Catastrophe 13 (Patreon)

@OhWolfy suggested that I add onto the Catastrophe tale. You got it, man!

Sorry about being slow to post. I've been busy getting Fair Trade off to the voice actor, but that's done now. I should bubble up to the top of his queue in November. Can't wait to have all three books done!

———

With a marker in paw, Kai’to swung by the apartments before heading off to grab another assignment. On both her parents’ and the neighbor’s door, she wrote, “Kai’to: I’m okay. You?”

She headed up the ramp and groaned as the immense form of Commissioner Taigen came into view. She could hardly sneak past, and when the krakun saw her, he pointed at her. “You, welder!” he said. “Come here.”

Kai’to hurried over and craned her neck way up to look the massive creature in the face. “Yes, sir?”

“Did you complete that task I asked of you?” he said.

She opened her muzzle to reply but was cut off by a gurgling in the commissioner’s stomach that sounded like the deck was buckling. The noise rumbled on for what felt like hours before finally quieting. When it was done, Kai’to said, “I bagged all the possessions, yes,” she said, being intentionally oblique in case any of the passers-by were listening in, “but if more have been added since then, they haven’t been done.”

“I understand,” he said.

“And how are you holding up, sir?” she asked. The krakun blinked, clearly surprised that she would have said anything to him beyond just answering his questions. “Are you holding out okay?”

After a pause that made Kai’to sweat, he finally nodded. “I’m holding out fine so far,” he said. “It is distracting certainly, but I’m quite capable of focusing even when a little distracted. I’ll hold out as long as I’m able.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “We all appreciate your strength.”

The commissioner nodded and raised his head, ready to continue on his way but then paused. “Oh, and Kai’to?”

“Yes, commissioner?”

“Do stop by on occasion to bag any others that have...piled up.”

Kai’to looked down at her paws, feeling very small. She thought, How in the hells do I keep getting dragged into this? But out loud, she said, “Yes, sir.”

# # #

Kai’to worked for several more hours before taking a moment to check in on the apartments once more. Her mother had checked in, leaving her a quick note that read, “I’m relieved you’re okay, hon. Please take care.” Her father hadn’t responded, but she hoped that was more a matter that he hadn’t been by his apartment rather than an indicator that he couldn’t.

At the neighbor’s door, Oka’s father had checked in too and verified that he’d seen his mate, but he added, “Debris cut off corridor to Oka’s school. No word yet.” That made her stomach tumble with worry.

Just because rescuers hadn’t reached the cub’s classroom, that didn’t indicate anything bad! Kai’to herself had been cut off from the rest of the ship and she’d been fine. Still, it was unsettling.

She wanted to head toward the classroom and see if her welding skills could help out, help clear the way, but she knew her duty. Tasks had already been prioritized to protect as many lives as possible, and for her, that meant doing her job.

“I’ll leave a note if I hear news,” she added before heading back to the job board.

# # #

More tedious welding, a lunch of porridge that was at least more satisfying than dinner had been, and Kai’to ran into the commissioner for a third time—this time up in astronavigation. Commissioner Taigen had his cheek to the deck and was peering into a room far too small for him to enter.

“Ah, Kai’to,” he sighed when he saw her. “Perfect. I need you to operate this terminal for me. The keys are infuriatingly small.”

The geroo frowned. “I’m not much of a computer person,” she said with a shake of her head. “Welding and air processors are much more in my comfort zone. Let me get you someone else—”

“No, you,” he insisted. “I will tell you every key to press if needed. There aren’t many geroo aboard this ship that I trust, and I’d rather not try to expand that list now.”

Kai’to frowned. Why in the galaxy would he decide to trust me of all people? she groaned inwardly. Of all the people aboard this ship, I’m the only one who’s been on a lio ship!

But without any obvious way out of the task, she squeezed by the krakun’s snout.

The commissioner had managed to loop a length of cable around one of the desks and pulled it closer to the doorway, but the cord tethering the terminal to the wall had no slack remaining, and if he pulled the desk any closer, it would come unplugged. Kai’to grabbed a chair and sat down. “Okay, looks like a star chart on the screen,” she reported.

“Yeah, I can see that,” he grunted from outside the room. She turned back to him but looked away once more when she saw how his eye filled most of the doorway. “But why is that orbit highlighted?”

Kai’to’s stomach dropped. Even before she looked at the designation attached to the red ellipse, she knew exactly what it would say. “Uh,” she mumbled, “it’s a comet called AP7739.”

“Yes, but why is it highlighted?” he asked. “Who highlighted it?”

She swallowed, thought for a moment and decided to play dumb. “I don’t know, sir. What do you want me to type?”

“What I want to know,” the krakun growled, “is what in the dead gods’ names is that comet doing crossing our shipping lane?”

Kai’to turned her chair to face the gigantic eye in the doorway. “Uh, slipped past the survey perhaps?”

The wall groaned as Taigen pressed his head harder against the doorway. “Impossible. There’s a station in this system serving a hundred ships a year. The asteroid belts have been surveyed out with a microscope!”

The geroo shrugged. “Perhaps she crossed paths with another and deflected her trajectory?”

“Into a larger orbit?” the krakun growled.

Kai’to was sweating hard now, and she could feel beads of it running down her back. “Gravity assist? If she fell in behind a planet, that planet’s orbital momentum—”

“I know what gravity assist means!” the krakun shouted.

Kai’to slipped from her seat and hid behind the chair until her racing heart slowed.

At last, the krakun grumbled, “I’m sorry, Kai’to. I didn’t mean to yell at you.” When she peeked cautiously around the chair’s back, Taigen added. “I’m just hangry, y’know?”

She’d never learned that particular portmanteau before, but she pieced it quickly together. She cleared her throat and tried to keep the tremble from her voice, “I understand, sir. I’d be pretty testy as well if I walked in your pawprints.”

Silence hung between them a moment. “Thank you for your patience,” the commissioner said after recovering some of his calm demeanor. “Okay, what I’d like you to do is verify the comet’s current location. I want to know if this data is accurate.”

Kai’to nodded. “Okay, how do I do that?”

“Just drag the orbit to the telescope icon and wait,” Taigen explained. “The telescope will automatically turn to face the comet’s current position along that orbit. Then click the telescope icon again to open the view.”

“Got it.”

The moments ticked by until an entire minute had elapsed, but when Kai’to pulled up the display, the screen was largely blank. “A couple stars in the background,” she said, studying the screen, “but nothing near the reticule. Maybe it’s black, a dark object?”

“Shouldn’t be,” he replied. “Survey said it was icy with a rocky core.”

“Well, it’s not there,” she said, feeling some relief. Could the lio have been wrong? Perhaps they weren’t in the comet’s crosshairs after all. She needed to speak to the captain about this immediately! But she’d need to break away from helping the commissioner first.

The terminal beeped and Kai’to perked an ear. “Um, it’s gone, sir,” she said quietly.

“Gone?” he asked, blinking a few times. “You said it wasn’t there.”

“I mean the connection, sir,” she said. “The display has been replaced with an error. I didn’t touch anything. It says something about tracking beneath the minimum azimuth?”

“That means the telescope can’t point any farther down. Essentially, the ship is between the telescope and where we’re trying to point it.”

She turned her chair back to facing the eye. “Well, it locked in a moment ago.”

“Crap,” he sighed. “The impact and resulting explosions may have transferred some rotational momentum into the ship.”

She perked both ears now.

“That means we’re spinning,” he said. “Click on status, then ship, then location and orientation. Maximize the window to make the text big enough for me to read.”

The krakun stared at the numbers in silence. She cleared her throat once and then again, but he only stared. Eventually, she asked, “Sir?”

“We’re accelerating,” he said at last.

“We’re in a gravity well of some sort?” Her heart raced.

“No, the spin,” he said. “The spin is accelerating.”

“Oh,” she sighed, drawing the sound out. “You mean like air is escaping at an angle and it’s making us spin.”

“No, there’s far too much acceleration for that,” said the krakun. “If we were losing that much air, we’d know.”

“So…?”

“More likely that one of the reaction thrusters we use to orient the ship is firing. It might be damaged from the impact, shorted out, stuck on.”

Kai’to’s ears drooped. “Is that bad?”

“Well, it’s not good,” the commissioner explained. “It’s wasting fuel and making us spin, but I can think of seven thousand, four hundred and twelve things that are more pressing—getting me off this damned ship being most important among them.”

The geroo finally smiled. As she stood, she said, “Well, that’s good, at least.”

“Well, go about your duties, welder,” the krakun said as his eye pulled away from the doorway. “With luck, I’ll be able to reach a telescope on the ship’s port side.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z16WyYoYshwAXoBZ47xFeVuBCGsV2UyO49a02Ken3MY/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?