Just A Touch of Luck

“Dude, it’s post lunch time and we’re still stuck out in the Void. Didn’t you promise I’d get to eat some of that frosty cake??!”

“Shut up,” Calci grumbles as he continues tinkering with the dermometric tank in front of him.

Flix doesn’t, perturbed that the one time of year he can have actual sweet food, he’s stuck on maintenance duty with the most stubborn mechanic of the garrison. He’s so busy complaining about his loss, neither company notices the floating anchor falling behind. 

Said anchor is supposed to keep their scaffold-shuttle in place. 

Said anchor is supposed to feed electricity into the boosters, and into the autopilot.

Said anchor is supposed to make sure they don’t float away.

And it’s only until Flix finally listens to Calci’s demand to get to work instead of being such a nuisance that he realizes, he can’t. The boosters are sputtering, and the gravitational lock is no longer active. They look towards the dock that only moments ago was two panes away from their position and notice that they are quickly falling behind the half point of the rocket boosters.

“Flix... Have we been floating away from the dock for the last few ticks?”

Calci would laugh at the younger squadron’s unusual quietness and the clear horror in his widened eyes, but now is not the time to laugh at his misery because this is also Calci’s misery too. The last time he was in a similar direction, Calci was a fresh recruit, ready to explore the astrolaids. His department had been marine ethnology before the lack of suitable aquatic environments and equipment became a problem. From there, well, he grew up as an agriculturist. He knew how to grow plants, medicinal herbs, and fix equipment necessary for the practice. It was that knowledge of repairs that kept him on the outer rims of the Stella Blanc expedition. And until this point, he was fine with the trajectory of his space career. But here he was, watching his home careen away thanks to its functional boosters and fuel processors while he was stuck with the most obnoxious, incompetent dung head he’d ever met.

“We can fix this, yeah? I mean, they’ll notice we’re gone soon enough, right?”

Flix isn’t good at hiding his emotions. Even worse at reassuring others. His shaky tone and cracking pitch makes anything he might be trying to convince himself of sounds false to even his own ears. 

And Calci, he’s a pessimist.

“We have five hours worth of oxygen, kid. By the time they notice we’re gone, they’ll have reached Exula Quad. We needed to load up on more fuel, and what I was trying to do while you were yapping is seal up the carbon leakage near the rotor.”

Flix stares in confusion, not understanding the correlation. But they’ve worked together long enough that Calci can read his cues. He doesn’t even get annoyed as he instinctively explains further. 

“If we don’t fix it, they won’t be able to land, won’t be able to fuel up, and definitely won’t be able to come back to get us. Especially not in the five hours we have left.”

“But... the sensor could’ve triggered that we were gone, no?”

“The sensor that’s supposed to be attached to the hook you mean? It probably malfunctioned when the hook came off.”

Flix groans then loudly exclaims, “well I’m not spending the next five hours waiting to die with you, Mr. Grumpy Pants! I got reasons to live, sweets to eat! I’m getting back on that ship with or without your help.”

With determination, he walks to the other side of the scaffold and plops himself down without much grace. He then proceeds to spend the next five minutes staring down at the tools in his disposal and silently groaning when he keeps drawing up blanks on how the miniature jet pack project he worked on in year six was configured. He knows he has the tools, but for the life of him, all he can think is “Error! Page not found! Memory deleted!”

But he surely can’t ask Calci for help now considering his big theatrics moments before.

Can he?

“Are you gonna modify the torch?”

The gruff voice of Calci is surprisingly calm, and very helpful as a switch flips in Flix’s head. Immediately, he grabs it, nodding in assent as he starts blabbing about the one time he had to make a project that could cause lift without too much waste. He ended up making a lot of waste, “but it was beautiful! I’d rather call it a purge than waste, but what do I know. It’s not like I ever took any art classes anyways, or had much talent in that. Or wanted to be an artist...”

Calci sits down next to the boy, so young in mind despite his age, and just as easy to read as a child.

“Son, did you want to be in the program?”

He sniffles, very quiet as he continues tinkering.

“I’m going to stop talking now since I think I wasted like two hours worth of air,” He says around a light hearted chuckle. Calci knows that’s not the case but leaves it at that.

“Before I do though, I have to ask. And it pains me to do so because I know I won’t be able to talk after this at all even if I hate the answer, but do you trust me?”

Calci raises a brow and shrugs. It takes every fiber in his being not to laugh at the pain staking effort Flix puts at not saying a peep while he motions frantically in the air. He can almost hear it.

You don’t trust me?? Me??! The one who fixed the air when you— No, yeah, that was me.. Ah! I was the one who, yeah no, I got distracted.. Maybe when? Mm-mm. Needed help that time too... Dang, can I do this?

Calci reaches into his pockets then for his favorite pen. It’s old tech, and very dated, but it was his last present from his mother before he started on the mission. Though he’s not superstitious, she promised it would always bring him luck when he needs it. Slowly, he writes on his hand, “I trust your love of sweets. Now hurry up so we can get some of that cake you made me promise you.”

Flix nods, knowing this is Calci’s way of being reassuring and he finishes as quickly as he can. He’s removed the magnets from the graviton chamber and fixed gears to the handles of the torch. With the harpoon mechanism of the scaffold arms, he figures that can jump start the movement towards the ship’s bottom rotor. Then attaching some of the oxygen reserves between the magnets should help it get the rest of the way once the oxygen is ignited.

“If you put that tank between the magnets, the magnets will explode away from each other and then we won’t get the line that we need.”

Flix nods, smacking himself for not seeing it sooner. Calci pulls out his pen and places it in a tube just big enough to cover the pen fully, allowing it to slide in place. He then attaches the hose from the torch to one side of the tube, then attaches one of the oxygen reserves to the other end. If this works correctly, just enough oxygen should jut into the space created by the metallic pen when repelled by the southern end of the magnets then pulled back, away from the oxygen when attracted to the northern ends. Like train tracks, just enough bursts of flammable oxygen should help push the hook towards the aforementioned rotor. And there’s no time to waste as they only have one shot to get the hook attached before being stranded in the Great Abyss.

‘I’ve never been a betting man, but I don’t have a choice. Let’s see if you really do bring luck.’

Flix wraps the torch cord around the right scaffold arm, and aims just above the small exhaust vent nearest the rotor. He refuses to take too much time before pressing the trigger lest he overthink and then lose his one shot. The arms don’t go out nearly as much as he’d like, but enough momentum built in the motion to cause the loosely wrapped cord to extend. As it’s no longer moving on a straight line, the slight incline provides the necessary moving space for it to eventually reach its destination.

However, too much oxygen was in the reserves for such a short trip, and not enough of it has combusted before reaching the rotor...

Kaboom!

Flix bites nervously on his ring finger as he sees one of the arms of the rotor drift away after its expulsion from the blast. He turns to his mentor, nervously chewing the right side of his bottom lip now. Calci looks calm enough—minus the exception of his eyebrow slowly rising along with his slow breath in.

One, two, three

Calci counts internally, praying for some peace or at least for some of the debris to hit him so he won’t have to do that paperwork. Because it worked! The torch got where it needed to go! But it took out half of the rotor, and caused a not so minor break in the bottom hull of the ship.

Ten, nine, eight...

He starts counting backwards since he feels no calmer seeing the now flashing red alarms start blaring along the edges of each window, turning the ship into a giant blinker against the pitch black void behind it.

“Will it make you happy to know I probably won’t be getting that cake now? And I totally deserve it, I know.”

Calci rolls his eyes and responds, “son, you saved us from dying out in space. You saved me from dying to your nonstop chatter. I think you deserve that cake, plenty.”