Deep: The Marathon Incident

Chapter 1

The angry buzzing of a personal alarm awoke Eric. He opened his eyes and groaned. A full week of dealing with this problem and he had nothing to show. And the bi-weekly Officer meeting was in three hours at ten hundred.

'Man, you look like an asteroid hit you,' said his roommate Jr LT Kal Jung-Su.

'That bad huh.' Eric said, staring at the roof of his bunk.

'What's wrong you look like a man about to be kicked into a singularity?'

'I have nothing to show at today's meeting.' Eric said his dread increasing.

'Really? That sucks.' Kal said.

'Yeah, tell me about it. I can't find anything wrong with the system. I can't find anything in the literature to explain what's going on. And I don't know what to do now.'

'Well, if you can't find anything you report that. The commander it's not a beast you know.' Kal said and swung a towel over his shoulder.

'I know it's just that I don't want to disappoint. She gave me this to do personally, and Cheng has been supportive throughout this entire ordeal. I feel like I failed them both.'

'Careful now the commander is off-limits.'

'It's not about that.' Eric said defensively, his ears reddening.

'Sure Eric I 100% believe you. Let's be real, almost every man on this ship and quite a few women would like to get together with our commander. Me included. Besides, she's a career officer in charge of a ship nobody's got a chance not as long as they are members of this crew.' He said, flung his towel over the door, entered the shower and closed the door. Soon Eric heard a sound of running water as his roommate took his bath. He had to admit that the other junior lieutenant had him figured, he was attracted to the commander. Eric however was no child, and mature enough to understand she was unavailable.

His comms chimed it was commander Tara Benzakour. He sat up with a start, swallowed hard and answered the communication.

'Yes Commander?'

'Good morning Mr Chen, did I wake you?'

'No Commander you didn't.'

'Good. Have you had any success?'

Eric hesitated for a moment. 'I'm sorry ma'am I have discovered nothing that would explain the reactor's behaviour.'

'I was afraid you were going to say that.' She said frowning.

'I'm sorry Commander.'

'It's all right Mr Chen I have the whole of fleet engineering shrugging their shoulders at me.' Her tone while supportive made him feel worse. 'Okay Mr Chen, continue with your efforts, and you can skip today's meeting.'

'Understood Commander.'

'Oh Mr Chen, I have full faith in your abilities to figure out what is the cause of the plasma oscillations in the reactor.'

'Thank you for your faith ma'am. I will redouble my efforts.'

'Mr Chen, there aren't enough hours in the day for you to do that, just continue with what you're doing right now.'

'Understood.'

'Good out.' The commander said and her image faded.

***

'I wonder if I'm pressing him too hard?'

'Well add another one to the confirmed Tara brigade.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' She asked, giving her XO Suheil an icy stare. He did not flinch under a glare that would make many underlings void their bowels.