In various stages of my life, I have regretted being a squishy, having nothing more than my pallor and intimitable wit and intellect to utterly crush any foes. My limbs are weak and doughy, my enormous brain protected by the thinnest of skulls. Suffice it to say that when colleagues or acquaintances get to explore dark places or battle diraks, I am often left behind to think my way out of their tomfoolery instead of brandishing large unwieldy weapons to crush our enemies.
The same is true when it comes to exploring derelict ships that reek soundly of corpse-droppings: while Kit-Kaaatt and Silas fearlessly tinkered and howled their way through the Rapture, I remained onboard the Buick cracking my knuckles and picking my teeth. Waiting for a chance to unleash my ponderous intellect. Tapping my meticulously manicured nails on hard surfaces. Waiting for my training to be relevant to my latest endeavor. At long last, the holler for Squishies came.
Tor and I were requested to examine the cargo bay door, the one that failed to close and was letting all the space and cold air in. Because our combined intellectual prowess could easily conquer medium-sized star systems if we were so inclined, I knew that hacking the door software and forcing the door to close would be like stealing a space-tenderloin from a dirak. (That’s an easy task, for those of you not in the know. Easy, of course, if the dirak is already dead. What?! That’s not against the rules. You just have to be clever enough to figure it out.)
Turns out things were more complicated than they first appeared, and there was no conceivable way to hack the software and make to door functional again. Some bastard burst out of the cargo bay before the doors were fully opened (or whilst they were closing) and Tor and I were faced with twisted metal that used to be the doors. After poking around for a bit, I found a manual override lever that, when provoked by my might, managed to creak the doors about a third of the way shut. Tor later assisted, and our four doughy arms managed to close it further, until there was just a whisper of space between the doors. This, of course, was insufficient in making the area air-tight. We were deeply dissatisfied in a job half done, and knew we’d have to be put at the mercy of a mechanic in order to repair the doors properly.
We decided to airlock the part of the Rapture that lead to the busted cargo bay door, and continued exploring, heading back to meet the others. Meanwhile, Kit-Kaaatt noticed a blip closing in on us from about twenty hours out. This time, the Squishies dominated. iZak determined we should send the Buick back to the rental center on Finally, and meanwhile Tor programmed the Rapture to fire its engines and begin our course in a very different direction, after which we would shut down the ship to avoid a heat signature and drift to Halcyon, another city on Finally. It worked brilliantly. The blip changed course to follow the Buick. We were free and clear.
Oh, I almost forgot about the Canned Bug.
Inside the second, air-tight cargo hold stood a cylinder of about two meters high. The can spat out vitals, readable so that we determined the being inside, a ki-tik, was deep in cryo-hybernation, and healthy to boot.
Excellent. Another challenge once we land in Halcyon.
