Izz stared out the porthole and into the void. Slipspace held the stars at bay, shrouding glimmers of light in fog and haze. She trailed a finger down the side of the metal rim, feeling the grooves cold against callused fingertips hard-won from hours of rewiring Monster‘s electrical systems.
Not the computer systems, oh no. Greaves insisted she needed practice first, an insistence the illegal artificial sentient enforced with mild electric shocks. Practice that didn’t make the long journey to salvage any less boring, and interfered with salvage inventory.
It made her wish they were close to arrival. Sometimes, after all her dreaming, she wished for nothing more than to see the stars again.
“Break’s over.” The chirrupy voice broke into her fugue from the loudspeakers. “Ready to rewire console number four?”
“There’s nothing I’d like more.”
“Lovely.” Syrup couldn’t be sweeter. And Izz was left wondering, yet again, whether her ship didn’t understand sarcasm or habitually ignored it.
***
This week on MOTE, nother Mike prompted me with: When you wish upon a star…
My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel: “What do you mean, I’ve been upgraded to a hurricane?”
