A Spaceship Repair Girl Supposedly Named Rachel by Richard Roberts

Author:Richard Roberts [Roberts, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult fantasy
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2022-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

* * *

A kobold, a malfunctioning cyborg teenager, and I held a jet engine in place on the back end of an oval spacecraft shell, while the cyborg used a glowing blue index finger to weld the engine in place. For all that Wrench and I heaved and strained, with one arm ARF-80 carried more of the weight than both of us.

What was different and important about this ship was that it was mine and we were building it from scratch. When ARF finished welding, we let go of the engine and I walked around to the hole in the side of the ship where a hatch would eventually be.

There wasn’t much inside. The only controls I’d built were the navigation system, and that wasn’t done. I had a star-studded plastic globe around the orrery I’d found the first day but hadn’t figured out how to hook them up yet. When I did, I was confident they would point me anywhere in the solar system.

In fact, the only thing properly installed inside was a jagged, brightly glowing crystal as big as me pierced by thin brass rods that held it in a ring frame near the back of the ship. Very careful not to touch the crystal or the rods, I reached back behind them and plugged wires one by one into the three jets we’d welded on.

Beside me, Wrench clasped her hands behind her back and rocked forward and backward on her big, triangular dino feet. With far too much sweetness to be believable, she asked, “So why the redesign?”

Withdrawing my arms to safety, I stared down at the shiny grey lizard with a perplexed frown. “Redesign? I’d barely started.”

She just grinned lots of short, blunt, unevenly spaced fangs. “You scammed that guy out of his whole engine so you could use it in your ship!”

Stung, I straightened up and shook a finger at her. “He’s happier with the paddlewheels. They’re slow, steady, and steam powered. Piloting a racing boat got him into an accident.”

Rocking forward and back even more dramatically, Wrench fixed her blue eyes on me and singsonged, “Ducking the question!”

Okay, yeah, but I hadn’t needed to. I looked around the RV-sized, pill-shaped ship, although there wasn’t much else to see yet but grey metal walls and floor. “I had an inspiration. Reliability. All these spaceship designs we’re studying are so different. I don’t think a ship from Mars would work on the Dragon Moons, or that a ship from the Dragon Moons could land on Callisto.”

Wrench slowed down the rocking, frowning in thought now. Discussing the serious business of spaceship repair, she barely squeaked at all. “Land, but not take off. It takes time for a planet’s nature to take hold.”

…which was how I got off Earth, by not stopping to decide if it was a good idea. At that, we’d escaped just barely ahead of vengeful math-driven physics.

Reaching up, I patted the ceiling of the ship, listening to the very faint metallic clonk. “Between rotors, jets, and wings, my ship will have everything covered.

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