The compartment contained a lot of useful stuff. He grabbed a utility blade and leaned back on his shoulder, still holding the heavy door up. He stuffed the knife into one of the pockets on the front of his flightsuit.

“Did you find them?” Riggs asked.

Cole grunted and forced himself back on his side. “Not yet,” he hollered. He saw a large wrench strapped to one wall of the compart-ment and worked it loose, then propped it under the heavy hatch, holding it up. Letting go of the lid, Cole worked his head into the bin and started rummaging around by the soft, blue light of the biostick.

“Got ’em,” he said, his voice echoing in the metal compartment. He came out with three welding plates held together with a rubber band. Each of them should snap into the inside of their visors, hopefully providing protection from the light outside. One of them was marred with scratches and small blisters where bits of glowing metal had landed on it. Someone must’ve been welding as they held the plate in their hand, pretty much ruining the thing. Cole rolled over and slid the curved piece of plasteel into his hip pocket and looked for anything else useful. Satisfied with what he had, he turned around in the tight crawlspace, banging his helmet on some pipes as he wiggled back toward the shaft of light.

“One for each?” Riggs asked, looking at the dark plates of plasteel in Cole’s hand.

“Yup. And a third that’s in pretty bad shape. Here.”

They had to pop their helmets off to snap the plates to the insides of their visors. Every movement brought grunts of exertion as they tried to position themselves on mechanical systems that should’ve been above them, easy to access from the sliding mechanic’s cart.

Cole got his helmet back on and snapped the visor down. It made everything pitch-black, so he lifted it back up. He hadn’t done much welding, not since making it into flight school, but he could remember how you had to move the wand into place by feel, not able to see anything until the plasma arced out to whatever you were working on.

“I’m going first this time,” Riggs said. He had his helmet back in place, his visor open.

Cole nodded. He left his own visor cracked just enough to see where he was putting his hands and knees; the angle of the plasteel blocked off the blinding light from above.

Riggs worked both survival kits between the mechanic’s rails and up into the landing gear housing, a square column of hydraulic pistons, wires, and cables. He slowly wormed his way out of sight, his feet ascending up into the falling flakes of snow. Cole pushed behind and prepared to make the climb out as well.

“It’s cold as Pluto up here,” Riggs said, his voice muffled by his helmet. “I can’t see anything.”