The Scrapper, Ch. 5

———————————————————
>>OLGa.DIN> connect BRK-GL1.CamSec
>>BRK-GL1> Password: ********************
>>BRK-GL1>SS.AI> ?
>>BRK-GL1>DIN88130-T># !!!!!
>>BRK-GL1>SS.AI> ... PERMISSION DENIED
>>BRK-GL1>DIN># >:(
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># Connected
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># camscan -L dock2a.p3
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># Searching . . . . 
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># Password: **********
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># Incorrect Password
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># Password: ***************
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># Incorrect Password
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># (*)&#%^!#*&^!
>>BRK-GL1.CamSec># exit
>>BRK-GL1>DIN88130-T># connect StaSec
>>BRK-GL1.StaSec># bcams
>>BRK-GL1.StaSec.bcams># camscan -L dock2a.p3
>>BRK-GL1.StaSec.bcams># 1 result — Officer Prady Cauler, BODY CAM ACTIVE
>>BRK-GL1.StaSec.bcams># connect OPC.bcam -hp
>> Connecting… … … Connected
——————————————————

 
The blank display in front of me fizzled out. A moment later a shaky image appeared, things moved in front of the camera so constantly it made me motion sick. I turned and looked out across the tunnel, no changes there just the shielded windows; standard blackout procedure to keep tourists from seeing how we operate on the BRK.

    “Din what is this?” I asked, bringing my attention back to the current feed.

    “Body camera from officer Prady Cauler,” it answered in a rush.

    “Is there any way you can stabilize this?”

    “Not with my current processing power.”

Processing power? What else was it doing? “Wait, are you still trying to plot our route?” I sat down, trying to figure out how to secure my safety harness while wearing an entire space suit. It wasn’t working and my frustration was mounting.

    “Correct.”

    “Drop the route, we’ll figure it out later. Focus on the camera right now, we… I need to make sure Tak is okay.”

Some clunks and whirs from the console, it must be using OLGa’s systems to operate in general, given that Din was just software. The display hosting the body cam winked out then came back, stabilized and pointing towards the airlock itself. Tak was still arguing with Odie, both of them standing near the very unsecured maintenance panel. Nothing had been secured down, the panel I’d welded together was propped up but the chances that would hold pressure if I popped the tunnel were slim, plus there were the remaining rods I hadn’t sawn through… Dammit I need more time!

Things continued to escalate for Tak. I didn’t have audio feed and I’m not sure why, maybe Din couldn’t access that on the fly and stabilizing this VERY nervous recruit’s body camera must be a lot of effort. Cauler’s arms kept moving in front of the camera, he shuffled from foot to foot constantly like he had to go to the bathroom. I could see safety on his gun was already off. Hot headed recruits with little to no training were a staple for StationSec.

The camera lurched over to Tak and Odie suddenly, both looking very animated. Tak turned and pointed at the panel that he was clearly trying to weld in place before he was interrupted, and he pounded on it twice. The whole panel shook and vibrated, nothing patched or sealed.

I tried to put a hand through my hair and bonked off my helmet, damn suit. I should just pop the helmet at least and… glancing at the pressure gauges for the ship I realized… no, we still aren’t equalized, and I’ve still got a hole in the engine bay. I needed more time!

On the camera I saw Tak pound again on the panelling. THUD THUD, I couldn’t hear it, but my heart pounding in my ears convinced me I could. I swallowed and tried to think. 

    “Kal? Something is happening!”

I looked back at the monitor and Cauler had his weapon sighted on Tak. Odie had stepped out of the way and was still spitting venom, shouting. Tak pounded on the panel again. THUD. THUD.

Wait… what is he? Shit, shit… No I’m not ready! There isn’t… 

THUD

THUD

I could feel my breath coming fast, too fast. There wasn’t time to calm down, there wasn’t time to do anything. Survival brain was kicking in and I knew I was going to regret letting it have the helm right now.

I started flicking switches: disable flight assist, disable proximity safeties, hold down confirmation keys, mute the alarms desperate to remind me that I was making very dumb choices. I pulled the detonator from my belt and eyed the charges, ten lights blinked back. I flipped up the docking panel switch and stared at the glowing red CLAMPS button.

I pulled the trigger and pressed the clamp button at the same time. Through the cockpit window I watched consecutive explosions destroy the tunnel fabric near the station’s airlock. On my end, the arms I had “manually detached” started to retract, but the ones underneath were stuck fast thanks to the resin-boot.

Something Tak said earlier came back to me… it seemed like the most reasonable chance we had now. 

    “Hey, Din?”

    “Yes?”

    “Left or right?”

    “Left?”

I slammed the control stick hard to the left, every starboard RCS thruster ignited and the whole ship groaned into a roll. The station spun in my view as I was thrown from my chair. The rods I had managed to break drifted off in a spiral away from us, but the remaining three were stubborn. The creaking and snapping I heard through my helmet convinced me that leaving my suit on was the one good decision I’d made in the last few minutes. The tunnel itself suddenly ripped and tore away from where the charges had gone off. Snaps and cracks reverberated through my hull and suddenly- we were free, the ship listed hard as the excess thruster force combined with the mechanical stress threw us into an uneven, wobbly drift.

I fought my way back into the pilot’s seat and made some quick adjustments, stabilizing us upside down relative to where we were, but free and clear to accelerate. The hull pressure alarm was screaming at me again and I flicked it to mute, along with delaying another emergency flush. I punched the throttle and muted another alarm flashing above the engine bay as I tried to control my breathing. 

    “Tak is in trouble!” Din suddenly alerted me.

I looked back down at the monitor to see the consequences of all my bad choices staring back. The body camera on Cauler was facing towards the station dock now, one arm clinging to Tak, who was pressed against the destroyed airlock ring, fighting to remain inside. The alarm lights behind them were strobing and I could see the bulkheads starting to close by the main entry. Tak squinted against the freezing air rushing past him, tears streaming from his eyes. An arm was stretched around Tak and I could just make out Odie’s helmet pressed against the hull, trying to keep them all from sailing out into the void. 

Mouths moving, Tak slipping, his arm now stretched outside the station and still clinging desperately to Cauler. “Kal, they’re about to-!” Din was interrupted by the sudden flash of the external bulkhead closing in a pincer. 

We watched in silence as the camera feed drifted away from station. The body attached to the camera convulsed, hands moving past the lens, clutching upwards towards their throat, clawing, desperate for something, someone, anything.

StationAI must have forced the emergency bulkheads after it lost enough pressure. Keeper, I didn’t think those huge doors could move that fast…  The camera slowed down as Cauler finally succumbed to the vacuum, a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone. My eyes were glued to the display even as static began to fuzz in.

That’s when I saw an arm float into view. Severed at the elbow, still gripping the officer’s sleeve, wrapped in the same brown coverall Tak was wearing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “We have to go back!” I flipped switches and tried to pull up the local satellite maps, maybe I could dock again nearby or- or try and hail a nearby ship to check or…

    “Kal?”

I shut my eyes as hard as I could, none of this was going to plan, none of this was supposed to happen!

    “Kal, I understand you are distressed, but we have things we need to address.”

    I shook my head, “What?! What do we need to address? How I just killed my friend?!” I sobbed, tears fell, and I was immediately even more frustrated that I couldn’t wipe them away because I was still trapped in this stupid suit.

    “That is not confirmed. But we are very close to being in a similar position if we do nothing.”

I sniffled and blinked away as many tears as I could, my eyes burned and my nose was clogged. I looked at the display again, I couldn’t help it, but all I could see was static. Din had helpfully pulled up the local astrometrics which plotted us heading away from BRK, just like I wanted, but lacking an actual route. I swallowed, “What’s our heading?”

    “Currently irrelevant. We are drifting and still within radar distance of BRK. Furthermore…”

Alarms flared back to life and a diagnostic screen appeared overtop the navigation display. The nose of the ship was bright red, sensors telling me it had been struck by debris, that was probably just the remains of the tunnel. Various parts of the ship lit up indicating more damage in a spiral pattern running across the hull. “Guess Tak was right about the torsion, the ship really didn’t like that separation.”

    “There is a larger concern.” Din pulled up a separate window displaying the engine bay. I could see the problem.

    “Keeper… what happened back there?” As best I could tell the entire room, despite having no air to speak of, was throwing temperature alarms. My immediate guess was that we were sucking in thruster exhaust when we accelerated but that didn’t make any sense, there wouldn’t be any suction happening with air in there… Something had to be overheating…

I turned to look at our gauges: air levels falling steadily, definitely had a few leaks, the nose being the most obvious, but we still needed to get out radar range. Against the continued protests of Our Lady’s Gambit, I adjusted our heading towards ISP-FL. I set throttle to engage for the next 5 minutes, the flight estimate was saying it would be about 10 days to get there after acceleration. Whatever, we just needed space between us and the station. That and enough time to patch what we could so we could survive the trip. That’s all. That’s the next step. 

I was coming down off my initial panic and the situation was looking so much worse. No time to be emotional, not if I want to keep living. “Din, make sure the throttle cuts off in 5 minutes. Let me know if any other surprises show up or if that overheats and we’re about to explode… or anything else.” 

    “Okay! Let me know if I can help otherwise!”

    “Just keep an eye out, I’m going to be pretty occupied sorting this out...”

    “Understood!”

I got up and started down the stairs to the deck. My boots felt heavy, like they understood the emotional weight I was suddenly burdened with. The blinking message in the lower left of my visor told me otherwise: “18% battery, approx 5 minutes air remaining, thrusters offline, exo-skel low power mode.” Shit, how long has it been since I broke off? How much panic breathing have I been doing?

I clomped the rest of the way down the stairs and made my way to the backup oxygen tank I’d gotten from Lopi. I unhooked my reserve line and snapped the quick connects together and listened to the pleasing hiss of the tank refilling. Okay, breathing sorted now for power. I sifted through the mess that was previously my sorted hardware and found my tote. Digging through that I found my one and only backup battery. This wouldn’t get me much power, but if it was enough to patch the hull then I was happy.

    A sudden jolt and the entire hull rattling froze me in place, “Din, what was that?”

    “We are out of fuel.” I checked my chronometer, it had only been 3 minutes. 

    “How long until we’re off BRK radar?”

    “Approximately one hour.”

Shit, there wasn’t time to worry about it. If we were caught now… well, I could only hope they were too busy to catch up to us.

I plugged my backup into the suit’s charge port and cut the nozzle for my O2 to about 50%. It was time for an old scrapper trick Emdee taught me during a few close calls out on salvage runs. I grabbed a couple of valves and quickly rigged up a bleed loop. Over time it would trickle-feed me oxygen meanwhile the CO2 scrubbers in the suit would keep me from suffocating. Hopefully.

    “Din, keep an eye on my respiration while I’m working… If I start breathing fast but I’m slowing down, I need you to blast an alarm at me. No being quiet, I need to hear it.”

A moment of hesitation. “Understood.” 

I swallowed, T-minus 57 minutes until we were beyond radar and 10 days until we reach port. My head swam, too many possibilities for things to go wrong. Even MORE wrong somehow, Keeper what was I doing out here? No fuel, barely any air. Fuck I hope that heading is correct… NO, focus. Fix the hull first. 

I hooked a couple of emergency patches to my belt and made sure the beam welder was still swinging from my belt. The PlasSaw, I realized, was not holstered on my back anymore. Probably got knocked off when we spun… Find it later, fix the hull now. 

Stomping over towards the airlock, the problem was obvious: the arms I hadn’t managed to cut were pulling in different directions and listing side to side, continually gyrating the remainder of the airlock and peeling it off like a scab. I found a set of mag-blocks nearby and attached one to the airlock itself, trying to place it on the most stable piece of ship I could find. The partner block got placed on the floor of the deck and I started hand-cranking the attached winch to pull them back together. Some models have an electric motor that did all this for you but I had to save SOME money when I stocked up… I just didn’t expect to be using these blocks in an emergency. I swallowed and blinked away the sweat that was trying to seep into my eyes. A glance at my air reserves said that even with the bleeder, I was already down to 41%. After a few slow, deep breaths to calm myself, I went back to work cranking the winch to rejoin the airlock to the hull.

The connection was garbage. Too much twisted metal between the jagged edges of the door and the chunky plates of the hull to make a proper seal. It was enough to get started though. I pulled an emergency patch out and unfolded the large square. I forget what alloy these are made of, but it was soft enough I could cut it into strips and have… well, not a good seal, but dammit if I didn’t do SOMETHING I was dead. The beam welder made the job easy but the jagged edges of the cut told me how much I was shaking. 

    Din in my ear, “Your breathing is elevated, are you okay, Kal?”

    “Just realizing I’m not doing too great, but this hole needs to be patched.” 

    “I will continue monitoring. 40 minutes until we leave radar range.”

Din may not be an auto-assist, but he sure was great at checking in. It helped me keep focus. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

I spread the emergency patch strips out along the  edge of the airlock, using the spare mag-blocks to keep them in place as I tacked them down. After a couple nerve-wracking moments I had the airlock shoddily attached to the hull again.

    “Din, how’s the air supply looking?”

    “Internal Pressure is still down, but levels are starting to even out.”

    “Good, that’s something at least. Where’s the next major hole?”

    “Too many pinholes to direct you towards, the next major leak is back in the engine bay.”

    “That one is going to have to wait…” my vision swam, I tried to take a breath and it felt like breathing nothing. I eyeballed my readout again… still 38% remaining? I shook my head and tweaked the bleeder valve to let more oxygen through. My head hurt. “I’m going to weld this down. Try and get seal back.”

    “Affirmative, please watch your air supply, Kal.”

I knelt down and started welding. It’s an oddly zen process once you get the bead going. My hand moved in practiced circles, watching the puddle form, moving down a bit, puddle, move, puddle, move. This monotony felt like a vacation after the chaos I’d been through, I had to keep reminding myself that I was still actively in danger of suffocating. Twenty minutes later the job was done. Reserves at.. 30%, doing okay. My ears rang, why did my head hurt so much?

Standing and turning back to the deck proper, everything was still a mess. I didn’t have any time to secure my supplies before I ripped free from the station, and with the lack of gravity this far from an orbital body everything was left floating around aimlessly, bonking off surfaces and spinning in lazy spirals.

    “How’s the air supply looking now, buddy?” I panted.

    “Pressure is rising, but slowly. Current air mixture is breathable, but not recommended. Oxygen levels have not returned to nominal concentrations yet.”

O2 concentration was less important than pressure was, I’ve worked with low O2 plenty of times. Still, my suit was functional and that was a contained, safe envir-

My legs locked up, mid-stride. I felt the hydraulics pressing against me as my leg slowly fell back to the deck. Confused I checked my levels… battery 1%. Shit, when was that going to alert me? How long has that been-

Full shutdown. External suit lights went dark, the internal fans spun down and stopped, only my breathing remained. The deck was suddenly much more dark and a deep, primal fear gripped my chest. I’ve been here before, I know this feeling, and I know I can control it. Just breathe. 

    “Din?” no response, the earpiece had gone with the rest of the suit. Din said the air was breathable, but not great. Well, better than suffocating inside this coffin. 

I reached back and pulled the manual release on my helmet which also unlatched the suit’s seal. The helmet came off with a pop, the pressure on my ear drums immediately made me want to barf. I took a shaky breath through my mouth. The air was stale and tasted like ozone and Chalox afterburn, but it didn’t feel like I was breathing through a straw anymore. I reached back and closed off my bleeder valve entirely, no sense in wasting whatever was still in that tank. 

Stepping out of the suit was much more difficult than getting into it, mostly because none of the motorized parts had power now so I was fighting against the hydraulics the entire time. Lifting my arms felt like lifting weights and my legs were lead pants, rooting me to the ground. This would make for good exercise in less stressful situations. 

My helmet floating in the air spun to reveal why my head hurt, besides the steady hypoxia. I saw fresh blood splattered on the inside. I reached up to probe my scalp, flashbacks to being in the brig mere hours ago, and discovered my hair was matted, sticky, and there was a fresh tender spot. The helmet itself is padded so… did that autostitch not work?

    I rubbed my eyes, dried tears and whatever else flaking away. “Din, remind me to plug the suit back in at some point when I’m not about to die.”

    “Note Made!”

    “What’s our status?”

    “12 minutes until we leave radar range. Cabin pressure stabilizing and concentrations are returning to correct levels.”

    “What do the other supplies look like?”

    “Mm… they could be better.”

    I sighed, “Din, please tell me what the levels are at. No sugar coating, either we make this work or I die out here.”

    “Understood… Oxygen levels took a major hit with our escape. The various holes in the hull are leaking at a rate that will deplete stocks in approximately 4 days. Addit-”

A flash, then suddenly the whole ship was spinning again. I was thrown back against the wall, the suit came crashing down on top of me, the weight of all the extra gadgets and gizmos painfully crushing me.

    “GAK-” I coughed out, “DIN, STOP THE SHIP”

    “That Will Deplete Our Remaining Propellant!”

    “DO IT!” I choked out, the centrifugal force pressed me and the suit against the wall. Spots swam in my vision as I started to tunnel out- then the darkness started to recede, and I could actually draw a lungful of air. Soon I was able to push the suit far enough off my body that I could worm my way out from underneath. I collapsed on the deck, making sure the suit wasn’t about to attack me again, and Our Lady’s Gambit finally stopped moving shortly after.

Panting on the ground, I looked around wildly trying to see if there were any fresh holes that would tear precious air away from me. Nothing obvious, not from inside. 

    “Din, what the HELL just happened?!”

    “Unknown debris struck the rear thrusters. Right primary thruster is offline. Left primary thruster is functional but badly damaged. Remaining ammonia propellant has been depleted. All momentum has ceased.”

    “Both thrusters hit, all the fuel gone… Wait, all momentum?”

    “Correct. There was too much turbulence to keep us on course. I am sorry, Kal. We are no longer moving.”

A recent memory flashed in my head. Back in the brig, on the cell door. 

FUCK

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

My life raft was full of holes and rapidly sinking, to use an old Earth saying. 

Ok… take stock of the situation. You’ve been here before, Kal. Maybe not with two concussions in the span of 12 hours, but you have dealt with all of these situations in isolation. Prioritize, resolve… pass out when you won’t suffocate. 

Step 1: secure air supply. Din was right, the air was still thin, and I realized that the headache I was experiencing wasn’t just my wound reopening. The CO2 scrubbers inside the ship were probably offline on top of the air mix being wrong… That didn’t matter as much as the volume I had to fill with my limited reserves… Oxygen candles! That’s right, I remembered to buy some!

I squinted to look around the deck, not seeing the package I was looking for in the dim emergency lighting. I found the nearest conglomerate of “stuff” that had rolled together in all of the turbulence and started picking through it. Luckily I found one of the candles underneath a safety scaffold. Tearing it open, I gave the built-in ignitor a sharp tug. The plastic cable broke clean from the ignitor and floated off, leaving just the wick attached. 

    “For fuck’s sake, give me a break already!” I yelled at the candle. There was enough wick that I could still light it, I just needed to find a different source of ignition.

Duh, beam welder! I floated over to the fancy BE suit that nearly crushed me to death and unhooked the welder from it’s belt. I held the candle up to the nozzle, squinted my eyes and turned my head before pulling the trigger. I heard a pathetic little Bzzp as the device failed to do the only task it’s designed to do: make thing hot and melt shit. I looked it over and saw what should have been obvious: the battery was dead. 

    “ARGGH!” I threw the welder in anger, it bounced off the wall with a sharp CLACK before spinning and drifting around in the hallway. “Every FUCKING thing on this ship!” 

    “Kal, are you okay?”

    “NOT NOW, DIN!” I roared, I could feel my face flush, my head was throbbing. All of this effort, all of this time, Tak’s fucking ARM! All of it a waste just for me to die 20 meters from the fucking station, stranded. I dragged myself along the deck and found a mess of cables that wasn’t secured below deck yet. Of course I hadn’t had time to do that, why would I have time to make anything look nice and neat? Why should these cables get special treatment?

I traced an electrical line to an overhead light, flicked it off to be safe, then ripped the cables out from the base. A small pop confirmed the light was now officially broken, like everything else on the ship, and now I had two exposed wires. I tore them apart, twisted the gnarled copper ends into points and fashioned a gap between them. I placed the candle into the gap, and flipped the light switch again. 

GZzzPPZZZK the electrical arc flared, catching the wick and completing the circuit to the other wire. I turned the light off as the wick began to smolder… then FWOMP, fire engulfed it totally. Congratulations, Kal, you’ve successfully lit a candle. I stuffed the wires into a bit of leftover plastic to keep them from shorting on something and made a mental note to avoid that switch until I had time to fix it.

Focus… Oxygen supply is stable enough to juggle to the next issue: power.

No laser accumulator so I couldn’t generate my own reserves, not that I had the RbDrive to really make that work anyway. Solar catchers on the other hand… I bought four of them from Lopi. I set the candle down on a nearby surface, trying to keep it away from anything that might not appreciate the intense open flame and looked around for the panels.

All four were smashed into one corner of the deck. I shook my head and floated over, just my luck. I secured them together into a bundle before we left but of course I didn’t secure them to the deck… Stupid stupid stupid. I unlatched the ties and started to pull the pieces apart. Surprisingly, two of the panels were still intact, the others were cracked and otherwise useless… maybe I could scrap some of the internals? Examining them further I saw the glasstic had flexed and fractured into shards, but the crushed electronics on the back told me this is where the catcher soaked up the bulk of the impact. I pulled the two working panels from the wreckage and floated up to the cockpit with them in tow. 

Settling in the pilot’s seat I looked at the console, part of me hoping we suddenly had fuel or supplies or… anything. I saw Din typing in the terminal instead. It quickly erased what it was doing and closed the window it was working in. What was that abou- oh. Right. I yelled at it.

    “Din?” No response, no activity. Swallow that pride, Kal, you’re going to need Din’s help to get out of here. 

    “Hey, I’m sorry I yelled. To answer your question, no, I’m… not doing okay. There’s a lot going on right now… I’m scared. Even if Tak isn’t dead, he’s maimed forever because of me. Even though we got away from dock, there are a lot of ways I could very quickly die out here. It just feels like everything is working against me.” 

“…I am not working against you, Kal.”

I nodded, closing my eyes in shame, and for a brief moment of rest. The world threatened to collapse so I forced them back open and shook my head. “I know you aren’t, buddy. I needed a moment to vent back there, I’m sorry. I’m better now.”

    “Your vital signs say you are not better.”

    “My vital signs will be fine.”

    “You need rest.”

    “If I rest now I’m worried I won’t wake up.”

    “…Unfortunately, My calculations agree. I wish I had a body to assist with ship repairs.”

    “Unfortunate…” I spun the chair to the side and looked back over the deck in its ruinous state. “But maybe you can be my brain for a while.”

    “I am not sure I understand?”

    “I need to put these solar catchers somewhere they’ll actually get light. We both need the batteries to get out of here.” 

Some whirs from the console, my eyes involuntarily drooped and I gave myself a light slap on the cheek. Stay awake, no sleeping yet. Din pulled the radar up on the console and it showed just Our Lady’s Gambit here in open space. “Look! There is another contact, Kal!”

I squinted at the screen, nothing else was on the display. “Where?” I pressed a few buttons and pulled up the radio scanner, looking for another ship. Nothing out here, nothing in range anyway.

Din pulled up a console and I watched it scan the local area. 

——
>>OLGa.DIN># scan -n -lb -m “PING”
>>OLGa>> . . . .    . . . .     . . . . 
>>OLGa>> Found!
>>OLGa.PalletBot> PONG
——

I squinted at the screen again. Palletbot? There wasn’t a bot on the ship last time I flew. When would that ha-

    My eyes shot open, THE FOOD DELIVERY! 

    “Oh shit! Din, Din! Can we talk to that bot? It should have the supplies from Tak!”

——
>>OLGa.DIN># query PalletBot -logs -verbose
>>OLGa.PalletBot> query BRK.sys.alert clear
——

    “It’s asking if the alert from BRK is done.”

    “I mean, we aren’t anywhere near the BRK anymore, so yes?”

——
>>OLGa.DIN># BRK.alertcondition AllClear
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ACK
>>OLGa.PalletBot> confirm cargo.delivery
——

    “It wants to know if it can complete it’s cargo cycle now?”

I looked down towards the delivery port on the floor of the deck. “What’s the damage look like to the belly of the ship?” 

Din flashed the diagnostic window back up on the monitor and there was a suspiciously square shaped section on the belly that was much less damaged than the rest. I wonder what condition the bot was in if it had been shielding the delivery port.. “Um… yeah, if the cargo transfer is still functional, tell it to go ahead.”

——
>>OLGa.DIN># cargo.delivery accept
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ACK
——

I heard the cargo hatch grinding open slowly. There was definitely some damage down there, but it sounded like everything was working. I heard the magnetic arms lower, intending to latch the cargo and cycle it back into the ship. Yellow alarm lights began to flash as the doors tried to close but stopped. 

    “What’s going on, Din?”

——
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ERR - Cannot complete entry
>>OLGa.DIN># PalletBot.logs -verbose
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ERR - Cannot enter cargo cabin, unavailable space. See Log Entry #1884.0
——

“It is trying to enter the ship directly, based on this log entry.”

“…what? These bots normally just let the cargo in and then route back to their space on station.”

——
>>OLGa.DIN># query log 1884.0
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ERR - Unable to find STATION.BRKGL1.D2A
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ERR - Turbulence.Routine SEEK SHELTER
>>OLGa.PalletBot> ERR - UNKNOWN
——

    “It cannot find its home base, and it’s going through what appears to be an emergency routine.”

    “But then what’s this unknown error?” I tapped at the relevant bit on the screen.

    "I… think it is scared.”

    “Can bots be scared?”

    “I was scared when you yelled.” Din now playing the guilt card, this was turning out to be an eventful first adventure for them, I wonder how it will paint me to StationAI when it gets back.

    I sighed, “So… what, it’s trying to come inside because it doesn’t know what else to do?”

    “That makes the most sense to me.”

    I scratched my head, “Can we maintain the seal if we try to let the whole bot in through the hatch?”

    Some whirrs from the console, “I believe it needs to deliver its cargo first, then it should be able to cycle through the cargo dock without us losing pressure.”

    “Getting whatever cargo it had would be a good start.” I stood up as Din was sending through the go ahead.

——
>>OLGa.DIN># query cargo.cycle -> PalletBot.cycle
>>OLGa.PalletBot> . . . . ACK
—— 

I heard the delivery hatch grinding, the doors opening again. The retrieval arm retracted, and the hatch closed fully, no alarms. A heavy THUNK reverberated through the hull after the door shut and I looked at the diagnostic panel in a panic. No new damage, nothing coming at us on radar.

    “I believe that was PalletBot securing itself to the hull.” Heavy duty electromags, okay that made sense.

The inner hatch began to cycle open, the doors here sounded much better but the alignment clearly needed work based on the erratic way they opened. The arms extended up to reveal the precious food delivery that Tak had so kindly sent along. 

It was a single crate. It was small, much like any remaining hope I had. “That’s it? That can’t be all Tak ordered, where’s the water? The quick-meals? What even-” I was hopping down the stairs to get this singular package, “what even is this?!”

I punched the release and the crate floated freely. That got pushed over onto the deck with my foot and hit the cycle button to go back for the bot. The arm shimmied on it’s telescopes, rust and debris binding the mechanism. Note to self, fix that when I had a damn minute.

    “It seems like PalletBot had more cargo originally, but when I asked what happened it responded with ‘Turbulence’.”

    “Damn… so there WAS more, but then whatever hit us jostled it off? Makes as much sense as anything else.”

I sat on the deck crosslegged and pulled the crate near, popping the pressure seal and tearing it open. Below me I could feel the hatch cycling open again. I idly wondered how much panic a bot could feel. Did they have a surge of electricity in their processors? Did the logic get jumbled while they tried to send multiple commands in an effort to stop whatever impending doom they sensed? Or did the commands just run until the bot had no power? Did we as humans program anxiety into the automatons we so desperately relied on?

The crate contained what I can only guess was going to be a hilarious moment for Tak once I found it: a box of replicator strips. My mortal nemesis, I glared at the package, then smiled, then sighed, remembering the disembodied arm. “I’ll have to thank him later, if I can…” It was food, it was more than I had 10 minutes ago and there was something else in the crate too.

I picked up a small rectangular box stuffed next to the side of the crate. It was as long as a wrench but felt light- it was a product I hadn’t seen before. “Strawvival - The only portable potable water device!” I rotated the package, trying to get a better idea of what it was. “Electrolysis, reverse osmosis, carbon filters! Every time-tested filtration mechanism in one device! Industrially backed, now commercially available! Perfect for your next planetary camping expedition!” 

Wow, this is neat. For how this is being marketed, its no wonder I’ve never seen one before. After all, when am I ever looking at planetary camping supplies? Good ol’ Tak, always thinking ahead. I tore the plastic open and found what seemed like a hose with a mouthpiece on one end. The instructions were simple: place the open end (read: not the mouthpiece) into the fluid you want water from, and slurp! In theory I had access to water via the engine coolant and this pack of repstrips gave me at least seven days of food if I ate them like regular meals. Okay… maybe I can make this work.

The hatch hummed and made awful noises and finally opened back up. The arm rose and I was staring at the sensor bank of our stowaway, PalletBot.

    I smiled and gave it pat on a nearby curner of it’s boxy frame, “Welcome to Our Lady’s Gambit, glad to have you.”

    It chirped a message at me in response.

    “Welcome, PalletBot!” Din called out from the overhead.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next I hunted down the medkit. It was thankfully in one piece, though everything inside was thrown to shit and back. I pushed aside gauze and bandages and antiseptic pads… ah there’s one. I pulled out an autostitcher and felt around for the sticky (though drier than before) bald patch on my scalp. It wasn’t tough to find, everything was still tender and hot to the touch. Seems like everything had clotted though, maybe I shouldn’t waste one of these. I put the patch back and went digging some more. A standard medkit had a few extras to help in survival emergencies…

O2 reduction pills was the first potentially useful thing I found, but right now they would probably kill me. They made you stupid tired, working off the premise that you can’t consume as much oxygen if you’re unconscious. Helpful for folks that were too wounded to do anything and you needed to conserve air. Also handy if you were in an atmosphere with less oxygen than a human needed, but that was more of an off-label use. Or maybe forcing rest on injured people was the off-label use. Whatever the case, it wasn’t useful to me right now.

More pills, antibiotics, different sleep aids, digestives… No. Dammit did they not make these as pills anymore? I kept hunting and almost passed over it until I read the label: Stimhaler. Oh wow they managed to aerosolize these? I flipped the small plastic case around to see if it was what I was hoping for:

** WARNING, DO NOT CONSUME MORE THAN 4 DOSES IN 24 HOUR CYCLE **
* STIMHALER! THE ONLY NON-ADDICTIVE STIMULANT INHALER ON THE MARKET *
* JUST CLICK, BREATHE, AND KEEP ON KEEPING ON! *

As ever, the really fun parts lay in the small print that were hidden behind a small label I peeled back. Stimhaler is not for recreational use, use of Stimhaler absolves SW Inc. from any and all liability in the event of stimchosis and any subsequent face-eating or rampage-adjacent incidents. Please contact customer service if you or a loved one has any issues with Stimhaler.

I’d heard of freight jockeys using these to get through long runs, but I’d never tried one myself. Now seemed like as good a time as any. I placed the plastic opening in my mouth, clicked the top and inhaled. A fine mist of bitter liquid immediately consumed my senses and continued beyond my throat, passing into my lungs. I felt a warmth spreading from inside my chest out into my arms and down to my legs, the bit of spray that landed on my tongue made my teeth tingle. I felt my heart rate rise and I finally felt a bit better, more awake. 

    “Kal, you are breathing faster, are you okay? Cabin air levels appear to be at a breathable concentration.”

    I nodded, as though Din could see, “Yeah,” I swallowed, trying to clear some of the acrid taste from my mouth. I could use a drink, “yeah, just trying to keep myself awake and functional.”

“Understood. Please be careful.”

    “I will be, bud.” I stood up slowly, shakily, but my legs felt like they had some kick in them again. I took a deep breath and could feel it all the way to tips of my toes. Yeah, I get why the freighter jocks used this stuff. My mind, now semi-functional again, finally came to the realization: the BE suit was down until I could charge it again. I was back to the pressure suit if I needed to go outside, and attempting to go outside again would burn what little reserves I still had.

The other option was the delivery port, but that wasn’t designed to allow a living thing to cycle through. Even if I were in my suit, the loss of pressure would be near instant and the sudden drop would rip through my flimsy pressure suit. The only things that could really survive that kind of extreme differential were a cargo bot, or a sealed cargo container.

    That did give me an idea though. “Hey there, Pallet-buddy… how would you like to get some charge for yourself and the ship?”

Thoughtful chirps with an upward inflection, it sounded like… a query? My botspeak was rusty but somewhere along the line we humans had programmed our dialects into these creations. 

    “I want to strap a couple of solar catchers to you, and then send you back out onto the hull to find a good source of light. You get some charge, and so does the ship, myself, and Din,” I hooked a thumb back towards the cockpit, Din lived there now I guess, “everyone gets electricity out of the deal. What do you say?”

Clicks, some servos cycling, then nothing. I raised an eyebrow, “Pallet-buddy?”

    “It is requesting more information on this plan from me currently. It seems reluctant to go back out onto the hull.”

    “Is it saying why?” I turned back to the mobile pallet, “Why not? What’s wrong with finding some sunlight?”

The bot shook a few times, something internal activating, then suddenly a familiar THUNK, the electromagnets activating and latching to the deck. Then all of the bot’s lights dimmed to nothing and it stopped making noises.

    “What’s going on, Din? It looks like this thing just went into shutdown.”

    “It has gone into standby. Come up here and I will show you the logs.”

    Was it something I said? Emotional freakin’ bots…