Shoot for Earth: MedSci Missions 3

On Chiron, as the planet party sailed with trepidation towards a meeting with the poids, pale hands were hard at work in the dim night lighting of engineering. Now was the perfect chance to fire off a blast of messages in the hopes that the people of the ship called the privateer would pick it up. It was time to get off Chiron. The danger of discovery and imprisonment increased every day.

            If only I could figure out how Roed’s LDcom is set up to send messages, the mind controlling the hands thought. The freshly minted machine was ready, it was just waiting for the top brass to approve experimental use. Roed was confined to quarters while not working, and no one else was interested in this corner of the night-lit center. The other engineers were busy making sure the Quantum Displacement Drive was safely humming along. So there was time to think, to figure this out.

            After literally hours of reading Roed’s scrawling notes, an epiphany sent a burst of neural activity to the hands. This was possible! Now the hands worked steadily, punching in the message and setting the parameters. It was simple, really. A push of an innocuous button was all that was left. A finger hovered a minute, while a final check was carried out. Finally, the finger was lowered. Done!