Free Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel by Amy Kathleen Ryan

only half the battle; the entire area was flooded with radiation. He knew that OneMen were equipped with radiation shields and oxygen. If only the engine room hatch was big enough to fit a OneMan! Seth leaned back, his arm behind his head, and thought.
    OneMen were really glorified space suits. They were bulky because of the outer metal shell, the oxygen tanks, and the rocket packs on the back. But inside each OneMan was an inner sleeve that served as a second layer of protection. If that could be removed from the bulky parts of the OneMan, the wearer would easily fit through the engine room hatch.
    It was worth a try.
    Seth got up, brushing off juniper needles, and crept to the empty corridor, his father’s portable computer tucked under his arm. When he was sure no one was around, he sprinted to the outer stairwell, up seven levels for the starboard shuttle bay, and slipped through the doorway.
    The shuttle bay was eerily quiet. Here was where the majority of the Empyrean crew members had met their deaths, and it felt like a tomb. The visors of the OneMen hanging along the walls were as eerie as death masks.
    He went to the nearest OneMan and, using the automated system, lowered it from its housing and removed the helmet. He plunged his hand between the soft fabric and the hard shell. The fabric looked metallic and it felt like flexible plastic, but Seth knew it was an advanced carbon polymer modeled after the fibers of a spider, the strongest filament known. It was perfectly airtight and lined with micron-thick lead. It would protect him from the engine room radiation, and once he’d disconnected himself from the air tanks, there’d be at least a few minutes worth of oxygen within the suit for him to breathe, enough to get a look around, but not for much more.
    He released the connectors that held the envelope in place and pulled it out by the collar. It looked like a silvery jumpsuit. Seth pulled it on, and the remarkable fabric stretched to accommodate his long frame. Fitting the helmet over the envelope, he heard the automatic click sealing him inside. His ears popped reassuringly when the pressure seals engaged. He climbed into the outer-shell OneMan, leaving the lower connections between the shell and the fabric envelope open so that when the time came, he could simply leave the shell.
    He was ready.
    “The engineers designed something well for a change,” he muttered.
    He engaged the thrusters to lessen the weight of the vessel, turned on the oxygen from the tanks, and walked with ponderous steps over to the smaller air lock that was meant for OneMen. Once inside the air lock, he felt as though he’d stepped into a coffin. The heavy metal doors slammed closed behind him, and he jumped inside his suit when the air lock cleared itself with an explosive rush.
    He felt the metal shell of the OneMan expand with the pressure difference. Now all Seth had to do was open the outer doors, and there’d be nothing between him and the rest of the universe.
    He’d never admitted this to anyone, but space walks terrified him. He’d had to perform several after the damage Kieran had done to the atmospheric conditioning plant. Seth had acted as foreman, teaching the other boys how to use the complex tools, showing them where to make the repairs. The entire time he’d been quaking in his suit, covered with cold sweat, his heart racing. When he looked in any direction in space, there was nothing between him and eternity. The feeling of his own smallness before all that vast, empty cold made his bile rise.
    It would be even worse this time: No one knew he was going out here. One wrong move could send him spinning away from the ship, and there’d be no one to come looking for him.
    He couldn’t let himself think of that.
    “I’m not afraid,” he told himself with a shaking voice, took a deep breath, and opened the outer doorway.
    The door yawned open to the awful blackness of space. The stars were crisp pinpoints, so