Drifting Dark

Chapter 3: The Plan

Awkward introductions: Complete.

Awkward personal questions: In Progress.

The hall that was their supposed meeting location had turned out to be the kitchen. Or galley. Or something like that. It was a place to eat food. At least, there was a little rehydration and reheating station in the corner. The basic kind that any child could figure out how to operate.

That seemed to be the only standard piece of equipment in the entire room.

The tables and chairs scattered about the room were all mismatched styles and colours. None of them looked new. Several of them seemed to have additional lighting installed underneath them, with no obvious purpose other than to give the dirty floor a warm glow. Even the window had a faint blue glow around the edges. It felt like someone had been trying to make the place feel more homey.

She understood the feeling.

But it had not what she had been expecting. It almost made her wonder if she'd been assigned to the wrong ship.

It wasn't, unfortunately. The huge map on the wall was a big reminder. Even if the original title had been scratch out and "Saint Joan" scribbled over top.

The diagram showed a detailed overview of the long, thin ship. It was almost a rectangular prism, except for at the rear. There, the engines stuck out on either side, the engineering deck added another three levels below the ship and the shuttle bay jutted out on top. Or vice versa, depending on how you looked at it.

The middle of the ship was all made up entirely of modular storage units, popular back when ships were prefabricated planetside and assembled on-station. Each one had it's own set of maneuvering thrusters and airlocks, allowing temperature and atmospheric controls to be adjusted for each cargo section individually. On the exterior, interconnected corridors and tunnels allowed crew members to traverse the length of the ship without ever having to enter the cargo hold.

She'd gotten lost in that maze earlier. At the time, it had seemed to be the better option. The alternative had been to walk along the huge conveyors of the hold, filled with gigantic shipping containers, which could have begun moving at any moment.

Either way, it was a long trip from the cargo doors at the back to the main habitation area at the front. She hadn't been imagining the distance, which she'd now be covering on daily basis.

That wasn't what worried her.

All over the map, sections were marked off with big, red Xs. A red X was never anything good. There were a lot of them.

She'd took one look at the map when they came in, then ignored it. Staring at it wasn't going to make her feel any better. Besides, she'd already memorized the whole thing. Frustratingly, it was about the only useful piece of information about the ship that she'd found so far.

But it wasn't the only interesting thing in the room.

On the opposite wall, there was a large display mounted. It was cycling through a catalog of photographs, showing a random assortment of landscapes and other planetary surface features. Earth and Mars. Occasionally, people in the background, or foreground. Some of them were crew members. A blue lake with red sand, hills, mountains, oceans...

She kept having to tear her eyes away. It was way more interesting than the current conversation, which had somehow drifted towards recreational activities, or the other crew members lounging about. Everyone else was scattered about the dining area, which struck her as quite oversized for their current contingent.

Danny was at the far end, feet propped up on a chair, engrossed in his portable screen. He'd returned to it the instant he'd finished introducing himself, and hadn't looked up since. He hadn't even moved, as far as Cassie could tell, except to occasionally rub at the silver stud through his left ear.