Astraeus 5 Read online

  Chapter 2

  The parts Mel had needed had been organised and were due to be delivered to him at any time. While he waited, he sipped at yet another coffee and looked around the comm room. Although some parts of the room were tidy, there were areas where there were circuit boards and cables hanging from the equipment racks, rather than being tucked neatly away or clipped to the frames. However, he was aware that, even though some of the local systems were working again, the inter-stellar comms were still out. Considering the damage he’d found when he had entered the room, he was pleased with progress. All he needed now was the parts so he could carry on.

  As if on cue, he heard the airlock recycling the air, so went through into the lobby to greet his visitor.

  Once the caller had removed his helmet, Mel realised it was John-Joseph Bowker or "JJ", who had worked with Mel from time to time in the past.

  Mel greeted his colleague "Hi JJ, how was the journey over? Did you manage to bring everything I asked for?"

  As John-Joseph put his helmet on the vacant hook in the lobby, he said "Yup. Just hope it covers everything. We need to get it over together, though, as there’s way too much for me to manage on my own." With that, he strolled across to the doorway leading into the comm room. "Wow, what a mess. I can see why you think you need as much as you do, now. Sod’s law has meant that, with this place going down, some of our emergency backups elsewhere needed to be brought online and are proving less than reliable. I need to get out of here ASAP, so I can take a look at a problem that’s appeared over on ‘Roid 4. It only affects three of the news channel info. feeds at the moment but the news channel bosses are getting uppity about the loss of service. Did the cops ever get back to you about Will?"

  "Not so far. It’s all a bit of a mystery as to where he’s got to. It’s not as if he could just walk out of here. Give me a couple of minutes while I suit up."

  An hour later, an exhausted JJ put the last of the boxes of spares onto the pile of crates and boxes now filling the lobby. Even though the pile wasn’t massive, the lobby wasn’t all that big. What had taken the time was that the ship and base airlocks had to be negotiated, which was quite a slow progress when several trips were required. Fortunately, while they were on the surface of the ‘Roid, there was next to no gravity to fight against but this changed once they were in the artificial gravity area of the station, making everything much heavier.

  "Right. Now you’ve got everything, I need to get off to ‘Roid 4. If you need any more help, don’t call me, call HQ."

  "Thanks, JJ. Much appreciated. Looking at this lot, I’m going to be sleeping in the ship for a few more days before I can get this place fully operational. At least you can see what I’m up against."

  With a cheery wave, JJ re-entered the airlock and said "Good luck. Rather you than me. Hope they’re paying you a lot of overtime for this one."

  "They’d better be! Safe journey."

  Alone again, Mel decided that it was time for a meal, so went into the comm room, so that he could find something he fancied to eat.

  After he had eaten, he felt like starting up again, sighed deeply and stood up. "Oh well, the sooner I start, the sooner I’ll get out of this place" he said to the room.

  Having had JJ’s company for a short while, he was starting to feel a little lonely, so turned on some music. The air was filled with the heavy guitar playing of "Moon rock" by Phantom Heads, before their mezzo-soprano singer started singing the ballad of a lovelorn spaceman. As he started to work, Mel began to sing along to the symphonic metal band, a favourite of his.

  Mel realised that, despite having all the equipment he thought he needed, the speed with which JJ had to get away meant that there was no logic to the way in which the stuff in the lobby was arranged, so decided that the first job was to get the various circuit boards and boxes into the area where they would be needed.

  Much box shuffling later, he decided that the spares were in the best places he could manage at this stage. He looked at the clock and realised that it had been over twelve hours since he had been left by Bridg and Aurelius, so decided to call it a day.

  As he entered the airlock of his ship he realised just how tired he was. He stripped off his spacesuit and went to lie down on his bunk, with the intention of having a short rest before he had something to eat and drink. Even though he was hungry, he fell into a deep sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.