The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Seven

The internal airlock door clicked shut and hissed as pressure seals were brought to bear, closing off the inhospitable environment of space against the cold, but breathable, atmosphere inside.

"Ok, now what?" said Malachi. He cracked the seal between his helmet and his flight suit and rubbed his scalp with one hand. "Too small," he muttered to himself.

"No, your head's too big," said Ellie.

He looked around at the room they had arrived in as he removed his suit. The room was some kind of monitoring and departure room for environment suits. Maybe to allow easy access to the outside of the ship for maintenance checks or repairs. If this was a factory ship, the outer hull would have been put to work as much as the inside, and that meant regular inspections.

Malachi opened one of the large lockers, curious to see what was inside, but it was empty. He placed his helmet on the shelf inside, closed the door and looked around.

On the opposite wall to the airlock was the door leading to the rest of the ship. Along the same wall was a series of lockers, large on top, smaller below, and two shelves below that, at floor level. Three long shelves opposite the lockers puzzled him until he realised they were spaces for banks. To the right of the airlock, at the far end of the room was a shower cubicle and a short bench below a row of hooks.

The bunks were clear of bedding, there were no other environment suits or equipment of any kind in the room. Even the shower was empty apart from an ancient white coating of limescale. No-one had used this room for a long time. That was a good sign.

Sitting between the airlock door and the entrance to the room was a small console, only big enough for two, which must have been used to monitor workers during their shifts outside. There were no chairs.

The whole room was coated in a faint greasy film peculiar to environments which relied too heavily on recycled air. They had the same problem on the Juggernaut, but at least there people kept it clean. The distinct tang of some of the air purification and recycling machines led to their more popular name: flavour makers.

Tila stood by the console, helmet in one hand, poking controls at random with the other, but apart from one red light flashing through the grime, the console appeared to be dead.

"Did you make it do that?" Malachi asked Tila. He pointed at the light.

"It started after we closed the door, I'm sure of it. I don't know why. I can't turn it off. I can't do anything."

"Let me see."

Malachi wiped the film of dirt to better read the controls. The blinking light was marked 'EXTERNAL SEAL FAILURE'.

Tila was about to press another button at random when Malachi grabbed her wrist.

"Hey."

Malachi pointed at the label under the light. "Better not. We should use the manual control when we leave."

"What's wrong with the controls?" said Ellie.

"Mal broke the airlock," said Tila.

Ellie cast a quick, frightened glance at the inner door. "Are we...? Will it...?"

"Relax, Ellie. It's only the outer door. I must have damaged it from the outside. The inner door is fine. Just don't go pressing any buttons, ok? This console isn't working right so I don't know if the other safeties are working."

"Ok! I don't want to get sucked out into space."

"Blown out," he corrected.

"Everyone says that, but they're wrong," said Ellie.