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It was early. Colin had lain awake for some time. Surely his body needed a bit more rest.
“Screw it!” he decided finally. There was a lot to do, and no sense waiting. He bathed and dressed quickly, then munched an Omega Bar as he headed toward sector F.
“Doc?” he triggered comms between bites.
No answer.
That’s strange. Why would he not answer? Maybe he was busy. Hmm. Weird though. He considered the options as he continued toward the engineering deck where his thrustertug waited, but his mind was drawn toward the tug. He was excited. It had been too long since he had the chance to operate it. Obviously, calling it ‘his’ thrustertug was not really true. It was part of the ship’s complement of equipment used by all qualified members of the engineering department. They had several of them, a couple different models, but this one had always been his favorite. It was a Kernighan TS17, an older model, and frankly not much to look at, what with its faded and flaking paint and a generous coating of grease and grime. There was something about the design of it that Colin found very appealing - the slight rounding of her edges, the complete lack of chrome, the open yet sturdy roll-cage. All in all, it was a fine machine in his estimation, and on top of that she was really fun to drive. The control sticks had the perfect level of responsiveness and just the right tension. Moving her felt like an extension of his own body, but somehow more graceful than his body had ever been. Not to mention more powerful. It was far from the most powerful thrustertug on the roster. Some of the cargo shovers had ten times the power. Yet this small tug could hold her own for most of the maintenance work that was Colin’s typical assignment. In fact, most of the time he had to dial her way down, adjusting the maximum torque and thrust from the rear settings panel before each mission. That was another thing that was kind of cool about this model. Even though the rear panel was meant for preset configurations that were not supposed to be messed around with during operations, due to the small size of the TS17, and the positioning of the roll-bars, an agile operator using a twelve foot tether could perform a zero-gee backflip over the roll-bar and catch hold of the grip above the rear panel. This was really handy for those times when you needed just a touch more torque. You could swing back and tweak the max a little. Technically this could be considered a safety violation, but it was a trick that Bryce had endorsed within limits, off the record of course. Colin’s own experience had taught him that often, when a component was seized up bad, pushing the tolerances just a couple percent beyond design specs would usually get the job done. This would likely be the case in today’s mission. That much was obvious even yesterday, as he and Brother Anderson had discussed the operations plan. Seizing and binding components were never an exact science, but being a robot, Brother Anderson was a pretty ‘by the book’ guy. The plan had been a little bit on the conservative side in terms of tolerances, but Colin hadn’t argued them. Better to just see what happens, and do what was needed.
Colin reached the equipment bay and fueled up the tug. He then ran through the pre-flight checks, and dialed in the maximums according to the agreed-upon and officially logged operations plan. The tug started with little effort. Sometimes it took a few tries to get them running, especially if they’d been sitting for a while. She chugged a bit before settling into a nice purr. Colin revved the engine a few times, enjoying the sound and feeling the vibrations emanating through his entire body.
Climbing out of the tug he donned his pressure suit, then logged into the engineering central control program and launched an airlock standby. He climbed back into the driver’s seat, reaching for the twelve foot tether that was already attached, but then, decided against it. Coiled up and tucked in behind it was a longer option - a fifty foot bungee. He pulled it out and clipped in. It was overkill, but it would allow him the option of jumping off, in case he needed to smack something with a hammer or get hands on with a crowbar in a tight spot. Some things required a finer point than one could achieve with the large claws of the tug. Speaking of which, he did a second check of the onboard toolkit. Yep. Hammers, crowbars, powerjack, drill, sawzall, duct tape. What more could a guy want?
Colin kicked loose the floor lock, which automatically triggered the airlock, giving him a ten second countdown which resounded loudly in the otherwise vacant bay. He played the thrusters lightly to line the tug up with the main hatch, then entered the airlock, hovering gently as the hatch shut behind him, and five seconds later opened in front. That five seconds was turbulent and sounded like a hurricane, but its bark was worse than its bite. The atmospheric pumps of the main lock were highly sophisticated compared to most airlocks. They needed to move a lot of air quickly, so a finely tuned network of pumps operated in concert to balance the airflow on all sides. It made a lot of racket, and there was certainly a lot of jostling force, but overall, the tug’s position and orientation remained stable. Ultimately, the outer hatch opened to reveal the starry expanse, still littered with a smattering of distant asteroids. As he piloted the tug out into the emptiness, he was momentarily struck afresh at the vastness of space. “You never do get used to that,” he muttered. Turning ninety degrees to port, his helmet automatically darkened, and also fogged up slightly, as the sunlight warmed his breath. He swung into alignment with the ship and proceeded along the hull toward sector B. Even from here, the damage was readily apparent. The hull breaches themselves were not yet visible, confined as they were to the foremost curves of the hull, yet torn shaggy scraps of fuselage jutted disgustingly out from what had once been a gracefully designed body. Explosions had wreaked havoc on her. It was almost painful to look at, as he glided forward, yet he could not look away. As he neared, he found himself compelled to peer through rough chunks of missing hull into the belly of the ship. Steel beams twisted into sickening forms cast disturbing shadows in graveyard spaces. He turned his head away, fighting off a feeling of nausea. He needed to get his mind off the tragedy of it all. Besides, he was getting close to sector B.
“Doc, you read?”
“Doc, this is Colin. Do you copy?”
It took Brother Anderson a split second to register.
“Yes - I’m here.” He answered somewhat absent-mindedly, slicing off a slim thread of computation to follow the communication.
“I’m in the thrustertug, coming up on sector B.”
“Yes, of course. I’m standing by.”
Brother Anderson felt bad. He should have been more attentive. What the hell had he just been thinking about? Snow and rocks and birds? What the hell was wrong with him? He primaried the communication thread and forced a halt-all-processes routine. It was almost a reboot. It should dump and clear all but the most conservative amount of resident memory. Instinctively, he gave his head a shake. Then he ran a quick self-diagnostic test, but it came up normal. He would run a deeper check later.
“Colin, how does it look out there?”
“Pretty shitty.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I just mean in general. I can see a lot of damage from here and it’s a real mess I tell ya.”
“Copy that. What about your target? How do you assess the mission objective?”
“Umm, I’m almost there. Just a sec...”
“OK, just pulling in...”
“And... locking on now.” The pincer jaws of the thrustertug clamped onto the airlock hull as Colin deftly tweaked the control sticks. A satisfying clang rang through the ship, not that Colin could hear it out here, but he felt the tremor ripple up through the stick.