Chapter 17
Fifteen minutes later, Nik was suited up with a newly printed spacesuit. Strapped to her body using tape and zip-ties were the life support and comm systems scavenged from another suit. In a bag attached to her belt were three extra suits: one for each of the men and one for her in case of an emergency. Also strapped to her belt was a cutting torch. They would have to use it to get Holden and Amos out of the maintenance tunnel.
Being raised on a space station, she should have been trained in the use of the suit, but as a station rat, she had never been given the chance, so Naomi quickly ran through everything. It didn't take long; the suits were almost idiot proof.
While they were putting her suit together, they had called the shuttle back to the ship. Naomi was taking over pilot duty and would be taking her back to the station. She had plotted out the best path to reach the two men and the closest access point was, of course, in the jumbled mess filling the construction dome.
Together they had filled in the guys about their plan. After arguing for several minutes with Amos acting as an intermediary, Naomi had overridden Holden's objections.
"If Nik doesn't do this, Amos will die before we can enact any other rescue attempt. Do you want that on your head? Besides, if anyone can survive over there, it's Nik. Have some faith in her."
On the shuttle, Nik strapped herself into a jump seat in the back. She didn't want to see anything during their approach. She had told Naomi where to take her and she trusted the other woman to get her there. There was nothing else Nik could do except distract her. The trip was rough, and she felt like she would throw up on several occasions, luckily there was a barf bag handy when she did lose the battle. Over the sounds of her heaving, she could hear Naomi's laugh.
"We're almost there. Hold on a bit longer."
Soon, the shuttle came to a rough stop and Naomi floated back to her, "this is it, Nik. Are you sure you want to do this?"
She was already unstrapping herself, "I have to do this. There's nobody else."
Naomi grabbed her arm, "no, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. Nobody will fault you for if."
She shook off the hand, "I will."
Naomi gave her a sad smile, "then let's get you going."
Nik had never processed through an airlock before. It was a different experience, exhilarating and frightening all at once to know that only the thin layer of polymer stood between her and the void of space. Her suit beeped at her to notify her of her accelerated heartrate. She acknowledged the alert and took deep steadying breaths.
"Here goes nothing," she muttered as she pushed herself out of the shuttle.
She misjudged how much force to use and slammed into the wall, bouncing and flying off at an angle. She frantically tried to slow herself down by comically flapping her arms like an idiot. All she succeeded in was making herself spin alarmingly.
"Nik use your suit's thrusters," Naomi called out over the commlink.
Nik had forgotten about the thrusters in her panic. It took her three tries to get the thrust and angle right, but soon she was back at the wall and making her way to a panel several meters above the shuttle. Reaching the panel, she fumbled for a bit, not used to the thick gloves, before she could pull a tool from her belt.
"Shit, everything is ten times more difficult in this thing," she told Naomi.
She could hear the smile in Naomi's voice, "that is something you will get used to."
Before Nik could formulate a reply, the panel popped open and floated away. "Kay, here we go," she told Naomi before she climbed into the small space and squeezed through to the tunnel behind it. "I'm in."
Amos came over the link, "no pressure, Kitten, but I'm down to twenty-five minutes."
"I'm on my way and quit calling me that!"
The first two-thirds of her route wasn't bad, but she was moving slower than expected because of the weight she carried. Granted the rotational gravity being generated by the stations new, erratic spin was considerably less that she was used to, but she was in a bulky spacesuit that she was unaccustomed to wearing. The bag and cutting torch kept catching on cables and corners. Nik was breathing hard and sweating despite the chill seeping through the material of the suit by the time she reached the shaft. She was frustrated and stressed to the point of tears.
Checking the time, she saw that it had taken her nearly twelve minutes to get that far. She opened a link to just Naomi.
"I don't think I'm going to make it on time," her voice quavered.
"Don't think that way. You are Belta, Sésata. You got this," Naomi replied in a firm voice.
"I got this," Nik repeated to herself.
"Go get them, Sésata."
Nik unclipped the bag and torch and quickly repositioned them so that she could still carry them easily, but they wouldn't hamper her movement anymore. Then she considered the shaft. Feet first or headfirst? With the current gravity on the station, headfirst was the best option. She could drop the torch and bag down first and, if they didn't make it all the way to the guys below, she at least would have her hands free. If they fell straight through, all the better.
"Amos, I'm going to drop the suits down the shaft ahead of me. They might go straight through to you down there, so stand away from the shaft."
"Cross your fingers that we get that lucky," he answered.
"What?" she asked, confused by the odd saying.
"Never mind, Kitten. Just drop them. We're clear."
Ignoring him, she dropped the bag down the shaft, though calling it a shaft was a stretch. It was more of a cable conduit; scarcely wider than she was, with thick cables running down the sides. The opening between them was tight enough that Nik wouldn't fall when she climbed in headfirst. She held her breath as the bag disappeared from view.
"Did you drop it?" Amos asked.
She sighed, "ya. You should have seen it by now. Take a look."
After a short pause, he answered, "I see it but it's out of my reach, about three meters up."
"Kay, I'm going to drop the torch and see if it dislodges the bag. Step back."
She let the torch fall down the shaft, then slid into the shaft headfirst after it.
"Did that do anything?"
"Nope, it didn't budge."
"I'm on my way down," she grunted, pulling herself down hand over hand between the cables.
The shaft was only twenty meters. If everything went smoothly, she should be through in plenty of time before Amos ran out of air. It was tight, pressing in on her from all sides, but she had been going into tight places like this for as long as she could remember. Instead of being claustrophobic, it was comforting in a way. Almost like being held in a tight embrace.
Her belt kept snagging on the straps used to support the cables, slowing her progress. Soon, she unbuckled her belt in frustration and left it hanging from the last strap it was caught on.
About halfway down, Nik found the cutting torch wedged across the shaft. The tip was shoved between two cables and trapped by the straps. Nik tried tugging on it but succeeded only in pulling herself closer to it. Shoving one of her feet between cables for leverage, she pushed on it experimentally, but stopped immediately when the action lodged it further. Bracing herself, she twisted it, moving it slightly.
Stopping, she took stock of her options. Time was ticking away for Amos below. There was no way to free the torch on time and there was no way for her to slip around it. She simply needed more space.
"I'm an idiot," she muttered.
Reaching under the tool, she found the switch that powered it up, waited for it to cycle through its start-up sequence, then triggered the plasma. A weak blue spark burst from the tip between the cables, then grew brighter as she increased the setting. The light grew bright enough that Nik had to close her eyes against it and look away.
"What are you doing up there?"
"Trying to save your ass. Just hang in there." she said between her gritted teeth as she tried to wiggle the torch back and forth.
The insulation on the cables began to blister, then smoke as the tip of the torch heated them. She yanked on the torch harder.
"Come on, you bastard."
The torch came free suddenly, twisting in her grasp and nearly touching her suit before she got it back under control and powered off.
"Amos, how're you doing down there?"
No answer came back over the link.
"Shit. Shit!"
As quickly as she could, Nik pushed the torch in front of her and pulled herself downwards. The bag with the suits was just a few more meters down and its closure was hung on one of the damn cable straps. Ripping it free, she pushed it with the torch and watched as it dropped from view. Pulling herself the rest of the way, she reached the opening and dropped the torch through before crawling out and dropping into the maintenance tunnel.
Holden was pulling a suit out of the bag and disconnecting its air hose. Amos was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall.
"Amos!" she called out to him over the commlink, but he was still and didn't answer.
She watched helplessly while Holden knelt by his side, disconnected his suit's hose and connected the new hose. Nik knew she was imagining it, but she could almost hear the hiss of air as it filled Amos' suit. Holden shook the man after a few seconds.
At first, Amos didn't respond, then he reached up and grabbed his captain's hands, stopping his shaking.
"All right, I'm awake. You can quit now."
Nik smiled broadly, "he can't hear you."
Holden had already stopped shaking him and put the face piece of his suit against Amos'. That was the only way to communicate verbally between suits when the comms were down. Stupid Inners, Nik thought, they never bothered to use the hand signals that Belters used regularly. She can't believe Naomi hadn't taught them yet. Maybe they were too proud to learn.
After a moment, Holden stood up and reached for the bag with the suits. While Amos struggled to his feet, he stripped the commlink off one of the spare suits and connected it to his. Nik busied herself locating the place on the wall where they needed to cut through with the torch. It gave her a reason to turn her back to them while she recomposed herself. She was damned if she was going to get emotional about an Inner that she didn't even like almost dying because she wasn't fast or strong enough.
"Hey, Kitten," Amos broke into her thoughts as if he could hear them, "you did good. I owe you."
"No, you don't," she answered without looking at him. "I owed you for getting me off the station in one piece. This was me just balancing the books."
He snorted, "okay, whatever you say. But I won't forget what you did."
"Why don't you save it until we actually get out of here alive?"
"About that," he grabbed her by the arm making her turn towards him. He had the torch ready. "Where do I start cutting?"
She stepped back and indicated the place on the wall, "There, behind those cables."