Another Life (Oc x reader)

Chapter 70 - Sailboat

(S2:E7)
William is in the particle accelerator room alone. "Okay, let's see what happens if I increase proton output by 0,68 percent."

"William?" Ethan's voice echoes in the room. William turns and see him but then he glitches and disappears.

He closes his eyes. "Ethan Stone is not on this ship. Now, if I were to increase output by 0,1 percent.."

Energy build but then fades. The screen says 'Exotic Matter Deficiency'.

"Deficiency?"

He disappears and reappears in the mess hall, seeing workers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What are you doing? This tubing reroutes exotic mater from this chambers artificial gravity system back to the particle accelerator."

A woman walks up to him. "Is there a problem?"

"Yes there's a problem. Our FTL drives won't work without sufficient exotic matter."

"The Salvare's FTL systems are being decommissioned."

He frowns. "Commander Stone and Yn is still out there. Alive! This is a death sentence."

"The president disagrees, or doesn't care. And I take my orders from him. Get back to work." She tells them and leave.

"William." He hears your voice and turn toward it, there you stand. "I'm here. We're both here. You just have to find us."

"No, you're not. This is just a glitch in my optical matrices." He says and you glitch away.

...

You and Ethan are working on his plan together on the Salvare. Richard walks in with a whistle. "Turning the Salvare into a sailboat."

"We're not turning it into anything. We are just replacing one of the sail. We're gonna hitch a back ride to Earth." Ethan tells him. "But if you have a better idea, please.."

"Polynesians settles the South Pacific using nothing more than double-hulled canoes. But they had wind."

"And we have lasers. Photons, actually. And if we blast enough of them at the sail, we'll make our way back to the colony planet."

"Away from our last known coordinates."

"We have been sitting here for a week, Richard." Ethan reminds him. "If Iara could've opened that wormhole by now, she would have done it."

"And what if they do tomorrow and we're not here?"

"Then they will pick up our distress signal and they will follow our trail."

"I'm gonna go get some more." You say and leave the room, to get more of something you need for the sail. Ethan watch you leave.

"Your ship goes down, you stay where it sank." Richard tells him.

"The Salvare hasn't sunk!" Ethan tells him in frustration. "We have two choices. We either sit here and wait for a rescue that is never gonna come, or we move. We take control. We save ourselves.. We save Yn."

Ethan walk over to the table with a sigh, throwing a tool on it and putting his hands on his hips. He needed to save you. Then you walk back in.

Richard sighs. "Any beaches on that colony planet?" He says just as you're walking back in.

"You know, I think I forgot my bikini." You say.

"Clothing's overrated." Richard chuckles. "Call me when you're ready to.. hoist this. I could do with a space walk."

You smile with a nod and get back to work. Ethan looks at you for a moment, before getting back to work too. The two of you have been working non-stop for the last week, only sleeping when you've basically passed out and started working again when you've woken up. It's been a little tense but none of you have tried talking about it, only focusing on surviving.

...

The sails are up and lasers are making your ship moving. You're smiling at the screen in the observation deck.

"It's working." Richard says, impressed.

"It's working." Ethan smiles happily. "But let's not get ahead of ours. Estimated time to reach colony planet at projected maximum speed?"

You tap in the calculation on your screen. "Ten days, six hours, 14 minutes and 40 seconds." You smile. "More than enough oxygen."

"Yes. But if we were to recalculate the ideal angle of the sail, we might be able to shave off a few days." Ethan says and walk over to a computer.

"Ethan, stop." You say. "When was the last time you ate?"

"I'll take a protein bar." He brushes it off.

"No. Something substantial."

"When was the last time you took a break? Slept?" Richard asks both of you.

You look at him, you've been a little better than Ethan at getting some sleep and eating properly, but Ethan hasn't. Whenever you tried to make him he had avoided it, sometimes he took it but forgot to eat. If you had practically yelled at him to go take a nap, and he was on his way to his quarters to sleep, he had always come up with something on the way that he needed to do and never made it to the bed.

"I'm fine." Ethan says, his hand is shaking on the screen. You take his hand.

"You're not." You tell him, and he sighs. "I'll go get you some more food."

"I'm not hungry, Yn." He tells you.

You still just head for the mess hall, but Richard stop you.

"No. You guys are both gonna take a break." He tells you. "Let's build up your appetite."

...

Richard rolls the makeshift ball toward the empty containers that are supposed to be bowling pins. He misses terribly and you both laugh at him.

"One more time! One more time!" He runs to get the ball and try again.

Next round is your turn, you get most of them down and they cheer for you. Ethan goes next and it goes on like that for a while. All of you having fun.

"Yeah, if you knock, you win."
"Ohh!"
"You got this!"
"Yeah!"
"You cheated!"
"I did not!"
"Whoo!"
"What are you doing? That's not helping!"
"Of course it's helping."
"Boom!"
"Did you see that!?"

It's your turn to put the pins back up and to ask a question. "Best meal you have ever had?"

"Ah! Simple steak frites at this little tavern in Lisbon." Richard answer. "It was served with this mouthwatering peppercorn sauce. Yn, Ethan.. it was so good. Anyway, I checked. We have powdered potatoes, powdered cream, ground pepper, and a cow's worth of beef jerky."

"Good. That's great." Ethan chuckles. "Okay. Best out of three, cause I'm not cooking."

"Oh, no, no. Okay, you know what we can all make dinner, cause now I'm starving." Richard says.

"No, I'm just getting warmed up." Ethan says and takes the ball, getting ready to throw again.

"I know you were, but I was winning." Richard says and dances his way toward the mess hall.

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