‘Three, two, one, push!’. Voss did as the lieutenant instructed. They pushed each other away mere seconds before impact. He shifted his focus towards the landing. He aimed for a ladder that looked like it was his best bet. He managed to grab onto it with his left hand, but he was unable to stop his momentum due to the awkward angle at which he had grabbed it. He tried to clasp the hook in his right hand onto the ladder but it failed to click. A nervous chill shot through his spine. His failed attempt at landing had caused him to get into a rapid spin. He desperately outstretched both his arms as he spun round. He saw the Ciklops flash by in the distance and several recruits and instructors floating towards them. He spinned further towards the bastion again and managed to grab onto the step of a different ladder with the tips of his fingers. It wasn’t enough to hold onto it, but it was enough to stop his spin and prevent him from bouncing back into the void. With his momentum having ground to a halt, he could now properly grab onto a metal rail that stuck out at the edge of the landing zone. Just as he was about to grab it, something jerked him back. The line between the lieutenant and him had been fully extended and had caused him to bounce back once fully stretched. He was once again floating and spinning around helplessly, doing his best not to panic.
‘Damnit Voss, get yourself together and reel yourself in towards me. I’ve landed successfully and am hooked in.’. Pulling himself in was easier said than done. His spin caused the cable to wrap around him and then unwrap again when it caused the cable to extend. By this point he had lost all sense of direction, everything spinning and turning around him. He knew his only option was to start pulling on the cable and hope nothing would get lost or damaged during his uncontrolled landing.
He bumped into the lieutenant as he crash landed, causing her to topple over. A flurry of curses and abuses sounded over his intercom. He had no time to listen though, he needed to stop his spinning before the cable wrapped around him again and caused any damage to his suit or toolbelt. His flailing arms managed to grab hold onto something and he finally managed to hook onto the bastion. With both of them hooked in, they managed to stabilize the situation and land properly.
Voss looked at the lieutenant, expecting her to give out orders, but saw she was looking up at the Ciklops instead. He remembered just in time that he was supposed to do the same and looked up too. He saw team eight was heading towards their direction and that instructor eight was mere seconds away from landing on top of him. Voss hooked his left leg into the steps of one of the ladders and leaned back to catch the instructor. He managed to grab onto his toolbelt and push him towards one of the ladders. The instructor grabbed the ladder and clicked himself onto it in one fluent motion. The instructors’ experience shone through here. It was a good thing Voss had managed to catch the instructor, because recruit eight had bounced off the bastion and was heading back into the void. Voss tried to remember who recruit eight was again but couldn’t. Usually Voss took pride in how good his memory was, but under the current circumstances, it seemed to fail him.
‘Let’s get moving, recruit.’ Voss turned around. Behind the lieutenant shone the lights of a million stars. It was the most beautiful sight he ever got to behold. He wished he could have enjoyed it a little longer, but the lieutenant signaled for them to get a move on. He followed the lieutenant but kept one eye on the sky. Not just for the view, but also because one instructor crash landing on top of him was more than enough for him.
The lieutenant hooked herself into a long metal rail that was fastened to the bastion by a pole every fifty meters or so. She signaled to Voss to do the same. ‘This rail goes straight to the antenna. We’ll follow it till we get there. Make sure one of us is attached to the rail at all times. We can get there quickly if we use the rail to propel ourselves.’
Voss did what he was told and the lieutenant showed him how to best propel himself along the rail. Voss quickly got the hang of it and it wasn’t before long before they were clearing three rail segments per minute.
‘Exactly how private is our communications channel, lieutenant?’
‘It’s a direct channel between our intercoms, Voss. That means it’s encrypted and nobody can eavesdrop on us, even if they manage to catch the signal.’
‘Good. You can give me an update on where we stand then.’
‘Where we stand is that you’ll address me as lieutenant, private intercom or no private intercom.’
‘In that case, you can give me an update on where we stand, lieutenant.’. Something about the lieutenant’s demeanor pissed him off. She was the one who wanted him for her mission. She was the one who put him in this program. She wanted to involve him in her big plans and now that he was on board, she played the rank card on him.
‘Don’t you worry about my mission, Voss. Focus on your own mission instead. Get through today and the rest of your training, and you’ll find out more about my mission soon enough.’
‘How long until I can graduate, lieutenant?’
‘Stop asking me questions and just focus on what we’re here to do. Void walking is dangerous enough as it is. I don’t need you being distracted by things that are irrelevant today.’
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
‘Alright then, lieutenant. But you better keep your end of the bargain, because I’m not going to work engines on one of those shitbrick freighters they’re teaching us about. A few months on board of one of those dullards and I’ll personally steer it into the spaceport and Saltpetersburg below it at hyperspeed.’
‘Hah, give me a heads up when you do. I’ll give you the coordinates of where the Fifth’s high command is seated when you do. The amount of administrative hassle they’ve given me these past months is enough to drive anyone into a murderous rage.’
‘It’d be my pleasure, lieutenant.’
‘Let’s get back to the task at hand, Voss. We’re closing in on the antenna now. I need you to focus from here on out.’
‘Copy that, lieutenant. No mercy in the void and all that.’
The lieutenant didn’t reply to his smart ass comment. Instead, she pointed at a small ledge that formed a square of about five by five meters. ‘Careful of those rings. They house turrets. Those things will open without warning whenever they’re needed to shoot anything out of the void that could form a potential threat to the bastion, the spaceport, or Fosfat itself. They keep those things operational to blast asteroids and pieces of void debris.
‘Don’t they deactivate them when we’re up here doing maintenance, lieutenant?’
‘No, the bastion is more important than any of us. If anything gets picked up by the bastion’s deep space scanners that’s assessed to be a threat, those turrets will be deployed to shoot at them, regardless of how many of us are up here. Look at it from the upside. These are Gass rail cannons. If there had been any kind of atmosphere around here, the blastwave of those things would have been enough to rip the flesh off your bones. The tungsten-steel rounds those puppies shoot, leave the barrel at fifteen percent of light speed.’
‘I can’t help but notice that they’re spending a lot of money and energy on keeping what's supposed to be an ancient war relic, fully operational. Seems like they’re trying to defend Fosfat against much bigger dangers than a couple of space rocks or the odd caper ship, lieutenant.’
‘Those are exactly the kind of questions that will get you into a lot of problems, Voss. I suggest you keep them to yourself if you know what’s good for you.’
Voss decided to heed her warning and refrain from further questioning. Besides, they were nearing the target communications antenna anyhow. It was a pretty standard long range set up. Several communication systems were combined into one large, fifty meters tall communications station. Each system had its own purpose and frequencies. Nothing exciting and this job would have been just another day at the office, if it wasn’t for the fact that today’s office was the cold, dark void.
Each team had been allocated a workspace. Theirs was B3, which turned out to be all the way at the top of the antenna, beneath the main dish. The good part about voidwalking was that zero gravity meant going up was just as easy as going forward. Not an unnecessary luxury considering the discomfort of wearing a void suit and a bag’s worth of equipment.
Voss and the lieutenant both clasped one of their hooks to the safety rail, grabbed each other’s hand, and jumped up. They passed station B2 on their way up. Team four was already at their station and in the process of unscrewing the metal plate that covered the electronics they had to run checks on. Voss’ visor flashed as they neared their station.’
‘Six bars of oxygen left, lieutenant.’
‘Copy that, Voss. Let’s hurry this thing up and head back in time.’
They landed safely at the B3 platform and got straight to work. Everything had to be done according to an exact procedure that was much stricter than any Voss had known back down on Fosfat. He used one of the spare hooks in his toolbelt to attach the hatch to a safety rail before he went to unscrew it. His drill had been purposely made to hold onto any screw he used it on. This ensured that no screw would accidentally fly off into the void after being unscrewed. He carefully placed each screw in the secure holder on his toolbelt. Once the hatch had been opened and moved out of the way, they began to methodically go through each compartment to see if everything was in working order.
‘I don’t get it, lieutenant. Why did they use screws on these things instead of pneumatic systems? Seems primitive and inconvenient to me.’
‘These bastions were built in a time of great need, a long time ago, Voss. They had to cut corners wherever possible. It was faster, easier, and most importantly, cheaper to build them this way. Now stop asking questions and check D compartment for electric conductance characteristics.’
‘Yes, lieutenant. D compartment at one point three Ohm and stable.’
A voice sounded over the intercom. ‘Team seven, recruit Hiyo. location C2. We’ve found a defective circuit board in compartment C. Model type DL730RS. Can anyone deliver us one?’
The sergeant replied: ‘Copy that, team eleven is dispatching.’
Voss’ visor flashed again. He was at five bars now. ‘Five bars remaining, lieutenant. We should head back.’
‘We finish the job here first, Voss. Just two more tests to run before we can give the all clear on B3.’
‘But the sergeant said…’
‘I don’t care what the sergeant said, Voss. I outrank him.’
‘Damn her’ he thought to himself. That woman's ego was going to be the death of him someday. ‘Copy that, lieutenant. Compartment F fully functional.’
Team one signalled they were all clear on A1 and were on their way back to the Ciklops. Team two and three soon followed. Team four gave them the signal just as they finished checking the final compartment.’
‘All right, Voss. Let’s close this thing up properly and head back before we run out of air.’
The lieutenant’s words came as a relief to him. His visor had just flashed to signal there were only four bars left. They were now in a race against the clock to be back in time before air ran out.