Vorpal Blade

16

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! SECURITY TO REPEL BOARDERS!”

It had been ten days since they landed on what everyone now knew as Dean’s World. Ten days of, as Sergeant Jaen called it, “dickbeating.” Weight training, maintenance, Wyvern sims, climbing fast-ropes, drills, computer sims… The latter had been proven to increase combat efficiency but everybody had a hard time not calling it “gaming.” Basically, you lay in your bunk and played Dreen War over and over again. He wished they’d at least let the Marines play Halo III, which was more interesting by light-years.

Ten uneventful days and then in the middle of the platoon’s “night”…

Berg’s eyes flew open as the light automatically came on, but he waited a heartbeat for the next order.

“SECOND PLATOON, WYVERNS. FIRST AND THIRD, GROUND MOUNT.”

Both voices were prerecorded female voices, but the second order was important. It detailed who had to clear the compartment first. Since everyone couldn’t move in the corridor at the same time, the personnel with Wyvern duty had to move first. Since they only had to slip into skinsuits, they could be dressed fastest, anyway.

He pulled out his skins and then dropped to the deck. Right on top of Lance Corporal Revells from Third Platoon.

“Get the grapp off my back, Two-Gun!” Revells said, trying to struggle through the mass to the forward hatch.

“Get in your grapping rack, Revells,” Jaen snarled. “You’re not supposed to be moving, yet!”

“Get your elbow out of my face!”

“Get your dick out of my ass!”

The compartment was a madhouse of struggling Marines as everyone tried to get to different hatches at once, all order dissolved.

“FREEZE!” the first sergeant bellowed from the forward hatch.

Berg froze in place, arms over his head, most of the top of the skinsuit over his face.

“Two-Gun, you may lower your arms,” Top said into the silence. “Carefully.”

Berg shrugged all the way into the skinsuit and lowered his arms, carefully. He had to; the Marines were packed in the companionway like sardines.

“The term here is FUBAR,” the first sergeant said, quietly. “Y’all can’t struggle out of this compartment in two minutes, which is the time it’s supposed to take you to settle on your equipment. So we are going to do this again. And again. And again. Until you can, in fact, exit this compartment in an orderly fashion. At that point, and at that point only, will we then move on to donning said equipment and drawing ammo in an orderly fashion. And don’t think you can cut time by keeping your uniforms on. We’re going to randomly pick which platoon has which duty. Back in your racks.”

Berg waited at the position of attention, sucked into the bulkhead of the locker room, until Gunny Hedger from Third Platoon shouted “Third, Clear!” then grabbed the stanchion on the gear locker and drove it, hard, towards the starboard bulkhead. Staff Sergeant Summerlin was on the far side of the locker and, if anything, was driving harder.

Falling in on the armor was a drill that had to be done as precisely as a parade. As tight as the ship was, getting everyone onto their armor, fast, was nearly impossible. But it could be done if everyone did their jobs precisely on the beat.

With the containers spaced, the Marines darted in lockstep to their positions and almost simultaneously opened their compartments. As the seats fell they turned and, nearly in unison, sat down, reaching up and pulling their armor over their heads. The combat harnesses were attached to the armor so they came down at the same time. Two moves and the armor was latched. Reaching up, they pulled down their helmets, then snatched out their weapons and stood up.

Gunny Hocieniec was already there, in armor, and nodded at the first sergeant.

“One minute and forty-three seconds,” Top said. “Seventeen seconds under standard. I think we can better that, but it’s good enough for now. Fall into the missile bay.”

“I’d say that I’m only going to say this once,” the first sergeant said, striding down the ranks of Marines standing at attention. “But I’m not. I’m going to say it over and over and over again. We do not know what we are going to encounter out here. We know the Dreen are out here, somewhere. And some of you have fought them before and know how nasty that is. But we could, God help us, run into nastier things. Or better. Or nothing, as on Dean’s World. That’s the point. We just don’t know. So each and every one of you had better be ready for anything at any time. Somebody who is ready for anything at any time is a Space Marine. I will not accept anything less in my company. Is that clear, Marines!”

“Clear, First Sergeant!” the Marines shouted.

“You’ve all passed Common Tasks, but to be a Space Marine means practicing uncommon tasks. We’re going to make you the sharpest, hardest group of Marines in the Corps, because that is being a Space Marine. We’re going to make you the smartest group of Marines in the Corps, because that is being a Space Marine. And if you’ve been tired of dickbeating, then you’re going to get really tired of what I’m going to throw at you. By the numbers, replace your gear and hit your racks. Tomorrow, we’re going to start adding some polish.”

“So, mesons are a type of boson,” Drago said, furrowing his brow. “They’re two quarks…”

“A quark and an anti-quark,” Berg said, trying not to sigh. “That’s actually pretty important.”

As the first sergeant had said, it was time to put the polish on the apple. The Marines had been looking at their sensor systems and learned to recognize basic information but they’d never really understood what they were looking at. Berg had been drafted as an ad hoc instructor for his platoon and was trying to get the basics of particle physics through some skulls dense enough to stop neutrinos.

“Okay, they’re a quark and an anti-quark,” Drago said. “Any particular type of quark? I mean, strange, charmed?”

“What in the hell is a charmed?” Lovelace asked. “What’s a quark?! I mean, there’s all these particles and it’s all about quarks but nobody ever said what a quark is!”

“Oh, maulk,” Berg muttered. “It’s in the manual but… quarks, muons, and electrons are elementary particles. That means they can’t be broken into smaller pieces. And quarks are the only fundamental particle that interact through all four of the known forces. They come in six flavors: up, down, top, bottom, sometimes called beauty for some damned reason, charmed and strange. And, no, I’m not making this maulk up, Drago.”

“This is some crazy maulk.”

“Oh, I forgot something else. They’re also waves, the whole ‘both a particle and a wave’ thing.”

“How can it be both?” Lovelace asked, grabbing his head. “That doesn’t make grapping sense!”

“Welcome to quantum mechanics,” Berg said, grinning. “Whenever you really get something in quantum mechanics, you’re required to roll a sanity check. But that’s the point; they’re both and since they’re down to the point where they can be both, there’s nothing smaller. Quarks and electrons are what make up ‘solid’ matter. Put enough quarks together and you get the basic protons and neutrons of an atom. Electrons are just… electrons and they spin around the outside of the protons and neutrons in atoms. Oh, and until the Adar came along we thought that you could only have quarks in twos or threes or some other multiples but never a single quark by itself—”

“Why?”

“Well, the gluons that hold them together—”

“Gluons? Grapping gluons?”

“…get stronger the farther apart you try to pull them until they eventually pop back together. But somehow the Adar know how to pull the quarks apart and keep them that way. And as far as I know there are probably only two humans alive who really understand how that is possible and both of them are here on this boat—”

“Grapping maulk, here he goes again!” Drago rolled his eyes.

“Let us guess… Commander Weaver is one of them?” Lovelace added.

“And Mimi is the other…” Berg finished.

“Damn, I know you’ve got a jones for the commander, Two-Gun, but the kid too? That’s serious jailbait.”

“And as I was saying,” Two-Gun ignored the comment. “Then there’s photons…”

“Photons! Hey, I’ve heard of that. Like a photon torpedo?” Drago said excitedly.

“Uh, yeah, Drago,” Berg said. “Like a photon torpedo.”

“I got one right!”

“Light’s a particle and a wave. Sort of.”

“What’s a tachyon?” Lovelace asked. “I heard something about tachyons.”

“It’s what you get when you let rednecks play with particle physics,” Berg said, grinning again. “Seriously, what it is is a theoretical particle that travels faster than light only and would take infinite energy to slow it down to light speed. Most of these particles only exist when you have some sort of weird reaction, and decay in less time than I’m going to bother to explain. Some of them, though, hang around and we get to detect them.”

“I don’t get why the sensors don’t just say ‘hey, bosons!’ ” Sergeant Lovelace said.

“Because there are different aspects to particular mesons and bosons,” Berg said. “The real kicker is fermions and pentaquarks. So far, we’ve never seen pentaquarks in nature. If you’re getting a reading that indicates pentaquarks or other high-multiple quark formations, then something strange is going on. Fermions do occur from some natural processes. After all, electrons, muons, and tau particles are fermions and we are pounded by electrons and muons all the time. The higher energy ones are the key to things we are interested in. Usually, you get them as the result of a recent quarkium explosion or a Higgs boson nearby. Pentaquarks, too. So if you see a bunch of high energy fermion or pentaquark signatures, fermions that are nonstandard fermions, there’s probably been a big boom.”

“Which means there might be another,” Sergeant Lovelace said, nodding. “I’m starting to see some point to this.”

“Go, Brain,” Lujan said, grinning. “I think it’s a much better handle than Two-Gun.”

“Can it, Drago.”

“And baryons, more specifically mesons, can indicate there’s a gate around,” Berg said.

“Wait!” Drago interrupted. “I thought it was muons that said there was a gate around?”

“Well, yes. Muons are a fermion that is a fundamental particle like an electron and they do indicate a boson or a gate.”

“This is confusing as hell.”

“It is that,” Berg continued. “According to something I read on the declass science system notes, there was baryon presence after we did that dimensional shift. So baryons might indicate something is dimensionally shifting. Or, and this is sort of science fiction, it might mean there’s something out of phase. It might be invisible, in other words. It might even be able to see you, but you not see it. Possibly. Maybe sorta.”

“Wait,” Drago said again, frowning. “I got some pentaquark readings from my Wyvern the last time we did maintenance.”

“Ship gives off pentaquarks,” Berg said, nodding. “We’ve got a quarkium drive. That’s another indicator. But we don’t give off baryons unless we’re doing a dimensional jump. Maybe.”

“Dude, I did not join the Corps to study quantum physics,” Crowley moaned.

“Welcome to the Space Marines.” Berg shrugged. “Learning this is nearly as important as learning how to field strip your M-675.”

“Everybody’s to fall in to the missile room,” Staff Sergeant Summerlin ordered. “Some sort of announcement.”

“Shiny,” Crowley said, standing up. “Anything has to be better than this maulk.”

The XO arrived late to the command meeting and set a stack of paper in front of the captain before sitting down.

“That’s not only the consumables report but the data backing it.” The XO sighed. “We’ve only got two more days of air and we’ve already cut the water ration to one quarter. Unless we find some water to process we’re going to be breathing pure CO₂ in another three days.”

Standard submarines have very limited fresh water and oxygen storage. Both could be extracted from seawater so large storage areas were a waste of space. The Vorpal Blade had been designed with much more extensive storage of both, mostly by cutting down on its ballasting system, but it was still limited.

Since the surprising find in the E Eridani system the ship had been cruising for three weeks without finding another even semi-habitable planet. And things were getting a bit grim.

“Commander Weaver,” the CO said, looking over at the astrogator. “Suggestions?”

“Well, it’s a bit tricky, sir,” Bill replied. “We haven’t found any planets with an Earth type atmosphere, which was what I’d been hoping for. But we can get all the air we need from gas giants. Water, too, but that’s trickier.”

“I thought their atmosphere was hydrogen,” the XO said, puzzled.

“Mostly hydrogen,” the CO replied. “But it’s got a lot of other stuff in it.”

“That’s the point, sir,” Bill said, nodding. “Oxygen, after hydrogen, is about the most common atom in the universe. Stars pump it out constantly by first fusing their hydrogen into helium then continuing fuse down to iron in what is known as the CNO cycle…”

“Chief of Naval Operations?” the XO asked, confused.

“Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen,” Bill said, trying not to sigh. “Oxygen’s a common fusion point and is put out in quantity as a by-product of stellar evolution. Most of it ends up locked up with hydrogen, water in other words, but a good bit gets into the atmosphere of gas giants. But gas giant atmospheres are layered. We’re going to have to drop actually into the atmosphere and hover while we extract O₂. There’s going to be water there, too, but it’s going to be disperse, and extracting it is going to be harder. We’ll pick up some from the oxygen extraction process, but I think we’re going to have to find the rest of it in ice.”

“Land on a moon?” the CO asked.

“That or get it from a ring,” Bill replied, thinking hard. “An ice moon landing has problems we’ve encountered before. The pads tend to melt the ice and if it refreezes getting out is a bitch, pardon my language, sir. But if we pull up next to a ring and grab some ice out of those… We’ve never really been close enough to a ring to see how stable the orbits of the individual chunks are, sir. And, admittedly, our people are not as extensively trained in EVA as we might like for something like this. But if the rings don’t work, we can always land on a moon. Every gas giant we’ve surveyed has had multiple ice moons.”

“Well, that’s one for the manuals,” the XO said, making a note. “Life support consumables, lack of. Gather from gas giants and rings.”

“Do we have the equipment to extract O₂?” the CO asked. “I don’t recall it as part of our package.”

“Nothing in the SSM,” the XO said, referring to the Bible of Submarine Operations. “Or the mission specialist’s manifests, the Flight Readiness Manifest or the Payload Requirements Document. Checked them all.”

“You extract it with electrostatic systems,” Weaver replied. “At least preliminary extraction. Then you have to separate it with pumps. I’m pretty sure engineering can blage something…”

“Whenever I hear that word, I’ve learned to cringe,” the XO said.

“Sir, I can safely say that we have the finest blagers in this entire solar system,” Weaver replied.

“As far as we know, we’re the only life in this solar system,” the XO said.

“That, sir, was my point.”

“The ship is running low on consumables,” the first sergeant said, walking down the compartment before the assembled Marines. “The commander’s trying to find some source of air and water. In the meantime, the water ration is cut in half and no showers. Personal hygiene issue is one pint of water a day. Use it for shaving your filthy beards. If we can’t find it, we can head back to Earth easily enough, we’re less than a day away. I’m told that one of the options may cause some pressurization issues. If so, we’ll spend some time in the racks until they get things fixed. For now, get back to training. Second, you’re up on the PT schedule next.”

“Oorah!” Crowley said. “More PT, First Sergeant! I need to let my brain clear.”

“Unfortunately,” Top said, grinning maliciously, “no water means no PT. When you can explain the characteristics of a fermion you back off the quantum physics. Two-Gun, see if you can help him out with that. Make sure you cover why they can’t form Bose-Einstein condensates.”

“It is the reverse of an ion drive,” Tchar said, holding one massive hand out. “Mangon wrench.”

“So you polarize the molecules, then pull them in different directions,” Mimi said, handing the Adar a wrench that was about half as long as she was.

“Yes,” Tchar said. “Fortunately, we have spare electromagnets for the drive system. Both for stabilizing the sphere and for the electric propeller drive. Gibmak screwdriver.”

Mimi handed over the tool, which looked very much like a Phillips head if about three times the size of any screwdriver she’d ever seen before.

“What are these tubes from?” she asked.

They were working in a small space to the port of the main engine room. The reason she was having to handle the tools is that while the space was plenty large enough for a human, Tchar had to lie on his belly and crawl into it.

The space was also packed with very large piping, bigger around than Mimi.

“A portion of the water coolant system for the reactor,” Tchar said. “Not radioactive. It was the intake system for the reactor. We’ll use this point to polarize the molecules, then extract them further on. The big problem will be installing the fans. The ship, essentially, doesn’t have any. Fortunately, they left some pumps in place so we’ll try to use those. The human machinist mates are working on that. Can you move that very large circular magnet?”

“I would be able to if it weren’t stuck to the floor,” Mimi said, tugging at the big magnet. “But not now.”

“I suppose I shall have to,” Tchar said, working his way out of the narrow gap. He grabbed the magnet and yanked it upwards, breaking the hold it had on the deck, then rolled it in ahead of him. “I could use some help with this. Nothing too heavy, but I’m not sure most people on the ship could fit.”

“Not a problem,” Mimi said, squeezing past him.

“If you could stand there,” Tchar said, pointing to a narrow gap and handing her the large wrench. “I’ve disconnected the pipes as you can see and installed a mount for the magnet the machinist mates made for me. Now we have to lift it into position and attach it. I will lift it, you will attach it.” He pointed to several large screws.

“Got it,” Mimi said, picking up the wrench that was nearly as long as her arm. One of the screws, the size of her hand, went on the end and was held in place by another magnet.

“You will probably have to start it by hand,” Tchar said, lifting the heavy magnet with a grunt and sliding it into the mount. “Now, if you will.”

Mimi slid in the first screw and started it by hand, then slid three more in.

“And on the other side,” Tchar noted.

She scooted under the magnet and picked up the screws on the other side, sliding them in. Then she got the screwdriver and tightened them as well as she could.

“That has it,” Tchar said. “The pipes are braced at this point so they can hold the weight of the magnet.” He picked up a communicator and pressed the button. “Red?”

“Here, Tchar.”

“Try the pump.”

A whistling sound started up after a moment and Mimi felt her hair blowing in a breeze.

“It’s sort of… leaking,” she pointed out. “That’s going to the outside of the ship, right?”

“Currently it is bypassed to the internal air,” Tchar said. “But, yes, that is a problem. But for this we have a human solution.” He slid back and rummaged in his massive toolbox, finally lifting something out.

“You humans have the most amazing inventions,” he said, holding up the roll of silver tape. “This is something called ‘duck tape’ which has, I have counted, over two hundred and sixty-seven uses. This makes two hundred and sixty-eight. I have always wondered: Why is it named for a water bird?”

“The ions can be selectively separated, but it won’t be one hundred percent,” Weaver said, gesturing to the large makeshift gas flow and separation system. “We’re going to have to pump it down and separate it that way secondarily. This will just reduce the pumping problems.”

“Commander, for once pretend I’m a fighter pilot with an English Lit degree and an interest in stars based mostly on how pretty they are,” Spectre said.

“When you apply a magnetic charge to air molecules, it makes them sticky in different ways,” Weaver said, grinning slightly. “So when you apply another magnetic charge to them, they pull away from each other. But they don’t do it real well, unless you have a more elaborate setup than we can build. However, they will also turn into liquid at different temperatures and pressures. So we’ll put them under pressure and some of them will become liquid before others. Nitrogen becomes liquid at a higher temp and lower pressure than oxygen. Oxygen goes liquid at a higher temp and lower pressure than hydrogen. So we’re going to need three very high pressure, cryogenic pumping systems. Cryogenic means—”

“Really cold,” Spectre said, nodding. “Know that one.”

“So what we should get is mostly oxygen after the ion separation; then we’ll pump it down to ensure we’ve separated it. Now, there’s an alternative, if this works really well, to getting the water from ice. But it’s kind of crazy.”

“This entire mission is crazy,” the CO said. “And I haven’t had so much as a shower in a couple of days. Gimme crazy.”

“Burn it,” Bill said. “Put oxygen and hydrogen together and set them on ‘fire’ and you get water.”

“Fire in a sub is not something most people like,” the CO pointed out. “In a spaceship with nowhere to set down, it’s even worse.”

“Duly noted, sir,” Bill said.

“So let’s table that one, Commander Weaver,” Spectre said, grinning. “And let’s not tell the crew you even thought of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Bill replied.

“When’s this going to be ready?”

“About four hours.”

“We’ve got about sixteen hours of O₂ left.”

“Also duly noted, sir.”

“Stable orbit around Sirius Echo,” the pilot said as the ship coasted to a stop in an orbit around the gas giant.

The Saturn-sized planet was twelve AU from the AO class star, well outside the life zone and, like every gas giant they’d seen, was striped in broad bands. In the northern hemisphere there was a large spot, similar to Jupiter’s Great Spot, that indicated a stable gas giant “hurricane.” In addition to this gas giant, there were two rocky inner planets, either one massive asteroid field or two slightly larger than Sol’s and four more gas giants in the system. But this one’s atmosphere, Dr. Dean had assured them, was the one most likely to have a broad water belt. The rocky inner planets both resembled Venus with a fiery atmosphere and little or no water. The other gas giants were far enough out that water would be deep in the atmosphere and harder to extract.

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.

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.”

“Look him up,” Berg said, angrily. “Seriously. Use that computer for something other than porn for God’s sake.”

“Settle down, Two-Gun,” Jaen said easily. “We get the point. He’s heap big mojo.”

“Guy’s been outside the universe,” Berg said, closing his eyes. “He’s touched the face of God. He’s not just a grapping nav. The SEAL with him won the grapping Medal!”

“Settle down, Two-Gun,” Jaen said, obviously grinning. “We get it.”

“Weaver was at the Charge of the Redneck Brigade,” Berg said. “He went into a gate in Florida and came out of a completely unlinked gate in Virginia! And that was before he really got in some maulk.”

“You want to have his babies,” Drago said, chuckling. “We get it.”

“No grapping clue…”

“I have Miss Miriam in a pressurization chamber,” Dr. Chet said. He pulled thoughtfully at the beard that hung nearly to his chest and looked at the overhead.

“She has no gross trauma from her depressurization. She has some hypobaric edema but otherwise seems fine. Nonetheless, I would like to keep her under observation for a time. She has expressed a desire to remain in isolation as well.”

“Did she say why?” the CO asked.

“The edema manifests as large red marks that will eventually fade to something that look a bit like bruises,” Dr. Chet responded. “Since some of them are on her face, they are… unsightly.”

“Oh,” the CO said, grinning. “Tell her she can stay out of sight as long as she likes but that we look forward to seeing her again when she’s ready to come out.”

“I wouldn’t have popped my armor for a bet,” the XO said.

“While there are many problems inherent in rapid depressurization, it is not an instant killer,” Dr. Chet said. “It is believed that a person can withstand absolute vacuum for up to a minute. No one, of course, has ever tested that hypothesis and I hope that we are not the first to do so. However, what is not widely publicized is that on many of the EVAs done to date there have been pressure leaks of the suits because a seal wasn’t properly set and the astronauts were exposed to the vacuum for a few tens of seconds before the suits were resealed. In all cases that has not been a problem. Also, because the compartment was being vented and the hole was relatively small, Miriam was simply in a reduced pressure condition. While that is dangerous, the period that she was at reduced pressure was short. I believe her period of unconsciousness was more a result of the psychological trauma than physical. Miss Miriam is… delicate.”

“Well, as long as I know I won’t have to depend on her for the first ten seconds or so of an emergency, I’ll take her as backstop any time,” Miller said. “She really does panic, though, in those first ten seconds. Ye flipping gods does she panic.”

“What’s the next step?” the CO asked.

“We need to descend into the atmosphere, sir,” Weaver said. “That’s got other problems. The region we have to descend into is the pressure equivalent of about two hundred feet of water. Again, the seals might not hold. This time, though, we’re talking about over-pressure. The problem being that the atmosphere coming in isn’t breathable. It’s also not a killer, though. Fire-fighting air systems would work to deal with it. But we should reinforce the joints as much as possible. Oh, and the air’s going to be cold. We can actually use it for some of the chilling systems. We might think about extending the chillers while we’re doing this, it will vent some heat.”

“We’re low on air, so we don’t have a lot of time to work on this,” the CO said. “But, XO, I want pipe-seals on all those vents. We’re probably going to get some of that atmosphere in the ship, but let’s get as little as possible.”

“Will do, sir,” the XO said.

“What’s the composition?” Dr. Chet asked.

“The area we’re descending to is primarily hydrogen,” Weaver replied. “But it has a high concentration of oxygen, about one percent. Very little CO₂, less than a hundredth of a percent. Just about zero nitrogen. Argon, helium, mostly noble gasses are the biggest traces. But it’s the thickest concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere; we dropped a probe to check.”

“Other than the pressure, that is fully breathable,” Dr. Chet said. “In fact, if the system fails and the compartment vents, all we’ll have to ensure is that it does not depressurize quickly. That composition is actually rather good for that pressure. Breathing systems may not be necessary. In fact, I would recommend against them. The oxygen in the breathing systems is the most dangerous thing a human could be taking in under that amount of pressure.”

“So if we have a high pressure… issue, they should just breathe it?” the XO asked.

“Yes, that would be my recommendation,” Dr. Chet said. “And if the compartment does flood with that mixture, we will need to ensure that it does not rapidly vent when we leave. To ensure the personnel are not affected by depressurization problems we will need to slowly reduce the pressure. We will need to monitor oxygen levels closely; at high pressures oxygen is toxic. In addition, we will need to ensure that the persons exposed to it have enough time to get the nitrogen out of their systems before they are depressurized. It will depend on the structure of the pressure event. How to decompress will have to be calculated later.”

“What about getting the hydrogen out of the ship?” the XO asked.

“It has little clinical effect,” Dr. Chet said, shrugging. “We can get rid of it slowly.”

“It’s a slippery molecule, sir,” Weaver added. “It’s going to slip out through the hull much less our sealing system. We’ll slowly get rid of it no matter what we do.”

“And it’s not dangerous?” the CO asked.

“Not a bit,” Dr. Chet said.

“So we’re just supposed to breathe this stuff?” Petty Officer Michael “Sub Dude” Gants said, looking at the much patched magnet mount. The short, hairy engineer frowned.

The submarine service attracts people who in other services would be on the far end of the bell curve for oddball. Among other things, they are required to be well above average intelligence yet still have sufficient phlegmatism to withstand the rigors of the “secret service.” Very thoughtful but not so thoughtful as to be freaked out by having a bazillion tons of water pressing in on a tin can made by the lowest bidder. Very smart and yet oh so very stupid.

And of all the people in the sub service, the epitome were the engineers. They were the people with that warm green glow, the guys who ran the nuke plant, the guys with little hope of ever having normal children. The weirdest of the weird.

Gants was among the worst of the worst. He was an MM (N), a nuke machinist mate. The nukes were weird; the machinist mates, though, were the practical jokers. A nuke practical joker machinist mate. That spelled Trouble to everyone who knew him. Short and unassuming, he was one of the most feared people on the boat. Gants scared even the torpedo guys.

“And not use the air systems,” PO2 Ian “Red” Morris said. Red was as tall as Gants was short but with flaming red hair. Thus the nickname. Submariners are simple people on many levels.

“That’s gonna be fun,” Gants said.

“Prepare for atmospheric entry,” the 1-MC said.

“Looks good so far,” Gants said.

“Don’t think we’re down to pressure, yet,” Red replied, in a high, squeaky, voice. “Huh?”

“Why are you sounding like Donald Duck?” Sub Dude said in the same sort of voice. “Holy maulk! I sound like Donald Duck!” he added as his ears popped.

“Uh, oh,” Red said. “That’s a pressure spike.”

“It’s leaking,” Sub Dude said, holding his hands up to the pipe seal that had been added to the patch. Pipe seals were designed to stop flooding from pipes but they were barely water tight much less air tight. “I can feel air.”

“Command,” Red said, using an internal radio. “We’ve got leakage from Point Four. But it’s not real heavy, yet.”

“Petty Officer Morris, why are you talking like Donald Duck?” the XO asked angrily.

“Sorry, sir, can’t help it,” Red said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t know what’s causing it. I’m not doing it on purpose, honest!”

“All hands! Warning! Overpressure breach in missile compartment and engineering! Remain in vacuum conditions! Warning! Overpressure breach in missile compartment and engineering! Remain in vacuum conditions!”

“Okay, what the grapp is going on?” Jaenisch asked. “First we’re losing atmosphere and now… what?”

“I think the Jovian’s atmosphere probably breached some of the seals,” Berg said.

“And that tells me so much, Two-Gun,” Jaen replied.

“Diving into a Jovian’s atmosphere is like going under water,” Berg said. “The air pressure is super high because of the gravity and the depth of the atmosphere. So probably some of the seals breached. Not sure how they’re going to fix that. It’s going to take more than duct tape.”

“What the hell?” the XO said, looking over at Weaver. “The guys down at Patch Four are talking like Donald Duck.”

“Oh, hell,” Weaver said, trying not to laugh. “I forgot. That’s one effect of hydrogen. Ever seen anyone breathe a helium balloon, sir?”

“Yes,” the XO said, then shook his head. “Same effect?”

“Yes, sir,” Bill replied.

“Pressure’s up five pounds in engineering,” the atmospherics monitor said. “And increasing.”

“We’re getting leakage,” Bill said, shrugging. “Sounds like it’s not explosive, though. Not so far.” He spun around and looked at a recently installed monitor. “We’re up to one percent exterior oxygen, sir. I’d suggest we begin atmosphere processing.”

“Roger,” the XO said, turning to the communications system. “Engineering, Conn, begin atmospheric processing.”

“Aye, aye, Conn,” the Eng replied in a high, squeaky voice. “God damn this stuff. It’s the hydrogen, Conn.”

“Roger, we’re aware of that,” the XO said, trying not to grin. “Just let’s start filling up the air tanks.”

“Sir,” Bill said, as the XO cut the comm off.

“Go.”

“Hydrogen’s slippery,” Bill said. “It’s likely to get all through the ship.”

“Oh… hell.”

“Okay, this is grapping ridiculous,” Jaen squeaked. “How in the hell is anyone going to take me seriously when I sound like this?”

“I don’t know, boss,” Hatt said. “Are we supposed take you seriously normally?”

“That’s it,” Jaen tried to growl and failed. “Front-leaning rest position, move!” The last came out as a shrill shriek.

“I guess I might as well just start doing push-ups, too,” Berg said, dropping to the deck and giggling.

“I may sound like Donald Duck but I’m a God damned sergeant in the Space Marines and you are going to remember that!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Berg said.

“Okay, you are so on garbage detail! God, I wish we still had KP!”

“XO, air tanks topped off?” Spectre said in a high, squeaky voice.

“All topped off, sir!” the XO replied, sounding like he was breathing helium. In fact, the most recent analysis had helium as five percent of the internal air. “Internal plugs have been put in place so Commander Weaver won’t have to EVA to put the patch back in. And we’ve mostly filled the water tanks as well.”

The pressure on the exterior of the ship had forced it into the hull throughout the ship. The ship’s atmosphere was now a high pressure mix of hydrogen, helium and oxygen. Gathering the O₂ they’d needed had taken hours and after a while they didn’t even try to maintain internal atmospheric integrity; all they’d done was fight the level of O₂. Everyone was under a hundred pounds of air pressure, and sounding like a squeaky toy.

“Do we need to stop for ice?” the CO asked, then shook his head. “That sounded really stupid even if I didn’t sound like this.”

“Not really, sir,” the XO said. “There was a lot of water in the atmosphere. At this point, we have sufficient water for three weeks of operation. And if we really need it…”

“We know where to get it,” the CO said, nodding. “Very well, take us out of here, XO. Astro, where we going next?”

“Second star to the right, sir,” Bill said, grinning and pointing up.

“Commander, I think the pressure is getting to you.”

“Oooohhh maaulk!” Weaver said, slapping his forehead.

“Commander Weaver? Is there a problem?”

“I can’t believe I just thought of this…”

“Commander Weaver?” Spectre said impatiently.

“Sorry, sir.” Weaver said hesitantly. “Comets, sir. Most stars should have them and they would be easy to grab.”

“Why is that important to me, Commander Weaver?”

“Comets, sir. Well, uh, comets are mostly water ice. And we could break that out into…”

“Water ice…” Spectre thought about it for a millisecond. “You mean we could have just flown out to the Oort cloud and grabbed a few balls of ice?”

“Yes, sir, hence the ‘oh maulk,’ sir.”

“Mr. Weaver, join me in my office for a moment,” Spectre squeaked, his jaw muscles working tightly as his teeth ground slowly.