“The what is what?”

She stares at the smoke sifting quietly through the air, and the big gigantic hole in the starshuttle’s side. She’s pretty sure that’s not supposed to be there.

The android gives a muted sigh and tries to explain all over again what happened to the shuttle. The technical jargon flies over Myrha’s head by leaps and light-years, however, so she goes up to the gaping hole and inspects it.

“It’s like a meteor just,” she explains ‘BOOM’ with an expansive hand gesture.

“It was not a meteor,” the android says.

“Not even a tiny one?”

“The shuttle was deliberately damaged.”

“You mean—”

“Yes. Someone on this island sabotaged the shuttle.”

“Deliberately.”

“Yes,” the android huffs.

The implications of that sort of terrify Myrha.

“So…this isn’t fixable?”

The captain, the android, and Myrha all turn to look at the burnt out, hacked out hole in the shuttle.

“No,” the android answers shortly.

Myrha tries to fight the fog that’s desperately taking over her brain, “You can contact someone though, right?”

“Not through the starshuttle. All controls are dead. The auxiliary power units were destroyed as well.”

“The hotel then,” she says, and makes a run for the lobby.

Her feet fly over the compact sand and she is not going to be stuck on this forsaken planet with smelly trees and a handful of hermits. She desperately rings the bell on the counter until Bartin shows up.

“Myrha,” he greets her, “you missed breakfast.”

“Well you know what I’m also missing? My shuttle. Someone on this island decided to murder the starshuttle. So hand over your interstellar utiphone, because I need to contact Earth.”

The little man gapes at her, “The what…the shuttle?”

“Is destroyed. One of your guests must be insane,” she stops, and then glares pointedly at him, “Or maybe you are.”

“Me?” he sputters, “Are you accusing me?”

“I’m accusing everyone until I know who did it. Bottom line is: get me in contact with Earth.”

“Outgoing calls are so expensive,” he says, hands fluttering nervously.

Behind her the door opens and the android and the captain finally catch up to her.

“Surely, good captain, there’s another way?” Bartin asks him, eyes pathetically beseeching.

The captain purses his lips, “Well, when Orion Starlines doesn’t receive a message from us, they’ll contact the port here to determine what happened.”

“A message…?”

“Every shuttle is instructed to send a take-off message to their destination port and their Starline hub. When Orion Starlines doesn’t receive our take-off message, they’ll contact the port here.”

“But there is no port here,” Myrha says.

“Not in the traditional sense. They’ll contact this hotel.”

“Incoming calls, much cheaper,” Bartin sighs happily.

“So they’ll come rescue us?” Myrha asks hopefully.

“They’ll send out another shuttle. There will have to be an investigation, though. We may actually be stuck here until the authorities arrive and question us.”

Right. Great. She just walked into a crime scene. Perfect.