The Imposter Among Us

Chapter 3

The sight in Navigation wasn't the gory one Oscar's anxiety had prepared him for, and thank god for that.
Instead he walked in to find Robbie holding Matt to the ground with his arms pinned behind his back. He had a quickly forming black eye and was squinting in the rather dim navigation lights. Matt didn't appear to be much better. His nose was bleeding and bent the wrong way as his head was smushed into the floor.
"What is going on in here?" Oscar demanded, marching into the room.
"He started it!" Matt exclaimed. This was met with further force and he let out a small yelp.
Oscar looked toward Argyle. They were standing on their knees in the pilot's seat, hands off the wheel and watching with shock written all over their face.
He swiftly crossed to the others and said, "Robbie. Explain."
The taller man shook his head and announced, "this guy's stopping me from doing something important."
"Am not!" Matt protested from the floor, "you're trying to hijack our job!"
"Let him go."
Robbie glanced between Matt and Oscar before saying, "sorry Cap I can't! There's something I need to say and—"
"Robert. As your Captain I am commanding you to get off of him," Oscar interrupted, stepping forward to get into Robbie's personal space.
There was a moment of silence as Robbie seemed to consider before he let go of Matt's arms and stepped off of him.
Matt groaned as he sat up, rubbing his wrists. "Break all of my bones, why don't you," he mumbled, glaring daggers.
Oscar ignored him and turned to the disregarded pilot. "Argyle, can you tell me what happened?" He asked.
Argyle opened their mouth to speak, but quickly closed it, shaking their head.
"Why—" Oscar sighed and rubbed his temples. "Alright then. We'll solve this later. Can I trust the two of you to walk to Medbay without attacking each other?"
Matt scrambled to his feet and announced, "he's the one who jumped me!"
Robbie took a small step towards the door and replied, "yeah well you should've listened to me! I'm trying to help!"
"Oh yeah. Trying to steal the wheel. That's really helpful!" Matt shouted, taking an aggressive step toward Robbie.
Oscar stepped between the two, holding his hands out to keep them separated. "Alright clearly not. It doesn't matter who did what both of you are in deep shit." The serious tone of his own voice intimidated even him, and clearly the other two as they both shut up.
He turned to Argyle and began to ask about the fight again, but was distracted by a web of color growing nearer in the front window. It seemed like a nebula, but opposite almost. Instead of stars there were vacuums of black, almost like a dozen black holes. Moving between them were rivers of brilliant colors; purples, blues, and pinks mingled as they flowed between the different points, forming a net of sorts. Oscar couldn't help but stare at it, mesmerized as he did.
Somewhere under the dominating space lights, Oscar heard Robbie start speaking. "That's what I was trying to--"
The ship passed through the field and the floor jolted suddenly, knocking all three of the men off their feet. In the distance, Oscar heard a shout and then the lights shut off and everything was quiet. No hum of the engine or whir of the air vents.
Oscar held his breath, trying to decide what to do. What had happened? What went wrong? Did he need to grab his helmet? Panic began to well up in his chest as crash lights flickered in the back of his mind.
The stillness quickly passed as the buzz of the backup generator kicked on and the emergency lights flickered on along with seemingly a million errors on his screen.
Oscar just about screamed. He cursed them by being late! Goddammit! The surge of panic paused, but didn't go away. That was a panic attack for later.
"Alright," he said, trying to keep his voice even and calm, but still firm. "Robbie, Matt, I need you two to walk down to Medbay and get yourselves taken care of."
He turned to Argyle who now had their back turned, flipping switches and checking displays. They turned back to him and shook their head.
"See if you can get us online," Oscar said, pausing a moment before adding. "But don't spend too long. I'm gonna check that we're stable then gather everyone into the cafeteria."
With his orders issued, Oscar pivoted on his heel and walked back out into the hall. It was far darker now, the path lit only by small emergency lights in the floor. Oscar rounded the corner to Comms and walked in.
Carmen's face was illuminated by a single monitor. It displayed a large red error message, which Carmen was typing furiously to try and fix.
Oscar cleared his throat and asked, "comms down?"
Carmen jumped out of their chair and spun around to face him, shoulders tense and face scrunched up. When they saw him they seemed to relax, but not very much.
"Damn network shut off with the computers," they said, gesturing to the screen. "Can't get anything up."
"Okay. I need you to get people to the cafeteria for an emergency meeting. If anything is in a critical state find me," he stated, looking out into the hall and listening.
They stood up and tapped their keyboard a few times to no effect. "Yessir," they said, more of an acknowledgement he had spoken than an agreement, but they proceeded to leave the room regardless.
Oscar followed them out and tried to remember the key 3 things to keep the crew alive. O2 was definitely one, but what were the others? He couldn't remember so he turned back around and jogged towards the small oxygen room.
When he entered, Becca was standing over the filtration system, scrolling on her holoscreen and occasionally clicking on something. She looked between the screen and system frequently.
"Is it working?" Oscar asked.
Becca spun around in an instant and yelped. She stared at him with raised shoulders and a clenched jaw. She quickly dropped the tension from her body as she spotted Oscar.
"Sorry," she said, turning halfway back around to face the oxygen systems. "What'd you say?"
"I was just wondering if O2 is up and running," Oscar said, remaining in the doorway to the small space.
Becca nodded and dragged some things on her screen. "Yeah it seems so, and thank heavens. We'd be in like suuuuuper trouble town otherwise," she replied.
Laughter bubbled up in Oscar's chest. "Trouble town. Yeah no kidding. You have everything handled here?" he asked.
She turned and flashed him a thumbs up followed by a wink and then a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry I have no idea what i'm doing," she muttered, turning her back to Oscar.
"We're trying to have an emergency meeting in the cafeteria, as soon as everything looks stable come join us," Oscar said before ducking out of the room and down the hall.
He made his way back to the cafeteria where a few crewmates were already assembled. He recognized Maisy first, his stomach twisting as they made eye contact. He shoved it right back down. He was a grown-ass man; this was ridiculous. They were in a crisis.
Next to Maisy was Erica. She seemed to be occupied with her own nails and completely unbothered by the crisis at hand. Oscar was struck for a moment with the contrast between her and the last nuclear scientist he'd flown with.
Shaina and Carmen walked in from the upper engine and sat down beside each other at the table. The two seemed consumed by quiet conversation and didn't seem to register the others around.
Soon enough, the rest of the crew trickled in. Oscar did a quick head count before clearing his throat and speaking.
"So the ship's power went out, I think we all know that."
He was met with silence with a few head nods sprinkled in. His stomach twisted into even tighter knots as blank stares met his gaze.
"We uh-- that ain't good." he said. Great going Oscar really doing well. He tried to clear his head and think of something to say, try to remember what exactly he wanted to talk about. He needed to stall didn't he.
"We hit something weird in space. I don't know what it is, I sure don't think I ever learned about it in astronomy. Doubt anyone else did either. So we are in completely uncharted territory."
Robbie's hand shot up into the air and he bit his lip, rocking back in his seat.
Oscar vaguely gestured to him and said, "Yes Robbie?"
"I uh- I might know what it is," Robbie said. He glanced around the room and his eyes locked onto something over Oscar's shoulder. He turned around to spot a camera, trained directly on the table. The light wasn't blinking, so it was off, right?
He turned back to look at Robbie and announced, "Well by all means explain. We're on our own out here and gonna be in some deep shit if we can't get going again."
Robbie nodded and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and started to speak. "I guess saying I know what it is isn't right. Nobody really knows what's up with the funky space matter."
"Nobody? As in other people know about it?" Becca piped up, leaning forward on the table. She looked as eyes turned to her and shrunk down. "Sorry."
"Don't be," Robbie said, nodding. "Other people know about it, but it's being kept on the down low. A year or so ago a small fleet of star fighters got lost and flew right through it. They came back and reported all kinds of bizarre bullshit, I don't really know. The ESST has been trying to use robots to figure out what it is."
This time Maisy interrupted, crossing her arms and seeming far less interested in general. "Lemme guess. We're the human guinea pigs right here."
Robbie pursed his lips and nodded silently.
"Why tell us now, then?" Carmen asked, "why wait until we are thoroughly fucked."
Shaina rested a hand on their shoulder. "I'm sure there was a reas--"
"Not a good enough one!" Carmen exclaimed, throwing their hands up in the air. "We're sitting ducks!"
"I agree with Devil Horns here," Maisi said, jutting her thumb in Carmen's direction.
Robbie shrunk down under the gaze of his peers. He rested his elbows on the table and buried his head in his hands. "I know. I know. I thought I could stop it myself."
"Oh you thought you could fix it, huh?" Maisy asked with a sneer, her tone malicious and mocking. "Big strong man over here too macho us."
"I didn't--"
"Thought you could be the hero of the story huh?" she continued, standing up to pace around, "Oh thank you great savior! We bow to you!"
Robbie pulled his head up again and turned to state Maisy straight in the eyes. "I'm sorry, alright? I wasn't supposed to know about this either. I can only imagine what would happen if I told you guys and ruined their precious experiment." He spat out the last words with malice that surprised Oscar.
"Alright," he said, putting his hands up, "alright let's stop this. Fighting isn't gonna do us any good."
Maisy rolled her eyes and sat back down. Robbie's shoulders dropped as he closed his eyes and nodded.
"We should be worrying about fixing the ship so we can get out of here before anything bad happens," he said, glancing at the others.
Becca nodded and folded her hands, glancing around at the others around her. Argyle sat silently, pulling their hair straight before letting it bounce back to it's curls. Matt sat beside them, sulking and glaring daggers at Robbie.
"No shit sherlock," Carmen mumbled under her breath. Oscar shot them a look and they immediately looked away, the slight tinge of blush flushing their pale cheeks.
Of course something this bad would go wrong on his watch, what was Oscar thinking? He hadn't been on a ship in years he couldn't handle this. He was rusty and didn't know what he was doing and god it was getting hard to breath wasn't it? Was Becca sure O2 was working?
Oscar met Hayes's eyes and he smiled at him ever so slightly. He could come up with a plan. He could do this.
Oscar tried to take a deep breath and maintained subtle eye contact with the doctor as he continued. "We need to make a full inventory of what's malfunctioning, offline, et cetra. All life supporting systems seem to be online." He glanced over at Becca who gave him a thumbs up.
"Yessir. Oxygen is up and running, and we have enough food and water to last us for a bit," she said.
Oscar nodded. "Good. everyone log what exactly needs fixing and get on it. The sooner we can get back online, the better."
Nobody seemed to have anything snarky to say to that. Oscar felt the knots in his stomach start to untie themselves as he kept talking.
"Until Comms are back on, it's going to be tricky to organize everything, so be prepared for frequent check ins so I can keep track of what's done. Any questions?"
Matt spoke up. "Yeah I got a question," he said, "what can I do to help? Like... I don't think being able to pilot a ship will be useful until it's like... working, yeah?"
Oscar nodded, "yeah yeah I see what you're saying." He thought for a moment, running over all the different things that could use fixing. "I'd say first priority is getting power back on, so if Maisy or Shaina need any help I'd start there."
Maisy snorted. "I don't want anyone else's filthy paws on my precious wiring."
"Noted," Matt said, side-eyeing her as he turned to Shaina.
Shaina shrugged. "I don't know exactly what i'll need help with, but I wouldn't mind an assistant."
"If everyone understands what's happening, then sounds like we should get going," Oscar stated. "Go team go."
Carmen had the courtesy to cover their laugh as they got up and left, shaking their head as they went. Maisy was not nearly as kind.
The rest of the crew dispersed as quickly as they had come together, all scattering to different parts of the ship to do their jobs.
Only Hayes hung back, waiting until everyone was out of the room. He leaned against the table and said, "good talk, huh?"
Oscar rolled his eyes. "Don't you even start."
"Me? I would never!" Hayes replied, but his snarky grin suggested otherwise.
"Did you need something?"
Hayes straightened up and readjusted his suit, saying, "no just wanted to let you know you did good. I'm off to medbay."
"Oh! Speaking of! How're Matt and Robbie?"
Hayes sighed and shrugged. "Orange--
"Matt."
"Whatever. He had a broken nose, so not much I can do about that."
Oscar nodded.
"White might have a concussion, couldn't really check before being interrupted," he said, pausing for a moment. "It's weird referring to a black man as White, huh?"
"Very. I'd learn some names," Oscar replied. "Thanks for the update, Dr. Harvard."
He nodded and gave Oscar a small salute. "Yeah. Good luck with whatever you're gonna do now, Captain." And with that, Hayes ducked into medbay and disappeared from sight.
Oscar released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He made it through, that had to count for something. As he stared out the small Cafeteria window, he couldn't help but try and think up some sort of backup plan for anything that could happen next.
Nothing that Oscar could have imagined would have prepared him for the true hell that awaited him in the coming days.