Page 32 of Soliv Four
“Even if we can get it running again, who is going to fly it? None of us are pilots,” Tomak reminded.
“These things are supposed to practically fly themselves. I think I could get it to launch with the help of the onboard AI. I took basic flight training for emergencies where the pilots are incapacitated.”
“Then what?”
“We tell it to return to base, using the emergency protocol,” Emon said.
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“Troubleshooting ship’s communications.” Emon moved to the AI console and found the switch to turn it back on. The lights in that compartment blinked on overhead, and power to the AI was restored. The AI raised a virtual screen and proceeded to list the status of the ship. Besides the crack in one drive crystal, there was a hull breach under the cockpit where it hit a big rock during the crash.
The vessel was impaled on the rock. Fixing the hole, it made required lifting the ship off the rock to patch it. Only the rock broke the line to the maneuvering thrusters needed to raise the ship up off the rock.
“This isn’t looking good, is it?” Tomak asked.
“Considering none of us are mechanical engineers, and we need propellant to refuel the thrusters, we’ve got problems,” Emon admitted. “Maybe we can salvage some of the other wrecks we found.”
“What kind of vessels?”
“A couple of hovercrafts, a space shuttle for transferring passengers and cargo from space. This jungle seems to swallow them up.”
“Let’s look at the ship’s log and see what made it crash.”
A new virtual screen popped up at Tomak’s request and quickly populated the screen with the data.
“There.” Emon pointed. “A powerful electromagnetic pulse discharge knocked out all the electronics as he was passing over the jungle on his way to recon the prison compound.”
“How could that happen? This vehicle is equipped with a stealth generator.”
“It was a random sweep. That’s their deterrent for prison breaks. I don’t think it was triggered by this ship. It probably didn’t broadcast the right code to pause the automatic sweeps. Even if we do get this ship space worthy, we’ll need that code before we can launch.”
“What about the Soliv ships that crashed? They must have it?”
“They probably do. We’ll have to check them out. Getting out here to do the work is the biggest problem. It could take moon spans to get it all done.”
“We’ll just have to figure it out,” said Tomak.
“There was a tablet in the tool cabinet.” Emon stepped around Tomak and pulled it out. “It should have the repair manual and troubleshooting guide. I can probably tap into the prison AI easier with this than my holovid.”
“Bring it with us, and we can take turns learning the repair manual so we can fix this ship and get off this damn prison world.”
“We will memorize it,” Emon asserted. “There is a weapons locker in the short corridor from the bridge. Should we take a look?”
“Definitely.”
They walked back through the ship and opened the locker. There were four ion rifles and six blasters inside with recharge canisters.
“Well, if we can’t get off this miserable planet, we could probably stage a coup.”
“That could be our back-up plan,” Emon quipped. “We would be in our element.”
“I hate to do it, but we have to leave them here. Our flats aren’t secure from searches. Finding these weapons in our possession would get us sent back to the mines. Angie would never be safe there,” Tomak said.
Since Angie didn’t know how long Tomak would be inside the ship, she took out a plastic tarp and spread it on the ground for the other two women to sit with her and chat. Coraz and D’aktan had brought their females for the same reason Tomak had brought her. They didn’t believe it was safe to leave them at the housing unit without bodyguards.
“What made you two sign up with the Many Worlds Matchmaking agency?”
“Slavers,” said Riatee. “We were stolen from our beds in a raid by marauding slavers.”
