All six of the bolts came off easily enough after the first. But the patch was still holding. Bill tried to pry at it with the fingers of the Wyvern, but it wasn’t moving. So he clipped the wrench back down and pulled out one of Tchar’s massive flat-head screwdrivers. Placing it at the join he pried upwards.
The patch sprang off explosively, smashing into the far wall of the vent with a “Bong!” he heard through his armor, rebounding into his armor hard enough to nearly break him free from his position, then bouncing down into the depths of the ballast vent.
Along with patch came a blast of air and water. And it didn’t stop.
“Command, EVA,” Weaver said, as calmly as he could. “We appear to have explosive venting.”
“Warning! Warning! Depressurization in Missile Compartment! All personnel to racks and suits!”
“Good thing we’re already in the rack,” Berg said. He had his zero-gee straps in place and, for once, wasn’t nauseated in free fall. Apparently the effects of the pink stuff had finally worn off.
“No maulk,” Crowley said. “So can you apply super-cold temperatures to a gate and shut it down? I mean, it’s based on a boson, right? And under super-cold conditions they’ll gather together.”
“No way to do it,” Berg replied. “Not that I’ve heard of. But there might be some experiments in it. I dunno. Guy to ask would be the astrogator. He’s the world’s foremost gate expert. But as far as I know, the only way to close one is the way he closed one in the Dreen War, drop a super-huge quarkium package through the gate and get it to explode on the other side.
“I wonder what happened to those Dreen worlds,” Berg said.
“Blew the grapp out of them,” Drago said. “I heard that was a big grapping explosion.”
The inter-rack communicators could be set up for multi-person chat and it was a way to pass the time while waiting to see if the ship was going to completely depressurize. Also a good way to take their minds off of it.
“And it nearly went off on Earth,” Jaen said. “At least that’s what I heard.”
“Most of it’s still classified,” Sergeant Lovelace added. “That’s just the rumor.”
“I saw it on CNN,” Jaen argued.
“And we all know how reliable that is,” Drago said.
“Grapp,” Jaen said. “Point.”
“Be interesting to see if cryogenics could do it,” Berg said.
“Go up to the bridge and ask the astrogator,” Drago said. “I double dog dare you.”
“Maybe the next time we’re on deployment,” Jaen said. “You could side channel him if you get up the nerve.”
“Hell, I’d be hard-pressed to talk to him at all,” Berg said.
“You seem comfortable in this stuff,” Miller said.
“I am,” Miriam replied. “Even if the armor is big, it feels small in here. I like small. I’m not even nauseated, which is nice. I usually hate free fall.”
“Makes sense,” Miller said. He wasn’t sure about being teamed with the linguist, but just about every mission specialist was placed at one of the likely break points.
“Response teams, Command,” the XO said over the radio. “Commander Weaver is preparing to remove the patch.”
“Point four,” Miller said, when his count came up.
“I hope nothing breaks,” Miriam said. “But I want you to know that if it does, I’m going to panic.”
“That’s reassuring,” the former SEAL said, rolling his eyes inside the Wyvern.
“I have to panic first,” Miriam said, calmly. “Then I can deal with things. I need the adrenaline.”
“If this patch lets go, we’re going to have all the adrenaline we can use,” Miller told her, looking at the magnet. “I just wish we were in something smaller and more nimble.”
“See?” Miriam said. “Small is good.”
“In this case, definitely,” Miller replied. “I’m not even sure we can get to that damned thing in this armor.”
Just as he said that, the magnet shifted sideways and the outer mount broke inwards. As soon as it did, the magnet dropped entirely out of its mount and air began explosively venting out of the ship.
“Oh, damn,” Miller said, getting down on the knees and elbows of the Wyvern and sliding forward. He could see how the mount went into place, but he wasn’t sure he could get it fully mounted. The outboard mount was crumpled.
He lifted the magnet and slid the inboard mount over the pipe, but with the outboard mount crumpled there was no way to get an airtight seal. In fact, it wouldn’t seat at all. He dropped it back down and slid the hand of the Wyvern into the mount; twisting it around to get the mount rounded again, he slid it up and got the thing mounted. But they were still losing air. And in the position he was in he couldn’t do anything but look at the damned mount and try not to panic.
The whole time he’d heard his “teammate” slowly going nuts over his local channel. There was a final shriek, then a clicking sound.
“Miriam?” Miller said. “Miriam!”
There was a thump on his back and a small hand holding a roll of duct tape came into view over his back. A human hand. The stupid bitch was out of her armor!
“Get back in your armor!” he shouted, realizing that she couldn’t hear him. He wasn’t sure what the pressure was outside the armor, but going from suit pressure to whatever was left in the engine compartment, ignoring the likelihood of dying from lack of oxygen, was liable to cause all sorts of medical issues that could be summed up with one word: “Bends.” It was the equivalent of doing a deep dive and then coming up rapidly.
Gasses that were in solution in the blood went from liquid to gas and created bubbles. The gasses were everywhere in the body; saturated was the term. So when the bubbles formed, they could do bad things. Especially when they became bubbles in spinal or brain tissue. Paralysis was common as was brain damage.
Miriam, though, ignored him, quickly wrapping the duct tape around the mount, then sliding something else into view. It was some sort of gun and it quickly began extruding a brown material that was initially sucked in through the small holes that formed in the duct tape and then hardened in place.
His external mike could hear air rushing but it wasn’t rushing out, it was the internal systems reflooding the compartment with blessed air.
“You okay?” he asked, keying his external speakers.
“No,” Miriam croaked.
“You did good,” Miller said. “What was that stuff?”
“It’s the micrometeorite patch system,” Miriam said holding up the oddest looking caulking gun the chief had ever seen. “They’re just like the ones developed for the space station and they are all over the ship. Didn’t anybody brief you on them before you came on board?”
“Uh, no.”
“Basically, it’s million dollar a tube hot glue. Chief Miller? I’m going to pass out, now.”
“Okay,” Miller said, sliding backwards carefully. “Command, explosive venting at Point Four is sealed. And I need medical teams, stat.”
“All hands! All hands! Breach sealed. Pressure normalized. Remain in Condition Yellow. Prepare for atmospheric entry.”
“What the grapp does that mean?” Drago asked.
“I think we’re going into a Jovian atmosphere to get some O2,” Berg said. “At least, that’s what it sounded like Top was talking about. And you guys just don’t get who that guy is. It’d be like walking up to Chesty Puller and striking up a conversation.”
“Yeah, sure,” Crowley said. “He’s the grapping nav. He’s not Chesty Puller.”