Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 12 - Dropping the Tank

First thing after breakfast, Megan had Aron and Margaux begin the operation to remove the propellant tank. Santiago and Ekono were also on hand to provide assistance where possible. Aron's plan was to use three portable winches to do as much of the work as possible and to maximise safety.

Walter, due to his gel eating incident, was still confined to the vessel, so he was monitoring the operation from the Control Room and daily medical checks by Santiago. While he was there he ran more diagnostics on the ion drives. He knew for their target of escaping to be viable, they had to get the ion drives back into flight readiness. He also started a series of checks on the Arcadian's two fusion reactors. He was worried about the heat sinks as they were not designed to operate in an atmosphere.

Tino and Meera had been given the job of packing up the laboratory equipment, collapsing the trestle tables and moving the whole lot down to the Auxiliary Storage Room ready to be lowered into the Hatch Room.

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Restricted by their E.V.A. suits, it took almost two hours to get the winches in place. There was nowhere suitable to attach the winch that would swing the base of the propellant module away from the support frame so Aron had been forced to improvise with a large pulley mounted on the outside of the frame and connecting the steel cable to the innermost side of the module. It would apply force in the correct direction but the pulley was only rated to three-quarters of the force it would be withstanding.

Walter had already drained the tank of any xenon residue and sealed off the valves. With everything in place, the next step was to blow the bolts which attached the module to the support frame that surrounded the vessel. Aron was standing on the topmost walkway, some twenty-eight metres above the ground, ready to control the main winch. Margaux was standing some seven or eight metres away from the base of the Arcadian ready to give feedback on the movement of the module and held the control box for the bottom winch.

Megan radioed Walter to detonate the separation charges and an almost simultaneous series of sharp pops rang out, resonating through the support frame and lightly vibrating the whole ship. Puffs of white smoke rose slowly from the bolt positions along the side of the module.

For a moment, the module sagged worryingly then Aron started up the top winch and the whole module very gradually raised upwards, scraping on the frame as it moved. Margaux counted off the centimetres until the base would be clear of the bottommost strut of the support frame. Aron lifted the module until it was about a metre clear then told Margaux to very slowly swing the module away from the ship.

The second winch started up on command and she applied as little force as possible to pull it sideways. The cable went taut then creaked slightly as the twenty-two tonnes began to swing. The huge cylinder moved painfully slowly but it was safer that way. Everyone was relieved that it was moving precisely as expected.

Aron moved along the narrow walkway at the top of the support frame to get a better angle on the tank's movement. The tank was almost halfway through its slow horizontal swing when Margaux spoke on the radio again to request an extra few centimetres of height. Aron gently hoisted the entire tank another fifteen centimetres upwards. Margaux thanked him and started up her winch again.

As the tank passed the halfway mark, Aron instructed Ekono to slowly run the third winch to pull the horizontal support cable taut. That one would not be holding much weight, but would ensure that the cylinder did not roll sideways and fall back into the support frame. Ekono removed enough slack so that his cable was touching the tank but not supporting any of the weight.

The three of them continued to work in synchronisation as the tank moved further out from the frame. Aron had to lift it a couple more times before the base swung clear. That was probably the trickiest part of the operation complete.