(The following story has been written by Shiva and me over the past few weeks. Do check out his awesome blog! Looking forward to writing another story with him some time soon!)
As she squeezed the tube, the toothpaste spurted out and started
floating in mid air. Wielding her brush as a samurai sword, she started
chopping the paste into a million tiny fragments. Having achieved her primary
task, she now squeezed out some more. Just another normal day at the space
station.
With a practiced hand, she slapped the paste onto her hello kitty
toothbrush and started to go through the motions.
The screen in front of her flashed a bright red emergency symbol and
sirens rang menacingly.
What was it now? Did an intergalactic cat break into the station? Yes,
she was feeling quite sleepy. Blasé about the matter at hand, she continued
with her morning activities.
She took her own sweet time finishing up. Afterwards, she leisurely
made her way to central control, not because of the screaming alarm, but
because it was the quickest way to get to the kitchen. And because she was in
the mood for some nice freeze dried ice cream sandwiches.
Hearing footsteps in the background, she quickly devoured the ice cream
sandwich and pocketed two more for later.
No... No need to panic. She knew how to deal with this; she'd done it
before. It was a good thing they'd relaxed that rule forcing you to wear your
uniform on the station at all times. She quickly pulled down one of the straps
of her tank top, and emphasised her bosom by folding her arms. Finally, she
seated herself and crossed her legs. A seductive look on the whole.
Just as she had finished, the captain walked into the room. Seeing her
accentuated avatar, Mr. Joe's jaw dropped.
"Miss Rogers, wh-what are you doing...?" He stammered, and
then his voice trailed off. His face was as red as a beacon.
"Why, captain! I was just on my way to the deck, but can't seem to
find my way."
The captain cleared his throat, "Erm, yes. Well, hurry along now,
there's an important issue at hand."
"Alright, and what about you, captain? Won't you come with
me?" She was laying it on thick.
"I-I... There's something else I've got to tend to first, I'll be
along later. Carry on, Miss Rogers."
And with that, the captain made an about turn and hurried off.
Being the only girl on the space station sure had its perks.
Phew! That was close! Heaving a sigh of relief, Julie Rogers made her
way towards broadcasting chamber of the control room, the source of the beacon.
As she walked in, she was shocked by what she saw.
The screen contained a hundred cute cat photos from Google Image
Search!
Then she realised that she was looking at the wrong screen.
What's more, she was still scantily dressed, and she was supposed to be
at the deck?!
"I'm so damn scatterbrained," she groaned, then made for her
cabin to change into something a little less eyebrow-raising.
But then she thought: Nah, let it be. It might just save her on another
occasion and definitely prevent her from being questioned further.
Then she glanced at the other screen and understood why the beacon had
been sounded.
An unidentified object had recently been launched from a Chinese
satellite and had latched onto the hull of station. The problem was that it was
laying dormant there. There was no telling what it was going to do!
With the Chinese, you never knew, and that was the problem.
She made her way to the main deck, where she found four of her crew
mates all neatly dressed, all nicely assembled, all men.
Being men, they couldn't help but caterwaul as soon as Julie walked in.
Pointing to the man in front, she "asked" him to brief her
about the current status and also fetch her another ice cream sandwich - adding
a bewitching smile at the end for added effect.
The man scampered away as the others eyed him enviously.
It seemed China and its silly little antics had been forgotten as Julie
had a bit of fun playing master and slave with the boys aboard the ship. But
when Corporal Smith hovered into the deck on his antigravity board, a hush fell
over the gathering.
Seeing Julie's attire, he gave a disappointed look. Some suspected he
wasn't straight.
Presently he overshot the gathering as he forgot to turn off the board
and crash landed onto the wall
"Corporal!" She shrieked, and ran over to fallen man. The
poor fellow seemed to be down for the count. She rested his head on her bare
lap for comfort.
Slowly he opened his eyes, he was coming to.
He looked at her, into her shimmering eyes, and murmured, "I died
and went to heaven?"
"Corporal...?" Everyone else had crowded around him.
He realised where he was and quickly sat up, clearing his throat. In a
grave baritone, the Corporal started, "We've contacted the Chinese
Government but they are denying the launch of any object from their satellite.
Something is fishy here."
A muffled voice commented, "This guy is smart," and the whole
crowd burst out laughing. Luckily, the Corporal didn't notice that snide
remark.
"Why don't we just go and blast it with a bazooka or
something?"
"Too risky. If it contains explosive materials, then the ship will
get badly damaged."
"We could try to go and reprogram its circuitry."
"No. They would've definitely made it foolproof and might initiate
a self destruction mechanism in case changes are made without the appropriate
access codes"
In the middle of all this confusion, Julie suggested, "Could we
use an EMP grenade and just pick up and throw the Chinese object away?"
Everyone stared at her in disbelief. Although most of her ideas were
unheard of or crazed out, they actually were simple and effective. She was
among the smartest people on board and that was the reason she'd been sent to
space. And not for her looks.
"Why, that's a splendid idea, Miss Rogers," said the Corporal.
"But might I suggest one little change to your plan? The Chinese are
denying having had anything to do with this, er, doohickey outside. If we can
somehow manage to secure the device once we've disabled it with the grenade,
this could be our big chance to laugh them out of the UN General
Assembly!"
There were cheers from everyone present.
Equipped with the EMP grenade, one of the men aboard got into his suit
and moved into the evacuation chamber. A set of hydraulic doors screeched open
as he made his way to the outside. Activating the countdown on the grenade, he
placed it near the Chinese device.
3...2...1... A bright flash ensued.
Then a most unusual thing happened!
The device which had been detached as a result of the high energy pulse
from the EMP grenade activated it's thrusters and latched onto the hull again!
One of the men shouted from the control room.
"Corporal! We seem to be losing power! And fast!"
So that's what it was!
Julie now understood what the ugly little device was. It was a Leech. A
device which drains power from other machines, until there's nothing more to
drain, following which it uses the harnessed energy to self destruct.
The more the energy drained, the more powerful the explosion.
And here was one, right in front of her very eyes.
Not good, not good at all.
Crap. EMP ineffective.
That could only mean one thing.
She had heard that the internal circuitry, if analog and not digital, remains unaffected by EMP. It would take a
completely different approach to get through this.
Then another idea clicked in Julie's mind.
Voltage fluctuation!
If they could manually vary the power in the hull and make it fluctuate
erratically, they would probably be able to cross the safe threshold of the
device thereby causing a meltdown of the wires inside.
There was hope.
But the only problem was that if they fried the Leech's wiring, it
could result in the bomb being triggered anyway. It was a Catch 22 situation.
There were so many complications, it was scary.
It was a risk she was willing to take.
Unless they acted now, the magnitude of the blast would keep on
increasing.
They only thing they could try is to contain the blast and reduce the
damage done.
That would depend on the type of explosive present inside.
What type of explosive gets charged up by electricity?
She wasn't an expert in the field of explosives.
Or wait? Why not make their own leech?
Sure, why not? It was 2049, it wasn't exactly rocket science. And she
above all knew exactly how difficult rocket science was.
She made her way to the storeroom, ransacked the place till she found
what she needed, then set to work making a Leech.
She had an idea.... It was just crazy enough to work... Possibly.
She quickly made a simple version. One that sucked electricity, but
didn't store it. It would dissipate the energy rapidly in the form of light
waves.
She just hoped that the Chinese didn't have any more tricks up their
sleeve this time.
She pulled on her space suit and stepped into the evacuation chamber.
The steel doors shrieked open as she walked out into wide open space, with
nothing connecting her to civilisation except a single harness. She gently
walked along the hull, her magnetic boots made this possible. She activated her
Leech and gently placed on top of the Chinese Leech.
The newly built leech began its work. One of its appendages bore a
minute hole in search of power. Having found it, it started the sucking
process.
But the rate was not fast enough and this would result in the whole
ship's power to be drained out to the Chinese leech and them wasted by the
other one!
A final resort. Julie had all
her hopes on this one. If this happened to fail, they'd probably be doomed.
Shutting off the power to the hull. Surely it would disrupt the
geosynchronous orbit and may cause problems in other sectors but Julie
calculated that most of the damage could be undone.
Putting forward her proposal, through the radio intercom, to the one at
the controls, she closed her eyes and stood there watching and waiting.
The characteristic humming of the power generator, which she had gotten
so used to, suddenly stopped. The lights flickered and went dark. Power stopped
coursing through the hull.
Everyone held their breath, looking at the screen which showed the
Leeches outside in space.
The Chinese leech started vibrating - it was harnessing all the power
it had gathered to self destruct.
Hold on... It was directly outside the galley!
If it exploded now, it would tear a hole in the ship's hull and
everyone - including her - would be sucked out of the ship!
"EVACUATE THE DECK!", Julie screamed.
A countdown beep activated, growing shriller with every passing second.
Everyone moved on to the residential chamber. Julie made her way back
into the station and progressed towards the air pressure control room.
By virtue of an array of cameras and the broadcasting system, everyone
stared at the screen awaiting the explosion.
Then the beeping sound abruptly shut down with a hiss.
As Julie bit into another one of her stored ice cream sandwiches, she
profoundly reflected, that no matter what the situation was, Chinese materials
could not be trusted.
