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Tynor ran like hell, down corridor after corridor, shoulder-checking the odd crew-member who was too stupid to heed his bellowed warning of “OUTTA-MA-WAY MUTHA- FUCKAS!” Soon the comms system added a warning of its own, which served only to produce quickly thickening crowds of perplexed crew that Tynor now had to elbow his way through.
“Emergency procedure B13. All personnel report to the mess hall immediately,” announced the ship-wide comms.
“Shut the fuck up, dammit!” he shouted back at the automated system.
Two girls from navs collided squarely into him as they exited their quarters. He recognized them immediately as Casey and Stef, and he did not regret at all this unforeseen encounter, though he did regret that he was in way too much of a hurry to stop and make the best of the situation. As it was he did spare three seconds to help Stef to her feet, and offer up a hurried, “Oh sorry ladies! Are you alright? Hey, sorry, I really gotta run!”
As his body continued to race toward engineering deck, his mind began to wander after Casey and Stef. He imagined the two of them begging him not to run off. He imagined them slowly unzipping their jumpsuits.
Suddenly, he was forced back into the present moment as he crashed into Turner, who had just emerged from engineering. Turner was carrying a large portable fire suppressor, which hit Tynor solidly in the chest, nearly knocking the wind out of him as he sprawled to the deck. The hit was hard. He was still breathing, but was seized with another coughing fit.
“Shit, Turner! Watch where you’re going, man!”
“Oh man, I’m really sorry Tynor! Are you OK?”
“I’m fine!” he managed between wheezes, “but listen, I need your help. Grab the chemical analyzer from the blue cabinet would you? I need you to run it back to Hansel on the bridge!”
“Oh yeah, sure. I was just heading up there anyway. They said there might be a fire up there?”
Both men were now scrambling to their feet.
“Yeah man, now hurry it up! Hansel’s waiting for that analyzer so they can figure out how to put out the fire! Oh and you can leave that useless can.” He said gesturing toward the portable suppressor, “It’s some kind of weird exotic oxidizer shit!”
Both men entered engineering deck. It was a mess, as usual, with the long workbenches covered in various half-finished repair projects and hand tools of every description. Above the benches, more tools hung all along the walls from pegboards which looked like they belonged in a 20th century automotive garage. The place smelled like it hadn’t been washed since the 20th century either. Tynor sat down on a ratty old couch in one corner, and watched as Turner jogged over to the blue cabinet and searched for the analyzer.
“What’s this thing look like?” he called to Tynor.
“Umm idunno, it probably says ‘CHEMICAL ANALYZER’ on it!”
“Is this it?” Turner pulled a case from the back of the cabinet and held it up, attempting to read the faded lettering, “‘Jackson-Isaacs power co’ - that’s not it.”
“Look in the back” suggested Tynor, then coughed violently a few more times.
“I AM looking in the back!”
Bryce, the second-lead-engineer, looked up from his work on the bench. Until now he had ignored the other two men. “You don’t sound too good there, Tynor. You want a cup of tea or something?” He approached Tynor, his weathered face showing a level of compassion that was rare in men in his field. He truly cared about his crew, as well as taking care of the “Old Lady,” as he referred to the ship. He set down his wrench and looked straight into Tynor’s eyes, seeing the exhaustion of racking coughing fits and the exertion of a hard run, but seeing also something deeper, something less tangible - some future sense, immediately imminent but not yet understood.
“Stay here,” he told Tynor. Then, striding confidently toward Turner and gently shoving him out of the way, Bryce seized a small nondescript grey case from the back of the blue cabinet, and silently disappeared through the engineering deck hatchway.