Caine could not bring himself to answer yes. “Read about it. Live-fired about fifteen rounds from one during the second week of training.”
“Okay, then we take it from the top.” Trevor swiftly field-stripped the handgun, laid each piece on the console in front of Caine. “Reassemble and review.”
You’ve got to be kidding. But Caine picked up the receiver, reached for the bolt, and dredged up already half-forgotten memories of a weapons-familiarization class that he had aced only two weeks earlier. “Unitech ten-millimeter selective-fire automatic handgun. This weapon uses a binary mix of reactant liquids as a scalable propellant. The two reactants are stored in separate canisters inside each magazine, which contains thirty projectiles. The standard load is fifteen antipersonnel, and fifteen armor-piercing projectiles.” And the recitation and assembly went on until Caine checked the action, secured the safety and handed the rebuilt weapon back to Trevor, butt first.
Trevor looked at it, then at Caine. “Forgetting something?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think again. EVA ops require special systems.” Trevor took the weapon, pointed out several small nodules along the weapons frame and receiver. “Thermal regulation studs. They control the temperature of the weapon’s primary metal components to ensure constant operating temperatures across crucial interfacing surfaces, such as breech-to-barrel. Necessity in spaceside operations where thermal variations can be extreme.
“Also, the position of the trigger guard is adjustable, as is the tensile setting of the trigger spring. These two features allow the weapon to be reconfigured for a bigger handprint.” Trevor unlocked the trigger guard and pulled it forward until it almost reached the end of the barrel. “Looks odd, but it’s the only way you can use it if you’re wearing one of these.” Trevor wriggled his right hand back into one of the emergency suit gloves. He picked up the pistol with that hand; the weapon almost disappeared within the cumbersome gauntlet. “The bigger handprint allows you to fire and reload the weapon normally. But the most important EVA feature is—?”
Caine recited this one from memory: “‘Projectile velocity may be varied by altering the volume of liquid injected into the firing chamber. This feature allows the user to both reduce warhead speeds and makes the weapon significantly less destabilizing when fired in low- and zero-gee environments.’”
“Very good. Now we perform a piece-by-piece diagnostic of our two emergency suits. We can talk though our next action while we work.”
Caine swung his suit out of its locker and began his own checks. “What action is that?”
“Boarding procedure.” Trevor holstered the sidearm.
Caine swallowed—a large, uncomfortable sensation—and began the visual inspection of his helmet. A worried expression stared back from its visor.
“I read an approximate volume of eight hundred fifty kiloliters,” Trevor’s voice announced in Caine’s earbud. “We have matched its pitch values. Yaw values are minimal. Roll rate is one full rotation every twenty-eight seconds. Do you confirm? Over.”
Caine squinted out the bow observation port in the ready room, just forward of the command center. The stark white enemy craft was completing one full roll around its long axis about once every half minute. “I confirm that estimate.”
“Approximate range? Over.”
Caine sighted the pistol at the wreck’s midship hull, activated its dual-purpose targeting laser, read the rear LED: “One hundred forty meters, closing rapidly.”
“Your range estimate confirms on-board ranging. Closing at two meters per second. Stand by for final retro burn.”
A series of slight tugs indicated a quick sequence of counteraccelerations. The distance between the two craft stopped decreasing, stabilizing at just under one hundred meters. Caine was suitably impressed. The Auxiliary Command module had not been designed for precision spaceflight, just gross corrections to its own vector. And without Trevor’s piloting skills—well, no reason to think about that. Not unless one was eager to contemplate certain death.
“I read vectors and two axes of tumble as matched. Confirm?”
“Confirmed. Nice driving.”
“Not as nice as I’d like. Every ten meters is at least three seconds of exposure when we jump across.”
“What’s the current rate of exposure?”
“Thirty REM per minute. Nice tanning weather.”
Caine’s stomach contracted. “What about the exo craft? Are you reading active rad shields?”
“Negative. No EM grid. Do you observe any lights or sign of activity? Over.”
Caine studied the craft more closely. The wedge-shaped prow had taken damage; it looked as though its chin had been chopped off. Good shooting, Hazawa. An ovate, slightly recessed, jet-black slab dominated what Caine took to be the upper surface. A hull-flush cockpit blister? Perhaps, but no sign of life in or about what Caine mentally labeled as the command section.
The craft’s amidships belly rolled into view, revealing two parallel rows of white, oval containers: fuel tankage. No sign of damage, but no sign of activity. The aft propulsion system was also slightly easier to examine, now that the prow was out of the way. Toroidal fusion pods and thruster bells were crowded atop one another, but there was less apparatus for gimballing than on a comparable human craft. The enemy evidently relied more on magnetic bias to alter the vector of their thrust. But again, no light, no movement, not even any signs of damage.
“No sign of activity,” Caine reported. “No sign of damage other than to the command module comprising the prow.”
“What about sensor clusters?”
“None observable.”
“Points of embarkation?”
“Not sure. There are a number of surface irregularities on the sides of the command module, but I can’t even guess at their purpose. Can you get a better look with our external camera?”
“Negative. If I zoom in, the wreck’s roll produces a blurred image. If I zoom out, I lose resolution. Hobson’s choice. So any greater detail is going to require eyeballing it up close. Which means it’s time for a walk around the neighborhood. I’m removing my intercom jack.”
There was a sharp electronic snick and then nothing. Caine activated his suit’s radio, sealed his helmet, and leaned forward for a final, and better, look outside. To the left, Barnard’s Star was a small, bright red disk. To the right, the alien wreck rolled lazily. Falling behind, almost completely hidden by the bulk of the Auxiliary Command module, was the arc of the small gas giant. Strange, how serene it all looks—
The heads-up display briefly painted an orange radiation icon on the inside of the helmet visor; Caine backed away from the window and leaned off to the side. Ten minutes of external exposure would cause profound sickness. Two times that was probably fatal.
Another orange light came on, but this one was next to the aft passageway: the first seal on the internal airlock door had been unlocked. Caine exited the ready room, headed aft, found Trevor releasing the primary hatch seal. The orange light became red. They entered the airlock.
After dogging the hatch behind them, Trevor leaned over until the top half of his visor touched Caine’s. Trevor’s voice was muffled and distant. “Last suit check. All green?”
“All green.”
Trevor nodded, tapped the red button on the wall. Caine heard a low rushing sound, somewhere in between a cascade of water and burst of released gas: the airlock was being depressurized.
“Give me a procedure review, Caine.”