PALNet Privateers: MSP Minnow ~Tales From Deep Space

Good Ship MSP Minnow ~ A Space Adventure
Shuddering through the floor, suddenly flung into the railing, Boom, front bulkhead sealed. Behind me the door slides closed, ssshhhhhhffpppt. Trapped.
Alarms, shrill, urgent, a dozen gauges all demanding attention O2, Co2, gravity, hull pressure. Darkness, sinking, I dumbly tell myself I must have hit my head.
Eye's open. Fight the darkness how long was I out....Too long.

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How much clean air do we have? 15 Minutes? 30 max. Less than half an hour ago the universe was normal, life following along it's duly allotted path. Now every single breath could be weighted with the value of gold.
If we don't get these CO2 scrubbers back online all 85 souls on this vessel will perish. How? The forward bulkhead automatically sealed after whatever caused the explosive shudder and rapid de-pressurisation of the forward 3rd of the ship. Including closing off access to the rehydration facility the O2 plant and the scrubbers and all five crew on duty there. And trapping me in here.

“Sammosk, do you copy?”
“Come in, Sammosk...” Answer dammit.
“Bridge, This is Dingo. I'm trapped between the forward bulkhead and the main cargo compartment. I can't reach Sammosk, is there any coms from forward up there?”
“Dingo, CCO Cork on the Bridge. No response from forward at this time, five crew unaccounted, Stitchy, Gmuxx, Crimson, Sammosk and Swelker.”
“Bridge, I'm going to plasma cut the bulkhead should take 10 minutes to get through” Crap crap crap this is it we're screwed...
The flare and heat of the cutter surging to life like a micro thruster from an old 38-02 clunker, days like this I wish we still ran one of those old buckets...
“Sammosk! Muxxy! Come in dammit”

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Cutting cutting, too slow everything is taking to long, what the hell happened to them up there? Sparks blackening the arm of my suit, molten metal seeping like treacle, breath, focus, cut. Don't waste movements, fuck why is it taking so long, feels like I've been cutting for years. They've got rebreathers up there just like the rest of us, built into the suits. What's happened to the comms why don't they answer. No point thinking about it, just keep cutting...
We've only run this ship a billion or so parsecs and about five jump gates and although she's fast even fully loaded, which all freelancer's like, and she packs a respectable payload of armaments as is required in the murky lawless backwoods galaxies we PALNet privateers do our trading in. The MSP Minnow is an engineers handful with bugs and weird glitches that are almost impossible to find.

“Shzxsttthh.. INGO...kzzzrrttsshh..... OME IN”
“Hello, This is Dingo, Repeat Repeat No Copy Say again”
“Dingo, Come in Shzxsttthh..SK here do you C.. kzzzrrttsshh”
“Sammo is that you? What is going on”

Another moment of mind numbing silence. Silence? The alarms. Stopped, the O2 and forward Grav normalising even the scrubbers looked like they were coming back online.

“Ah yeah, Crimson here.”
“Crimson, I'ts Dingo what's your status up there?”
“We're all shook up but no serious injuries, Over”
“What the hell happened? Thought we were toast there for a minute.”
“Ah Me and Muxxy were replacing the elements in the CO2 Scrubbers, while SammoSK sent Shane to put that half ton of old peaches into the airlock.”
“Sammo here, Looks like Shane must have hit the vent without pulling the second seal on the bay door and the override shattered the door and instantly vaporised two and a half thousand peaches. Which were then caught in the pressure wave are now coating...every....square inch....of the forward dock...AND Everyone in it.. OUT”
Bridge: “Shane....”
Crimson: “Swelker...”
Me: “Oh Man...”
Gmuxx: “Shane's fault...”
Shane: Uhhm, My Bad.”
~the end

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Please take this story as my thanks to all you great and fun folks over at MSP, in the time I've been a part of the project I've made new friends, had many many laughs and seen some incredible acts of kindness and support, genuine human compassion too(thought that had died eons ago). You all inspire me and many other minnows who'd have stopped posting long ago, thank you.

Also this my entry for @sammosk 's creativecomp and I don't care where I place as long as you get a smile from it, it will have served it's purpose.

VOTE 1 for Swelker101 Witness

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