Construction tunnel, the Arena, Prasinos system.
Quaid pulled a lever on the wall and a small control desk under the central window powered up. Its rows of knobs and buttons all became backlit and a slanted, recessed screen flickered to life.
‘That’s a good start,’ he said, sliding onto a dusty chair, reading some text that appeared on the screen and depressing a couple more buttons.
Two more flat screens set above the window shimmered before displaying opposing views of the outer airlock doors and the tunnel leading away and downhill on the space vacuum side.
‘There we go,’ said Quaid. ‘Now for the moment of truth. Let’s see if the outer door opens and closes.’
He turned a large lever to the right and pressed a flashing green button. A clunk sounded from somewhere deep in the surrounding rock, followed by a faint hissing.
‘Airlock is venting,’ Quaid announced with a small nod.
A slow creaking began, getting much louder as the huge volume of air gradually forced its way out of the mega airlock.
‘Inner doors taking the strain for the first time in a while,’ Quaid said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘Hmm,’ was the only reply Andy could muster. Being an engineer himself, noises like that made him nervous.
Quaid was correct though, the creaking did eventually subside and with a low boom and a shudder that Andy felt through his feet, the massive outer doors began to rumble open.
‘Yeah,’ said Quaid, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. ‘Never in any doubt.’
‘We haven’t tried the inner ones yet,’ Andy reminded him.
‘Ah…it was the outer ones I was more concerned about,’ he said. ‘After all, they’re the ones that’ve been in the cold and vacuum of space for a long time. The inner ones, much warmer and not under any pressure.’
A clunk signalled the doors were fully open and Quaid reversed the switch and hit the flashing button again. He smiled up at Andy as they began to rumble closed again.
Once they were shut and sealed again, Quaid repressurised the lock and a few minutes later they were both very thankful to see the inner doors also operated as they should.
‘Plugs,’ said Andy, raising his eyebrows.
‘Yeah…plugs,’ repeated Quaid, looking thoughtful. ‘The outer one we can just blow out with charges set behind it. The one up there,’ he pointed at the ceiling, ‘creates a problem.’
‘There must be a way we could somehow dig it out from above,’ said Andy.
‘It would take days and the bugs would hear and be there in seconds,’ he replied.
‘Hang on,’ said Andy, staring at the floor for a moment. ‘My ship has an asteri beam weapon that still works.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a beam weapon that vaporises stuff,’ Andy said. ‘It might take an hour or three, but it would do it without dropping the whole lot down here.’
‘Your ship is not quiet…and again, the bugs would intervene before you’ve got started,’ Quaid countered.
‘Yeah…but maybe not if I fly it inside the warehouse and we keep the doors shut and defended. I only need to cut a hole big enough for me to get down through and to get a load more of the same fighters coming in the other way.’
‘Right,’ said Quaid, staring into space for a moment before shrugging and throwing his hands up in the air. ‘It might just work…anything’s better than doing nothing. I’ll organise some explosive charges for the outer plug. It’ll take a bit of time to get them in place mind.’
When they’d returned to the underground tunnels, Quaid had shot away to inform Conor of their idea and hopefully get the go-ahead. Andy had been escorted back to his ship, where he spent some time trying to fix some of the damage inflicted to its underside. The array was beyond repair with the limited resources he had at hand, but he did manage to straighten the kataligo launcher sufficiently to render it operational again. Although, he did appreciate wielding a large sledgehammer in close proximity to ten high explosive missiles wasn’t something a health and safety officer would be particularly good-humoured about. But needs must.
‘Conor has given us the go-ahead,’ said Quaid, eyeing Andy’s hammer suspiciously as he trotted in.
‘I’ve been making a few modest adjustments,’ said Andy, noticing the frown and swinging the hammer up onto his shoulder.
Quaid noticed the dented, almost straight launcher, his frown becoming more earnest.
‘Is that thing going to work?’ he asked, knocking it with his foot.
‘Well it might if you stop kicking it.’
‘Conor had an idea that we hadn’t thought of,’ he said, turning back to Andy. ‘We’re going to create a diversion half a kilometre away when you’re cutting through the inner plug. Lots of bangs and smoke and stuff. Should have them scuttling about in completely the wrong place.’
‘Okay, sounds good,’ said Andy. ‘How long till you’re ready to blow the outer plug?’
‘Couple of hours,’ he said.
Andy grimaced.
‘I know, I know,’ said Quaid. ‘It only takes a few minutes to set the charges, it’s the time it takes to get down to the plug and back, that’s the time waster. It’s a long way in a space suit with no gravity.’
‘Right,’ said Andy, patting the hull of the mini-me. ‘Let me know when you’re ready with the diversion and I’ll spark this little monster up.’