8. In the pale moonlight

“So if we restore connection to the thrusters, we can make gravity?”

“So if we restore connection to the thrusters, we can make gravity?”
“Not that simple, we need to sync the two opposite lines, and they have to provide equal force. Otherwise…” — Brad ran out of breath, seems he can focus on his practical experience at least.
“Otherwise?” — Dan pushed along his thoughts.
“Otherwise the ship will spin out of axis and we won’t be able to fix that, throwing us off-course.”
“Well, we may risk it, will it provide some gravity?”
“May not be the usual 1G, but should be enough, even half the angular thrusters would be enough to spin up”
“Rest a bit, Dan” — Ava interrupted them.
“Right, right…” — Dan’s breathing got heavier — “Actually I have an idea, Brad, are there any space suits in the lockers?”
“Yeah”

Dan navigated himself to the back of the room, in the darkness a pinpad shows up on the screen. A few tries were needed for Dan to enter the correct code as Brad’s voice was harder to hear and his blood pressure was dropping. Grabbed one of the suits and quickly put on the pants. Nowadays only one or two companies manufactured all the space suits, otherwise called environmental suits and they came with all the basic needs for space travel, including an anti-gravity pressure system designed to push blood from the limbs back to the brain. Dan figured this might get him some more time against his inner clock, ticking down with each drop of blood collected in his abdomen. He took the vest and helmet just in case.

“What is next?” — Dan’s new found energy just shined — “Yes, fixing the connection to the thrusters.” — he took a small box out of the locker, weight and shape familiar to him, as he did dozens of times on his shifts.
“Wait, I am coming with you” — Brad got up from his chair and in a moment he was standing firm next to the locker himself. The metallic click of magnetic shoes assisting him in the standing.

In a few minutes, the small team was pushing back down to the lower decks along the elevator shaft. Ava refused to take any part of the suits with a silent shook of her head which made her more agile than the bulky suits of the men. Dan had no other choice due to his predicament, while Brad expected that a few areas will be hard to access without. The helmets provided information for the them as they moved, showing surface damages, cables and their use, presenting the maintenance database to their visuals aiding repairs.

As they got through halfway and were just fixing up the fifth shrapnel damage to the comm cables, white noise picked up by their suits radio sounded in their integrated headsets.

“Anyone there on this channel?” — Dan heard double of Brad from the helmet and next to him.
“It’s Mitch, coming back to you Brad.”
“I am down in the elevator shaft”
“What the hell are you doing there? Told you to stay at your post!”
“Had no time for that… fixing the thruster connections” — Dan could notice some trembling in Brad’s voice, Mitch may be his boss.
“Sure, we talk about the protocols and obeying commands after you are done, will be in our post and monitor your progress.”
“Did you reach main engineering?”
“Could not get through, docks are a mess with all the shuttles thrown around, few workers try to move them safely now. But talked with the brown sector folks, just opposite of us, they can control their angular thrusters and working on fixing comms with us”

Mitch’s strong voice soothed Dan, it was nice to hear someone in charge for the first time after whatever happened. They passed the entry Dan and Ava used earlier and already fixed a dozen cuts on the cables. While quantum entangled comms were way more resilient for damage, they were too expensive to use everywhere, inside a ship it only connected the vital control centers like the bridge and main engineering, other parts were managed by the old copper cables with light speed comms only. Even the main drives used only copper cables and a central clock to lead their automations.

“Its Mitch again, not sure what you did, but I can access the thrusters now, getting their health data too”
“Health data?” — Ava was never close to engineering
“Each thruster has a thousand sensors, so they can report their operations, capabilities, malfunctions, and the controls can balance the two sides for stable rotation”
“Oh, its not good, almost half of them are misaligned now”
“What do you mean?” — now Dan opened into the channel
“Who are you?” — in a slightly annoyed voice from Mitch
“I’m Dan, ex dock worker, helping Brad right now, what do you mean the thrusters are misaligned?”
“Okey, we can use the extra hands for this, the thrusters can be removed and replaced one by one, we can see if one of them are out of line but now I get this warning from many of them. I think the decelaration had enough force to throw them off.”
“Do you think we can spin up like this?”
“Can’t verify their direction, so no. Can’t see any outside camera right from here. You need to go out and check, fix as many as you can too.”
“Wait, you said we need to go out?”

Dan never spacewalked in his life. He liked to watch the stars from the windows, still never had even the slightest inclination to go outside and let only a few layers of clothing and material between him and the cold vacuum of space.

“It is a two person job for each thruster to align, I need help” — now Brad was motivating him — “So we need you to be the hero of the day too” — a little smirk appeared on Brad.

Dan just smirked back and followed him, Ava floated in their wake as they approached deck zero. Deck zero was the outer shell of the ship, as all deck ran around the circumference of the ship’s drum, this deck was only filled with machinery and platings, with the occasional maintenance exits and the little team headed to the nearest of these along the thruster line. Ava stayed inside as only the two men sported space suits.

They fixed their suits, checked each other’s for safety and stood into the chamber. As vacuum filled the space around them and the air was suck back to storage, a dread filled Dan’s hearth. He even closed his eyes, and followed Brad only a minute later. The moment he stood up on the outer side of the ship and forced himself to look up to the sky, his fears vanished in awe. In awe to the small particle humans are in the vast distances of galaxies.

“I see a few dozen of these out of line, but we should be fast to fix them, only a few degrees each. It could work but let’s make it sure we get the right spin.” — Brad used the radio comms

Screeches and white noise came in, must be Mitch.

“We can’t hear you Mitch, only noise. Hm, must be the structure.”

Dan was still staring around, slowly orienting himself, first looking toward the ship’s bow. To his horror, he could see the structure of the ring blown outward, debris flying away slowly from the ship’s body. And bodies, may be thousands of bodies in similar fate, thrown outward into the vacuum. Fortunately far away to see the frozen puffy faces of the deceased, however the distance just emphasized the scale of the catastrophe.

And beyond the bodies and debris, a gray moon, owning the skyline above the ship’s superstructure beaming with a pale blue light like a dimming lighthouse before a storm.