“They’ve fired our engines. Wondering if we did something to tip them off. Is it looking workable?”

“When do they get here?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“You need to hurry.”

Great. The intercept was imminent.

She scaled down the pipe rack, trying to stay focused on the task and ignore the approaching threat. “This will go in three steps,” she said. “First, I’m going to close the upstream supply to the four thrusters, bottle-necking the pressure. Then I’ll empty the packing gland on the key downstream valve below the thruster that I want to destroy. I’ll return to the upstream shut-off valve and open it back up. All of that pressure will overwhelm the downstream valve below the thruster. Either the whole thing will blow or it will vent through the gland on top. If I’m not melted, I’ll crawl back down to the conjunction of decks two and three and manually adjust the bypass valve there so the entire system doesn’t bleed out into space. If you do regain control of the ship, remember that you won’t have upward pitch. Got it?”

“No upward pitch means no downward pitch either. If I fire the ventral thrusters we’ll somersault forever.”

“Yeah, which is why I’ll try to get back and lock down the sabotaged valve once the job is done, so you’ll get three of the four back.”

The added acceleration made everything more difficult. She tugged herself to the ship’s fore, up to the main shut-off valve for the bank of thrusters, and unfolded the lever that controlled the aperture of the big gate valve.

“Quickly, Naecia.”

It was larger than she was. She slid the lever out from the flange assembly and wrenched it downward. It slammed all the way open and her hands slipped off. She’d overestimated how difficult it would be. Having lost her hold, she tumbled back over the hull’s arc, and right past the valve she needed to sabotage. She ping-ponged between pipes and equipment, finally crashing into the bulkhead back down at the second level with a force that would have killed her had she not been in Aptat’s indestructible suit. It still hurt, though. A lot.

“Is it done?”

Naecia groaned. “Uh... no.”

“Are you injured?”

“I lost my grip. I’ll be okay. But…” she winced, her chest tightening. “I need to go back up and open the packing gland on the thruster valve.”