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"Come on, Key. Fight."

Alice gives him five more chest compressions, than two breaths. CPR. She's never had to do it before. Learned it. Had to, it's standard with any medical course.

Though if her AI hadn't had to heal her after her suit popped, she'd be able to fix Keylan. Now though, she has to wait for her AI to recharge enough to help.

Fifteen compressions, two breaths.

"Come on, Drudge. Help me."

Luckily, when her suit popped, the pod was rapidly refilling with air. The rapid drop, then sudden increase in pressure knocked her out. She won't know what else it did until her AI charges, though she knows her arm still needs some work, it still feels...odd.

How many compressions? Lost count. Two breaths.

"Key. Come on. Come back to me."

She's been at this for several minutes, and is starting to feel lightheaded.

He coughs.

She stops and checks for a pulse.

It's weak, but it's steady. Drudge should be able to handle it now, once he recharges anyway.

Feeling her exhaustion, she lays down beside him. She carefully puts her hand flat on his chest and relaxes.

"We'll both feel a lot better in a bit." With a heavy sigh, she falls asleep.

Keylan groans. He hurts all over, inside and out. Alice was right, he's to old to be taking a walk in vacuum.

Feeling something on his chest, he reluctantly moves a hand to see what it is.

Pins and needles shoot through every nerve, and he screams.

Alice sits up abruptly and puts both her hands on his chest so her AI can administer pain suppressants. Knowing his ears are damaged, she speaks softly. "Relax, Key. Relax. I've got you, hun."

He tries to relax and lets out a sigh as the pain fades. "What...happened?"

"I managed to wake up just before the pod door opened. I came out to find you here. Saved your life, just like you saved mine."

He clumsily reaches up and pulls her down to him. "I'm sorry. I should have listened to..."

She covers his mouth. "You got the suit. We're both here, no need to talk about it. Just rest and heal."

He cracks a weak smile. "Doctor's orders?"

She smiles. "You know damn well I'm only a medic."

"Works for me."

She moves his arm and curls up to his side. They both need to rest and heal.

* * *

Alice naps in the pods right seat as Keylan watches the display. Drudge is trying to find a usable route to engineering--one that doesn't involve a hull walk, or floating across the hole. As Key waits, his focus shifts from the pods window to the galactic arm in the distance. After a moment, he realizes that something's different.

It's too high.

He leans forward in his seat. "Drudge? You seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I always...Oh."

Disturbed, Alice also looks out the window. "What is it?"

"The arm's too high," Key states.

"What does that mean?" she asks rubbing her face.

"It means..." Key's eyes go wide. "Our bow is dropping. We're pitchpoling." He bolts from the seat, nearly tripping as he grabs the thin pressure suit. "I've got to stop it before we tear apart."

Alice follows. "What's pitchpoling?"

"We're tumbling, end over end. If we were at sublight speed, it'd be nothing to worry about, but at FTL..." he shakes his head.

She watches him put the suit on, but as he grabs a tether, she says, "You're going to jump it."

He stops for a moment and gives her a sincere look. "I have to. If we go more than 15 degrees off--"

She holds up her hand. "Just wear your armor over it."

He smiles. "I planned on it." He then starts putting on the sections of is armor, making sure that they adjust to fit the EV suit.

He smirks for just a moment, he's never combined his combat armor with an EV suit before. He knows they'll function as one, they were designed to.

As he slides his armor's helmet over that of the EV suit, he can't help but think, "This'll be interesting."

Stepping up to the breach in the hallway, Key takes some time to survey the damage to the ship. Whatever passed through the ship took most of the central core with it. looking up, he can see up to the second deck. The angle of the damage prevents him from seeing out into open space.

When he looks down though, a wave of vertigo hits him. he can see right out into the nothing. There's no stars, nothing to focus on, nothing to even indicate movement. He takes a cautionary step back to steady himself.

"Don't look down," he mutters, reminding himself.

Stepping back into the hole, he starts looking across the breach for engineering,. As he does, the overlapping visors of his helmets give him information. The EV suit identifies the mag-boot walk-able surfaces and atmospheric venting, while the combat visor identifies hazards like the sparking power conduits, sharp edges, and other dangerous debris. Sometimes the data overlaps, and Drudge does his best to filter that out.

Shaking off the awe of the damage, Key tries to focus on his task. "Okay. I'm on deck 5. Engineering should be straight aft, around the auxiliary bridge, down the...center corridor."

Key spots the darkened hall, nearly straight across the widest part of the breach.

"Figures. Drudge?"

"I am detecting a variation in the light."

"FTL bubble collapsing?"

"Possibly."

He pulls his pistol from his hip and activates it's targeting laser. He then shines it across the breach, starting at this left, and moves it to the right. As it follows the dot on the far side, it abruptly vanishes, only to appear farther to his right.

Something is bending the light.

"There appears to be a FTL field void," Drudge announces.

Key frowns and does a few more sweeps, getting a better reference for where the void is. He soon learns that it's not just a void, but a "pipe" shaped conduit running through the core of the breach.

Worse yet, there's interstellar matter flowing through it at a vertical FTL speed. If any matter were to enter that "pipe" and collide with the matter flowing through it...well, theories run from simple FTL erosion to "it'll be an uncontrolled series of unconfined multi-particle collisions."

Key sighs heavily, he can no longer float across, and a trailing tether just became a hazard. "Well, looks like I'm going around the edge."

Alice's voice comes through the suit's com. "You be careful, hun."

He rolls his eyes. "Yes dear."

"I saw that."

He lets our a short laugh, knowing she can't actually see him, she's only able to see what his suit sees.

"Drudge, show me the artificial gravity fields."

A grid appears before him, appearing to float where a floor should be. Many of the closer area is filled in red, indicating gravity. There's also a yellow column indicating the "pipe" he needs to keep clear of.

"Alice, you're going to need to shut down the gravity on the lower decks. If I step out, I'll just fall to the lower deck."

"Copy that," she answers, and before long, the red starts to clear from the virtual floor.

Not seeing any other obvious obstacles, Key starts his way across the breach. He carefully picks his handholds, being careful to avoid live conduits and loose debris.

When he finally makes it to the hall's opening, artificial gravity pulls him to the floor. He steadies himself and heads down the hall.

After removing the debris, he closes the door behind him.