Space Tripping With the Shredded Orphans

Chapter Two - I Hate It When We Have To Walk

Lix stared at Justice's feet sticking out from underneath the speeder. He had faith that Justice could fix any kind of machine in the known galaxy, probably even the ones in the unknown parts, too. However, when Justice's curly black head rolled out from under the speeder, Lix got a very bad feeling. His green eyes held the look of grim defeat.

"I can't fix this," Justice stated, wiping his grease covered hands on a rag. "There's a hole the size of your head in the pump. I'll need to order a new one. What'd you run into? A 20 foot can opener?"

"Sorry man," Mac said, "Bella Dee wanted to go someplace private before I left Sanchova and so we went off to the beach. Maybe I hit a rock. Or else it was that light pole on the way back. I don't remember so well. It ran fine 'til we got back to the Verity Aquinas and then it made some weird clunking noise. I was gonna tell ya, but I forgot."

"So now what do we do?" Lix was trying to keep his cool. "Can't we just contact someone to come and get us?"

"See, the problem with that is I've already tried and I can't seem to reach anyone on the communicator. I've tried all the frequencies. They're either blocking transmissions or there's something wrong with the communicator," Justice said.

"That's because we're lost," Mac muttered quietly.

Lix tried to give Mac a look, but Mac's head was down and his long blonde hair covered his eyes. Lix was just glad that Justice hadn't heard the remark.

Chitto spoke calmly, "What do we do now?"

Lix thought about all the options, but could really come up with only one solution. "I guess we walk."

"Fine, let's go," Ophelia said.

Lix looked at her retreating figure. That really wasn't what he had in mind at all. "I was thinking you would stay here with the ship. We'll come get you when we reach the city. There's no need for all of us to go."

Ophelia didn't respond or turn around. Lix was glad she was taking it so well.

Lix dug through his closet. Where was that stupid sun visor? He had already packed food, water, a bedroll, credit cards, his Stupendous Glue and some extra clothes.

"Have you seen my sun visor?" he asked Mac.

Mac didn't look up from where he was packing his own bag. "Oh yeah, dude. I borrowed them last week. I think I put them in my closet."

Lix frowned, but decided that now was not the time to lecture roommates about borrowing things. They had more important issues to worry about. He went to Mac's closet and found his sun visor. He returned to his own closet and took a quick peek to make sure Mac was still busy packing. He shoved the clothes aside and grabbed a screwdriver.

Justice had made several modifications to the ship. Lix used the screwdriver and turned a fake screw a quarter turn to the right. A panel slid open to reveal a small compartment. Lix only kept three things in there.

He ignored the first two items and grabbed the blaster. Justice had a few more hidden in another part of the ship. Slaves weren't allowed to own blasters, but they managed to acquire some on Omicron-17 several years back. They hadn't had to use them yet, but you never could tell what you would run into on a strange planet.

Ophelia had clipped a small cage to the top of her pack where the chomestru, now called Triton, resided. She was covering the cage with a small kenaf handkerchief when Lix entered the loading bay area. He looked at Chitto and Mac questioningly. They both shrugged.

"I guess you didn't hear me back there," Lix said walking up to Ophelia. "You can stay here with Chitto. We'll be back to get you when we reach the city."