Sabatine squeezed into the forward airlock with six riggers. All of them wore the heavy rigging suits, woven boron monocrystal over a framework of ceramic rings. The suits were heavy, bulky and awkward to wear and were notorious for rubbing a man bloody until he got used to moving in one, but they were the only protection a spacer had from torn cabling, sharp metal and the innumerable other hazards of working not only in space, but in spaces infinitely more hostile to humans than mere freezing vacuum. In theory officers could wear the more light weight and far more comfortable airsuits, but no one that fancied doing any work, and surviving, would take a risk on the flimsy plastic suits. Accelertion died suddenly and the background rumble of the plasma thrusters died away. For a few seconds there was the queasy feeling of sudden freefall and then the high drive motors cut on with a jolt. Instinctively the riggers began to latch their face plates and check their pressure seals. Sabatine did the same, her rigging suit had a gauntlet painted red in order to distinguish her in an environment where vacumn prevented speech and radio transmissions were not possible. On the hull of a starship in the matrix any electrical signal would unbalance the carefully calculated charge on the sails, altering the course in ways that were literally incalculable, riggers made do with a series of hand signals and by having a general understanding of what their role was in any particular maneuver. The telltale above the airlock went amber and the spacers performed their final checks before Klave, the bosun's mate in command of the lock, gripped the release wheel and heaved. There was a crack of outrushing air that tugged at Sabatine as the door opened into the void. The light of the stars seemed to flatten as the air particles that refracted them vanished in a jet. Before the door was fully open, Klave was through leading his men out onto the hull. Sabatine nodded her approval, the priority was to clear the lock for the next six riggers waiting in the hallway beyond. The Vickie had two airlocks, one forward and one aft, each of which could accommodate six spacers in rigging suits. With a normal watch of 24 riggers that meant that both airlocks had to cycle twice to get the full crew out onto the hull. Klave was pushing it as fast as he could, doubtless he felt jilted at not being promoted into the bosun slot and was eager to demonstrate his skill. That was fine with Sabatine, so long as efficiency didn't suffer.
When she had first come to the Vickie nearly a year ago discipline had been lax. Captain Micha was no Popularity Dick, a slang term for officers who prioritized being liked by their men, but he was kindly and easy going. Sabatine was neither of those things and had set about whipping the crew into shape with a will. Warships did not attract the best crews during peacetime when merchant wages were more attractive and there was no chance of prize money. That usually left them with dregs who for one reason or another were unwilling to take leg bail for some merchant and an extra few florins a week. Fortunately there had been some veterans, like Klave, who had welcomed Sabatine's efforts to instill discipline. Combat veterans knew that slackness in the wrong areas could get you killed, and though Sabatine hadn't tried to root out alcohol or drugs, she had come down ruthlessly on anyone caught using on duty. She had begun a process of stem to keel maintaince to get the Vickie into optimum fighting shape and she had vetoed the easy and lazy courses that had been proposed in favor of faster harder ones that forced the riggers push themselves hard. Such actions had not been without personal danger, unpopular officers could have all many of accidents on a starship, but her willingness to work along side her men, and the support of a core cadre of spacers like Klave had kept her safe long enough that the crew had began to take pride in itself, and the shirkers and nay-sayers were derided rather than indulged. Not for the first time she wondered what the addition of Kaiden, not to mention his hussy, would do to the crew. As she cleared the lock she glanced aft to see if Higgs had his men out yet. To her surprise he didn't though as she watched she saw the tell tale puff of evacuating air. What had been the hold up she wondered as she turned to clang the airlock shut and spin the dogging wheel.
A starship travled between the stars by shifting between the infinite bubble universes of the matrix by means of molecule thin charged sails which shaped Kasimir radition, the only true universal constant. The rig that held this sail was spread from masts arranged in rings around the hull of a starship. The Vickie had three rings each with four masts. The rig had to be stowed when landing, otherwise it would be sheered away by friction and was extended by hydraulics once they were in orbit. In theory the process was automated and while it was possible there was a spacer alive who had seen a perfect automatic deployment, Sabatine had never met one.The G-forces acting on a ship during liftoff inevitable kinked cables and froze joints, defects that had to be repaired by riggers before the ship could insert into the matrix. This lift was no exception, despite Sabatine's careful inspections ventral 1A froze at half extension, tangling the rest of the forward ring as it exteded. That had necessitated the replacement of a hydraulic pump that had been cooked by static discharge as well as ten minutes of frantic rerigging. Judging by the activity at the rear of the ship a similar number of small incidents had occured there. Still withing fifteen minutes the rig was properly shaken out and she signaled the 'at stations' to the bridge to let Captain Micha know her section was ready for insertion. While she had been engaged in the work she had paid little attention to the aft half of the watch and she glanced back now. To her surprise a figure in a rigging suit was methodically making his way forward. While no rigging suit except hers and the bosun's bore any distinguish mask, she could recognize most of the riggers by the way they moved. This one she didn't recognize. Her first thought was that there was some kind of a problem aft but even as she watched the hydro-mechanical semaphores flashed upright, signaling Captain Micha was about to insert. A queasy filling burbled up inside of her as the sidereal universe vanished to be replaced with the luminous pastel wonder of the matrix. Swallowing down the insertion reaction she stepped down the hull towards the stranger, about halfway there she caught enough of a view of the visor to recognize Kaiden.
And just what the devil was he doing on the hull? she thought to herself. He made a gesture to her and she stepped close, pressing her helmet to his so that the vibrations of speech could pass between the two of them. It was awkward and wasn't often used except when complext tasks needed to be relayed. It was also the most privacy two people could have as no electronic equipment could be present to eavesdrop.
"Is there a problem?" she demanded before remembering she was speaking to a superior officer and belatedly added, "sir."
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