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The Big Sleep

By Xan Steel

Everyone ran to the cockpit to see why the alarms were going off, as Daniel sat in the lead seat to get a readout on the computer. Mathew sat next to Daniel and began looking over the sensor log. "Well according to the sensors, there's no stars in range" he said confused. Daniel brought up the map of the galaxy and tied it into their last known location. "Ah that explains things." "What's that?" Sandra asked. "We're passing out of the arm we were in." Daniel said showing them on the map. Maria looked at the map and where they were positioned. "I'll be the first to say I know nothing of distance or warp theory, but shouldn't we be at Alpha Centauri by now, even with the few planet surveys we done?" Daniel looked at her and then the computer read out on the drive discovering the alarm was for the drive itself. Three of the four plasma injectors were damaged and needed repaired or replaced.

Daniel shut down the EM Drive and brought the ship to a halt in the cold void of space. With nothing close by to which he could use the solar panels to collect more power from, he started shutting down non-essentials. "Danny, what's going on?" Maria asked. He sighed deeply, "I'm not sure what happened, but we've been running on one Plasma injector for some time now. Mathew, can the duplicator." "No." He answered before Daniel finished. "As a prototype we didn't think to incorporate duplicating complex machinery or metal alloys."

Sandra spoke up concerned, "What does it mean guys?" Daniel sighed again. "It means I need to do a space walk to widen the last injector to alleviate pressure on it. That would keep us at least one times the speed of light." "How much time does that add to the journey?" Maria asked. Mathew began running the calculations. "Well, I'm not sure if we've been wrong about the size of our galaxy or if our calculations on the speed of light are wrong, but according to the computer it's going to take us around twelve years to reach Alpha Centauri."

Both girls looked at each other and then back to the guys. Maria spoke first, "I take it that means we need sleep?" "I was hoping we wouldn't need to use those beds Daniel." Sandra finished. "As much as I wish we didn't, I'll be honest, I'm glad I did bring them along." He said.

He got up and went to the lower level of the ship and began preparing for his space walk. Maria helped him into the suit and cable harness. Once he was secured he grabbed his tools and went to the airlock. Maria turned him around. "Be careful please." She pleaded with him as he hugged her as tightly as he could. He walked in the airlock and sealed the door. He then gave the thumbs up to Maria to start the depressurizing processing. Once completed he opened the outer door and hooked his cable to the anchor on the ship.

Maria was incredibly nervous as she watched him floating out in the void. The other two came over to watch with her. They watched him hit a few buttons on the suit until a loud static and pop "Hello, can anyone hear me in there?" Came his voice as Maria pushed a lit button on the console panel. "Danny!" "Hey sis I'm fine I just made it to the injector ports. I also wanted to hear other voices as you never really understand just how quiet space is." Mathew leaned in to hit the button, "How do the injectors look?" He questioned just as Daniel pulled the panel off and set it off to the side. "Well... it's not looking good that's for sure." Sandra chimed in, "What's that supposed to mean?" As Daniel reached in and pulled out one of the injectors without any tools and showed it in front of the camera. "Does this explain things? What your looking at is a melted injector." He said. "Those are made of tempered Iridium. They shouldn't melt like that." Mathew said as Daniel pulled out the other two and adjusted the last one before closing it up and headed back to the airlock resealing the door, and give the thumbs up for Maria to pressurize. Once the cycle finished he stepped out of the airlock, and moved over to let Maria help him out of the suit. Once he was out of the suit, he opened the tool box and handed the melted injectors to Mathew. "Are you positive that the duplicator can't make new ones?" "Positive, though I would love to know just what it was that melted these. Tempered Iridium has a melting temperature of some eight thousand degrees. What temperature does the plasma get too?" Mathew questioned Daniel. "It peeks out around maybe four thousand. I'm thinking the material might have been faulty. These injectors are quite dull in appearance compared to the one still in there."

Mathew took them to do a metallurgical analysts on them while Daniel went to the cockpit to reprogram a new flight path into the computer. Sandra took Maria back to the medical lab to review the scans of Daniel's brain again to see if there was any new development. After an hour reviewing the information with Maria. She turned to her, "I'm worried for him." "What do you mean." "If this new paracortex continues to grow, it's going to put stress on his cranium as it displaces the brain fluid." Maria sighed, "Which could do a number of things. Such as a real coma, seizures, brain damage and possibly death." She sat down in a chair. "And I don't have anything here to remove and store brain fluid, unless I want to return to the dark ages of medicine." Sandra came over and hugged her. "Why is it that no matter how much I want him to be happy, everything else is trying to take him away." Maria said as she softly wept. "Well at least for now once we get in those beds, the stasis field will stop it from growing farther until we can find a way to remove the excess fluid." Sandra said hoping to reassure Maria.

Once they finished looking over the information on Daniel's brain, they headed to the cockpit to see how the new route was coming along. While heading to the cockpit they met Mathew who joined them. Once they got to Daniel, he showed them the new flight path. "Alright here's what I've done to maximize distance and recharge time. In the hopes of cutting down our time in the stasis beds while getting us to our destination." He showed them the map, and the path as it criss-crossed or tacked between the two arms they were currently positioned between. "How long can the ship last before needing to be recharged?" Sandra asked. "It's power cells can last for ten years, as long as I shut everything off, but the main computer for navigation, and the controller for the stasis beds awake protocol." "This way the computer can wake us when we get to these recharging locations?" Mathew asked as Daniel nodded in response. "Well I've gotten the analysis back for the injector ports you handed me." "What was the result?" "Iron." Mathew said as he plunked them down on the console. "So wait, they were faulty to begin with?" Sandra asked in a surprised tone. "So it would seem." Mathew answered her. "What does that mean?" Maria asked in response. "Who knows. The point is these three injectors were made cheaply, and yet somehow lasted for some time since iron has a much lower melting temperature." Daniel answered her.

They went and ate a small meal before preparing for their big sleep. The computer calculated that it would take about five years to reach their first stop. Daniel had programmed the manual unlocking pattern on the keypad with the same pattern, that Julyna had give him to contact her at the hotel without even realizing it. Once Maria and Mathew were locked in nicely Sandra pulled Daniel off to the side. "Dan I need to talk with you about something." "It's my brain isn't it?" She nodded. "I'm dying right?" "For the moment? No." "But?" "With the paracortex growing, we will need to remove a small amount of brain fluid." "Why is that bad?" "Because Maria doesn't have the tools to do that, at least, not without using crude tools." She said as she hung her head. "Believe me when I say, I trust her implicitly, and I know she'll do everything in her power to save me." He said as he pulled her into a hug. She hugged him in return.

"But I'm sensing something else that you wanted to talk about." She blushed, because saying that meant he was starting to use his new found ability. "I.. I've wanted. No I can't say it." She said as she started to pull away, but he held her closer still. "It's better to get it off your mind than to keep it bottled up. Maria taught me that recently." She heard him softly say to her. She looked up into his eyes and just pulled him into a deep kiss. He returned it before gently breaking it off. She whispered to him, "I want you Danny." This was the first time she had ever called him that. "I had a feeling you did." Whispering softly in her ear. He picked her up and carried her to the room, while not even bothering to close the door. They undressed each other and began their passionate love making. She had wanted him for a long time. Even though having him just to herself wasn't going to happen on this trip, just having him at all made her happy. Afterwards they cleaned up and locked themselves into their stasis beds as the computer began shutting everything down and started the countdown while initiating the EM Drive. Heading for its first recharge destination.