasteel, to be able to withstand the stresses of the thruster.
Using the boom, we swung the hardpoint outside the ship. I used my magnetic boots to work my way along the hull until I reached the spot where Tom had cut through the hull and installed a sealed fuel port. He and Cap were still working on running a connection to one of the main fuel lines for the two original thrusters.
I used self-bonding lugs to attach an A-frame that we could wrap the cable around to pull the hardpoint into position. Then I returned to the pod bay towing the end of the cable behind me and secured the end of the cable to an electric winch.
“Ready, Tom?”
“All set, Swede.”
“Good. Let’s see if it works.” I triggered the remote control for the winch and watched it slowly pull the hardpoint toward the frame I had just attached. Tom and I walked along the hull, keeping pace with the hardpoint until it reached the right spot. I used the remote to stop the winch. We clipped a safety tether between the hardpoint and the cable and similar tethers between our suits and the cable. Then we detached the hardpoint from the cable and began to manhandle it into position. This was the hard part, the dangerous part. If we slipped up, the hardpoint could crush a hand or foot between it and the hull. If it slipped, I had no idea whether the tethers would be strong enough to hold it—and me, if I tried to stop it from drifting away.
Suddenly my nightmare from weeks before hit me full force. It was silly, I know, but for a moment I froze, wondering whether the dream was a foreshadowing of things to come: slipping off into space, running out of air and drifting forever, alone.
“You all right, Swede?” Tom’s voice was full of concern.
I shook off the dream. Ridiculous. I had work to do.
“Yeah, I’m fine, Tom. Let’s get this finished and go back for the thruster.”
Tom nodded once, then toggled his radio. “We’re in position, Shamu. We’re going to mount the hardpoint now.”
“Good luck, guys.”
Due to the bulkiness and inertia of the hardpoint, we worked up a good sweat by the time we got it aligned with the fuel port and triggered the self-bonding lugs to secure it to the hull.
“That should do it.” I radioed the ship. “Sparks, we’ve got the hardpoint in place. Now we’re going back for the thruster.”
“Roger. So far so good.”
“We aim to please,” Tom responded.
We trudged back to the pod bay to hook the thruster to the cable, much as we had done with the hardpoint assembly. The process of getting the thruster to the hardpoint was the same as the last trip, but it was made more difficult by the larger size and mass of the thruster.
We wrestled the bulk of the thruster into place on the hardpoint. This time we didn’t have to worry about lugs. Tom’s excellent work creating a quick-connect mechanism made it a piece of cake to mount the thruster half to the hardpoint half. We merely had to insert the base of the thruster into the hardpoint’s socket and give it a half twist to seat and lock it. Of course, in zero-gravity that’s harder than it sounds.
There was some initial resistance when I tried to lock the latch in place, but that was to be expected from a hand-made part. Eventually I got it secured. Meanwhile, Tom connected the hose to the fuel port and released the external seal, so that when Cap released the inner seal the fuel would flow to the thruster.
“Thruster in place and ready to go, Shamu,” I radioed.
“Acknowledged. Good work, gentlemen.” Sparks was all business. “Come on home. I’ve kept a pot of synthcaf hot for you.”
“Roger. Be there in a minute.” I smiled to myself in satisfaction of a job well done.
That’s when I turned away from the thruster, and when I realized why the latch had been so difficult to lock down. As I turned, my left wrist remained secured to the locking ring where the suit was caught in the mechanism. My momentum kept the rest of me turning in the other direction. EVA suits, designed for the rigors of work in vacuum, are tough. But apparently the suit was pinched against something sharp or ragged. I caught my breath in horror as I felt the fabric rip when the suit came free. A frozen vapor cloud spewed out, taking my air with it!
“Ohmigod! Tom!” I grabbed my wrist to cover the tear. There was no way to completely stop the rush of air from escaping. “My suit!”
It’s a cliché, I know, but time seemed to slow down for me. Adrenaline kicked in and started my heart thundering. My stomach clenched into a fist and I had no spit to swallow. I watched, immobile, as the air jetted from beneath my palm, trying to push my arm backward. As the heated air escaped, the intense cold outside insinuated itself through the same hole.
Tom turned, saw the expanding cloud of frozen mist, and reacted. “Hold on tight!” he yelled.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” My voice sounded shrill; whether from panic or the thinning of the atmosphere in my suit, I wasn’t sure.
Sparks’ wor
ried voice blasted through the radio. “What’s going on? Tom! Swede! Say something!”
“Not now!” Tom shouted. He turned and began hand-over-handing himself along the length of cable, back toward the boom.
“Where the hell are you going?” I yelled, now panicky.
“Pod 1,” was all he said, but it was enough. I knew what he meant. All EVA pods include emergency repair kits for suits and Cap drilled us relentlessly on emergency procedures so we’d be ready if anything happens.
When Tom disappeared around the curve of the ship, I suddenly felt small and quite alone. I stood there on the hull of the ship, looking up at the stars all around me. Billions of them, seeming close enough to touch, yet far enough away that I knew I’d never reach them if I jumped. For a moment, insanely, I considered it.
I can only attribute that to oxygen deprivation. My tanks were still pumping air out as fast as possible to compensate, but not as fast as I was losing it.
I was startled from my trance by Tom’s reappearance. It had taken him less than a minute to return with the bright orange box, but it was the longest minute of my life. The whole time he was gone, I clutched my wrist, fighting to keep the life-giving air inside. It was a losing battle.
“Hold on, Swede. I’m almost there.” Tom knew exactly what to do. As soon as he was back with me, he slapped the quick-release lock and thumbed the kit open. It was a matter of only seconds before he had a patch out and ready to use. By then I was dizzy and I guess it showed. To make matters worse, my teeth were chattering.
“Focus, Swede! You’re going to have to let go of your wrist for a second so I can put the patch on. Are you ready?” I nodded, too short of breath to answer. Believe me, letting go of my wrist was not first on the list of things I wanted to do right then, but I knew it was necessary.
I was intentionally hyperventilating to try to keep some oxygen in my bloodstream. I couldn’t be sure whether the dizziness was from too little oxygen or too much. With nothing else to go by, my panting and gasping into the radio must have worried the rest of the crew.
The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative Page 38
