Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

29 - Oxygen Bottle

"There's no current at all in the wire," Phil reported. "I've been monitoring for over five minutes now and there's nothing. As far as I can tell, it's dead."

"So, it's a trigger line, not a data line?" asked Susan.

Everyone except Stephen was gathered around the open access panel to the air recycling system, studying the suspicious oxygen bottle.

"It's not my area of expertise, but that would make sense," Phil nodded.

"What do you make of where the wires go?" she asked.

"Well, one end disappears through the back panel. That doesn't tell us anything. The other end goes through a hole in the regulator. I don't know what that tells us beyond the regulator is compromised, therefore whatever the contents of the cylinder are, they're not compressed gas."

"That clinches it," said Ria. "It's obviously not what it's presented as, it's not on the inventory and the only reason we can think of for it being there is to cause harm to our ship. It has to go."

"Agreed," said Skylar. "But how can we be sure that there aren't any more of these hidden in other parts of the ship?"

"We can't," said Ria. "We've checked pretty thoroughly but there're still places to hide bombs that we can't practically get to."

"I think the risk of that is low," added Susan. "This explosive device is clearly hidden which means whoever placed it feared it might be discovered. Hiding more devices on the ship before it launched would increase the risk of their whole operation being discovered. We only found this one because we were searching for it."

"That's a truly scary thought," said Skylar. "We could have been blown to pieces while we were still frozen."

"Let's get this off our ship, right now," said Ria. "We can worry about other devices afterwards."

"Are you sure you're going to do it, Commander?" Susan asked.

"I'm sure. Stephen should stay in the Control Room and monitor the ship. He'll take over if anything happens to me anyway, so he should keep as far away from this explosive as possible."

"He should have an E.V.A. suit ready with him in the Control Room," Susan suggested.

"Good idea. I'm going to ask you, Phil, to disconnect the cylinder."

"I figured that was my job," he laughed nervously. "No problem."

"Sorry. My suggestion is that you and Susan bring the oxygen cylinder down to the hatch room. I'll be waiting there suited up. Skylar, I want you to help me get into an E.V.A. suit and then take two of them up to Stephen in the Control Room and wait there with him. Let's close all the deck hatches above the bomb, just in case."

* * *

Ria was leaning against the front of the equipment lockers in the Hatch Room at the bottom of the Command Module. In her E.V.A. suit, there was not a great deal of spare room and she feared that if she sat down, she would not be able to get back up again without help.

Her life-support readouts, projected onto the inside of her slightly open visor, were all normal apart from her heart rate which showed an understandable elevation. The oxygen reserve showed one hundred percent and the battery level was ninety-eight percent. She was ready to go.

She activated her suit radio and connected it to the ship's intercom. "How's everyone getting on?"

Skylar replied first. "Stephen and I are both ready. Stephen thought it would be best if we put on our E.V.A. suits and strap ourselves in."

"I concur. Good thinking," said Ria. "Susan? Phil?"

There was a pause, then Susan replied, "Sorry, Commander. We've detached the oxygen cylinder from the wall. Right now, it's resting on the floor and Phil's preparing to cut those connecting wires."

"Good, maybe you should move away from it while he cuts," Ria suggested.

"Nice thought, Commander, but it wouldn't make any difference."

"Okay, well, I'm ready in the Hatch Room. Let me know when you've got it down to the next level. Let me know if you have any problems."

"Yes, Commander," Susan replied. "But if Phil has any problems with the cutting, you'll probably know about it before we do."

During the psychiatric evaluations and well-being briefings in the months leading up to Hesperian's launch thirteen years ago, Ria had been prepared for the many things that could go wrong with the expedition. She was mentally prepared for system failures, medical emergencies, communication problems, a wide variety of issues that could go wrong during the descent onto Proxima B and even social issues between crewmembers, but hunting down and removing an explosive device had not even been mentioned during her training.

She tried to picture the maintenance platform above the ion drives but it was a part of the ship where training had mostly consisted of using a life-sized mockup which did not have the fuel and supply modules positioned around it as they were in real life. It was hard to be sure, but her gut feeling was there was simply no way to throw the bottle from the platform without immediately bouncing it off one of the other modules.

That meant she would have to climb down either of the two ladders which led down from the platform, while wearing an E.V.A. suit and carrying the oxygen bottle on her own. That did not seem viable, but then she had an idea. She hit the transmit button again.

"Stephen, how fast can you shut down the ion drives and start them back up again?"

"I wouldn't recommend that. Why would you want to do that?"

"I've got a plan, but I'm not sure if it will work," she replied.

"An emergency shutdown would be around thirty seconds but it's going to take upwards of five minutes to get them back up to full thrust. Is it wise to shut down a mission-critical system when it's been working fine for years?"

"How much will that impact our arrival on Proxima B?"

"I can compensate with slightly higher thrust for however long it's needed. There's still plenty of time."

"Good. Get ready to do it on my command."

"If you're sure, Commander."

He had barely finished speaking when Susan's voice joined him on the intercom.

"Commander, Phil and I have the device down to the Equipment Storage deck. He's sealed the hatch above us and now we're about to drop down into the Supply Storage deck."

"Excellent. That was quick. Let me know when you get to the hatch above me."

"Will do, Commander," came Susan's reply.

"Foxy, open the inner airlock door then be ready to run the airlock sequence on my command."

"I am ready, Commander," Foxy replied immediately.

When the bomb arrived, she wanted it out of the ship in the shortest possible time. The electric motors made short work of sliding open the inner doors, allowing her to see up into the deck above. She was just wondering about climbing the ladder to the deck above and opening the next hatch when she saw the wheel spinning from the other side. The hatch swung upwards and out of the way revealing Phil peering down from above. He nodded to Ria before spinning himself around and dropping his feet onto the downward ladder.

Once his shoulders were below the rim of the hatchway, he urged Susan to pass him the bottle. Kneeling beside the hatchway, she very gingerly lowered it towards his free arm. He clutched the metal cylinder against his chest then slid it down to pinch it against his side. He climbed down the remaining four steps then used his other arm to support the bottle too.

Susan followed him down the ladder and then the two of them crouched again and passed the bottle into Ria's upstretched arms.

"So far, so good," she murmured. "Get yourself up to the Control Room. I'll take it from here."

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