Troubles of a Space Courier

         She was gorgeous.  Even just the image in the holo-mag, Isara was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.  Blake could only ever see his muse through the holograph in the magazine he downloads every month.  Well, it's not so much that she inspires him to do anything, he just feels the word 'muse' fits her best.  Lost in thought, he almost didn't notice the warning flashing up on the screen above the cockpit.  Flying this piece of crap freighter all over the Shah-damned galaxy was starting to be more of a risk than pissing off some of the pirates who frequent this area.

         Still flashing.

         Even still, this old ship is his meal ticket, and it's kept him going this long.  Half a dozen more deliveries like the last one he pulled and he can afford to finally trade this shit can up for a new one.  Maybe even hire someone to keep up with the maintenance.  Hell, at this point he'd hire someone just to keep him company.  It's boring as piss on these trips, and you can only read holo-mags so many times, even if they have new holos of Isara.

         Still flashing.

         Blake takes one last look at the alien beauty called Isara, then switched over to the main control panel and started running through systems reports engine malfunctions.  This happened at least once every three days, and he was at least four away from Shrell, the nearest refueling station.  He may have to hire that maintenance worker sooner than he wanted to, though the company would still be nice.  Maybe he can find one for hire at the Shrell station, or maybe one who needed a lift that could work for (relatively) safe passage.

         Still flashing.

         “Now it's yelling at at me,” as the most obnoxiously loud alarm begins to chime in over the speakers.  “Come on babes, don't die just yet, we only need a few more trips.”  Under his breath he adds “then you can rust in pieces.”  With that he manages to stabilize the main system, silencing the alarm,  and jumps out of his seat toward the hatch that leads to the engine room.

         Running at this point, he rounds a corner and...

         ...there goes the grav-gen.  And now the alarm is back.  Perfect.  At least the grav-gen is on the way to the engine room.  Taking a second to check his HSI-Pad, he marks up a few things here and there to adjust the volume of the alarm.

         “Well, if I can't shut you off, at least you'll be less of a headache.  Freaking rust bucket,” he adds under his breath.  “Maybe next one I get'll come with an AI that can understand when I'm yelling at it.”

         Pulling himself along the walls, he finally comes to the split-off, the left leading to the gravity generator, and the one straight ahead leading to the engine room.  Seeing as how it's a pin in the galactic ass trying to fix an engine malfunction when your tools can float away, he heads to the left.  “I wonder what it is this time.  Oh, Shah, I hope it's not drengs again.  Freaking space rodents is all they are.  But you can't kill 'em.  No, that would 'harm the galactic ecosystem' because they're and endangered species.  They're endangered because they're annoying as piss and eat through wires like candy.” 

         As Blake reaches the hatch of the grav-gen room as it sides open automatically.  Well, at least that still works.  Shah-dammit.  Drengs.  Two of them are gnawing on the wiring that connects the main CPU to the machine.  Ugly little things.  They're like a mix between a sheep and an alligator from First Earth.

         “Dammit, they better not be in the engine room.  Again.”  Still, this is why he bought all that extra wiring.  And a steel crate to keep the in.  “Well, at least there's only two of them,”  as one more crawls from under the grav-gen.  “Three.  Please, Shah, let there only be three.”

         At least they're relatively docile.  Give them a little bit of scrap wire to chew on and they'll ignore anything else going on.  Blake grabs a couple of cages he has in case this happens, tosses some of the chewed up wire in and lets the drengs go in themselves.  At least he doesn't have to worry about them anymore.  So long as there aren't anymore on board.  At least the grav-gen is an easy fix, and just like that he walk again.  Huzzah.

         An hour later, thankfully with no more drengs, he gets the engine back up to below par.  It seems the drengs hit that, then moved on to the grav-gen.  Speaking of drengs, time to send them out the nearest airlock.  Let them find someone else's ship to eat.  Thing about drengs is, they don't breath, and they can go at least a decade on a few pounds of wires.

         “Shit, it's getting late.  Maybe one more look at Isara before I clock out for the night.”