She turned back. "Come on Attie, let's do this, so we can leave their asses behind".
Attie smiled. "Putting it that way.." Ben interrupted "Damn straight!". Attie and Amelia looked at each other, both forgetting they were on a public comm.
The knobs were shiny metal where they had been melted off and that made them easy to weld to. Attie held a rod up to the side of one of the old stanchions. "OK give me a few tack welds". Amelia hit the rod in 3 places. The captain withdrew his hand. "OK, go ahead." He looked away as she beaded a line up and down the rod and it became one with the stanchion. She welded a few more support rods in place and then they slid the plate on. The captain looked underneath the plate. "Just wanted to make sure we have it on in the right direction." He then looked up at her and smiled.
She chuckled "Yeah. We wouldn't have it long otherwise!".
The captain asked Ben "How close can we weld to this plate?".
There was a long silence and Ben's voice full of distortion and crackling said "Just don't directly touch it, the plates are OK to take some heat, but not direct exposure."
Atticus questioned "Ben, why are you breaking up so bad?"...nothing..."Helen, what's going on?"
Helen came back, her voice also cracking "We are being scanned by the approaching ships. I assume they are trying to find out what's going on."
Atticus asked "Any change in their course or speed?".
She said "No, still looks like about 33 hours now".
"Roger".
Amelia grabbed another rod. "OK, so I'll just weld this across the other a few centimeters from the plate and we can squeeze the spacers in." Attie nodded. Once she had completed the weld, they pushed the spacers in place and tried to move the panel. It rotated, but didn't have much play otherwise. "Good! Let's plug this one in and do the next one. I sure wish we could test these first!"
After getting a second plate and completing its installation, the captain called Ben again. No response. "Helen, can you try relaying a message to Ben? Ask him how its going over there."
Helen acknowledged and said "Ben, or anyone on the wrecked ship, please respond".
AJ came over full of static. "I can hear you. They had me move halfway back to the ship to see if I could relay. They found some weapons lockers and a shuttle with some useful parts, but they will need help getting everything off." Helen then relayed the message to the captain.
Amelia nudged the captain. "Attie, it's a good bet a shuttle would have the grav drive plate control interface we need. If we can get that part we will already have a balanced four plate thrust system." Attie looked at the plates they had welded on. "Right, Helen, we're going to come over and help. We need those parts more than what we are doing here. Relay AJ to wait for us, so he can lead us to them."
Amelia and the captain came back into the Discretion and dropped off the welding equipment. It was bright inside the ship and it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust. The captain asked Amelia "How much time you got on air?"
She looked at her gauge. "Not bad. About four hours". The captain looked up at Helen wincing a bit from the light. "We'll be back in two hours and we'll eat while we refill our tanks. Let me know if anything changes." With that he turned and pushed himself out the hatch. Amelia followed.
They skimmed down the black beams of the Earth ship toward what was left of the rear section. Amelia stared up in awe. "Jesus, they just don't look this big until you're touching them". The crisscrossed beams glided by as the stars winked in and out behind them. When they finally reached the aft section, they could see the hatch that Ben had cut. Atticus went in first. Amelia was looking down at the charred tan wreckage of the Vigilant 100 meters below, its rear superstructure ripped open like a beer can. Attie tapped her. "Come on".
She turned and pushed herself in. It was dark inside and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. Once her vision began to return, she pushed on, but her helmet caught on something. She tried to shake it loose, but she could feel it had mass. She reached up and tilted back to see what it was. A frozen bloodshot face greeted her. She let out a yell and Attie whipped around and pushed the body away from her. "You OK?!"
She nodded repeatedly. "Yeah, it just startled the hell out of me!" She moved up close to Attie with one arm holding on to his suit.
AJ came over the comm. "You guys alright?! I heard a scream".
Attie responded "Yes, just got startled by a dead crewman. We should be there in a few minutes".
AJ came back. "Good! I'm really getting the creeps hanging out in this ship by myself".
As they proceeded down the passageway toward the rear, Attie said "Look, 'United States Homeworld Security', but with black patches. They should be gold"
Amelia asked "What does this SSD underneath mean?"
"I don't know, never heard of that. Whoever they are, they're not regular military. Come on, let's keep going". Their helmet lights lit up the main passageway. The emergency lighting was still on in places, but it wasn't very bright. The ship was very stately looking in its colors and residual perfect orderliness. It was probably a very tightly run ship before all this happened.
Amelia pointed down the passage. "Look! Its AJ!" Attie held her back and pointed to an inward facing metal shard from a hull breach. "Careful not to snag your suit".
Ben's voice came over the comm. "Good of you to join us! We've found most of what we need and then some."
Atticus stopping himself at a door frame. "It's good to hear your voice! We are at AJ's location and will be to you in a few minutes. Hey, you have any idea what this SSD on their uniforms stands for?"
Ben replied "Not really, but by the look of this ship and the tech they've got, this is an elite group with good funding. Probably black ops of some kind working for the president or a senator. We found warp communication probes, so that gives you a clue as to depth of their pockets".
AJ asked quietly. "What are those?" Atticus looked at him, "I'll tell you when we get back to the ship".
After a few more passageways, an opened hatchway led to a large hangar area. The port side was open to space, with pieces of what used to be the Vigilant randomly floating about, including a large rocket nozzle the size of a small house sitting half inside what used to be a shuttle craft. Out of the wreckage came Ben and he waved. The three of them pushed off the wall toward the wreckage. As they got close they used their small suit thrusters to slow them. "Hey Ben! Watcha got?"
Ben pointed to the neat piles on the hangar deck. "M24s with grenade launchers, ammo, AI probes, your grav plate control modules, one from this shuttle and one from that one over there, a pile of C7 explosives with remote detonators, brain scanners, relays, fuses, and a whole case of chocolate! I was just about to cut the front off this shuttle and take the entire radar and sensor assembly too."
Atticus looked at everything "Chocolate?!....OK, so how are we going to get all this back to ship?"
Amelia moved up and pointed to the massive hole in the hangar. "If we take back the drive control modules, we can simply bring the ship in here through the port breach and just load."
Attie looked at her and sent her a kiss. "Brilliant! Let's do it. Atticus looked back a Ben "Great work! Where's Doc?" Ben pointed to the other shuttle. Atticus continued "OK, everyone grab the modules and whatever else you can carry and lets get back to the ship. We will fly back for the rest. Doc, did you copy that?"
Doc replied "Yes sir, just grabbing medical supplies off this shuttle. Be there in a minute".
Amelia grabbed the modules, stuffed her pockets with the C7 and picked up the case of detonators. Ben grabbed one of the M24s and stuffed his pockets with ammo and chocolate. Atticus and AJ each grabbed a rifle and slung them over their shoulders. Atticus then grabbed a brain scanner and the AI probes. AJ turned to get the box of relays when his rifle caught on a tube from the rocket nozzle. He instinctively yanked to free it and his right arm cut across a piece of shrapnel and sliced open his suit. He stopped. "Oh shit."
Atticus asked. "What?"
AJ covered the slice with his left hand and looked up at Atticus with a look of an apology and plea for help.
Atticus let go of everything and grabbed AJ. "Help! He's punctured his suit!" Atticus grabbed AJ's arm and applied pressure to the cut. Droplets of blood were spraying out and freezing. "AJ, can you pull you arm into your suit?!" He weakly said "It hurts...no, I can't, I'm trying."
Amelia asked "Doc, do you have any kind of tape or something to seal a suit?!" Doc said "No! But can you bring him here?! I have O2 and this shuttle still seals."
Ben reached over and turned up AJ pressure valve. AJ's suit re-inflated slightly, but more blood and air shot out of the arm. The captain looked at Ben. "Grab this arm! Me and Amelia will push. Let's get him over to the other shuttle". They pulled him around to the starboard side of the smashed shuttle and braced to push off. The captain looked at everyone. "Ready? 1, 2, 3!" All 4 of them flew across the hangar toward the other shuttle. Atticus looked at AJ's face. The inside of his helmet had blood splattering. "AJ! AJ! Come on AJ! God Dammit AJ!"
Amelia yelled "Attie! Brakes!"
Attie looked ahead. "Shit! Fire in 2, 1!" They both fired their suit thrusters trying to slow them down, but they hit the hatch door hard and almost went over it. Doc grabbed them as they hit and pulled them down. They all climbed in and shut the inner and outer hatches. The shuttle was already powered up. Doc hit the pressurization button and a rush of air flooded into the cabin. They waited as the cabin pressurized. Amelia was having a hard time seeing AJ's face with all the blood and condensation on the inside of his helmet, and she instinctively tried to wipe it clean with her glove. "Attie! I can't see him!" The cabin indicator finally turned green to indicate the air level was safe.
Doc motioned "Help me get this suit off of him!" They floated him in the air and began to remove his helmet. Fog rolled out of the seal as the doc caught the base of his neck. As AJ's head appeared out of the helmet, blood was bubbling from his nose. Doc removed his glove and reached around AJ's neck to feel for a pulse. Everyone watched anxiously, but no one said a thing, not wanting to block the radio channel from important discussion.
The captain finally asked. "Doc?".
Doc kept his hand on AJ's neck and leaned forward. Moisture appeared on the front of Doc's helmet, vaporized and appeared again. "He's alive! I have to get the blood out of his nose. You guys get this suit off so I can seal up his cut next.”
The captain asked "Where is all this blood coming from?"
Doc ripped a piece of shirt off of AJ and used it to soak up some of the blood on AJ's face. "I think this is just a nose bleed, but in zero G it's not good".
They began to pull the suit down and Ben's suit alarm went off. Ben looked at his gauge. "Captain, I only have 30 minutes of air left."
The captain looked up. "Doc, I assume you don't need all of us in here?"
The Doc shook his head while ripping AJ's bloody shirt sleeve in half.
The captain continued. "Amelia, you and Ben get back to the ship. Forget everything else, just get those control modules installed and bring the ship back here. And grab one of those air tanks there in case you have a problem."
Amelia looked over at Ben and used her head to signal while she said "Aye, let's go." She touched AJ's face, turned, grabbed a spare O2 container and they headed to the air lock. As they entered the air lock she asked "Ben, you got everything you need?"
He felt his pockets "I dropped most of what I had, just the rifle and the ammo in my pockets, oh, and a few chocolate bars." as he pulled one out. He looked at her. "I assume you have the control modules?"
She felt her pockets to make sure. "Yes".
They pushed off the shuttle and floated toward the hatch they had entered through. Amelia looked over at the other shuttle and she could see the supplies that had been cast away to save AJ drifting in all directions. "We'll have to round up all those supplies again when we return, I just hope none of them drift out the breach."
That made Ben look over. "Oh, yeah. Nah, I don't think they'll drift too far." Another alarm went off and everyone heard it because Ben had his comm open. He then said "Crap! 15 minutes left! Am I using that much air?! There has to be a leak! I am going to lower the pressure in my suit a bit."
The captain came on. "Careful Ben. Amelia, keep a close eye on him." As she fired her suit jets to steer and slow her approach towards the hatch "I will..and how is AJ?".
Doc spoke. "He should be fine. He's got some damage to his arm. I think I can regenerate everything, but he might be down for a few days". Amelia relaxed a bit "Oh, that's good news! We are leaving the hangar hatch now. Be back in a short while with the ship."
Ben and Amelia rushed through the ship as fast as they could go. In under 5 minutes, they were already to the hatch Ben had cut into. Ben looked over at her. "Don't loose that air!"
She gripped it tightly "Not on your life!"