Besides fourteen moons and counting, the planet had six rings. Four were aligned with the planet’s equator, like Saturn’s, but two more, very thin, were at angled orbits.
One thing that had been discovered in Sol’s system during the shakedown cruise was that “white” rings were composed of ice moons that had been torn apart by tidal stresses. Darker “black” rings were composed either of older ice that had picked up dust or, quite often, of rocky material. Fortunately, the largest of the rings was bright white, indicating recently formed “clean” ice.
“XO?”
“Sir?”
“Find out how soon we can get oxygen,” the CO said. “I’m in the mood for a cleansing breath.”
“Will do, sir.”
“We have one last problem,” Tchar pointed out. “At least, one that we’re aware of. The pipes have a plug on them. It’s an airtight screw fitting that’s designed to be removed. But it’s on the exterior of the ship, actually up underneath.”
“That’s going to be interesting,” Bill said, looking over at the chief engineer.
“I would recommend an EVA removal under microgravity,” the ship’s engineer said.
Lieutenant Commander Dan Schall was a career sub officer, a “nukie” to the core. Short with brown hair going gray and a florid face, he was phlegmatic to an almost insane degree. However, given that he had lived his entire career around nuclear reactors that were right on the edge of being nuclear bombs in a cylinder underwater, phlegmatic was good.
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Commander,” Tchar said, clacking his teeth. “The seals on the system are not the best I’ve seen. That could result in explosive decompression of the engineering spaces.”
“Which would be, in sub parlance, bad,” Weaver said, smiling. “But getting to the damned thing in anything other than microgravity would be a bitch. I’d recommend evacuating the reactor spaces before we try it. I’ll handle the EVA with the CO’s permission. I’m trained in Wyverns. Can I get a Wyvern to it?”
“Yes,” Schall said. “The inlets are at the base of the ballast vents. All you have to do is enter through ballast vent fourteen. But the patch is heavily bolted. It’s designed to be removed, but not easily. And please bring it back with you. We don’t have a spare.”
“Duly noted,” Bill said.
“There are other Wyvern-qualified personnel onboard,” Tchar said. “Not only security, but the mission specialists. In the event of explosive decompression, they could stand by to support repairs.”
“Good point,” the Eng said. “I believe we have a plan.”
“The write-up on this one is going to be interesting,” the XO said. “Item one: Some of the machinist mates need to be trained in EVA.”
The ship was equipped with microgravity tools. Bill had ensured that. What he had not ensured was that they had tools for every part on the ship. When he had turned up at the air lock with his torque compensating wrench, the machinist mate assigned to assist him had just laughed and handed him the wrench that fit. It was about half as long as Bill was tall and was not torque compensating. In fact, under “not torque compensating” in the dictionary was this wrench. It was the essence of torque. Torqueness to the nth degree. Torque-sausage. Torquemada. If there was a Nobel prize for torque…
“Preparing to EVA,” Bill said as he closed the airlock door.
“Door is remotely released,” the XO said over his radio. “Good luck, Commander.”
“Roger that, sir,” Bill replied. He dialed down the pressure in the lock and checked his internal monitors. No leaks in the suit. This was a good thing.
“Ready to exit,” Bill said as the gravity fell off. They were out of normal space drive and in microgravity. He’d better get this over with, quick, or the crew was going to be bitching up a storm.
The air lock door opened and he clipped off a safety line, then exited. The Wyvern had been equipped with EVA “mag” boots and he got a boot on the hull, then lifted himself up to get the other in place.
“This is so cool,” Bill muttered.
“Say again, Commander?” the XO asked.
“Sorry, sir, talking to myself,” Bill said.
“Stay on mission, Commander,” the XO advised.
Bill didn’t reply as he started walking down the hull. He’d originally entered the fields that he had, hoping he could get into the NASA mission crews. Later he’d taken other paths when it was pretty clear he didn’t get along with NASA. But he still wanted to get into space. He’d done a couple of EVAs before, but he never ever lost his love of the glory of the sight.
And this one was pretty darned glorious. The ship had taken up orbit well out from the gas giant but it was clearly visible, filling a quarter of the sky. For that matter, Sirius, the Dog Star, a star he’d looked at as a kid through his first telescope, was glaring blue-white at him off to his right. Cool didn’t begin to cover it.
There it was. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s night sky. The blue-white main sequence dwarf star that could be seen by almost every inhabitant of Earth except those living above about seventy-three degrees or so. Here Bill was, right smack in the vertex of the Winter Triangle or the constellation Canis Major or the “Big Dog.” Weaver was as giddy as a school boy. The scenery couldn’t have been more of a boyhood fantasy come true if there were naked women in it. Cool.
Hell, for that matter, climbing around on the exterior of a sub was pretty cool. He’d exited from air lock Four, which was another converted Momsen lock, and so he was walking on the “bottom” of the sub. It was the closest to Ballast Vent Fourteen but it was still a bit of a hike. For that matter, there weren’t any clip points for his safety lines so he was having to use more magnets for those. Setting the magnets in place, in the Wyvern, wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. He’d pretty much come to the conclusion that the Wyverns needed some work for EVA stuff.
Finally, he reached the entrance to the ballast vent. The thing was about six feet across and nine “deep.” But getting into it was going to be tricky. And then there was the whole unbolting the thing under microgravity. Especially in a Wyvern.
He clipped in a safety line, then bent down and undogged his boots, getting one hand on the edge of the ballast vent and pulling himself inside. As soon as he turned on his external lights, he easily spotted the intake. It had six massive bolts holding it on and was about a meter across.
Bill pulled up his “legs” and planted them on the far wall of the vent, then got settled in a hard position where he could reach all six of the bolts but wouldn’t shift when he applied torque with the torquiest wrench in the solar system.
“Command, EVA,” Weaver said. “Preparing to remove patch.”
“We see you, Commander,” the XO replied. “Emergency teams in place.”
He unclipped the wrench, which was tethered to the suit of armor, and applied it to the first nut. The nut didn’t want to move, but the Wyvern had the power of a small machine press and it broke free easily enough. He slowly undid the nut all the way to the end, then removed it, carefully, and stowed it. There were spare nuts for the patch, but waste not, want not.