Orpheus

35

"Riley?"

Riley's eyes spluttered open. Her vision was hazy, her heartbeat frantic; it would take a while to adjust. It took her a few more blinks before the world cleared in front of her, and she found Owen staring at her face. She blinked once, twice. His face was inches from hers; she could feel his breath brush off the sides of her cheek.

Fear crept up the sides of her neck; this was all too uncanny. She jerked away instinctively.

"Whoa!" Owen backed off a bit, raising his hands in defense. "Easy, there..." Riley noticed he was panting a bit, sweat glistening off his brow.

Riley glanced around at the others; Elise was knocked out, while Connor appeared to be just stirring.

"You blacked out, along with the others." Owen explained, grabbing a quick look at the rest of the crew. "Are you okay?" he turned back to her, his eyes shining with concern.

The feeling of fear she had dissolved away, replaced by guilt and shame. Riley blinked a bit, before she broke into tears; she hated how she felt, hated that she feared Owen was like Jonathan, hated that she wasn't normal.

She hated it, every bit of it, every bit of herself.

"Hey..." Owen's voice was soothing. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's okay... let it all out..." In that moment, she leaned forward and buried her face in his shoulder, lettin' the dam break completely. The spacesuit chafed 'gainst her face, but she didn't care; she needed the support.

Buried in that moment, she didn't know what she felt, for she felt many things at once; she despised feeling like this.

"Shhhh..." Owen spoke, his hand awkwardly patting the back of her spacesuit. They stayed like that; a few moments of silence stolen, until Riley pulled away and looked at him.

"You okay?" he asked, his brow puckered, hair glistening with sweat, eyes gleaming with concern. She nodded feebly.

"Well, good... good... I suppose, it's a good thing I enabled gravity the last minute." He said with a weak smile. "Wouldn't want the waterworks floating everywhere now, do we?"

Riley tried giving back a feeble smile; the joke didn't help, but at least he'd tried.

"How's the ship doing?" she asked meekly, trying to move her mind onto something else.

"Uhm..." Owen paused for a bit. "Not so good, if I'm bein' honest." He scratched the side of the face. "That wormhole spat us out pretty fast..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we made it here." He turned around for a second towards the front panels, before turning back. Riley got a small glimpse of the blue hue of the neutron star in the distance.

"The bad news though... well the Resilience is screwed up, period; power supply's torn apart completely, and parts of the dining area too." he replied, shaking his head slightly. "We got this far, but now..."

"The incubators?" Riley's eyes widened in fear.

'If something happened to those, all this: futile.'

"They're intact." Owen assured, "Last received status said so anyways." Riley nodded feebly at that.

"Owen..." Connor spoke from behind, unbuckling himself groggily. "Status?"

Owen paused a bit before replying. "We made it through," Riley noticed he was avoiding eye contact. "We also caught all the data from the probes that couldn't get through the wormhole. But the power supply's gone, parts of the other sectors too. And right now we're whizzing towards the solar system, but there's no way I can control us without any power."

Connor's primary response was an inhale as he nodded, processing the information. "Pratham and Olivia?"

For a while Riley had completely forgotten about them; she felt extremely guilty.

"Magnus appears to be docked, but I can't radio." Owen shook his head. "Dunno why."

Connor's face was that of marble "We better go check on them."

"Uh, about tha', um..."

"Well?"

"Well, with the sectors blown apart, there's gotta be like, zero air pressure there." Owen gulped.

There was a small pause.

"So?" Riley asked.

"These crafts weren't designed for opening up in a vacuum." Connor replied. "We'll lose all the air pressure in here; it'll take at least an hour to refill"

A silence descended upon the room. No air; the prospects were frightening.

'Out of the frying pan and into the fire...'

"Owen," Connor asked, "how long till we have to detach?"

"Forty to fifty minutes." He replied grimly.

"And how long will it take me to reach my planet once we do so?"

"Depends on your..." Owen said, walking over to the console; he seemed to be reading something off of a screen. "Based on older estimates, the shortest distance is about forty-five minutes. Longest? Three hours."

"Okay... okay..." Connor began pacing silently in the small space at the back of the craft. "Okay," he spoke up, "we suit up, helmets on." For the first time, Riley thought his eyes looked a bit manic; it scared her a bit. "These things have enough oxygen for five hours so that's well within the time limit. We open the hatch, go load up the incubators and then detach from the Resilience." He paused, waiting for a reply. "Okay?"

Nobody could come up with any better solution.

Riley heard Elise stir in the chair next to hers. "Wake her up." Connor ordered.

'His voice is devoid of any emotion...'

"We have no time to lose."