As John carries two mugs, presumably filled with coffee based on the aroma wafting from them, he runs into Cally in the hallway. He pauses his movement. “Is she okay?”, John asks while nodding towards the room that Cally just exited.

Cally flashes a wry smile, “She’ll be okay, although I don’t think the autodoc will be able to treat her chronic stubbornness.”

John returns a knowing smile to Cally before continuing towards his destination back in engineering. Cally decides that she’s going to grab a cup of coffee as well before heading up to the cockpit.

———

Buzz catches Cally up on everything that happened after she left the cockpit informing her of their current location and the surprise that there is a station actually located here in YsGordel. Buzz even plays back the audio from the transmission.

“Well, whatever Cogent Station is, at least they seem both concerned and welcoming. We should probably use the ansible to send an update to the astral flow map that something has shifted on that plane for us to get unexpectedly dropped here,” Cally calmly states.

“John already set ARCHIe to that task,” Buzz informs Cally.

“So what’s your personal theory as to what caused this shift?”, Cally asks.

“Based on the myriad of theories related to astral physics and flow shoal shifts I think it is likely either the presence of an item with a significant gravitational pull passing near the flow shoal while we were in a potentially corresponding location within astral space, or perhaps one of the heretofore undiscovered godlings was playing marbles with astral space and hit one of the ducks with his shooter marble causing ripples throughout the astral plane. Considering the improbability of ever being able to calculate a corresponding position in astral space to real space where a flow shoal does actually exist I’m leaning towards the theory involving marbles.”

Cally stifles a laugh and wonders why she even asked Buzz. She glances over at navigation, “So, you are using our attitude thrusters to adjust our trajectory. If the engines don’t come back online, how long does the navigation computer say it would take us to arrive at Cogent Station?”

“Since Cogent Station is currently moving away from us as it orbits around that dwarf star, the navigation system estimates that it would take roughly 172.4 days to meet up with Cogent Station with just our attitude thrusters.”

Cally allows a weary sigh to escape her lips before reaching up and flicking on the intercom, “Hey Vance, is there anything I can do to give you a hand back in engineering?”

Vance’s voice comes back through the intercom, “John and I are still just running diagnostics but how are you with mag-boots and a plasma torch?”

———

With her mag-boots firmly attached to the metal hull of the ship, Cally slowly inched her way across the underbelly of the vessel. A tool kit was strapped to her waist and a piece of sheet metal was tightly clutched in one hand. Her soft suit hugged her body, keeping her safe from the harshness of space, but she could still feel her breath lightly misting on the inside of her helmet. The smell of coffee lingered on her lips and she briefly regretted not grabbing a mint before suiting up for this repair mission.

Cally clicked on the intercom in her helmet and spoke into it softly, “Approaching primary point of impact on ship’s keel.”

Vance’s voice crackled through her ear piece in response, “I have visual through your body cam, but describe what you see.”

She took a moment to look around at the black expanse of space surrounding her before focusing her attention on the point of impact. “A fifteen centimeter impact hole presumably from comet debris with jagged pieces of metal protruding from the edges. How would you like me to proceed?”

“Secure your sheet metal out of the way with a magnet so you can clean up those ragged edges with a pry bar and plasma torch,” Vance instructed. Cally followed his orders carefully, using the glow of the plasma torch to cut away any rough edges and weld the sheet metal over the breach in the ship’s hull. Eerie looking shadows danced across the hull being formed from the flickering light of the plasma torch. It was slow and meticulous work, but eventually she had sealed off the unwanted opening.

Turning her com back on, Cally reported, “It looks good on my end. Sheet metal appears to be sealed all the way around the hull breach.” Vance’s voice came through her helmet once again, “Great job Cally. Now come back in and we can try to re-pressurize the cargo hold.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Understood. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have a breath mint on you.”

———

As Cally finishes passing through the airlock, John is there to greet her as she removes her helmet. “Thanks for taking care of that. I always struggle with vertigo whenever I try to go on a spacewalk,” John states this while holding out a container of Astroid brand breath mints. “Vance said you needed a mint. That must be some wicked halitosis for Vance to notice over the coms,” John gives a lopsided smile while Cally accepts the proffered gift.

“Very droll,” Cally states while offering a quirky grin of her own. “How did the diagnostics on the engines go?”

“Not as good as your patch job. The net result is that a lot of parts were overly stressed and we couldn’t really run them at more than 20% capacity which means it would still take over a month to get to Cogent Station. I think Vance is leaning towards waiting till Alina finishes in the autodoc to see what she might be able to cobble together to help our situation. In the mean time Vance is up front giving an update to Cogent Station so they know why we’re not making better time to see them. He’s probably also probing to see if they have anything that might be able to tow us there if we can’t get there under our own steam.”

“What are you, a hundred and ten using an old colloquialism like that?”

John scoffs, “You know it’s not polite to ask a man his age.” Then he busts into a grin. John flips on the com, “ARCHIe, could you slowly start re-pressurizing the cargo hold and start with nitrogen just in case it doesn’t hold, before adding the necessary oxygen from our reserves to the mix.”

“I’ll get right on it, old man,” ARCHIe mockingly responds. ARCHIe continues, “Also, I just got an update from the autodoc. It’s almost done if someone wants to be there when Alina wakes up.”

Alina leans in towards the intercom, “Thanks ARCHIe, I’ll head there now.”

———

As Alina slowly starts to awaken inside the auodoc, it begins talking to her, “Good morning Alina, everything went well with treating your wounds.”

Alina, even through the haze of whatever sedative was used, finds the artificially pleasant voice of the autodoc mildly annoying. “Morning, what time is it?”, Alina mumbles as sticky eyelids begin to open.

“It is zero zero fifteen hours,” the autodoc responds, once again in its overly cheery voice, while the bed she is lying on slowly begins to slide out.

“I’m not sure that fifteen minutes after midnight counts as morning,” Alina grumbles.

Ignoring Alina’s grumbling the autodoc continues, “Let’s ask you a few questions. What is your full name?”

“Alina Rubio Reyes.”

As the bed continues to slide out of the autodoc, Alina sees Cally standing in the room wearing a soft suit.

The autodoc continues on to its next question, “How old are you?”

Alina ignores the autodoc’s question and smiles up at Cally, “Thank you for being here. Did you go on a space walk or something?”

The autodoc chides in it’s same pleasant sounding voice, “That is an incorrect response, how old are you?”

Cally glances towards the control panel on the autodoc, “Hey Doc, hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s impolite to ask a lady her age?”

“That is an incorrect response, how old are you?”

Alina scowls over at the control panel before saying, “Discontinue post-procedure queries and pause explanation of procedure, wound care, and any necessary follow-up.”

The autodoc makes a two tone noise apparently meaning that it has accepted her verbal command.

Cally looks down and sees the transparent flexible material covering Alina’s hands and arms and then asks, “How are you feeling?”

Alina pauses, “At the moment I’m fine, but that’s likely due to whatever anesthetics were used on me. I’m sure in a few hours my nerve endings will remember that I most certainly do not feel fine.” Alina again looks at Cally’s soft suit before continuing, “It looks like you’ve been busy, what has happened while I was slacking off here in the med bay?”

Cally gives Alina a quick run down of everything from her little space walk, to Cogent Station, to the results of Vance and John’s diagnostic results from the engines.

“Would you like me to help you to your room so you can get some rest in your own bed?”, Cally asks.

“Nope, I have a finite window in which I can try and get some work done, or at least come up with a plan on how to salvage whatever situation is going on in engineering. Once I’m in too much pain to actually focus, I’m not going to solve any problems more complicated than how to get an extra dose of an analgesic.”

Cally appears to begrudgingly accept Alina’s self-assessment, nods to herself, and then asks “What do you need from me?”

“Unfortunately, I should listen to whatever the autodoc has to say before I leave the med bay. Grab me another coverall and my tablet from my room so I can pull up the engineering diagnostics.”

“Do I need a code to enter your room?”

“I never bother locking my room, so you can head on in. Oh and is there any coffee on?”

“Coverall, tablet, and coffee got it.”

As Cally is turning around to head for the door she can already hear Cally and the autodoc.

“Okay Doc, tell me what you did to me.”

The autodoc’s artificially pleasant voice begins, “After initial sedation, a topical anesthetic was used on the affected areas and proper debridement of the wound was the next part of the…”