“Help me, help me, help meeeeeeeee.”
The drill bit hammered into the rock near George’s hand.
“I love the classics. Bananarama were geniuses…genii? Years ahead of their time.”
With his playlist over, he only had his ragged breathing to keep him company. He did he best not to think about him being surrounded by huge chunks of rock, flying at unimaginable speeds.
He reached for a thin stick of of high explosive and carefully pulled it from his belt. The lattice work of explosives would be complete the moment he slid it into place. He slowly raised it to the hole and sneezed.
His body shook, the bomb dropped. And floated, spinning slowly. George moaned. His nose was running and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He jammed the final part into the meteorite, fitted a blasting cap, and powered away on hisjet pack.
In the distance he could see his ship. His home.
“Computer. I think I dropped some food in the dining room. Could you send one of the droids in to clean up?”
He glanced at his detonator. Still Red. He flew on.
“Computer?”
The detonator flicked to green, and he turned back towards his prize, wishing he had a computer that talked.
And a set of droids that would clean up after him.
All day he flew from rock to rock, blowing them up, collecting the minerals. And now he gets to go back and clean up the food he threw at the wall this morning.
He was sure that, when younger, “being a spaceman” held more glamor.
He pushed the button and the rock shattered. Even that wasn’t like it was in the movies.
He waited for the shock wave to pass before turning his scanner on to pick up the minerals in the area.
Heading for the closest, he noticed a large mass further into the asteroid field. He tapped the screen, held his wrist at an angle that avoided the snot splatter. It was still there.
He attached a clip to some space rock and floated to another.
There was no one else working this field. Curiosity got the better of him and he flew a little in its direction.
“WARNING. FUEL CONSUMPTION DOES NOT ALLOW FOR UNAUTHORIZED TRAVEL.”
He couldn’t see a thing, but whatever he was detecting, it was vast.
He scooped up the last of the minerals and headed back to the ship.
Back on board he scanned the area. And, as much as the ship’s radar showed nothing in that area, it that didn’t stop him setting a course to as close as he could.
***
He stared out of the view port. At nothing
“That’s odd.”
No stars. No rocks. An absence of everything.
But his scanner was going mad. “Well, that’s not right.” He flicked the external lights on, threw up and passed out.
***
The…he settled for ship…was vast. Higher and longer than anything he had ever seen. It was obviously alien – and he’d seen his fair share of aliens.
And it looked utterly dead. The mineral content on the hull made it look like a fossil. In fact, the whole think looked like a long dead, enormous monster.
“This is the secret diary of George Spektor. I’m about to explore an alien ship. It’s vast. I’m going inside now. Heh. Wouldn’t it be great if it was full of stars.”
