From the frying pan airlock into the fire airlock.
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After watching and waiting for his moment, Gerek jumped out of the airlock at the Clentitians and yelled, “Grahhh!” He punched one and shoved the other and then jumped into the next airlock and slammed the door behind him. One of the Clentitians looked through the glass parts of the door after him and said, “Ha! Shutting yourself in an airlock was a fool’s move. Now we can simply open the outer door and eject… Oh. He already did. Some people take the fun out of everything.” The other Clentitian said, “Hey, why do you think there are no spacesuits in the airlock?”
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Is Gerek going out the airlock to see if can undo the weld keeping Val and Audri’s escape pod from leaving the ship? I hope so.
“Welding” refers to paying a some welds to hold something in place.
Hardy folk, welds.
He’s no fun getting shot at with lasers, either.
Near indestructible as Gerek is, he can’t endure vacuum forever. He’s going after something I suspect he can’t get to any other way.
Wish this didn’t remind of the final duty of chief engineer Ortega in Heinlein’s ‘Farmer in the Sky.’ You get one chance to save everybody. After that —-phffft!