Space

The ship had almost arrived at its mission’s destination.

The two men onboard were elite members of the Galaxy Force’s deep space search unit. For most of the journey they had slept in their pods. The vessel’s computer had roused them in good time to make the final manoeuvres that would put them into orbit around the appointed planet. It was vital that they gather readings and return with them. This would enable them to be studied by the team of experts in the force’s deep space analysis unit. The navigator had been sitting at the array of navigation control panels for some time. He’d been running the ship’s history report that covered the voyage so far.

The captain said, “Are we clear yet?”

“Almost, sir,” came the reply, as the navigator pulled down the short wave inhibitor control lever slowly, allowing the inertia vortex to stabilise.

“Sequence complete, sir.”

“Good. How long?”

The navigator checked. “Just over three minutes now, captain.”

“Well done. Carry on.”

With this, the navigator checked all of the pre-orbit settings once more. He then looked across at the course parameters display to confirm that they had returned to the pre-set trajectory. Satisfied with these, he twirled a few knobs to ensure that all five vertical transponders were correctly aligned before he switched to auto drive. He settled back and watched the sonar grid screen, with its checkerboard pattern of space and the tiny pulsating blip that represented their ship. He knew that these newfangled sonar transceivers, that automatically transmitted signals on reception of the incoming designated signals, would automatically lock in the required coordinates, but he liked to watch the screen, anyway.

The two men sat back waiting for the final moments of their long flight to be taken over by the auto drive’s final phase. Neither astronaut felt any gravitational changes as the ship swang sharply around the outer edge of the swirl of tiny rock fragments that formed the extensive ring system of planet Bethema KP384. Nor could they feel or hear the constant pounding of countless tiny particles that were blasting the hull. Their craft was the best in the fleet, which is why they had been given the mission to locate and report on the stability of the distant planet. In fact, it was a truly incredible distance from their own Milky Way Galaxy; that is, if the photometric redshift readings were accurate.

With seat buckles snapped into place, they sat back as the craft dropped smoothly into orbit around the planet. Moments later the navigator leant forward and flipped the environmental scanner on. The screen remained black. He toggled the switch a couple of times.

The captain said, “Problem?”

“Not sure,” came the brief reply, as the navigator remove the front panel and began poking around.

The next time the captain looked across, his blood ran cold. The other was holding a small item up against the cabin’s light.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s a low amperage fuse, sir.”

The captain saw that the navigator had taken on an expression not unlike that of a small child. He noted that is lower lip quivered slightly. He took a deep breath, knowing full well that he had only become a Galaxy Force’s ship’s captain because he was able to demonstrate an unwavering stoicism in the face of misadventure.

In a voice that betrayed none of his rising panic, he asked, “do we have a spare?”