Jim came back into consciousness slowly, his head and bones aching. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he registered the familiar voice of the Wraith computer. However, he couldn’t quite make out what it was saying. His eyes opened to slits, and he was forced to ignore the pain that went screaming through his head as he tried to sit up. No matter how hard he tried, however, he couldn’t make it up all the way into a sitting position; and he suddenly realized that he was floating, not lying down.
Everything came back to him quickly. He remembered all that had occurred to him in the last few months, from the Confederate spaceport to the boarding of his Wraith. He groaned, and suddenly the droning voice of the computer got his attention in a very real way: “Thirteen seconds left until self-destruct sequence completed…” With a shock, he realized he hadn’t been blacked out for that long. With the final return of reasoning powers, he began to wonder why he had regained consciousness. Jim looked around him and found the answer.
Netone was no fool. He knew that neither he nor his men could prevent their deaths on their own. He needed the boy. So he had been forced to order his men to take off the oxygen masks and let the air flow freely into the small room. This had led to a rise in the oxygen levels and Jim regaining consciousness. Netone hoped that he could convince Jim to disable the sequence in time to prevent the deaths of everybody on the ship.
“Hurry up, boy.” Netone snapped. “We need you to disable this thing, and be dammed quick while your at it.”
Jim was able to summon up his customary sarcasm. “Wow. I’m so glad you come to me when you have a problem, sir. I feel so honored.”
“Hurry!” Netone roared. In the background, you could hear the computer announcing the remaining time: six seconds.
“It’s a real pity this had to happen, you know.” Jim said with feigned indifference as he drifted over to the control panel. Netone garbled something incomprehensible and shoved Jim with all his might in the direction of the panel. He looked very pale.
Jim yawned, grinning. “Three seconds left…” he said, smirking.
Netone was beginning to cry. Jim could see his eyes bulging. Netone looked very unhappy, Jim thought with an impassive look on his face. He was actually beginning to consider whether it was worth it or not to let all of the Confederates die, even if it meant sacrificing himself. He decided against it. It might be good to have several Confederate officials and soldiers in his debt.
As the computer called out the last time, Jim made a lurch and pressed the button needed to shut off the sequence.
“Pausing self destruct sequence. Requesting authorization. Sequence will resume in ten seconds if no correct authorization is entered.”
Jims mind raced, trying to remember the password. He distinctly recalled resetting all the Wraith’s passwords and security settings back at the base before he had even left. He just couldn’t remember the password for this.
“Why won’t you hurry, you bastard?” Netone screamed with fury.
“I’m trying, I’m trying” Jim muttered sullenly. He was not happy with how things were looking now. He only had about seven seconds left to figure out his password. “What would I have named it?” he asked himself silently. Jim noticed his fingers twitching. He stopped them immediately. All at once, it hit him: he remembered the password! Quickly, he typed it in: jrmasteroverride. The computer gave a loud ‘beep’ and turned off the timer. Jim gave an exaggerated sigh.
Netone was making an attempt to sit down, even with the lack of gravity. He then made a vain attempt to straighten his hair, which he had been tearing at, and relaxed while looking around him with glee. Then Netone realized exactly what was wrong. “How come the gravity isn’t back on?” he demanded angrily.
Jim shook his head. “It’s a safety precaution. If you enact the self-destruct sequence, all life support and other systems go off.”
“So what? What does that have to do with the gravity? You stopped the thing, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. They stay off. The self-destruct sequence disbands the engine and cuts the power to all major components of the ship. Turning the sequence back off can’t do anything to them. We’re stuck here, drifting. I have no control over the ship, the gravity, or anything else on it.”
Netone was staring at Jim with an incredulous look on his face, which soon turned to rage. “You… idiot! We’re stuck here, forever! We’re doomed, damn you!” Netone shrieked with fury. He advanced towards Jim, looking as if he were going to strangle him.
Jim held up his hands to ward Netone away, all the while drifting backwards away from him. “Whoa, hold up, man. We’ll run into some planet eventually. We have to, because of the gravity.”
“Do you know how far we are from any planet?” asked Netone, his eyes bulging out at Jim.
“Umm… a ways?” inquired Jim nervously. Netone lost control and ripped the pilots chair out of the floor and hurled it at Jim.
“Die, you bastard!” he roared.
Jim ducked the floating chair with ease; it was moving too slowly to do any damage to him anyway. “I guess I didn’t tighten that chair enough before I left.” Jim said sarcastically. Netone’s men stood around the cockpit, looking at Jim or Netone, or out the windows with bleak looks of despair on their faces. They made no move to even come near Jim, to Netone’s intense dismay.
“Why won’t you kill the bitch?” he screamed at them. They merely glanced at him and then looked away. It was obvious that they didn’t think it mattered much anymore.
Jim really couldn’t blame them either, but he had more important things to worry about now: mainly, Netone. If Jim didn’t figure out a way to get Netone to calm down, and soon, he would be in trouble. He knew that he couldn’t stay awake all night guarding himself, and he desperately needed sleep, especially because of all the stress he had been through.
Jim made an effort to appease Netone once more. “Hey, man, its ok, we’ll be fine… just calm down, and we can all sit down and think over this and develop a plan together. That sound good to you?” Apparently not, because Netone screamed in fury at the idea of being helped again by Jim.
“Well, I guess that’s not an option just now, is it?” Jim inquired nervously, moving slowly away from the general area of the Confederate official.
“No, it isn’t, is it?” Netone snarled. “I think that my men and I are perfectly capable of dealing with this on our own… especially after we kill you!”
“Whatever.” Jim shrugged. He didn’t really think that Netone’s men could summon up the energy to actually obey any orders of their superior. And from their point of view, what was the point? Why should they go out of their way to do whatever this floating fat man told them to do, when they were going to die anyway? It wasn’t like they would actually get convicted of treason or mutiny or anything like that.
Jim voiced this thought out loud, and Netone looked even angrier. The Confederate soldiers didn’t even turn around from their spots at the window, where they stared vacantly out into the depths of space.
Netone suddenly realized the full seriousness of the situation: he was trapped on a flimsy, crumbling Wraith, with a group of men who were apathetic to the extreme and wouldn’t obey any of his orders. To top it off, he was stuck with the unbearable company of Jim Raynor, an irritating, sarcastic, illiterate yokel who could do nothing more than insult him continuously and rub Netone’s failure to remedy the situation into his face. And the boy was a criminal to boot! It hurt Netone’s vanity just thinking about it.
God damn boy is right, he thought with anguish. Netone regained his composure very quickly shortly thereafter.
“Ok, umm… Jim. Yes, Jim, we’ll need to work together. What exactly do you propose?”
Jim was shocked by this sudden turnaround, and he didn’t notice the eyes full of venom glaring out at him from Netone’s face. All he saw was a man suddenly willing to work with him to get out of this death trap, and he was appreciative.
“Well, I’m thinking correctly, our trajectory will take us into the Tymerian sector within the next twenty-nine hours. I’m sure that if we don’t run into any trouble before we get there, we can easily find another ship that can rescue us.”
Netone held up his hand and smiled. “Wait a minute, boy. Were not running an engine, and you expect us to reach the Tymerian sector in twenty-nine hours? Do you take me for a fool? It would take a year, at least!”
Jim shook his head. “No, because we were moving at a high velocity before all the systems shut down. Our momentum is still pushing us. We might not be going as fast as we would with the engines on, but we are still going much faster than if we were just drifting. So that’s how we’ll get there by that time.”
Netone glanced at Jim with a faint look of admiration on his face. “Ah, that’s true, but what if we do find another ship? They can’t board us, and we cant connect at all because you fired those missiles into our ship, and it caused some extensive damage on both ships, not just mine. So that’s ruled out. What do you propose to do about that?”
Jim grimaced. He had hoped that Netone wouldn’t have thought of it, but Netone obviously had a knack for thinking of things that others wouldn’t. Jim had wanted to deal with this problem when he came to it, but judging by the expectant look on Netone’s face, he wouldn’t be able to.
“Well, I guess we could either make repairs, or we could use the repair suits to float the gap between the two ships.”
Netone looked incredulous. “The repair suits? That’s insane! They were meant to stay attached to the ship at all times so you could make repairs without the risk of free floating. The tubes aren’t long enough to stretch to the distance where the other ship would have to be, and if you cut the tubes, you wouldn’t have any air! Not to mention the fact that floating out side is extremely dangerous, and it’s nearly impossible to get where you want to go! Think about it! That’s nearly thirty feet you would have to get across!”
“Why’s that?” Jim asked, irritated. “The other ship wouldn’t have to stay thirty feet away, if it maneuvered below us. We could drop down right on top of it, and just crawl down the sides and into the transfer room!”
“You know, that just might work.” A hesitant, slow smile spread across Netone’s face, then developed into glee.
Even the bunch of soldiers were starting to show some reactions. They turned around and looked thoughtful, even offering ideas as Jim and Netone continued to develop their elaborate plan.
When it was all done, Netone rested in the now-floating pilots chair and whistled to himself as he fell asleep. He would have to remember this boy, Raynor. Yes, indeed.
Raynor relaxed happily, without any worries. He was able to do that, even if he was in a Wraith he had no control over, without a large amount of food or water. He was naturally optimistic, so he was confident that all would turn out well. After all, how could it not turn out all right? He was Raynor! Jim was intoxicated with the misguided dreams of his own invincibility and immortality.
The sound of the cheered soldiers’ laughter and whispers died out as Jim faded into sleep, and soon the ship was quiet.
