2 comments

Science Fiction

Red lights of the alarm were blinking. Electric sparks fall on the floor out of the damaged wires. Two pilots in their sits were about to come back to their senses after harsh events.  

"Well, at least we not in the star core!" Bridget energetically starts checking her body for fractures.

"As well as we not in the Koltan system, genius..." Sophia held her head. It's was aching a lot. "Urgh... Bridget, do something with those wires before we get charred... and shut down the alarm, please," she said.

Bridget push wires in exposed space in the ceiling with one hand and turn off an alarm with another at the same time. "Done the captain of seriousness!".

Sophia glared at her. "But you... you just push them in the slot?! Didn't you thought about the short circuit?" She completely forgets about her pain.

"It's should be fine Phia ... I will fix it with dug tape lately." Bridget winked to her.

She sighed. "Fine, let's examine the systems and get out of here before they caught us." Sophia turned her face away from her companion and looked at the monitor.

"As you wish, Queen of alchemy." Bridget was smiling like an angel and start to check ship alerts as well. "Ou some problem in the lower deck. I will check it quickly by myself self you can just get relax ones in a while, fragile my".

"Of course I can't! I will check the living quarters and oversized dwarf as you can go to your cave!"

They both unclipped their safety belts and goes to execute self-assigned tasks, and nearly collide in a doorway. After that the turned in different directions. 


Bridget turned to the right and take a quick pace of the walk. Wall lamps were work incorrectly they are flickering.

"That's not good."  

She's was nearly running, checking things on the go not paying much attention to load in the cargo area.

"Sophia was one who controlled shipping. It's no point to check them" she thoughts.

Instead, Bridget headed straight to the engine room her beloved place on the ship. She even has hammock here to have a nap, the engine room becomes her bedroom, even though she has one on the upper deck. Tools and spare parts were all over the place except the engine area. But instead of clean and working like a clock's mechanism, it was a struggling machine that was nearly collapsing.

"Nooo, my baby what's happened to you!?" Bridget approaches her beloved "subordinate" screaming internally. 

Understanding of the problem takes some time. She can't fix this alone, no time to disassembling and proper work should be done by the emergency measures. She dushed to the upper deck.


Sophie takes the left route. Going through living quarters she's checking that all the things intact and on their places. While doing it, she makes sure that all the panels and terminals are in a workable state. Lights are dimed she doesn't like it when it's bright. Sophia tightening up all the straps that hold the smaller boxes which don't fit in her shipping schema of the cargo area.

"Hm, I should fixate them better next time."

Sophia finished with a common area and moves to privet cabins.

First, was the Bridgets room that Sophia occupied for sleep.

"Anyway, Bridgets rarely appears to rest here... she mostly tinkers with mechanics at the engine room" She looks in the illuminator right in the abyss of the space for a second and once more to the cabin interior. Everything was in its places. 

She moves to her room that she rebuild in a small laboratory. 

Sophia with grate care put at places retorts and flasks. Check that books naming goes from most important to less one.

"Bridget always makes pranks with it creating a little disorder in my collection..." 

She starts to fix the order in her library.

"Magick runes and alchemy. How to create the force that serves people by Jacomo Black" said the title of one of the books "Ah, from that book everything started" Sophia gently touched the book cover and put it on the first spot.

From the small barely noticeable section of the cupboard, she takes a photo. On it was to smiling girls. She turned the photo. "Sisters Bowmans for eternity," text was a mix of two handwritings.

"That was so long. We both were so energetic at that time," sad smile appears at her face. She puts the photo in its secret place and returns to living quarters.

When she was about to start rechecking systems, Bridget runs into quarters and dodged the metal box that shes forget was here. 

"Whoa, here much tighter than usual," she said. "Siiiis, I need your attention down there. It's super super important!" Bridget was loud and fast with her talking, as usual.

"...I was about to finish checking things here. Why ru..."

"We don't have enough essence for warp jump! And the engine is damaged!" 

"...sh." Blood leaves her face. "Anything but not that..." she ended her phrase already on the run "...now we will end up by mining rock in some dirty pit!" 

Bridget on the move turns around "Not at all if we will be fast enough to fix it!"


Bridget flew in the engine room, without even breaking her breath. Sophia in opposite walk-in unevenly breathing.

"How... we... should... fix it?" Sophia takes breaths between each word.

"What? Your bad shape or engine?" Bridget grinned, in her eyes, little sparkles danced.

"You can push ship from behind if you're so lively!" Sophie swung her hand in the direction where the was airlock.

"Nope don't do it." She's approached engine near it were all required tools for repair. "Now you go under the engine and rewrite some runes underneath it" Her face where unusual concentrated.

"What?" Sophia saw Bridget like that first in a long time.

"I... can't do it by my self." She looked away "I can't fit under the engine... I too big, and I just can refresh runes but don't write them from the ground up" She's tried to hide her face.

"Oh.... ooooohhh. Greate engineer Bridget Bowman doesn't know runes and on top of that, you don't even fit under your creation!" Sophie was smiling like a little devil "Your fit body now troubles yours, doesn't it? Maybe you wanna be slim like me now? Sister." She runs her hand along the waist.

"Shut up and get under the engine we have no time" Her face was down and voice was demanding and... angry.

Sophia was stunned "Um... yes, of course, I will do it for you," she's decided to not escalate that discussion further. 

She barely fits in the space under machine but still, have enough room to makes work done. 

"Did you okay down there?"

"I fit... somehow."

"Yay, I wasn't sure that your lazy body will slip in that narrow space." Her voice was calmer and louder now." Now start to make runes I fix all other things. That shot from a plasma cannon hit us hard." Bridget starts to make fixes here in there in a fast and professional manner. "How soon do you think enforcers will find us?"

"Soon enough, but we should still escape and arrive in time... I don't wanna make this person wait" Fear grab guts of Sophia when she imagines things that could happen if they are fails.

"Phia all will be okay. We deliver cargo to that mob. You will take your retirement and become an alchemist in some developed world. And I will continue to be adventurer... alone". Shadow of sadness appears on Bridget's face.

Sophie finishes her work but doesn't find words of an answer for her sister.

"I'm finished with runes" when she gets out from underneath of engine that was all that she can say.

"Engine now works just fine!" Bridget starts to smile again.

"Now the essence problem." Sophie bites her lips while thinking about something then covers her mouth with her hand. "I have an idea but you wouldn't like it. Come with me."


Back in the laboratory.

"Say what again?!" Bridget smashes the wall.

"Your engine probably will be completely unfixable after that... but at least we will manage to get to the place." Sophia avoids eye contact with her sister at that moment. She knows how Bridget loves her creation that she build based on one "founded" blueprint.

"But... I... I" Bridget barely handle her emotions, she never was good at it.

"I will pay for all expenses that you should take to build a new one. Deal?" Sophia restores her determination to finish the job and the only way was to create an impure essence that will eventually destroy the warp engine. She looked straight to Bridget's eyes.

"Deal... but I will fuel up engine my self..." She stares at the floor and sobbing about her "baby".

"Bring me a blue box from the hallway, please," Sophia said. 

Sophia took the book of "Alchemy by Wesker Wood" and "Magick runes and alchemy. How to create the force that serves people by Jacomo Black" open required for her task pages and start calculating the number of components and needed formulas to create warp essence.

"Here your box." Bridget places a small blue box on the table and sat on the chair in the corner of the room. She decides to wait until the fuel is done. "Maybe if I do not interfere it's become better and my engine would survive?" she thoughts.

After mostly an hour of the fight with proportions formulas and calculation deal was done.

"So, let's try out." Sophia accurately took the flask with essence and give it to Bridget. "It's your engine and your honor. I should input coordinates quickly that stuff is pretty powerful."

"I understood, just make a signal when you whenever you ready" Bridget stood up and goes to the lower deck.

Her legs don't listen to her, they were numb. She goes to destroy her creation. Bridget in the engine room. Her hand slides on the warm body of an engine. 

"I'm ready, you can use fuel now."

Bridget flinched.

"Good buy old friend, you help us a lot." With a bitter feeling, she poured magick essence into the fuel tank, then she hops on the seat and locks the safety belts. Space twisted they make a jamp.


"That whole story old man" Bridget was staying barefooted on the cold floor and talking with a person in dirty rags. " We deliver the cargo and now mining stones at some dirty pit thrown here by an employer" She makes sure that Sophia heard her.

Sophia glared at the Bridget then turn around.

"By the way you still owing a new engine for me! Queen of blown engines!" She hit the rock with a pickaxe and chopped off a massive chunk of stone.

"And you ow me the ship. Don't forget about the short circuit!" Sophie chopped off a small portion of a rock. "When we get out from here, you will buy a ship to me and I will by the engine for you, oversized dwarf."

"Deal!" 

They both laughed and start work again.




January 18, 2020 01:26

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2 comments

Chris Sharrock
02:10 Jan 23, 2020

Really good story, I liked the twist at the end! The mixture of futuristic mechanical stuff with alchemy and magic was a cool touch too. One thing I noticed is that you sometimes switch back and forth between past-tense and present-tense when narrating. I think either would work well for your story but you generally only want to use one tense. Really enjoyed it, laughed at the ending!

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Ash Blackmoore
06:59 Jan 23, 2020

Thank you a lot for the comment. I will try to get along with your advice!

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