A dribble, a drabble

SECTOR

Written for @BeyondSol 's 25 April 2020: Word of the Week: Sector

Static crackled over the comms. "Cap, that meteor took out our antennae. I can rig something up, but I can't guarantee it'll have the same range."

Captain Marks leaned on the porthole, alternating keeping an eye on the mechanic Halder and gazing out at the twinkling stars that never got old, not even after 5 decades in deep space. As far as she knew, they were the only ship in this SECTOR, so there wasn't a chance to ask anyone for spare parts. She pressed the button to reply. "It would be good to have something in place before we make the hyper-jump back. Even short range to broadcast our identity. We don't want them thinking we're a hijacked ship."

Halder groaned & turned to the porthole. The Captain could see her shaking her head in disbelief inside the helmet. "What's with those military nutjobs, anyway? It seems a bit extreme to seal all the holds with MaxiSeal & blast off the door. Turns the ship into garbage."

But Halder was young. Hadn't seen the enemy sneaking in on hijacked ships and pouring from the holds to decimate entire stations or colonies. Captain Marks had been just a little girl at the time. She'd learned to shoot before she'd learned to read.

"They're just being careful," Captain replied. "So get back inside and start on that antennae. I want to take what Pol & Nye found back as soon as we can."

They were lucky the meteor shower had only taken out the communications antennae but left the rest of the array intact.

A ping alerted her to something on the radar.

"No!" she slammed her hand on the shipwide red alert button & pressed the button to speak with Halder. "Get back inside! Now!" then the ship-wide intercom. "Battle stations, everyone. The Nasty Water is upon us."

Pol ran onto the deck. "They couldn't have detected us during our mission...could they?"

Captain Marks just shrugged & began flipping switches. "Those pirates fight dirty. Get ready."The crew was up to the task. Their meteor-battered ship might not be.

WANT MORE OF THIS MISSION? The story continues in my book "Blast Off! Short Spurts of Sci-Fi"