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You think to reply as well, but the words die in your mouth. Gently, you push forward, grabbing a nearby rail and using it to spin yourself around in the low gravity of the hangar. Pushing against the floor of the machine pit, you kick yourself powerfully forward and throw yourself into a low glide across the floor, towards the place where the airlock doors were slowly cranking open. The support bars of the upper deck go flying past you, interspersed occasionally with a unit in a cradle, and your forward speed is slowly brought down not by the resistance of the air, but the gradual acceleration of the ship itself.
Bringing yourself to a stop in midair, you duck beneath the massive ceramite doors of the airlock just as they begin to slide shut again. The gleaming white unit walks ahead of you, seemingly content to ignore you as it stepped into an open launch rail. Drones flitted past you, the intelligences giving a friendly greeting as they rushed to lift supply cables and restraint lines into place. A warning klaxon sounded, a hololithic indicator in yellow appearing beneath the launch rail.
The unit bows slightly, allowing itself to be lashed to the launch system, rear thrusters gently flickering and humming in preparation. It's back flexes with a dozen small articulators, weaponry coming to ready position, reactor whining as it spun to full, screaming power. For a brief second, it was suspended in the air, thrusters fighting against the tether holding it in place before the quick-release gave, and the launch rail ripped it forward, sparks flying from the high-energy contacts and throwing it out and into the black in a rush of escaping atmosphere and screaming engines.
<span class="mu-i">"Crow-2 away."</span>
Another klaxon sounds, and you see the second launch tube opening, rail returning to ready position with a smooth hiss of conductors-
A team of bondsman, bound to each other and to the rail labor to push a massive rotating gear the height of five men, slowly cranking the tension mechanism tighter as it moves along it's track. When the work is complete, they will have to step clear, lest the recoiling gear shred them and their fellows. They wheeze and strain as they push, slipping on the slick oils that keep the launch mechanism operating smoothly, more than a hundred men forming a line to operate the pulley system. Techpriests crack whips near the men who falter, biomonitoring suites glowing beneath their hoods.
