Through the steamy, sticky heat of the engine room, and over the constant rattling and whirring of the various parts of the aging EveryNook core generator, Sam heard the ship’s emergency proximity alarm sound – an interrupted, three-tone sound which increased in pitch from a dull bass sound to an extremely high screech; all of which were out of tune with each other and desperately needed work.
As is protocol in such situations, all internal lighting is reduced to preserve the ships main power, should a rapid escape be needed, and Sam found himself bathed in the familiar red glow of the emergency lighting.
The racket of the alarm continued, and was joined by a croaky klaxon, which indicated an attack was imminent; this, then, was joined by a robotic voice announcing “This eez not a drill – S – N – shall per zone L to re-port to their stay-”; the robotic voice repeating itself before finishing its previous message.
Sam finished reattaching the board on the unit that housed the coolant canisters, after replacing two empty ones with two brand new ones, and placed his spanner into his back pants pocket; he wiped the sweat from his brow, and walked between the various panels and pipes over to one of the small portholes on the side wall and peered through.
The planet he saw outside came as a surprise – he was expecting to see the usual vast emptiness of space, with just the occasional star dotted here and there breaking up the darkness – a beautiful green and blue world covered in white fluffy clouds. He recognised the planet as Tenradar, his home world; and he hoped the ship’s alarms were merely malfunctioning – he could think of no reason why they would need to attack the Nova Luna.
Posted for Six Sentence Stories, where the prompt word this week is ‘Board’.
We last visited Nova Luna here.
The Mansionic Perspective 
Back to Sam’s story! I do like this one, Tom (and so does my little ‘mews’, for obvious reasons). 🙂
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Little mews! 😺 Cute!
I am jumping around a bit with these stories, Chris, aren’t I?
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Keeping your story fans on their toes! 🙂
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And me as well! I’m sure I’m going to forget to update a story or two! Although… I can go back to them if I do! 😊
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👍
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Perhaps an oil can would fix that croaky klaxon.
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It couldn’t make it sound any worse, Ladysighs! 🙂
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Very intriguing descriptions that build tension and keep the reader in suspense. Great single-scene story!
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Thanks, Tom. We’ll be back here soon, with another six, methinks! 🙂
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Liked It.
Seems we were both of a mind to write about life on a ship, albeit mine was of the water-displacing variety. Nice job conveying that special claustrophobic character when on a vessel amid an inimical environment
Good Six
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Thanks Clark. I’ll be by to read your six tomorrow… it’s a little late for me now…
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Let’s hope there’s no need to attack home, when things get that bad, something is terribly wrong.
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Indeed, M… let’s hope that doesn’t happen! And also hopefully, we’ll find out sooner rather than later! 🙂
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So ya got me hooked, Tom. Very engaging and I’m inferring, from some of the comments, this scene is based on a continuing story?
I’ll take some more, please 🙂
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Thanks, Denise. Yes, it’s a story we pop back to every now and again; the parts don’t really follow on, they’re just scenes that kind of happen! 🙂
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Perhaps the alarms simply wanted to get Sam to peer through the porthole and that was the only way they could do it! Or not!
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Perhaps, Keith… these old ships have lives of their own, after all!
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Great imagery in your story. Mmmm … more to come. : )
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Thanks, Isadora… and oh yes. Don’t know when, though, the schedule’s a bit awry! 😄
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The “emergency proximity alarm sound” definitely needs some attention Tom…this, combined with the lack of a real orange orange juice that I not green lol maybe the reason a potential attack is in danger of occurring! 😁
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You may be right, Icewolf. Non-orange orange 🍊 is a cause for concern in some quarters!
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Quite a big cause for concern when you think about it🤔An orange can’t 🍊 be an orange if it’s not orange….so what exactly would it be….😃
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A lime? Or a lemon? 🤣🤣🤣 hehehe! Definitely not an orange, though.
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