I got our tethers connected as the airlock depressurized, half expecting my suit to swell and burst. Sound took on the muted, muffled quality of vacuum, and my own breathing and the hiss of my suit's internal air supply became overly loud in my ears. I twisted the lock on the outer door and pushed open the hatch.

A space walk was something I had never done as a human. I'd gone into orbit once in a technician role with NuEarth but had used robotic arms to perform repairs on a satellite. As much as I'd wanted to do an EVA, or space walk, as most people call them, it just wasn't necessary. Now it was the opposite. This EVA was 100% necessary, and I really didn't want to go out there. But I had no choice.

We were high enough in Rava's atmosphere that I didn't have to worry about getting sucked out in a low-pressure slipstream. I still had the flight data display window, and it still showed an ascent, but the speed was starting to trend downward as the mission clock now worked against us. There was only supposed to be a few seconds between the first-stage tank running dry and the ignition of the second-stage motor.

Outside the airlock, the blue curve of the horizon split the pure black of space from the surface of the planet now many miles below us. I could see the entire continent of Rava spread out below us, as well as other landmasses across a vast sea. A greasy black trail from where our first stage had separated spiraled back down to a distant thread on the surface, and from this altitude, I couldn't make out the individual bluffs of our little empire, or the cities of the humans and the Ifrit.

I pulled myself around the hatch and started to scramble down the length of the I could see warped and sheared metal at the aft end, and I drifted toward it.

"Looks like the ring failed to separate," I called. "Don't try to fire up the second stage, I'm going to inspect the damage."

"Aye, boss," called Eileen.

The exterior of the rocket's surface was far from smooth and offered handholds and protruding bits to pull myself along towards the damaged area. Once I got closer, it wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. The transition ring linking the first and second stage had failed. It had only partially blown and put the first stage motor on an off-axis thrust vector that sheared the whole thing off below the ring. The incredible thrust from the motor had broken the back 2/3rds of the rocket away several chooms below the transition ring.

"Come on," I said to Armstrong and Neil.

"Boss, what happens if we can't fix it?" asked Armstrong. I glanced over at the hobgoblin in his larger suit, nose pressed to the glass of his helmet.

"Then the Ifrit bail and we test the extent of our fall damage immunity, I suppose," I said. "But that's not going to happen. Let's go."

I reached the damaged area and pulled myself around to the interior of the assembly. The nozzle for the second stage motor yawned overhead, ready to ignite. But twisted metal from the dirty stage separation blocked the output. If we burned it now, the exhaust would reflect back up and melt the aft-end of the rocket in seconds. I brought the tool bag around and pulled out a prybar, handing it over to Armstrong. "See if you can pry those panels up," I said, pointing to the whistler hide sheets blocking the output. But it was only a stopgap.

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I pulled myself up to the inside of the ring which was supposed to cleanly separate the first and second stages through a set of small explosive charges. But when the first stage cutoff had shorted and failed, the torque had warped the ring and blown half the charges, while mangling the detonators on the other half. I reached into my bag and pulled out a pair of wrenches, handing on to Neil.

"Start here, work your way around. Get these bolts out," I said. "I'll take the other side."

Neil and I started wrenching away, prying out bolts from the damaged ring. But it was a slow process. Some of the bolts were stripped or damaged

"Boss," came Chuck's voice, "Bugs crunched the numbers. We need to start the next burn soon or we'll miss our window. Station's already in sight."

I pulled myself up to the gap in the ring and peered through at the eastern horizon. Sure enough, I could see the glow of the Ifrit sun crystals that we were using to power the station.

"Working on it," I said. But it was slow. Too slow. Neil had managed to pry up 6 or 7 bolts, and I'd done 5 myself. But there were at least 16 more in the damaged section. What's more, Armstrong was struggling to shift the debris in the way of the nozzle.

"Boss, it ain't giving up," he said, panting over the radio as he put his strength to work against the twisted metal. We had to get that ring separated. I pulled myself to the next part of the damaged ring.

"Boss, I can't reach anymore bolts," said Neil.

"What?" I asked, looking over. Sure enough, his tether was taut, and he struggled to get his wrench close enough to get a grip on the head of the locking bolt. I pushed off the ring and floated over, only to reach the end of my own rope and barely managed to catch the side of the ring to keep myself from rebounding. I stretched my arm out, trying to reach the damaged area and grunting with effort.

"It's no good," I said. "Let's go back, we'll rig our tethers together to get the length we need."

"No time for that, boss," said Neil. He reached down and unclipped his tether.

"Neil, no!" he said.

"You heard Chuck. Gotta get this motor burning. Gimme the wrench."

I handed over the wrench as the now-untethered Neil went to work on the bolts.

"Armstrong," I said. "You're not shifting that debris. Go back to the airlock and use your own tether to extend mine."

"Onnit," he said, scrambling out and over the edge of the transition ring.

"Neil, how's it coming?"

Neil was jerking his wrench against one of the bolts. "It's no good, boss. It's jammed up good. The bolt got warped on this side. We'd need more force than this wrench can…"

"What kind of force?" I asked, apprehension growing. Neil turned to me, mouth spreading in a manic grin as his eyes began to glaze over. There were only a few things in life that made Neil smile. "What kind of force, Neil?"

Neil reached into his own pouch and pulled out a pair of small, round objects. Poppers. He'd smuggled explosives onto the rocket.

"Armstrong," said Neil, "Pull him out of there,"

"No!" I shouted "Armstrong, don't!"

I felt a jerk at my back as the chief of my secretive service yanked on the tether. I hit the inside of the transition ring and then bounced off, out into space, where my arc carried me out away from the rocket. Armstrong stood braced in the doorway, pulling my tether in hand over hand.

"Neil!"

"Don't worry, boss. It was built to 'splode. I'm just fixin' it up."

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