'Oliver, how would you even check for something like that?' Yuki asked. The navigator exhaled, flapping his lips like a horse in an attempt to show his lack of knowledge.
'I'd guess you would ask Nightingale about a problem on the ship, she'd tell you about hull breaches and such, even like this. Come to think of it, I don't even know if Nightingale would be able to respond with the backup power. Nightingale, if you can answer me, come in.' A brief pause and the crew held their breath for one small miracle. It seemed like the very air they were breathing had become stagnant, like a pond, with scum floating atop the surface.
'Yes Oliver, I can communicate with you on this amount of power.' The crew relaxed slightly, and Yuki could be heard exhaling audibly.
'Ok Nightingale,' Leon began, 'Why is the power suddenly out?'
'I'm afraid I am unable to answer that.'
'Nightingale, you would be able to tell us if any of your software was faulty, or if there was a wire sparking somewhere in the depths of all the banks of the cable wouldn't you?'
'Yes Leon, I would be able to do that.'
'So, what's faulty? There must be something if you tell us we can do something about it and you can be up and running all right as rain again.'
'Nothing is faulty Leon. There is nothing wrong with me, mechanically or technologically.' Leon sighed, turned around and punched his chair in sheer frustration, the one specifically with his name on it. It twirled around on its rotation patch. Prissy put her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to calm him. He shrugged her off.
'This isn't happening. This isn't fucking happening!' The atmosphere in the room grew thick; walking through it was like swimming through a gel.
'Nightingale, come in.'
'What is it, Jenny?'
'Could the problem be an external influence?' Leon looked up in confusion. After half a second, his eyes lit up in recognition. That blip! Yes, it could be, it might be able to mess with the systems of the ship from afar. It made sense; he looked at his weapons officer with slight admiration.
'If it were Jenny, I would be able to detect it. There is nothing in the realm of 1 million miles,' the ship responded.
'It's got to be something wrong with the ship,' Duma said.
'I agree. Something in the ship that could cause Nightingale to have its problem-detection circuits fried, or something like that,' Yuki seconded. Leon sat down in the seat that he had just punched. The room fell silent, each considering what was occurring, weighing up possibilities in their heads. Each silently, but communally at the same time, felt like the person to work it all out would be recognized as a hero amongst the crew. They all, deep down in the vain part of their human hearts, wanted that prize and pride, and so searched for it as quickly as they could possibly ration.
'Maybe...' began Holden, but there he stopped. All of them looked up.
'Did you just hear that?' he asked. Silence. Then it came again. A bang. A thud, as if someone punched the ship.
'What the hell is that?' Yuki breathed.
Bang.
Leon rose to his feet, his heart beginning to pound. There was something wrong, desperately wrong, and he was starting to get worried. Seriously worried. So much so, it might have been considered the start of panic. His ship was showing objects where none existed, cutting its own power and then saying it didn't, and...
Bang.
'Nightingale, what the fuck is that noise?' he asked, his voice raised, trying to control it, hoping that no one heard the waver in there that suggested uneasiness.
Bang.
'It is something outside of the ship Leon,' Nightingale replied in her pleasant, calming voice. However now, it didn't sound calm at all. It sounded out of place, creepy, contrapuntal.
Bang.
'If there's nothing there,' Yuki cried, 'then what the holy fuck is making that noise?!'
'There is insufficient information to be able to tell you that, Yuki.'
Bang.
'It's getting louder guys,' Oliver said.
'Sounds like it's on the starboard side,' Prissy breathed. Yuki was close to tears now, and Duma put his arm around her in an attempt to calm her but knew it wasn't working because he himself was shaking.
BANG.
'It sounds like it's moving,' Holden whispered, unable to believe what he was saying.
'Moving to where?' Jenny asked.
BANG.
'What's over there on the outside?' Duma asked, his voice nearly in as much hysteria as Yuki's, however much he tried to keep it in check.
'The only thing I can think of is...' An explosion rocketed throughout the ship, and all in the cockpit were thrown to the floor. Jenny landed on her wrist and searing pain went through it. Alarms sounded, wailing, screaming to the crew. Oliver rushed back to the chair and began to check the single screen that had been restored by the back-up power.
'Hull breach, the airlock has been blown to shit!' he cried out in astonishment. Yuki began to scream in hysteria, confusion and sheer, unadulterated terror.
'NIGHTINGALE, GET SPRINKLERS ON IT BEFORE THE THING GOES UP IN FLAMES!' Leon yelled at the top of his lungs.
'Everyone strap in!' Prissy shouted afterward. All seven buckled up without a moment's notice, they didn't need to be told twice.
'The fuck is going on?!' Duma exclaimed. He reached over and held Yuki's hand, but she let go and grabbed onto her straps for dear life. The whole crew braced themselves for whatever would happen, and Oliver tried frantically to restore some kind of order to everything. He tapped away at the single Halo-Core the power provided, calling for checks on the shields, the rest of the ship, had anything else been damaged, anything that Nightingale would afford itself to give him.
And as quickly as it had begun, it ended. The power returned, all the lights came on, and the engines began to rumble once more. Nightingale was flying just as normal, minus an airlock and with a large hole ripped into the hull.
And whilst the crew was trying to determine what had just happened, in the ship unbeknownst to the seven of them, a door opened from the scene of the explosion and then closed once again.
Chapter 7:
There were several minutes of tense bodies in the cockpit, as the ship regained control of itself. Even Oliver slowed his usually frantic and swift hands at the controls, now orderly and calm. All seven crewmembers waited in silence, save for Yuki snuffling, trying to get hear tears in check once again. At last, Leon spoke out.
'How is it looking Oliver?'
'We've lost that airlock, there is no way to get that back. I've now locked the doors either side so nobody will wander down there at midnight still half asleep and accidentally get themselves sucked out into the blank space. The only way around now is through the lower hatches, but that should be ok.' Leon slumped further back into his chair and closed his eyes in despair. He was at a total loss of what to do. He desperately wanted to try and make it to the other side of the blank space, and yet there were still a good two weeks to go; they were barely a sixth of the way across. His ship was damaged, for no reason at all, as far as he could work out, and there were mysterious blackouts.
'Are the engines back at full power?' he asked nervously, apprehensive and worried about a negative response.
'They seem to be so, captain. I'll just double-check now...' The ship's navigator brought up another screen on his Halo-Core and scanned through the data presented to him.
'I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be at full power.' Leon opened his eyes, looking out of the window to the blackness ahead of him. He was starting to make out a few specks of light, two weeks in the distance. They were tantalizing, taunting him with the promise of grand discovery. And yet he knew that his ship was compromised, and in need of a good repair. The safety of his crew was the most important part of the mission.
'Oliver,' he began, and then fell silent again, questioning what he was about to decide.
'Captain.'
'Set a course for Outpost 73, we're getting out
of here.' The crew turned to look at him, curious glances being thrown around the room like marbles.
'Leon, are you sure?' Prissy asked him.
'Yeah, I mean, so what if the airlock is out? We weren't going to use it anyway. Apart from that the ship is back up and running, ok we had a technical glitch but if we look into it we can find out what went wrong and get Nightingale working fine again without any hitches,' Holden tried to reason. Leon shook his head.
'No. I've got a faulty ship, banging outside and an exploded airlock. There's something seriously fucked up with the ship, and I want to know what it is. Celestria can find out better than we can wander around inside the floating tin can on our own with a guide on a Halo-Core. I can't risk my crew.' He looked around at his companions, who had become more than companions now; they were his friends. 'We're getting out of here and back to civilization before anything else screws up. Oliver,' he looked towards his pilot, who locked eyes with him. He was asking him in his head, 'are you sure about this? I'll do it if you want, but make sure you are absolutely certain on it.' Oliver kept the gaze up for several seconds, the room reduced to the hum of Nightingale's engines and the occasional bleeping and blinking of the software. He nodded in confirmation.
'Copy that Captain. Nightingale.'
'Yes Oliver,' the voice returned, the first time since the power had fully returned. It was only now that Jenny realized that she sounded much better now that all her systems were back as if her voice had come down with an illness, and now she had rested and was back to feeling 100% again.
'Turn us around and head us towards Outpost 73.'
'It's out of my scanning range I'm afraid. If you give me a direction I will be able to tell you when to lock on to the Outpost.'
'Um, ok then,' the pilot replied, changing a few controls. 'I'm turning us around 160 degrees left to compensate for the veering off course we made before. Full throttle there, and I think a 3-degree vertical change down would be useful as well.' The ship began to the bank, rotating like a car on a rollercoaster, towards the left. All of the crewmembers felt themselves being pushed down into their seats during the maneuver, the first time they had really felt the full effect of the inertia of the ship since they had left Celestria. The leather made them feel safe and secure as if being pushed down into their seats was like being pushed back inside the womb; warm and protected. Nightingale exited its banking, and the whir of the engines began to rise in its pitch, escalating to a full soprano of technology.
'We're going faster than before by a large percentage guy, so you're going to feel a little unstable walking at first because your bodies won't be used to the inertia. By my calculations, we will be back at Outpost 73 in about 33 hours, but I don't think that we will have any major issues from now. Contact with them will be able to be made around 7 hours before arrival; I'll let you know when we are in contact.'
'Thanks, Oliver. Ok then, I'm requesting that everyone goes to their rooms and completes their logs of the activities that have happened, maybe someone has noticed something that will help investigations later. After that, let's all convene in the dining room for food.'
'Sounds like a plan. I'm pissed we didn't get out there though,' Holden said.
'So am I,' Duma chipped in, 'ah well, I'm sure that we will get a Mission II sometime and they'll let us go.'
'Never know, they might just repair Nightingale and send us out again,' Prissy suggested.
'Logs, all of you,' Leon ordered, and with a sarcastic 'yes cap'n' from Holden, they exited the room; save for Oliver, who Jenny thought practically lived in the cockpit, regardless that his quarters were elsewhere on the ship. The door slid open, and they departed, one by one.
They walked in silence, even though they had so much to discuss. Nightingale had a different atmosphere now, it was more disturbing. Every little creak was noticed, Holden felt through his feet for a missed beat in the rumbling of the engines. When a light flicked on in the corner of her eye, Yuki would look to it. Duma caught his foot on one of the rungs going down the ladder to pass through the hatch and tumbled down the last two. When he had recovered, he took the light of a Halo-Core to that rung and inspected every last inch of it, looking for notches or nicks that could have been recently created. In all of their hearts, deep down, it seemed they were all on edge. None of them, although they would never admit it except for Leon, who had to as the captain for safety reasons and concern for his crew, entirely trusted the ship anymore. It was always a nagging idea that somewhere in Nightingale's programming there could be a little piece of code that said it could now kill off its crew, go haywire. Maybe it was actually alive. Perhaps it was a self-aware, sentinel. Every step each person took was cautious, if only a little because none of them knew where they were anymore. It was no longer a voyage, it was a survival mission in all of their minds, and although nobody voiced that opinion, they all knew that each of them believed it to be true.
Logs were completed in their rooms; videos taken from their Halo-Cores, updating their records about their personal thoughts and feelings, what actions they had taken and done, etc. It was strictly protocol, and many of the seven found it to be an unnecessary hassle, they had the captain's log after all so they didn't see much reason why they should have to keep one as well. However the exploration brains at the Celestrian powers that be had deemed it needed, and so they all followed it.
After this, they all made their way to the dining hall and around that once friendly circular table sat seven drained, wearied, almost zombie-like men and women, eating their slop and sludge with little appetite. They had had almighty scares, had their home ripped apart without warning, and wished only to return to the safety of their homes in Celestria. Those that had them thought of their families, Leon and Prissy of their significant others, Jenny of her mother who had been diagnosed with a virus that was considered life-threatening could the funds not be raised in time, and how she would come back empty-handed, destroyed and guilt-stricken. Oliver's mind drifted to his sister, suffering from clinical depression after her husband was smitten to the cold metal floor of the planet by a serial killer a few years earlier. It was indeed a depressed, dreary time at the table that dine together, and conversation for the first time since the mission began was scarce. When it did arise, there was little cheer or laughter between them, even when Holden began to bring out his usual sarcastic wit. Even though it was not their fault, all of them felt as if they had failed. They left the table in dribs and drabs, dragging their feet to their bunks.
'Night Leon,' Prissy bade him as they went into their rooms.
'Night. Who's on the first watch?'
'Yuki I think.'
'We'll tell her to be extra careful, and Oliver and I are the very first people she should call for if anything should arise.' Nightingale's captain spoke with no enthusiasm, indeed he was a dejected wreck of a man.
'I'll tell her on the Halo-Core. Night,' Prissy replied, and entered her room. She crashed onto the bed, exhausted, and fell asleep almost instantly. Messaging Yuki had never been even thought of before she entered the sandman's lair.
Onboard Nightingale, Yuki walked the corridors and the halls, the sole human still awake on a damned vessel, powering to safety through the blank space.
Chapter 8:
The ship slumbered, speeding through the darkness towards the Celestrian blue light that the Empire offered them. The ship, though in slumber, autopilot towards their destination engaged, still groaned and creaked, hissing and rumbling on its journey, as if snoring. It breathed and contracted, and though most things slept, Yuki wandered through the ship, on edge. She jumped at every little noise that Nightingale made in its mechanical movements, a slight paranoia about her person.
She had never been the most secure of people, and after her drunken uncle came home that one time, she was constantly on a slight edge. It was surprising to hear that she had taken to Duma so much. He wasn't the most masculine of people, he wasn't the most athletic. He wasn't even the
most vocal, Holden definitely took that trophy home with prizes left to trade for money to polish said trophy with. It was Duma's quiet, attentive and determined work-ethic. He never stopped researching, learning, discovering. He was always in the mindset that he was on the edge of something incredible.
Her uncle, on the other hand, had not been like him. He was gruff, well built and had a habit of collecting empty bottles in the worst kind of way. Back in their apartment in Region 29, overlooking the street to the school that she would stroll down in the deep-blue mornings, she was inside, trying to get to sleep after a particularly arduous day at her classes. She had been picked out in front of Nill Servis, the good-looking boy in the class, as having his name in a love-heart in her Valen-Core, a smaller Halo-Core. The class had turned on her like Hienyas, pointing, laughing and jeering. She had flushed the deepest red she thought she could ever turn, like the blood in her cheeks had bled through her skin and was flooding over the surface of her face. She had fled the room, clutching her belongings, and locked herself in one of the cubicles in the bathroom. She hadn't exited until the day ended, despite constant pleading from her friends, and eventually teachers, and she left with her head low, avoiding all eye contact. She hadn't done much that evening, ate very little, and tried to sleep as much as she could, although that had been a task easier said than performed.
The door had been opened, crashing against the wall, and the looming shape of her drunken uncle had staggered inside the home. He had bellowed, bellowed with all his might, as a wild animal might, to ward off the threat of predators. Little Yuki, only eleven years old, had crept out of her room, peering into the living room. Her mother and the beast were engaged in an argument, or rather he was shouting at her and Yuki's mother was trying to defend herself, hysterical now. Yuki had seen the man she no longer recognized as of her own family reach over and grab the woman's wrist. He had waited for a second, shouting at him in drunken, hazy fury, and flung her against the wall with all his might. She cried out as she hit the wall, and this enraged him even more. Blow after blow came down, raining down like lightning strikes, and Yuki clamped her hands over her mouth to try and stifle the cries and gasps. When she had glimpsed blood start to pour from her mother, her hands betrayed her.
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