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Matti-Jay stared at the tiny display inside her plastic bubble cocoon. The air felt like it was getting stifling.
The display showed the dragon heading right toward the Donner.
Her mouth was dry.
It was as if she’d been an appetizer and the Donner was about to be the real meal. Matti-Jay needed to contact them.
“Charlie,” she said, her voice nothing more than a whispery crackle.
No response came. The cockpit felt as if it was closing in on her. If the dragon could do that much damage to the Blue Defender with just a passing swipe, what could it do to the Donner with determination?
It all felt surreal. A dragon!
“Charlie?” she said, louder. Still no response.
Matti-Jay pushed the throttle up. It was difficult in the bubble with just the armrest controls. The ship wanted to fly itself.
So much for the Defender part of its name. It wasn’t defending anything right now. Well, perhaps its own structural integrity.
The dragon continued to expand the gap. Well over forty kilometers now. At least the runabout was going in the right direction. Toward the Donner.
And still close to a thousand kilometers to the main vessel. A lot of ground to cover. If she could just keep up.
“Charlie?” she said again. “Charlie come in. Donner? Anyone aboard? Please come in.”
Still no response.
“We have an emergency,” she said. “Something’s on its way to you.”
Nothing.
“Please come in. You need to prepare. You need to...” What? What could they do? How could she explain the dragon?
Well. They must have seen the feeds from the Blue Defender. Must have seen what had happened. The little vessel’s own computers would have sent distress and telemetry messages from the first moment of impact. The Donner’s crew would know what had happened.
Why hadn’t they responded?
Damage to her ship? When the dragon had impacted. Maybe it had damaged the comms systems. It should show in among all those red lights somewhere on the main displays.
The runabout was pretty beaten up. Matti-Jay pushed the throttle higher. The speed crept up. She wasn’t gaining on the dragon, but at least she was falling behind less quickly.
With some more taps she worked to get the Blue Defender to slowly increase its speed. Right now she had it at three hundred kilometers per hour. Heading for three ten.
The dragon was already hitting five hundred. At that rate it would reach the Donner in two hours. But the dragon was still accelerating too.
If only Matti-Jay had full access to the runabout’s systems. She could calculate the relative times. The system would figure out when the dragon would reach the Donner, and then calculate an acceleration profile for the runabout to arrive sooner. An elegant calculation that would protect the damaged hull, but still have Matti-Jay at the main ship in time to give warning.
“Charlie?” Matti-Jay said again. “Anyone.” Surely they’d seen what had happened. They had been watching her. Charlie had already offered to send someone over. Surely they knew that the communications were down. Maybe even now a crew was boarding the Golden Glow and prepping to come out and get her.
Coming straight into the dragon’s path.
“Charlie! Charlie, pick up.”
Nothing. Dead air.
Matti-Jay cursed. This was not how this cruise should have gone. Just an investigative mission. Take a look at Ludelle 8. Orbit for a few weeks at least and gather lots of information. Set down and explore if it was safe to do so.
Maybe this was a planet where people could set up a colony. With little houses by the seashore, and forest excursions and sailing boats. All those dreams and fantasies about humanity expanding through the galaxy.
But dragons. Out in space.
The Blue Defender continued its ponderous acceleration. The dragon continued to slip away. If it continued at this rate, it might reach the Donner in less than five minutes.
Matti-Jay took a deep breath. She worked on the simple controls. She nudged the acceleration up some more. The runabout beelined for the Donner.
Matti-Jay had turned the runabout around, so now the planet was to the left, and it was slightly above. As much as there could be an above and a below in zero gravity. The cockpit’s floor would be a true floor when she set down on a planet, but out it space it was all arbitrary.
The human brain, though, liked to picture things with an up and a down. Funny. So the planet was slightly ‘above’.
Matti-Jay worked on the controls some more. What she needed was for the self-repair systems to seal the vessel. Once that was done she could get out of this bubble and access all the controls instead off just this basic set up.
The bubble’s display was frustratingly simplistic. Slow and with limited access.
“Charlie?” she said again, not expecting a response. The runabout was pretty busted up. The air in the bubble was cool, and the strawberry scent had faded away.
With some more taps at the armrest controls, she brought up the environment controls. That system was working. Plenty of green lights, with a couple of orange. Pressure control and ventilation had issues. That didn’t matter. She didn’t really need ventilation for the quick trip back to the Donner. Assuming she could make it a quick trip without breaking the Blue Defender in half.
Matti-Jay shifted around, trying to stretch her muscles. The bubble was protective, but also very restrictive of her movements. Her right calf started getting a slight painful cramp.
She kept working on the controls and the small display. She found the structural data.
The system was still self-analyzing. Trying to determine what was broken and what was working. With numerous embedded sensors damaged, there was only so much the computers could figure out. The system was extrapolating.
But it looked like the vessel was solid enough for her to push the speed. Immediately Matti-Jay tapped back to the throttle menu. She adjusted the acceleration. Felt the kick as the craft jumped ahead. The velocity climbed rapidly.
Now to figure out the environmentals and get out of this annoying bubble. If that was possible.
Something clicked in her ear. Followed by a crackling sound. The runabout shuddered.