Balance of Power (Battleborn c23) by Ralph C. Edenhofer

Author:Ralph C. Edenhofer [Edenhofer, Ralph C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A7LBooks.com
Published: 2023-08-14T23:00:00+00:00

06-01-2211, Aigis Orbital Fortress, Earth Orbit

The oxygen level indicator hung low in the red zone. Every breath was agony. The lapses in José's perception increased rapidly. He had already completely lost his sense of time. The simple steps to manually open the airlock required all his concentration. Millimeter by millimeter, the gap between the two gate wings opened. One more time he tried to squeeze through. The helmet finally fit, and the rest of his suit followed smoothly. Only the supply satchel jammed. Several times he pulled violently on the bulky piece of luggage before he got the idea to turn it ninety degrees. This way there was more than enough room. José shook his head as if he could get rid of the fogging in his mind that way. What was he going to do next, again? Oh yes, close the airlock. With tunnel vision, he searched the chamber for the valve wheel, found it after an unidentifiable period of time, and turned it. The door continued to open. Other direction! Now the gap was closing. That was better. After the work was done, he staggered to the inner airlock door and repeated the same. After the first turn of the valve, a gust of wind whistled through the resulting opening. Air! José continued to turn. More and more of the life-giving gas filled the chamber. He fingered the cap on his helmet and, after several attempts, managed to open it. Since full atmospheric pressure had not yet been established around him, the helmet popped off the collar. The stale air of the spacesuit gave way to the fresh atmosphere of the habitat. Greedily, José sucked the oxygen into his lungs. A few breaths later, his brain slowly began to work properly again. He lowered himself to the floor, leaning back against the wall. Finally, a moment to catch his breath.

He fed the time signal into his visual center. His odyssey had lasted more than eleven hours. First, sneaking into the hangar unseen, hiding there again and again so as not to be discovered by the AI ships constantly flying in and out. Then working through the service tunnel to the rotation section. And finally, finding one of the airlocks into the interior of the ring. There were only a handful of these. Except for maintenance technicians, the hall, which was almost half a mile in diameter, was usually not accessible. It was better that way, since there was not much space between the walls and the habitat ring rotating inside. If the bearing damage had not slowed the rotation and finally brought it to a halt, José's already adventurous journey would most likely have ended fatally. In the meantime, however, the angular momentum had transferred to the entire fortress, sending it into a tumbling motion with a period of about ten minutes. The centrifugal force thus generated was about one-tenth of a g here in the ring and was at an angle of more than twenty degrees to the ground due to the diagonal axis of rotation.

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