Assuming anyone who maintained their internal systems as poorly as these people appeared to have had managed to survive to be rescued in the first place, of course.
Don't rush to conclusions , Abby, she reminded herself. This is strictly an emergency access way, and the lock's the only thing it leads to. Let's not decide all of their maintenance is as half-assed as it looks right here until we've actually seen it .
She told herself that rather firmly, and she knew she had a point. But she couldn't help reflecting on how any Manticoran or Grayson executive officer would react to something like this, even if it was "only" an emergency access way. In fact, especially if it was "only" an emergency access way. There was a reason things like that were provided when a ship was designed, after all, and when an emergency finally came along and bit your posterior, it was a little late to think about catching up on that overdue maintenance you'd really been meaning to get to sometime real soon now.
At least we're in, we're in one piece, and we're in solid com contact with the pinnace. Which means —
"All right, Matteo, let's go," she said.
"Yes, Ma'am," Lieutenant Gutierrez replied, then nodded to PO 1/c William MacFarlane, one of the noncoms to whom he'd issued another flechette gun. "Lead 'em out, Bill."
"Yes, Sir," MacFarlane acknowledged in turn, and started cautiously down the poorly lit passage.
Three more ratings with flechette guns followed him, with Gutierrez behind them. The lieutenant and Bosun Musgrave had spent the better part of half an hour deciding which naval personnel should be trusted with things that went bang. MacFarlane and the other flechette-armed ratings—there were three more bringing up the rear—were the ones with actual combat experience or who had most recently qualified with the weapons. Everyone else carried at least a sidearm as regulations required, but Gutierrez had been bloodthirstily explicit when he explained what would happen to anyone other than his designated flechette gunners who dared to switch any weapon from "safe" to "fire" without his specific instructions to do so. Given the profoundly stupid things Abigail had seen people do with firearms, she heartily approved of her armsman's attitude.
Now the rest of the party followed MacFarlane to the airtight door at the end of the airlock access way, and Selma Wilkie, one of Lieutenant Fonzarelli's engineering techs, examined the controls.
"Power's down, Ma'am," she reported to Abigail over the general net, then continued in a carefully expressionless voice. "According to the telltales, there's standard pressure on the other side, though."
Abigail heard someone snort contemptuously and shook her own head. They were inside the superdreadnought's outer armor but still well outside the big ship's core hull. Passages like this one were specifically designed and intended to be depressurized when the ship went to action stations as a means of limiting blast damage when the armor was breached. The fact that Charles Babbage hadn't bothered to do that said an enormous amount about the Solarian League Navy's readiness states. Or about Task Force 496's pre-battle appreciation of the threat levels it faced, at least.
"Well it's nice we'll have air, Selma," Abigail responded mildly. "On the other hand, who knows? They may actually have depressurized the next lateral. Besides, I understand Sollies don't like to take showers or wash their socks. So if it's all the same to you, I think we'll just keep our helmets sealed, anyway."
"Suits me just fine, Ma'am," Wilkie replied with a chuckle, and someone else laughed out loud. That laugh sounded just a bit nervous, perhaps, but Abigail wasn't going to fault anyone for that.
"Open it up," she said.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
Wilkie engaged the manual unlocking system and gripped the old-fashioned wheel. It took her a second longer—and a lot more effort—than it ought to have to get it moving, and the squealing sound it made set Abigail's teeth on edge. Not just because of the fingernails on a blackboard effect, either. There was no excuse at all for not properly maintaining the manual override mechanism on an emergency escape hatch!
Once Wilkie managed to undog the pressure door, it swung smoothly open. Macfarlane stepped quickly through it, turning to his left, up-ship, and one of the other flechette gunners stepped through it to the right.
"Clear port," MacFarlane reported.
"Clear starboard," the other man said.
"Go," Gutierrez responded, and the rest of the boarding party flowed quickly through the opening under his critical eye. Fortunately, everyone remembered how he'd briefed them and no one fell over his or her feet in the process. In fact, although Abigail knew he'd never admit it, his "vacuum-sucker" spacers moved with commendable caution and speed.
She herself paused and bent to examine the emergency hatch more closely. The passageway to which it had granted access was also illuminated only by emergency lighting, but at least all of the lighting units seemed to be up this time. And as she examined the hatch, she found that the normal power-assisted unlocking system appeared to have been far better maintained than the manual system had. Of course, there was the minor problem that at the moment it didn't have power, wasn't there?
A shadow fell over her, and when she looked up, she found that Musgrave had been looking over her shoulder.
"Ain't that a kicker, Ma'am?" the bosun muttered in tones of profound disgust. Over, she noticed, his dedicated link, not the general net.
"It does seem just a bit slipshod, Bosun," she acknowledged over the same link. "But not a lot more than leaving pressure in here."
"Someone needs his butt kicked up between his ears, begging your pardon, Ma'am," Musgrave concurred.
"Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. On the other hand, the SLN's a peacetime navy. Or it was , anyway. I imagine they put up with quite of bit of sloppiness."
"Peacetime or not, they should've had the brains to at least pump the air! And even allowing for that, this here's an example of piss-poor maintenance discipline," Musgrave growled, glowering at the neglected manual unlocking system. "'Less I'm mistaken, accidents've been known to happen in peacetime, too, Ma'am."
"That they have," Abigail agreed more grimly. "Even aboard Solarian ships-of-the-wall, I suppose."
She straightened and consulted the schematic which had been loaded into her electronic memo board. Theoretically, at least, she had the deck plans for the entire ship—or for the Scientist class as originally designed, at least—supplied specifically for SAR by Admiral O'Cleary. She hoped the schematics really were complete, without any surprises, intentional or unintentional, but she wasn't prepared to trust them fully. Still, they offered at least general guidance, and she'd marked them with the damage Tristram 's sensors had been able to map before she download them to the board.
"All right, Walt," she said to Midshipman Corbett, who carried an identical memo board. "This is where we split up. According to our damage map, this passage should extend another hundred meters forward before you hit a breach. It's got to be good for at least fifty meters, since that's the closest set of blast doors in that direction. You take your people and head forward."