Drifting Dark

Chapter 13: Below Zero

The chill cut through Cassie's thin shirt like a knife as she ran into the shuttle bay and down the stairs to the dark generator. Even though the scattered space heaters were turned on, their warm orange glow was barely keeping the creeping frost coating the floor at bay. The red warning lights flashed repeatedly, making every shadow dance wildly and drowning out the usual purple glow of the generator.

She'd lost Aqeel somewhere in the corridors. He'd arrived long before her and already removed an access panel from the rear of the generator, leaving nuts and bolts scattered all across the floor. Frost coated the huge metal casing and the wires within. Cassie's eyes wandered over the well-organized switches and labelled pipes as she caught her breath, each pant creating a faint cloud in front of her face.

It felt like only a second had passed before Aqeel noticed her. "Watch that screen." He pointed over at the computer terminal next to the silver cylinder.

"Right," Cassie mumbled breathlessly.

This was the computer connected to the dark generator, the screen set to display it's interior systems, what appeared to be another maze of pipes. It took her a moment to pinpoint the connections to the ship, the output showing an alarmingly high pressure reading conveniently displayed in a little red box. The system was trying it's hardest to maintain the flow rate, but the falling numbers indicated it was already failing.

As she had been ordered, Cassie watched as the pumps hit their maximum power. "The flow rate is falling," she announced.

"Ice has already started building up around the inside of the pipes," Aqeel grumbled, his arm half buried in the guts of the machine. "Damn it."

"So they're freezing?" Cassie's voice fluctuated unevenly.

"As long as there's flow, they won't freeze completely," Aqeel replied. "We still got a chance."

"You're sure about that?" Cassie asked nervously.

"No," Aqeel muttered, his voice eclipsed by an expected grinding sound from the generator.

"We've got a blocked pipe." Cassie scowled. Fluid was still flowing. She'd forgotten that Earth had the need to have triple redundancy on everything.

Aqeel hit the metal casing, making a loud bang that made Cassie jump. "Don't just stare at it," he shouted. "Route around it!"

Cassie followed his order, adjusting the valves accordingly. It did little to remedy the situation. "The temperature is still dropping, the remaining tubes are going to freeze." She watched the sensor readings closely. "Actually, they're already freezing."

"As soon as they freeze solid, we're as good as dead." Aqeel stepped back from the generator, shaking his hands to warm them back up. "Try to reroute as many as you can."

Every time Cassie found a new route, it seemed to close itself off almost immediately. More pipes were freezing. Too many. "There's too many blocks, I can't keep rerouting the coolant," she stated. "It's not going to work."

Aqeel had already crawled back inside the generator. "Forget about cooling the ship, just send everything to the other heating station," he ordered, his voice muffled, followed by a series of snipping sounds. "We only need one anyways."

Cassie found the single valve on the large pipe that ran to the heating stations, the pressure was high, but it was only half open. She could open it further, increase the flow, maybe raise the temperature of the generator back to normal. It would probably work.

She swallowed nervously.

Then she put the command in. An error message appeared, the valve wouldn't open. "We have a problem," she yelled. "I can't open it, it's giving me a control system error."