For
years and years, the huge starship drifted onward towards a new Earth like
planet. Past the twelve moons of Danto
of the Partarian solar system of the Balkloid Empire, past the twin suns of
Taldaron, with the Keltar people, past Haldaron, the home planet of the Scalar
Beasts, who roamed free in the frigid land of broken lakes. For a half a century, the ship traveled
onward, without deviating from its well plotted and programmed course.
"Sir
we're about to crash into a moon." said one of the Tech22 Pilot robots,
shaking Bryan awake. "I'd strongly suggest you wake the others and
spacewalk if you have to in order to restore trim." Bryan shook all over, frozen from the pink
suspension fluid, at first totally confused about what he had heard.
"What
did you say?"
"Sorry
about awakening you this way Sir, but we have slight emergency."
This
was not at all, what Bryan had expected.
The ship appeared to be rotating wildly around its horizontal axis.
"How
did this happen?" said Bryan, spitting out the rather disgusting tasting
suspension fluid and then rushing to put on a spacesuit.
"Meteor
shower. Hit the main engine
compartment. Lost all power. Please Help Quick! Take a couple of the pulse rockets off one of
the shuttles, quick before we crash."
"How
long do we have?"
"Twenty-five
minutes by my calculation."
"Ok,
I'm in airlock number five. Open the
outer door, please."
Bryan
tried to remain calm as he fastened the first pulse rocket to the outside of
the ship. Then he looked at the rapidly
approaching moon and began to panic. His breathing came in gasps of stale ten-year-old
air. His pulse rose rapidly, his heart
began thumping wildly in his chest.
Sweat began pouring out of him, as the strange moon got larger and
larger in his visor as he hurried with the second pulse rocket. He nearly dropped it. He held on tight to the
exoskeleton of the huge starship as he pulled the emergency firing mechanism of
the first pulse rocket and luckily, it fired and was not a dud.
"Thank
God!" he said.
As
it fired up, he went carefully hand over hand, pulling himself along the huge
ship to the second pulse rocket and pulled its firing mechanism. Immediately the ship began to slow its wild
rotation and slowed its approach to the moon.
Then Bryan was finally able to breathe.
He looked down and saw his worst nightmare. Virtually the entire bottom half of the
starship with the Millennium force drives was missing. Right away, he knew the colonists and crew
were in big trouble. Then, Bryan thought
back to New York, to his old job, and how this adventure had begun.
