Draft 2

Day 1, Transit to Charon Outpost

“Engaging main thrusters.” John moved his hands over the primary flight console.

“Gyros stabilizing,” Ingrid said.

Helen braced herself in her seat at the engineering station. She watched her monitor as the Persephone’s faster-than-light slip-drive spooled up.

She felt the floorboards vibrate as the thrusters fired, pushing the ship away from Luna Hub. Then a wave of G-force hit the bridge, pressing Helen back into her seat.

“Slip-drive is at ninety percent,” Ingrid called out over the roar of the engines. “We are breaking orbit.”

Suddenly, an alarm blared through the rumble. Helen’s console flashed red.

“Captain, we have a pressure spike in Vent Network Three.” Helen isolated the warning. “The launch vibration probably knocked a secondary coolant valve loose. If it blows, the slip-drive is going to overheat before we even clear the moon.”

“Handle it, Helen,” John said, focused on the viewport. “We can’t abort the launch sequence now.”

“On it.”

The moment the G-forces leveled out into standard acceleration, Helen unbuckled her harness. With the hydrospanner still attached to her belt, she bolted off the bridge.

Minutes later, Helen was wedged inside a freezing, poorly lit ventilation shaft near the aft engine block. The space was cramped, and the walls vibrated as the ship continued to accelerate.

“Madam, the structural integrity of this secondary valve is currently degrading at a rate of four percent per minute.” Unit Seven hovered inches from her ear, his blue optic strobing against the walls. “If the pressurized liquid nitrogen breaches the seal, we will be instantly flash-frozen.”

“I’m aware, Seven. Shine some light my way.”

Seven illuminated the vibrating valve. Helen reached out, fitting the micro-hydraulic head of her hydrospanner around the frozen bolt.

Before she could engage the torque, the ship shuddered as the slip-drive hit its final gear. A wave of magnetic interference rippled through the shaft.

Seven’s voice cut out and his blue optic dimmed to a dull gray.

“Seven?”

The little drone’s legs locked up, his rotors dying instantly. He dropped out of the air like a stone. Helen lunged, catching him in her left hand just before he plummeted down the vertical drop of the shaft.

“Damn recycled hardware.” Helen tucked his lifeless body into her breast pocket.

Helen gripped the hydrospanner, thumbing the activation switch. The tool applied torque that Helen’s arm alone could never produce. With a screech, the valve turned, locked, and sealed.

The hissing of escaping coolant stopped. Her datapad blinked green.

Helen sighed, her breath pluming in the freezing air. She pulled Seven out of her pocket and popped open his casing. Carefully, using the tip of a micro-driver she kept in her sleeve, she nudged his primary processor bridge and manually reset his micro-matrix.

She tapped his chassis twice.

Seven’s optic flickered, then flared a bright, steady blue. His rotors whirred back to life, lifting him out of her palm.

“System reboot successful,” Seven vibrated. “I appear to have experienced a temporal lapse. Did we freeze to death?”

“No, Seven. We’re fine. Let’s get out of this vent.”

***

Day 4, Transit to Charon Outpost

The ship had settled into the rhythmic hum of slip-space travel. Helen walked into the mess hall after a much-needed shower.

“I’m just saying, I risked a corporate write-up to steal that Grade-A thermal fuse, and this synthesizer still makes the chicken taste like wet cardboard,” Magnus said.

The cargo deckhand was sitting at the central table, poking at a gray square of food with his fork.

Janet sat across from him, sipping hot water and lemon. The ship’s medical officer smiled at Helen as she approached. “Don’t listen to him. The synthesizer is working perfectly. Magnus just lacks a refined palate.”

“I lack a steak.” Magnus took a miserable bite of the gray meat.

Helen walked over to the beverage dispenser and poured herself a cup of coffee.

At the end of the table sat Claude. The science officer was peeling an apple, likely from his own private, sterilized stash.

Unit Seven, who had been resting on Helen’s shoulder, suddenly detached and hovered across the room. He stopped directly over Claude’s plate.

Claude paused his knife, looking up at the drone with confusion.

“Dr. Kinskey.” Seven’s eye scanned the fruit. “Your apple contains approximately fourteen percent more natural fructose than the standard synthetic rations provided by Omni-Corp. Statistically, this will lead to a minor spike in your glycemic index, followed by an energy crash at roughly fourteen-hundred hours.”

“Thank you, Unit Seven. I will be sure to monitor my fatigue.”

Seven lowered himself an inch closer to Claude’s slices. “Furthermore, your knife grip is highly inefficient. Angling the blade two degrees to the left would reduce wrist strain by—”

“Seven, leave Claude alone.” Helen hid a smile behind her coffee mug.

Claude cleared his throat, looking flustered as he shooed the drone away with a wave of his hand. “It’s quite alright. Your AI is just . . . remarkably observant.”

“He means annoying,” Magnus said. “Don’t sweat it. The little guy told me I had a thirty percent chance of dying of a heart attack based on my sodium intake yesterday.”

“Thirty-two point four percent, Mr. Cantarini.” Seven zipped back over to Helen’s shoulder.

Claude returned to his slicing. “I suppose we must all rely on the data available to us.”

Helen finished her coffee and set her cup in the recycler. “I need to go run diagnostics on the grid.”

“Don’t work too hard, Helen,” Janet said.

“I’ll try not to.” Helen paused at the door. “Oh, and Janet? I need to schedule a routine checkup with you sometime this week.”

“My med-bay is always open. Stop by this week and we’ll get you sorted out.”

Helen nodded as she stepped into the hall. The crew was fine. The ship was holding together. But as she walked toward engineering, accompanied by her drone, the isolation of deep space was already beginning to set in.