“You don’t know that this is some sort of elaborate sabotage, Chris.” Sarah Spain, 2nd crew’s communications officer, hissed over her shoulder. Kneeling beside the comms station, Sarah’s nimble fingers stopped working at the station’s wiring just long enough for the woman to direct her emerald eyes toward their young engineer. “Hell, Mullins, we’ve worked with them for decades. Manuel and I…” Her eyes darted back toward the wire harness as she choked off her words. Silence fell across the bridge for several heartbeats before she continued. “There has to be an explanation. They wouldn’t have just abandoned us. Much less the poor colonists.”
“Wake up, Spain,” the science officer spat as he whirled away from the engineering station to face her. “Think with your head instead of your fragile little heart. The equipment has been shot, Sarah. Shot!” O’Brian continued, the older man’s voice growing louder with each syllable. “You think that happened by accident? I never trusted your boyfriend or the ‘captain’ of the other crew.”
Officer Spain shot to her feet, her head shaking so hard that her curly auburn hair could be seen swaying behind her helmet’s open face plate. “You better watch your tone, you old relic.”
“Button it up, right now!” Captain Catherine DeRosa’s directive made everyone except Malik flinch. “We have 40,000 people depending on us to deliver them safely to the surface of that planet. Engineer Mullins has informed us that we have less than two hours to accomplish this task.” The Captain took a long moment to let her eyes drift across the bridge, pointedly catching the gaze of each member of her crew before she continued in a tone as heavy as a neutron star. “We may, or may not, survive this disaster. But I will be damned if I let those colonists die in their sleep.”
“So starting right now,” DeRosa said, “I want all the static about things we can’t change and don’t have time to investigate stowed away. Period. The time may come when we have a chance to figure out how we wound up in this mess, but right now the only thing that matters is saving the colonists that trusted us to shepherd them across the stars. Everything else, even our survival, is secondary. Am I clear?”
“Crystal, Captain,” Malik said firmly while the rest of the crew murmured their assent.
“Good.” Catherine breathed out a long, slow breath, visibly gathering herself before her attention returned to Chris. “Have you come up with an action plan to decouple the habitation modules?”
“I can’t activate the separation sequence from here,” Chris said as he waved a gloved hand dismissively toward the engineering station. Like the other duty stations installed around the bridge, its gleaming steel housing was dented and cracked. A series of suspiciously uniform round holes perforated its front panel. “Too much functionality was lost due to the damage that was done. The diagnostic that I was able to run leads me to believe that the modules are still hermetically sealed and, unlike the escape pods, their telemetry system should remain intact.”
“How are we going to save those poor people if we can’t separate the habitats?,” Doctor Lisell asked quietly from where she stood by the observation window. At the sound of her voice, Malik glanced her way. He took note of the defensive way the doctor had her arms crossed against her chest and the flash of ivory teeth while she anxiously worried at her lower lip. He made a mental note to check on her. Assuming that he got an opportunity to do so before they disintegrated into flaming wreckage.
“I can’t decouple them from the bridge, but there’s a good chance that the override in the engine room will be functional.” Engineer Mullins looked back toward the Captain as he continued.
“Can we respark the main drive from the engine room?” Jackson, the astrogation officer, asked while he and O’Brian devoted themselves to dismantling the science station. Malik’s stomach twisted in a knot when he saw the desperate hope that crossed more than one face as the crew looked toward Mullins once more.
“Negative,” Chris replied, either unaware of the crew’s desperation or unwilling to play into it. “We still don’t know the status of the engine room. It could be as bad as the bridge. Or worse. Even if it proves to be in pristine condition, we simply don’t have enough time. It isn’t even a matter of needing more minutes either. We’d need entire hours to cycle the engines into a burn hot enough to change our vector. We simply don't have that kind of time.”
“The armory is on the way to the engine room, Captain.” Malik chimed in. “If we do end up on the surface of an unknown, and possibly hostile, planet, we need to be prepared as best we can be.” Catherine directed a cool, assessing glance toward her XO. Beyond needing to acquire proper gear, they also needed to be prepared for what 1st crew might have already liberated from the armory. That particular detail remained unspoken. “Chris and I can make our way toward the bow of the ship. If we leave now, we can get to the engine room in plenty of time.”
The engineer nodded eagerly while Malik spoke, adding in his bit after the XO finished.
“Once I get the habitats separated I can start repairing the lifepods near the engine room.” Chris began to speak faster as he grew more excited. A flip of his hand gestured toward the science and astrogation officers as he continued. “Jackson and O’Brian can upload fresh telemetry data to the lifepods on deck 12, right beneath the bridge. There are more than enough pods for the rest of you.”
“I don’t know if that plan is feasible, Mullins,” DeRosa said, speaking as much to Malik as she was to the young engineer. “What do you think, Officer O'Brian? Can you patch together a working guidance program?” The Captain tore her gaze away from the XO to look toward the science officer just as the grizzled man emerged from beneath the science station with a gunmetal gray cube clutched in one hand.
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“Tim and I can start working on a patch as soon as we scavenge the memory core from astrogation,” O’Brian said as he carefully deposited the metal cube into an empty pouch hanging from his utility belt. “I don’t think we’ll be able to network the pods together, so we’ll probably end up scattered from one horizon to the other, but we should be able to come up with something that will get the pods safely down to the ground.”
“Or safely down to the water,” Tim added helpfully as he popped the access panel off the astrogation station.
“...Or water,” O’Brian allowed, after giving the astrogation officer a withering glare. The old scientist groaned as he lowered himself to the tritanium floor. “When you stop by the armory, make damn sure you get at least one mobile workstation. We’ll have the raw data from science and astrogation, but we won’t be able to read it without a field kit.”
“I need a medical scanner and a fabrication pack,” Daniella said, adding her requests to Malik’s rapidly growing shopping list. “At a minimum, I’ll need to be able to scan for any environmental contaminants. To say nothing of addressing any injuries the crew, or the colonists could sustain during planetary descent.”
“Should…should I go with them, Captain?” She asked, her chocolate brown eyes darting from Malik to DeRosa, and then back again. “Not that I don’t trust Mal,” Daniella said sheepishly, “but lives could depend on that equipment.”
An audible groan echoed through the ship before the vessel shook with a bone-rattling vibration. There could be no doubt, as the crew members grabbed onto equipment to brace themselves, that the incidents of turbulence were growing both more frequent and more violent. The only question was how many more times they could experience the stomach-churning rattle of the ship around them before Starlight Journey shook itself apart.
“Negative, doctor,” Catherine said with a shake of her head after the crew had steadied themselves once more. The shorter woman had to reach up to place a hand comfortingly on Daniella’s slender shoulder. “I know you’re anxious to get to work, but for the moment the best place for you is right here. I think Mal and Chris can handle their duty.”
DeRosa gave the woman’s shoulder a firm squeeze along with an encouraging nod. Anything else she might have said was promptly forgotten as a blast of static roared through the integrated comms system built into the crew’s helmets. A ringing thump sounded through the bridge as a startled O’Brian rapped the back of his helmet against the underside of the astrogation station. A heartbeat passed before the crackle of a shoddy connection lapsed into a silence occasionally marred by scratchy pops.
“Comms test, 1…Comms test, 1…” The surprise written across the faces of 2nd crew gave way to triumphant smiles as they recognized the voice being broadcast across the primary channel. “This is Starlight Journey actual. Repeat, this is Starlight Journey actual.” Sarah’s voice continued, crisp and sure, as she finished splicing together two stripped wires dangling from the side of the communication station. “Sound off by descending rank to acknowledge transmission.”
Captain DeRosa waited until each crew member had replied to the comms check before she spoke. “Outstanding, Officer Spain. Restoring communication will make all our other tasks significantly more feasible.”
Sarah grimaced as she turned toward the Captain. “I don’t know if I’d use the term ‘restore,’ Captain. I’m basically using the Journey’s superstructure as an antenna. It should keep us in contact with each other while we’re inside the ship, but I can’t promise anything beyond that. We certainly can’t reach the planet nor will we be able to stay in communication once we launch the lifepods.”
“Still better than what we had,” Malik said as he gave Sarah a solemn nod of acknowledgment. “Being able to coordinate with the bridge may be the difference in surviving this mess and being atomized into our constituent elements.”
“You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Mal,” Officer Spain drawled, her voice deadpan despite the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
“Alright then. Malik, escort Chris to engineering. Radio back once you reach the armory and keep me apprised of your progress. Jackson and O’Brian, once you finish retrieving the astrogation datacube, descend to deck 12 and start repairing the guidance program for the lifepods. Sarah, take the doctor with you down to the mess hall on deck 11. See if you can drag a nutriforge or two, along with their power cells, to the lifepods. The supplies on the pods will work for a few people, for a limited amount of time, but they were never intended to feed 80,000 people. I don’t want to take it for granted that the habitat modules are going to be fully functional when all this is over. So we need to take all the precautions we can.”
“Any questions?” she finished, taking a moment to let her gaze drift across the bridge while her crew vocalized their acknowledgment.
Having been given their marching orders, the crew quickly went about their tasks. Malik gestured for Chris to lead the way down the corridor. The young engineer nodded and stepped past the bulkhead with a quick, determined stride. The XO turned to follow him only to have his movement arrested by a slender hand firmly taking hold of his bicep.
“There are 40,000 colonists in those modules, Mal,” Catherine whispered, her helmet so close to his that they touched. “You go and save them.” There was an intensity in her gaze, an ironclad demand that would brook no argument. “You save them, and then you come back. Is that clear? You and Chris come back to us.”
For a long moment, his bright sapphire eyes held the cool, pale blue of her gaze. At length, one of his hands rose to gently squeeze the hand she had clenched against his arm. “Aye, aye, Captain. We’ll be back before you know it.”
Without another word, Malik Rosen turned and followed the young engineer into the bowels of their writhing ship.