The Recovery

	"It's been six hours. The Pilot should be back now," said the Astrogator.
	"I concur, she should have returned by now. Clearly something has gone wrong," said the Science Officer.
	"And you haven't seen any heliograph flashes?" asked the Captain.
	"No. No flares, flashes, or anything." said the Astrogator.
	"Then perhaps we should take action." said the Captain. The Captain sat down in the pilot chair, and thought back to his days as a pilot. The ships were simpler back then, but the instruments were more or less the same. He tried to open the engine regulator. It wouldn't move. "It's been a while," he said, remembering now to unlock the engine safety. He pulled on the thruster levers to rotate the craft toward the asteroid. He scanned the control board, making sure he wasn't forgetting anything. He pulled the regulator to 10% and nudged the Cargo Boat forwards.
	"You're mostly good, looks like you need to pitch up just a little," said the Astrogator.
	"Is this good?"
	"Down a little. Right a little. Kill Rot."
	"Rotation killed."
	"Cutoff engine."
	"Engine off," the Captain said, closing the regulator.
	"Estimated time of arrival is thirty minutes," said the Astrogator.

	The Pilot awoke in a small brig cell. She heard two men talking quietly.
	"What did we recover?"
	"Oh you are going to love this."
	"Is that..."
	"Oh yeah."
	"It's a brand new USASP Rocketpack!"
	"That is absolutely terrific. Anything else?"
	"A nice toolkit,"
	"Good, good."
	"And a small-sized Mechanical Pressure Suit."
	"Borderline worthless."
	"We can repurpose the life support system on the suit for emergency life support."
	"True. So eh, what are we gonna do with that American spy?"
	"Ask questions, I guess. See how much they know. Then throw her out the airlock."
	"Are questions even neccesary?"
	"Absolutely. They must have some incredible super weapon to do that kind of damage to our Spanish Warship with a small Cargo Boat like that. We need to find out where that ship is and take it." The Pilot frowned upon hearing this.
	"What good will a super-weapon do to us?"
	"Corollary to Souza's Law of Space Battles: Any weapon of mass destruction is an interesting space drive."
	"Ah yes. Good point. Especially if it uses solid ammunition. Raw mass is essentially the only propellant we have, it doesn't matter what."
	The Pilot heard the voices fade out as a door closed. She floated to the floor of her cell, and the gravity of the situation was made apparent to her.