Chapter 16 - Docking

Marr had watched in horror. All the training hadn’t prepared her sufficiently for what had just unfolded. Her self deprecation was interrupted by a blur on the video feed. A transport pod could be seen racing away in the direction of where she last saw Dukk and Luna.
“Marr, I am going to close the port door and airlock from up here in the cockpit. Do you want to make your way up here too,” Bazzer announced on the crew comms.
Bazzer had disappeared the moment Dukk said ‘PAN PAN’.
“Wait, if you are up there, who is in the pod?” Marr asked.
“Mentor. He was already in a transport pod when I got to the transport bay door. The bay was already being depressurised.”
“I am on my way up too,” came Annee’s voice in the comms. “We will coordinate the rescue from there. And, I am assuming command until Dukk is back with us. Let’s move the conn up there.”
“On my way,” Marr uttered in disbelief.
“How fast things change,” she thought to herself.

Moving through the rig in zero-g wasn’t easy. By the time Marr had reach the cockpit the rescue was well underway.
A video feed was displaying the view from inside the transport pod.
The planet could be seen flipping in and out of view of the front windshield. Dukk and Luna could be seen together rotating slowly.
“What’s going on?” Marr asked as she sat down in Mentor’s seat in the second row.
“Mentor is trying to match their spin before he gets too close,” Annee answered.
“Dukk and Luna, I am opening the canopy now and attempting to bring you on board. Brace for impact,” Mentor shared into the crew comms.
The video feed blurred as the canopy opened. Then the view cleared momentarily as the pod came up to Dukk and Luna. Then the video feed went all blurry and messed up, before stopping altogether.
“What happened!” exclaimed Marr.
“Mentor? We’ve lost the video feed. Are you still there?” Annee asked calmly into the crew comms.
They waited.
“Got them,” came Mentor’s reply. “The video camera must have been knocked when I crashed into them. They are pretty beaten up and this pod might need some work but we are safe. On our way back.”
Marr burst in to tears. Tears of joy.
“Well done, Mentor,” Annee said emotionally into the comms.
“Well when you two have got things together, we’d better get ready for their arrival,” Bazzer said smiling back at Marr and Annee from his seat at the front of the cockpit.
They all laughed.
“Do you two want to get to the transport bay door and be ready to give Mentor a hand. I’ll keep an eye on the rig until Dukk and Luna are checked out,” Annee suggested.
“Good plan, let’s go Marr,” Bazzer replied.

Two hours later, Mentor and Marr were approaching the med bay doors. Moments before, Mentor had found Marr and alerted her. He had finished with Dukk and Luna. They were ready for visitors.
Mentor opened the door and held it for Marr. Dukk and Luna were sitting up on the med bay beds chatting. Dukk was wearing only gym shorts. Luna wasn’t in much more. Their bodies showed bruising and also signs of Mentor’s medical work.
“So, you aren't from Utopiam?”
“No, I grew up in Kuedia?”
“What was that like?”
“Growing up?”
“Yep.”
“The same as for you, I suspect. School until ten, then labour rotation until eighteen when I joined a rig as an apprentice.”
“What was your favourite job before joining the rig?”
“Anything in the port. Cleaning, maintenance, unloading, loading. I just loved being around the rigs. What about you? What was your favourite job?”
“Anything outside that involved heights. I had some of my most happiest moments dangling from a lanyard to clean windows.”
“We can arrange that at the hub if you like?”
“I might give dangling from lanyards a miss for the moment.”
They both laughed.

“Hey you two, ready to get back to work?” Marr asked.
“Yep, all stitched back together and good to go,” answered Luna with a smile.
“Why, couldn’t you manage without us?”, Dukk shared with glee.
“Ha, ha. In fact we did better than manage without you. We even did a little investigation of what went wrong out there. Look at this,” Marr said as she flicked her wrists at the screen on the wall.
“What are we looking at?” Luna asked.
“The back of your backpack,” Dukk answered.
“Exactly. This is a magnified feed of the propulsion unit just after Luna left the doorway. See that blackened area. Bazzer looked at the pack after we got you both in here. The pack was pretty smashed up, but he managed to piece enough of it together to find this thumb size hole. So we ran back through the video footage. Now, watch what happens as I run this clip.”
They watched the clip. After a few moments, a spider like object appeared in the hole and jumped out.
“A nano drone?” Luna observed.
“Yep, that is what we think. The video feeds couldn’t offer any other angles to see what happened when it jumped clear. Bazzer thinks it simply disappeared into orbit and we won’t find it.”
“But a drone must have a pilot?”
“Yes, it does. That is the part of the mystery we have yet to figure out.”
“So someone used a nano drone to take control of my pack? To? Wait. To, take me out?”
“Well, most of that is what it looks like. Except, you weren’t wearing any old propulsion pack. You were wearing the captain’s pack.”
“Oh,” Luna said as she looked over at Dukk, as did Marr and Mentor.
“Well I guess if the nano drone pilot thought the pack was on me, they didn’t know much of haulier traditions,” observed Dukk.
They fell silent.

Dukk looked casually at Luna, Marr and then Mentor. He saw empathy. He was glad he wasn’t seeing signs of involvement in the sabotage of his propulsion pack.
He opened his crew comms. “Circle-up in five. Crew mess.”
He then disconnected and said out loud, “Luna, time to get some clothes on.” With that he got up and made for the door.

(to be continued...)

[Rule of Twelve, Double Take, Chapter 16 - Docking (Passage 1 of 5)]

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