Stranded

By Curtis Trahan

It's a gray world, no sunshine, just a foggy sky. It's hard to survive here, but there are beings here, a tall gray-skinned humanoid who is cruel and who has slaves. I'll have trouble with them, and a short yellow-skinned humanoid who seems friendly. None are pretty; they all live in skin-covered huts and use spears and axes to hunt and fight. I'll have to walk a thin line here.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685179472

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Stranded

Curtis Trahan

ISBN 978-1-68517-946-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68517-947-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Curtis Trahan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

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About the Author

1

My name is Joel. I'm an engineer for ORISS Inc. I'm the backup. On space flights, ORISS shuttles supplies across the galaxy. Tomorrow I'll be headed to AZ608. This ship is Chantel 4. It takes six months to arrive. I'm the only crew member. Seems with all the technology, they wouldn't need me. But what the crap. The pay is super. I'll be there in six months. They will unload the ship in orbit and fuel her up. I'll stay over about thirty days and hopefully find a party and a warm companion for the stay.

Criss shouted from the door, Hey, man, super party at the stage. There'll be lots of hot bodies just waiting.

I told him, Thanks for the invite, but I have a flight at 4:00 a.m.

Criss said, Man, I don't know about you. Are you gay?

No, just some bad relationships in my past. I like my alone time. Hey, man, I read a lot of old books. That makes me smarter than you. Just a joke, buddy, have a good time. Please do a couple of them bodies for me. See you down the road.

Damn! It was a short night. Oh well, I'll have plenty of sleep on the trip.

I was headed to shuttle the sail. She's sixty feet long with solid-state fuel; it takes about seventy minutes from launch to docking with Chantel 4. She has a crew of two.

I'm the only passenger with my gear and six-month supplies. Crew is quiet, probably had to get up early. Maybe they went to the big party last night. Ha. Well, I'm home here, at least what I'll call home. Yep, looks peaceful.

The Chantel 4 is 140 feet. Most of it is cargo space. My control room and living space is about twenty feet by twenty feet self-contained with a sleeper. That'll keep me asleep up to fifteen days unless an alarm goes off, which has never happened, so I read a lot. And sometimes, I look at the stars. I get excited if a planet is near. I know it's kind of boring to live this way. But that's me. Chantel has solid fuel boosters with an ion long-range power source. I'll leave orbit with the big boys till speed gets to seventy-five thousand miles per hour. When they shut down, the ions will push me along to one hundred thousand miles per hour. When I get within twenty thousand miles, she will use side thrusters to turn the ship around. That's when the big boys fire up and start slowing me down. It's all preset to get in orbit around AZ608. No big deal. I'm here as backup. Chantel 4 has manual backup controls, but I have never had to use them. I just watch control lights blink.

Read, eat, sleep, and look out through my portal and sometimes take pictures. Not many!

It has been twenty-eight days. I think I'm getting fat! I'm gonna take a ten-day sleep to pass the time. I'm still a long way from AZ608.

Day 35

I had ringing in my ears. What the crap. My sleeper popped open. Damn. I was out in a flash looking at the console. My brain was spinning. What the crap. I'm way off course. Shit, where am I? I looked at the charts. I can't make sense of it. How can I be so far off course? I looked at the flashing warnings on the console. I turned on emergency SOS and got on com; no answer.

Crap. There's something ahead, and I'm gonna be there fast with a bang at one hundred thousand miles per hour. Damn, I can't correct my flight. I'm shutting down the ion drive. I've got to turn this blasted ship around.

Main left side thrusters were on. Okay, I'm going one hundred thousand miles per hour in reverse. I was firing main solid engines. What planet is this? I've got to find this thing on my charts. Fifteen minutes later, a small unexplored planet was found. Its info was dismal, and probes that were sent lost signal. It seemed to have a thick atmosphere. Name: AZ643. Crap, I'm dead!

The ship has slowed to forty-one thousand miles per hour. I needed a miracle. Big boys were still running down to fifteen thousand miles per hour. Hell, if I make it, what's down there? Ocean or maybe volcano dam. I was sweating buckets. Six thousand miles per hour. I can see it. The atmosphere was just gray. This ship had twenty tons of cargo. I always knew I was gonna die someday. But not this way. I thought it might be a little more glamorous. Big boys were still running. I'm at 1,500 miles per hour. Panel reads twenty-one thousand feet…to something?

I had put on my survival suit. A lot of good that's gonna do. I was at three hundred miles per hour and six thousand feet. This damn thing is shaking like a boat in rough water. I was suited up and buckled in. Shit, here goes nothing.

Boom. I hit something.

Now she's tumbling.

Bang. I hit again. I could hear the ship tearing up. I could tell by my orientation I'm on the top end. The ship was sliding down something. Ha, probably a volcano, and I'm falling inside. Just my luck. I'm gonna be dead, and nobody knows where.

Bang. And I hit so hard my chair collapsed. I had stopped sliding. I lay here strapped in feeling like I might have broken bones. I lay there and then unbuckled from my seat. I crawled to the portal, pulled myself up, and looked out. Damn! It's white. I see white, white what?

The fire alarms hadn't gone off. I knew I was out of fuel, so that's a plus. I've got to try the door to the cargo. It's the only way out of here. Hey, it opened, and there's nothing but scattered stuff, and no ship. It was just twisted and rolled-up metal and just a thirty-foot section next to my control room. And that was snow out there—snow everywhere. I still had my survival suit on, but I only had twenty-five minutes left. This place looks cold, real cold. I went back into the control room and tried to sort this out. I was walking around in a half daze. I had to think about my situation. It didn't look good!

No power! Room is dark. I'm gonna stay here. If someone ever comes, my body will be in here. Fifteen-minute air left. Maybe this wasn't such a great job. What the heck? Who cares if I'm found. No family and few friends. I'm going outside, at least I might see something. Man, it's a mess.

I walked to where I can see. I looked out. There were trees scattered around and above. It was a mountain going way the hell up with my ship scattered up this long slope.

This is mind-boggling. The sky is gray like fog, but no it's not fog.

There was five minutes of air left.

Lord only knows what this atmosphere is made of. I'm sitting on a cargo box. My meter says I'm out of air. I'm not gonna pass out in this suit. Well, here goes nothing. I'm scared as hell, but I'm taking this helmet off.

A twist and a small swoosh. I held my breath until that didn't work, and then I took a deep breath.

It's an air of some kind. I'm breathing, yeah! For how long, I don't know. What kind of place is this?

I sat there a long time pondering my situation. I was getting cold with my suit open.

I'll dig around and see what I can find. There's no heat. I need to make a fire. Ha, the only fire I've seen was in my books or on the tube. Let's see what is in some of these crates that's left. So I'm gonna open something.

It wasn't hard.

Let's see, it's some kind of parts. Not good. I'll try another. This ones got military rations. Great, I've got food. What is the military doing here? I don't care. I've got food.

The next crate had military on it also.

More parts, great! Well, that's all the crates that's here. The rest are scattered up the mountain.

Light was beginning to fade. I had to find something to keep me from freezing. I found some tarps and raps they used to cover cargo.

I'm gonna drag this stuff back inside. Maybe I can keep warm till tomorrow, however long that will be.

Day 2

I was in another world, and I was still breathing. I was sore all over, but at least I was there. I guess that's good. Damn it's cold. I've got to find some way to warm up. I was wrapped up in tarp and raps. I looked like a homeless person in some big city. I know, I've seen them. I was hungry, but everything in that crate was frozen solid. Put that to my mouth, and I'll lose some skin. Same with water, it can't melt ice. I needed to climb or crawl up that slope and hope for something. Without food, I got time. I couldn't go long without water. I'm gonna try to climb up with my tool.

I had gotten up a little ways. I saw a crate ahead. Well, to my surprise, it says military. I needed more parts. Ha, let's see. More packets of food in this one too! Damn, there's junk scattered everywhere. I've got to get higher.

More crates and busted up stuff scattered. I saw parts all over sticking out of the snow. I saw some small cans. Well, it probably wouldn't be parts. I picked up a can labeled military canned heat. What is canned heat? I read the instructions and opened the can. The light ingredients burned in two hours. Hey, man, well, hell yes!

I collected as many as I can carry. I headed back to control room. I was thinking on how to light that thing.

I was sitting there, and I needed a way to start it. I was stumped was inside the control room. I had to keep the door open so I can see. What do I have to help me? I looked around panels and panels and more panels; it was all dark. There was a switch that said back up down at the bottom of the board. I knew it was for power, but there was no ship for power, but I flipped it up, and everything lighted up the dam. There was a battery somewhere. I'm a dam engineer. I've been riding this thing too long not worrying about what's going on. Of all people, I should have remembered this. I guess I was just shaken up. I found the power pack under a panel. I disconnect the wires and hooked up a hot wire and ground wire, opened a can, and touched the two wires close to the open can. I was going to blow myself up. I had a spark. And shit, I have got a beautiful blue flame. It wouldn't take much heat in there; this thing was super insulated for space. I was a happy man. I had no way to recharge the power. I'll have to conserve it. It was getting late. I went to get a food pack when the can was empty. I can melt snow. Maybe I can last till the military misses all this stuff and come looking. Well, I have food and hot water. I'm good for the night. The room was warmer too. I was rolled up in my stuff. Good night, Joel, you lost jerk.

Day 3

I needed to look around and get an idea of the rest of that world. I walked to the end of the ship or what's left. The ship was resting on a ledge. There was maybe thirty feet to what looks like a meadow covered with snow. There were trees in clumps scattered around. Off to the right, there was a heavy-looking forest.

There were lots of small bushes scattered around the meadow. I didn't see a town. I didn't think I would. I knew there was a sun, but I couldn't see it, just a haze up that high felt and looked funny. I know there was a sun because it was dark half the time. I went back up and looked for more supplies. The first parts were not too steep, but farther up, it looked tough to climb. I found more heat cans, and I made a pile so I could find them. There were lots of torn-up metal and parts of some type of tools. I didn't know what those stuff were. I picked up my cans and headed back. I took another look at the control