because of
mountain, "visible" only by extrapolation from the starscape its looming bulk blocked. The lack of lights deprived him of any reference points and left him feeling uncomfortably like an ant cowering under a descending boot heel.
Judging from the crisp comments and commands flowing back and forth between Lieutenant Mann and his Marines, they, at least, were unaffected by Aikawa's forebodings. They moved briskly, the brilliant circles of illumination from their battle armor's powerful lamps carving slices of solidity out of stygian blackness as they danced across hull plating. They didn't really need lights, given their armor's powerful built-in imaging systems and sensors, Aikawa knew. Were they using the lamps to help out the hapless Navy types less liberally equipped to see in total blackness? Or were they possibly a bit more oppressed by the darkness than their crisp, matter-of-fact voices suggested?
He rather hoped it was the latter, he discovered.
It took another half-hour to locate a maintenance lock. The lock's outer hatch opened readily enough to the standard emergency code on the keypad, and it was large enough to admit their entire party with only a little crowding. Aikawa was delighted to cram into it, since he had a pretty shrewd notion of which two members' junior status would have had them bringing up the rear if it had been necessary to lock through in two waves.
The inner hatch opened into a cavernous equipment bay. The egglike shapes of four one-man heavy maintenance hardsuits were neatly racked along one bulkhead, and bright overhead lights shone on workbenches, racked tools, and bins of electronic components and repair parts. It wasn't as spotless as the same machine shop would have been aboard Hexapuma, but the equipment was obviously well maintained and organized.
The Marines moved out, armor 車買取 sensors and old-fashioned eyeballs probing carefully. Aikawa had never really
Judging from the crisp comments and commands flowing back and forth between Lieutenant Mann and his Marines, they, at least, were unaffected by Aikawa's forebodings. They moved briskly, the brilliant circles of illumination from their battle armor's powerful lamps carving slices of solidity out of stygian blackness as they danced across hull plating. They didn't really need lights, given their armor's powerful built-in imaging systems and sensors, Aikawa knew. Were they using the lamps to help out the hapless Navy types less liberally equipped to see in total blackness? Or were they possibly a bit more oppressed by the darkness than their crisp, matter-of-fact voices suggested?
He rather hoped it was the latter, he discovered.
It took another half-hour to locate a maintenance lock. The lock's outer hatch opened readily enough to the standard emergency code on the keypad, and it was large enough to admit their entire party with only a little crowding. Aikawa was delighted to cram into it, since he had a pretty shrewd notion of which two members' junior status would have had them bringing up the rear if it had been necessary to lock through in two waves.
The inner hatch opened into a cavernous equipment bay. The egglike shapes of four one-man heavy maintenance hardsuits were neatly racked along one bulkhead, and bright overhead lights shone on workbenches, racked tools, and bins of electronic components and repair parts. It wasn't as spotless as the same machine shop would have been aboard Hexapuma, but the equipment was obviously well maintained and organized.
The Marines moved out, armor 車買取 sensors and old-fashioned eyeballs probing carefully. Aikawa had never really