Date Unknown :: Location Unknown
Aisha propelled herself towards the door, caught another handhold and cushioned the landing with her shoulder. Opening the emergency medkit, she quickly located a small syringe with a stimulant cocktail and tucked it into her nightshirt. The door's proximity sensors were shut off, but as she turned the circular auxiliary latch, the hydraulics dutifully hummed to life.
The corridor beyond looked foreboding in the red emergency lighting. A door to the left led to the section with the chapel, the computer room and the fore airlock, while the medlab was straight across from the statis room. Aisha, however, focused her attention to the right, on the ladder leading up to the bridge and down to the mess hall and the crew quarters. Pushing off again, she drifted towards the hatch leading to the upper deck, grabbed one of the rungs and absorbed the impact with her feet. She slammed the access button, the hatch cycled open above her, and she went through.
Aisha usually spent a lot less time on the bridge than the rest of the crew. An engineer's place was mainly in the bowels of the ship, on the lower decks. That was probably the reason why it took her several seconds to come to a sudden realization that sent a chill down her spine.
There are no stars.
Beyond the ship's viewports was a yawning darkness that mocked her, whispered to her, wanted to smother her. Something cackled imperceptibly at the edge of her consciousness, and she spun around instinctively, but of course there was no one there.
She did see the main control console, however, and lost no time getting there, driven by adrenaline that made the medkit stimulants completely redundant. Thankfully, the console was online, and Aisha quickly ran a diagnostics check.
First things first. Oxygen levels are within normal.
She quickly went through the ship's systems deck by deck. The first red flag that got her attention was that the chapel was depressurized. She quickly performed an atmospheric reading.
Hard vacuum.
The sensor array on deck two was completely fried. Aisha took a deep breath and shifted the ship view to the lower deck. The reactor and the grav projectors pulsed a steady red, confirming their offline status. There also seemed to be a critical malfunction in one of the cryochambers occupied by their passengers. Aisha instinctively pulled up the readings for the chamber's occupant.
Mallak, Soroush. Flatlined.
Aisha ground her teeth and pushed the dead pilgrim from her thoughts. Focusing on the reactor, she pulled up a menu, bypassed several dialogue windows and finally reached what she was looking for.
Remote reactor restart. Gambler, help me.
The red emergency lighting flickered momentarily, as the restart procedure was launched, but just as quickly as it started, the attempt was over. Remote reactor restart failure, the display read impassively.
Suddenly a deep, almost subaural groan resounded through the ship, as if some antediluvian behemoth awoke from a deep slumber. Aisha would recognize that sound anywhere. It was the unmistakable sound of metal groaning under pressure.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:00, Mon 06 June 2022.