Alien Items - Drew Wagar

the fine. Hurry up! I’m gonna hurl.
Bleep.
Bleep-bleep.
The ‘Go’ code.Praise be!
A thin line of black appeared ahead as the seal broke on the massive bay doors. It always amazed
Janus how rapidly these huge doors opened but suddenly there was a letterbox shaped snapshot of a
piece of Diso directly ahead. The tiniest nudge of the main engines pushed the ship towards the exit
and then he felt the huge magnetic steering pulses of the station’s launch control system take over to
hurl Lazarus towards space.
Janus knew instantly that something was not right. Lazarus was reacting badly, and unevenly, to
the magnetic steering. One or more of the ship’s own magnetic compensators had clearly gone awry
and it was affecting the evenness of the steering. Lazarus began to slew as it rushed towards the exit
and an alarming amount of the interior of the station’s wall was appearing on the Forward Viewer
where, only a second earlier, there had been smooth coastline and deep blue ocean.
Janus scrunched up his eyes and waited for the impact. Then he waited a bit longer just in case.
He opened his eyes. There was no bright lights of a medi-centre emergency room, no cracked view
screen, or blood and brain splattered extreme close-up of the interior of the station, just a very
rapidly changing view out of the main forward view screen.
Planet, space, station, planet, space, station.
Lazarus had emerged from the station, not like a sleek bullet from a rifle, but like a snot from a
badly contained sneeze.
Today was not going well.
Janus wrestled with the controls, initially his frantic stick waggling only enforcing the already
frenetic pace of the tumbling. However, eventually, his blasts on the thrusters cancelled out the
rotation in one plane and then another and finally, almost gracefully, Lazarus came to a steady
bearing, nose down towards the planet.
Janus waited for his eyes, ears and stomach to come to an agreement about which way was up
and then he gently lifted the nose up and away from the first tenuous clutches of Diso’s upper
atmosphere. Calm and collected now, Lazarus swept a gentle arc under one third power to pass back
over the station which he had exited so badly a few moments before. Janus was just about to unclip
his restraining harnesses when Lazarus bucked violently and then, a instant later, his viewer filled