The Cursed World, part 3
26 Sep 2022Jacob Church
"Commander, it appears we have a response coming through. Patching it through now, it's a bit garbled though."A voice started to crackle through the last remaining speaker
"Co...nd..r ..rch.....read you...ver...ead us?....riang...ate...r....position....pl...se...pond...er"
"Comp, can you clean that up?"
"Trying now, commander, but with the systems the way they are I can't promise anything"
There was a few crackles and squeals of feedback, then silence.
"That's not sounding promising, Comp"
"One moment Commander, I think I've got it....there!"
"Commander Church, we read you, over. Can you read us? Triangulating your position. Please respond, over."
"Comp, you're a genius!"
"I know, commander. I'm an AI, designed to be a genius...I imagine I can probably land a ship better than some people..."
"Okay, genius, can you send a response back to them that *isn't* a beep?"
"Already working on it, but you might need to scavenge some more parts to strengthen the signal...I'm thinking you can take out the point defence and use it as a makeshift antenna dish that we can use to focus the signal directly to the Horizons. I'm working on finding a way to boost the signal as I speak."
I crawled out of the cockpit to do as she asked (she? Strange how you can anthropomorphise a bunch of circuits...) and, using a shard of metal prised from the hull as a makeshift crowbar, managed to remove the PDT, and I only cut myself a *little* bit.
"Got it! Now what?" I almost felt embarrassed, I sounded so pleased with myself.
"Excellent, Commander, now I just need you to connect it to those two wires...no, *those* two wires, the black wire to the blue clip, and the blue wire to the red clip. Good. Now, I need you to position the dish to point directly at the star, that's as near as I can pinpoint the Horizons location, and I *think* it'll be close enough for them to pick us up on sensors"
20 minutes later, everything was positioned exactly as Comp told me (okay, she *is* pretty smart) "Righto Comp, can I speak to them now?"
"I don't know Commander, can you? Try the microphone, that's probably the only thing you *didn't* break when you....landed"
Hmm...this ships computer is turning out to be a right smart arse, I thought to myself as I pressed the button on the ships comm.
"TMFS Distant Horizons, do you read me? This is Jacob Church. Come in, over."
I released the button and asked Comp "did it work?"
"It did, Commander. Readings show that it worked! Quick, try it again while we still have power!"
"TMFS Distant Horizons, come in please. This is Jacob Church, can you read me? We have crashed on planet A1, and things aren't looking good. Request assistance, over."
Now, all I can do is sit and wait. I think help is coming.