The Madman's Clock

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

We followed the ensign through engineering, doing our best to avoid being trampled by other engineers rushing this way and that, on their way to a seemingly endless series of emergencies. Through the blaring alert sirens, the pulsing red lights, and the thin haze, eyes watched us as we passed. We stood out, not because we wore CEVA suits, or because we were armed, but because we were the only ones who seemed calm. We were also the only ones walking. Everyone else was running.

The ensign led us through several large compartments, each seemingly more chaotic than the last. The ceiling was high in this part of the ship, but conduits and pipes ran in every direction, giving the area a closed-in feeling. The swarms of engineers, all working in concert, made me think of an ant colony under attack. The consoles blinked more reds and blues, and less and less green. Whatever the details of the accident, it had wrought havoc with this end of the ship.

I watched as three engineers, junior crewmen not much beyond nineteen or twenty years old, race to halt some manner of equipment failure. Their fingers danced across the keys of the console they operated, moving faster than I could follow. The displays in front of them blinked with red lights, as the computer showed them an endless cascade of system failures. The two young men worked furiously to carry out the orders of the woman coordinating their efforts. Her face was covered in sweat, but her eyes never left the screen as she worked the controls and barked orders. The two men watched her as she worked, trying to keep pace with both her orders and her own work. As soon as one area of the display turned green, another would go red.

We were led out of the forward compartments, into the engine room itself. I was instantly hit with a wall of humidity and heat. I felt like I was drowning. The yelling, sirens, and rumblings were deafening. The massive compartment filled four full decks, and the catwalks reached port to starboard, forward to aft, all surrounding the massive twin fusion reactors which loomed over us like two masses in a metal spider's web. The floor was littered with debris. We had to climb over a collapsed girder. Spent fire extinguishers lay everywhere, as did equipment torn up by what was obviously a massive explosion.

Crews crawled over the port reactor like insects, using safety wires to lower themselves down from the highest catwalks like spiders. I noticed that one such engineer hung limp. Nobody seemed to bother taking her down. They were too busy. The port reactor's right side companion seemed alright for the moment, though several engineers were frantically taking readings at its base, screaming in each others' ears as they discussed the readings from their instruments.

It was then that I noticed several still bodies lying on the floor, against a wall. As we passed them, I saw that they were all burned. Of the five I counted, three were horribly burned, but only on one side. The other two were burned only on their fronts. Where the burns covered them, their uniforms were gone, seared away along with their skin. I looked back to the port reactor, and immediately understood what had happened. A massive stream of steam erupted from the reactor, right where an engineering station was located. These unlucky crewmen must have been working there when the breach occurred.

I turned and caught David's gaze. He was trying to assess exactly what had happened here, but this was way out of his area of expertise. He just shook his head at me.

"How bad?" I asked, yelling above the deafening commotion.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Pretty bad, I think." He pointed to the port reactor. "Look at the buckling along the side!"

The reactor's outer skin seemed warped, and in one area collapsed like an accordion. Sparks flew, and a stream of steam shot out through a large, gaping hole. A team of engineers, a dozen or so, were fighting to reinforce it. Most were dressed in hazard suits, but some were not. Obviously, everybody was more focused on stopping whatever was going on, than worrying about personal safety. I had seen situations like this before, soldiers forgetting to put their helmets on, or medics forgetting their gloves. It spoke of a deep sense of panic in the face of an extreme emergency.