“Pass me one of those canisters…” Cavalon began, then with a frown added, “and some safety gloves, if you have them.” In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t bother, but Rake would probably yell at him if he melted all the skin off his hands.
Emery shrugged off her skeptical look, digging under the counter again while Warner walked over with one of the mismatched canisters they’d appropriated from the research lab. Cavalon moved to the tail of the missile and unscrewed three different access panels before he found the right one. He lowered the cradle closer to the top of the workbench, then positioned the canister under it. Warner dropped a glass funnel into the top.
Emery surfaced and tossed a pair of gloves at Cavalon. He pulled them on, stretching the rubbery fabric up to his elbows. Inside the missile, he picked through the mess of wiring, fishing past the primary launch components toward the guidance module.
He expected to have to pry the smaller unit open to find the thruster lines, but to his delight, the black tubing instead lay affixed to the sides of it. With the wire cutters, he snapped the brackets holding it in place, pulled the rubber tubing free, then snipped it open. Twisting the missile a few degrees in its cradle, he angled the sliced tube until the thick acium began to flow out and into the funnel.
Concern tightened his chest as the element gathering in the canister emerged much as he’d feared: a very faint, soft blue glow. At full power, the element would be almost blinding in its luminance, even in such small quantities. Which meant the vacuum-sealed propulsion systems he’d researched must have been an advancement standardized sometime in the last two centuries.
“Well…” he said, yanking off the gloves. “Shit.”
Emery leaned closer. “What’s the problem, boss?”
Boss? With an effort he ignored it and shuffled closer to the missile, squatting to put his shoulder under the tail and lift it a few centimeters so the element would drip out slightly faster.
“It’s good you guys never had to use these things,” he said. “They’d probably have never made it to their target.”
“Isn’t this stuff supposed to last forever?” Emery asked.
“When it’s sealed in an airtight core or lines, then yes. But it weakens when it’s been exposed to oxygen for this long.”
“Damn. We gonna need more of it?”
“Probably.” Cavalon wiped a trickle of sweat off the back of his neck. “Can you call the optio up here?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Emery piped.
“I’m not the boss,” he grumbled, but she didn’t react.
Emery crossed to the entrance and slid open the comms interface on the control panel beside the doorway. “Bridge, this is, uh…” She grinned and lowered her voice to speak in a conspiratorial hush. “… special operations team alpha calling from an undisclosed location in Octo Sector.”
Cavalon leveled a look at her, and her grin broadened.
“Uh, go for bridge,” Kamara’s wary voice answered.
“Optio’s presence is required for a critical inquiry.”
“Emery, is that you?” Kamara admonished. “What are you doing?”
Emery rolled her eyes and returned to her normal timbre. “It’s EX sanctioned, Kam, I swear. Just send the optio down.”
“Yeah, copy that. I’ll tell him,” Kamara replied, then clicked off.
“Why we doin’ this anyway?” Emery asked, returning to lean against the workbench beside Cavalon. “Don’t we need these missiles to, ya know, be functional?”
“Er, it’s…” Cavalon gave her a sidelong glance. “Classified.”