Space Dungeon D

1

Colonel Dirk Comstock cursed at his console, banging on it with a firm, clenched fist. A loud crashing of cheap plastic reverberated throughout the cabin. SECTION's anti-psy operatives had managed to jam the ship's intel unit. How did they get in? Comstock took another megadose of nootropic vitamins and radioed-in to command.

"We've just been blinded. Origin of interference, unknown." He said, acidly, "I thought we were safe up here today, over."

He relaxed, tried to ignore the ordinary external electrical fields we're all used to, but it was no use. He was not psychic. Not that it would matter if he were. They were jammed. But he wished that he were at least able to perceive the interference the way his ship's psy unit could. Was it too much to ask? Apparently so.

"We're not picking up anything on our end. Must be natural interference of some kind. Continue on using instruments. Over." The voice was high-pitched and had a cold, metallic quality.

"Great, thanks," he said, sardonically.

The ship—a medium-sized fighter—housed its psy unit below the cabin. The psy units were cause for concern; Comstock didn't like having them aboard. He never got to see them, as was the rule for all ships equipped with a unit, and so he grew naturally distrustful of them. All he knew was that there were two of them. And now they were suspended far out in earth's reach, past the moon, alone amongst all the rushing satellite debris of the Heap, with only his instruments to help him, the two jokers below him unable to help—

A loud banging followed by turbulence. It came from behind, he thought, but that didn't seem to matter so much as that all the lights had gone red, and the alarm signal was blaring and command wasn't picking up. He needed to land somewhere as quickly as possible.

"What's the nearest mass big enough to land on?" Comstock said to his computer. It replied not with words but with a subdued tone and then a shifting of the images on his monitor.

He was in the Heap—the monstrous consolidation of the refuse of the nations of the world, launched up there with reusable rockets provided by the YSpace corporation. Y space made—and continues to make—an unfathomable amount of money, collected from all the governments who could afford it, sending up trash into a large orbiting sector (LOS) of the very outer reaches of our earth's gravitational pull. It is, for all intents and purposes, a space junkyard.

The screen flashed, and presently it locked onto the nearest piece of junk suitable for landing on, showing the mass—what looked to be a derelict battleship—in green wireframes against a black background.

"I suppose that will do," he thought, out loud. "Okay then, take us there. How far—"

More banging and turbulence. Sirens blared. He was going down. The screens were all blank. The onboard A.I. was malfunctioning. Only thing left was to override the system and go manual, which is something he hadn't had to do since the last mandatory retraining. He peered through the glass of the cockpit, tried to zero in on his landing zone; it couldn't be too far. He found it quickly. He was going to make it, he thought. He shifted gears to landing mode and began descending relative to the metallic mass—

He was hit again, this time knocking him unconscious, and he and the crew went plummeting toward the junked battleship.