Tinto

Chapter 3

'Captain!'

Shit, why's Cisco banging on my door now. Wait, it's not my door!

'What?' I shouted back, as Jess panicked and started getting dressed.

'The core, it's shut down!'

So? It's in maintenance mode, it's supposed to be shut down. I said as much through the door as I put my flight suit back on and Jess hid behind the door; kind of pointless on hindsight.

I opened the door to see Cisco looking sweaty and pale. Whatever he meant by shut down, wasn't what I thought he meant.

'It's not in maintenance mode, it's completely shut down, dead, no output at all.'

'That can't be right. They don't just go offline. You sure–'

''course I'm sure! Come see for yourself if you don't believe me!'

I nodded and grabbed my boots as Cisco turned and ran off towards the drive room.

Well, looks like our secret isn't all that secret after all.

All four of us stood looking at the anti-matter core. Where we would typically hear the hum of the core and see the multiple displays animated and active, all we saw was a large, lifeless hunk of equipment, nothing more. The core didn't just move us from place to place in space, it also provided all our power, life support, the lot. Oh, and the anti-gravity systems, which just went offline. That draws power through a buffer so that any interruptions in power don't send us floating into each other at an inconvenient moment. Our boots automatically engaged their magnetic anchors when they detected the lack of gravity, so at least we could walk around if a little clunkily.

The anti-matter core itself has a projected runtime of a couple of years without refuelling, and I know we're topped up with gas before we left Mars.

Cisco went over to a console, reset some breakers, flipped some switches and pulled some panels off to gain access to the wiring. Pulling out my tablet, I could see that we were running on reserve batteries for life support and guessed that might last us a week. I ordered Ortis to turn off everything that didn't need to be on, anything that the system hadn't automatically shut down. He was already one step ahead of me on that one.

I sent Jess to the bridge to broadcast a distress signal and find out if there are any other ships in the area. On reflection, the search for other ships would probably be a dead-end if the navigation system was offline already.

'Do what you can, Cisco,' I said, feeling the drop in temperature as life support was reduced to minimum levels.

He gave me the middle finger and was already buried neck-deep in cables and sub-panels, I just needed to get out of his way and let him do what he does best.

'I've launched the emergency beacon, Wren, but the nav system doesn't show any other ships in the L4 or nearby. We're on our own.'

Jess looked ashen, the thought of being stranded out here had clearly shaken her. Time to act all captainy.

'Jess, go to the engine room and assist Cisco with whatever he needs,' I said softly, but firmly.

She looked at me and nodded. We all needed to be busy, not dwelling on what might be.

'What are you gonna do?'

What was I going to do? 'Keep us alive as long as possible, until that core is back online.'

Jess kissed me as she walked past and said, 'Thanks,' which made me smile.

Without the anti-matter core, we had no long-range communications. The beacon Jess had launched could only send a lower power radio signal, so it could be several hours before we got a response. This would only be good for a week anyway, so we would have to hope someone tries to check in from the company and comes looking for us before then.