This “spaceship junkyard” around me was quite the sight. It was also surprisingly varied. And this variation was concerning in more ways than one.
I recognized some chunks of the passenger ship that brought me here, drifting further away by the second. And when I spotted a modified cargo ship with asymmetrical autocannon placements, the puzzle pieces started fitting in my head.
Pirates? While space pirates would typically target merchant ships, I had heard of them capturing people and selling them as slaves. I didn’t really enjoy thinking about underworld dealings like those, but… Perhaps if it was a really slow day for them, they’d eventually resort to intentionally targeting passenger ships?
I wanted to stay with that theory, but there was something in my peripheral vision that shook me from it: a Falcon Empire battlecruiser, broken and shut down. Even in its current state, this glorious war machine still struck awe in me.
Normally, that’d be all I’d have to say about it, but this was one of the few dozen starships I could see which laid in two halves, slowly floating apart. It had been cut almost perpendicularly at its center, like an innocent water bottle by a thirty-year-old weeb’s katana blade.
It was dreadful. Be it life support, a distress beacon, whatever. I could surely find it there. But I did not want to be a nanometer closer to it. I couldn’t understand how that happened to it, and I had no desire of going there or finding out.
“At least not…” I glared at the oxygen timer, now at three hours and fifty minutes. “Not while I am this vulnerable.”
I turned back to the pirate ship. Its main thrusters were crippled, and there was a gaping hole on the side of it. If there were any pirates left inside of it, it’d be ones whose escape pods got stuck in the ejection process, or...
Well, I couldn’t deny the possibility of there being other survivors like me.
Nevertheless, I held the soldering iron like a handgun, smirking. I was strangely determined. Perhaps here, at the time of my life when I was closest to death, an ancestral fighting spirit had chosen to awaken within me.
I estimated the distance between my latch on this shattered transport ship and that pirate ship. I couldn’t be fully certain, but I should be able to just barely reach it if I cut myself from the safety reel just before it jerked and pulled me backwards.
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However, this old spacesuit did not have thrusters on it, so one wrong move would have me floating aimlessly for the rest of eternity...
I looked around for safer alternatives. My eyes stopped on the toolbox that was wired to me.
“… This is the silliest idea ever, isn’t it?”
I grabbed the toolbox firmly and pushed it away from me. Doing so pushed me backward ever so slightly, but once the cord between us tensed, it started dragging me into the void with it. I clutched the transport ship’s cable and placed my feet back on its hull.
Right. As long as there was something wired to me, I could use it as a propulsion device to adjust my trajectory, even if slightly.
Those were simple physics, but in these circumstances, it felt like guessing a cheat code in the face of an impossible boss. The idea of drifting into certain death became much less threatening, and this toolbox became increasingly more endearing. I should draw a cute face on it if I find a marker somewhere…
I have to make sure I don’t name it Wilson, though.
I steeled myself like I never thought I would. Sure, determining myself to open the airlock was quite something, but this was the cosmic equivalent of deliberately jumping off a cliff. Tensing my knees so hard they started to vibrate, I positioned myself as perfectly aligned as I could.
Then I jumped toward the pirate ship, hugging the toolbox like a father would his newborn.
The pirate ship came closer within seconds. It wasn’t that far, but just about any safety cable was bound to be short when compared to the ever-expanding immensity of space.
Assuring the Lady in White I’d be a good boy for the rest of my life, I unlatched the transport ship’s safety cable from my suit and turned my head to look at the pirate ship. I’d better hold on to it well, or I might even bounce off it…
“Ah, ah, I hate this, I hate this so much…” I was never a risk-taker. I had never gone climbing and I had never ridden a bike. When I chose to study engineering, I thought for sure I’d be setting at a desk in a lab for the rest of my life…
Wait, is this my life flashing before my eyes? No, no, no! Come on! I can do it! I can do it!
The pirate ship came closer and closer, and I reached my hand towards it…
Not good. There was not a single notch I could grab onto on the side of this thing. Oh, why did it have to be the one pirate that actually bought a sleek and aerodynamic ship, Lady in White? Save me, please!
I quaked in fear, shivers running through me so brazenly that the suit’s heaters started kicking up their strength. But I held my breath, and I held my eyes open, hugging the toolbox even closer.
“Please work!” I suddenly thought of a stupid and dangerous idea.
I threw the toolbox parallel to the starship, placing me on a course to slam myself against its side and bounce away. If I had thought of doing this for an instant longer, I wouldn’t have dared. But I had already done it, and for the next few seconds that felt like four times eternity, I watched the toolbox drift away from me…
And fall into the hole on the side of the pirate ship, looping inside of it like a grappling hook.
I’m sorry, mom. Remember when you bought me that gaming terminal I wanted and I said it was the happiest day of my life? Well, it’s the second happiest now.