Fragment by Paul G Swanson (people reading books .txt) 📖

grimly, "well, it was me. I programmed it."
Just as he finished there came a knock from her door. He looked at her as though it was the last time he could and said, "Shit. We took too long."

* * *

Orwen dropped each of the injured men into their own vat of green fluid, and connected an air hose to each of them. That was an hour ago. He didn't understand the science behind it but the green fluid should rapidly heal the wounds each of them had suffered.
He had given each of them a pair of goggles since they were awake. He felt they shouldn't have to hold their eyes closed. The mouth pieces had also been equipped to allow communication back and forth.
"How much longer are we stuck in here?" Psylix asked him. Orwen took a quick look at the timer.
"About twenty more minutes." That was a long time in a holding tank so he had an idea that might speed it up for them. "How about some music while you bake?" Psylix and the others nodded in approval.
Within four minutes he had succeeded in duct taping some headphones to the two way speaker and hit play. The sounds of his death metal echoed from tank to tank.
Gren left the room and slapped his badge, "You boys still working?"
"Yup."
"Good, I'm coming to help you guys out now." Slapping the badge again he ran down the hallway at a brisk trot. "I want to be in space within the week."
Throughout the next three days the inside of the ship was mostly ignored and they focused on sealing the outside. What good would the ship be if they managed to make it fly and then die the second it reached space? That was Orwen reasoning behind it.
He worked mainly on the engines, and every time he went to get a glass of water the smell of grease and smoke followed him. Despite accidentally falling off the ship several times they managed to seal the walls. Surprisingly the ship didn't have as many air leaks as they might of expected.
Orwen told them the story of how it got here in the first place. He said, "One day this thing just fell from the sky and landed in the field I was tending to." He flexed his arms proudly, "I was a farmer back in those days."

He was only around fifteen at the time, he still had both arms and legs. No robotic enhancements were necessary just yet. The wind was blowing nicely and the sun was low. It was about time to pack up the equipment and his mind was drifting back and forth from young and beautiful Jodi.
She lived almost half a mile from him, and the two of them had a date tonight. He didn't know just yet where they would go, he never planned them, just winged it.
A rush of air was what made him look up. By chance that wind saved his life, if he hadn't felt it exactly when he did he might have lost his life far sooner than the accident that swiped his limbs.
It pushed him down into the field briefly and he looked up. What he saw was a mighty tornado of fire falling out of the sky. It was rocketing toward him. The fireball twisted and spun out of control leaving a burning wake behind it.
Then he heard it, the engines. That was when he knew it was a falling spacecraft. Leaving all of his tools behind he ran for safety. The roaring grew so loud that he actually grew deaf for almost a month after.
It struck the ground with such force it knocked him almost twenty feet into the air, he flew until a tree stopped him. Later when he came to he saw the resulting crater. The ship laid steaming in the center.
Its massive shape from what he could see, resembled a bird in flight. He was able to see the heat damage from where he was sitting. The dark char covered almost half off it.
Later when he was able to move and touch it, he would see if it was indeed burn marks or if it was just wet dirt. For now, since he was still dazed and confused he just cursed at it and spat.
It had just ruined his field. Of all places, why his field? Most likely he would have to cancel the date with Jodi as well. He cursed it again with all of the vehement rage he could summon. He was looking forward to it too. Damn this.
Suddenly he found himself able to walk again. So he stepped down into mall sized crater. He stepped down into it and slid about halfway down before he managed to slip and fall the rest of the way.
When he stopped rolling he stood up and rubbed his arms. He was at the bottom of the crater and an arms length away from the spacecraft. In a painful rage he punched it hard on its midsection. He managed to break a knuckle but when some of the mud slipped off of the front he walked over to it.
In big military letters it read: Orion.
Well, it couldn't have been such a good ship if it crashed like that. He punched it a little softer with his other hand. And some more mud slipped off. It just revealed its model number: 01
He was about to hit it yet again to see if anything else fell off but, when a section of the hull suddenly vanished, he put it on hold. Orwen took off his straw hat and called into the empty archway.
"Hello? You guys OK?" When he got no answer he simply stepped inside. He didn't really expect an answer, anybody on board was most likely dead. He knew he wouldn't have been able to survive a crash like this.
Stray wires dangled helplessly in the empty corridor. The lights gradually dimmed and then flickered in an unset pattern. "Hello?" He called out again, just to be safe. He eventually found the control room and was both relieved and confused when he found it completely empty.
Yeah, no dead people. But how did it end up down here to begin with?

"I never did find those things out." He told them as he slammed the last seal down with one final blow. He tossed the hammer and let it crash against the ground. "But it was the event that shaped my life and the reason why I became a ship builder."
Zeke grabbed a rope and swung off the top, after sliding down next to Orwen he said something at near the volume of a whisper. "Well boys the ship is ready to sail the cosmic gusts of space for the first time in over twenty years" Orwen told them proudly.
After all this time, all fifty years, it was finally fixed. He smiled and sighed. Patting the side of the ship he spoke to it. "Well, time to get you moving once again."
Ten minutes later Orwen had to manually unhook the uplinks that held the fuel line on the side. They fell and crashed against the ground with and loud bang. When all five had been disconnected he met everyone inside.
They all stood around the monitor and Moumoru sat in the chair, he was ready to make himself useful. He was admiring the ancient control system. It had a computer to be sure, but he also had two joysticks to make use of.
Orwen gave the magic word and the ship moved. It rose rumbling all the while. Moumoru eased it up slowly. So slowly it was odd. Everyone thought he would push the ship limits from the first moment of flight to the bitter crash at the end. And no crappy coin trick this time either.
Because this ship was so much larger than the one he used to fly they would have to leave by heading out the carrier tunnel. He continued to ease it up until finally he gripped the other control stick and swung the ship sideways.
On the HUD they could see the ship was only about a hundred feet off the ground. Its vertical thrusters blasted blue flame down its old neighbors. Moumoru lined the ship up with the tunnel entrance and that grinned with the old maniacal glint in his eyes that they had all gotten used to.
"Hold on!" He hollered at them as he increased the speed to its maximum. The ship lurched and shot forward. Everyone was knocked off of their feet.
The massive ship would have glided soundlessly over the other buildings if not for the screaming flames shooting out of the nozzles on the bottom of the ship. Orwen gripped the pilot seat in awe as the mighty white beast flew into the tunnel and Moumoru dodged everything. On one occasion he actually made the ship roll.
Orwen gasped when he pulled that stunt. But at least he had the sense to turn gravity off first, he told himself. The lights in the tunnel were mesmerizing, Psylix felt as if he could have been hypnotized. Finally after what seemed forever, the ship broke out into the star lit void. Behind them the colony quickly vanished into the void as Moumoru made the ship pour out even more speed than before.
Now that the show was over Psylix left the control platform and climbed the stair that led to the top deck. It wasn't even much of a deck. It was more like an observatory platform. When he got to the top the glass dome above him put the universe an arms length away.
Wonders beyond comprehension, things so beautiful that they had no words to describe them all lay beyond this dome. All the sorrow he had ever felt seemed to melt away from him while he stared at this display.
Below him, he knew, they would just walk around. Most likely never even come up here. Sarah might, he thought, maybe even Zeke. As if he sent the thought out telepathically someone started coming up the stairs.
When her head popped up she didn't even see him. He stayed motionless until she was also taken in by the wonders of the universe. "Beautiful isn't it?" He saw her jump, startled by his sudden appearance.
"Yeah, its almost like I could reach out and touch it." The wonder in her voice was plain as day. A single stray space rock no larger than a golf ball smacked into the dome and disappeared into the distance.
"Did you know that somewhere off in this universe