You are Here...?

COMEUPPANCE

"Kal, you there? It's Sherv, your loyal Headquarters Liaison."

"Loyal my ass. No other Explorers wanted you. Why are you contacting me anyway?"

"And no other Liaisons wanted you, sunshine. Anyway, I'm contacting you because I got your complaint result."

Kal put a green marker on her map to represent the planet taking up most of the space outside of her ship's observation window.

"Which complaint?"

She wriggled settling herself into her Plushy Princess Pilot's Chair. After testing dozens of models she chose this one, but something felt off.

"The one about the unlicensed mechanic who installed your new chair."

That idiot mechanic had likely installed it wrong, good thing she filed a complaint. He probably thought he'd gotten away with just some harsh words from her.

Sliding open the control panel on the armrest, she increased the lumbar support and moved the headrest forward to cradle her head.

Her dream chair, which she'd painstakingly taken months to pick out, now smelled like that mechanic who installed it; dirty, cheap, and dumb.

"This better be good news," Kal commanded.

"I guess it is, for you."

"Hold on a moment while I set up the Surface Samplers."

Kal locked her ship to orbit the planet's moon and went to find the sampling pods. Instead, she found some deodorizer to spray down her chair, and some swears to curse that mechanic's name.

The nerve of that garage, servicing a State Standard Issue Ship with an unlicensed, amateur, hack mechanic. Just thinking about what he could have done to her ship with his fumbling, foolish hands still had her clenching her fists. Everyone's certifications cost money. If he was better at his job and planning ahead then he would only have to deal with how to invest his funds and which promotion to take.

Kal nearly fell over when the ship suddenly shook and rocked violently. She rushed to the window to see a large meteoroid banging along the hull.

She ran to the pilot's station to check the shields and sensors. The shields were on, but she could see that they weren't actually up. No shield mist.

"Kal, you still have me on hold!" Sherv shouted through the speaker. "What's all that noise? Also, why don't you use the actual hold function?"

She pushed buttons, turned knobs, and shifted sliders trying to fix the shields.

"Sherv, my shields aren't blocking anything! And that idiot mechanic did something to my Princess chair, it's lumpy! Stop whining about being on hold and help me fix this!"

"I run the same system checks as you do."

"Check the maps and tell me where I should land to fix this."

"Uh, Kal, your location is uncharted. You're the cartographer. Send me your files so I can try to approximate your location and determine a safe place for you to get your shields fixed."

Kal pushed the send button and collapsed into her chair. A lump in the seat pushed into her thigh. She sprang to her feet and pulled the seat cushion off to finally figure out what was wrong with it. With a clatter and a thud, a random mechanical part landed by her feet. It had a tag hanging off of it.

"Sherv, what is this?" she asked holding the part up to the camera.

"Umm... what's the tag say?" he asked with more hesitation than she cared for.

"It reads: if I were a REAL mechanic, I'd probably have put this back where I found it..."

Before Kal could start screaming, Sherv said, "Oh no."

"Sherv?!"

"It's the capacity distribution director. The thing that calibrates your navigation system, mapping drives, and primary shields. Without it, your maps are offline, your origin location is unknown, and your secondary shields become your primary shields."

"Why would one single part do so many important things?" she asked in a rhetorical hiss.

"It's more efficient. Fewer parts, less space. It hasn't been an issue because there are backups for major part failure. You need to turn on your secondary shields. I'll walk you through putting the part back in without landing. Though it will have cleared any navigation data that would have been cached and obviously wasn't collection any data."

"Great, and then you, as my navigation back up, can direct me back to HQ space."

"Well, the thing is you aren't on my charts. Your last accurate map transfer was weeks ago. Those offline mapping drives would have told you what direction you came from even after circling planets."

"So...?"

"So, you're lost. Very lost."

Kal brightened slightly, "What if I call the repair station and apologize for being so rude? The workmanship guarantee trackers stay online for three months. If they can get me back to the service station then I can get back to HQ space. Ta Da, problem solved."

"Well, that's why I contacted you. You wanted me to notify you when your complaint about the mechanic with the expired license went through," Sherv said with unconvincing brightness.

"Okay. And clearly, he's not only lazy regarding paperwork but also petty."

"Right, which is probably why he hadn't been sending regular tracking feeds."

"That incompetent..." She took a deep breath. She didn't get this far stressing over other people and their nonsense. More like stepping over. "Whatever. Sherv, how soon can you get to the station to get the tracking data?"

Sherv took his time before speaking again. "So, um... It wasn't just a service station; it was, specifically, a Servitude Station. So-"

"Was?!" Kal felt her grip give way to a small tear in the fabric of her perfect chair. "Why are you saying 'was'?"

"Well, you're an Executive Level Explorer and it was their third complaint. So..."

"So?" she asked more meekly than she knew she was capable of. "So, what?"

"So, the station, staff and all, was remotely destroyed yesterday. ...So, I guess, actually, it's bad news all around."