Heist the Colours 2: Now in Space (RP)

"Wait? What?" Abby looks at Raf incredulously. "You can't make a 'reverse EMP'. That is like saying 'a reverse bomb, you set it off and it fixes things nearby'. That defies the laws of entropy... and logic. I think your friend was lying to you, or that sandwich was older than it looked."

Bob is also hasty to point out when you finish. "You say that... but the that is nowhere near the 'worst case scenario'. Jumping with a faulty airlock means, if anything goes wrong, everyone inside the ship dies as all the air rushes out." He looks at Raf with suspiciously. "You guys paid me to bring you up here, and to not ask questions. Fun as it's been, I never agreed to leave my home and my girlfriend." (You all have heard about Bob's girlfriend, but no one you know has met her.) You can be pretty sure he will have words to say about any attempt to set of an EMP in or near his precious ship, just the mention of having one has Bob looking very nervous.

"I can open it." Abby says, though maybe just to defuse the tension. "If it locks us out after some attempts, it will just take longer. I don't plan to use the buttons by hand."

"Thank you, dear." Abby says when Ronny opens the keypad. She spends a moment studying the insides then unzips a few of her many sleek, black, canvas and leather bags to reveal a multitude of probes, wires, clips, and other things that can't be identified.

She takes out a rather simple-looking lead with only three crocodile-clips on each end and --being careful that the dangling ends don't touch each other-- clips two of them to tiny junctions inside the lock. Checking her computer screen one more time she clips the other ends of those two wires to a strange box with many knobs and dials and lights, plugs that device (Hacker Toolkit) into her new computer, and only then connects the third clip to the device and then the lock.

She quickly pulls her hand back as she does this and appears to be holding her breath. "No sparks is good." She says, she does not seem bothered by the small audience watching her, usually she has many more... though they are not normally quite so close.

Turning up a large knob on the toolkit the lights come on, she adjusts a few smaller knobs and flips a few switches, nodding in approval before sitting down cross-legged on the floor of the airlock in front of her computer screen. "This part may take a while." She declares to her 'audience'. "Go make yourself a cup of coffee. Make one for me too." She smiles at this, like a joke she has made many times before, only to look sad for a moment when she realises the joke does not work when her whole audience is right there and can bring her coffee --which one of you probably should do.

After more than an hour of 'just reading her screen' Abby makes a final adjustment to the box between her and the computer before saying. "Here goes..."

... and the lock clicks and indicates it is unlocked.

The other side of the airlock door is still at whatever pressure and atmosphere is inside the mothballed ship. The gauge indicates 'near vacuum', which you might hope is how they left it and not signs of a slow leak.

What do you do?

- Raf -

"Thank you, honey." Abby says, smiling at you as she takes the coffee and then returns to her work. You all know how each other like their coffee (or whatnot) by now, and it is just right.

"Hey!" Bob objects. "I live here, remember! And coffee is the nectar of the gods." Presumably Bob has an apartment, but he does spend most of his time flying, and not always from the same city, so this may be more like his home than anywhere else.

"Ginger can pressurise the airlock. Then we will need to equalise the pressure to what is inside the ship before you can go further." Abby looks nervous about this, never having been in space or experienced vacc suits as the rest of you have at some point.

"It will take forever to fill something that size from Ginger's systems, and would deplete my reserves. Would be much easier to get that ship's life-support running and purge the old, bad air and then refill it. That should only take a few hours, and you can get artificial gravity back online at the same time." Abby looks intrigued at the idea of 'zero-gravity', though --also new to her, but that sounds like fun and she has had quite a few questions about what it is like.

Between Raf and Bob you start the process of equalising airlock with Ginger.

Whoever is going in first should start suiting up. The airlock can accommodate three people at once, and Abby's gear takes up one of those spaces unless you want to try squash in.

Abby probably has to supervise the power-plant startup so she can override those access codes and 'signal-home' routines during the boot process, she may need a lot of help dealing with vacc suits and zero-G and her gear.

Who goes in first? What do you do?

From the caretaker's perspective nothing unusual has happened, you attached to the airlock as expected and it will take time to load your gear into the new ship and power up what you need to do your official job. He can not see the 'door', and for all he knows you are already inside. He may become suspicious if you take abnormally long to power up, or power up more than is needed for the work, but he may also figure he does not know exactly what you need to do.

Moving the ship or abnormal fueling activities are more likely to draw attention.

---

The airlock only takes a minute or two to cycle and you can start loading in. It will be cramped with three people and all Abby's gear, and she insists she needs all of it, this time for real.

There are vacc suits in the airlocks --both Ginger's and the new ship's(*), they are all TL8 suits, which weigh 28Kgs. Abby struggles with the weight in Ginger's Artificial Gravity. "At least I won't have to worry about this in zero-G." She says.

Someone needs to give Abby some basic training, and remind her that gravity only affects weight, not momentum, so the extra mass is still a problem when she needs to get it moving, but more importantly when she needs to decelerate it, possibly in a hurry.

- Lio -

"Sure. Sweety." Abby says with a radiant smile. "The techniques are really very simple." She answers as many experts in their respective fields often do. "But I did just spend the last month preparing and doing research and recon... and hoping the real thing was like the leaked designs." She adds trying and failing to sound modest. She is clearly buoyed up by the success and the excitement of what comes next.

Abby is both nervous and excited, and needed lots of help getting into the Vacc Suit. Eventually she and Ronny and Raf enter the airlock and start the cycle to enter the ship.

Lio is left to deal with the gear-bags, with Bob --who is planning on staying with Ginger-- to help load.

What do you do?

The constant faffing with the suit-seals is making Abby nervous, but she gives Raf a thankful smile when he is done.

As the air pressure goes down the suits' internal pressure causes them to try to expand and they creak in ways that the men are used to, but which induce some panic in first-timer Abby. "What's happening? Is that normal?" She squeaks before being reassured... repeatedly. As the inner door opens she is actually holding her breath.

"Er... Yes." Abby agrees with Raf, and it seems that focusing on work helps keep her mind calm. "That's the plan. Yes."

She watches in amazement as Raf (presumably first?) steps out from the airlock where the artificial gravity is still active into the void of the ship and floats free.

There is always a strange, curved gravity-gradient when transitioning from grav-plates. Gravity spills out from the plates in a curve (like iron-filings above a magnet). This adds to any disorientation people feel when leaving an airlock.

Raf's magnetic boots could help him, and help him help Abby as she steps out, but she does not have such boots, nor know how to use such things. Vacc suits always have many ways to attach to work surfaces when stationary, though, and can be tethered together.

Raf could attempt to get Life Support running without powering up the main power-plant, but that will be a big job, and would need to be reversed again as soon as the ship is active. This may only be worth it if the vacc suits prove too high an impediment to getting the actual job done.

What do you do?