by Garion Swann
An emergency shutdown sealed the fuel tank and primed it for ejection if needed. It also dumped whatever was in the engine into the ‘pit' as it had been called by many engineers and forced the reaction to slow by blasting the engine with a cold gel, which would soon warm up and evaporate, meaning they could try again not long after an emergency shutdown. Tina moved to the system control panel and started enabling systems that had been shut down, she then looked through the logs to see what had caused the engine problems. This would take a couple of hours at least.
Grant jumped when he heard a repeating beep, he had been dozing, he hadn't got much sleep since Doctor Tamber leaving the party as he'd been out most nights visiting the delights of Trulen's club scene. It took him a moment to figure out where the beeping was coming from. He noticed it was from his console, it showed he had a message to read. He slowly moved from the bed, the book he was reading dropped to the floor which started him, it also made him more awake. He moved to the console to see a message from Janie. He moved quicker than he ever to get to the seat so he could sit at the console. He opened the message with excitement. It was a short message.
Grant,
I'm sorry about cutting you off the other day, a lot is going on at the moment. If you're free soon, let me know, and we can have a proper catch-up. Some things are larger than they seem, so it's always best to look a bit deeper and discover interesting new things.
Speak soon,
Janie x
He felt like there should be more to the message. He hadn't actually expected to hear from her again after the abrupt ending to their last conversation. He re-read the last part of the letter, what on earth could that mean? He thought to himself. He presumed it was something nice she was saying about them, there might be something more to it. But they barely knew each other it's strange she'd put that. Somethings a larger than they seem, what an odd thing to say. He'd ponder it for a bit before replying, he saved the file to his console and saw that the download took longer than he expected, looking at the size of the data he saw it was ten times the size it was supposed to be. He thought there might be pictures attached, but it wasn't clear. He opened the message locally on his console and looked at the code behind it, there were thousands of lines of unused code, this wouldn't usually be in a message unless you were trying to hide things in them. He realised that this may be what the message was referring to. Looking through the code it was nothing to do with the message, he eventually figured out that it was a decryption key, not the most secure but easy enough for someone of his knowledge. He ran his decryption program, and within a few minutes, the hidden information showed, it was another message. He pieced it together, not only was it encrypted but scrambled as well. He felt proud when he saw the hidden message in full. He read through the message, a moment of panic overtook him, he needed to tell the Captain and fast.
For the second time that day the Captain made his way into engineering, this time with no alarms. He checked the status panel, and it was all green, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Captain, we're good to go!" Tina said.
"Excellent, did you find what the problem was?" he asked. She walked over to him from the blown-out console she was inspecting.
"The power grid wasn't capped, it surged and caused a feedback pulse to the engine, hence all the alarms," Tina replied, she was clearly worried, Alex wasn't going to sack her, everyone makes mistakes.
"Let's turn it over and see if we can get underway," Alex said, despite the issues they were still set to launch on time. Tina nodded and moved over to the system control panel.
"Alright, let's try this again, on my mark" she shouted so everyone in engineering could hear her "three, two, one, Mark!" Everyone did the tasks they had been assigned, the engine started without issue, the lights faded for a moment as ships power took over and the station's feed was disengaged.
"Core temperature," she asked out loud.
"Four twenty Kelvin," came a voice from the upper level.
"Pressure," Tina asked next.
"Nominal," another voice, from behind where Tina and Alex were standing.
"We're good to go, Captain," Tina announced.
"Good work," he said as he moved to the door. No one knew this engine like Grey did, there would be problems and that was something they were just going to have to deal with if Grey would not be in charge in engineering, something Alex still hadn't decided. If it were any crew member, he wouldn't think twice about kicking them off the ship, but it was Grey, one of his best and oldest friends, and senior staff on the ship. Alex was sure the rumours had got around the ship as to why Grey was shot, as well as the fact that he was a drug addict. Alex turned quickly when he heard someone running towards him, it was Grant.
"Captain!" Grant shouted, "Captain" he came to an abrupt stop in front of the Captain breathing heavily, he looked like he'd just run a marathon. He was breathing too much to talk. He kept trying but still couldn't put any words together.
"Woah, Grant. Take a moment to get your breath." Alex said, very confused. After a few moments, he'd managed to say something.
"Yventi, Captain, they're onto us." He handed the pad that had the hidden message on. Alex read it, dread overcome him.
Authorities are onto your ship. They found evidence of surveillance, although nothing to prove anything, your ship was highlighted. Be safe.
"Grant," the Captain said in a stern tone, "Who is this?" The captain was worried, did Grant have contacts in Yventi.
"Her name is Janie, we met when they searched the ship, we decided to stay in touch," Grant said quickly, he was still getting his breath back.
"You're in touch with someone in the security force of a nation whose territory we just put spying equipment in! What the hell were you thinking!" Alex said, he was all but shouting.
"She's really nice!" grant argued.
"And what if she's just using you for information?"
"I'm sure she's not," Grant replied getting more and more stressed.
"Do you though?" Alex challenged.
"Why would she have told us that they're onto us? Why would she risk giving herself away?" Grant said, feeling a little proud about coming up with an argument quickly and one that also made sense. Alex sighed, he paused, and it was evident on his face that he was thinking.
"Find out more, play dumb, we must maintain we have no idea, they scanned our ship and found nothing, we still have that. Leave the rest with me." Alex didn't give Grant a chance to respond, he just walked off. Grant stayed for a moment calming down, that was the second time the Captain had shouted at him recently.
"Take us out, Jenny," Alex said from his Captain's chair in the middle of the bridge, on the bridge were Grant at his ops console and Nelson in the pilot's seat. For once Jenny had sat in her First Officer's chair, she decided as they were staying in the system the other pilot should get a chance to fly this ship. Jenny stood up and moved to the front consoles.
"Retract the moorings, and ignite the thrusters. Grant bring our power to normal running. The heading is three-four-two, we're heading for outpost thirty-two." Jenny ordered. As she spoke, various bridge crew were doing their jobs. The ship moved away from the station at a slow speed, slower than Jenny would have done it but Nelson was no way near as experienced as herself. He rotated the ship and flew out on the course given by departure control, he was gradually increasing speed.
"We're clear of the station, Captain," Jenny said. The ship began to turn on the heading towards outpost thirty-two.
"Time?" Alex asked.
"Eight hours and four minutes until contact with the station," Nelson said after reading his screen.
"Thank you, Nelson," Alex replied.
Alex looked over to Grant, who was working away, as usual, it has been a few hours since Grant had told him the ship could be hunted by Yventi. Alex has been in contact with Dean aboard Trulen to inform him, he was not happy about it. Alex neglected to mention that it was because one of his crew had been
in contact with someone in the Yventi security service. He'd ordered Grant to try and make contact with Janie as soon as possible, Alex was going to listen into to their conversation. Grant would try and find out more from Janie, who is no doubt being cautious as someone may be watching her communications. The Yventi were not completely totalitarian but were pretty close. There was much debate among the international community about the Yventi government, some of the more right-wing governments had been very vocal about their dislike of the secrecy, believing that Yventi wanted a war, there had not been a war since the signing of the Earth Memorial Agreement.
"Captain, have you got a moment," Grant called. Alex looked up to see Grant nod and motion to Alex's office. Alex returned the nod.
"My office," he said, knowing what this was about. Grant was carrying his pad which probably meant he had made contact with Janie.
They both walked in in silence, and Grant sat down with his pad in front of him, he'd angled himself so the camera would only see a blank wall, he didn't want Janie to have any idea he was not in his quarters.
"Whatever happens I'm not here, if we need to we'll cause some interference to stop the conversation," Alex ordered, he moved to his chair and sat quietly.
Grant made the connection to Yventi's communications net and dialled Janie's comm code.
"Grant," Janie said, not with her usual tone, it was more solemn, "How are you?" she asked.
"I'm good thank you, and yourself?"
"Yeah, I'm okay." She said, she clearly was not okay, "Did you get my message?" Grant knew she was talking about the hidden message.
"Yes I did thank you, it's good to know." he paused and thought. "Oh, and the Captain hasn't found what he was looking for yet, not sure how long it will be yet." Grant knew this would confuse both Captain Harper and Janie, but he hoped Janie would at least get what he was saying.
"Ah right, it seems like he didn't know much about where he left it, so will probably take him a while to find it," Janie replied, Grant, assumed she'd figured out what he was trying to say. He was referring to the Michelangelo as the thing the Captain was looking for, and the Captain was meant to be Yventi security.
"So what have you been up to?" Grant asked.
"Oh not much, something funny happened at work today, I was hiding something from my boss, and he was looking everywhere for it, he went round all the different people in the office accusing them of hiding it. I think he might just give up as no one has said anything." She replied, Grant found the story funny, it took him a moment to realise that she might be saying something without saying it like he was. The boss could have actually been her boss, and the thing he was looking for was the Michelangelo. If she was covering for them, that's a considerable risk.
"You could get into a lot of trouble for that," Grant said faking a chuckle.
"Yeah but it's funny, and I believe what I am doing is right." She paused for a moment. Grant realised she couldn't think what to say, it was an odd thing to say, that she believes she was right for hiding an item of her bosses. If someone was watching, they might read into that.
"Oh, you still there?" Grant said faking that the connection dropped.
"Yeah, I said I think it's right to bring a little fun into the office," she said.
"What's your next trick going to be?" Grant asked, faking another laugh.
"Disappearing so I can get out of work." Grant wondered if she was talking about leaving Yventi.
"That would be great!" he said, trying to contain the excitement. Alex gave him a silent warning look from his desk. Grant tried to make it as though he was amused by Janie's comment, but he knew it was not very convincing.
"Hey, I've got to go, were approaching our next waypoint. Sorry to cut short. Speak to you soon?" Grant asked, he had lied about the next waypoint but wanted to end the call.
"Okay, hope to speak to you soon, stay safe," she said. The screen went blank then returned to Grant's homepage.
"Did I understand that correctly, is she trying to defect?" Alex asked.
"Sounds like it," Grant said, he was thinking through the conversation so hesitated before speaking again.
"What do we do?" he asked.
"Having someone to keep us one step ahead of Yventi would be useful, but what's the likelihood she's a spy?" Alex asked.
"I don't think she is," Grant said, he was being a little defensive.
"Is that your head or your cock thinking?" Alex replied quickly and sternly. Grant's eyes narrowed he gave Alex a cold stare. "Let me know if she contacts you again, we'll deal with it when we come to it," Alex added. Grant nodded, "Let's get back to the bridge," Alex said.
Engineering was a mess, Tina was trying her best to keep control of things, she couldn't figure out how Grey kept on top of it all. She had several panels open for routine maintenance, she had overdue checks on most of the ship's systems, making her status panel look like it was just one big red light. The panel was always mostly green when Grey was in charge. The bridge had noticed the issues as well as they were cruising at eighty-nine per cent efficiency which was not terrible, but they were usually up at ninety-five per cent when Grey was keeping an eye on things. The drop in efficiency would mean they'd use more fuel which always put the Captain in a lousy mood.
"Erin!" She shouted across engineering getting her fellow engineer and also fiancés attention. Erin looked up to Tina, "Can you shunt some more power to the cooling systems, were running a little hot."
"Where from, babe? We're already using most if not all our capacity."
"Seriously? How the hell does Grey keep this boat flying!" Tina shouted in frustration. "I just need some to try a theory."
"Okay, we'll get it by shaving a little of each system. Give me a sec" Erin had walked over to Tina, so they didn't have to shout. Erin moved to the control panel and modified several settings. Without warning everything went dark, the engine stalled and everything went dark, all the lights, panels went dark. After all the systems had powered down, they were left with silence.
"What now?" Tina said, her frustration clear, "What did you do?" She asked Erin though the complete darkness.
"I don't think that was me," Erin replied. Torches began illuminating as the engineers remembered they were one of the things Grey made them carry on their belts. Erin and Tina did the same.
Engineers made their way to Tina, she realised that emergency protocols said that in the event of an unexpected shutdown, find the chief engineer.
"Tamirez & Galloway, go and check the engine, see if there's still a reaction.
"The rest of you go to your stations, see if any are active. If they're not try to find one that is. I'll try and contact the bridge." Tina ordered.
She got her bearings and moved over the lifeless comm panel if they could have the bridge would have made contact by now. She pressed the button the transmit and there was no response. She opened the panel below and found the backup communications equipment, utilising ancient technology called radio. Grant found them in a junkyard and thought they may come in use one day, she turned the dial, and the radio clicked it made a static sound and then went quiet. She pressed the button on the side.
"Bridge this is engineering." After a few seconds, she heard Grant's voice.
"Excellent! I wondered if anyone would remember these. What happened down there?" He asked,
"I have no idea, we were moving some power around, and we went dead, whatever we did should not have caused this though, where's the Captain?" Tina asked,
"No idea, he wasn't on the bridge when we went dark. Probably like most of the crew feeling around a pitch black corridor for some form of light.
Several engineers had come to Tina shaking their heads, none of the panels had any power, Tamirez also came back saying the core reaction was dead.
"Shit, Grant the cores dead!" Tina said.
"Ah, and without any power, we can't get it going."
"I'll start setting up the backup batteries, see if we can jumpsta
rt it."
"XO here, isn't that normally a big no-no?" Jenny said over the radio.
"Yeah it's risky," Tina sighed, "we'd be risking the ship."
"I can't say yes, we need to find the Captain, get it set up but see if there's anything else we can do. XO out."
Tina hit the wall.
"It won't budge at all," Jenny said after taking the torch she was using to see out of her mouth. She was trying to open the door that would allow them off the bridge.
"Even the emergency override?" Grant asked rising from the floor, he was trying to see if he could get a response from any of the ship's systems using his pad, which for once he'd remembered to charge.
"Nope,"
"The emergency override should have power, it's a small battery that opens the door," Grant said.
"Why can't we just force it open?" Jenny asked,
"That would work with normal doors, like to get to quarters, but these are reinforced doors, there are designed not to be forced open, helps protect the bridge and engineering."
"That kind of fucks us up though," Jenny said.
"Aye, but the core isn't supposed to just shut down," Grant paused and thought, "and the batteries in the door release can only be discharged by the emergency release, unless…" He trailed off.
"Optics! Check the optics," He ran over to the other side of the bridge using his torch to find the optics. He looked through and kept moving levers, searching for anything outside. After a few moments of looking he spotted something moving.
"There's a ship! Jenny, take a look," he shouted.
Jenny used to torch to light the way over to where Grant was, she looked through the optics and saw the ship and immediately recognised the type of ship.
"Arm yourselves! That's a stealth ship. They're attaching themselves to the hull, we need to find a way to warn the crew." She grabbed the radio,
