Hellburner

“They cut the power, sir,” the ops tech said, “Chief Jackson got the spin shut down. Cameras are working, they’re on another generator, but all the pods are full crewed and frozen out there til they get power back on.”

The core was totally dark, even the access areas—requests for personnel movement going out over com, the same sequence that must have attended his own accident, Dekker thought glumly—like standing off and watching it happen to him.

“Do we have a recovery team out there?” Porey asked, and the tech answered that they were still trying to organize mat—only way they had to haul you back if a pod had to totally crash was suit up and go out there; the construction workers that formed the rescue squad were coming in from their off hours and from work around the carrier—

“Too damned long,” he said, he didn’t care if he was out of turn: “I know the systems, sir, I’m used to a suit—“

“You’re not going out there,” Porey said, and adjusted the com in his ear, scowling, eyes showing the least anxiety while he listened to something elsewhere. “—You have one?” he asked someone invisible. “Suiting now?”

They’d found somebody closer. Dekker drew a controlled breath, then, still wanting to do something; but rescue was evidently getting into motion. Black monitors. No emergency lights—the fool engineers had put the viewport shutters on the main power. Power was cut, completely, complete black in the chamber, no ventilation in the pod, no heat, no filtration for anybody out there. God hope the mags weren’t all crashed.

“Patch through the suitcom,” Porey said. Graff said to the tech at the boards in simulation Control, “Give us audio, here. Are we getting anything out of the pod?”

“We don’t get anything. Whole core section’s on that generator.”

“What the hell kind of engineering is that, dammit to bloody hell, what kind of operation do we have here?”

“An old one,” Graflf said. “Lot of patch-jobs.”

“Piece of junk,” Porey muttered. “Nothing moves, does it?”

“Not the shutters, not the internal lights—there’s a requisition to get them on another circuit, but the engineers have found a problem doing that.”

“Can they power up with the rest of those pods sitting out there?”

Should be able to,” Graff said, while Dekker kept his mouth shut. Should be able to, once they got the one pod clear. If it didn’t, if they were all crashed, everybody was in trouble. Imminent trouble.

“One man’s not enough out there,” he said tautly. “They’ve got no locators, those are all killed with the power…. Sir, in all respect, I know what I’m doing….”

“Shut down, Dekker, you’re not going up there.”

A dun seam of light showed at the edge of one monitor— lock door, he figured, on a leech and hand-battery. Audio cut in, unmistakably a suit com, heavy breaming, little else, and a white star appeared in both monitors: suit-spot shining in all that black.

Sim chiefs voice, then: “You’re going across the chamber, zenith climb about ninety meters.. . sensor range within.

“Copy that.” Female voice, unexpectedly. Familiar voice that sent a sinking feeling to the pit of his stomach as the star shot off at a fair speed. Scary speed.

“Don’t hurry it, don’t hurry it…” from the chief. “Dammit, slow down.”

Meg didn’t. Meg was hotdogging it, scaring hell out of him and the sim chief—miner showout, but habitual: a miner knew his distance without his eyes, by reckonings they didn’t teach in construction, and she wouldn’t miss: blind in the dark, she wouldn’t miss: that was the push she was used to—and she was counting and caking.

“Shouldn’t argue with her,” Dekker muttered, sweating it. “She knows her rate, she’s feeling it.. .tell the chief that.”

“Is that Kady?” Graff asked. “Dekker, is that Kady out there?”

“Yessir.”

“Get her the hell out of there!” Porey said into the mike. “This is Comdr. Porey. Get her out of there. Now!”

Took a little relaying of instructions. Meg developed a problem with her mike. Didn’t fool Porey, didn’t fool anybody, but there wasn’t a thing Porey could do from here. Meg was closing into sensor range, you could hear the pings on audio and see the rate drop.

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