Tarps covered the motors that’d already been retrieved. That was probably a pointless concern, seeing that they’d spent the previous sixty years upended on the hull of the wreck, but Daniel didn’t see any percentage in increasing the degree of risk even minusculely.
Woetjans came down from the hull wearing the boots and gauntlets from her rigging suit with her utility uniform. Her boots banged on the deck, making sure Daniel was aware of her presence before she entered the bridge. A dozen of her riggers had tramped through the airlock only minutes before, so her arrival wasn’t a surprise.
“Good work, Woetjans,” Daniel said. “I didn’t expect you to finish the job for another day at least.”
Woetjans scowled, loosening her gauntlets finger by finger before stripping them off. “Guess it’d be a waste of time asking if you’re still going through with the damn fool notion,” she said as she concentrated on the gloves.
“We have to go through with it, Woetjans,” Daniel said, rephrasing his reply rather than accept her formation. “Short of bringing a dock ship out from Cinnabar, this is the only way we’re going to get the Goldenfels back in working order. And we need the Goldenfels, you know.”
“I don’t know what we need,” the bosun said. “I take your word for it, sure; but sir, she’s easy three times our mass. If you lose a few cables, and you’re going to lose a few cables, she’ll settle back and it’ll be the Sissie flipped over too. Or worse!”
“Six, this is the Power Room,” Mr. Pasternak announced on the command channel. Pasternak was a humorless and ambitious man, neither of them an endearing trait; but he knew his business and didn’t waste time. For those virtues Pasternak would have the option of serving in any vessel that Daniel commanded. “The board’s green. We’re ready at this end any time you need power. Over.”
“Roger, Mr. Pasternak,” Daniel said. “Break. Ship, this is Six. All personnel save the Power Room crew must disembark immediately. The Main Hatch will remain open for two, repeat two, minutes only. Get out and get clear, Sissies. Remember that these cables can part at both ends and fly God knows where, so don’t trust being a hundred yards out. Six out.”
Daniel called up a hull display on his console and began closing the ship. Plasma from the thrusters drifting in through the hatches wasn’t a danger, but the risk of a line galling on a lifted cover was something else again. What he planned to do wouldn’t be easy and might not be possible. He was covering all the bases he could.
Woetjans still stood by the console, a grim look on her face.
“Woetjans,” Daniel snapped, “get your ass off this ship now. Do you hear me? You’re no bloody use aboard and you just might manage to distract me. Now, I said!”
The bosun’s face went blank in shock. She’d seen Daniel angry before, but not at her—and she was a spacer through and through, steeped in the chain of command. She’d been presuming on a relationship with Daniel that went beyond captain and warrant officer, but the snarled order slammed her back into RCN discipline.
“Aye aye, sir!” she blurted. She broke into a lumbering run as she left the bridge and started down the companionway. Hogg, who’d just come in by the airlock, stepped aside for her and gave Daniel a quizzical glance.
Daniel sighed. “I’m nervous about this, Hogg,” he admitted. “I bit her head off. Though if me snapping at her saves her life, then I’ll have one less thing on my conscience if this goes to Hell.”
“Nothing’s going to Hell,” Hogg said equitably, sitting down on the gunner’s couch. “Except maybe us after a lot more years.”
He nodded toward the companionways and added, “Mistress Mundy’ll be up pretty quick. She started over from the wreck when Pasternak arrived.”
“Bloody Hell!” Daniel said. “She’s got no business here. Any more than you do, Hogg!”
“I do have business here,” Adele said calmly as she stepped out of the up companionway and walked onto the bridge. “I’ve set all the screens aboard the Goldenfels to feed through the signals board, which will transmit the images—”