Chapter 5: 5. Complication

Almost forty minutes after Malik and Chris began their trek across the Starlight Journey they stepped past the final bulkhead at the end of the ‘Tritanium Highway’ and into the engine room. It was the single largest chamber inside the ship. The high ceiling and long walls were necessary to house, not only the compressed fusion reactor, but also the other systems that made life aboard the colony ship a reality.

The bulky ceramic tanks comprising Journey’s water reclamation system dominated a far corner chamber. For decades the crew had been reliant on the reclaimer to slake their thirst and sustain their hydroponics garden. On the opposite wall, the steel shell of the ship’s atmosphere filtration system continued to scrub the air they breathed even as the vessel began, what would inevitably be, its final descent.

Sitting between the two monuments to human life among the stars, the compressed fusion reactor that powered the ship thrummed with barely contained energy. A large green indicator light, built into the containment housing, blinked in a slow, steady rhythm like the heartbeat of some slumbering celestial beast. The sight of the reactor, whole and unharmed, loosened some of Malik’s tension. They still had a monumental task ahead of them, but their chance for success considerably improved now that they knew the CFR hadn’t been reduced to irradiated slag.

“Has the highway always been that long?,” Chris groaned as he shrugged out of the fabrication tank that he’d strapped on before they left the armory. The cumbersome steel apparatus was deposited against a nearby wall. Wasting no time, the engineer unceremoniously dumped the medical scanners onto the floor next to it.

“Easy,” Malik said, wincing at the raucous clatter of the plassteel equipment being rudely introduced to the tritanium floor. The discordant cacophony gleefully filled the empty chamber with an ear jarring crackle. “We’re going to be reliant on this tech for the foreseeable future. I’d hate to break it before we even left the ship.”

Mullins waved one hand distractedly over his shoulder as he approached the main engineering terminal. “Trust me, Chief,” Chris said, not bothering to look back as he limped toward his destination. “If a little jostling could damage plassteel, it wouldn’t be integrated into the structure of interstellar spacecraft.”

Despite himself, a half smile tugged at Malik’s lips as he watched the other man begin to work. “Touché,” he murmured, placing the two rifles and the damaged field station he carried onto the floor beside Chris’ gear. Next, Malik activated his comm to open a channel to the bridge.

“This is Aries-1 for Starlight Journey actual. Do you read me, over.” While he waited for a reply, Malik moved toward a massive collection of screens built into the wall beside the control relay Chris had busied himself with. He knew that the feeds being displayed across the numerous monitors were broadcast from the cameras that had been meticulously placed to cover almost every meter of the ship, both inside and out.

As he tried to make sense of what he was seeing on the dozens of monitors, Malik found himself wishing, not for the first time in the past hour, that he’d spent more time learning the intricacies of the ship. Instead of learning what the cameras were supposed to watch, he’d spent years aboard the Journey learning what the cameras couldn’t see. That knowledge had served him well while they sailed the infinite darkness of space, but it was wildly inapplicable to the crisis at hand.

His inner thoughts were interrupted by Officer Spain’s cool, carefully cultivated tone. “Copy that, Aries-1. This is Starlight Journey actual. What is your status?”

“We just entered the engine room,” Malik said, frowning as he watched four of the monitors cycle through a series of black screens that read ‘No Signal’ across the middle. “I think it would be easier for me to hand-off the sit-rep to Mullins.”

“I actually have some good news, Captain,” Chris said as he toggled a series of switches on the control relay before glancing across the monitor array. “It appears that hab modules 2 and 3 have been successfully separated.”

“Only two?,” Doctor LIsell’s voice broke into the line with an edge of confusion cutting through her tone like a cold razor blade slashing through a juicy peach. “Why? Why would they only save two of them?”

“Keep the channel clear, please.” Captain DeRosa said with an urgent snap like the crack of a whip. Her voice caused Malik and Chris to look toward one another apprehensively. It sounded like the stress was beginning to wear on the rest of their crew.

“Can the other modules be jettisoned?,” DeRosa continued, her brisk tone forcing the crew to stay focused on the task at hand.

“Aye, Captain,” Mullins said, his voice trailing off as his work at the control console filled the comms channel with a series of audible clicks. Suddenly half the monitors switched their camera feeds to show a three dimensional representation of the Starlight Journey. Though Malik knew his ship’s shape by heart, he found himself committing every minor detail to memory.

The Starlight Journey was shaped like a long, narrow pyramid. The bridge and the mess hall took up most of the space at the pointed bow. The broad, flat stern of the ship was taken up almost entirely with the Journey’s propulsion system. Interrupting the ship’s sleek, uniform design were four mooring arms that sprang from the hull like robotic trees rising from a tritanium landscape. Each rigid umbilicus terminated against a hermetically sealed module. The modules resembled mushroom caps forged from metal that was as black as the empty space the Journey sailed through.

While Malik studied the ship’s image, he noted that it rolled at the same rate Journey did to maintain artificial gravity. It seemed likely that it was updating the ship’s position relative to it’s central axis in real time. The reason for that became apparent when Chris continued.

“Releasing the modules shouldn’t be an issue, Captain, but I’m afraid that is only half the problem.” Malik tore his gaze away from the monitors to glance toward the engineer. He’d already guessed the issue. Chris’ pained expression only added to the uneasy feeling in the pit of Malik’s stomach.

“The modules were designed to be released in sequence with a clear path to the target planet. So until the ship’s roll brings the modules between us and the planet, the system has me locked out as a safety protocol to avoid collisions during descent.” The engineer’s pale green eyes met Malik’s gaze as he gave a helpless shrug. The XO silently clenched his fist, mentally repeating his promise to save the colonists.

“I think that could be why only two modules were released,” the engineer continued in a subdued tone. “Whoever decoupled the colonists decided that they didn’t have time to wait for Journey’s roll to bring them into alignment for a third module before they needed to abandon ship.”

“Because they knew the failsafe from the first launch would pull us out of cryo sleep,” Jackson murmured darkly despite DeRosa’s order to keep the channel clear.

“They knew we’d come looking for them. They were on the clock from the moment of the first launch. When the clock ran out, they left the other colonists to die,” O’Brian said, his gruff voice vibrating with barely contained rage. “They left us all to die.”

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"But why?," Spain said, her voice suddenly sounding raw as coarse leather.

“Stow it. All of you,” DeRosa said, not bothering to try to hide the emotion leaking into her usually placid tone. “We have a job to do. Anything else, and I mean anything else, is secondary to evacuating the remaining 40,000 souls aboard this ship.”

“Chris,” the Captain continued curtly, “Give me a time table.”

“Aye, Captain,” the youngest member of the crew murmured as his fingers deftly danced across the control console.

Malik could tell, just from looking at the image displayed across the monitors, that the news wasn’t going to be encouraging. As if on cue, the ship groaned around them like a restless spirit in a haunted house. A series of alarming pops, punctuated by a snap that made Malik duck behind the control console heralded a fresh set of violent vibrations that ripped through the ship from bow to stern. The quake lasted several seconds before giving way to a pregnant silence while the members of the crew held their collective breath.

At length, DeRosa’s voice filled the comms, “Engineer Mullins, report.”

“Apologies, Captain,” Chris muttered from where he’d tucked himself underneath the control relay. As his long limbs unfurled, he offered one gloved hand toward Malik so the XO could help him rise to his feet.

The Chief rolled his eyes as he clasped the engineer’s hand to pull the other man up for what felt like the sixteenth time since they’d left the bridge.

After he got back on his feet, Mullins finally replied, “With the data I have available, I feel confident that module 4 can be released in eighteen minutes.”

Malik could almost hear the gears grinding over the comm as the members of 2nd crew devoted their collective brain power to some simple math.

All of them separately came to the conclusion that DeRosa voiced aloud. “That is putting us awfully close to our evacuation threshold, Mullins. How long after that do you need to separate the last group of colonists?”

Chris glanced toward Malik with a grimace twisting his lips. “As we get closer to the planet and more factors begin exerting influence on the Journey’s descent, it gets increasingly difficult to accurately extrapolate…”

“Mullins,” the Captain said, her voice soft and patient but with an underlying tone of unforgiving steel. “I need you to tell me when we can separate the last habitation module.”

Malik watched Chris close his eyes and begin dry washing his hands. “There are so many things that can impact that estimate,” the younger man began, his voice barely above a whisper. “Gravitational shear will begin to slow down the rate of our roll as we get closer to the planet. Once we start encountering atmosphere, it will reduce our inertia even further…”

“Chris!,” snarled the Captain, all her patience evaporating like a star’s mass in the moment before it went nova. “Answer the question now, sailor.”

“Thirty-six minutes,” the engineer said quietly, his shoulders slumping as the man visibly wilted against the nearby control console. “Thirty-six minutes after module four separates from the superstructure.”

Silence to rival the soundless vacuum of space descended over the comms channel as the crew tried to rein in their mounting horror. Someone, probably Doctor Lisell, released a choked sob into the quiet moment that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

“Get module 4 separated, Mullins. For now, our mission remains the same. Those of us on the bridge will continue to work on the pods nearby and load up the supplies we’ve managed to salvage.” DeRosa’s voice was as firm and unyielding as the tritanium that formed the skeleton of her ship. “I expect a status update from all crew members in twenty minutes. Get to work, people. Starlight Journey actual, out.”

For a long moment, after the comm went dead, Malik could do nothing but stand in silence while Chris struggled to master the pained expression written clearly across his features. The engineer looked like a sailor lost at sea, rudderless and at the mercy of the uncaring waves that battered him into submission. It was not an altogether inaccurate comparison, Chief Rosen thought wryly.

“Alright,” Malik began, drawing Chris’ vacant stare away from the 3D image of the Journey. “We’re going to get this gear stowed into a lifepod and make sure it’ll get you down to the surface with the rest of the crew.”

“But first,” he continued, stepping around the edge of the control panel to stand beside the shorter man while Chris’ green eyes watched him with open confusion. “You’re going to show me how to use this thing to separate the habitation modules.”

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