The Seventh | A Dark Matter Fanfiction | Two (Portia Lin)

Chapter 70

Seven groaned as he regained consciousness, his head pounding. Around him, Two and Three were also beginning to stir.

Two blinked a few times, trying to shake off the disorientation. "Android, what just happened?" she asked, her voice still groggy.

"Unknown. I was temporarily offline," the Android replied over the comms.

"Yeah, you're not the only one. I think I passed out," Two said, rubbing her temples as she struggled to stand.

Seven, still feeling the effects of the sudden wave, reached out and helped Two to her feet. "Is Five okay?" he asked, looking around.

Five's voice came through the comms, shaky but audible. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sort of..."

Two steadied herself and activated her comms. "Six, come in. Six, do you read?"

There was a moment of static before Six's voice groaned through the channel. "Yeah... This is Six. I'm reading you."

"Hey, you all right?" Two asked, concern evident in her tone.

Six groaned again, the sound of him shifting in the background. "What the hell was that?"

The Android's voice came through the comms, calm and precise. "I've run an analysis. The ship was hit with some kind of electromagnetic pulse."

Two frowned, still feeling the lingering effects of the pulse. "Are we under attack?"

"Negative," the Android replied. "I believe the pulse emanated from the Blink Drive."

Three, rubbing his temples, looked incredulous. "Please don't tell me you turned that thing on again. I thought we talked about this."

Five's voice cut in, defensive but worried. "We didn't turn it on. We were just running a diagnostic."

"It would appear the Drive self-initiated," the Android explained.

Six, still sounding groggy, asked the question on everyone's mind. "How is that possible?"

The Android hesitated, processing the data. "Theoretically... it's not."

<>

They walked into the bridge, tension evident amongst the crew as they tried to make sense of their situation.

"Where are we?" Seven asked, scanning the unfamiliar star field outside.

The Android's fingers danced over the controls. "I'm not sure. The navigational computer is having trouble fixing our position because the stars appear to be out of alignment."

"Was the computer damaged by the pulse?" Two questioned, her concern growing.

Five shook her head. "I double-checked the system. Seems fine."

"I found something," the Android announced. "This is a magnified image of the nearest star, approximately half a lightyear away. Mass and spectrographic analysis show it to be an exact match for Pollux."

Two frowned. "We were just in the Pollux system."

"That's correct," the Android confirmed.

"So we just traveled half a lightyear?" Six asked, perplexed.

Five interjected, "That still doesn't explain why the stars are out of position."

The Android's eyes glowed slightly as she processed more data. "Maybe it does. Standby. I need to reconfigure our star maps to confirm my hypothesis."

Three looked skeptical. "What hypothesis?"

After a moment, the Android spoke again. "Hypothesis confirmed. We didn't move at all. Pollux did. As well as all of the other stars."