Chapter X
Rush, Volker, Jonas Quinn and Brody were still on the bridge. Volker was running a diagnostic on the life-support system to see if there were any implications of having additional people aboard Destiny, he figured that Jonas Quinn and his team could somehow be stressing the system and if so what would that imply on the long run. After a few beeps he was informed that everything was within normal parameters, apparently the material that Rush brought up from Novus was perfect for Destiny’s life-support system and they could have the ship completely filled with people that it would run smoothly for a very long time. Jonas was playing around with the menus of his console just to see how it worked, we was fascinated by the technology. Rush was ignoring everyone, like he normally would, and kept writing little calculations on his faithful notepad, Brody was the only one looking out at the planet.
MR. BRODY: What was that?
Everyone stopped doing what they were doing, and looked at the various windows in the bridge.
DR. VOLKER: What?
MR. BRODY: I saw something in the corner of my eye; it looked like a bright light.
They were paying very close attention to the outside of the ship trying to see if they could, in fact, see anything. Jonas was the first to see it again, pointing to the bright light in the far left of his line of sight.
JONAS QUINN: There!
DR. VOLKER: Is that what I think it is?
In that exact moment, T.J. and Varro entered the bridge. They were on their way to get a situation update.
LT. JOHANSEN: What’s going on?
DR. RUSH: It appears that some of the debris have been caught by the gravitational pull of the planet and are beginning re-entry.
LT. JOHANSEN: Will that cause any trouble for our people on the planet?
MR. BRODY: Hard to say. 99% of all debris normally burns up upon re-entry, but if a chunk is big enough it will survive and it may end up crashing in the surface.
JONAS QUINN: Oh, my. That’s a big one.
He was referring to a very sizable piece of debris on the very edge of re-entry. It looked like the entire front end of some kind of ship.
DR. VOLKER: That is going to survive re-entry for sure.
DR. RUSH: I agree. That will cause major destruction and if hits anywhere near our people, well let’s just say, that they could be in trouble.
JONAS QUINN: There must be something that we can do to help them.
MR. BRODY: Like what? We can’t exactly deflect this entire debris field off its orbit.
VARRO: No, but we can destroy them. We can use Destiny’s defence system to obliterate the bigger pieces, so that when they enter the atmosphere they will burn up. It may give the men down on the planet a better chance.
Everyone turned to face Varro; they all had an expression of “Why didn’t I think of that before?” on their faces.
DR. RUSH: That’s not a bad idea, actually. Mr Quinn would you mind sitting in another empty chair, that’s the weapons console.
