“Is that supposed to be comforting?” Lana demanded.
The Ishivi chuckled. “Well then look at it this way, my dear. Radiation exposure has a chance of causing sterility, so would I be so cavalier about you going on a spacewalk through a cloud of it, possibly risking those lovely ova of yours, if I didn't think it was safe?”
“Can you dial back the creepy about fifty percent, Barix?” Aiden snapped. “Also, I told you not to bother her with your screwed up Ishivi BS. If you're feeling so chipper, maybe you'd like to come out into the radiation field, preferably without proper shielding, and do the universe a favor.”
“Such hostility is unbecoming in the captain of a starship,” the slight man replied in an amiable tone. “But I suppose if you insist, I'll get back to doing my job. Not that I haven't been, mind you. Incidentally, you'll want to check that compartment off to your right you're about to pass. It's heavily shielded and might possibly contain a safe.”
The banter continued as they got to work. Lana quickly discovered that the captain hadn't been lying when he said this job required almost no skill; aside from having to learn how to move in zero-g, it mainly involved floating around and inside pieces of wreckage, checking for anything of value and being careful not to damage their suits.
If they found anything they detached it if necessary, then helped Dax move it into the cargo bay. It was the largest space on the ship, and had a good-sized opening with a door that opened downward, which also served as a ramp for landing on planets or moons. Because it opened into space, the bay could be emptied of air just like the little airlock room, so they could come and go from it without wasting any.
Since the bay still had artificial gravity even when the door was open, Lana had to get used to crossing the threshold and suddenly finding herself falling to the floor. Luckily Ali was there to catch her the first time, preventing her from an embarrassing tumble that probably would've had everyone laughing at her. After that she was more careful, focusing on making smooth entries and exits; with practice, she eventually reached the point where she could neatly touch down, as if she'd just finished taking a casual step.
To be honest, as she grew more familiar with the transition it almost became fun to test the different ways she could land, then hop out the door and find herself weightless again.
The main thing that could be said for the salvage work was that it seemed to take forever, at least a couple of hours. Which could be worse, as it turned out, when Lana realized the possibility of encountering bodily needs while confined in the suit, at least fifteen minutes away from access to the facilities.
When she worriedly asked Ali about it, she was reassured that the suit was designed to accommodate waste. It just wouldn't be pleasant, and for defecation would probably require some embarrassing and distasteful cleanup after she changed out of it.
“All part of the joy of spacewalks,” the companion said in commiseration. “If you encounter that need, I'll be happy to assist you after we return to the ship.”
Thankfully Lana didn't, aside from the slight pressure of her bladder that she was willing to wait to alleviate. Still, the mild discomfort didn't make the job any funner. Especially since it was obvious from the increasingly sour griping and back and forth from the others that the fruits of their labors left something to be desired, making the salvage operation seem like a big waste of time.
In the end, the most valuable thing they found was the ship’s safe. Literally, the shielded container itself, since at least it was worth something; the contents were a disappointing hundred or so chits, as well as access codes for a vessel that no longer existed and copies of the ship's logs.
Lana would've expected Aiden to at least be happy about that last, given how much he seemed to like getting information from targets. But he dismissed the logs with a sneer. “What are under-equipped pirates going to know that's worth reading about?” he groused.
Even so, he gave them over to Ali to parse.
Aside from the safe, they managed to strip a few valuable components out of the debris, as well as some heavily damaged systems and assorted electronics with a remote chance of being reparable, or if nothing else could be salvaged for replacement parts. Lana wasn't much use for that, since she didn't know how to recognize what was valuable, and didn't know enough about electronics to tell whether a piece was salvageable or complete junk. She mostly just helped move the stuff the others gave her into a pile in one corner of the docking bay.
It was small consolation that her lack of expertise didn't matter much, since there wasn't much of either valuable components or intact electronics to be found in the wreckage. What they did find made a pathetically small pile nobody was happy with.
To make up for it, Aiden had Dax use the junker arm to pull in scrap metal to fill most of the remaining space. It might, if they were lucky, sell for a handful of chits at the base value of the metal itself. Not worth the effort by any stretch, but since they'd already wasted so much time even a slight gain was better than nothing.
That pretty much completed the salvage operation. Dax retracted the junker arm into its niche beside the docking bay, and Aiden instructed the young man to calculate a rift jump and get them away from Ollan's Hub before any more trouble found them. Then the four spacewalk salvagers made their way over to the bay's inner door, where the captain ordered Fix to decontaminate them and then get to work on the rest of the bay as well, including itself.
Lana stood with
