Nyota Njeri strained to decouple the ruptured hose, her slippers sliding through pooling biogel.
“Dr. Njeri, primary burn cannot be delayed further,” MUMBI said. “Nairobi Station insists you enter your stasis pod.”
Nyota ignored the sleeper ship’s AI as the nozzle popped free. She inserted the hose trailing from the neighbouring pod into the socket and locked down the seal.
The ship vibrated, fusion engines flaring.
“MUMBI, initiate biogel transfer.”
“Dr. Njeri, your survival is mission-critical.”
“That’s why my pod has a secondary biogel supply. I won’t let Lakia die before our journey even begins. Authorization Alpha, Alpha, One.”
“Confirmed.”
The vibration and pressure increased.
“Doctor, your pod please!”
“Not until I’m sure she’s safe.”
Njeri wiped away obscuring condensation. Inside the pod, biogel slowly encased her granddaughter’s tranquil form. The pod’s diagnostic icons turned green. Njeri smiled and whispered her own great-grandmother’s parting prayer:
Njia yako ibarikiwe milele
Jeff Currier works too many jobs, so has little time to write, but the words kept screaming for release. Jeff finally relented and set them free—in very small batches. Now they’ve run amok with no telling what mischief they’ve caused. You can find them roaming in various anthologies or in Sci Phi Journal, Stupefying Stories Showcase, Dark Moments, and Flash Point SF. Find links to more of his published stories at @jffcurrier on X or Jeff Currier Writes on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this story, you might also want to read:
If nothing else, read this one!
The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. For each contest Pete Wood
spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a
few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted,
usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries,
determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to
Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.
You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
This
time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than
150 words in length that played off the phrase:
“Happy Trails.”
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