Day 3 // 1112P

Day was a wash. Was woken up in the middle of the night by a loud gnawing sound. I figured it was just a pack of Tiberons fighting over food. I switched on the external lights and took a look out of the port and starboard windows, but didn’t see anything. Fresno, of course, was still asleep in his bunk. No surprise there. I stayed up for close to an hour, listening, but didn’t hear anything other than the sound of the wind (and Fresno’s snoring). I figured the lights must have scared away whatever was out there, so I kept the externals on and went back to bed. It wasn’t until morning, when we tried to take off did we notice something wasn’t right. Boosters wouldn’t ignite. Fresno and I went outside and took a look around the ship. Fresno noticed one of the main access doors was hanging open, and some of the wires had been chewed up. I guess that was the gnawing sound I heard last night.

Fresno started to gripe about how this was just par for the course. “Great! No money, no job, no ship. Now what are we going to do?” He yelled. “What we're going to do is fix it,” I replied. I was too tired to argue. (If I knew the repairs were going to take most of the day, mind you, I would have been just as cranky as Fresno.) We didn’t get the boosters to ignite properly until early evening. Once they did, I decided to move the ship to higher ground, up on a flat rock outcrop, and made sure all of the access panels were locked tight.

I’m keeping the external lights on tonight. We can’t afford any more delays. Food and fuel are running low. Probably another few days before we’ll need to stop on Mezr and pick up some of both, and spend even more money we don’t have.

- C

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