The emergency klaxon was drilling into Sabro's head, while its corresponding blue mini-lights along the edge of the overhead, running throughout the companionways of FRS-28, pulsed steadily, low-to-high-to-low again.
Blue, blue...blue's a Rescue.
It was a rhyme from the first days of Fire-Rescue training, and it ran across Sabro's memory, just like always. Running to the locker room with the others, the details updated in xyr goggles, as a heads-up overlay.
ZONE-101/FREELINE/01-STA/SUIT-OK/FREEFALL-IM
Opal City Station, being wheel-shaped, was divided into 180 zones, corresponding to the degrees of a circle, as viewed in profile. ZONE-101 of the outer ring was the incident's reported location. Fire-Rescue Station 28 covered zones 91 through 135 on the outside exterior of the rotating space colony.
FREELINE referred to an untethered person who was not able to reach a platform, airlock, or walkway on their own.
01-STA was code for the person being conscious and/or not in critical need of medical attention. It also meant they were currently stationary; no need to hunt down a moving target.
SUIT-OK meant the person wasn't in immediate peril of vacuum exposure or other form of asphixiation, temperature extremes, or dealing with some sort of malfunction.
FREEFALL-IM...the person could enter freefall at any time.
Taken together, this report was of a person, probably a vacsuited worker, on the exterior of the spinning station, who was not seriously injured, but also not securely tied to the outer hull — in fact, they were holding on for dear life!
While still clinging to the station, rescue was always possible. If you fell off, an FR boat had to give chase. Getting you back was still possible, but if that took longer than the amount of time your air reserves had left, it became a recovery mission, not a rescue. No one wanted that.
"Sab! Take the wheel!" Group Leader Dirrens called over comms, when they were all suited up, and standing in the big airlock. GL Dirrens was a thin woman of middle years, who kept her long, pink hair in a tight bun, so it wouldn't slow down helmet donning.
The rail lines allowed for quick transport to and from the scenes of emergencies, but they didn't cover every square meter of the hull by any means. They ran along the outer wheel of the station, and the Fire-Rescue monorail vehicle for FRS-26 was attached to it from above, somewhat like an old-time cable car. It ran along a magenetic track that criss-crossed the hull, intersecting many others, allowing workers and emergency service people to traverse the exterior of the station with ease. But these cars were the very final places of safety on Opal City. Step out of an over-rail car here, and centrifugal force threw you away from the colony at ten meters per second; in the minutes it would take an FRS unit to respond, you were already kilometers away, and still falling. Forever falling.
Since Sabro had the wheel of the FR over-rail transport (that was a just a saying: there wasn't any wheel, just buttons), xe was driving; or, more properly, would be handling the fine maneuvering of their rail vehicle once they arrived. It would be up to xem to get as close as possible to the scene of the emergency. A dedicated AI, or deadeye, would get them to the vicinity quickly and safely. It was the last few meters that could be tricky, if the person in need of help wasn't within the physical reach of the crew on the car. Fire-Rescue over-rails were on gamboled frames that could shift left and right, and even extend downward by several meters. Additionally, the car was outfitted with extending arms and grabbers, allowing for the safe recovery of victims and/or fellow FR personnel: tethered brachiation, in and across the cables, girders, support struts, and over-rail tracks, was a common requirement of the job, and sometimes teammates needed help getting back.
As the AI drove them to the scene, exterior red lights flashing, more details of the situation came up on Sabro's goggle lenses.
The victim was a man doing maintenance on one of the hundreds of thousands of antennae on the station's hull. He had thought his harness was properly secured, but hhd either failed to double-check it, or the clip had given way. He leaned out, reaching for something on the antenna's mount, while fully expecting the tether to hold, and just tipped right out of the car. He fell for five meters, but caught a cross-t of the antenna itself, and was now holding on. He'd managed to pull himself up into a sitting position, but was entirely out of the reach of his fellow workers in the maintenance car above.
GL Dirrens talked with the worker on the common channel. He sounded shaken and painful, stating that he'd caught the cross-t with one arm, which now felt dislocated, or broken. Climbing up to sit had been very difficult. He hooked his suit clip to the antenna (the Group Leader instructed him double-check it), so he wasn't in immediate danger now, but was definitely stuck.
Three minutes later, the antenna in question came into sight. It was highlighted briefly by a bright glint from the system primary, as the universe spun about slowly around them. The maintenance car was still in place, and the workers in it waved at them as they slowed to a halt. The maintenance car moved over to allow the FR team to get closer.
Sabro took the controls from the AI now, and jockeyed the car's shiftable frame over, over, then forward a bit as one of the team watched the vehicle's spacing and proximity to the antenna, and gave verbal instructions.
"We see you now..." GL Dirrens announced to the man on the channel, while peering over the edge. "Just hold on. We're sending people down."
Sabro fiddled with the controls a bit, and angled an exterior camera on the car with an articulated arm, until it pointed at the stranded and injured worker. This view was piped to all the team members, appearing as a small window in their heads-up displays. Two of their number were harnessing themselves to a winch line. They'd go down, get the man into a harness of his own, then be slowly winched back up. They would have to navigate around other cross-branches of the antenna, both coming and going. This was a serious situation, but could have been much worse.
As the stars slid by in their endless loop, Sabro watched xyr partners ease down through total vacuum to save a life. It was the best job in the galaxy!