Homestar Saga

Chapter 1: The Only Thing Worse Than a Human

"The good news is life support still works." Yvian looked up from the panel at her sister's approach. Lissa's voice was annoyingly upbeat, considering the trouble they were in. "We've got air and heat."

"What's the bad news?" Yvian replaced the panel cover. The cover refused to latch in place. She gave it a smack, but the force of the blow sent her spinning towards the other end of the bridge. She cursed, scrabbling for a handhold. Yvian was not used to working in zero gravity.

"The bad news is that nothing else does. No engines, no comms, no artificial gravity..." Lyssa smirked, standing easily in her magnetic boots. They only had one pair between them, and she'd claimed she needed them if she was going to examine the engine. Yvian was tempted to throw something at her, but settled for an annoyed look. She didn't want to make any more forceful motions until they got the gravity working again.

"Do we know the cause? How'd the engine look?" Life support meant they weren't in immediate danger, but it didn't get them any closer to Prisna III. Yvian had scrimped and saved for ten years to make the down payment on The Wandering Lady and load up a cargo. If she didn't deliver before the price went down she'd be destitute.

Lissa shrugged. "Nothing wrong with it that I could see, but it won't power up. And since it won't power up, I can't run a diagnostic. But I think something else is wrong. Even with the engine offline, we should be able to run comms and sensors off reserve power. The way everything's shut down, I think we've got some kind of computer problem."

Yvian cursed. "I was trying to check into that, but the computer won't boot up. Not even after I bypassed the consoles and tapped in directly."

"You think we've been hacked? Some kind of virus?"

"I don't see how," Yvian scratched her head. Then she realized she was floating away from the computer panel she'd been holding onto. "We weren't connected to anyone when it happened." She reached for the panel. Her fingers bumped it instead of grabbing, and she was propelled away. She folded her arms as she floated towards the center of the bridge, slowly turning upside down. Her sister wisely covered her smile with her hands. "No alarms, either. Everything just stopped working out of nowhere."

"Maybe it's pirates," Lissa suggested.

"It's not pirates."

"What if it is?"

Yvian sighed. She reached a hand out to her sister. Lissa latched on and helped her get back to the computer panel. "We're in a major shipping area. The Confederation patrols here all the time. There aren't any pirates."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Lissa pointed past the computer console. Behind it was a large view port. "Because it looks like pirates to me." A ship was approaching. It was massive. It was covered in weapons. It was escorted by three smaller ships covered in weapons. The Pantydropper was painted on the side of it in enormous glowing pink letters.

A thrill of fear shot down Yvian's spine. "Shit. It's pirates."

Ten minutes later found the sisters in the cargo bay. Lissa had a rod of tungsten in her hand. Yvian carried an old PMV3099 blaster pistol. They both wore void suits, in case of decompression.

"It'll be fun, Sis," Lissa dripped sarcasm. "Think of the freedom. The adventure. We'll see the galaxy. We'll be our own boss."

"You didn't have to come, you know." Yvian tried to sound appropriately irritated, but she was grateful for her sister's needling. She was terrified. Neither of them had ever been in a real fight. A little family bickering gave her something familiar to focus on.