Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [72]
His stomach lurched as he opened his eyes again and surveyed the too-close horizon of the sprawling, gray-clad chemical tank, which was illuminated only by the twin beams of the powerful halogen lamps mounted on either side of his helmet, as well as by Mayweather’s helmet lights. Chang felt his environmental suit ballooning alarmingly around him as he slowly and laboriously moved his magnetized boots before him across the hundred-meter-wide tank’s metallic surface, one foot in front of the other. The sound of his footfalls was swallowed in the airless silence of space, except inside his suit, which picked up and amplified the vibrations created by his boots as they alternately struck and released the tank’s thin, gently flexing skin.
Left (How I hate being out here).
Right (God, I hate this).
Left again (Please, please don’t let me upchuck inside the damned helmet).
A familiar voice spoke up via a secure, tight-beam channel, echoing slightly inside his helmet. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Chang, you seem to be a little uncomfortable out here.”
Glancing toward his neck ring at the com system’s small heads-up display, Chang noted with some gratitude that Mayweather hadn’t made his comment on the strike team’s open channel; no one else had heard the pilot’s comment. Nevertheless, a curse formed on Chang’s lips. He bit it back in silence, knowing that there was no point in letting Mayweather see—or, rather, hear—any cracks in his cultivated veneer of disciplined calm.
“Thank you for noticing.”
“It’s all part of the service,” Mayweather said. “Wouldn’t want you to somehow get the idea that I’m just some sort of taxi driver, after all.”
No. Never. A quality taxi driver would have stayed with the cab. “Then I hope you’re not expecting a tip.”
“Well, one tip would be nice. For starters, I could use a little more advice on the best way to place these charges.”
Chang turned to his right, where he glimpsed Mayweather’s suited form, which was following along the tank’s skin only about two meters behind him. Like Chang and the rest of the MACO strike team, the pilot wore an unwieldy-looking toolbelt over his environmental suit. Unlike the rest of the team, however, Mayweather’s suit was one of the russet-colored, Starfleet-issue models. With its large, back-mounted life-support pack, Mayweather’s suit was bulkier than those the MACOs wore, since it was intended for extended operations in space rather than for brief engagements in airless, zero-g environments.
Why’d I let him talk me into bringing him along on the EVA? Chang thought, shaking his head within his immobile helmet. After all, Mayweather was a pilot, not a demolitions specialist. He’d been reared among freight haulers, not elite troopers or even asteroid miners; he might know his way around space, but he was clearly lacking in the essential MACO skill of Blowing Stuff Up Real Good.
“Watch and learn, Ensign,” Chang said aloud as he made another laborious stride forward before pausing. As he’d done many times since making his initial awkward climb onto the outside of the tank, Chang glanced down at the padd that was lashed to the left gauntlet of his suit. The device’s small backlit screen displayed a schematic of the storage tank to which he and Mayweather were magnetically tethered. Thanks to data gathered earlier by the shuttlepod’s sensors, the structure’s most vulnerable seams were outlined in bright red.
Two flashing green blips, representing Chang and Mayweather, had drawn to within scant meters of the isotope tank’s visibly bulging waist.
You are here, Chang thought, just as he began to notice that his nose was beginning to itch fiercely. Normally, that sensation would have been intolerable in an environmental suit, since he couldn’t do a damned thing about it without exposing himself to the hard vacuum that lay just beyond his faceplate. This time, however, Chang decided to be thankful for almost anything that served to distract him from the tortures his stomach and inner ear were suffering at the