Thursday, April 3, 2014

What happened to my Asteroid? Section 61:


Captain Calhoun and Captain Grind were relaxing on either side of the conference table, looking out of the viewport toward the front of the station observing operations on the asteroid while sipping some scotch from Captain Calhoun’s private selection.  The chit chat was light as the two captains let off some steam and had a few laughs with their feet kicked up on the table.  This was a luxury neither man got very often due to the responsibilities of command.

They both saw the cloud of ice erupt from the far end of the asteroid.

“What the hell was that?” Captain Grind was startled.
“Not good.” Captain Calhoun sat up in his chair and looked around toward the information console on the rear wall.

The klaxons and emergency lights kicked in.

“Oh Shit!” Captain Calhoun jumped up and bounded to the space suit locker followed very closely by Captain Grind. 

The two quickly donned their suits, activated their enviro-packs and ran through the safety checks on each other’s suits with quiet, smooth precision.  These two were so incredibly familiar with this procedure they could do it in their sleep and not miss a step.  In this case they were far from asleep since they both saw the threat, but that didn’t hinder them in the least as they were absolute professionals.

“Alright Captain,” Captain Grind spoke up “What next?”

“We can’t risk moving through the station right now.” Captain Calhoun moved to the conference table. “So this compartment just became a command deck.” He pressed a button and two command consoles opened up on the conference table.

“Has my ship undocked yet?” Captain Grind moved to one of the consoles and strapped into the chair.

“That would have been the second step after hitting the panic button.” Captain Calhoun strapped down into the chair at the other console. “So I expect you will be our guest for a while.”

The two captains frantically started checking status of their respective commands and the projected trajectories of all of the vessels in motion.

“This isn’t looking good.” Captain Grind looked up “I think my ship will get out of the way but I’m not sure about this station.”

“That is what I am afraid of.” Captain Calhoun didn’t bother looking up, he just kept watching status reports from every department.

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