Noah - 1. Chapter 1

Date: 4^th December 2418
Location: MMV Noah, docked at Europa Colony Shipyard

The months of preparation didn’t prepare Captain Pavlov for the sight that met him as he entered the ship’s bridge. Though massive in scale it was the main window that took his breath away. Starting at the front of the lower bridge and sloping all the way to the roof of the upper section, and curving gracefully around the rounded front, it commanded an incredible view of the Europa dry dock, and Jupiter beyond. The only wall space on the bridge not filled with the single seamless window was the back wall, where currently crewmen were finishing the calibration of the ship’s systems before her maiden voyage.

In the middle of the upper deck sat three holotables, one of which was currently displaying a 3D real-time image of the ship, sitting in the dock with small shuttles whizzing around. The lower deck was a hive of activity just like the upper. Though it housed only two stations, Navigation at a 3-man console to the left and Operations at an identical console to the right, there were at least 30 crewmen in what was often known as ‘the pit’, calibrating consoles and ensuring everything was ready. Sitting just before the banister separating the upper from the lower deck, the captains chair looks a little out of place. It was surrounded by high tech consoles and displays but it looked merely like a simple black leather chair, suspended by a small gravity beam.

Sitting in the chair, Pavlov initialised his neural link and logged into the shipboard AI. Almost immediately the chair tilted backwards and rose ten feet into the air. Visible only to the Captain was the sphere of ‘screens’ now floating around him, as if trapping him inside a bubble. Looking over the different areas of the infobubble he had complete access to every console and monitor on the ship. Satisfied with its performance he shut down the infosphere and the chair returned to its normal position.

“All bridge stations, status report.” He ordered quietly, but still being logged into the ship’s systems his voice emanated from every workstation on the bridge. Moments later he was inundated by reports being sent to him via the neural link. After a few moments reviewing the data and being confident that the ship was finally ready for departure.

“This is the Captain; all hands report to duty stations and prepare for departure. Any Europa personnel still aboard should leave the ship immediately.” His voice sounded this time from every monitor and workstation aboard the ship.

“Ops, contact the dock and request departure protocols, Engineering, fire up the generators and disconnect from dock power, initialise the engines and prepare for one-third thrust.” He called out himself. His recent promotion to Commander and subsequent TechPoint bonus had allowed him to upgrade with the advanced neural link necessary to completely control such a complex vessel, and he was still not quite used to giving orders without speaking.

“Noah this is Europa station, you are cleared for departure on vector two-three-nine-zero-nine-zero, one-third thrust.” The voice of the dock controller sounded from the consoles surrounding Pavlov and the Navigation console.

“Nav, plot two-three-nine-zero-nine-zero, one third.” A voice came from behind Pavlov. A Commander was standing a few feet behind the captain’s chair, wearing the same plain black uniform with dark grey bend that everyone else was, but with the two bars, top silver and bottom gold indicating his rank.

“Two-three-nine-zero-nine-zero one third plotted, Captain.” The central crewman at the Nav console replied in confirmation.

“Captain, the ship is ready for departure at your command.” The officer said in a formal tone directed at Pavlov, with a smile.

“Nav, take us out.” He ordered with a grin of his own.

The ship shook for a few moments as the engines were infused for the first time with plasma then abruptly stopped as the dry dock slowly started to move backwards. The sun filled the bridge as the 3.5 kilometre long vessel edged its way out of the dry dock and out of the moon’s shadow. Through the now unobstructed window, the storm of Jupiter was clearly visible raging just a few thousand kilometres away.

The ship stretched ahead for several hundred meters and the shining armour glistened in the sunlight.

“Noah, change heading zero-one-seven-one-two-six.” The Europa controller’s voice once again chimed from the consoles.

“Zero-one-seven-one-two-six, confirmed” The Nav officer replied, the ship rolling and pitching to the right course.

“We have a compliment of shuttles and a wing of Blades requesting to dock, Sir.” The Ops officer called out as we passed a navigation beacon where a number of small support craft sat next to it.

“Verify their Identity.” The Commander ordered before Pavlov had the chance.

“Confirmed, three Blades, two Caravans, three Ants and a Bee, Sir.” The ships were confirmed as three of the latest fighters and six old but still not obsolete service craft.

“Clear them for docking in their bays then prepare to open up the engines.” Pavlov ordered. Moving to the Holotable still showing the ship, now with four different sets of bay doors open and the craft entering.

“All bays secure.” The Ops officer reported a few moments after the last door had closed on the holographic ship.

“Full spee…” Pavlov was cut off by an alarm and the Holotable display suddenly changed to a view of the sun, rapidly shrinking. Realising what was happening, he began to bark orders, with a combination of vocal shouts and using the ship’s systems.

“Nav, Full speed now! Ops, shields to full! Engineering prepare to overcharge the generators!” As he finished his orders the sun stopped shrinking and started to expand rapidly. Looking into the Commander's eyes he got the nod of consent he needed for their escape.

“Noah, charge the Spaceborer, emergency jump, authorisation Pavlov-three-five-nine-delta-seven!” he shouted.

“Confirm! Richter-seven-one-nine-pi-one emergency jump!” The Commander added before the computer could ask for confirmation.

All the lights and consoles darkened, and a high pitched wail began before turning into a deafening wail as the ship started to vibrate violently.

“All hands prepare for wormhole!” Pavlov shouted over the wail.

Suddenly the intense vibration and wail stopped and for a moment the ship was silent and calm. Through the window directly ahead was now a bright yellow light, and from the side was the rapidly approaching orange light of the sun.

Heading into the yellow at a full 100,000 kilometres per second the ship was for a moment bathed in pure yellow light. After just a few seconds there was a severe jolt and outside the window was normal space.

And a very large asteroid, getting larger every moment.

“Nav! Evasive manoeuvres!” Pavlov shouted panicked at the sight rapidly approaching.

“Engines not responding, Sir! It’s going to…”

Pavlov’s last sight was the panoramic window shattering and a million tonnes of rock destroying the bridge.

I gasped for air and felt like my lungs were exploding, my eyes flew open, seeing nothing but a yellow haze all around me. I thrashed at the container I found myself in and felt myself moving. However I tried I couldn’t see more than yellow-tinted shadows all around me, I was breathing heavily through a tube down my throat. I felt like I was descending.

The movement stopped with a jolt and more shadows, moving shadows appeared in front of me. I felt a change in the pressure of the warm fluid surrounding me, followed by a ‘thunk’ sound as the top of the container slid open and the fluid drained away from me. My eyes still not working I tried to push the shadows away but one seemed to hold me down.

Muffled voices surrounded me, I couldn’t understand anything they said and I couldn’t speak thanks to the tube still in my throat. I felt a prick on my arm and then slowly fell asleep.

I gasped for air and sat up with a start when I came to. When I opened my eyes and saw a group of people surrounding me I tried to move, only to be held down again.

“Richter!” Someone shouted at me, “Calm down, its ok.”

I looked for a moment into the eyes of the person shouting at me, fear in my own. A wave of recognition hit me and I began to feel calm.

“That’s right, it’s me, Doctor Danielson remember?”

The name was familiar but I couldn’t think where from. Looking more intently at the deep green eyes staring at me I began to remember, a ship, a big ship. It was just being launched when something happened. I gave the confirmation for an emergency jump then…

“Ow.” I said, remembering the last thing that happened before I died was being crushed by a million tonne rock. “Sitrep?”“The ship’s in pretty bad shape, but before you go running off telling everyone what to do I need to check you out.” Danielson said in a firm tone. By now I was remembering not to argue with him when he used that tone. The last time anyone had argued with him when he spoke in that determined manner, he broke both their legs just to confine them to his infirmary. They were only there because they had a cold and didn’t want an exam to make sure it was nothing more.

“Where’s Commander Pavlov?” I asked, lying back onto the bed.

“There were complications, his neural scan was corrupted. We had to wipe his clone. There was barely enough energy to bring you back.” I looked around as much as I could with the doctor pulling my head about, shining lights everywhere and poking & prodding me. The usually clean white and well-lit sickbay was barely lit, and the walls, where there were walls and not just exposed bulkheads, were covered in caked dust and smoke.

“You look like you regenerated alright; I’m clearing you for now. If you feel strange in any way though, I want you to come back here immediately, understood?” He asked. I could tell in his voice he wanted to keep me there to prod some more but if Commander Pavlov was really dead it meant I was now in command, and if that was the case I had to be at my post.

“Sure.” I replied simply. I looked down at my naked form lying on the medical bed before looking back at the doctor and asking; “Uniform?” He pointed to a bank of lockers along the wall. Walking over to them, I could see that rather than the names of people on the identity plates, they were labelled with the different positions within the ship; ‘Command, Engineering, Medical, Research, Flight Crew, Pilot and Marines’.

Opening the Command locker, I found a clean uniform and quickly pulled it on. I was surprised at first that the locker just happened to have a uniform exactly my size when I remembered the lecture we received at the Military School, and that all clone bodies are initially the same size, only changing after a day or so when the person’s own DNA begins to take effect.

Recalling the layouts from the blueprints of the Arc I remembered that the Bridge was 53 decks up and 1,740 meters forward of sickbay. I was just about to leave when the doctor’s voice called me back.

“And where do you think you’re going?” He asked, slightly bemused.

“You said I could go.” I replied, suddenly feeling protective of my knees.

“Where are you going though?” He asked again, with a smile now forming

“To the bri…” I began but then realised that the bridge was now gone. “Ok, you got me, where is the TCC?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Engine room.” He replied simply. “Though from what I hear that place didn’t do too much better than the bridge.”

I nodded and headed out of the doorway. Heading to the nearest ladder shaft, I noticed how the ship had changed from what was just a few hours ago at most. The shining surfaces and brilliantly clean walls had either been destroyed or were now blackened. The bright lighting that filled every corner was now dull emergency lighting that barely illuminated the floor.

I climbed down five decks, seeing virtually nobody until I opened the door to the engineering deck. Smoke was thick in the air and I could barely see a few feet in front of me. From the noise I could tell that there were hundreds of people on this deck, all trying to get to where they should be.

“Richter!” someone called when I managed to fight my way to the engine room. Even here, where the room was more than 5 decks tall the smoke was still barely above head height. “Over here!” the same person called, looking to where the voice had come from I spotted a uniform with a blue bend, indicating an engineer.

“Ensign?” I asked, seeing the lone horizontal silver bar of his rank “What’s going on here?”

“Sir, the ship’s taken one hell of a beating already. The wormhole jump fried most of the engines and that asteroid is making us even bigger than we already are. We’re sat in the middle of what looks to be a massive asteroid field, I don’t know where, but we’re crippled and defenceless, Sir.” He stopped for a moment to wipe the grime from his eyes with his uniform sleeve. “I’m doing my best to get power back but my teams have got their hands full with these fires breaking out everywhere. When that rock hit it took out 3 of the null-matter generators, the explosions fed back and damaged the other five, now we’ve got fires breaking out wherever there’s a fuel line.”

I nodded, taking in everything he had told me. The ship was in bad shape, and we didn’t even know exactly what had been lost yet.

“Who is in command here?” I asked, as a pipe fell from the ceiling and landed in a crowd of people and sparking another fire, which was immediately set upon by people with fire extinguishers.

“I think…I am sir.” He said, shocked himself at the revelation. “The chief was on the bridge when it hit, and I’ve not seen any other officers besides you. I’ve been doing my best to organise repairs, but I’m barely a month out of the academy, this is my first posting.” I could hear the stress in his voice and knew that he was close to being overwhelmed by the responsibility.

“It’s ok Ensign…” I paused,

“Bodgit, Sir.” He replied with a laugh.

“Fitting name for an engineer, Bodgit.” I smiled back, “You’ve done well. First thing we need to do is get these fires out, how much null-matter do we have in the tanks?”

“Tanks one through eight are gone, the ‘roid took them out, nine through sixteen are nearly full, seven million litres in each.”

I thought for a moment, considering the only course of action I could see. If those tanks kept pumping the null-matter through the system, it would just be fuelling the fires, but if the tanks were ejected we’d lose the entire fuel supply to space. In the ship’s current condition though, if one of those tanks was destroyed it could easily set off a chain reaction and we’d lose the ship.

“Dump the tanks.” I ordered decisively. Bodgit’s eyes grew wide at the order and he looked like he wanted to argue, but his training took over and he started the sequence to eject 32 million gallons of fuel into space.

“Done.” He replied, reading from his console, “The fuel is venting into space. The bigger fires are already dying down a little. Teams should have them under control within the hour.”

“As soon as the fires are out, I need a damage report from every section of the ship.” I told him. It would be a big job organising everything but, however ready he was for it Bodgit was now my chief engineer and I couldn’t hold his hand.

“Yes sir.” He said, the nearly-overwhelmed look coming back to his face.

Moving to his console I changed the mode to operations. Most of the advanced sensor systems had been destroyed but the basic sensors were still operational. The ship sat in the middle of an asteroid field, surrounded on all sides by rocks just like the one that had hit us. Fortunately it appeared that the rest of the rocks within range were either stationary or not on a course that put them in danger of colliding with us.

For forty minutes I accessed what was left of the external camera systems trying to get a visual on the damage from the outside. The cameras near the bridge were all jammed facing into space, the only camera I could get to respond was too far to give a clear picture, but what I did see was enough. Where there used to be a hump containing the bridge and other command facilities was now a trench, with an asteroid buried at the end.

“Sir!” Bodgit’s voice called out from the swarm of people still trying to be useful, or just safe. “The fires are all out, I’ve got a damage report for you.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“It’s not good, sir. Twenty-five of the thirty engines were fried when we opened the wormhole. We lost three of the null-matter generators when the asteroid hit and the remaining five are badly damaged. The Spaceborer is badly damaged from when a fire broke out in its room but it should be salvageable. We’re down to two flak cannons, both at the nose, and both of the null-space projectors are badly damaged. Shields are gone, the armour is compromised, the cloak is dead. The only good news is that the Ant shuttle and the Blades managed to survive in one piece; we should be able to launch them for recon and repair once the bay doors are repaired. The refinery is operational, but we have no ore to refine. We have three solar panels remaining, all of them are together so if we manage to move the ship so that they’re in the sun we should be able to get a little energy on the go. All three science labs are offline. All communications and the main computer are down. The Mining bay airlock is damaged and I can’t get anything from the cargo bay. We’re still getting reports but so far we’re estimating at least 1,000 dead, probably more. Energy levels are too low to even revive one more person, but we have enough for emergency rations to last the remaining crew for three months. The asteroid is embedded into the ship’s substructure. I don’t think we can remove it without causing more damage.”

The ship was most definitely in a bad way. A few hours ago she’d proudly launched from dry dock, now she was crippled, an inch from death.

“Get the solar panels in the sun. We need to get whatever little energy we can right now.” I stated, “How much energy do we have in reserves?”

“Under five thousand KJ.”

“That should be enough, are the industrial atomic sequencers online?”

He tapped the flickering holopad then replied that they were.

“Good, bring them online and create a mining laser in bay seven, then have a couple of pilots meet me there. Get a couple of teams to fix the exterior doors to the construction bay and miner bay. While we’re gone I need the refinery back online and ready to produce. Have a team get it setup, and get one of the generators back operational, which one is closest to the refinery?”

“Number six. But it took heavy damage; I don’t think we can repair it without the sequencers to make new parts. That mining laser will exhaust us.”

“Cannibalise the others if you have to, just get it back online and setup a direct fuel line from the refinery.”

I quickly set off to the construction ships’ docking bay, leaving Bodgit to carry out the orders I gave him. I knew he was green, nearly fluorescent, but he was an officer of the M Military and he would get it done.

It took me nearly two hours to cover the 2,000 meters and 68 decks to the construction bay, with nearly a full hour added when I ran into a sealed bulkhead at the end of a corridor, meaning that the other side was exposed to space and that I had to go down and under the embedded asteroid.

Inside the bay, I ran into a problem. Though the platform that was the Atomic Sequencer was online, it was also blocked by debris from the ceiling. It was while I was trying to think of what to do next that the pilot came running up to me.

“Sir! Thank M you’re here, I think the ceiling’s about to come down but I can’t fly this thing on my own.” He said desperately, pointing to the Ant construction shuttle, “My co-pilot was killed when the corridor outside collapsed and I can’t get it out alone.”

“I’m no pilot Lieutenant, and we need to get this sequencer cleared so we can make ourselves a mining laser.”

“Sir, I don’t think this bay is going to last much longer, and we’ll never clear that debris. If we can get to the miner bay, we might get lucky and be able to salvage one of the shuttles there.” He replied, and I had to admit that from the look of the roof of the bay, we’d probably have better luck finding at least some salvageable material elsewhere than moving the debris. A large panel from the ceiling above falling and completely blocking the only access to this section of the bay forced my decision.

“We’ve got no choice now.” I answered, looking at the blocked doorway. “I’m still no pilot though; I haven’t flown anything since basic flight.”

“You don’t need to fly, I’ll handle that. I need you to control the doors and feed me sensor information.”

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” I agreed as another piece of the roof fell, landing inside the control room.

By the time I’d strapped into the co-pilot seat of the shuttle, the Lieutenant had already started the engines and had us lifting off from the deck. Punching the commands into the control panel in front of me, I watched as the doors opened but jammed to a halt part-way.

“That should be more than enough.” My pilot said confidently. I wasn’t quite as sure as he was, and when the shuttle slowly tugged and scraped its way through the doors I wasn’t fully certain that we hadn’t died. We were alive though and now that I was outside the ship, the damage was plain to see.

From where the bridge used to sit proudly on the highest section of the ship and stretching back more a kilometre, digging itself deeply into the ship’s structure was now a huge trench, terminating with the asteroid that had collided with us. Corridors and rooms previously in the core of the ship were now exposed to space, mangled beyond recognition.

The beautiful blue hull was now leaking black smoke from hundreds of breaches, stained and buckled. Flying over the trench we reached the docking bay nearest to the refinery section and the home dock for the mining shuttles. From the outside I could see that the doors were twisted and bent and they didn’t respond to any commands I was transmitting. About thirty meters forward of the bay doors was a large breach, which turned out to be barely big enough for the shuttle to squeeze through, catching a few places and damaging the port engines.

“There are a couple of enviro-suits in a chest in the back.” The Lieutenant said as we touched down roughly on the landing pad.

“I hate enviro-suits.” I muttered as I got into the near skin-tight black suit. The suits were claustrophobic, cold, and the oxygen recycler made the air staler and staler as you went on.

“It’s either these or hold your breath.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to put up, won’t I? Did you get a look at the shuttles as we came in?”

“Yeah, one of them has definitely had it; it’s a pancake under rubble. The other one might be usable. Number three is embedded in the wall, but we might be able to salvage a few parts.”

Opening the rear door of the shuttle it took a moment of holding on while the atmosphere inside was blown out into space. Once the blast was over we headed into what had been a shining bay.

The exterior doors were obviously far too damaged to get open again and inside the air lock to the interior of the ship now sported the third mining shuttle, There was no way anyone would be getting inside any time soon.

While the Lieutenant, whom I had still not identified, checked over the number two Bee I picked and climbed my way to the large chute set in the floor for large chunks of asteroids to simply be dropped into. It was clogged with debris but otherwise looked functional.

As it turned out, the only thing that I would call ‘usable’ about the shuttle was that the door opened. The main window had been shattered, half of the consoles had been smashed and the mining laser was pretty badly damaged.

“If I can get the engines started we should be able to get this thing in the sky.” He said as he strapped into the pilot seat.

“I don’t know about this laser.” I said, shaking my head as I looked over the displays I could get to work. “It’s been pretty badly damaged.”

It took him a few attempts to fire up the engines before they finally kicked in, jolting and shaking the shuttle.

“That breach is too small to fit this shuttle through.” He advised. Though the three types of shuttle we had picked up were loosely based on the same chassis the Bee, as a miner had been enlarged and given extra engines. “That should be a good test for the laser, see if you can open the hole up a little more.”

Though the thought of trying to cut a hole through the side of the most advanced ship ever created wasn’t a pleasant one, the doors were beyond our ability to repair and there we needed to get the shuttle working.

Lining up the crosshairs on my screen with the edge of the breach I pressed the trigger. A blue beam fired out and hit the wall, but just as a sliver of smoke was appearing from the point of impact it cut out and made the shuttle jerk and roll.

“That’s answered that. Either we hope that the laser from one of the other shuttles is salvageable or we’ll be in here for hours patching one together.” I said dejectedly.

Setting the shuttle back onto the pad, we both got out and investigated the wreckage of the two other craft. Bee One, crushed by falling debris soon turned out to be completely unsalvageable, there was nothing that could be used again whatsoever. Three wasn’t in much better shape but after a few minutes examination we decided that the laser was at least worth a try to salvage. Using the tool kit from Bee Two, designed for minor repairs inside the craft and definitely not salvaging other ships, we eventually managed to remove the laser from it’s mounting underneath the shuttle.

Though it was barely fifty yards it took both of us ten minutes to move the heavy laser to the operational Bee Two. Normally either the crane (which was now sitting in pieces on top of One) or a dolly would be used to move equipment like this about but since there wasn’t one of those lying around we had to move it by hand. It took us another two hours to replace the damaged laser with the hopefully functional one.

This time the laser fired and slowly but surely the hole in the side of the ship was enlarged. Another hour later a small nudge from the tractor beam sent the section of hull drifting into space.

“When we find a good rock, you use the left joystick to control the laser, find a fault line on the rock and fire. When a chunk breaks off, use the right joystick to aim the tractor and lock on. If it’s too big to pull inside, give it a couple of hits with the laser to break it up a bit.”

“And try not to go mad inside this suit at the same time.” I replied sarcastically. Normally I would never say anything like that, but the claustrophobia in the suit was starting to get to me.

Ignoring my comment, he continued; “You’ve got to find the good rocks for us, when I take us near to one, use the mineral scanner on it. Anything less than a 5 is a waste of time, we find a 10 and we’ll be pumping out fuel in no time.”

“How much air do we have in these suits?” I asked. These were not a part of command training, and in the years I’d been aboard starships the only time I’d worn one before was in basic training.

“The recycler will be good for another six or seven hours. After that there’s about an hour’s worth of emergency supply.”

At the speeds that these old shuttles could reach, it would be about a ten minute journey from the ship to any asteroids, and about that again between rocks. That meant we should have plenty of time to survey the nearest rocks and with a little luck be able to get some supplies flowing, hopefully enough to get repairs started.

The battered shuttle lurched again as its 8 small engines kicked in and we were soon out of the dock and heading into the asteroid field.

“You don’t need to fly, I’ll handle that. I need you to control the doors and feed me sensor information.”

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” I agreed as another piece of the roof fell, landing inside the control room.

By the time I’d strapped into the co-pilot seat of the shuttle, the Lieutenant had already started the engines and had us lifting off from the deck. Punching the commands into the control panel in front of me, I watched as the doors opened but jammed to a halt part-way.

“That should be more than enough.” My pilot said confidently. I wasn’t quite as sure as he was, and when the shuttle slowly tugged and scraped its way through the doors I wasn’t fully certain that we hadn’t died. We were alive though and now that I was outside the ship, the damage was plain to see.

From where the bridge used to sit proudly on the highest section of the ship and stretching back more a kilometre, digging itself deeply into the ship’s structure was now a huge trench, terminating with the asteroid that had collided with us. Corridors and rooms previously in the core of the ship were now exposed to space, mangled beyond recognition.

The beautiful blue hull was now leaking black smoke from hundreds of breaches, stained and buckled. Flying over the trench we reached the docking bay nearest to the refinery section and the home dock for the mining shuttles. From the outside I could see that the doors were twisted and bent and they didn’t respond to any commands I was transmitting. About thirty meters forward of the bay doors was a large breach, which turned out to be barely big enough for the shuttle to squeeze through, catching a few places and damaging the port engines.

“There are a couple of enviro-suits in a chest in the back.” The Lieutenant said as we touched down roughly on the landing pad.

“I hate enviro-suits.” I muttered as I got into the near skin-tight black suit. The suits were claustrophobic, cold, and the oxygen recycler made the air staler and staler as you went on.

“It’s either these or hold your breath.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to put up, won’t I? Did you get a look at the shuttles as we came in?”

“Yeah, one of them has definitely had it; it’s a pancake under rubble. The other one might be usable. Number three is embedded in the wall, but we might be able to salvage a few parts.”

Opening the rear door of the shuttle it took a moment of holding on while the atmosphere inside was blown out into space. Once the blast was over we headed into what had been a shining bay.

The exterior doors were obviously far too damaged to get open again and inside the air lock to the interior of the ship now sported the third mining shuttle, There was no way anyone would be getting inside any time soon.

While the Lieutenant, whom I had still not identified, checked over the number two Bee I picked and climbed my way to the large chute set in the floor for large chunks of asteroids to simply be dropped into. It was clogged with debris but otherwise looked functional.

As it turned out, the only thing that I would call ‘usable’ about the shuttle was that the door opened. The main window had been shattered, half of the consoles had been smashed and the mining laser was pretty badly damaged.

“If I can get the engines started we should be able to get this thing in the sky.” He said as he strapped into the pilot seat.

“I don’t know about this laser.” I said, shaking my head as I looked over the displays I could get to work. “It’s been pretty badly damaged.”

It took him a few attempts to fire up the engines before they finally kicked in, jolting and shaking the shuttle.