The engine hummed silently to itself as my cargo ship slowly made its way through the Sirius sector. The laidar was pinging away as my ship traversed the cold and silent void of space... this was my home. No one could remember where we had come from, or where we are going, our true home lost in this cold hell, but I disagreed. As I said, this was MY home.
I decided that it would probably be a good idea to jump to hyperspace, as my shipment of Vegan lettuce would have gone off if I traversed this 100 light-year void at sub-light speed, I was also critically under my monthly quota. The hyper-drive hummed, moaned a few times, and jumped this rust bucket into hyperspace... for a few seconds that is.
Something went 'CRACK' in the engine room, and I was thrown against the control panel as the inertia-damper failed. the ship promptly fell out of hyperspace and began spiralling towards what appeared to be a grey, dusty planet. I tried to get into orbit before I realized that the main engine had failed, My only hope was the emergency inertia-damper.
Just before I hit the surface of the planet, the damper kicked in and slowed my ship down just enough to prevent serious damage. I looked around the ship, seeing bits of torn metal and glowing things fall to the surface. “That probably isn't a good sign” I thought to myself. I turned on the backup computer to asses the damage and to find out what the cause of it was.
The computer reported “Damage report: Main engine: OFF-LINE, Hyper-drive: OFF-LINE, RCS: OFF-LINE, Main computer: DAMAGED. Cause: Sudden quantum level probability shift”.
I was puzzled, a Q-shift, as it was called, has only occurred once before, and it was when the first hyper-drive powered ship was lost. Scientists on the colonies speculated that if a ship survived a Q-shift, it would find something strange, wonderful, and unlikely, due to the laws of probability being waved away.
I ignored the thought and began to re-assemble the RCS thrusters, as they were needed to lift off, I could repair the rest of the ship in orbit. As I stepped outside the ship, I saw a small glimmer of something golden off in the distance, and I went to investigate. As I approached the golden object, I noticed something... there were bootprints! I had indeed stumbled upon something strange, wonderful, and unlikely.
I headed back to the ship, repaired the RCS, and lifted off. As I was crossing the day-night border on the planet, a small blue ball rose above the horizon... just as my backup computer started screaming “DANGER: OXYGEN LEVELS CRITICAL!”. I brought the laidar on-line and scanned the blue planet now high in the sky. It had a breathable atmosphere, a one in a BILLION chance.
I set a course to the planet, witch had a visibly greenish-yellow surface. I landed in the middle of a forest, and began to repair the oxygen tanks. I then remembered that I had left the laidar on and went to the console to turn it off. as I approached it, there was something on the panel: “Possible alien civilization detected, beginning program: HOME-WORLD... Rotation period: ~1 day, Gravity: ~1G, Orbital Period: ~1 year... ALERT! HUMAN HOME-WORLD FOUND! ALL PARAMETERS MATCH! ALERT!”
I sat there, staring. I couldn't help but laugh. This couldn't be the home-world, we were on the wrong side of the galaxy! It was then that It hit me, we were ON the home-world... I went bonkers, there I was, rolling around in the mud in the greatest paradise in the galaxy, with not a care in my mind... that is, until my Interstellar radio started buzzing.
“BZZZZ Unit 93854, Come in! Unit 93854 COME IN!”
“This is Unit 93854, I've suffered some damage, but I'll be up and running in a week, at most.”
“Unit 93854 Report to Sirius alpha IMMEDIATELY!”
“Negative, control. My hyper-drive has gone AWOL, Kaput, Destroyed.”
“What is your current position?”
“You'll never believe this, I'm on the HOME-WORLD! Sending data now.”
“Coordinates confirmed, we're sending a tow-barge your way, hang tight.”
I sat there for the good part of an hour, had a few walnuts from the tree I landed next to, a strange banana shaped fruit that burned my mouth, and the tastiest apple that I've ever eaten. Eventually, the barge arrived and It towed me into orbit, and just as we were going to jump into hyperspace, I noticed that the backup computer failed to comment that the cargo hold had suffered a hull breach... “shoot, that will throw my quota straight to hell.” I thought, but then I realized, I'm not gonna need a job where I was going...
THE END.
). so I click OK and notice that there was no start-bar or desktop icons, but her countdown timer is still running. so i press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and get a blank screen in reply. I then press the reset button, and NOTHING HAPPENED. I then turned it of and back on again with the same result...
