The squat Noddish troll

came crawling out of the access tube, dragging along the frayed power lead which had shorted out the number four gravatron engine.  Muttering and cursing in a monotone, he threw the offending trash against the bulkhead, where there was already a pile of other useless junk.  The ancient robot engineer briefly glanced in his direction, and then returned it's attention to the flickering readouts of the engine bay status board.  One more green light, one less red light.  They were making progress, of sorts.  Several decks above, the human Derik and the lizard Malomess were running lift-off simulations, trying to figure out if the five massive solid fuel boosters the machines had strapped to the hull were going to be enough to supplement the aging industrial gravatrons in the old heap, and get her off the dirt.  Shipbrain thought it was going to work, but Derek had long since decided that shipbrain was in denial....refusing to face up to the fact that the Good Fortune was in fact having a run of bad luck.   The only reason they had set down on the planet to begin with was to keep from just plain crashing into the planet.  But they had managed to secure a cargo of native lumber harvested by the locals....strange things that looked like they were made out of chair legs, duct tape, and bondo.  They might even be able to get enough credits at the next port to do some basic refit on the antique freighter.   Five hours later, they gave it a try.....the gravatrons protesting loudly as they spooled up, and then the boosters roaring and spewing flame.....with many squeals and creaks, and a massive groan.....Good Fortune slowly rose up, and headed towards space once again.