Space might be an unrelenting and endless void where a lack of atmosphere denied the surrounding blackness of any volume.

Still, noise persisted, protected by the little bubbles of steel, plastic, and carbon alloys that made up the tens of thousands of ships that darted between the hundreds of stations, colonies, and shipyards that littered humanity’s solar system.

And in those little bubbles, there were dozens of sounds which a pilot could hear mere fractions of a second before they met their doom. Sounds, that the very idea of even encountering them, made the most seasoned of pilots’ stomachs drop and a toxic chill fill their bloodstreams. These were the sounds of nightmares, the sounds of horror stories, the sounds that kept the anxious up at night.

One such noise was crunch, another was pop. Both of these I heard mere seconds before my cockpit darkened and klaxon blared, supported by a red strobing alarm that illuminated my surroundings in a sickening glow. Three noises that would surely usher in my demise.

My stomach dropped, pulse quickened, and I felt a terrified ice course through my veins. My eyes widened and I breathed in slowly, pleasantly surprised to discover that I still had air, at least for now.

Whatever had happened hadn’t affected the integrity of my cockpit. A little miracle, but one which I was thankful for. A little miracle is what turned certain doom into only a severe chance of doom. Still grim, but not as grim as it could be.

“You appear to be in distress,” a voice called from behind.

I yelped loudly and spun around…

And just kept spinning as I suddenly became very aware of the absence of gravity.

On a ship such as this, gravity came from thrust. So, a lack of it, meant a lack of thrust. This was bad, really bad, especially when I had been burning at a little over a gravity mere moments ago, my ship about halfway through its deceleration burn.

The lack of thrust was bad, but not nearly as bad as the mysterious voice.

A stowaway?

This was especially concerning since I had assumed, I had the ship entirely to myself for this journey. Maybe that wasn’t exactly up to Europan standards, but hey, a girl sometimes enjoyed a little privacy in the vastness of space and was willing to make some extra cash to ignore her rights and the safety standards imposed by the inner planetary governments.

“Who’s there?” I asked, trying my best to sound brave as my heart pounded frantically in my chest. “I don’t know who you are but…”

“I’m the Europan Freight Enterprise Disaster Response System, or E.F.E.D.R.S for short.”

That’s when I noticed that one of my monitors had come to life, displaying a plain blue screen, with a white skeleton of a schematic drawn over top.

“Oh, so you’re just a computer?” I asked, letting out a much-needed sigh of relief.

“Yes.”

"Thank fuck,” I muttered under my breath before nodding. “Your name is a bit of a mouthful; can I call you… Ed?”

The ship paused for a second before finally a red light blinked. “No.”

“John?”

“Not really feeling that one either.”

I snorted. “How about Elliot?”

Another pause.

“That’s… better,” Elliot said.

“Alright Elliot, why have I not noticed you before?” I asked.

“My programming dictates that I only introduce myself in the event of a disaster.”

A disaster? Well shit, way to confirm all my worst fears. Except…

“Wait, so you only turn on when I’m in…” I began.

“I am conscious at all times,” Elliot interrupted, “but am only programmed to contact the pilot in the event of a disaster.”

I shuddered. “So, you’ve been watching me this whole time?”

“Yes.”

“That’s kind of creepy, dude.”

An emotionless chuckle rumbled through the speakers. “Believe me, it’s been an awkward experience for myself as well. I have never seen a pilot as adapted at flying one handed as yourself.”

My face burned. “Sassy aren’t we.”

“Blame my programmer.”

I tapped my finger against the top of my control panel. “So, Elliot, how screwed am I?”

The schematic on my computer flashed and began to zoom in towards the rear of the ship. As the display moved closer, the details grew more and more defined until I was able to see every metre of wiring, machinery, and technology. But before I could really study them in great detail, key sections were illuminated in red.

“What am I looking at?” I asked.

Elliot sighed. “It would appear that the ship’s primary fuel pump was forcefully disconnected in an incident. Attempts to reroute through the secondary systems have failed.”

“Failed?” I cocked a brow. “Why?”

Elliot paused as a second monitor displayed a memo. “A maintenance report was filled six months ago by a Mr. Stephen Lee. His requests for a replacement secondary fuel pump were denied and Mr. Lee was summarily removed from the company after he protested and threatened to go to the Europan Labour Board with a formal complaint.”

“Cheap bastards,” I murmured.

Elliot’s light brightened. “That is the nature of capitalism.”

I smirked. “That’s awfully socialist for an artificial intelligence indentured to a freight company.”

“I’ve been informed that computers are supposed to be logical.”

“Fair point.” I sighed and shook my head. “Alright, so the fuel pump is down, what does that mean?”

A third monitor displayed a diagram which showed some sort of particle being fed into a chamber and then combusted into what I could only imagine was the ‘make the ship go fast’ juice.

“Without a constant supply of helium-2, the engine cannot induce fusion, meaning that acceleration has ceased. This, in turn, means that we cannot continue our deceleration burn.”

I sucked in air through my teeth. “That sounds bad.”

One of the monitors brightened and then dimmed.

“May I be brash?” Elliot asked, his tone taking on a sorrowful edge, unnatural for an AI.

I shrugged. “Go for it.”

“You’re fucked.”

I snorted. “Fantastic. Am I going to hit Titan at like a million kilometers an hour?”

“Oh no, you are going to miss Titan and fly off into the darkness of space until either your food, water, or oxygen runs out. Likely the first.”

“Really?” I threw back my head and groaned. “Can’t we call for help?”

Elliot sighed. “The primary communication array is powered by the fusion reactor and is not wired to receive electricity from the reserve batteries.”

“And the secondary?” I asked.

A pause as the memo on the second monitor was replaced by another.

I groaned. “You have got to be…”

“Eight months ago,” Elliot began to explain, “A Ms. Tamora Isaacs attempted to level a request for maintenance on the secondary communications array but was promptly fired by management for, and I quote, ‘raising a fuss’.”

“Of course,” I grumbled, shoving my face into my hands and letting out the mother of all frustrated growls. “Do we have anything?”

“There’s a short-range radio, which is currently powered by its own batteries, but it is only effective at a range of less than half a million kilometers.”

“Which means it's next to useless,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose between two fingers.

Elliot chuckled. “Yes, this and useless are separated by a razor thin margin.”

“So, I’m going to die,” I said.

I suddenly felt numb, now that I admitted that aloud. Like I wasn’t even sad just… distant.

It kind of faded into the background like a grim white noise. I was more pissed off than anything. I was going to die because some cheap bastard in middle management in New Topeka wasn’t willing to spend ten grand repairing his ships.

Because of course that was how I was fucking going to die.

Couldn’t be in a cool battle with space pirates, or getting taken out while transporting something heroic. No, I instead got to starve to death because some boring dude in a button-up shirt and tie didn’t want to risk his annual bonus.

“Any chance I could fix it?” I asked, hoping, praying there was some slim margin of success.

Elliot hummed for a moment. “Do you have a certificate in fusion reactor repair?”

I sighed. “Nope.”

“How about in fusion construction?”

“Nada.”

“Got any experience with being an electrician?”

I sighed.

“How about theology?” Elliot asked.

I blinked. “How does that…”

“I heard that the belief in an afterlife can bring people comfort in times such as these.”

I shook my head and pushed myself away, using a nearby handhold to propel myself out of the cockpit.

My progress was clumsy, speaking volumes about how long it’d been since I had last experienced such a low gravity environment.

It surely brought much shame to my ancestors.

I managed to clear my chair with ease but sent myself flying, colliding roughly with a console on my way out. I impacted with a hardy grunt of disdain, growling under my breath.

“Where are you going?” Elliot asked.

I shook my head and drew in a deep breath. “If I’m going to die, I might as well get comfortable.”

And with that, I slipped out of the cockpit.