Ten days after the funeral. While the crew was over the initial shock of a fellow member dying in the line of duty, there was still a lot of bitching over the delay in Mister Particle’s rescue. Why hadn’t he been there? Was he even doing his job? Wasn’t he supposed to be ready for this kind of emergency? I heard these questions and more. Truthfully, it was total BS. Particle had been off-duty, he wasn’t slated to return to the Core until 18:00 that evening. After the call had gone down, he’d arrived on the scene in less than a minute. Had he been away any longer, the radiation from the reactor would have leaked out and there weren’t enough Darts on board at the time to get everyone safely off. I’d read through the Tower Ops Manual and learned it all by heart, especially the Emergency Evacuation Procedures. Paraphrased, it went like this: Rule #1: “In the event of an explosive decompression or a radiation leak, evacuate all personnel who aren’t in immediate danger if at all possible, seal off the area, investigate and take appropriate measures.”
