Xenos

iv. Discovery: June 27, 2126

"Must you goad him on?" Cin sighed, pushing herself up out of the chair. She went to Galen and laid her hand on his arm, craving a private moment.

"He needs to keep a more level head. I'm surprised that he made the cut for missions." Galen was referring to the criteria that they all had to pass. Before going on any missions, they all had to take this boring test where they had to circle one of three answers; supposedly, the answers were meant to check your emotional stability for high stress environments.

"Galen."

"I'll try to avoid taking my frustration out on Drake," he said, pretending to be annoyed, but he was smiling as he teased her.

"Good. We need him." She looked back at the panel in the center of the room where the large vid-screen was housed. "You really didn't hear the call?" she asked, frowning. Cin moved closer to the vid-screen where the details of the call remained. There was no indication that something had gone wrong with the screen or connection, so it was strange that Galen hadn't answered.

Galen shook his head. "Nothing. If I had heard it I wouldn't have stayed in the cockpit. I know Drake thinks I'm irresponsible but I wouldn't shirk my duties on purpose." It was standard to leave the Captain in charge when anyone went out on spacewalks because he was the highest ranking member on the ship, but occasionally other members were left in charge if they were deemed responsible enough. Galen had been sitting at the table watching the vid-screen up in the communications center when they left. With the openness of the bridge, any call that came through on the vid-screen should have been audible no matter where you were on the bridge, even the pilot's cockpit. Galen stepping into the side room where the ship was piloted shouldn't have caused him to miss the call. Not normally, at least. It wasn't exactly the most subtle noise.

She nodded, lines of concern spreading across her face like cracked earth. "Communications must be down in here, too. We just didn't notice because we were worried about the connection to the base. I'd better check all of the systems." She was stopped by Galen's hand on her arm. His grip was light, but persuasive enough to keep her from her duties for a moment.

"Hey," he said, pulling her closer, the heat rising off of his body warming her when it came into contact with her chilled skin. "I'm sorry." Leaning down he pressed his lips to hers and for a moment Cin allowed herself to melt into the assuredness of his warmth, losing herself in the solidness of his arms. Then she pulled away.

"We're on duty," she reminded him, though her body was telling her to respond differently. It wasn't often that a couple were granted permission to work together on the same mission. The higher-ups thought it would cause complications. It often did. For Galen, it was another perk of being one of the best pilots the Earth Space Corps had on their roster. All they'd needed to do was file the paperwork and keep their hands to themselves while on duty.

He acquiesced, allowing the small space to remain between them. "We'll have tonight," he said simply, the promise in his words causing a shiver of anticipation to tiptoe its way up her skin like the caress of a feather.

Cin took her leave, heading to the side of the room that was taken up by vid-screens, wires, and panels of buttons and keyboards that was the domain of the Communications Officers. She walked up the short set of stairs that kept the center separate from the dining and meeting area of the bridge. With the exception of the medbay, anything important was located here on the ship. It made for crowded quarters. The center was arguably in the best location on the bridge. It overlooked the rest of the room and allowed them to view the main screen used for contacting the base.

The lights on the main dash were flickering scarlet, saffron, and emerald, giving her hope that their spacewalk had been successful. Cin sat down in front of the panel and began to check various connections, namely the direct link back to the Earth Space Corps base in Siero. It glowed a bright green. Cin leaned back in relief. Their spacewalk had worked.

Unfortunately, inspecting the rest of the panel yielded different results. "Inter-ship communications are down," she yelled to Galen. That would explain why he hadn't heard the call come in. Tapping her chin with her finger, Cin surveyed the panel critically. There were two things she could do: try to repair the links from her end or manually reset all of the vid-feeds. One was easier to do than the other.

Her fingers flew across the keys as she input details and commands, telling the system to reboot the vid-screens from the main system on the ship. Pale green text started spreading across the video panel in front of her as each command was logged but not implemented. After yet another Command Not Received flashed across the screen, Cin groaned in frustration and pushed her seat away from the panel. "This is going to take forever," she said to herself as she stood and looked one last time at the long list of failed commands.

There was nothing she could change and moaning about it would only make the tedious task longer. The only way that things would change was if she went and repaired them herself. She wished that she had Drake to help her but he hadn't yet returned from the medbay. Cin didn't blame him. It was probably best that he had a little cool down time anyway.

Behind the main screen was a panel where multiple wires snaked around each other and the connection hubs used to link the main screen to the rest of the ship. Out of all of the wires there, she could only ignore the two that were necessary for contacting Earth. The rest dealt with inter-ship connections. Briefly she wished that she could ignore all of them, but the sooner she started the sooner everything would be working again. Luckily it was simple to get the connection up and running again. Just a nuisance. Shutting the panel with a click, she stood up straight and stretched before heading on.