Flight to Nowhere

by computerneek


Smoke

“Wait, what?”  It had taken Thiz several seconds to process Whiz’ words.

“We’re the only survivors,” his older sister answers.  “We’ve also landed in potentially hostile terrain; I need you to help me check the shuttle for damage.”

Thiz shakes herself gently.  “Um, okay. Where…?”

“You check the dorsal turrets.  Make sure they’re tracking properly, but don’t shoot anything.  I’m going to check the reactor.” Whiz makes her way down to the back of the passenger compartment, flicking the core access door open with a pulse of mana.  Amazing how much harder it is to open doors when the power grid is down.

Next, she enters the core sector.  This area contains the ship’s reactor and structural center, among other things; backup control circuits to just about everything are also found here, as the part least likely to be destroyed in a crash.  She moves directly to the reactor, positioned just behind the long-range communication amplifiers, and pauses…  And pauses. She waits a few minutes to build up enough mana before she initiates her diagnostic on the inoperable mana-producing device.

…  Only to find it’s not inoperable, it’s just ran out of fuel.

Or, the mana infusion in the fuel appears to have been drawn out, like the rest of the mana aboard ship.  Without this infusion, the reactor itself is not enough to convert the matter present in the fuel into mana…  Therefore, the fuel is useless. Fortunately, though, it’s still a liquid- though thick and sticky, sticky one, rather than runny like it’s supposed to be.  Re-infusing fuel shouldn’t be too difficult; it’ll only take a sizable amount of time to store up enough mana to perform the task. Once they get the reactor running, the small fuel refinery in the corner should be able to re-infuse the rest of the fuel with little to no effort on their part, before she plans to allow the mana levels aboard ship to return to normal densities, normally “automatically” maintained by the generator.  Or, for that matter, to charge the capacitance coils.

She emits a heavy sigh, and walks back out to the passenger compartment to check on Thiz’ progress with the ship’s defenses.

She, predictably, finds her younger sister sitting next to one of the turret control seats, staring firmly at the control handle, presumably waiting for her mana to accumulate high enough to operate the thing.

“How’s it going?” she asks mildly.

“Huh?”  Thiz twists around to face her, rising to her hooves- and lifting one to point.  “The first two checked out, the third one feels like it’s rusty, and I haven’t been able to check this last one just yet.”

Whiz nods.  “Interesting.  Well, I already know the engines are okay- but all our fuel has lost its infusion.”

Thiz’ wings droop suddenly- an acceptable imitation of what she would no doubt have done if she were still Shielgician in form:  Let her arms hang. “What?”

Whiz nods again.  “We can forgo the last turret check for now, and save up to infuse some fuel.  Once we get the first little bit done, I should be able to run the rest through the refinery.”

Thiz sighs.  “So, how long are we waiting?”

Whiz shrugs- or, at least, tries to.  Turns out it doesn’t work so well when your upper limbs aren’t independent of your stance; she nearly faceplants again.  “Several hours, I think? We should have enough emergency rations in here to hold a full complement for a week- so, the two of us ought to last close to a year on them.”

At this, Thiz wrinkles her nose.  “Those things?  They’re horrible.”  Her mouth twitches in the ghost of a smile.  “And since our sense of smell seems to have grown stronger, what’s that say about taste…?”

Whiz scowls slightly.  “I know they taste like rehydrated cardboard, but it’s all we got- and until we’ve got power, that airlock is staying closed.

“Oh…”  Thiz pouts, but Whiz is used to this- though, he has to admit, their new forms make the act much more entertaining than it used to be.

“How about we focus on what happened to us, then?  Learn to run, perhaps.” She glances at her sister’s wings.  “Or fly.”

“Without crashing.”

An eyebrow raises.  “You already tried?”

“Yep- and I can fly!  … it’s just not very controlled.”

“Ahh.  Well, let’s focus on running then.  I’d rather not have to teleport back to ship if we get in trouble.”


Almost two hours later, Thiz is running circles around a trotting Whiz; Whiz can’t stop thinking that Thiz could be running faster, if only she knew how.  At least neither of them are falling down any more- that’s always a plus. Unfortunately, she can’t seem to let go of the ground enough herself to build up any of the speed Thiz is managing.

On the flipside of things, though, they’ve saved up enough mana- between the two of them- to perform the first section of re-infusing.  Whiz very nearly burns into that supply to stop Thiz from jumping around; this is her first time into this part of any spacecraft, let alone a military design; these things have an order of magnitude more things to play with in here.

Fortunately, she doesn’t have to spend any of his hard-waited mana in restraining her sister, so their collaborative effort goes successfully.  Her reward is a single drop of revitalized fuel- which is instantly burned up in the reactor. Whiz then sends Thiz back out into the passenger bay before he directs the tiny bits of mana produced- easily six times what they had used to produce that fuel- into the refinery…  With a little, of course, to levitate the uninfused fuel into it. It takes her five minutes to build up enough of a flow that the refinery runs flat out; the remaining mana produced, as the reactor can burn it several times as fast as their refinery can produce it, goes into charging the power cells.

Which, of course, take their merry time charging.  Not that she cares- she’ll be sitting in this room, directing the levitation of uninfused fuel, until she gets it all into the refinery.


She takes in a deep breath as the door snaps open in front of her…  And lets it out. Stupid shipboard air, always smelling of the same dust…  Not, she reminds herself, that she could smell that dust beforehand.  Her second breath captures…

Is that smoke?  She steps quickly through the door, onto the boarding ramp, scanning around quickly.  She’d used Turret 4- perfect working order- to review their surroundings before she came to this door; as a matter of fact, she’d also waited until she could charge her own internal mana supply to completely full- and leave a decent supply in the batteries- before she’d dropped out of the turret!

After a momentary glance back whence she came, she makes the decision to investigate on her own.  It’s not like Whiz would be able to move nearly as fast as she, though she might understand the parts better.  Besides, what’s five minutes- and knowing where the problem is- next to the six hours the clock tells her they’ve been here?

Again, it’s not like they can’t utilize their telepathic link; with the ship’s mana supply, Whiz should be able to power it from inside indefinitely!  Then, of course, the nature of telepathic links would let her fix the damage, not just her more learned sister.  She faces the back of the ship, where the smell seems to be coming from, spreads her wings, and makes a leap for the ladder rungs to the top of the ship.  She hopes she can climb the ladder or wing her way up; they’d lose so little mana if she had to levitate herself up, the way all spacefaring Shielgicians are taught.

Well, little compared to the amount Whiz is busy producing.  And little compared to the amount it would cost to teleport on top of the ship.

…  And her attempt at gliding to the rungs fails dismally; she misses them entirely and finds herself upside-down on the ground again.  Drat! What did she get wrong? Oh well- those rungs extend all the way to the ground; they’re not generally supposed to be mounted direct from the boarding ramp.  Once she rights herself- turns out the lumpy ground is less comfortable to roll on than the metal deck plating- she sets about climbing that ladder.

It takes her close to a minute to figure it out, but she eventually clambers up the ladder.  Not nearly as fast as she might have before- after all, she didn’t usually take five seconds per rung and fall off twice.  During that second fall, at least, her outstretched wings had ended up turning her rightside-up, leaving her to land on her hooves…  gentler than she might have otherwise. But in any case, she’s now standing atop the shuttlecraft, and she trots along it- threading her way between the upper dorsal turrets- in the direction the smoke seems to be coming from.

Which happens to be the tail of the ship.  Excellent- that’s both the busiest side of the ship, AND where the engines are!  Fortunately, with this sense of smell of hers, she ought to be able to track down whatever’s smoking within seconds…  Hopefully. She’ll have to self-levitate off the back of the shuttle; with no work platforms and no work harness (she hadn’t thought to bring it and, besides, it’s a two-man tool), that’s all she’s got.

Only, as she sniffs at the air, she realize the smoke isn’t coming from below her, but from in front…  Behind the shuttle. Somewhere. With a quick glance back at the ship, she estimates the mana required to teleport back to it- thank  that particular spell isn’t affected- significantly, at least- by distance! Finally, she spreads her wings, leaps off the back of the ship…  and the only reason she doesn’t end up upside-down (or something more painful) is because she corrects her orientation constantly with her mana.

That didn’t take much- just a quarter-second’s worth of refinery time.  She then runs- or, is it more of a gallop? Doesn’t feel fast enough to be that, though- in the direction of the smoke…  Almost directly behind the ship and, apparently, quite the distance as well.

She eventually reduces to what might be considered a trot; unlike her gallop- canter?- it doesn’t strain her muscles so much.

She trots.

And she trots on.

She makes sure to glance back every so often, making sure she doesn’t go out of sight of her ship…  Or, more accurately, that her ship doesn’t go out of her sight. It’s only the easiest way to judge distance- and, thence, to know exactly how far is too far.

Finally, with the very tip of the shuttle’s vertical stabilizer sticking up over the horizon when she holds her head as high as she can whise standing on a tall hill, she looks the other way- and discovers the source of the smoke.

Or, more, she discovers the smoke.  It’s also over the horizon.

She estimates total distance…  Yep, plenty within teleportation range.  She won’t be able to use her mana for much else without cutting into what she’ll need for teleportation, but she can at least travel up closer.  This she does.