“Morning, 0900, July 2nd, scheduled wake up procedure initiated.” Dane Season blinked wearily as the solar filter over his window dialed back and filled his apartment with light. The metal cube he called home was a testament to how much one person could do with 50 square meters of space. The wall was barely visible behind a mixture of mechanical diagrams, band posters and stunning high definition pictures of planets, comets, super novas and other stellar bodies. Most of them had been Dane’s before he’d starting renting there; he’d salvaged the others to make the gun metal gray bulkhead less obvious.
Dane sat up with a grumble. It was going to be a long day. He scooped up his bulky U-Link and tucked it into his waistband. He crossed the room to the miniature kitchen and took a deep breath, contemplating his breakfast options. He wanted real food, he could afford it once or twice a week. He’d be too tired to make dinner later he decided. He removed two eggs, an orange, and a healthy slice of ham from his precious cache of relatively unprocessed food.
He clicked on his U-Link and set it to read back his preferred news while he made breakfast. Interstellar weather, the score and highlights from the game last night, local station news. “Now sourcing updates for VOW station…Sigma, Tau, Helios,” the device chimed. Dane mouthed along when it read his home station’s name. “The ASV Noble has docked and is awaiting repairs. EVA hours will be from 1200 to 1700, all residents, guests and crew must not engage or operate any unauthorized external equipment while EVA is in progress.” Right on schedule. Knuckle draggers were never short of work on a station this close to the front lines.
“What class is the Noble?” Dane said aloud.
“Reliant-class,” his U-Link replied.
“What year of production? What foundry?” His link fell silent as it tried to piece together what its user was asking. Dane grumbled and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Nevermind, nevermind.” Nothing happened. “Cancel,” he said, slowly and clearly. The link made a soft ping; it had cleared its queue and was waiting for more instructions. It’s interface wasn’t very sophisticated, it took some practice to learn the quirks of talking to it.
Dane freed up a hand and typed instead. The Noble was built towards the end of 2880 at the shipyard in Acrillon. She was a cruiser, third production run of that year, 14 confirmed kills so far. She’d have extra directional armor around the main thrusters and fourth generation magnetic assist launch tubes, the newest improvements. This last fact Dane rattled off from memory rather than reading it. He set the link to continue reading from station news.
“All bulkheads forward of frame 581 will be depressurized over the next three days for repairs. The office of administration would like to remind all residents and crew that the maintenance access tunnels are off limits to all unauthorized personnel; this includes youths and domestic animals…”
“Heh, good luck with that,” Dane said, scooping the contents of the frying pan onto a plate. He’d spent more time in those tunnels as a kid than he had in school. He wondered if anyone had ever found the ramshackle clubhouse he’d assembled with his friends, it could still be down there. He wiped his hands clean and switched the link off as it finished reading. The device wasn’t completely his, he didn’t want the station or the next user to be grumpy about food stains on it.
After breakfast Dane donned his clean skintight undersuit, a dusty brown jacket, and a worn satchel from their usual resting places and left for work. The Noble would have plenty of things that needed fixing inside and out. His compartment was built into the outer edge of the massive ring shaped VOW station. The minuscule floor space was the price he paid for the view outside and relatively low rent. Once outside Dane could see from his outer edge home all the way to the inner edge opposite, the majority of the ring stretched out beyond the curvature to his left and right.
The architects had done a good job, the ambient solar lighting was actually reflected and converted from the nearest star, the atmosphere was mixed on board with oxygen sourced from the station’s own private biosphere, the temperature was always a pleasant 20 degrees Celsius, and the simulated day/night cycle was perfectly synched with galactic standard time. It was as close to real as artificial could get, and for someone like Dane who had never left VOW Sigma Tau Helios it was perfectly normal. But for anyone who had tasted the real thing it was no substitute.
He traced his familiar route through the station to Central Engineering Dispatch. He entered to find an unfamiliar face handing out assignments. Dane tapped a Bast man who’s face he recognized on the shoulder. “Who’s the new guy?”
“Some transfer from SW Manufacturing. Already thinks he’s king of the draggers.”
“What happened to Dink? I was just starting to like him. Y’know, as much as you can like your supervisor.”
“Heh, right. They shifted him to internals for a few weeks.”
“Nolan!” the new super called.
“Hoy!” the Bastian man Dane was talking to called back.
“What?”
“As in ‘ahoy’? Hello? Acknowledged? I’m listening?” Nolan replied. He shared a look with Dane that clearly said “where did they find this guy?”
“Right whatever. Feed system on the Noble’s second starboard side Hydra is acting up. Take care of it. Sayson? See-ayzon?”
“Season,” Dane replied.
“Jeez, your parents hate you or something?”
“Probably. Would explain why I never met ‘em,” Dane said, keeping a straight face. It didn’t bother him really, but making this asshole uncomfortable felt like his civic duty. There were a few seconds of silence.
“You’re with Teeter and Urumov on armor detail. Start with the port side around the launch tubes, they took a serious pounding.” A whole day of replacing armor plates. At least it was outdoor work.
The pressure suits that Starforce pilots used were designed for short term emergency exposure to space. They were light weight, but sturdy, easy to get into in a hurry. If their life support system failed or they had to punch out it would keep them alive, but it certainly wouldn’t keep them comfortable.
Knuckle draggers on the other hand were outside of atmo for hours at a time. They needed more substantial equipment. The Mk. II Utility EVA Suit was bulky, sturdy and roomy. A dragger had enough room inside to pull his limbs into the chest cavity and curl up into a ball. There were small tools accessible from the suits wrist, larger ones stored beside the vital systems in the backpack that could be called on with a keyboard just below the operator’s neck. It was used everywhere extravehicular activity was needed, from Earth to the outermost barrier. It was likely that there were even some earlier Mk. I suits still being used by the Conjunction.
The back plate of Dane’s suit pivoted shut and locked in place with four distinct clunks. He synched his U-Link with the suit and started the air flow. There was a burst of cold air that slowly turned into a steady warm breeze. Even with the sound of the environmental system, every movement inside the suit was loud. There weren’t many draggers that started out claustrophobic, but most were slightly so by the time they left.
Dane opened a communication line to port control, then a shared one with Teeter and Urumov. “Hear me okay?” he said aloud.
“Yeah, getting some hot mic though. Adjust your air flow?” Teeter replied.
Dane pulled his head down out of the helmet and reached an arm up in its stead to adjust the position of the valves nearest to the microphone. “Hrmf, better?” he said, pushing his head back into place.
“Much. You hear me?” Urumov said.
“Yeah. Ready for school kids?” Dane said. He released the suit’s movement inhibitors and flexed his arms and legs. The hands were the hardest part to learn. The operator’s actual hands were 10 centimeters behind the mechanical ones affixed to the arms of the suit. The artificial digits mimicked the pilot’s motions quite accurately, but the added length and feeling of disorientation such an interface created had left more than a few first time operators feeling queasy.
The other two mechanics unlocked their own suits and moved around to get used to them. “Boots on.” Teeter announced. The three enabled their gravity boots. “Port control this is Season, maintenance team 12 scheduled for EVA, request you open airlock kilo echo 335 for us, we’re ready to head out.”
“Copy that maintenance team 12, cycling airlock. Be safe out there boys,” a controller responded after a moment. Steam billowed from the corners of the room as air was vented. It produced a quiet whoosh that faded to a silent rumble as the airlock became vacuum. Once it had finished, the far wall split slowly in two, revealing the star peppered void of space.
“Maintenance 12 heading outside,” Dane announced, and lead the way onto a catwalk that circled the curvature of Sigma Tau Helios.
Dane finished replacing armor plate 481C and pinged the rest of his team. A warning light blinked orange on his toolbar. “Out of metal, low on fuel,” he said.
“Running low here too. Teeter, your turn,” Urumov grumbled, resting back against the hull of the Noble.
“Yeah, it is. Back in five.” Teeter folded his wrist tools back into their compartment and started his slow march back towards the airlock to fetch more supplies.
Dane stowed his own tools and turned away from the hull of the Noble. He blinked a few times, after hours of staring at gray metal it had left a ghost image in his eyes. As his vision cleared he looked at the distant stars. He could name a few of them; Sindalya the garden sun, Horizon where the Vishnu shipyards were, Chroma the red dwarf. A shape crossed in front of the last and slowly began to approach the station. Dane pulled his arm in to reach the keyboard and zoomed in his view. It was a civilian ship, but modified. As it came closer he started to recognize the silhouette. A Zoro, lightly upgraded. A window popped up next to it once it was close enough to read it’s IFF beacon. It read “ILS Mingulay.”
Dane looked it up on port control’s arrival log. The Mingulay was here to resupply and hand in a bounty voucher. As always, he looked through their requests and commerce net activity. As always he was disappointed. They were not looking for an engineer, or even another pair of hands at all.
“All right, got another load, comin’ back,” Teeter said. Maybe next time. Dane returned his view to normal, slid his arm back into place and turned back to examine hull plate 481D. Maybe next time.
The Wings of Atlantis 