Chapter 48: Cutting The Tether Now
"If your vision is set to 150%, then why can’t she see the control panel?" asked Jun Li, taking on a haughty tone. I sighed, not wanting to get in the middle, but still not knowing where the control panel was and how I was going to deal with the six Sisaliks onboard.
"Maybe it is your own faulty information," replied my helmet, not willing to back down for a moment.
"If someone could at least explain to me what I was looking for?" I asked, trying to stop their argument before they really got into it. Not to mention, I was looking for what I considered to be a control panel. In this case, I was thinking that it would be a pad with a bunch of numbers that I could input in order to get the ramp to lower.
"You are looking for a control panel," said Jun Li snapping at me through the helmet’s speakers. "How—" All of a sudden, there was silence.
"Much better," said my helmet with what I could swear to be a sigh. "AIs, always think that they know best, no wonder they were wiped out to the point of extinction."
I blinked a few times, not seeing that coming at all. The program in my helmet clearly did not approve of Jun Li.
"So," I said slowly, still clinging to the side of a ship by the fingers of one hand and the toes of my boots. It’s not like I was in any rush or anything. "About that control panel?"
"Of course, Sweetie. You are going to look for a rectangle that is approximately two of your Earth’s millimeters in width by one millimeter in height. It will blend in with the rest of this ship, however, it should be on the right-hand side of the ramp."
I wasn’t going to go into how my helmet knew about Earth units of measurement or anything like that. I had more pressing things to worry about. Like the fact that I was currently on the left-hand side of the ramp and I needed to be on the right.
"How can I get over to the right?" I asked.
"Reducing magnetic capabilities," said my helmet cheerfully. All of a sudden, I felt almost lighter. I cautiously placed my right hand onto the ship as far to the right as I could before moving my right leg. I quickly managed to detach my right leg from where it was originally stuck and moved it over, essentially looking like a giant starfish clinging onto a rock for dear life.
Then again, I supposed that I wasn’t that far off. But instead of a rock, I was clinging to the side of a ship, hoping that no one would look out the window and notice me.
I slowly crawled my way over to cling to the middle of the ramp and looked for something that was millimeters big on an outside hull that was the size of a jumbo jet. To say I wasn’t impressed was an understatement.
"Found it," said my helmet as an enlarged view of my right showed a circle with an arrow pointing to an invisible box. And when I say it was invisible, I mean that the ’panel’ a.k.a ’slot’ was the same color as the rest of the ship, but with only the thinnest of black lines around it to indicate the opening.
I moved my hand slowly, never taking my eyes off the picture in front of me until I was able to see my armor-clad hand over the top of the slot. Bringing my arm back, I took off the drive that I had around my neck with Jun Li’s programming and gripped it as hard as I could without breaking it.
The last thing that I needed was for this tiny black drive the size of a USB Wi-Fi adapter to get lost in the vastness of the nebula. I would never be able to find it again.
Once again, I watched the monitor inside my helmet to know exactly where I needed to place this drive.
I tried to push it into the slot, only to be met with resistance. I took it out and turned my hand over to insert the device into the slot once again, but this time, it was upside down. It didn’t go in.
Trying my best not to scream out in frustration, I tried it a third time, this time the same way as the first time. It went in perfectly. I literally bit my tongue, refusing to let the swear words inside my head flow out.
"You might want to either move or hold on," said my helmet and I could feel the ramp that I was clinging to lower. Debris and six lizard-looking aliens were sucked out of the ship and left to float out in space. Five of the six were just laying there, clearly dead as they continued to drift, being drawn into the center of the cosmic dust that was forming a planet.
But the sixth one was clinging desperately to a line or cord of some kind that was tethered to the ship. He was wearing what could only be considered to be a space suit with a helmet attached, which was the only thing keeping him alive. I wanted to know why he was the only one with a suit on, but he hadn’t seen me yet and I wasn’t too anxious to draw his attention to me.
"Cutting the tether now," said my helmet and I could practically hear a bloodthirsty smile in her voice. The laser on my helmet shot out and cut the tether before turning itself off.
It really was more efficient to have the helmet fully activated. It would have made life so much easier when my neighbor kidnapped me. Oh well, live and learn.
Like a spider (I now refused to compare myself to a lizard ever again, no matter what the circumstances were) I climbed up and around the ramp until I was able to enter the back of the ship.
"You need to insert the device onto this side of the control panel now," said my helmet like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"You mean the same device that I left in the slot on the other side of the ramp?" I asked with a tired sigh.
