Rocky Roads
Copyright© 2018 by UtIdArWa
Chapter 4
The corpse appeared to be about 60 years old. His hair and beard were long, unkept and wild. his body had a glassy, even crystalyne look.
Jimi continued his scan of the room. While cluttered, he could see the attempt at organization. He also noted the control bank. It had obviously been scavanged from the shuttle outside.
Walking up to the corpse, Jimi noted the PDA clutched in his hand. Jimi didn’t see any signs of violence on the corpse. But then again he wasn’t a medic, so what did he know.
Inspecting the rest of the habitat, he found that all the systems were dead. The batterys were completely dead. Even the environmental systems clock was out. This was surprising. That battery was a low draw, isolated system. It was supposed to run 20 years without a charge.
While looking over the communications station, Jimi’s environmental alarm sounded. His battery and air were at 15 minutes. Jimi started gathering all of the data discs he could. On his way out, he stopped and looked at the corpse. On impulse, he pryed the PDA from its hand.
Stopping at his scout, he put the disc’s and PDA in the cargo lock, and then cycled into his ship. After getting into his command chair, rather than bring up the atmosphere, he jacked into ships power and air. His next step was lifting and setting up a tight compass point orbit. He programmed in a blaze launch to set his claim markers.
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