I flexed my fingers in the gloves of my vac-suit. The vibration from the welding torch had made them numb, but moving them around got the blood flowing again. I enjoyed the feeling so much that I almost forgot to grab the torch before it drifted away. Zero-G work, I thought to myself with a sigh, is definitely not my thing.
Along with several others, I was tethered to the face of a Freeport 11's main scanning satellite, a couple dozen clicks out from the station itself. We were working like demons to get the thing back online as soon as possible. Above me, the Aedos hung in space, nestled as close to the body of the satellite as I dared to park her. The shadow she cast was lit up by several fountains of sparks that marked where people were working their welding torches. One pair of workers was carefully maneuvering a replacement solar panel out of the back of my ship's cargo hold.
It had been slow work. The constant attacks had taken their toll, both on the equipment and on the number of people willing to help. Still, a dedicated core of volunteers kept working. There's the Brown Twins, a pair of burly guys who decided to spend their vacation time from Deep Space Engineering working for free here. Ito was a once a Lane Hacker, or so they say, but we all know him as the guy who works voodoo magic on everything electronic. And then there's Marty, Giggles, Feldo, Whinging, and a couple dozen others who have been here since the beginning and refuse to leave until Freeport 11 is either fully restored or ground to dust. And even then, we'd find a way.
We're not going to let this place die.
We've had a couple of other attacks from these "new" nomads on Freeport 11, but to my extreme annoyance they always happen when I'm away on a supplies run. The good news is that they haven't been nearly as damaging as previous attacks, and we've had a lot of help driving ships away. There are rumors that an Order battleship followed the Harbinger into Omicron Lost and destroyed it, but I don't think I believe it. Even if it's true, I doubt it matters... there will be another just like it. But in the meantime, the "normal" nomads were giving us no share of trouble here at the satellite. The weapons platforms protecting it weren't yet back up to full strength, and the blasted blue slugs occasionally broke through patrols long enough to take a few potshots at the satellite array. Work on the satellite was always two steps forward, one step back.
"Seldon, you there?" My earpiece chirped to life, interrupting my pondering. Sounds like Valter, I thought.
"I'm here," I responded.
"Gut. Vould you please move your tub to the other side of this virepile? Giggles vants to unload the new struts." Definitely Valter. Nobody else has an accent that thick. I smiled to myself: despite my best efforts, everyone had taken to calling the Aedos "the tub." For better or for worse, it had stuck.
"Roger that, on my way," I responded. I carefully strapped the welding torch into its side-holster, then oriented myself carefully. I was about 15 meters underneath the cabin of the Aedos, its belly parallel to the surface of the satellite where I Was working. I rotated so that my feet were facing the belly of my ship, unhooked my tether, then pushed off with my hands. As I floated gently from the satellite to "the tub," I unhooked my thrust-can from it's strap on my leg. The canister of compressed air could be "fired" in any direction to give me the tiny amount of thrust needed to maneuver a man in space. I wasn't planning to need it, but it was good to have just in case.
A few seconds later, I was almost to my ship, approaching the belly feet-first at half a meter per second. Right before I landed, I activated the magnetic boot clamps and felt the satisfying thump as the vac-suit attached itself to the ship. From there, it was easy to walk along the underside of the ship to the cargo bay entrance and climb inside.
I may have to change my mind, I thought with a grin as I walked forward to the cockpit. Zero-G is kind of fun.
![[Image: aedos_mini.jpg]](http://students.cs.byu.edu/~sushi/aedos_mini.jpg)