Lydia was about to issue
her customary reprimand about the pressure-seal to the bridge having
been left open when she remembered that she had been the last one through.
Lukazj was floating along the shaft behind her, with Marta emerging through the aft hatch.
Most of the debris in the mid-ship shaft had settled, only the few larger chunks retaining any kinetic energy in the face of the air-resistance, so as the crew sailed through, they were uncaringly pinging little flecks of spaceship out of their path.
Marta had avoided looking at the red-smeared lab door as she passed it. She awkwardly pawed the wall for stability as she pulled on a distressed grey and blue NASA t-shirt and tied the drawstrings on her hastily-donned blue sweatpants. She looked like a college student taking a lazy day - her hair an unkempt afro, her low-effort attire already-worn, stained, and poked by the absence of her usual sports bra. Bracken wasn't a stickler for professionalism at all times - you couldn't be, on a voyage like this, but Marta was perhaps the most fastidious crewmember when it came to her appearance... I guess these are unprofessional times. Lukazj was the best-presented of them. He looks like his official portrait Lydia thought, considering her own disshevelled, bloodied, and patched appearance as they took their stations and strapped into the g-seats.
"Marta, I want you to run over the system logs for the Q-ring and fusion reactor 1." Marta, in the port-facing crew seat, started rattling away on the keyboard by way of acknowledgement.
"Lukazj, see if you can get navigation to make sense, and bring the cold-gas thrusters online, just in case this has something to do with the EM-RCS." as she spoke, she kept her focus on her controls, running her fingers over the panel in front of her, everything much more familiar now.
"I'll open the blue-shade."
The sequence was already in motion, and with that statement, she hit return.
There was a clank, a judder, and an electronic squawk as a red-rimmed error message flashed up on her screen. The motors had all drawn too much voltage.
The Blue-shade petals were designed to protect the cabin occupants from the intense broad-spectrum radiation that the forward lobe of the warp bubble blue-shifted up from the cosmic microwave background radiation. All forward-facing surfaces of the ship were armored against it, and the blue-shade was a series of hinged flaps of composite materials that closed over the windows.
The others looked up expectantly at the noise.
Lydia glanced at the friction-welded Earth-Elapsed Time rollers - still not ready to work that into her thinking... except...
"Lukazj, what do the radiation-shield temperature sensors say?"
He tapped his touch panel a few times.
"Huh! We've been out of warp for over an hour, but it's still hot enough to sear a steak on! This should have dissipated ages ago!"
"Check the log." she continued steadily.
He was already bringing it up. He sagged.
"...Of course - I should really have expected this. The temperatures are off the scale until about 40 minutes ago. The motors are either over-resistant, or the petals are physically welded shut."
Lydia unbuckled and floated over starboard to the Abbal's un-occupied station. She reached up above the console, pulled a panel cover off and cranked the handle inside until the petal outside creaked and shucked unsteadily open.
The others stopped what they were doing, unbuckled, and floated over to peer out.
A haze of tumbling, ashy grit was clearing, reflecting the cabin lights pouring out through the window. It was hard to see beyond it.
"Marta, kill the lights, please." asked Lydia, seeing that Marta was closest to that side of Malik's panel.
The cabin went dark, lit only by the red glow on Bracken's console, and the dull grey of the endless computer logs sprawled out on the others. Outside, the particles of grit lost their definition, and the crew waited for their eyes to adjust and see the stars...
...and they waited.
"We're not in intergalactic space, are we?!" Marta finally asked, incredulously.
Lukazj cleared his throat "No. What little sense I can make of the graviscan indicates that there are gravity-wells in the vicinity. We're in cluster of low-mass stars, I'd say - but the output is totally unreliable."
"What the fuck? ...You two, get back on the logs. I'll open the rest of these petals." Lydia commanded after another interminable silence.
Most of the debris in the mid-ship shaft had settled, only the few larger chunks retaining any kinetic energy in the face of the air-resistance, so as the crew sailed through, they were uncaringly pinging little flecks of spaceship out of their path.
Marta had avoided looking at the red-smeared lab door as she passed it. She awkwardly pawed the wall for stability as she pulled on a distressed grey and blue NASA t-shirt and tied the drawstrings on her hastily-donned blue sweatpants. She looked like a college student taking a lazy day - her hair an unkempt afro, her low-effort attire already-worn, stained, and poked by the absence of her usual sports bra. Bracken wasn't a stickler for professionalism at all times - you couldn't be, on a voyage like this, but Marta was perhaps the most fastidious crewmember when it came to her appearance... I guess these are unprofessional times. Lukazj was the best-presented of them. He looks like his official portrait Lydia thought, considering her own disshevelled, bloodied, and patched appearance as they took their stations and strapped into the g-seats.
"Marta, I want you to run over the system logs for the Q-ring and fusion reactor 1." Marta, in the port-facing crew seat, started rattling away on the keyboard by way of acknowledgement.
"Lukazj, see if you can get navigation to make sense, and bring the cold-gas thrusters online, just in case this has something to do with the EM-RCS." as she spoke, she kept her focus on her controls, running her fingers over the panel in front of her, everything much more familiar now.
"I'll open the blue-shade."
The sequence was already in motion, and with that statement, she hit return.
There was a clank, a judder, and an electronic squawk as a red-rimmed error message flashed up on her screen. The motors had all drawn too much voltage.
The Blue-shade petals were designed to protect the cabin occupants from the intense broad-spectrum radiation that the forward lobe of the warp bubble blue-shifted up from the cosmic microwave background radiation. All forward-facing surfaces of the ship were armored against it, and the blue-shade was a series of hinged flaps of composite materials that closed over the windows.
The others looked up expectantly at the noise.
Lydia glanced at the friction-welded Earth-Elapsed Time rollers - still not ready to work that into her thinking... except...
"Lukazj, what do the radiation-shield temperature sensors say?"
He tapped his touch panel a few times.
"Huh! We've been out of warp for over an hour, but it's still hot enough to sear a steak on! This should have dissipated ages ago!"
"Check the log." she continued steadily.
He was already bringing it up. He sagged.
"...Of course - I should really have expected this. The temperatures are off the scale until about 40 minutes ago. The motors are either over-resistant, or the petals are physically welded shut."
Lydia unbuckled and floated over starboard to the Abbal's un-occupied station. She reached up above the console, pulled a panel cover off and cranked the handle inside until the petal outside creaked and shucked unsteadily open.
The others stopped what they were doing, unbuckled, and floated over to peer out.
A haze of tumbling, ashy grit was clearing, reflecting the cabin lights pouring out through the window. It was hard to see beyond it.
"Marta, kill the lights, please." asked Lydia, seeing that Marta was closest to that side of Malik's panel.
The cabin went dark, lit only by the red glow on Bracken's console, and the dull grey of the endless computer logs sprawled out on the others. Outside, the particles of grit lost their definition, and the crew waited for their eyes to adjust and see the stars...
...and they waited.
"We're not in intergalactic space, are we?!" Marta finally asked, incredulously.
Lukazj cleared his throat "No. What little sense I can make of the graviscan indicates that there are gravity-wells in the vicinity. We're in cluster of low-mass stars, I'd say - but the output is totally unreliable."
"What the fuck? ...You two, get back on the logs. I'll open the rest of these petals." Lydia commanded after another interminable silence.
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