The Outer Ring by Martin Wilsey Page B

Jack’s hand. Jack liked him, immediately. It wasn’t often
that someone from the lower decks got to meet anyone from the
command crew.
    “ You coming today, Chen?”
Jimbo asked, as he adjusted the straps of his backpack.
    “ Not today, man,” she
said, as she looked up and another access panel opened. “I gotta
finish up this shit before tomorrow’s orbit.”
    “ I hear that.” Jimbo drank
his own water. “All three shifts are on duty, tomorrow. That’s why
I can come down here and run you weaklings into the
grav-plating.”
    With that said, they ran.
Jimbo’s surprise start caught no one, except Miller, off guard.
After a bit, the heavies slowed, so he could catch up. They
ran in formation around him, encouraging him all the way
around the outer ring.
    It was a ‘lucky day’. That’s what the
heavies called it when all the bay doors were open.
    Jack made it the whole way around
without stopping once, for the first, and the last time…
    ***
    “ I miss real eggs,” Barcus
said, not for the first time.
    Jack said, “It’s because the eggs are
dehydrated, made with reclaimed water. You ever get the pancakes?
Why get the eggs, if you don’t like them?”
    Chen looked up from her
eggs with a raised eyebrow, the precursor to the death stare. She
sat just to Jack’s right. Barcus sat directly across from him,
with Jimbo and Rand on either side. All of them ate eggs and
bacon.
    “ Because you get real
bacon with these eggs. Not even dehydrated,” Barcus said, in a
gesture of worship, as he held up a perfectly crispy strip of
thick-cut bacon. Rand and Jimbo both attempted a snatch. Both lost
out to the speed of Barcus’s hand to his mouth.
    “ It’s probably because the
reclamation system extracts the water from your shit when yo—” Jack
stopped, suddenly, as Chen delivered a right jab
to his face. “What the fuuu—!”
    Chen patted him on the back in a
perfect, nothing personal, gesture.
    “ House rules, Jack, ” Jimbo said. “Never mention the human waste reclamation
system during chow. You are allowed, no required, to face-punch any heavy that does it. Even me. Especially
me.”
    Jack laughed, as he overplayed testing
his jaw. Then, he touted the benefits of the delicious pancakes, to
another round of laughter.
    None of them heard the woman behind
them, two tables over, who said under her breath, “You won’t be
laughing this time tomorrow, motherfuckers.”
    ***
    Barcus went up to the main
maintenance shop with Jack, after breakfast. They each signed out a
Heavy Maintenance Suit (HMS) that they would use tomorrow. The HMS
were called Heavy, for multiple reasons. First, and foremost, they
were really fucking heavy. Maintenance Chief Owens, consequently,
referred to them as RFH suits. For some reason, this confused
the dispatchers and amused the hell out of the chief.
    Barcus went to bay forty-two and selected the same HMS he always picked. Jack
picked number forty-one, based on its proximity to Barcus.
    “ Barcus, do you have any
idea how much one of these things actually weighs?” Jack asked, as
he activated the diagnostic program and ran down the
checklist.
    “ I think, empty, they
weigh just under a metric ton. Just over, with water and a driver,”
Barcus said. “Doesn’t mean shit, though. Most of the work is in
zero gravity. ”
    “ Ever run in one, on the
surface of a planet? I hear they are fast on foot and fun as shit,”
Jack said, hooking up the water line, to top it off.
    “ Just once, on a moon . Some dumb-ass had a dish fall on him and, despite the low
gravity, it broke both his legs. I ran the two kilometers to be the
first one on the scene.” Barcus paused, remembering, “That asshole
never thanked me. He was a miserable bastard; it was always about
politics with him.”
    “ I’m driving forty-two
down to the flight deck today, as always. But, that’s me. You may
want to use the tractor rig to get your suit down. Today or
tomorrow. They prefer it that way. They say