Taking Space

SHIPWRECKED

Michael slowly recovered from the jarring yank against the straps that held him. “Is…eeh…,” he wheezed and drew a deep breath as he tried to talk again. “Is... Is everyone okay?”

Silence was all that answered him for several moments, then to his relief, the others are back various forms of yeses and ya, one by one, all except for Daniel.

“Dan, you all right?” He asked worriedly trying to see through the dark as he stared over where the pilot seat.

 “I’m sorry guys…” Daniel answered, at last, his voice raw with emotion. “I…I... I almost got us all killed! I'm... I'm so sorry.”

Everyone lapsed into silence.

At last Stephanie spoke up. “It’s fine. We are all alive and well. That’s what matters.”

Steven produced a green fluorescent light as he unstrapped. “We’re not out of this yet. Thanks to the particle beam and missiles, this makeshift cave will be warm for some time.” He wiped his forehead. “A tad too warm. And I'm sure I can get some power to the rebreathers but if I had to bet I'd say this ship is shot.”

“What about the smugglers or whoever that ship belongs to?” Daniel asked anxiously.

Catherine unstrapped and let herself float around the room towards Daniel. “From the ancient signals I read, everything seemed automated. I don't think anyone is coming to check on what happened to us.”

Daniel unstrapped and caught her. She leaned against him, and he gently began to massage the giant welts the straps had left on her shoulders. “I'm sorry.” He said quietly.

“Maybe, but someone may have been watching,” Stephanie said worriedly.

Steven shook his head. “Doubtful from what I'd seen I'd say that ship has been there for hundreds of years without anyone ever knowing it.”

Michael nodded. “So for now, our biggest problems are those g*n emplacements and water and food.”

“Just water and food. Our ship is dead and destroyed according to their sensors, so those killer asteroids will most likely just power down becoming indistinguishable from the other asteroids like before.” Steven said, as he pushed himself to the doorway and touched the door pad. Nothing happened.

Mike unstrapped and glided over. Together they pulled the door back. “So, now what?” he asked

“I get the rebreather back on before we suffocate then we try to figure a way out of this mess,” Steven said.

Michael and Steven walked through the doorway, plunging the cockpit into darkness.

Stephanie unstrapped and felt along the bottom of her console.

“I... I just don't get it!” Daniel said.

Catherine looked up at him in the dark, trying to see his face. “Don't get what?”

“Why were there so many of them and... and why were they outside of the cloud. You think they’d be surrounding what they're protecting, not forty-five K SU out from it!”

“They were in the cloud; in fact, they were everywhere!” Steph exclaimed, as she found what she was looking for and pulled it out.

“What do you mean they were everywhere?”

“Exactly what I said. The radar showed thousands of the things. They were literally everywhere in the cloud, out of the cloud, around that giant ship. For Pete's sake, there was even some floating around randomly in the asteroid field behind us. Don’t know if you noticed or not, but your small drone was obliterated before you even had taken back control of the ship.”

Stephanie flipped the switch on the object she had pulled out, and the room was lit dimly with a golden light, revealing the jaw-slacking, dumbfounded look on Daniel’s face. “How... How could there have been that many?”

Steph shrugged. “Beats me.”

Michael walked back in. “Well, we got good news and bad news. The dynovamator is still intact, but the propulsion engines are shot. As such, the wires are short-circuiting and, thanks to the safety bypasses Steven did, someone is going to have to go outside and manually disconnect the propulsion engines before we can safely turn on the nova.”

“I'll do it,” Catherine volunteered.

“No, I will.” Daniel quickly stated.

Catherine glared at him. “I have essentially walked across the Galaxy. I have by far the most experiences.”

Daniel sighed. “Ok, but I'm going with you; you might need my muscle.”

“Muscle? What muscle?” Stephanie mocked.

“I have tons of muscle, thank you.” Daniel retorted. “I work out.”

“Ha. You haven't worked out ever since Cat moved here. You’re nothing but flab now!”

Dan ignored her and pushed his way towards the door. Catherine followed him.

***

 Soon the duo were in the airlock and putting on the small space masks.

A thin, skin-tight shield spread out from the loose fitting mask covering each one of them. The space-suit like shield was an amazing piece of technology that would protect them from the elements and other rigors of spacewalking. Sadly, they had a quite limited battery life, and if something hit them too hard, the shield would shatter or fail, leaving them exposed to the elements.

“You ready?” Catherine asked.

Daniel nodded, and she hit a switch.

A hatch closed behind them. The room decompressed, then the outside hatch slowly opened.

Daniel pulled himself out of the ship and glanced around. The walls of the cavern glowed red and small circular liquid lava balls floated all around the cavernous space.

Catherine floated up beside him and said, “careful, don't let one of those touch you.” Her voice transmitted through the EVA suit’s com system.

“I'd say not. It’d burn straight through me! Why haven't they cooled yet?

“Heat dissipates slowly in space because there’s no air to carry it away. But that is likely the main reason,” Catherine said and pointed at the tunnel.

Daniel looked down at it. What looked like the entrance had completely melted into one giant lava circle. Somewhat solidified, it completely sealed them in their man-made cave. “Oh that's just peachy.”

“The laser fire must have melted all the rocks around the entrance. Without gravity, it naturally formed that circle,” Catherine explained.

“And the open space chilled it,” Daniel muttered. “Great. Just great. Now how are we going to get out?”

“We will figure out something. But first, we need to get the power back on.” Catherine grabbed two pairs of magnetic gloves and threw one to Daniel.

He put them on and used them to pull himself along the ship until he reached the back half. “Wow!”

Catherine pulled up beside him. “Wow is right. It looks like the lasers burned straight through the ship in at least eight places.”

Daniel’s shoulders sagged. “Looks like Steven is right. This thing is shot.”

“There, that is where the main conduit is cut and laying against the ship’s outer casing,” Cat said, pointing into one of the holes.

Daniel nodded. He pulled himself down the hole in the ship made by the lasers, reaching the severed and melted conduit, he took off the magnetic gloves and began to pry the wires apart from each other.

Catherine threw a small kit to him, and he used it to cap the conduit.

Daniel crawled back out of the hole. “Okay, it's good. Tell Steven to try.”

“You tell him. I have to fix the mess you made out of his kit.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and gave her a toothy grin. He reached up and touched the fiber wire breaded into his hair by his right ear, and mentally commanded, contact Steven.

“Ya?” Steven's voice sang from the wire.

“Got it, give it a go.”

“Okay, just a sec.”

The ship hummed to life underneath them.

“That's good; we have air and light now. Come back,” Steven said happily.

***

A minute later, Daniel and Catherine reentered the cockpit, just in time to catch the end of a small argument.

“No, I told you that wouldn't work!” Steven exclaimed.

Stephanie sighed. “Fine then. What do we do?”

“I don't know,” Steven admitted.

“You sure the escape pod is shot?”

“Yes. It has a hole straight through it. When we forced the door open, we almost got sucked out,” Mike answered.

“So that's it then. We'll have to use space shields to try and get home.”

“No, that would be suicide. Besides, the entrance of the cave is sealed,” Catharine informed them.

Mike looked back at her. “It is?”

“Yep,” Dan said making a circular shape with his hands. “A giant sphere of melted rock has completely sealed entrance.”

Silence fell as all of their faces paled.

“But I’ve been thinking,” Daniel continued. “Steven should be able to slave our space station to the drone controls of this ship, enabling us to bring it here and free us.”

Steven shook his head. “I'd have to have set things up on the station first for that to work.”

“Oh,” Dan muttered.

“Wouldn't have worked anyway,” Stephanie said. “Bringing the station into an asteroid field would be a nightmare and would surly reactivate those g*n emplacements. With their numbers, they would destroy it as well.”

“Is there anyone who might be willing to come to help us?” Catherine asked.

“Maybe, but this ship is not equipped with a long-range communication system for stealth reasons, so all we have are short-range frequencies. And…”Michael touched his watch. “Looks like only you guys are in range.”

Catherine touched her bracelet. “Yeah, we're not in range to piggyback the star way.”

“What about your pinhole Steven, can't we use that?” Stephanie asked.

“It's called a ‘Gravatic fold frequency gateway,’ not a pinhole! And if I had thought of it before and added it to one of our communicators sure, but I didn't so no.”

“So we’re completely trapped,” Stephanie concluded darkly.

“No, we are not. We just have to take stock of our options,” Michael said trying to comfort them. “Everyone spread out throughout the ship and make a list of everything we have. Then we will look them over and see what we can come up with.”

There were a few sighs as they started to disperse, but Daniel said, “Wait, let's pray first.”

The others stopped.

“You’re right. We should.” Mike bowed his head, and everyone else did as well. “Dan, you pray.”

Daniel nodded. He took a deep, shaky breath and bowed his head. “Father, first I’d like to say I'm sorry for getting us into this mess and not thinking things through and thank you for keeping us safe even in our stupidity. Now I ask that you guide us out of this mess. In Jesus’s name, Amen. “

***

An hour later, the list was being compiled, and Michael brought it up on the main view screen.

“First, Dan, while you were in the smuggling hold you discovered, we found out that this ship does indeed have a water purifying system, and thankfully it's undamaged.”

“So we have enough water! I found forty-three pounds of extremely expensive and highly illegal foodstuff that I am not at all looking forward to eating, down there. I mean who in their right mind would want to eat space whale, but I guess it’s edible,” Daniel said excitedly.

“Good. So, added with our other food, we have a good week’s worth of food. If we don’t take seconds at dinners like we usually do, maybe two weeks…” Michael calculated.

An unnerving silence filled the chamber at Michael’s assessment. Daniel uneasy in the silence, flipped through the list they were compiling and pointed to the other thing he had found in the smuggling hold. “I also found some sort of-”

“Hey, an assassination drone!” Steven interrupted him.

Everyone drew back a bit.

“An assassin drone?! You sure that's what it is?” Daniel said, urgently.

“It's coated in stealth fiber has three interchangeable weapon mounts, and here it says it's powered by a miniature dynovamator. What else could it be?”

“Wow,” Mike said, wide-eyed.

“Its own miniature dynovamator? You can't be right something like that would cost an astronomical amount of money!” Daniel exclaimed.

“Yes, it would and,” Catherine looked at the floor. “And it would also enable it to be set in a place months ahead of time.”

Daniel’s expression soured as he nodded. “And the stealth fibers would keep it hidden.”

Michael decided to change the subject. “Steven, exactly what is left of the ship?”

“The living quarters and all the human resource facilities are miraculously intact. The main propulsion system is shot full of holes. All the aft maneuverability jets are toast so are the front ones the only ones left are the middle, port, and starboard, but the front of this ship has melted into a cavern and has more or less solidified making it unmovable, so they are of no use. The forward-most weapons are smashed, and the two that are intact were fried when Mike melted the beam cannon into slag. The missile launchers were covered in lava, but I managed to recover one of the antimatter missiles, and there is one shield generating panel still intact so we can put up a directional wall of protection.”

Stephanie's face lit up. “So we could use the missile to open the cave and at the same time protect ourselves.”

Steven shook his head “No I thought the same thing, but the missile has tons of safety features that make it impossible to detonate without being launched. I dare not try to jerry-rig it either…cause well I like to keep my body intact.”

Michael curled up the corner of his mouth into a smile. “Yeah, I can see how disabling safety mechanisms on an antimatter missile could be rather parting.”

A few of the others rolled their eyes at Michael’s impromptu joke. He continued, “Anything else?”

Steven shook his head.

“Okay,” Michael replied and started to scroll through the list. After a few seconds he said, “Dan, you said the assassin drone you found had three weapon attachments. What are they?”

Daniel closed his eyes and looked up as he thought. “A higher-powered long-barreled laser, a miniature particle beam cannon, and some type of explosive launcher. Sadly though, I'm sure that none of them are strong enough to punch through the cave barrier”

Mike could see Steven's calculation process started up. “You think you can rig the launcher?”

“I don't know I have to see it to be sure. But as a whole most launchers have the same components so maybe.”

“Good. Dan, let's bring up your find.”

“Okay.”

***

Daniel and Michael went to the hidden compartment. Within a few minutes, they hauled a giant black case back into the cockpit.

Everyone gathered around as Daniel opened it.

The drone was a black ball, four feet in circumference, with one protruding arm that the weapons mounted to.

Steven read the small engravings at the top of it. “Wow, it indeed does say it is powered by a star generator. Dang to make a dynovamator this small... Wow, I wanna open it up and take a look at it.”

A horrified look flashed across Stephanie’s face as she exclaimed. “Don't you dare! If you messed up and released a miniature star in here, we'd all be dead.”

Steven looked crestfallen as he said, “I guess you're right.”

“I don't get what's the big deal anyway,” Daniel said. “Dynovamators are in all space crafts. Well, except for self-powered ones of course.”

“Don't get what the big deal is? Dan, there is a miniature start in each of them! And a star is a renewable ecosystem, just like an inhabitable planet. There are landmasses and oceans in them, just completely different from how we know them. The liquid that forms the oceans on a star goes through the same cycle water does, but the only difference is that storms never stop happening on a star, and that's why they give off so much heat and energy. To make a miniature sun in the first place is a massive miracle in technology, much less keeping it contained. To do something like that on this small of a scale is mind-boggling!”

“Okay, okay, I get it. It's awesome.”

“Simpleton,” Steven whispered underneath his breath.

Daniel started to respond, but a withering look from Michael cut him short. To make sure nothing else was said, Michael asked, “Is the launcher usable?”

Alongside the drone, in the case weapon attachments sat nestled in perfectly carved out black foam. Steven picked up the one that was obviously a launcher.

“Hum it is of course too small, but I think I can do it. It will be a onetime shot though, and afterwards this launcher will be shot.” Steven assessed.

“That's fine. It will be one whale of an expensive shot, but it's worth it.” Daniel said.

Steven nodded. He pulled out a kit and began to take the launcher apart.

“Wait,” Catherine said. “If we blow open the entrance with an antimatter missile, the opening will be enormous, and it'll cool in here a lot faster. This ship does not have operating shields neither, so in a short time we'll be freezing.”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t think of that,” Steven admitted.

“I did.” Michael said as he highlighted two objects on the list. “Steven, do you think you can merge these whi—”

“Ah, yes brilliant. But do you think we could pull that off?”

“It's a long shot. However, if you and Catherine are right about the automation then...”

“It might just work.”

***

A few hours later, Daniel pulled down the probe controls as Steven and Michael got back from putting the assassin ball outside the ship. “Ready?”

They nodded.

“According to the radar,” Catherine said, the fake asteroids have powered down, and I have the little bit of shield we have left up and angled, so we should be safe when you do it.”

Michael glanced worriedly over at the radar. “Are you sure those asteroids won’t wake up the instant we do this? I seriously doubt I can power down our ship fast enough for them not to notice us.”

Steven looked at Catherine. She nodded. “Yes, we are sure. Those things are automated to protect the big ship, and we’re too far out from it for it to notice an explosion.”

“Okay, then,” Michael said, as he turned to Daniel. “Go for it.”

“Okay, here it goes.”

Daniel activated the black drone. Its front camera view appeared on the viewport. Daniel maneuvered it till it was in one of the cockpit’s viewports, and gave it a good look over to make sure none of the modifications Steven had made to it messed anything up.

The drone now had two new appendages. From the looks of it, Steven had managed to keep them out of the way of the maneuvering jets. “Looks good. I'm going to blow the entrance.”

“You only have one shot, so make it count and stay behind our ship’s shield,” Stephanie reminded him.

“I know.”

Daniel brought the drone around, so it was right above the aft of the pirate ship. He lined up for the shot and launched the missile.

It flew down the tunnel and smashed into the pumice that now sealed the entrance.

An explosion blossomed outward eclipsing the viewport in a bright light as the entire ship shook violently

slowly the shaking came to an end in the light faded away to reveal a hole leading straight out into open space

“Well, that worked,” Dan muttered.

“The g*n placements are still dormant,” Stephanie informed them, as she motioned Michael to put the radar up on screen.

He did, and said, “Thank you Father, and please let this work as well.”

Turning to Daniel, he said, “Okay, just like last time. Don't crash or... Well just don't.”

“I... I won't.”

Daniel flipped a switch, discarding the now useless launcher. He then pushed the controls all the way forward, flying the drone out into the asteroid field, and aimed straight for the cloud.

He reached it, hesitated for a moment as he closed his eyes and said his own little prayer, then plunged in.

The assassination drone was surprisingly far more maneuverable than the spy probe. Halfway through, Daniel realized the thing had its own logic drive as well.

Two larger asteroids collided, setting off a series of explosions that Dan easily maneuvered around. “Man, this thing is sweet.”

“It may seem so, but just imagine if the driver of it was trying to kill you with it,” Stephanie said.

“Oh yeah, I guess that wouldn't be so sweet,” Daniel summarized some of the glee on his face fading away.