Chapter 2: 2. Questions and Answers

When the 2nd crew arrived at the bridge of the interstellar colony ship, Starlight Journey, they found it bathed in the dull red gleam of the ship’s emergency lighting. The oppressive red glow was interrupted by erratic flashes and flickers emitted from monitors with broken screens. Each duty station was marred by dents and cracks as if someone had started to remodel the bridge only to grow bored halfway through the demolition of the existing equipment.

Of the 1st crew, who should have been present at their work stations, there was no sign.

“Turn off that damn klaxon, Mullins.” Captain DeRosa ordered curtly as her helmet turned left and right while she surveyed the empty bridge. Emergency protocol dictated that she and her crew be dressed in full vac suits, but, so far, they had elected to leave the face plates of their helmets open. “Jackson, see if you can tell me where we are. Spain, get me someone from 1st crew on the comms.”

When there was no immediate response to the Captain’s directives, Catherine let her gaze settle on the observation window her crew was silently huddled in front of. “Now, people. If we don’t start moving, you’re all going to get an even better view of that planet real soon.”

“Aye, aye,” Timothy Jackson, the astrogation officer, replied as he stepped away from the window. Officer Spain mumbled an acknowledgment as she hustled toward the wrecked communication station.

“It's so big,” Daniella murmured as she reached out to place a gloved palm against the plassteel window. Her splayed fingers covered only a small portion of the massive blue marble that lazily spun thousands of kilometers beneath them. “I didn’t think that terrestrial planets could support that kind of diameter.”

“We’re pretty close to it, doc,” Malik said, breathing out a sigh of relief when the shriek of the kalxon abruptly fell silent. “Makes it hard to tell exactly how big it is, but it certainly looks terrestrial. All that blue makes me think water. Lots and lots of water.”

“I don’t see any land masses,” Mullins murmured from where he stood at the doctor’s other side. “Could be obscured by the cloud cover though. We won’t know till O’Brian gets the science station working, but it looks like an Epsilon class planet that’s, hmmm, 80-90% water?”

A shudder vibrated through the tritanium floor as the young engineer spoke. The quakes shaking the colony ship had grown more and more frequent during their trip from the long sleep chamber to the bridge. There were still long pauses between, but there was no denying that they were growing more fierce by the minute.

“Do we have enough time to fix the science station?,” Daniella asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper as her slender fingers closed into a fist that she held pressed against the plassteel window. “Can we still save the ship? The crew? What about the rest of the colonists?”

“You’re right, doc,” Mullins said as he turned away from the observation window. “I need to see if I can pull up the status on the habitation modules. We felt one of them decouple earlier. If any of the other three are still linked to the Journey, getting them separated has to be priority number one.”

Chris had only taken three steps away from the observation window when the bridge was filled with a string of profanity laced blasphemy that was so evocative Daniella had to press her palms against her blushing cheeks to try and hide her embarrassment. Unaware of the doctor’s distress, their foul mouthed science officer punctuated his outburst with a series of vicious kicks directed at his duty station. By the third kick, the grizzled older man, who’s dark hair was salted with silvery gray despite the anti-aging serum blended into the cryogel, caved in one of the gleaming steel panels with enough force to cause the flickering display to flash one final time before turning as dark and dead as the empty space they’d been traveling through for decades.

“Alex, you will control yourself or I will have Malik control you,” Catherine DeRosa barked in a tone that made everyone on the bridge stop what they were doing. Everyone, that is, except Malik who was already moving across the bridge toward the science officer. O’Brian seemed on the verge of biting back at the Captain until he saw the executive officer easing toward him with the predatory grace of a lion stalking a gazelle across the savannah. Beneath the cool gaze of the XO’s deep blue eyes, the older man wilted and flipped a hand forlornly toward his station.

“It’s slagged, Captain,” O’Brian said in a defeated tone as Malik came to a stop beside him. “I couldn’t access any of the sensors or the logs the system automatically generates. I can’t tell you anything about the planet that we’re falling toward. But we are falling toward it, that much I can promise you.” Another rumble rattled through the ship, as if one cue. “Our orbit, if we were ever actually in orbit, is rapidly decaying.”

While O’Brian spoke, Malik had dropped down to one knee to inspect the science station. The tall, dark haired man drug one fingertip against the hole punched through the steel paneling. Moving to inspect the back side of the station, any questions about what had caused the damage were answered when he found a fist-sized hole of bent steel and trailing wires.

“Some of this damage was done with a bolt caster, Captain. It’s been shot.” Malik said grimly as he rose to his feet once more. “I’d bet a Martian milkshake that the other stations have been shot too.”

“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Jackson chimed in from where he stood regarding the flickering screen of the astrogation station. “Astrogation has been sabotaged as well. I have no idea where we are, if we’re still on course, or if our course was changed along the way.”

“Local and hyperwave comms are both offline,” Sarah spat, striking her station with an open palm in a visible sign of frustration. “I’m trying to run a diagnostic to isolate which part of the hardware is compromised, but that is going to take time.”

 

“Time we may not have, Officer Spain,” the Captain replied with an edge of irritation marring her usually unruffled tone. “Need I remind all of you that we, and an unknown number of fixed state colonists, are currently falling toward an unknown planet at an unknown rate of descent. Can anyone tell me something about our situation that we do know? Anyone?”

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“Two of the habitation modules have been launched. The other two are still moored to the superstructure,” Chris offered as his eyes swept across the rapidly strobing screen linked to the engineering station.

“Thank you, Engineer Mullins.” Captain DeRosa said on the heels of an explosive sigh. Malik frowned as he looked toward the lean blonde woman. He began walking toward where she stood near the astrogation station at a slow, casual pace while Catherine continued. “What else can you tell us?”

“Not much,” Chris replied with a grimace. “I think the first module’s release kicked in the fail safes that started our emergency resuscitation. Then we felt the second one while we were still in the deep sleep chamber. All the vibration since then has been the steadily increasing gravitational sheer as we approach the planet.”

“Can you pull us back into a stable orbit?,” the Captain said as the XO came to a stop beside her.

“Negative. Main drive is desparked and, without going into engineering, I can’t tell how long it would take to bring the engines back online. But, judging from the…err…nature…of the damage to the bridge, my best guess is that we’re not going to have that kind of time.”

“Is there any way to tell how much time we do have?,” O’Brian asked as he moved over to the young engineer's station to read over the other man’s shoulder.

“Not with any real clarity,” Mullins replied after a long hesitation.

While the two scientists began to confer over the only data the crew had managed to unearth, Malik leaned in toward DeRosa until their helmets almost touched. “You okay, Cat?,” the tall man murmured in a conspiratorial whisper.

The Captain recoiled as if her XO had just called her a Venusian dreamstealer. Her flinty gray eyes regarded the man frostily while her lips pressed into a thin, pale line. After a long heartbeat, she leaned toward him and hissed like a viper preparing to strike. “Your Captain is fine, Chief Rosen. Considering the Starlight Journey is about to end its service not as a colony ship, but as a particularly colorful meteor, I think I’m doing quite well. It goes without saying that knowing my crew and 40,000 colonists may be riding on said meteor as it dissolves in a rain of fire is yet another reason for me to be ‘okay.’”

“Ouch. You don’t mince words, Cap.” Tim said as he tossed Malik a lopsided grin. “Want me to grab some burn spray from the first aid kit to help you recover from that sizzling rejoinder, Rosen?”

The Captain and her XO, at odds only a heartbeat ago, turned as one to direct their simmering animosity toward Officer Jackson. Tim’s smile immediately faltered. The short, stocky man took a quick step backward. Raising both hands, palms out in surrender, as he began sidling toward the engineering station. “Yeah, you know, your command stuff is way above my pay grade. I’ll just step over here and help the old man keep the kid on task.”

Catherine and Malik were coldly staring down the retreating Jackson when a violent shudder rushed through the ship again. The quake was strong enough that the crew had to brace themselves against nearby equipment to avoid being knocked to the floor.

“Got it!,” came Chris’s triumphant cry as the shuddering of the Journey began to subside.

“Report,” DeRosa snapped after shooting Malik a significant look.

“Without astrogation and science, we’re basically flying blind toward a target we know nothing about. However, I was able to calculate our rate of descent.” Engineer Mullins turned away from the flashing screen to address the Captain directly. “We have less than two hours before the planet’s atmosphere tears us apart. We have a bit more than half that to separate the habitation modules safely.”

“Good work,” said the Captain. “Alright, everyone, we’ve got…”

“With respect, that isn’t all, Captain.” Chris seemed reluctant to continue despite interrupting DeRosa. “While I was checking on the status of the modules, I found out that four of the Journey’s escape pods have been launched. All of them were launched only minutes after the first module decoupled.”

Mullins took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself to continue as his pale green eyes flickered across the faces of the 2nd crew. “First crew abandoned ship, Captain. Before they left, they bricked the telemetry guidance programs in the other pods. Unless we manage to fix those, none of us are leaving the ship alive.”

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