12
The ship’s engine died the next morning.
Keltie stood in the engine room—a small space not much larger than a closet—shivering with a blanket around her as she watched the brilliant blue cylindrical drive power down and flicker off. It sounded like a dying animal—a sound that until now she had never heard outside of the training simulations.
She waited for it to cool down, and when it did, she put on a pair of rubber gloves, opened up the metal grill at the foot of the cylinder and disconnected the wires.
Bundles and bundles of wires.
She had an idea. It was a dangerous one, but she had grown accustomed to danger now.
The flight training manuals talked about extending the frequency of a distress beacon in dire situations. All you needed was a coat hanger, which she found in the sm
