Aurelia quickly swept the perimeter, checking behind the
boxes of supplies that had been loaded into the bay. At first, there seemed to
be nobody there. Then, Aurelia noticed something out of the corner of her eye.
Slowly, cautiously, she turned round, looking up at the ceiling.
There was something on the ceiling. Before she could
properly tell what it was, Aurelia squealed, raised the primitive pistol, and
fired. The bullet missed by about two feet, but nevertheless, the thing on the
ceiling abruptly dropped down to the floor, as though startled. Aurelia then
realized exactly who her stowaway was. "Kylos?!" she exclaimed.
The young Vodi, realizing he had been rumbled, held up
his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I didn't mean to scare you," he
said meekly.
Aurelia swiftly holstered the gun, her fuchsia complexion
turning purple with anger. "What in the blazes are you doing aboard my
ship?!" she demanded. "Do you realize how far away from home you are
right now?"
"We can't be that far," said Kylos, "it's
only been half an hour."
"It's been three Zetan hours!" said Aurelia.
"And we've hyper-jumped to a completely different star system! I'll have
to turn back around and re-engage the warp drive in order to take you back to
your home planet, and just as I was getting close to the first of the
ingredients I needed! You, young sir, are in a lot of trouble!"
"I'm sorry," said Kylos, looking at the floor.
"You had better me," said Aurelia. "Now,
what in the King's name possessed you to stowaway on board my ship?"
"I dunno," said Kylos. "I just wanted to
have a look around, really! But, I knew I wasn't allowed on board-"
"There was a good reason for that!" Aurelia
interjected.
"-so I snuck in through the cargo hatch when nobody
was looking. But then I heard people coming, so I hid in the cargo bay so I
wouldn't get in trouble, but then the ship launched, and..." Kylos' voice
trailed off as he ran out of explanation.
"You do realize that if you had made yourself known before I had taken off, you would have
gotten into a lot less trouble than you're in now, don't you?" asked
Aurelia.
"Well, uhh... I guess..." said Kylos.
Aurelia let out a heavy sigh. "Honestly... I was
already delayed by several weeks after crash-landing and having to rebuild my
ship. Another delay like this is the last thing I need, but I guess it can't be
helped." She turned and started to make her way back towards the cockpit.
"I have to return you to your family, so for now I'll just have to turn
back around and-"
All of a sudden, there was an almighty crash, and the
entire ship shuddered violently. Aurelia was knocked off-balance and tumbled to
the floor, and as she started to pick herself up, red warning lights began to
flash throughout the ship, accompanied by a blaring siren. "What
now...?" she pondered wearily.
"My lady?" Dr. Sanara's voice sounded through
the comms system. "What's the matter? We've got warning lights flashing up
all over the system. Don't tell me you're under attack?"
"I sure hope not," said Aurelia. "I have
enough problems to deal with at the moment."
"Like what?" asked Dr. Sanara.
"I'll tell you about it later," said Aurelia,
rushing over to the cockpit.
"Is it the stowaway, my lady?" asked Dr.
Sanara.
"I said I'll tell you about it later!" said
Aurelia, who was getting rather agitated. As she brought up the ship's status
screens, the information displayed on them didn't help her mood. "I don't
believe it," she said. "The ship has struck an asteroid."
"An asteroid?" repeated Dr. Sanara. "But
the..." Dr. Sanara fell silent for a moment, and when she spoke again her
voice was distinctly unimpressed. "You forgot to turn the autopilot on
again, didn't you, my lady?"
"No, I definitely turned it on this time!" said
Aurelia, though she checked to make sure anyway. "Yeah, the autopilot is telling
me it's on, but it must have malfunctioned or something, because there's no way
it would fail to avoid an asteroid otherwise."
"Perhaps it wasn't reprogrammed correctly after the crash
on Sigma-2?" suggested Dr. Sanara.
"I assume not," said Aurelia. "Right,
let's see what damage that collision caused..." She consulted the status
screens once more. "It looks like the starboard bow and wing have
sustained significant damage, and some of the thrusters on that side are
inoperable. I'm going to have to land somewhere for repairs as soon as
possible."
"Are you close to Kappa-2 yet, my lady?" asked
Dr. Sanara. "You could land there, perform the repairs, and procure the
first component all in one go."
"I'm still one planet over from Kappa-2," said
Aurelia, "but I think I can make it there okay, provided that we don't run
into any pirates... or any more asteroids, for that matter."
"Okay," said Dr. Sanara. "Our sensors
indicate that even at your current damage levels, you should be able to survive
re-entry through Kappa-2's atmosphere. It's an inhabited planet as well, and a
spacefaring one to boot, so you should be able to get plenty of help with
repairing the rest of your ship."
"Okay, thank you," said Aurelia. "I'll be
in contact as soon as I have the first ingredient."
"Goodbye for now, my lady," said Dr. Sanara,
before disconnecting.
Aurelia turned round to address Kylos, who had followed
her into the cockpit. "Well, that's the situation," she said.
"Because I was busy dealing with you, and not helping to fly the ship,
we've hit an asteroid and we're going to have to stop off for repairs before I
can take you home."
"I'm sorry," said Kylos.
"You had better be," said Princess Aurelia.
"I'm sure General Pereira will have some very stern words for you when you
return to Sigma-2." She turned her back on the young Vodi, turning her
attention back to the controls. "For now, I'd appreciate it if you would
return to the cargo bay, so I can concentrate on flying this ship."
"Okay," said Kylos. As Aurelia steered the ship
back on course, Kylos glumly rolled off back towards the cargo bay, feeling as
though he truly were a million miles from home. His young mind could not comprehend
that he was, in fact, a million times further away than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment