The three women crept through the tiny airlock into the crawl-way, closing the hatch behind them. At the far end, Judith studied the dial on the hatch.
Her face was pale when she turned awkwardly in the confined space to look at the other two. 'Check suits. The ship isn't pressurised.'
'And you're surprised at that?' Debbi said.
When each reported that they were fully sealed, Judith opened the hatch, her suit swelling as the air vanished out of the tunnel. They each turned on their headlamps and began to explore. It was immediately clear that they were in the outer shell because the compartment they had entered had a ragged tear open to space along its length. At its widest point, the tear was easily broad enough to walk right through, but it stopped at the next bulkhead.
The hatch hung open on one hinge and the three women stepped through avoiding the jagged edges of the torn closing bolts. On the other side, a shattered viewport gave a view of the barrels which had been visible from the dome. They were long and tapered, and the lateral vents at the far end indicated some sort of muzzle. The next compartment promised to be the one where the guns, if that was what they were, should be mounted. Unlike the previous one, the way through the second bulkhead was blocked by a closed hatch.
Judith inspected the pressure gauge.
'Probably was pressured once but it's all but leaked away now,' she said. With no power in the wrecked ship, there was only one way through the hatch which should open into the gun port. The manual wheel mounted in the centre of the hatch must be turned to withdraw the bolts holding it shut. Each of them took turns in trying to rotate the wheel. When that didn't have any effect, they arranged themselves so that they could all pull at once.
Judith uttered a rare curse and said, 'If we can't get through this way, we'll have to go out and try from the other side.'
'Do we have time for that?' Debbi asked.
'Probably not.'
'We mechanics sometimes carry small amounts of explosive on salvage missions. Generally for the specific purpose of blowing hatches which are stuck,' Lucy piped up.
'I hope you're not going to tell us you have it in the front pouch of your suit,' Debbi said, stepping back with a look of horror showing through the faceplate of her suit.
'Course not. It's in a safety compartment in my toolbox.'
In her enthusiasm to obtain the item in question, Lucy launched herself off with so much force that she bounced right up to the roof of the compartment and back down again before she thought of compensating for the reduced gravity.
While they waited, Debbi looked around for any sort of lever and Judith went out through the rent in the previous compartment to inspect the gun turret from the outside. Judith found to her relief that the installation looked undamaged from what she could see and she returned at the same time as Lucy, who was glad of the ballast provided by her tool box.
With due care and precision, Lucy expertly placed three magnetic shaped charge holders over the part of the hatch mechanism holding the bolts. Use of a shaped charge produced a focussed downwards blast to cut through the bolts. Next Lucy carefully removed three small cylinders from their packaging and slid them into the charge holders. Caps were screwed in place to retain the charge and Lucy ordered Judith and Lucy to take up safe positions before she turned a small ring on each charge holder and pressed the timer release button.
Lucy bounced away to join her colleagues, reaching them just as three puffs of dust and smoke erupted from the charge holders, which thereupon detached themselves from the hatch. Judith waited for Lucy to quickly retrieve her equipment and replace it in her toolbox before trying the wheel on the hatch. The wheel span to no effect, as the bolts were cut clean through, but by pulling on the wheel, the hatch opened easily.
'Well done, Lucy,' Judith said leaning through the hatch. 'Let's see what we have here.'
There was just room for all three of the women to stand in a narrow compartment which on one side lead deep into the interior of the ship. Stretching away from them into the core of the vessel was a conveyor belt. On the belt were artillery shells.
'What are those?' Lucy gasped.
Judith swung her head and her lamp illuminated what she explained looked like the breach of a gun large enough to accommodate the shells. In silent confirmation, a number of shell casings lay around the compartment floor.
Lucy crossed the compartment in a single bound and grabbed the loading mechanism on the gun to steady herself. It swung open and an empty shell case sprang out, missing her by inches. Lucy and Judith working together were able to lift one of the shells and place it in the breach. The gun was mounted inside a transparent bubble, the whole of which was manoeuvrable in any direction within the field of view. Without power, however, it could not be moved.
Debbi assessed the situation straight away. 'I can't run cable through here to operate the sighting mechanism without emptying the domes of air and we only have a few hours of personal supply left.'
'We could get the hydraulic lifter in here through that rent in the first compartment, then it would only need one, or at the most two of us, to operate this thing.'
'That's what we'll do, then. OK, we all go back to where there's air in the domes. Lucy, you and I will take the hydraulic lifter suit round the outside and in through the tear in the hull, then walk it through here. It should be capable of aiming the gun by sheer force. Debbi, you set up your laser thing if you think it'll do something this giant popgun can't.'