by AJ Super
The gravity generators shuddered as the ship slipped into real space and the gravity needs changed for the ship. Nyx wondered if the strain of the fight damaged them. If so, she may need to have Engineering take a look in EVA. They were touchy after all.
“Weapons still offline,” Weapons Specialist Emlyn said. “Shields on auto-repair. Currently the system is rebooting for diagnostics at three percent. Damage seems to be relegated to a power actuator in the shield mainframe in Engineering. Emergency shutdown didn’t kick in fast enough to contain a feedback loop that blew the component. Should be an easy fix for Engineering once the reboot and diagnostic finishes. There’s probably going to be a few fried conduits, too.”
“When am I getting my weapons system up? And if it was down, what destroyed those two torpedoes?” Kai snapped.
The command deck was silent.
Nyx scrolled through the errors on the weapons’ systems activation list. The little blonde Weapons Specialist was ignoring the strange activation errors. She wasn’t even questioning who tried to activate the weapons system when there was no one but her, the captain, or Nyx as ExO who had access to the system.
The heat of realization swept up Nyx’s spine. It was the Star. Somehow the Star of Erebus had activated the weapons system and destroyed the torpedoes. That was Nyx’s only explanation. She didn’t know how the damned weapon worked, how it was installed, what it looked like, anything. But nothing else made sense.
“I can’t give you an estimate on the weapons system,” Emlyn muttered. “It’s been disabled from the outside. It needs extravehicular activity work.”
Nyx cleared her throat. “EVA on the long-range communications’ array too, Captain.” Nyx leaned on the last word, trying to remind him he had a whole ship to manage. Kai was on the verge of pounding his fists and demanding information that didn’t need to be spread around the ship.
Besides, all she had right now was supposition, error messages, and phantom activation of the weapons system which was disabled from the outside of the ship. Things like that could easily turn into superstitious trouble for a crew out in the black too long. So, Kai needed to remember who he was on this ship. He was a leader. He was captain. He needed to keep his temper and inspire loyalty, not fear. He needed to not act like a petulant child and to start thinking things through. He needed to think about the good of the whole.
She pursed her lips. She would be so much better at this right now than him. When faced with the unknown, it seems he didn’t prioritize his ship and crew first, but his own curiosity. That wasn’t the sign of a good leader. How could he be so competent before and turn around and be so inept?
“If we’re going to go to ground,” she prodded, “we have to contact someone now so we can find a place to hide, and we can’t do that with the comms down.” The first step is to get the crew and the ship to safety.”
As if to prove her thoughts about him right, Kai nodded and put up one finger. “First, I want to know why we’re not dead.” He turned to Sia. “Android. Analysis.”
Nyx sighed. This was something that could wait and be done privately. They had just lost their captain, their old ship, their potential livelihood, and they’d almost bit the dust. It was necessary to move on the things they could fix so they could find a place to hide, to get to safety. Kai’s responsibility was to the crew now, not to his curiosity. But, she had to admit, she was curious too, and she wanted more proof of the Star’s existence. The faces of the crew were curious as well. They all leaned in to hear Sia’s response.
“Thanatos weapons system fired on the incoming projectiles.” Sia blinked.
Nyx paled. Sia could find that in the code with all those activation errors? Of course, Nyx had only glimpsed the record, but with the system down, the ship’s weapons shouldn’t have been able to fire.
Emlyn cleared her throat and squeaked, “Sia, analyze state of weapons system.”
Kai turned and stared at Nyx. “What is going on?”
She shrugged and stared at the view-screen. They had stopped in the middle of nowhere in dark space, no shipping lanes, no nearby asteroid mines, no planets—just a cold, rocky moon, wandering in space, thrown from its orbit trillions of years ago. It must have been one of Captain Matthews’ hiding spots listed in a random set of coordinates that Nyx only recognized as dark space coordinates.
“Weapons system off-line. Manual shut-down override must be performed on dorsal aft control panel,” Sia announced brightly.
The crew whispered. Nyx scratched her head.
Kai sighed. “Now. Tell me how the weapons system could have destroyed the torpedoes, android.”
“Unknown.” The android twitched. “I do not have access to that system.”
“Well, get access to that system, damn it!” Kai growled, pacing. “I want to know what destroyed those missiles!”
“Captain,” Nyx warned as the crew tensed, an edge to her voice. He was going off the rails for information that he could gather later. He had to make sure the ship was safe now. She walked up to him and touched his arm, whispering into his ear, “Look at them. They’re terrified. You need to move on. What’s the next step?”
Kai glanced around the deck quickly. “Thank you, android. That’s all.”
Sia hesitated a moment, snapped a hand to her bare brown brow, and stood at her console.
Kai stood and walked passed Nyx, shaking his hands out, calming himself. He turned to the view-screen. “One of Matthews’ places?”
She nodded. He was coming around, getting back on point. She stared after him, waiting for him to settle into his new role of ship’s protector.
He put a hand on her console and addressed the crew. “We’ll be safe here for now. I don’t think Malcam will have the imagination to guess we’ve used one of the Thanatos’ old hiding spots. At least, for a little while.” The crew exhaled a little. He smiled, turning to Nyx. “That big brain of yours is good for something, ExO.”
“Yes, sir.” Nyx grinned back.
“Okay, Raphael.” Kai traipsed down to the center of the bridge. “Let’s find a good place to park the old girl so we can fix her up.”
“Here we go!” Raphael steered the enormous ship towards the moon, slewing through its weak gravity and nestling the Thanatos in a synchronous orbit with the rock.
Kai walked back down to the center of the deck, patted the leather captain’s chair, and cocked his head towards Nyx. “You can lead the EVA team, ExO Marcus. I assume you’ve studied the schematics thoroughly. And you’ve fixed a communications’ array before.”
Nyx nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Okay then, suit up. You’re going outside.”
7
Nyx stood in front of the rack of spacesuits. The label above hers clearly read “SCO Genvieve Cizeron.” The size looked right. It should fit like a glove. Nyx grabbed the suit off the rack and quickly adjusted the air processor and environmental controls, then pulled a wrapped sterile catheter from the locker. This wasn’t her first EVA. The rest of her team from the Medusa would be fiddling with their suits’ air processors, water reclamation systems, and body temp regulators for hours if she let them. But they had a job to do before the Thanatos could find a more permanent hiding place.
Nyx turned and noted several of the crew still adjusting their suit controls. She rehung her suit in the locker, pulled the under-suit out, and layed it on the bench next to her.
“Get into your gear,” she growled. “We have jobs to do. You can fiddle with the comfort settings later.”
She slipped out of her fitted maroon jumpsuit, leaving her in a white tank and pink striped underwear. The Medusa had no dress code, so she merely wore a utilitarian jumpsuit she could move in easily, something that conformed to her body, which she could either fight in or make repairs in. Standing in the locker room with the crew stripping down and changing, she clung to her spacesuit. The under-layers, a wired set of leggings and a top, plugged into the suit to provide warmth and biological fe
edback to the Thanatos’ computers so that the bridge could track the life-signs of the crew outside the ship. The underclothes also supported the removable, replaceable, sterile catheter which hooked into a recycling system that turned urine into potable water.
Nyx still shuddered at that thought. She was never out in the black long enough to need an emergency stash of water, but at least there was a system in place. If only oxygen could be recycled, then she could sit out on the wing of the ship indefinitely and not have to worry about the lives of anyone else.
But she had to worry about the crew now that she was ExO, even if they weren’t her family, and she couldn’t sit in the black and waste her life away.
She closed her eyes. The Medusa crew, even if they were loyal to Kai, were wary of her, though they took her orders. They were stiff and conformed, as protocol deemed necessary. Kai was the only one on the Thanatos whom she grew up with, after her father mysteriously recrewed the ship when her mother died.
She pulled on the under-leggings and inserted the catheter with a little pinch. She was used to the procedure now. She’d done EVAs to fix the comms’ array on the Medusa after a rough jump several times. She slid the undershirt over her head and strung her sable hair into a tight tail, flipping it over her shoulder.
Nyx yanked the body-contouring EVA suit off the hook and stepped into the legs, snapped the wires into the inputs, and zipped herself in. She grabbed her gravity boots and snapped them onto the seals at the calves of the suit. She stomped her feet, settling her arches into the heavy boots. “Last man standing here gets swabbie duty for a week. Pick up the pace, people,” she commanded over the hushed din of the small crew of six sliding into their spacesuits.
She slipped her hands into her gloves, twisted the locks on the seals, and flexed her fingers. She stared at the little round adhesive disk comm sitting on the shelf in her cubby and stuck it behind her ear. It crackled, and the voice of the comms’ officer on duty echoed, “ExO Marcus online.”
Grabbing her helmet, she glared at her motley team, annoyed no one was suited up yet. “Scratch the last. You have two minutes to meet me at the airlock. Those not there will have swabbie duty for the next month.”
Nyx glanced at the data readout on the forearm of her suit. She punched in a two-minute timer and walked to the locker room door, paused as it swished open, and clomped out to the corridor in her heavy gravity boots.
A voice chuckled low in her ear. “You do know that two of those crew members you just set up for swabbie duty are needed in Engineering, right?”
“If they spent half the time getting ready for their mission duties instead of fiddling with their equipment, they’d be ready for the black by now. Instead, they’ll be sweeping the mess and changing air filters, mon capitaine,” Nyx scoffed.
“Do you really want to go out in the black on your own that badly?” Kai whispered.
“Better than with a crew who doesn’t know what they’re doing.” Nyx opened the airlock and walked to the end. She grabbed a tether hook and magnetically sealed it to the back of her suit.
She checked the datapad on the arm of her suit for the time. “Looks like you’ll have engineers swabbing decks, Captain.” Nyx grinned. She twisted her helmet on and locked it.
A heavy clomping came up the gangplank behind her. Someone gulped air on the comms. “I’m. Here. Reporting for. Duty.”
Nyx turned. She raised her eyebrows. The EVA suit floated around the rail-thin, spiky-haired man.
“Name? Position?” Nyx demanded.
“Falak Barsar. Engineering.”
“Hear that? One of your engineers made it. I’ll have company. And you won’t have to send a separate team to check the gravity generators.”
“Oh, I’m checking the… But I don’t have any spare parts. Or tools.” Falak’s brown cheeks reddened. “How am I supposed to do anything?”
“Kai, he’s clearly a newbie,” Nyx complained. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have him unblock the garbage chutes?”
“Please don’t make me do that again. I just got off swabbie duty on the Medusa. I learn quick. I earned my time away from swabbing.” Young Falak paled. “Besides, I signed on my first tour to work Engineering, not wipe floors and pick up trash. Could’a done that on ‘Pha.”
Nyx raised an eyebrow. Lunar Alpha, was the transit hub for most of the Asian continent’s governments. Falak had called the domed station ‘Pha. Only permanent residents called it that. Originally it had been run by the South Asian Republic, but Protectorate treaties precluded the sole ownership of transit hubs and now it was a multi-national station. Falak reflected every part of Lunar Alpha’s multi-cultural, South Asian Republic heritage.
“Let him learn,” Kai snapped over the comms. “It’s your job now. You wanted things to be different. Make them different.”
Nyx rolled her head back. She wanted to run a different ship, not a nursery.
She clapped the young man on the shoulder. “Put your helmet on. Strap yourself in. You’re going to learn something today, I guess.” She clipped her helmet on, whispering under her breath, “Aidez-moi Les Étoiles.”
Kai laughed in the comms. “Since when do you pray to the Stars?”
She grunted.
Falak snapped his helmet in place and a tether to his back. Nyx turned to the outer door and flipped a safety switch overlaying a round button, lighting the button red. The airlock door sealed behind them. Falak glanced nervously over his shoulder.
“Gravity boots engaged,” she intoned, making sure the young man followed procedure.
“Check,” his shaky voice croaked over the comms.
She pushed the red-lit button.
A rush of air flushed from the airlock with an icy push, which she felt in the fraction of a second before her environmentals kicked all the way in.
“Is it hot?” Falak whispered.
She turned. The young man’s helmet fogged. He was beginning to sweat.
She peeled her gravity boots from the floor and stomped to him. “How hot did you turn your system?”
“Thirty-seven. I figured it was supposed to be set for body temperature.”
Nyx grabbed his arm and tapped out the override code on the suit. “No. It’s supposed to be like your own personal room. What you’re most comfortable working at, not something to keep your body temperature constant.”
“So why was this one set so high? Forty-point-six seems hot for room temperature. Did some kind of bikram yoga guru wear this?”
Nyx smiled. “Funny. Just do what I tell you. Most people find working around twenty to twenty-two is comfortable. Find what’s comfortable for you.” She dialed the suit’s internal temperature down. “But not now. I’m setting it to twenty-two. Right now, we have other, more important things to deal with other than you trying to cook yourself.”
Condensation dripped on the inside of Falak’s helmet.
Nyx pulled her boots from the floor as she turned and walked to the edge of the airlock. “Come on. We have work to do. And not a lot of time.” She stepped into the black, a white flea on the hull of the sleek ebony ship. Nyx was only going to fix the comms’ array while Falak fixed the gravity generators during EVA, but she loved this part.
She bent her knees and pushed. At the moment of her push, she deactivated her grav boots and flew through the black. Her heart soared. She clicked off a jet of carbon dioxide and twisted her body, facing the moon. She was so close. The slight gravity tugged at her. She imagined she could reach out and touch the cold rock above her. She extended an arm to the white planetoid. She clicked off another puff of CO2 from her storage tanks and turned herself back to face the ship. The wing would be coming up on her quickly, and she would need to be facing it to get her feet under her.
She turned her grav boots on and released a little CO2 to slow down. She hit the wing with a snap as her grav boots clung to the metal of the hull, her heart thumping with the impact. She walked to the comms’ array and snapped on the ma
gnetic tether there, then unsnapped the tether from the airlock, which snaked slowly back to its housing.
Nyx turned to look for Falak. Maybe she should have explained the maneuver to the man. But he said he learned quickly, and the best way to learn, in her experience, was by doing.
He bounced next to her, so close he threatened to dislodge her from the wing. She wheeled her arms. “Connard, what are you doing?” she screeched, thankful her boots were magnetized tight to the hull.
He hadn’t turned on his grav boots for the landing, and he glanced off the wing and flew at an acute angle to the ship.
Nyx clomped across the hull. She reached for his tether, whipping close to where he bounced, while the young man swung helplessly like a pendulum in the black. He would come around to the wing eventually if she left him to learn from his mistake, but they had a finite amount of air, and she didn’t want to deal with a punctured suit if he managed that as well.
She reeled him in with his tether.
“Thank —thank you.” His voice trembled.
“Turn your damn boots on.”
“Oh. Is that how you landed so easily? Yeah. Of course.”
“Next time, if you can’t make the jump, walk the distance,” Nyx growled.
“But you said we don’t have a lot of time.”
“That still includes the time wasted rescuing you from the black.”
“Yes, sir.” He saluted, awkwardly slapping his helmet with his gloved hand.
Nyx rolled her eyes. “Now, see that station over there?” She pointed to an arch against the main hull of the ship where the wing was attached. “That’s where the gravity generators are. You’ll also find a new tether and your work. Vas-y. Go. Do what you need to do. You’ll find tools and a couple spare parts, the ones that break most often out here. Power couplings, actuators, small things. If it’s a substantial repair, we’d need a bigger crew and probably need to make landfall to fix it anyway.”
“Yes, sir.” Falak snapped his hand to his visor again.
