Challenge #01598-D137: That's One Bad Week
[Bad news]
[Worse news]
[Extremely horrible news]
[ohmygodwhatthefuck news]
One of the people who have to deal with it all, to the rest of same: ...well people, I'd say it's about time to drink ourselves into the mother of all stupors. It's been that kind of week. -- RecklessPrudence
First, the Gravity Drive failed. They still had internal gravity, but the virtual black hole in front of the bow that towed them along at CTL speeds[1] was no longer operational. The shipboard Nae'hyn were doing all they could, but the engine was old to begin with and this kind of flaw was equivalent to having a stroke.
Which wasn't a real problem. Not initially. They could burn some rockets to push them along and send out a non-urgent distress call. And they had enough shipboard supplies to last until they reached the nearest station. And then the rockets failed to ignite.
Now the only way they could get to where they were going was by judicious and careful venting of shipboard gasses, and rationing was initialised in the hopes that the ship's gardens could grow things fast enough that there would be food to ration when the rations ran out.
And then a shipboard sickness broke out. One of the most recent immunoflus[2] mutated and took the lessened resilience of the crew as an opportunity to become a ship-wide plague. The need for warm fluids overstretched both the water recycling system and the environmental systems. The ship ran low on cellulose as the crew printed tissues faster than the molecular reconfiguration system could recycle them.
And then a Vorax scout ship turned up to attempt one easy victory against their hated enemy, the humans.
Captain Jane only had one recourse left. She set her comms to all stations and all channels. "Well, people? I'd say it's about time to drink ourselves into the mother of all stupors. It's been that kind of week." She absently closed the comms and reached for a bottle of whisky she'd been hoarding for twenty years. Opened it and drank straight from the bottle as she watched the Vorax scout begin to line itself up. "Come at me, broodfucker," she muttered.
The Vorax ship paused. There had been some debate as to whether they understood Galstand, but that debate now had evidence on the side of "yes they do". They had time to receive and listen to Captain Jane's broadcast. Now the ship hung in space in a decidedly un-Vorax manner. They either attacked or ran screaming into the dark gulfs of space.
"Make up your mind," Captain Jane nagged the screen. "Shit or get off the pot, Powers damn it."
Lieutenant Chaz approached her seat and murmured, "You've left the comms on, Captain."
Shit. She swore she'd turned them off. Captain Jane made certain, this time, and wondered what must be going through the Vorax's thick little skulls. At least the whisky kept the perpetual chill at bay while she waited.
Thus, she was more than a little drunk when they finally sent a hail. "If we surrender," said the scout-ship Captain, "will you be... merciful?"
"Depends," said Captain Jane. "You got a tow-bar?"
Humans were dangerous, everyone knew that. Drunk humans were even worse. Drunk humans en masse had to be a destructive force roughly equivalent to a supernova at point blank range. At least, that was the logic that the Vorax used when working out if this was going to be a victory or a defeat.
And that was how a crew of sick, drunk humans on a broken ship managed to defeat one of the worst-known Deathworlders in the Universe.
[1]: CTL - Close To Light. FTL or Faster Than Light travel is only possible under special circumstances that involve the traveller not minding that they have to stick around at their destination for a few thousand years.
[2]: Humanity never quite managed to cure the common cold. What they did instead was tame it and use it as a method of passive inoculation against harsher, more feared diseases. Of course, mutation in the strains happens occasionally, and outbreaks are to be expected.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / rolffimages]
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