59 PERCENT.
Carriles didn’t want to be here, just staring at the numbers. But with power diverted to life support and the lights on the flight deck dimmed, the status screen was the best source of illumination available.
The shields were dropping more slowly than they were before, but whatever relief that offered was erased by the thought of the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the air around him. That, and the odd sensation of his body trying to float out of its chair, kept in place only by the straps over his shoulders. He considered going for an EVA suit, but he knew that wouldn’t fly—he could still make voice commands, but couldn’t manage some of the finer buttons in the bulky suit. Plus, it would be a violation of Delmar’s order.
Which, when it came down to it, a court-martial or dishonorable discharge was better than dying.
But they’d die faster if he compromised his abilities.
Not that there was anything to do but wait.
And wait.
And wait.
57 PERCENT.
Carriles tried to take fewer, shorter breaths.
He kept the shield status in the lower corner of the screen and switched over to the wire logs. Surely Delmar had reported this on his way down to engineering, and maybe the brainiacs on New Destiny had cooked up some kind of solution. Or at the very least, an acknowledgment.
Except, when Carriles brought up the log, he found a blank screen.
Delmar was the only one who had clearance to use the wire, but any senior staff member could read it. Usually, it was just a series of daily status updates, letting the folks back home know that the mission was proceeding as intended. White noise. Carriles figured the blank screen must be a glitch, but after some basic searches, he discovered the entire day’s log had been trashed. That was strange. White noise or not, the wire logs also served as an archive of a ship’s behavior and communications. It was important to preserve. Or so Carriles thought.
He pinged Delmar on the comms. “Captain? Did you report back to New Destiny?”
After a few seconds of static, Delmar responded: “Did you hear back? What did they say?”
“Nothing,” Carriles said. “There’s nothing in the logs. They’ve been erased.”
“God damn it, this ship is failing . . .”
The call cut off. Carriles knew better than to try and raise Delmar again. He was probably in the middle of troubleshooting the issue. Still, that’s three system failures. Systems that weren’t directly related. One is an anomaly, two could be a coincidence.
Three is a pattern.
His train of thought was halted as the doors behind him hissed open. He turned back, expecting to see First Officer Wu, but instead found Lieutenant Aaron Stegman clomping toward him in his magnetic boots, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
And not wearing his EVA suit.
“Captain ordered us . . .” Carriles started.
Stegman waved him off as he plopped down on the open seat next to Jose. “I know what the captain said, dude. If we’re gonna die, I’m not gonna die in one of those suits.”
“Right, but we’re supposed to be conserving oxygen . . .”
Stegman shrugged. “Relax, man,” he said. “Look, it’s simple calculus. We’re gonna live through this and it won’t matter, or we’re gonna die before the air runs out. Here.” He handed a metal carafe to Carriles. “Coffee with a touch of the good stuff. Gonna be a short night or a very long day, so may as well be ready.”
Carriles took the carafe and sipped. Burnt synthetic beans with a dash of battery acid. A little more booze than he would have liked—he needed to keep his head clear—but it’d take the edge off, and that much was a mercy.
He smiled as he handed the container back. Aaron took it, hoisted it in a “cheers” gesture, and took a deep swig.
If he was going to die, there were worse ways to go. Stegman was his only real friend on the ship, the two of them going back nearly as long as him and Timony back on New Destiny. The difference was that Stegman still spoke to him. Might even like him.
Not that he could blame Timony for shutting him out.
It sucks when the difference between a promotion and a demotion is your last name.
“So how long do you think we got?” Stegman asked.
Carriles tapped the screen. 52 PERCENT.
“At this rate, I don’t know, half hour?” Carriles said. “Unless we hit something big. I gotta say, man, you seem pretty relaxed about all this. I know you’re good under pressure, but it’s a real struggle to not literally shit myself.”
Stegman laughed and handed the carafe back to Carriles. “Have some more coffee, it’ll help.”
As Carriles took another swig, Stegman sighed. “You know as well as I do, Jose—this mission came with a lot of dangers, a lot of variables. I made my peace with it before we left port. I figured, hell, even if I die, at least I died doing something great. And whatever mistakes we make here, hopefully the next mission will learn from them.”
Sure, Carriles thought. If New Destiny even knows something is wrong. If the wire was down, if they couldn’t communicate, then this would all be for nothing. The next mission would be starting from the same blank slate they did. There was no scenario where a salvage mission could come out and even examine the wreckage. The ship would either be blasted to pieces or float off into the recesses of dark space, leaving no trail.
The comms lit up. Delmar’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Okay, I think we found the issue. Problem is, we don’t know how to fix it.”
“What’ve you got?” Carriles asked.
“The gravity generator stopped spinning. We could restart it manually, but it would take too long to get up to speed. So, me and the boys in engineering are trying to come up with some sort of solution. How are we doing on shields?”
“Forty-eight percent.”
Delmar sighed. “Okay. Back with more soon.”
Carriles clicked off, ending the call.
“Well, that ain’t great,” Stegman said.
“No,” Carriles replied. “It is not.”
Carriles knew the gravity drives pretty well. He was a pilot first, but Carriles prided himself on being versatile—solid on all fronts. Or at least that had been his goal, back when he considered things like a “career” or “dreams.”
The drives served a couple of purposes: generating the artificial gravity on the ship, but also allowing them to bend both space and time around their route so they could travel at speeds that combated the effect of time dilation. It meant that by the time they arrived, nearly the same amount of time would have passed on New Destiny. Which gave them the added bonus of reporting back to their friends and family, rather than their ancestors.
Or would it be preceptors?
Whatever. Not important.
Carriles also knew the internal mechanism of the engine was a spinning drive—a mini collider that simultaneously generated and exploded gravitational particles in order to release their energy. But it wasn’t something you could just rev up by hand. It moved at impossible speeds, so if the thing was sitting at a dead halt, it’d be at least an hour, maybe two, before it got back up to where it needed to be.
Unless . . .
“You know how bullets work?” Carriles asked. “Like, old bullets, before plasma blasters.”
Stegman shrugged. “Sort of. But enlighten me.”
“The barrels of old-school guns were rifled. There was a corkscrew spin on the inside. It meant when the bullet left the barrel, it was spinning at a high rate of speed. That makes it more accurate. Keeps it centered on its trajectory.”
“I do not like where this is going,” Stegman said with a dry laugh.
“You shouldn’t, because it’s going to suck,” Carriles said.
He paged Delmar. “I have an idea.”
“Talk to me.”
“Keep the drive in an unlocked state. We spin the ship. Get everything on board moving up to speed. But then we stop it, hard and fast. And hopefully, if we’re all still alive, the drive will keep spinning.”
There was a long pause on the other side.
Finally, Delmar said, “Sounds too risky.”
Carriles explained the bullet theory, which would—hopefully—keep them inside the manifold. Delmar was quiet for a beat, then said, “That’s a hell of a maneuver. Think you can pull it off?”
Nope, Carriles thought, but then said, “It’s the best idea we got.”
“Pocket it for now. That’s going to be our last resort. We think we have something . . .”
He was interrupted by a crash and a shudder that, if he wasn’t strapped down, would have knocked him out of his seat. Carriles looked at the shield status.
22 PERCENT.
“The hell was that?” Delmar asked.
“We just hit something big,” Carriles said, his heart slamming in his chest. “Shield integrity just got cut in half.”
“Damn it . . .” Delmar said. “Okay, it’s Hail Mary time. What do we need to do for this spin maneuver?”
“Everyone needs to brace, right now,” Carriles said, prepping the controls to take over manual steering of the ship. “And we just have to hope I don’t pass out before I can stop the spin. Then we all probably pass out or vomit. Maybe both.”
“On my signal.” Delmar’s voice then switched over to the main comms.
“Everyone, this is the captain speaking. Assume brace positions immediately. We’re going to attempt a risky maneuver to get the drives back up. I can’t say it’s going to work, but this is our best option. If it doesn’t, well, you were a hell of a crew and I’ll see you on the other side. Delmar out.”
“I hate you,” Stegman muttered. “Can’t even get on a carousel with my niece without puking.”
17 PERCENT.
“Say you hate me again in ten minutes,” Carriles said. “If we’re still alive.”
Delmar patched into Carriles directly. “Okay. Do it.”
Carriles held his breath, gripped the steering gimbal, and turned hard.
There was no easing into it. You went all in or you didn’t go in at all.
At the speed the ship was moving, it started to spin fast. So fast that Carriles’s vision went blurry almost immediately. And the spin kept picking up speed, until Carriles could barely see in front of him. But he’d already snaked his finger over to the button that would reorient the ship and halt the spin.
At this speed, he wasn’t even sure it would work. They might be moving too fast for the mechanism to kick in. It could break. It could rip them to shreds. It could do nothing. And then they’d just die spiraling, nauseous, and upside down.
Stegman was screaming something, but Carriles couldn’t hear it. He counted to ten in his head, until darkness began to creep around the edges of his vision.
This was it. He’d be a hero, or he’d be dead.
There were worse things.
He pressed the button.
His head jerked back, his stomach lurched, and there was a massive grinding sound.
Then he passed out.