#Oversight.no

[dominosohma]

Yall go see my friends. ❤️

[rose-director]

Overhauled_, part 1

Content Warnings:

space

horror themes

derelict craft

strong language

Description:

A salvage operator enters the hull of a derelict trawler to escape their malfunctioning craft

~ 700 words.

Story:

"Okay sweet, systems online. Anyone hear me?"

The lone craft floated lazily among the detritus of the larger, derelict hull surrounding it. Just a normal salvage op, the teams back home said; risk assessment had given the mission a rubber stamp and all the numbers looked good. All of that bureaucracy was nice and tidy for the suits, but failed to explain to Kess why she was here flying a kite in a shitstorm. Long-range comms had been faulted from the start - it happened every so often, but was fine because they preferred to work without oversight.No, what really pissed them off was the blown fuse on the oxy-feed system that threw life support offline before they'd even arrived at the salvage site. Cursing the shoddy construction of these little corpie death-traps, they waited at their terminal for any kind of response.

Several minutes of silent anticipation, then; "Hey, if anyone's out there, my life support's blown to shit and I've only got a couple hours' O2 here!"

Kess was greeted by more silence.

"Fucking brilliant. The one time I get stranded, the goddamn shitty long-range is out! If anyone can even fucking hear this anymore, I'm getting the hell out of this fucking death can. I'm taking my radio, so feel free to call back any time 'ya like!"

The EVA kit was prepared for a full salvage mission, so Kess had about 5 hours of breath outside of the craft. After that? It was anyone's guess how long the craft would keep things warm and cozy. The oxygen scrubbers were delightfully passive in nature on the ship; the heating systems were most decidedly not. The EVA suit's air was delivered by a proprietary tank, designed to be refilled after-mission and entirely incapable of being refilled on-site. Just one more thing to curse the company for, really. They reminded themself to punch the next smug little corpie they saw firmly in the jaw, and prepped to search the derelict manually.

Radio strapped to their chest, they were birthed from the craft's airlock and moved to enter the shattered hunk of scrap they'd been sent to salvage. They spotted a point of entry on the behemoth, and anchored a guide-line to the external frame. Wrecks were treacherous, and Kess really didn't want to asphyxiate because they couldn't find the way out. They navigated inside, and enabled their suit's work lights. Soon, the looming structure had surrounded them entirely; jutting machinery and vents in what must be the engineering section made the traversal far more difficult than necessary. It was after an hour of slow progress that Kess finally reached an open corridor. Within the stretch of ship they now surveyed, remains of several smashed EVA suits lay cracked and dormant. Must have been a holding area for the things...

But then, hm. There wasn't any sort of support structure nearby. They kept moving, just a bit more wary. Another twenty minutes, and they began to feel a rumble in the hull below their mag-boots. Strange, considering the wreck hadn't registered to have any heat signatures or motion. Maybe the scanners had gone out of alignment or something. The rumbling subsided, then started as a voice rasped over their radio.

"s........st-top....s....t.........p st.......sto....p........"

Though the interference pattern made the message hard to hear, the warning was clear. They stood, frozen in place, as the voice resolved. Their heart pumped furiously in their chest; maybe this was help!

"g...good. You're ssstrrrandedd....., noo more aair?" the crackling had subsided some, but the speaker was clearly experiencing difficulty.

"Hello! Oh FUCK hi yes I can't heat the ship and I'm stuck help please help do you have my signal?"

"wwe hhavve your.. signal."

"God oh god thank you Jesus thankyouthankyou how soon can you be here?"

"we c-caaaan sssee you..."

"What do you mea-AAEH!" they cried out as a touch registered on their suit. Whatever was now clinging to them hadn't appeared on their suit's bio-scans, and they were well and truly beginning to panic now.

"don't fret." The voice filled their mind, a new speaker from within, as their vision blanked and they lost consciousness.