Chapter 1

Out in the deep silence of space, there floated a small ship. This ship, stranded between an asteroid and a hard place, bobbed along without any fuel or extra batteries. Every once in awhile, another ship would pass. Some would slow down, but none of them actually stopped. The passengers either had to be some someplace right at that second and they were late, or they were too afraid of being mugged by space pirates. In either case, none cared enough to render any help.

Inside the ship were three young men. All three best friends since childhood and all three in most other ways not noteworthy.

“Hey Alan, here comes another ship!” James bounced from the wall to the porthole. His breath fogged the window as he watched it pass.

“Just let it go James. The best thing we can do right now is wait until someone comes looking for us. We lit the distress beacon yesterday. Someone from the navy should be along soon to rescue us. “ Alan rolled himself up in a blanket for comfort. He really wanted to lean back against a wall, but seeing as there is no gravity in space, he’d have to push against something else to lean against the wall, and that was more effort than it was worth.

“The navy isn’t coming for us.” Sinbad shot a couple pieces of a ration bar to James and Alan. “Why would they when they have bigger pirates to fry? We’re just a lonely little ship, hobbling along, generally making our way toward Mars. I’m not even sure if we’re on track anymore. For all we know, we could be headed into a giant vortex where we’ll be swept to Hell knows where. Whoosh!” Sinbad pushed off of the wall and spun across the ship. The ship itself was not extremely large, but it was good enough for the three young men. They slept in a large shared quarters tucker beds for each one, with food stored in the wall bins and floor storage compartments. The bridge was joined to the quarters by a small tube through which they had to float through. Facilities were underneath these, and all waste was stored in a tank until it could be properly jettisoned into the dark void. Terms like “floor” and “underneath” were all relative, of course, since the ship moved through space without a real up or down.

Word count: 436
Total word count: 1746

Notes to self: It took a whole week to write one day's worth of words. Continue on track with James, Sinbad and Alan. Find a way to get them off of the ship.