18. Things keep falling apart

“Seal is holding, all checks green, cap’.” — Greg was working the second mate’s computer. — “So, what’s next?”

“Seal is holding, all checks green, cap’.” — Greg was working the second mate’s computer. — “So, what’s next?”
“We need to contact the Giant’s captain or anyone left in charge, Captain Vince, we need your crew to board and make contact in person.” — Victoria sitting on the edge of her chair as the Perseus Train’s bridge screen showed her figure speaking.
“We are a freighter crew, not first responders. The dozen or so able-spacemen we have are not trained for whatever we will face in there, cap’.”
“Have to do something, can’t just wait around.” — now it was Maria sounding her strong opinion.
“Captain Sebes, how long until any other ship arrives at our location?” — after carefully listening to everyone, Vince took over with commanding yet calm voice.
“Still three days, it’s another freighter with medical equipment and shareable food supply. And two days later the FNA Wanderland reconnaissance frigate estimated to arrive.”
“Understood, and made my decision. I will board the Giant, Greg, Maria, keep an eye on me and open comms from the bridge. I will need help navigating there too.” — any objection was muted by Vince’s determined look, the mentioned both well acquainted with it.
“Good luck and be safe, Captain, Irondome out.”
“Gopher here, peeps! Can share som’ camera feeds, low quality streams, but will help you to avoid heavily damaged sections.”
“Great, do so, I change to an EVA suit while you set up those.”
“Consider it done chiefmate!” — Gopher’s pitch up sat in stark contrast to how she sounded like just minutes ago.

Maria entered the dock’s hallway a few minutes after Vince. She stood at the bulkhead in silence until her husband put up the chest piece and locked with the pants at waist level securing the seal. Her thoughts and anxieties brawling in her head in anticipation of him stepping into danger. For her, he was the nicest man in the universe, considerate and kind, yet firm when necessary. And a decent dad. She envisioned themselves as a family on a frontier ranch growing greens and herding cattle for the settlers.

The image stayed only for a fleeting moment as the slight struggle Vince getting into the arm and hand pieces brought Maria back to the present. She stepped to him and arranged his arm piece to the correct orientation allowing the hand piece to slide into position with a loud click. Their gaze met, smile then laughter erupted from both as the hundredth time they danced like this. At this point they both knew Vince could not learn this detail as he enjoyed Maria’s help.

“Be very careful out there!” — Maria dropped her look to their feet.
“I will.” — Vince put a kiss on her forehead.

Despite the rare occasions to take a spacewalk, being together for so long had them develop and practice their own ceremonies. Every day out in the darkness is a challenge and brings unforeseen problems or changes which they both enjoyed, yet they found balance in each other’s predictable habits.

Vince hugged Maria for a minute.

“Should have done before putting on the suit…”
“You could write down the protocol steps!” — Maria let out another laugh.

Vince locked in the helmet and the suit’s computer took over the management of his life signs, regulating air composition and temperature as its sensors monitored Vince’s beating hearth and a dozen of other data. He stepped into the airlock awaiting the mechanical noises only. Yet he heard a weird hissing behind all of that.

“Greg, is the seal holding?”
“Yes, cap’. All green.”

Vince pushed himself away from the Perseus’ door, slowly flying up in his own reference frame, almost reaching the Giant’s open hallways.

“I hear hissing, moving to the Giant’s side.” — as Vince stepped onto the floor of the Giant and got into arms reach of the railings the hissing got louder — “It is louder, trying to close the Giant’s bulkhead.”
“Cap’, the Giant’s airlock system froze up, the greens were false signals.”
“Excellent… okey, trying manual close, how long do you think it can hold?”
“Not sure, any moment, secure yourself, will slowly remove the air from that pocket.”
“Don’t do that, the Giant’s side is fully open, the entire ring would lose atmosphere.” — Vince now landed with magnetized boots behind the airlock and hit the close command.

The bulkhead did not budge as the entire control froze up. Next to the controls he pulled the manual release lever detaching the heavy bulkhead from its locks. Vince pushing one side by its railing slid into the middle, the clicks of its lock muted by the increased hissing noise indicating the imminent seal failure. Just as he managed to pull in the other side to the middle Greg shouted into the comms:

“Woah, stabilize!”

The conn as held by a younger crewman caught surprised by the air blow pushing Perseus Train’s hundreds of tons away from the Giant. Negligible force in a planet’s gravity yet enough to compete with a space station’s thruster. Took a few seconds of drifting until the crewman took back control. Only casualty was a coffee mug with zero-gravity top, broken in pieces and now floating near the side wall of the bridge, luckily empty of any fluids.

“Nobody says anything to the cap’ about that.” — Greg started to grab the pieces one by one.
“Perseus Train, come in.”
“We are okey, cap’, no damage. The airlock is unusable though, outer bulkhead is deformed. We need to find another one to dock. Cap’, are you okey?”
“Yeah, just locked the inner hatch before the seal failed. I go and find the crew. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, cap’.”

As Greg took the last piece of the mug, Gopher appeared on the main screen:

“I saw what happened on the outside cameras and checked the other docks on the maintenance ring. None of the eight works, two were manually closed, the other controls are frozen or show seal misalignments.”
“Shi… do you have any other idea? Main dock is out of question.”
“I suppose the bow maintenance ring too.”
“Don’t wanna get close to that blown ring until we know it is secured.”
“Then only main hull outer docks remained.”
“Wait, on the rotating main hull you mean?”
“Yep, peeps, the one and only. Net forums say it is doable.”
“It is, we have done it on rotating stations, but we need time to prepare for maneuvering under gravity. Cap’ won’t like it though.” — Greg switched channels — “Cap’, we have no other choice, going to dock on main hull, will send the position when we are there.”
“Mhm, ship is yours, just follow the gravity dock protocol precisely. And be careful.”

Vince was flying along the maintenance corridor leading him to the next access point to the main drive rings and hopefully to an engineering post or something with people alive. These ring modules consisted of two main drive rings housing multiple rounds of particle accelerators keeping the ship in a gravity zone when in faster-than-light cruise. And the largest ships had two of these modules leading up to four drive rings, able to sustain long travels, even shut down and repair 2 of those rings while still in flight, albeit slower if doing so. The safety redundancies learned from operating commercial aircrafts for over a century, still alive in modern spacecraft engineering circles. Kept alive by strict regulations of the Federation, a model that worked well during the heyday of commercial aviation and resuscitated after humanity spread out of Earth a few hundred years ago. Still, just as a violent engine burst of a jet airliner, a ring was susceptible for large debris breaking into the particle chambers.

The structure was seemingly in a pristine condition where Vince was flying, no visible damage or shrapnels anywhere, yet he was keep thinking of what traps could lay hidden. These maintenance rings were often empty during deep space travel with minimum crew oversight and mostly utilized when in orbit or in dry-dock when the main hull was spun up to provide gravity everywhere else. These rings allowed the crew to carry out heavy work in zero gravity, now allowing Vince to quickly traverse kilometers in search of any life-signs.

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