The Merrin, part 6
#6 of Merr
Just when things are starting to look up...
Next: Part 7
Alice sits in the pod, watching a readout of Key's vitals. Even though he's sleeping, his heart rate is still near 90 and his blood pressure it too high.
"We need to get him to relax," she states absently. "Administer a light sedative, an anxiolytic."
"Re-configuring peripherals...administering," Pond states.
As his vitals start to drop to an actual resting state, she finds herself glad that he authorized the remote access, and forgot to cancel it.
It's too bad she can't do the same for Greg. She can monitor, but she doesn't have the medical clearance to administer anything without permission from him. His stats are only a little high, and he's relaxing on his own.
She yawns and realizes her own fatigue. "Pond, show me everyone's vitals."
The window lights up with the remaining crew's stats and she makes a quick assessment. "Attention. We all need to take some time right now, while we're stable, to get some sleep. If you like, I can authorize a mild sedative to help you relax."
She gets several reluctant acknowledgements, and a couple requests, but everyone does settle to try to sleep.
She waits for a while to make sure that everyone's asleep before settling in for some sleep herself.
* * *
Key sits in the equipment bay, staring at the mobile com array. Greg's suggestion to drag it was a good one, however they still haven't figured out how to get it outside without blowing open the ejection corridor, and the concussions of that could tear the ship apart.
If it didn't, they'd be unable to start the engines to recharge the ship. Then the ship will run out of power, the FTL envelope collapses and the ship is destroyed anyway.
If they can send a message now, they stand a better chance of rescue, but they would be spending a lot of time in the escape pods.
If they waited till they got close to a habitable world, they could be more comfortable, and together while they waited.
Troublesome choices, and either way, the ship will be lost.
Having come to a decision, he stands and walks to the arrays consul. "All right. Drudge, upload the standard mayday message, include our course, speed and expected arrival date."
"Acknowledged."
He then starts entering commands into the console, setting the message to start broadcasting after ejected, and to keep broadcasting as long as it can. He steps over to the nearby cargo-lift console and tries to open the overhead doors.
When they fail to open, he groans. Indicators on the console show no power to the doors.
"Greg, can you check the cryo bay and see if it has power?"
Greg's voice comes over the com. "Checking cryo-bay status. There's minimal power. I'll start running some jumpers, see if I can get some more power there."
Key sprints for the personnel lift. "Make that a priority, we don't know how long they've been running off their back-up."
"Copy that."
Stepping into the lift, Key says, "Cryo bay."
It takes only a moment, but when the doors open, he sprints out into the darkened room to the rack's control panel. A quick look at the readout confirms his fear.
- Reserve power: 10%. -
"Greg, how far have you got?"
There's a hesitation. "Uhh, maybe half way. I'm already on my fourth jumper."
"Do your best son. We've got just over an hour before their reserve power fails."
"Copy that."
Key looks around the dimly lit bay, trying to think of a way to buy them more time.
The lights come on, momentarily startling him.
He quickly sets the cryo system to charge then rushes over to the cargo lift controls. He opens the lift's doors and hops on to ride the lift down. He jumps from the lift before it reaches the floor and quickly mobile array. Once in it's cab, he powers it up.
After releasing the magnet locks holding it to the sled, he drives it over to the lift. It reaches floor level just before he gets there, so he quickly parks it on the lift. Using the remote access in the array's cab, he starts the lift back up.
Not waiting for the lift to come to a complete stop, he drives it over to the rack of cryo tubes, and parks it square with the end of the rack.
As he starts to mag-lock the two together, the ship shutters, and the lights go out again. The doors open, and Greg comes stumbling through, coughing.
Key quickly finishes with the mag-lock and runs to Greg.
As Key helps him up, Greg says, "We'll need to use a different corridor. A jumper blew."
"Figured. Can you get to your pod?"
"Yeah."
"Get going." Key then clears his throat. "Attention. In order to protect the lives of those in cryo, we have to eject the rack. I've attached the ground array to it and it will transmit our distress, coordinates and projected course. Please stay in your escape pods. Ejecting the rack could tear the ship apart."
"Key, you're coming back before you launch that, right?" Alice asks.
"Yeah. Be there in a few."
"Be careful."
Alice slumps in her seat to wait. Part of her wants him back with her, the other, regrets what it means. The ship will be lost, and they're just now entering the edge of the galactic arm.
She sighs heavily as she looks out the window at the stars. They fill the forward view now. Something of a comfort now, it means that they're actually a couple days from Merrin 272-095.
The door behind her opens, startling her from her musings. "Key?"
"Strap in hun." He quickly sits and starts buckling in. "Attention crew. I'm about the eject the cryo rack. Seal your pods and strap in. if anyone isn't in their pod, speak up."
Not getting any responses, he continues, "If I yell "go," eject your pod because it means the hull's buckling. Understood?"
He receives several confirmations, then says, "Ejecting rack in 5...4...3...2...1..."
The ship abruptly shutters, then an eerie groan echoes throughout.
Key gives Alice a strange look, then an alarm sounds.
"Go, go, go!! Abandon ship," he calls, punching the pods eject button.
There's a massive kick as the pod rockets away.
"Aft view," Alice calls. The display changes and they watch several other pods scatter from the ship.
As they all make a slow turn to follow, the ship starts to rapidly slow and it's hull glows white."
"FTL field's collapsing," he absently states.
The watch silently, sadly, as the ship slowly fades into the distance, only to be replaces with an explosion.
"Fuel," he quietly says.
Beside him Alice begins to cry again. Key reaches out and takes her hand. "Attention crew. Set your pods to follow my homing beacon. With any luck, we should reach Merrin in...three days. Till then, do your best to conserve power. We wouldn't want your pod to loose it's FTL envelope."
He watches the scattered pods for a moment, then relaxes back in the seat. It doesn't take him long to notice the pods on either side of him.
"I set them up as slaves," Alice states. "There's extra gear in them."
Despite their situation, Key smiles. "Good. We'll need it."
She gives him an odd look, "Why?"
He frowns, "We're not hearing the automated distress beacon. We should be able to, but for some reason we can't."
Fear settles into her. "Why? It should've made it out, right?"
"Oh yeah, it had plenty of time. What worries me is if it didn't drop out of FTL fast enough, ended up colliding with the ship when it dropped out."
Alice's sinks into her seat. "Your team..."
"Yeah, I know."