Rats!

Space travel isn't easy. Especially if it's first class.

  A sweaty Tobias Stryx cautiously squeezed into the coaster’s claustrophobic maintenance shaft in search of the rodent-drone that had lost contact just as he was about to discover the cause of the power outage.

  “Where’s that danged rat?”, he muttered as he swatted away stray cables in the dimly lit space.

  The coaster’s guests have been on his case for the past hour as he attempted to sort the whole mess out with Mr. Twitches, his ageing rodent-drone.

  “This whole thing wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass if they’d just built these danged shafts a little bigger!” raged Tobias as he contorted and shimmied his way deeper into the cramped darkness.

  Tobias took off his headlamp that was continuously being blocked by bundles of comms and power cabling and shone the light around him in hopes of finding Mr. Twitches. The old rat’s last known location was several feet away from what he guessed was a burnt junction connector.

  Ahving heard the wheezing sound of a small animal with a nasal congestion somewhere up ahead, Tobias reached his hand through the tangled mess of plastic and synth-fibre only to be greeted by a loud squeak and the sharp pain of tiny teeth nearly puncturing his index finger.

  “Hey, oww! It’s me you danged rat.”

  Tobias checked his hand quickly for any signs of injury but was relieved to find none.

  After a few confused sounding squeaks, a grey rat about the size of your average house cat with small plastic attachments on it’s head and back sheepishly crawled it’s way out from behind the tangle of wires where it was hiding in.

  Mr. Twitches waddled over to Tobias with what looks like a damaged connector in it’s mouth. The look in it's beady eyes indicated that it was offering the part as an apology.

  “Aww… Good boy, Mr. Twitches. Looks like you’ve found the problem after all.” said Tobias as he petted a relieved looking Mr. Twitches.

  Tobias then took out a new connector and handed it over to Mr. Twitches who made quick work of the fix, tiny hands and tools moving in a flurry.

  Mr. Twitches then tapped on a tiny switch with a tiny hand to re-engage the power and the indicator lights around the shaft glowed back to life.

  The pair then retreated out the cramped space of the maintenance shaft onto the plush, carpeted passageway, the cool air of the air-conditioning system making Tobias sigh in relief as he sat on the floor beside the tiny maintenance shaft entrance.

  A passing guest yelped and hurried away in horror when she spotted a grey, dusty Mr. Twitches emerge from the dark shaft.

  Tobias just shook his head at the scene and gave the rat a few grateful strokes saying “Don’t worry Mr. Twitches, you did good.”




Author's Note:
This was written as part of an exercise to learn how to structure short stories.

You can watch the original lecture by Mary Robinette at one of Brandon Sanderson's classes on Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy.




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