Blank Space by Christian Oesterling

Author:Christian Oesterling
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2019-12-23T05:00:00+00:00

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.

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