Space tore and ripped as the spaceship fell out of hyperspace. The ship was 30 meters long, an old Khonsu-class exploration ship. Only the most destitute explorers used them nowadays, but it was still popular with the individual or small team that needed a cheap, dependable ship. The outside of the ship was scarred with burns and gouges from high energy collisions. The various lights on the ship were dark and the engines were dead. Barely visible among the damage was the word Athena painted on the side of the ship.
Riley coughed, doing her best to breathe in as little smoke as possible. She half-blindly stumbled her way to her emergency vac-suit and slipped it on. It took a few minutes for the suit to filter out the smoke she brought with her, time she spent slumped against the wall, trying to avoid coughing or breathing deeply. She was grateful she’d been sitting in her seat or she’d have been thrown against more than the emergency straps. She coughed again and winced, her chest sore from the impact against the restraints.
“Hey—” she managed, before falling into a small coughing fit. She slumped further down the wall, eventually sliding down onto the floor to lay for a few moments.
Her suit chimed before stabbing her in the neck. “No serious injuries detected,” the suit said over the internal speaker. “Pain killers and anti-inflammatories administered. Outside environment is dangerous to human health. No connection to local network. Suit integrity is nominal. Oxygen 100%. Filters 98%. Medical systems 95%.” More data filtered through the inside of her helmet’s visor, lighting up her pale face.
“Hey, Athena!” she called out. Her chest already felt better, though she knew it was only temporary. The meds wouldn’t last forever, but it was enough for now. “Yo! Can you hear me?” She pulled herself up and activated the filters in the suit so she could see through the smoke. Well… fuck. Now that she could see, it was obvious the bridge was a wreck. Panels were sparking, some were blown out completely, others were completely dead.
She walked up to her main control panel, hoping to at least get some diagnostics. Unfortunately, while it did work, it was only outputting garbage. Damn, the whole computer system must’ve gotten fucked in that drop. She moved over to navigation, finding it to be completely dead. Next was engineering. Same as her main panel, nothing but garbage on the display. She noticed a red light blinking at comms and moved over to check it out. The display was out, but the rest of the panel seemed to still be working. She opened up the comms, hoping someone was out there that could help. Before she could open her mouth, words came tumbling out of the speakers.
“Athena, do you copy? Is anyone still alive over there?”
“Yes! I’m here! I don’t know what happened, but my ship is in bad shape. Can you help me?” She perked up, hope beginning to form.
“Oh, thank the goddess you aren’t dead! Unfortunately, I’ve got some good news and bad news for you.”
Her blood froze at his words. Oh no…
“Let’s get the bad news outta the way first, okay? I am way too far out to come get you before you run outta supplies.”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
“The automated distress report makes it seem like you have about three weeks’ worth of supplies in there. Plenty if hyperspace in this region didn’t just get messed up by whatever the heck that was in there, but we’re a month or two out from civilization with jumpspace… although, looking at the report here, your jump core is offline as well.”
“Well, great. So, I’ve got three weeks to prepare for death and then I vent myself, I suppose?”
“Whoa now! No need to get so hasty yet, kid! Like I said before, that was just the bad news. I got some good news for you, too.”
“That better be some damn good news, man, because right now death is sitting with me, trying to buddy up here. The fucker’s already sharpening his scythe.”
“Heh, you got quite the imagination there,” he said, before his voice turned serious. “So. Good news. Well, mostly good news. It’s gonna take a lot of work on your part though.”
Come on man, just spit it out…
“I used to work on those old Khonsu’s before I took up hauling. I know them inside and out. I may not be able to come over and pick you up, but if you’re willing, I can tell you how to fix her… at least, well enough to save your butt. What do ya say, kid?”
“Even if I fix Athena up, I don’t have enough supplies.”
“Only if you’re wasteful with ’em. You’re about a month out from Belar Station with your jump drive. You’re gonna be doing a lot of hard labor, so you can’t really stretch your supplies out too far, but that should be just doable. I’m a couple months out from you, so no dice there.”
“Okay. Fine. Might as well try, right?” She paused, before shaking her head to clear her thoughts. “I’m not exactly looking to die right now, so if there’s a chance…”
“That’s the spirit, kid! Now, let’s see what you’re really dealing with here.” She could hear him muttering to himself as he read through the distress beacon’s report on her ship. She couldn’t help fidgeting as he did so. Finally, he came back on comms. “Alright, emergencies first.” She tensed up. “Environmental will fail in about an hour. You’ll be living in your suit for a couple days because there’re more important emergencies.”
“Like wh—” she began, before realization dawned on her. “Oh fuck, it’s the reactor, isn’t it?”
“Yeup. Those are the big two you need to fix if you want to survive.”
“Shit,” she muttered.
“Alright, here’s what you need to do, kid. You’ve got this and I’ve got your back, okay?”
“Okay,” She took a couple deep breathes. “Yeah, okay.”
He began directing her. Grab those tools from there, disconnect those lines, and so forth. It took her three days to get the reactor stable, with several close calls. She’d caught her suit badly at one point, having to cut herself free and patch it up. It took another day to restore environmental and cleanse the ship of all the smokey air. She barely slept during that time, hyped up on stimulants and anxiety. When she could finally take her vac-suit off, she crashed hard.
“Hey old man, you there?” Riley called out over the ship’s comms, yawning and stretching as she did so. She was grateful to be out of the suit. She’d cut off most of her red hair shortly after waking, leaving only a couple inches behind. She’d caught the vac-suit on so many things she didn’t want to chance her hair being the next.
It took a minute for him to respond, but she could hear him moving around over the open comms. “Yep, still here, kid. That little nap help you out?”
“Nap?” She looked at a nearby clock, surprisingly one of the few things to have survived on the bridge. “I was asleep for over a standard day! What kind of naps are you taking, old man‽”
He burst out laughing at that and before long, she was laughing along with him, the mood temporarily lifted.
“Alright, what’s next?” she said, some giggles still left in her system. “Are there any other emergencies?”
“Besides being stranded in nowhere, space? If you had more supplies, you could take things slower now, but that’s a luxury you don’t have.”
“Right,” she sighed, her levity gone now. “By the way,” she began slowly.
“Yeah, kid?”
“Do you know what knocked me, or us I guess, out of hyperspace?”
“Hmm… I’ve been thinking about that myself. I honestly have no idea what could’ve done it. My ship noticed a massive anomaly and kicked me outta hyperspace immediately. But the logs just don’t make any sense.”
“How so?” she began fidgeting.
“It shows a massive gravity well… something on the order of a large rocky planet.”
“That’s impossible. There’s no way someone could make a ship that big.”
“I agree with ya there. Yet, it’s what my sensors saw and what survived of your systems seems to show the same thing. Something big moving through hyperspace. You’re lucky it just grazed ya.” He was trying to sound calm, but for the first time she could hear some tension in his voice.
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Riley spoke up. “Alright then, what do we need to work on next?
Her rest over, and the mood heavy, she followed his directions again. Salvaging circuit boards from secondary and tertiary systems, repairing the critical computing systems, loading in code packets he sent her way. At his command, she took more breaks this time. She cut back on the stimulants and her anxiety was doing better now that the imminent threats were behind her. It took a week to get the ship’s critical computing systems back online. Unfortunately, that didn’t include the ship’s AI. She would have to wait until she could get to a station to get her restored.
After that, things began to move faster. She restored the sub-light engines, maneuvering thrusters, debris shields, and finally the jump core. Another week went by. She would likely run out of supplies before she made it to the station, but she’d only be out for a couple days. The ship could produce water, so that wasn’t a concern, and she could manage without food at the end.
“Alright kid, it’s sink or swim time. I’m sending you the jumpspace calculations now. Safe travels.”
“Thanks, old man. You have a safe journey too. Maybe one day we’ll meet up and I can thank you properly.”
“Heh, no worries. I’m not gonna let someone die out here if I have the means.”
With a smile on her face, she loaded up the calculations and activated her jump core. The jumpspace engines came to life, pulling her ship into the spaces just adjacent to what we call reality. A few weeks later she arrived safely, albeit very hungry, at Belar Station.
She’d been hanging around her ship for several weeks now. Eventually she got tired of roaming the station. A swarm of robots and a couple of humans were slowly repairing her ship. She’d been watching them for a few hours now, relaxing nearby.
“Hey kid!” came a familiar voice from behind her. She turned around to see an older man with a big grin on his face.
“Old man!” His smile got bigger in response. She dashed over to him, nearly knocking him over as she hugged him. “Oh man, I can’t believe it’s you!” She held onto him for a long minute, her face pressed against his chest, before she let go and stepped back. He wasn’t quite what she had expected. Taller, in excellent shape, salt and pepper coloring to his hair. He may have been older, but age certainly was treating him well. “Umm, hey, so thanks for, you know, saving my life out there.”
“Hey now, no worries. It was the right thing to do and I was in the right place to help. I’d do it again a hundred times over if I had to.”
“Hmm…” she looked down at the ground awkwardly, before suddenly popping her head up. “Hey! Did you ever find out more about what happened to us out there?”
“Unfortunately, no I haven’t. The hyperspace route we were using is working again, at least from what I’ve heard from other haulers. Took it a couple months to heal up, though.”
“Geez, that’s crazy. Think we’ll ever know what happened?”
“Don’t know, kid. The universe is a weird place. That’s what makes it exciting though, right?” He looked down at her, smiling.
She smiled back at him. “Yeah, I guess so!”