Challenge #03998-J346: Inspired Desperation
They were able to move together and send out a distress beacon. Alliance found them first.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-03919-j267-almost-everything-proof -- Anon Guest
"Okay. I managed to hotwire the nav system. Sending instructions to your screens. The good news is that we're all traveling in the same direction. Some more news... gravity is in our favour. We're drifting closer and closer. I... don't know if that's going to be a good thing."
"Engines are disabled," noted Bay "Missing part that requires a specific download to unlock in the on-board printers. And it's paywalled, even if we weren't cut off from the greater universe, we don't have the budget for that." Bay blew a raspberry. "Three cheers for capitalist greed."
"Okay," sighed Rise, the engineer. "I'm scrolling through the list of parts we can print. I'm going to get a work-around for this horseshit even if I have to use stone tools and flakking bear skins."
They did not get that far. They did have to print parts separately and use the hulls of their mecha-lifepods as an antenna in order to broadcast their distress signal. Even then, they had to transmit in morse code.
The CRC scooped them up before they could hit anything huge and detrimental.
They were very glad to encounter rehabilitation and medical intervention on the Galactic Alliance style.
Then they were very glad to encounter the pro bono Galactic Alliance lawyers.
[Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash]
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