TROUBLE???

by Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Kiko Nao Rhys, on LOA from Tempcorps, now 'Babysitter' for a self guided, sub-light Polar-North supply ship, cursed at the battered box she was trying to remove. "Stupid merg controller" she rasped. "Come out of there." Bracing her legs she gave another wrench, trying to force the oblong box. It grated as it slid free of its nesting place. With a muted crack of shattered glass it broke loose, causing mouse and box to float across the tiny engineering deck. She reached out, almost without thinking, and grabbed a stanchion instants before her head would have painfully impacted the opposite wall. Dust and glass fragments floated from the open bay, drifting slowly towards a nearby air intake.

It was a matter of minutes to lock the gravity controller onto her ancient worktable. She took care to enclose the half meter box within a clear plastic work dome (clear, if you discounted years of bangs, nicks, scratches and strange stains.) Without the controller what little artificial gravity the decrepit freighter normally had was gone. Small parts would float away, to instantly cause failure in some other critical area.

Finished reading her workplace she called up the controllers schematics, at the same time reaching for her private toolkit. Its contents were centuries ahead of what had been left aboard. Since boarding the 'ship' she had spent the last month bringing critical systems back on-line. There had been almost a whole day between her last patch job before the A-gravity controller had blown. It's failure had left her without one of the few luxuries the ship had. Rubbing her eyes she turned the flickering monitor to face her work area, and started pulling teeth... I mean screws.

Moral Officer on a Survey Ship was starting to look better every day.

Three hours later an alarm sounded, causing her to jerk. Her screwdriver slid across the corroded case, sliding off catching the palm of her right hand. Blood quickly welled up from the long, thin wound. Without a word, the long suffering mouse sucked at the wound as she pulled herself up to the freighters 'Bridge.'

'Needs salt' she thought to herself as she settled into a many-times patched chair. No pilot, it took her several precious seconds to figure out what was going on. Then she spotted it. A fast ship was coming poleward from Uranus. Their flight paths were going to be close, too close according to the barely functioning navigation computer. Turning on the ancient radio she selected this systems 'standard' emergency channel. "As if anything on this ship was standard" she grumbled. Pulling the mike to herself, she pressed the transmit key.

"Unknown ship, this is Polar Supply Ship BOB BARKER, you are on a collision course. Unknown ship..."

She repeated her call on several channels before deciding that;

                                                   A: The other ship was ignoring her.

                                                   B: The others radio malfunctioning.

                                                   C: Her radio was malfunctioning.

Considering the state of her craft, it was most likely the problem was on her end. She slammed her fist against the consul a few times, then retried her call. Still no response.

The other ship was only a few minutes away by now, moving almost at C when she made her decision. Changing course would cost her time, any possible bonus, and maybe her job. But the military Surveillance/Early Warning base's aligned with Sol's 'North Pole' wouldn't die if she was half a day late. Spinning the chair she started keying in commands.

The rat-trap freighters engines burned bright, the first time they had fired over one eighth thrust in almost half a century. For six full seconds the engines throaty roar filled the ship as they reached 100% of their rated thrust. Then one stopped... coughed... and burped.

Over a thousand meters away the explosion rocked Kiko out of her seat.

"MERG!" She screamed as forces slammed her into the consul. For a few long seconds she stopped breathing. Air had been forced from her lungs, her diaphragm had spasmed and the sound of cracking ribs filled the cabin. She slapped at the emergency beacons as she vainly tried to force her lungs to work. Colored lights drifted across her vision as she tasted more blood, this time from a split lip. Her diaphragm suddenly decided to work and she drew in a lung full of stale, many-times recycled air. Falling back into her chair she fought against almost blinding pain to catch her breath. Blood floated slowly from her bruised mouth, some eventually staining the blouse of her coveralls.

Technically, two small beacons were supposed to launch when Kiko activated the emergency systems, screaming her last position and vector on every possible channel. Along with them were brilliant 'Sparkle Flares." Designed to drop showers of multi-coloured sparks visible for thousands of kilometers, they would run for several minutes before dying out. Reality was greatly different, the sparkle flares fired normally. But the beacons remained in their bays, engines ramping up, and overheating fast.

There were two dull thumps, then the lights went out.

"Oh just grand" the mouse moaned, holding her ribs. "What's next?"