Chapter 12 #2
And she knew he was caught in this nothingness.
“What’s the next step, Chief?” The question was little more than a breath in his ear, echoing oddly, as if she were far away and yet very close.
Maybe her hand was over her mouth, keeping their conversation private.
“That’s all engineering is, right? Solving one problem after another. Like knitting each stitch.”
Suvan forced his gaze down from the uncaring cosmos to the close at hand. The cannon fabrication clenched in his glove was barely more than filaments of plasilk.
It did not help to picture the ship’s survival hanging on a literal thread.
One step. One connection. One at a time.
“Heading for the last install site.” He released his boot magnets and with a small flex launched away from the ship’s sheltering bulk, pushing the fake guns ahead of him.
Glimpsed through the skeletal structure, the protruding nav scope was approaching fast. He let out a tiny jet from his booster to match his aim to the ship’s rotation.
“Chief,” Griiek said on the main channel. “You’re about to reach the end of the tether.”
“I’ll switch to my suit line.”
Between his own tether and the suit boosters, he’d be fine for the brief time off the bay tether. Still, his fisted glove spasmed on the cable lock at the side of his chest.
“Power is banked and ready, per your orders, Chief,” Delphine reported. “Just need that last segment.”
As if he didn’t know that. But he heard the tension in the pilot’s voice so he did not snap back.
He kept his focus locked on the nav scope. Beyond that…nothing.
But his panic felt farther off too. As if the crew being right there, monitoring, assisting, had pushed it away. And Mariah was with them.
As the outer rim of the hull came into reach, he triggered his boot magnets and clamped to the ship, attaching his suit tether to the nearest anchor point.
After streamlining his movements on the other sections, this last one slotted in quickly, especially with the plentiful latch options compared to the sleeker side panels.
He released the connectors and welders from his belt, each of those on short tethers too.
All connected.
When he released the temporary fastenings on the fabrication, the simulated weaponry expanded into shape.
What had seemed so flimsy when compared against the enormity of space now felt very bulky and intractable when he had to wrestle it by hand.
But once all the laser relays were attached, the illusion would be complete.
He reached for the nearest bolt ring.
“Chief, we have a problem.”
Suvan bit back a sigh. When the captain used his cold command voice, it meant worse than a problem. “How bad?”
“The unidentified ship has changed course and is on parallel approach. Delphine estimates their scans will penetrate the debris field even through the obstructions. Seems they have decided we may be a target.” A pause. “Come back now.”
“Without the threat of weapons, our mask is meaningless.” Suvan held the welder in place, the searing metallic glare too bright even through his automatically darkened visor. “Three contact points and a relay to go.”
“Chief—”
He deliberately cut the main channel.
It didn’t count as mutiny if he couldn’t hear it.
“Suvan?”
Ah. He hadn’t silenced the private link with Mariah.
“Don’t ask,” he warned.
“I won’t. But just so you know, all the other relays test nominal. As soon as you connect, we will light it up while you get your ass back here.”
He wanted to ask her which other parts of him were invited, but he didn’t have the time or attention. He could only lock down on the bolts. At least he’d perfectly aligned the contact points. “Two more,” he reported.
In the bulk of the suit, all his movements seemed choked. The welder guttered, and he had to pause to swap out the diode. “One more to go.”
Before he reignited the welder, a hard glint from the corner of his eye brought his head up.
Vertigo would have knocked him adrift if not for his boot magnets.
“Mariah, tell them the unidentified ship is right outside the debris field, off the bow.”
“We’re tracking, Chief. Never mind the last bolt. Set the relay and get back here.”
Such command. Maybe she really did want to get him back.
Abandoning the last bolt, he fumbled at his tool belt for the fist-sized relay. It had been designed to snap easily into place despite bulky gloves, but if he lost his grip…
He had never lost his grip, and he would not do so now.
Along with flux spanners and having a goblhob to stand guard over his privacy, blocking out distractions had always been one of his most used tools. He called upon that ruthless focus, as unfeeling as space itself.
Releasing his magnets again, he stepped out along the narrow framework of the ghostform jutting past the nav scope. The empty relay socket was positioned not quite at the far end. Under his boots, the fabricated material was slick.
If there was a part of him shaking in fear with each skidding step—of the oncoming ship, the swirling debris, the risk of losing Mariah if this didn’t work—he crushed it, and his hand was steady as he fit the components together.
“Relay complete,” he snapped. “Open the circuit.”
Before his order had cleared the comms, power surged down the line behind him, the relays firing one after the other.
Backscatter phased and polarized along the non-linear optics grid he’d added to Mariah’s design, and the camouflaging cloak engulfed the Love Boat I in an interference wavefront sweeping toward him.
Like pulling on a particularly bulky imaginary sweater.
With fake guns in front.
“Ghostform engaging.” His eyes burned from the glare. “I’m coming—”
The energy hit the front array, and the fourth strut that he’d left unbolted bowed hard. The fabricated outline absorbed the shock, bending like Lub about to leap…
Suvan had just enough time to say, “Fu—” when the rebound surged back. The strut slammed into his shoulder and flung him off the ship.
“Suvan!”
Lights and darkness smeared into chaos as he spun out.
Even as he fumbled for the booster controls, his suit tether snapped taut, jolting him into a sickening whirl the other direction. But the reinforced line held.
His rattled brain took another moment to orient to the rapid rotation before he could tap the auto-stabilizer. His suit reported a partial malfunction in the booster with one thruster offline. Along with his shoulder, probably.
Gritting his teeth, he slowed the roll and yaw. He needed to grab the tether as he swung past it. Not with his numb hand though.
“Mariah, I’ve lost—”
The icy glint of a meteoroid flared in the light of the ship’s mask a heartbeat before it slammed into him.