Fly the Ship
Fly the ship. You let your muscle memory take over and before you know it you’re operating a complex computer with ease. It’s terrifying, because if you try to think about what you're doing all the motions stop, but the more you relax and empty your mind the easier it gets. Suddenly loud alarms start blaring. You panic, looking around to see if you did something wrong, but a voice pipes up on the loudspeaker.
“Hey everyone! Nothing to worry about here, just a small group of pirates that have us caught in a tractor beam. Well. They’re not really small. Roughly five times our size. Anyway stay calm, we'll handle this!”
You start to doubt that they’re handling it, as screams echo down the hallways and the clattering of objects is silenced by piercing tones that you can only assume are some kind of laser gun. A few minutes later the loudspeaker clicks again but this time it’s a different voice.
“Attention crew of the.. SS Star-Sweeper. Wow what a name. We have taken your captain, and by extension your ship, hostage. If you’re hearing this, that means we’ve left you alive to continue flying this junk heap, because we want to sell it for parts. So keep doing your duties!
"And if for some ungodly reason you decide to try to stand up to us, we’ll kill you and replace you before you can say ‘Please, no, I’m sorry, spare me.’ Sound good? Good! You don’t have a choice”
You continue your duties as instructed, even more so when a tall woman with a robotic eye and a large sword enters the deck, pacing back and forth to be sure no one was planning anything. You pull out the old training guide and skim through it, just to be absolutely certain you don’t miss something important, when suddenly you see it. Written in the old Admiral’s scrawl, a note.
“This lever is actually something of my own design! It essentially.. Destabilizes the ship. Give it a spin and the gravity fields, and air systems will get all shaken around. This leads to extreme nausea and unsteadiness in anyone inside the ship. I used it to empty out the septic tank whenever we made a pit stop”
You reach under your desk, and sure enough there’s a small circular lever just close enough that you can spin it with one hand while keeping the other at the computer. You spin it around once and immediately the whole ship shudders, and so does everyone around you.
“What was that?!” The pirate snaps. “You lot better fix it or I’ll have your heads!”
You send a message to the remaining crew around you warning them to buckle up, strap yourself to your chair with a bandana and an electrical cord that you found, and then start pumping the lever like your life depends on it.
Your entire body shifts as gravity starts to spin in a circle fast enough to hold you in place. The air around you seems to thicken and your stomach flips inside out. The pirate crumples to the ground with a whimper, and you hear someone vomit next to you. You can’t tell which way is up, because there isn’t really an up anymore. The only thing you can do is keep spinning the lever.
Suddenly you hear footsteps coming down the hall. An arm grabs yours and yanks it away from under your desk. You prepare to defend yourself against whoever it is, but when you whip around you see a giant grin wash across the face of the Admiral.
“Wow. I couldn’t have expected that. You really found my old destabilization lever? Sure is lucky I learned how to move with this ol’ gal bumping around like that.”
He looks at the pirate, still collapsed and shaking on the floor. “It’s a good thing we’re used to funky gravity around here. These guys have such a fancy ship, I wouldn’t be surprised if you knocked a few organs out of place. The life support really did improve in the later models.
"Well. Attention.. Everyone who’s left! We’ll be stopping at the nearest habitable planet to deal with these pirates and report them to whatever sort of authority they have. In the meantime go ahead and head to the medbay to get whatever happened to you fixed, and we’ll be on our way shortly!
"Thank you Lieutenant. You really saved our hides today. I might have to see about getting you promoted out of Temporal Balancing. No promises though.” He winks and moves to tie up the pirate on the floor.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Go get that head trauma checked out.”
Ending 16/16