'Hell no.'
'Had to ask.' He brought up a listing of ships they'd taken from the raiders and chose the one in the worst condition. 'Give me five minutes.'
Jake watched his old friend focus on a captured raider vessel. It was called the Jade Whisper. At just over seventy meters long, it was a distant relative of the Samson in design. Between the scars of long past combat damage and fresh damage caused by Minh's fighter wing, there wasn't much left, but it was basically operational. 'Thank you Oz, I don't lose focus like this.'
'It happens to everyone. If I were in your shoes I wouldn't be much good for heavy thinking either.'
Jake realized he was practically breathing over Oz's shoulder and stood. The privacy barrier only extended a meter past the edge of the command seating, and he stepped outside of it. He was immediately confronted with the three main holographic displays, one focusing on the Triton, the central image was a more expanded view of the area and the right hand image had been switched to a visual representation of the asteroid field outside. The data was being updated by a Uriel starfighter holding station outside the obscuring barrier with a micro wormhole pointed towards the Triton. It was the early warning system, their only way of monitoring what was happening outside.
'Jason, have you seen any more transmissions incoming or outgoing from the station?'
'No. They've gone silent. My guess is they've consulted their backers and are operating under their instructions until help arrives.'
'Do we have any idea who these people are associated with?'
'It's an independent station as far as I can tell. The cargo containers adrift in the area are marked with a lot of logos.' Jason grimaced and shook his head in aggravation. 'Why can't I figure out why we're not getting an active signal from our people in there! It's not like any jamming I've seen!'
Jake walked over to the communications station, a semicircle with all five seats filled, Jason was in the centre. 'Would a tether work? Maybe an actual line leading to a ship breaking through the hull?'
'Of course, you can't jam a hard line without tapping it.'
'Okay, start working under the assumption that we have a rescue party getting ready to go.'
'Do we?'
'Oz is working on something.'
Jason couldn't help but pause a moment before nodding. 'Okay, then I'll work under that assumption and move on to other things.'
Jake walked back to the centre of the bridge and looked at the curved lattice work of the station. He had a sinking feeling, like the situation was slipping out of his control. 'We're coming, hang on, we're coming,' he muttered.
Chapter 15
Victor watched as Ayan was boosted into the shaft that would lead her directly into the ruined communications hub of the station. According to what she said it had been severely damaged well before they arrived. His forensic scanners couldn't so much as penetrate the bulkhead so he took her word for it.
'Vic, you're following her,' Alaka told him.
It wasn't like him to hesitate or question, but being singled out to protect the darling of the Triton alone wasn't exactly what he expected when he followed Alaka off the Cold Reaver back into the station proper. He also couldn't agree with her need to make some kind of diplomatic appeal to the people who were keeping them locked in.
'You're the narrowest, get on up there,' Alaka reinforced, offering him his big cupped hands to step into.
'Sorry, just taking the situation in,' Victor replied as he handed his rifle off to another soldier and unholstered his side arm. He tucked his handgun into the back of his belt then stepped into Alaka's waiting hands and was boosted up to the narrow service shaft entrance at an alarming speed. He didn't get his arms up in time and had to wriggle in head and shoulders first.
In the narrow dark passage he could hear Ayan ahead, but without the enhanced vision of his visor he wouldn't have been able to see her. She had gotten several meters ahead and was already at the point where the shaft widened.
He couldn't help but feel as though the station was pressing down on him, however. When he moved his shoulders to wriggle ahead his shoulder blades grazed the top of the shaft. It felt as though he was crawling through a long, shallow coffin. Panic threatened to grip him as he tried to get his hands up in front of him but failed.
'Are you all right Victor? Your stats are climbing,' Ayan called back.
'I'll be fine as soon as I catch up.' He redoubled his efforts and pushed ahead, using his knees, chest and feet to push his way along the shaft. Finally he came to the portion of the shaft where it widened and got his hands in front. Victor sighed in relief as he squeezed in beside Ayan, making sure she still had enough space to work in.
She had fine tools out and was just finishing bridging two wires with a clamp. 'Now that the station has power in these sections, we can force doors open by powering their locks manually.'
'Maybe you can. I'm not exactly a tech.'
'This is the easy stuff. I bet I could teach you how to get past most locking mechanisms in an afternoon. The challenging part is finding a way to get at the wiring.' A pair of wires sparked and something in the bulkhead in front of them clicked. 'Bloody hell,' she muttered. 'The bolt drew back, but I have to hotwire the hatch so it'll move.'
'This is the hatch here?' Victor pressed against the metal plate between them.
'Yes, but it's on a rail that won't move without the motor.'
'Where do you see that?' Victor asked, looking around.
Ayan reached up and pushed her fingers into a narrow crack. 'You can feel the rail right here.' She withdrew them and went back to carefully tracing wires, figuring out what each was attached to.
Victor almost confirmed for himself but stopped. 'Oh, I believe you, I just-' he shrugged.
'Haven't been in many maintenance corridors?' Ayan smirked. He couldn't see it, but he could hear it well enough, especially with her light Britannia accent.
'I wouldn't call this a corridor. Tunnel fighting could be a bit like this, but there's normally more breathing room. Completely different if you ask me, except for the claustrophobia.'
'You did tunnel fighting even though you're claustrophobic? That's well beyond the call.'
'Well, it was either go with Alaka into the tunnels or fight in the open where we made half the progress and lost twice as many people.'
'I remember. Pandem was bad for everyone. I had to hang upside down over a docking pit with nothing but my wits and a vacsuit. My fear of heights nearly did me in.'
'You're a starship engineer and you're afraid of heights? What do you do for space walks?'
'You're a trained soldier with claustrophobia,' Ayan retorted with a rueful chuckle.
'Good point.'
Ayan worked in silence as Victor watched her strand different uncut wires together while tugging others to the side. 'Actually, I don't know.'
'Don't know?'
'What I'd do for space walks. It hasn't come up since I realized I was afraid of heights again. I was hoping I'd be all right on a space walk, but as you know that's rarely the case.'
'I suppose you'll find out when they install the new engine pods.'
'I was hoping to give it a go well before that, but from the way things are going, you might be right. Not like I should supervise that sort of thing from a distance.'
'Most senior starship engineers would, from what I've seen on past tours.'
'Well, I'm not most engineers. I supervised the build on those engine pods, I'd rather see they get installed properly.' Ayan cut four wires, stripped the insulation off and pinched them together. Her Vacsuit protected her from
