Clone Earth: MELVIN

Chapter Twelve: ARI

Ari lay on her back, flat on the cold metal surface staring up at the faint light from the rerouted power which shined down on her face. The rest of the room lay dark supporting the empty feeling that had settled inside her. That one light was the best Ari could do to keep the sight of frayed wires and dismantled panels blocked from view. Which assisted in keeping her anxiety at a manageable level and within the realms of denial.

Ari blinked slowly at the flat blank circle on the ceiling above. And after several steady blinks, the decision was reached, she had rested enough. Filling her lungs with one powerful breath Ari rolled to her scuffed knees, and again looked at the diagram pieced together on the floor around her.

With the shuttles navigation system completely fried she had to create her own remembrance of her last location and it looked rather ... pathetic.

Pointing to the small drive box, she spoke aloud. The sound of her own voice in the empty room created an uncomfortable echo, but it was better than the silence she had been enduring for last few hours.

"This was Midway. The nearest Clone Earth is here," She pointed to another lifeless shuttle part she'd picked to use as a replica. "It had a strange name. But, they all have strange names. Anyway, most of the midway traffic was headed to and from that planet. Then, the second heavy traffic flow was to and from a second Midway station in the opposite direction, there." She placed another piece on the floor, "and Meckam was over ... here."

She reached for a completely burnt piece of equipment. The object had been the shuttles previous auto pilot system, though there was no way you could tell anymore. Electrical burns scared the box and warped the main casing. Once that was settled she shifted another smaller object, a washer, ahead of midway,

"It was a nine hour shuttle ride to the place Meckam used to be, but it had left twelve hours before so I needed to cover 21 hours plus the additional space to catch up to it in motion ..." Ari moved the Meckam piece farther away from her small washer, "At the pace the Midway Security Detail programed, my shuttle my have reached it just over 28 hours."

The sound scraped as she moved the Meckam box farther towards a cord touching the shadow at the edge of her pool of light. "Which means it was about thirty hours out when they discovered I wasn't going to arrive. And I have been stuck here for," She scratched her tangled mass of brown hair, as she struggled to recall the amount of time her basic dilapidated shuttle had been floating lifeless in space.

"If I die out here, Trevon is going to kill me."

Ari glanced down at her personal wondering if she could get a message out. It was good of the Midway Security Detail to retrieve her things from the cargo hold. But she didn't dare yet turn it on. The small contraption maintained its own battery power but once it was depleted it would draw power from the systems around it. And Ari didn't dare allow it to pull what little power she managed to route to the shuttles life support system.

Which at this moment, was the only system in perfect working order.

Thankfully.

"With no network to connect with I wouldn't be able to get a message out anyway. I should just wait. I can figure this out ..." Even as she said it, Ari suspected it was a lie.

Smoothing her hair, she looked back down at her make-shift diagram, and prepared for the next difficult calculation. "This is where everyone was when I programed the autopilot override." She shuttered.

Ari flattened the palms of her hands over her eyes as her emotions began to spiral. If Uncle Clint had shown up as she planned she wouldn't have been shipped back to Meckam. And on this hunk of tin, nonetheless.

But there was no one going to shuttle the young girl back to the departing station. And no one was going to commission a ship in better condition on a one way trip. They decided to put her alone on a small pod shuttle for the trip. It had two rooms, one for navigation and flight, and the back room held a small living area. It contained a small bed, bathroom and food storage, which had been stalked for a thirty-six hour trip.

Ari had done a once over the moment she'd been sealed in. It was a very simple shuttle. The floor panels easily accessed the engine for maintenance, and the life support system was in the ceiling. And though she was advised not to, she wanted to know how it felt to fly the ship. So she promptly sat in the pilot's seat. The auto pilot did everything it was programmed to do and she studied its process for several hours, watching the stars pass by the narrow viewing window.

Without all the extras of a fighter ship, the shuttles functional flight layout was similar to the schematics she had downloaded from the military database and studied every chance she got. So perhaps a bit overconfident the idea had taken control of her body. She reached under the console and pulled the programing wand from the back. Linking her personal to the autopilot she slid through programs each lacking firewalls, clearly no one suspected anyone to attempt to hijack the system.

Which made the process very easy.

Manual controls were accessed and Ari quickly dropped her personal and took hold of the helm. It felt so natural in her hands. Simple to turn, she flipped the proper switches, telling the engines to alternate current to one side, turning the ship. A one quarter turn is all she wanted. Accomplishing her goal she redirected the engines for a full forward thrust and off she went.

Excitement buzzed through her skull, for the first time in her life she was actually in control of a ship. She always thought her first time would be in the flight simulators at the academy, but hey now she would arrive with hands on experience.

It was at that point she realized she hadn't thought about where she was supposed to go. She reached over to the navigation section and began giving it commands, though each key was foreign to her, the results on the screen helped her work through the process. She found Midway and the distance to the next C.E Planet, but that's the last thing she could remember.

The Ship lurched with the sound of a rod being thrown through the engine. Her head launched forward, slamming into the helm. With the help of her reflexes she gripped the controls and struggled to hold them still. The engine lights were flashing red, signaling it was on fire. She knew she needed to pull power from the burning engine.

She diverted the power from one side of the engines to the other. But that proved to be the wrong move. Instead the shuttle launched into a spin.

Ari was thrown to one side bringing the helm with her and encouraging the spin to intensify. The rest of the events were a blur but somehow the motion slowed and despite the nausea are regained control before all power depleted. Emergency systems flared and Ari stumbled to check the life-support.

Ari moved her little washer, representing her shuttle off course into the open empty space. No midway traffic. No planet traffic. And quite possibly, too far from civilization to connect a destress call of any kind.

"Putting a young girl on a ship by herself. What idiot thought that was a good idea?" She cursed. "Uncle Clint, where were you? Why weren't you there? I'm going to get out of this. I don't need Trevon. I can get out of this."

A painful rumble came from her stomach. "Alright I've waited long enough. First I eat, then I get myself out of this."