Faberto crawled out of the air duct and into an engineering room. He lay on the floor, panting and sweating, for quite while, before dragging the rope with the laser cutter through the hatch and closing it.
The room was small, illuminated only by the lights of various control panels, and filled with cabinets of electronics. The air duct ran through it near the floor, so he was a level higher than previously.
After a while, Faberto pulled himself up and staggered over to the only door. As he did so, an irrational fear gripped him, that of still being trapped on the wrong side of a bulkhead. He stopped for a second to collect himself before pulling the door open.
He was on the right side. The hallway outside was not busy, but there were people moving about. There was light, too. He breathed out a sigh of relief. Then his legs gave out and he slumped to the floor, but this time he was not alone and people noticed him. Someone came rushing over: „Mate, are you alright?“
„Almost“, Faberto breathed out, „just very tired.“
A few minutes later, someone with first aid skills had given him a quick check-up and had found nothing worrisome. Then again, as they told Faberto, the medbay was largely inoperative at this time.
He was also told that the docking bay was very busy, and other things he immediately forgot. But the docking bay, that was his responsibility. He tried to get up, and someone said „slowly!“. Yes, he got up slowly. He struggled to his feet and decided to go to the gym more often in the future.
He caught his breath and leaned on the wall for a few more seconds. After he had once more said that he was ok, really, he was left alone. He oriented himself. Bloom was not that big, but he had not been to this particular corner of it before. The hallway went the way he came and the opposite way, so he picked the opposite direction. After a while he came to an intersection he recognized, and from there it was only a few minutes of walking until he reached the administration area.
The traffic control room was busy. All three stations were manned, but Faberto saw that one of them, and the most stressed out one, was Emilia who had just recently gotten some basic training. She was clearly in over her head.
„Hey Emilia“, he said, walking over, „I can take over if you want.“
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„Faberto!“, she exclaimed, her face showing the relief she was feeling, „Yes, please.“
Faberto smiled. Finally something he was good at. „Alright“, he said, „what is going on? The short version. I was knocked out when gravity failed and haven’t had a chance to catch up.“
„Uh“, Emilia stopped, thinking, „A lot. Ok. Short version. We are trying to get as many people as possible evacuated from Bloom. The EMP has caused too much damage. A small crew will stay behind, everyone else is either getting into transports that are arriving over the next days, on any ship currently docked that has capacity, or on planetary shuttles to the surface. Temporary shelter. So we are trying to get ships in and out as quickly as possible, but there’s more traffic now than we have ever seen before.“
„Aye“, Faberto said, „That is… a lot to take in at once. Right. Lots of traffic, both directions. I’ll worry about the rest later. Got it.“
Emilia handed him the headphones and pushed the chair in his direction. Faberto sat down and turned towards the console. „I’ve got three ships I handle right now. The Aurora is on approach, ETA is two hours, they wait for coordinates to drop out of hyperspace. The Nomad is in the docking bay and loading, they have asked for clearance to depart and are closing the doors. They should be ready to fly in two or three minutes. The Eclipse is waiting outside and needs to get to the space the Nomad currently occupies.“
Faberto nodded, checked the displays and raised his right hand, fist with thumb extended. He was back. In all the chaos, he was where he belonged. As Binary Bloom’s senior traffic controller, he should have been here all along. He started typing, calculating coordinates and flight paths and sending them off to the respective ships. Three ships was a breeze. He flipped the switch that indicated he was available for more crafts requesting traffic control guidance.
Twenty minutes later, the backlog was handled and the number of ships in need of them had dropped to a much more manageable level. The planetary shuttles had become the highest workload, as they could complete round-trip in one hour on average. Some faster, some slower, of course. But it meant that some were already coming back to load more people. The workload they caused was in contrast to their capacity. Most of the shuttles were intended for private trips down to relax at one of the beaches. Most could seat four people, some six or eight, some just two. With luggage, some of them managed only half of that.
Faberto decided to get a coffee and put his station into what he called „on break, back soon“ mode. He walked over to the coffee machine and tried to remember when he had had the last cup. A long time ago. Too long.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and almost started to whistle. He stopped when his left hand hit something and he remembered the wallet from the dead woman. Suddenly he lost all desire to whistle or look happy.
He quickly scanned the overview display and decided that he had a few minutes. „I’m over in Nico’s office for a moment.“, he said to the other two, and went out the door.