

Science Fiction

2. Awakening
Hunt groaned and forced open his eyes. The dark of space surrounded him, with stars
spinning, not slowly.
"Wow, I made it!", he said in wonder. His head ached and the spinning stars were hurting his
eyes. The console clock showed that he'd been out for over 6 hours and he realised that while
he'd been unconscious his body had decided to catch up on some much needed sleep. Apart
from the hum of the recycling system, ever present, there was little noise in the cabin. A few
lights slowly blinked and he saw that he was out of fuel on engines 2 and 3, while nav showed
him to be a long way away from any familiar object in the system.
On the plus side, no current emergencies, nothing demanding his attention, way out in the
middle of nowhere. "Hell", he said, "it could be worse, I could be dead! Best get something
to eat and see what I've got to deal with".
He brought a pre-pack and drink back to the console and sat to worry over what he'd got to
work with. He was on the very edge of the system, about 1 light out, the planets barely visible
from here. Belgar, the system sun, was a distant point of light. His nav -com showed him to be
way out on the fringes, his position relative to the system distant and out of the normal plane.
Spinning like a corkscrew, enough to make him regret his meal, and moving at a good velocity.
2 fuel tanks empty, 2 three-quarters full. On the plus side he was still alive, had enough food,
water and air to last him a few weeks, and, to cap it all, he wouldn't have enough fuel to get
"Right, one problem at a time", he said.