Quoted By:
Of course, such a thing is patently unlikely. Especially on a hulk that seems to have already been gutted and towed. But you have already established that the naval architect who designed the ship presumably intended that the inside of the viewing station to be pressurized, and unexpectedly still-pressurized areas are not completely unheard of. And the horror stories of what happens to wreckers unlucky enough to cut into one are chilling enough that as a part of your certification, you are taught to think before you cut. So that is exactly what you do.
Now, you cannot count on 'freeze sucking', as you know for a fact that the boneyard here is not far enough from Mendicant - the systems star - for the temperature inside the hulk to fall to a point where the air could condense into a liquid and depressurize the interior on its own. However, now that you are looking closely, you can see evidence of strain in the substructure of the copula, especially in spots where the substructure meets the ceiling. Paint chips missing, and faint concave contortions in the metal indicate that the inside of the station was cooled and deflated. As certain as you are going to be without actually attempting the cut, you unsling your wrecking torch, anchor yourself, then after getting the cutting head as far away from you as possible, you pump out some insulating flux on a cross beam in between two rectangular view-ports. Thankful for the flux, and that at the very least, the metal is not going to shatter like glass, you ignite the torch and bore an exploratory hole through the member.
Nothing happens - but before you are even going to fractionally let your guard down, you double check by getting one of the wisps down by the hole to make sure that you got it all the way through,. You did though. Finally, you allow yourself a shallow sigh of relief, then you are moving and cutting as quick as you can to pull enough view-ports out for you to get inside the substructure. You make short work of it, and soon you and your tools are all inside. The room is relatively small, probably five cubits by five cubits. Besides what you have already seen of it, along two of the walls, there are little metal shelves, which presumably once held the paper and the trash floating around the station. There is also a mounted operators' chair in front of the console. Above you, you can see that the hatch is open. Interestingly, it looks like is was pried open from the outside.