Chapter 3: Disaster strikes
After a cycle or so , the standard unit of time for space faring nations roughly equal to 18 hours, the majority of the sentient inhabitants had found their way into the hallways. Crew members went about their business while newly abducted passengers roamed the ship with SEMI as their guide. There was unexpectedly little tension between alien and human, the aliens were for the most part docile a trait apparently shared in most of the dominant species in the universe, and humans while known to each other for aggressive behavior in face of the unknown were occupied with a robot which assuaged their fears and guided them forward. So neither bothered the other very much aside from the occasional please don't touch this, or stay away from that. Things we found were unusual for them to ask because other races were not instilled with the same subconscious desire to know exactly what that button does. For the most part we just had a desire to understand them, and them a desire to keep us occupied and out of trouble. I had personally met with the captain of the ship and many of the crew members. There were roughly 20 entities in charge of the entire ship. The rest were passengers, a few from another sentient planet within our galaxy that we had been unaware of, but mostly humans. SEMI had given me that information.
It was after the second cycle however that things changed suddenly. At precisely 3:84 dtn, or three 16ths and 84 hundredths of the day past midday, a scream echoed through the ship. Reactions varied between everyone, but I found myself running toward the source. When I arrived there was already a crowd. I pushed past to see a human body on the ground blood pooling through her bare body. One look told the source of the injury, her charred black arm was split wide open and shards of metal were lodged over her body. Her implant had exploded while it was in her arm. I felt myself go nauseous, everyone in the room was probably thinking the same thing. I have one in me too. One of the crew members I hadn't met yet pushed through the crowd. It was a creature that looked more like a plant than an animal. Its green skin covered it aside from the root like flagella it walked on, and the vine like arms it was quickly pressing against the girl on the floor.
“She is still alive,” the alien said.
She opened the interface of her own implant and quickly typed something, the vine arms splitting into tiny tendrils to hit each key quickly. A drone of hard light suddenly projected in the crowd and enveloped the body.
“I may be able to save her life, but our machines are not attuned to humans. Are there any human doctors who can assist in the procedure?” she asked the crowd.
After a moment of silence a girl stepped forward.
“I’m not a doctor,” she said. “, but I was a medical student.”
The alien grabbed her quickly by the hand and the drone casing carrying the human body and rushed down the hall clearing a path as they went to a room marked with a blue circle with two parallel lines running down it vertically. What would be the equivalent to the red cross at home, this was the medical ward.
Then a moment later the alien popped her head out of the room.
“The communication systems are down. Somebody notify the bridge what has happened,” she said.
I volunteered and rushed down the hallway. There were two floors between here and the bridge and I intended to reach them as soon as possible. I found myself stalled momentarily at the elevator which was out of order so I had to proceed up ramps to the upper floor. When I finally made it to the bridge I found the door shut, and the access panel deactivated. I was able to easily open the door manually however, sliding the two segments to the sides. When I entered the crew looked at me expectantly. I saw that the large curved screen that acted as their viewing terminal was blacked out having evidently lost power. When I explained to them what had happened they had this sour look on their faces disturbed by the news. The crew mates were for the most part silent but the captain, a birdlike man with purple feathers asked me about my trip up specifically. I told him about the elevator and the the failing door, and even about the downed communications systems. It seemed that the entire ship aside from the lights was powered down. He confirmed this result with the effects in the bridge. Whereas they had assumed it was a small circuit failure, it seemed that the entire ship was running on emergency power without any indication. While I was concerned for the ship the image of the near dead woman on the floor still haunted my mind. My first instinct was to ask if the medical bay received emergency power. He explained back that, there were three priorities for power in the event of an emergency. The first was life support, which was controlled automatically and consumed the most of the emergency power. The second was medical bays throughout the ship on an as needed basis. Finally the emergency utilities which included lights, single line communication to request help, and the evacuation procedures.
“If we are on emergency power the lights are supposed to dim”. One of the crew noted, “either there is an error in our emergency protocol or the power is just being rerouted. There might be a short circuit in the generator.”
The captain was quick to assign someone to the generator room to check on it. He started handing out other jobs too, checking various areas for any sort of malfunction which might be causing the strange power outage. When the last of the other crew left the room he came to me.
“What is your name?” He asked.
“Nathan” I replied.
“Well Nathan, I must ask you to assist us. Your people have only just been introduced to the ship’s environment,” He said, “ None of you have been trained for emergency procedures, and you will likely slow down our work.I’m sure you are capable of spreading the word that we are in an emergency situation and the captain requires all humans present in the cafeteria. Hopefully we will get this sorted out quickly.” He told me.
“I will tell them. What if they don’t come?” I asked.
“No one would disobey me” He said confidently, “just get them out of the way for now.” With that he left he room.
I doubted everyone would listen, he was right in the fact that we humans were not prepared for an emergency on the ship, most people I knew would immediately try to make their own solution or find their own safe place, but I ran around the ship telling the Captain's orders to whomever would listen. Sending people to the cafeteria, some of them did as I expected running off to find their own solution on whatever inspiration they could find. I imagine I would have done the same had I any idea how I might fix the problem other than stopping others from making it worse.
Alas our problems only grew. One of the last places I went was the observatory the only room in the entire ship allowed to have glass gateways between the void of space and the interior of the ship, airlocked like many of the hallways in the case of a breach. When I arrived there were 4 people in the observatory, all but one of them listened, the last claiming that he would stay in the observatory and look at the rest of the ships. At first I found comfort in the fact there were other ships, colossal arks made for transporting thousands and thousands of creatures at a time. Then I realised the unfortunate fact that all the ships were completely stationary. Every single one was motionless compared to us. That meant that none of us were moving, and that meant that at some point something had put on the brakes, otherwise we’d still be drifting.
My worries were however at the back of my mind perhaps covered over with the idea that some alien science I didn’t understand had overpowered my intuition. I was more focused on getting the man to listen to me and head for the cafeteria. He left before me, and I bore witness to an unfortunate sight. As he left the room and entered the hallway his implant began glowing a bright red, I saw only a moment before his arm exploded next to him. I was still in the observatory, but both rooms were on the exterior hull of the ship. Whatever form of explosive went off in that implant it was bigger than the girl in the hall. This one broke through the plating of the ship. I watched as my only exit slammed shut desperate to save what air was in my room as the air from his jettisoned into space. The glass dome of my room was untouched, but I was now shut off from the rest of the ship.
My concerns seemed to be drawing a bit thin at this point, but I didn’t know which to be more concerned over, the potential that my implant might explode at any second, or that I was trapped in a bubble of air with no external communication to signal for help. I began searching around for anything that might help me.I found a small garden on one side, from the looks of it this room was originally designed to host agricultural supplies. It had merely never been properly filled. I found a garden hose, some farming tools, nothing interesting though. I ended up just waiting. Hoping that someone would come for me when the power came back on.
“SEMI are you there?” I asked, looking for something to distract myself.
“Sorry, SEMI service is currently unavai- wait a minute, how did you end up out here?” SEMI’s voice suddenly cut into her recording.
“I was delivering a message, getting everyone to safety, but someone’s implant malfunctioned and depressurized the next room. I’m stuck here.”
SEMI didn’t respond for a while.
“Communications appears to be down,” SEMI said, “You have no method of rescue.”
“I was just waiting for them to solve the problem, then someone could come get me right? Like bring a space suit or something so I can get in?” I asked
“A space suit is no problem. I can project one for you,” SEMI said, “The hard part will be getting past the internal airlocks. They are not the two section airlocks which allow you to cross over without air loss. They are merely emergency barriers which seal shut in these cases. They can only be overridden by a manufacturer key at a space station. I am cut off from the rest of the ship, but from what I can gather the ship is stationary. Meaning it is doubtful we would arrive before you have consumed all the available oxygen, and other nutrients from this room.”
“So… I am going to die here?” I asked, afraid.
“Not necessarily. External Airlocks can be accessed by anyone from the outside. You would just have to spacewalk to one of them.” She said.
“But one of the internal air locks is holding me into this room,” I explained.
“A room made primarily of glass. When survival is at stake, life always comes before property damage. It will be difficult to break though. It is made to sustain heavy impact.” she informed me.
I spent the next few minutes gathering materials. While my implant could project a space suit, it could not provide propulsion, Once I left the artificial gravity of the observatory I would be left with only momentum to guide me. As such I made sure I was anchored to the ship using the garden hose I found earlier. While I worked, SEMI informed me of all the areas where external airlocks that still had power were on the ship. And the nearest to me was a quarter turn over the edge of the ship, far longer than the hose could reach. I would have to leave it at some point and navigate without aid.
Before I made by venture I asked one more time to see if the ship had come back online. Still no sign of repair. Content that I was on my own, I took the the cart I had piled with lawn equipment, I had SEMI project a space suit for me, and I made sure the hose was firmly bound to my waist.
Final checks complete I charged forward pushing my heavily loaded cart like a makeshift battering ram. The glass wall in front of me shattered and momentum pulled me out into the void spurred further out by the billowing flow of air fighting its way out of the room. Finally the hose went taught and I was yanked back hard. The last thing I remember was seeing the hose housing which was previously bolted to the floor freely floating toward me, the other end of the hose still attached.
After a cycle or so , the standard unit of time for space faring nations roughly equal to 18 hours, the majority of the sentient inhabitants had found their way into the hallways. Crew members went about their business while newly abducted passengers roamed the ship with SEMI as their guide. There was unexpectedly little tension between alien and human, the aliens were for the most part docile a trait apparently shared in most of the dominant species in the universe, and humans while known to each other for aggressive behavior in face of the unknown were occupied with a robot which assuaged their fears and guided them forward. So neither bothered the other very much aside from the occasional please don't touch this, or stay away from that. Things we found were unusual for them to ask because other races were not instilled with the same subconscious desire to know exactly what that button does. For the most part we just had a desire to understand them, and them a desire to keep us occupied and out of trouble. I had personally met with the captain of the ship and many of the crew members. There were roughly 20 entities in charge of the entire ship. The rest were passengers, a few from another sentient planet within our galaxy that we had been unaware of, but mostly humans. SEMI had given me that information.
It was after the second cycle however that things changed suddenly. At precisely 3:84 dtn, or three 16ths and 84 hundredths of the day past midday, a scream echoed through the ship. Reactions varied between everyone, but I found myself running toward the source. When I arrived there was already a crowd. I pushed past to see a human body on the ground blood pooling through her bare body. One look told the source of the injury, her charred black arm was split wide open and shards of metal were lodged over her body. Her implant had exploded while it was in her arm. I felt myself go nauseous, everyone in the room was probably thinking the same thing. I have one in me too. One of the crew members I hadn't met yet pushed through the crowd. It was a creature that looked more like a plant than an animal. Its green skin covered it aside from the root like flagella it walked on, and the vine like arms it was quickly pressing against the girl on the floor.
“She is still alive,” the alien said.
She opened the interface of her own implant and quickly typed something, the vine arms splitting into tiny tendrils to hit each key quickly. A drone of hard light suddenly projected in the crowd and enveloped the body.
“I may be able to save her life, but our machines are not attuned to humans. Are there any human doctors who can assist in the procedure?” she asked the crowd.
After a moment of silence a girl stepped forward.
“I’m not a doctor,” she said. “, but I was a medical student.”
The alien grabbed her quickly by the hand and the drone casing carrying the human body and rushed down the hall clearing a path as they went to a room marked with a blue circle with two parallel lines running down it vertically. What would be the equivalent to the red cross at home, this was the medical ward.
Then a moment later the alien popped her head out of the room.
“The communication systems are down. Somebody notify the bridge what has happened,” she said.
I volunteered and rushed down the hallway. There were two floors between here and the bridge and I intended to reach them as soon as possible. I found myself stalled momentarily at the elevator which was out of order so I had to proceed up ramps to the upper floor. When I finally made it to the bridge I found the door shut, and the access panel deactivated. I was able to easily open the door manually however, sliding the two segments to the sides. When I entered the crew looked at me expectantly. I saw that the large curved screen that acted as their viewing terminal was blacked out having evidently lost power. When I explained to them what had happened they had this sour look on their faces disturbed by the news. The crew mates were for the most part silent but the captain, a birdlike man with purple feathers asked me about my trip up specifically. I told him about the elevator and the the failing door, and even about the downed communications systems. It seemed that the entire ship aside from the lights was powered down. He confirmed this result with the effects in the bridge. Whereas they had assumed it was a small circuit failure, it seemed that the entire ship was running on emergency power without any indication. While I was concerned for the ship the image of the near dead woman on the floor still haunted my mind. My first instinct was to ask if the medical bay received emergency power. He explained back that, there were three priorities for power in the event of an emergency. The first was life support, which was controlled automatically and consumed the most of the emergency power. The second was medical bays throughout the ship on an as needed basis. Finally the emergency utilities which included lights, single line communication to request help, and the evacuation procedures.
“If we are on emergency power the lights are supposed to dim”. One of the crew noted, “either there is an error in our emergency protocol or the power is just being rerouted. There might be a short circuit in the generator.”
The captain was quick to assign someone to the generator room to check on it. He started handing out other jobs too, checking various areas for any sort of malfunction which might be causing the strange power outage. When the last of the other crew left the room he came to me.
“What is your name?” He asked.
“Nathan” I replied.
“Well Nathan, I must ask you to assist us. Your people have only just been introduced to the ship’s environment,” He said, “ None of you have been trained for emergency procedures, and you will likely slow down our work.I’m sure you are capable of spreading the word that we are in an emergency situation and the captain requires all humans present in the cafeteria. Hopefully we will get this sorted out quickly.” He told me.
“I will tell them. What if they don’t come?” I asked.
“No one would disobey me” He said confidently, “just get them out of the way for now.” With that he left he room.
I doubted everyone would listen, he was right in the fact that we humans were not prepared for an emergency on the ship, most people I knew would immediately try to make their own solution or find their own safe place, but I ran around the ship telling the Captain's orders to whomever would listen. Sending people to the cafeteria, some of them did as I expected running off to find their own solution on whatever inspiration they could find. I imagine I would have done the same had I any idea how I might fix the problem other than stopping others from making it worse.
Alas our problems only grew. One of the last places I went was the observatory the only room in the entire ship allowed to have glass gateways between the void of space and the interior of the ship, airlocked like many of the hallways in the case of a breach. When I arrived there were 4 people in the observatory, all but one of them listened, the last claiming that he would stay in the observatory and look at the rest of the ships. At first I found comfort in the fact there were other ships, colossal arks made for transporting thousands and thousands of creatures at a time. Then I realised the unfortunate fact that all the ships were completely stationary. Every single one was motionless compared to us. That meant that none of us were moving, and that meant that at some point something had put on the brakes, otherwise we’d still be drifting.
My worries were however at the back of my mind perhaps covered over with the idea that some alien science I didn’t understand had overpowered my intuition. I was more focused on getting the man to listen to me and head for the cafeteria. He left before me, and I bore witness to an unfortunate sight. As he left the room and entered the hallway his implant began glowing a bright red, I saw only a moment before his arm exploded next to him. I was still in the observatory, but both rooms were on the exterior hull of the ship. Whatever form of explosive went off in that implant it was bigger than the girl in the hall. This one broke through the plating of the ship. I watched as my only exit slammed shut desperate to save what air was in my room as the air from his jettisoned into space. The glass dome of my room was untouched, but I was now shut off from the rest of the ship.
My concerns seemed to be drawing a bit thin at this point, but I didn’t know which to be more concerned over, the potential that my implant might explode at any second, or that I was trapped in a bubble of air with no external communication to signal for help. I began searching around for anything that might help me.I found a small garden on one side, from the looks of it this room was originally designed to host agricultural supplies. It had merely never been properly filled. I found a garden hose, some farming tools, nothing interesting though. I ended up just waiting. Hoping that someone would come for me when the power came back on.
“SEMI are you there?” I asked, looking for something to distract myself.
“Sorry, SEMI service is currently unavai- wait a minute, how did you end up out here?” SEMI’s voice suddenly cut into her recording.
“I was delivering a message, getting everyone to safety, but someone’s implant malfunctioned and depressurized the next room. I’m stuck here.”
SEMI didn’t respond for a while.
“Communications appears to be down,” SEMI said, “You have no method of rescue.”
“I was just waiting for them to solve the problem, then someone could come get me right? Like bring a space suit or something so I can get in?” I asked
“A space suit is no problem. I can project one for you,” SEMI said, “The hard part will be getting past the internal airlocks. They are not the two section airlocks which allow you to cross over without air loss. They are merely emergency barriers which seal shut in these cases. They can only be overridden by a manufacturer key at a space station. I am cut off from the rest of the ship, but from what I can gather the ship is stationary. Meaning it is doubtful we would arrive before you have consumed all the available oxygen, and other nutrients from this room.”
“So… I am going to die here?” I asked, afraid.
“Not necessarily. External Airlocks can be accessed by anyone from the outside. You would just have to spacewalk to one of them.” She said.
“But one of the internal air locks is holding me into this room,” I explained.
“A room made primarily of glass. When survival is at stake, life always comes before property damage. It will be difficult to break though. It is made to sustain heavy impact.” she informed me.
I spent the next few minutes gathering materials. While my implant could project a space suit, it could not provide propulsion, Once I left the artificial gravity of the observatory I would be left with only momentum to guide me. As such I made sure I was anchored to the ship using the garden hose I found earlier. While I worked, SEMI informed me of all the areas where external airlocks that still had power were on the ship. And the nearest to me was a quarter turn over the edge of the ship, far longer than the hose could reach. I would have to leave it at some point and navigate without aid.
Before I made by venture I asked one more time to see if the ship had come back online. Still no sign of repair. Content that I was on my own, I took the the cart I had piled with lawn equipment, I had SEMI project a space suit for me, and I made sure the hose was firmly bound to my waist.
Final checks complete I charged forward pushing my heavily loaded cart like a makeshift battering ram. The glass wall in front of me shattered and momentum pulled me out into the void spurred further out by the billowing flow of air fighting its way out of the room. Finally the hose went taught and I was yanked back hard. The last thing I remember was seeing the hose housing which was previously bolted to the floor freely floating toward me, the other end of the hose still attached.
Hey there readers, I missed posting for an edition for the first time since I joined this club. To make it up to anyone who cares to read my work I went above and beyond this time, with not only two chapters, but also a independent short story. Thanks again for reading, and sorry to have kept you waiting.