Free [04] Elite: Mostly Harmless by Kate Russell Page B

occupant would have a decent environment suit to trade for safe passage? She could definitely do with a new one as hers was falling apart at the seams … and it wasn’t like the Cobra’s pilot would need a flight suit with their ship in a million pieces all about them.
    Katherine twitched the controls and the Asp’s tail-end swung around as the engines pulsed, rattling her teeth through the command chair. The vibration made her nose itch so she rubbed it with her grime-stained sleeve then tapped the display panel to lock on to the escape pod. She eased a few clicks of forward propulsion out of the thrusters, using her other hand to prime the salvage scoop.
    ‘Come to momma,’ Katherine cooed as her ship approached the drifting metal pod, rolling gently through the vacuum of space like a human-sized flask. She cut the thrusters as she drew alongside it, peering in through the vis-panel to catch a glimpse of her prize.
    Inside she could see someone with arms clamped about their head as if in pain. She switched the scanner to biognosis.  Everything seemed in order; occupant undamaged, vital signs strong and the pod’s environmental readings were all normal. The body was slight, probably a women then. At that moment she looked up, hands clamped over her ears as her eyes met Katherine’s across the short expanse of nothing separating them.
    ‘Help me,’ she screamed silently through the vis-panel, clearly in agony.
    ‘Pretty,’ Katherine said as she got to work on the controls again, manoeuvring her salvage scoop into position. The anguished face staring up at her was both vulnerable and strong, the rough and practical shaved head adding to the illusion of tough fragility by the delicate bone structure it left exposed.
    ‘Maybe this will be a worthwhile salvage after all.’
    * * *
    As Katherine approached the large metal cylinder now clamped in her salvage rack she could hear a high whining sound, modulating in pitch from annoying to even more annoying as what would appear to be a siren blared inside the capsule. She pulled herself hand-over-hand along the grab rail lining the tunnels of her ship then planted her feet either side of the pod’s hatch before flipping a switch on her mag-boots to activate them. Her feet stuck to the metal surface of the capsule creating the illusion of gravity so she could reach down to turn the release valve. The metal tube hissed as the pressure inside equalised with the cargo bay. The siren grew louder.
    When the hatch was fully unlocked Katherine hauled it open and the capsule’s passenger thrust her right arm up through the hole as if trying to get away from it. The arm screamed with the modulating tones of the siren and Katherine tripped the magnetic switch on her boots to off, tumbling backwards away from the offensive noise.  Next the shaved head with the delicate bone structure followed the arm out of the hatch and screamed at her.
    ‘Towel!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘A wet towel. To wrap around it!’
    By “it” she clearly meant the thing on her wrist, which was the source of the racket. Katherine cast about for something to muffle it. No towels but she did use the vent pipes in here to dry her laundry, what little she did while she was at space, and there were some long socks and a bra tied to the thermal vent. Katherine launched herself off the grab rail across the room and pulled them off the piping. Angel had floated over too and stuck her arm out towards Katherine, who proceeded to wrap the damp socks around the blaring wrist clamp before tying them in place with the bra. The two of them tumbled slowly as one through the null-gravity as she worked.
    Angel raised her eyebrows as the bra was tied on. Katherine had the decency to blush a little as the sound of the siren dulled slightly under the layers of clothing.
    ‘Not everyone carries a towel around with them,’ she shouted over the top of the still piercing sound of the siren. ‘How do we make that stop?’
    ‘My