Chase took out the standard-issue flashlight from his belt and shone it towards Dryden, who was in a panic, frantically tapping at his slate, trying to understand what happened.

“Mr Dryden,” Chase asked, “what’s the situation?”

“We are in darkness, Commander,” Dryden replied bluntly. “If you want a more detailed report, I suggest you let me do my work.”

Chase gestured to Wokoma, “Find out what you can.”

Wokoma nodded and headed to the other end of the engine room to check those systems.

“It’s looking like a power surge,” Dryden reported. “I don’t know if we’ve burned any circuits or if it’s just a minor setback.”

“If it’s a minor setback, can we try again?” Chase asked.

“Exactly,” agreed Dryden. “But if it’s anything more, we could have serious problems.”

“How serious?” asked Chase.

“Either we have a ship with a magic engine, or we’re dead in space,” said Dryden sarcastically.

“Find out what you can.”

Next to the life support unit on the far side of the engine’s nearest section, Chase looked through the crew operations manual that had been stowed in a nearby locker. It had green indicator lights all down the left-hand side, which, according to the first page of the manual, was exactly how they should be. He followed the procedures to double-check operations were all satisfactory and had the computer systems run an analysis of the air quality from several decks.

Chase felt satisfied that despite walking around in the dark and without the engines or the power generator, there wouldn’t be an overabundance of heat. They could at least still breathe; that was something. He walked out of the small two-meter square unit past the office that had belonged to the chief engineer and climbed down the metal ladder to the area directly in front of the primary engine where Dryden and Wokoma were busy working. Grace Dakota was off to one side, apparently staying out of their way.

“We’ve got no shortage of oxygen,” said Chase.

“That’s a relief,” said Wokoma.

“What’s the situation here?” asked Chase.

Dryden put down the Grav-Torque Modulator he’d been working on. It fell with a clunk on the deck plate.

“We’re getting nothing, and I can’t tell you why. I’ve been over the manual and the historical records. I have loaded my slate with every document the cluster naval museum has on ships of this era. I’ve found the original engine specs from the shipbuilders. We found a hard copy in the folder stowed next to the engine that has been on board for the last two hundred and fifty years. I can’t see any reason it’s not working,” said Dryden with frustration.

Chase pondered on this.

“Dammit.”

“I might have something,” said Wokoma, who had been staring at her slate and wandering from one end of the engine to the other.

“What is it?” asked Chase, walking over and reading over her shoulder.

“Take a look at this,” she said, holding up her slate. It had a basic graphic of the nearby planet, with a single dot blinking in and out on its surface.

“That’s a pretty weak signal,” said Chase.

“You’re right,” she agreed, “but look at the frequency. It’s on the slate that had been analysing all this information; it was on a carrier band known as an alpha alpha band.”

“Alpha alpha band?” asked Chase.

“What does that mean?” asked Dryden from across the room.

“What it means, Dryden, is there’s a signal coming from that planet, which means despite all scans to the contrary, there is something electrical active on the surface of the planet. More specifically, the initial readings indicate it’s of the same era as the Trafalgar or at least within a hundred years of it, which is unlike any other ship in this system.”

“Yours is the only other ship in the system,” said Grace Dakota, “other than my life pod, which I guess falls under your criteria,” she added with a shrug.

“That’s true,” admitted Chase, “but you didn’t drop any electronics on the planet on your way in, did you?” He knew Grace hadn’t but was illustrating a point.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I didn’t,” Grace conceded.

“So whatever this is is coming from the Trafalgar. I guess we need to go and check it out,” said Chase. “You coming, Dryden?”

***

The planet was large, most of it was desert, but with the remains of several settlements. They had landed at one in the southern hemisphere. Chase led the landing team through the empty town of the desert world they had set down in.

“These streets are identical, okay, maybe not exactly, but it’s a striking resemblance to what I saw in my vision,” said Grace.

“Look,” Grace said, pointing out the dark marks on the light brick walls. “These marks were made by the crossfire in a street battle.”

“You think you’ve been here before?” Chase asked her.

“Hmm,” Grace answered in the affirmative.

In front of him, Wokoma, was scanning everything with her slate. Chase kept a step behind her, making sure he stayed between Grace and Dryden.

The planet was hot. The last world Chase had been on was a frozen waste. The ship was kept in the low twenties by Celsius. He had clocked the weather, but it wasn’t until they stepped out of the shuttle that he’d appreciated how hot this place was.

Whilst he sweated in his uniform, Grace had taken advantage of her civilian status, wearing a white vest with her jacket tied around her waist and tying her dark hair back.

“So anyway,” she said to Chase, casually “you know when I told you I went crazy and started seeing visions?” Chase looked at her but said nothing. “Yeah, they were in this place,” she said.

Chase stopped walking and looked around. “How can you tell?” he asked.

Grace pointed at a street. The path, covered in sand, the walls were a light yellow with pockmarks of plasma burns and scorch marks from weapons fire, many of which had faded away over the years.

“Look,” she said, “you’re going to ask some scientific rational way of making it all make sense. It doesn’t.” She looked around again, “But this might be useful, so I’m just gonna share the information I have, which, if you ask people who know me, isn’t my usual characteristic.”

Dryden scoffed, “She’s telling the truth about that last part, if nothing else.”

Grace looked at Dryden like she wanted him to die instantly and horribly, she probably did. Chase took this on board.

“Okay, so what was this place?” he asked.

“That,” said Grace, pointing at a spot just in front of a wall to their right. “that’s where they sold apples. Well, an Apple analogue. Well, fruit generally. It was a market stall selling fruits and vegetables. The whole place was a street market and crafts, essentials, foods; they had it all here,” she said.

Wokoma looked away from her slate, “If I was doing a cold reading, that would be my starting point as well. It makes sense. Any society is going to need those things, and the amount of open space here would certainly work,” she said.

Grace rolled her eyes.

“But I’m not doing a cold reading. I’m not making this up. If I was making something up, I’d make up something that made me look impressive, not memories that made me look like I needed to be sectioned. And I get that,” she said,

“It’s much easier to just look crazy,” said Wokoma. “It also covers any inconsistencies that turn up in your story.”

“Fine, don’t believe me,” said Grace. “I wouldn’t believe me. I don’t believe me. But I feel like I’m on the verge of remembering something useful.”

Chase started walking again. “Keep leaning into it,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt, and if it turns out to be wrong…” he said with a shrug and a smirk.

Grace paused and looked around. She was staring back at the scorched wall.

“Judging from the distance from the wall, this has to be the very spot where I died in the vision.” She picked up the pace a bit and hurried over to see what Wokoma was scanning.

The slate made a noise.

“Power up the Shuttle, I know where we need to go…” said Wokoma.