As John and Cally enter the ship’s data ops once more the fluorescent lights flicker back on and ARCHIe speaks up, “Now that the two of you have had a chance to take care of your biological needs, should we try and get some work done?”
“Vance did mention that you would like to make some modifications to how our electrostatic barriers respond to threats,” John offers the suggestion to Cally.
Soon John, Cally, and their AI companion are busy working away on their task. The clatter of keys and the soft hum of the Stellar Horizon's systems forms the backdrop to their concentrated efforts. Hours flit past as they create scenarios and write code for them along with visual simulations.
“Okay, this simulation looks pretty good, but let’s try it with multiple attack vectors,” Cally suggests, her voice steady and focused.
Before John and Archie can even start to set-up the next scenario a static filled noise can be heard from outside the door. John and Cally exchange a glance, realizing they had lost track of time while working. With a sigh, John gets up and opens the door to find Buzz waiting on the other side. If a pink cloud is capable of looking impatient, Buzz achieved it in spades.
“Vance wanted me to check on the two of you and let you know that the meal Alina has been preparing is ready,” the universal translator informs John as Buzz makes his various electrical static noises.
“Sorry, we were so focused on our work that time just flew by,” John apologizes and then turns back towards the room and calls out, “ARCHIe, save and close out everything related to Project Untouchable.”
As John and Cally follow Buzz towards the galley,the aroma of sautéed garlic and onions fill the air, and the sizzling sound of frying chorizo promises a feast as they enter. Alina expertly flipped some kind of tortilla made with eggs and potatoes in one pan while simmering a piquant pimentón sauce in another.
"Are you ready to eat?" Alina calls out, her voice infused with the warmth as she makes a dish that looks exotic to most of the crew.
"Everything looks and smells incredible, Alina!" Vance declares.
The crew gathers, each drawn by the scent of Alina's cooking. Plates quickly become piled high with the delectable cuisine. Even Buzz had a small plate that he set in front of himself so the steam and aroma wafting off of it could co-mingle with his gaseous form.
Soon the sound of forks scraping on dishes was drowned out by the banter and laughing of the crew. At one point John finds himself setting up the punchline to a joke by asking, “So why do ships from Cosinda always have cameras mounted on their aft?”
“It’s so their captains can see the front line,” Cally replies while smiling wryly.
Alina snorts out a laugh and says, “Oh my gosh, that joke was so bad, even my Dad wouldn’t have told that one.”
Cally smiles and replies, “Sorry, all my jokes are military grade, cheap and overused.”
An alarm starts blaring. Everyone quits conversing and drops their forks.
“Buzz, Cally, you’re with me in the cockpit,” Vance barks while John and Alina dash off to ops and and engineering respectively. In moments the galley is empty except for half eaten meals and the warbling of the ship’s alarm.
Buzz and Cally both reach the cockpit ahead of Vance with Buzz quickly floating into position to the pilot’s seat and Cally throwing herself into her seat. Vance’s heart skips a beat as he sees an ice asteroid on a direct course for the ship.
John’s voice comes on over the intercom, “It looks like we hit an unexpected flow shoal exit. I’m still collecting data to determine our position in real space, but I’m picking up a large object on a rapid trajectory towards us.”
“Already on it,” Buzz chimes in as he opens the ship's throttle all the way.
Cally with an eerie calmness remarks, “On current trajectory and acceleration we’re not going to make it.”
“Do you copy that down in engineering?”, Vance asks with a hint of desperation creeping into his voice
“I’m going to start shutting down everything I can to reroute as much power as possible to the engines but I might damage them in the process,” Alina shouts over the intercom. After a brief pause she adds, “How do you feel about life support?”
John cuts in from ops, based on the data I’m receiving, if we don’t gain enough velocity to clear this object, life support won’t matter in about five minutes.”
“Killing everything but push fields, and navigation to surge as much power as possible through the engines in 3-2-1.”
Immediately everything on the ship goes silent other than the thrum of the engines and all but navigation goes dark in the cockpit. Even the crackle of the intercom is silent. Buzz makes a noise but without the universal translator Vance makes his own guess.
“Steady…steady,” Vance intones.
Even with the push fields still active they can feel the vibrations throughout the deck plates as the ship accelerates faster than it was designed for.
Two excruciatingly tense minutes pass as Cally and Vance both stare at the navigation readouts. Cally never takes her eyes off the consoles and says, “I think were going to miss impact but…”
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“Go,” is Vance’s one syllable command.
Cally is a blur of motion as she leaps from her chair and starts sprinting towards engineering. Vance slides into Cally’s vacated chair and calmly states. “Well Buzz, it looks like we’re going to just miss the comet to get shredded by the ice debris in its wake if we don’t get our electrostatic barriers back online.”
As the comet grows ever closer, Vance can feel every sphincter in his body tense. He can feel his own heart beating, no pounding, in his ears.
Buzz makes another series of noises.
“Cally and Alina will get it done,” Vance says, more to reassure himself than Buzz.
Just as the Stellar Horizon narrowly misses the front of the comet Vance can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end signaling that the electrostatic barrier is back online. “Rotate so the keel will be the area most impacted!”, Vance barks.
Buzz complies as Vance focuses the power from the barrier to protect that portion of the ship. The vessel jerks and shudders as several chunks of the debris force their way through the barrier and collide with the hull. Vance can feel the air growing thinner as Alina continues to bring systems back online. Immediately an alarm blares signaling a hull breach. John’s voice can be heard over the comm system as it reconnects, “Sealing off the cargo bay due to a hull breach.”
"Considering we were on the brink of death just five minutes ago, I'll take a hull breach in an almost empty cargo area as a win. Great job everyone," Vance praises.
“I could have survived the vacuum of space,” Buzz remarks through the universal translator, but no one pays attention to his comment.
“I’m taking Alina to the autodoc,” Cally announces.
With a continued sense of alarm Vance asks, “What happened?”
“It’s just some minor burns from trying to reroute so much power through the engines. I’d rather run some diagnostics to see how much we damaged the engines first,” Alina voices.
“Cally’s right. Go to the autodoc. Whether you check it out now, or two hours from now, the engines will be just as damaged.”
Buzz makes some static noise and the Universal Translator translates, “Where are we?”
Vance observes the view screen to actually see where they are at. In the near distance is a ring of ice asteroids catching the light from a dwarf star. The light creates a mesmerizing display of sparkling blues, greens, and purples, creating an almost ethereal ambiance as it reflects off the ice.
Vance realizes where they are just as John’s voice comes over the intercom, “According to ship’s scanners, It looks like we’re in the YsGordel system. That dwarf star you see in the distance is designated as KB3O.”
“Any settlements we might be able to land at?”, Vance inquires.
John comes back on, “According to surveys of this system, there are no planets and the ice asteroids are primarily made up of volatiles such as methane and ammonia. The small amount of water present is not worth mining.”
Buzz chimes in, "Well, that's interesting."
"What's interesting?" John prompts.
Vance looks down at the control panel and states, “It looks like we’ve got an incoming message that appears to be originating from one of the ice asteroids.”
The ansible makes a brief distortion sound as Vance flicks it on.
“Stellar Horizon, do you copy?”
“This is Captain Vance Renshaw of the Stellar Horizon.”
A sound of relief could be heard in the voice on the far side of the ansible, “Thank God, this is Allan Chadwick from Cogent Station. We just observed a near miss between your ship and a large mass. Do you need assistance?”
“We haven’t had time to fully assess our damage yet, but we would appreciate a place to dock,” Vance admits.
“We will transmit directions to docking bay L-7. If you need assistance docking due to ship damage it has loading arms,” Allan pauses, then continues, “We do have medical staff on board if you need any further medical attention.”
Vance grimaces to himself, “Thank you Allan, we will let you know once we figure that out on our end. Stellar Horizon out.”
Allan responds, “Understood Stellar Horizon, this is Cogent Station ending transmission. Over and out.”
As Vance turns towards the rear of the cockpit he glances over at Buzz momentarily, “Use the attitude thrusters to make sure we don’t run any risks of smashing into anything out there while I head back and take a look at engineering.”
“Avoiding large bodies of ice, got it,” Buzz replies.
———
Chemists have claimed that metals don’t actually have smells that humans can detect. They posit that its other organic molecules and various impurities interacting with various metals are what we truly smell, and yet Vance Renshaw would declare those pencil necked geeks mad as he enters engineering and is hit with the odors of ozone and melted steel from where Alina had shunted additional plasma through the engines. Plasma so hot that instead of trying to measure its temperature in thousands of degrees, they routinely discuss its heat in electron-volts with a single electron-volt being equivalent to slightly more than 11,600 degrees Kelvin.
While Vance was accustomed to the smell of ozone around Buzz, an entire room full of beings like him – known as nuh-bess roessiuses – would not produce as much ozone. This statement carries weight considering they are gaseous creatures who can be compressed.
Despite the nearly overpowering scent, the engines still looked quite good via a cursory visual inspection, however there could easily be microfractures and stress weakened parts due to their extreme heat exposure. A thorough diagnostic was going to take some time.
Vance switched on the intercom, “Hey John, I think you should put on some coffee and join me in engineering.”
“That sounds like we’ve got fun plans for tonight,” is John’s immediate response. “I’ll be there shortly, java in hand for the both of us.”
———
“You do realize that you’re insane for even suggesting that you try and work on the engines before going to the autodoc,” Cally chastises as she continues to cut the melted fabric off her arms.
“Yeah, thanks Mom,” Alina retorts, “but you know that I’m the one best equipped to fix anything back in engineering.”
Alina’s attempt to sneer at Cally is lost as she stifles a whimper of pain while Cally peels the burnt garment off her taking some flesh along the way.
“It’s okay Alina, you did great and got us out of danger. Let’s get you fixed up so you’re there to save us the next time something crazy happens to this ship. In the meantime I suspect the others are capable running a diagnostic.”
Alina can feel the adrenaline wearing off as she sits down on the edge of the raised bed. All of her limbs feel heavy while her arms and hands throb with pain. She finds that she has run out of words as weariness over takes her. She nods before stretching out on the bed.
Cally heads to a control panel on the autodoc and presses a couple of buttons causing the bed to slowly slide into the autodoc. The autodoc administers a mild sedative as it starts to scan and assess Alina. Cally types in a few commands to authorize whatever treatment it recommends after assessment is complete. Cally stands there for a few more minutes staring at the screens to assure herself that Alina is asleep before leaving the room.