SciFi Short Stories

Finding NEMO

An older SciFi (1000 word) writing challenge.

Prompt 5 – Base your story on the title of any one of the following movies (not on the movie itself though): Avatar, Titanic, the Avengers, Furious 7, Frozen, Iron Man, Sky Fall, The Dark Knight, Finding Nemo. 

I came into the office one morning and spied a piece of space junk on my desk. It was about the size of a helmet, battered and beaten like it'd been in space for 100 light-years too long, and I could see it had an orange sensor light that kept flashing off and on at regular intervals.

What in Alpha1 was I supposed to do with a piece of space junk?

Sighing with deep frustration, I sat down very unwillingly at my desk to take a closer look at this thing. I was surprised to find a hand-written note attached to it!

Who does that anymore?

I scrunched up my face in disbelief. The note simply read, Deliver to NEMO.

I worked for something like a courier service but strange things rarely ended up on my desk. In fact, I almost never did any actual deliveries. I looked up from the note and scanned the office for the person who put this piece of junk here. All I could see were a few drones milling about.

I let out yet another deep sigh, powered up my console and gave the command, "Find NEMO". All the while I was thinking to myself, 'What the dust is NEMO?'

Task, my OS, responded in his soothing masculine voice saying, "Nashira Emissions Monitoring Office. It is located in Sector HH5621. The original astro base."

I sat back in my ergonomic hover chair and let out a low whistle before rubbing my hands over my face in deep frustration. This had to be a joke. Who in their right mind would send me, of all people, to the original base site?

Dust, it was the sketchiest place on this entire floating scrap-heap and I was the least equipped person for the assignment. I was a freaking quintessential skutter for Gamma's sake!

Dust!

I gave a little groan of despair.

Good ol' Task responded calmly with, "Shall I order a shuttle?"

'And an armed bodyguard to go with it, please!', I thought to myself bitterly. He wouldn't understand the order though.

I took a moment to look over at the blinking orange light before saying, "Yes, Task."

He responded with a gentle, "Very, well."

Curiosity was getting the better of me though. I kept repeating the name of the office over and over again in my mind, Nashira Emissions Monitoring Office. There was something about it that sparked a kind of vague memory. Something important.

Nashira was the name of the neighbouring star. It was the sole reason this floating astro base I called home even existed. The star used to have some very rare metals or something, which some corporation wanted to extract. Hence, the corp built the original astro base. It was called Astro Base 001 Gamma Capricornus (or AB001GC) after the star itself. Very unimaginative, if you asked me.

The original floating base was essentially a precious metals extraction hub 250 years ago. However, the extinction of inhabitable planets in this sector had led to what is generally called a station boom. Private companies from all over the quadrant came here, to this floating base, to build "temporary" accommodations for all the displaced people. Those accommodations became permanent and 250 years later, AB001GC, which had been built to house 100 company employees, now was a floating city housing 1 billion souls – not to mention all the drones, synthetics, and androids. The floating astro base was practically bursting at the seams, and, the most dangerous place of all was Sector HH521 – the original base of operations.

Somebody in the office hated me. That was the only reasonable conclusion for such an assignment. Dust!

The blinking orange light caught my attention again. I got up out of my chair and actually examined the thing - whatever it was. I had Task scan it, and then I read off the name plate information to him, which was essentially just a series of serial and manufacturing numbers. Afterwards, I unscrewed a small work panel and let Task scan the interior of the panel. He was quietly computing when I asked impatiently, "Well, what is it Task?"

"It is one component of a series of independent floating sensors orbiting Nashira. The sensor is designed to observe, calculate and store information about the gas consumption and emissions of the blue-white giant," Task explained sounding exceptionally patient and pleasant.

'Fair enough', I thought. "When was it created?" I asked next, as I screwed the little work panel back on.

"It was manufactured 200 years ago," he replied evenly.

Dust! I looked over at the console station dubiously. Task was not going to be able to read my expression though. What were the chances that tech from 200 years ago was still working properly?

"Can you explain why it is blinking?" I asked instead.

"It is a sensor. It is designed to go off when it detects dangerous changes in Nashira's atmosphere."

Dangerous changes? That couldn't be good. But, it was so old, chances were, it wasn't even working right. So I asked, "Is it malfunctioning?"

"I cannot say with certainty," Task replied in his ever gentle, ever soothing voice.

Alpha1 dust!

I sighed despairingly. It looked like I really was going to have to find NEMO and return the stupid blinking sensor thingy. I hated my life some days! Or, maybe it was just this office!

Since there was no time like the present, I slapped my portable console to my wrist, stuck a gravity clip on the NEMO space sensor thingy, because it was way too heavy to lug around, and headed out of the office for the waiting shuttle. I grumbled and complained to myself the whole way. Task did not respond.

Dust! If I died trying to find NEMO today, I was going to be seriously PO'd.

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