Chapter 2 Aera #2
The dash blinks with the time to arrival at the Iridithatium nebula.
12 hours, 51 minutes.
Then a warning.
Power drain in 12 hours, 39 minutes.
Shit. I need to conserve power.
Cutting life support will get me twenty extra minutes. This is it. My life has come down to eight minutes in which to contact the CyberTitans.
I reclaim the life support and initiate hibernation.
A pod seals up around my seat and tilts me back as oxygen fills the chamber, salvaged from the main vessel.
The automated system asks, “Administer hibernation medication?”
“Duration: twelve hours, fifty-one minutes. Confirmed.”
A needle punches into my neck, delivering cold liquid, and I drift off to sleep.
Rest is a fitful flash of black filled with shadowy images of my dying friends, lifeless children, and empty hallways lit up only by emergency lights.
We used to number near ten thousand. Now, our colony is barely nine hundred. I know the death rate will increase exponentially with critical systems offline.
The problem batters my brain, begging for a solution I do not have.
Red alerts warble in my ears. Lights flash over my eyelids, waking me.
“Hibernation mode switched off,” the automated system repeats.
“Time?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
“Eleven hours, twenty-seven minutes.”
I am not nearly far enough.
Panic jerks me awake. “What’s the problem?”
“Hibernation…omplete. Solar st…nation…ete.”
What the fuck?
Still groggy, I command the pod to sit me upright via a manual override in the armrest. When I get a view through the windows, I realize I’m in deep trouble. Clouds of vibrant gases and debris rip around the ship. But it isn’t the nebula.
My SunFlux shudders. “Error… Solar stor…aused malfunction in…aft fuel regulator…thermocouple...”
I stop listening. Turbulent waves shove my ship off course and send me careening starboard.
The automatic hibernation system shuts down and darkens, leaving me with only the manual joystick controls in my armrests, a backup measure in case of situations like this.
But I get only reserve power from the engines, and the hibernation cell won’t let me out to fix them.
As I ignite the thrusters, something blows.
A port-side engine is down. A system to my right shoots a spray of gold sparks.
I switch off its match on the starboard side and try to guide myself through the storm.
But navigation is offline. Alerts flash all over the cabin.
Ailerons are destabilizing and threaten to rip off.
Thrusters overheat due to debris contamination. Life support is failing.
Fuck! Come on!
I can’t die like this. My colony gave everything to save me so I could save them.
But I’m flying blind. The only way out of a storm is to find its trajectory and ride it out, or try to break through the top or bottom of the solar flares.
I can’t see shit, so I don’t know how broad the wave is.
It could carry me back to Naryth and into Solcrue territory for all I know.
But by the time I get there, I’ll certainly be dead.
My best bet, with my available thrusters, is to punch through the top.
Igniting the hover thrusters, the only thing semi-responsive, I set my trajectory for surfacing, then hook the controls with my right knee to hold them in place.
I’m venting life support somewhere by the flashing red beacon on the screen to my left, but I can’t see where through the hibernation pod’s warped glass.
The ship has taken severe damage, and I’m wasting precious resources.
The air in the pod gets thinner, making my hands lethargic as I reach under my seat and pull free the life support connections.
Closing up my helmet, I bring my suit online and connect SunFlux’s life support to my built-in pack.
It takes some finagling with my gloved hands, but I get it clipped in and watch the status bars rise in the corner of my visor. Then I send out a distress call.
“Rogue Fleet, Centurion SunFlux, Dragon Nine. Please help. I’m caught in a solar storm. My mothership is starving. I repeat…”
A burst of light flares against my windows, knocking me into a tumbling death roll. My knee slips off the thruster controls, and I careen wildly, back into the heart of the storm.
My life support connection snaps. Alerts beep and tell me the system has a critical failure. My suit’s oxygen and heat are only seventy-eight percent as it auto-seals. I have thirty-five minutes at best.
I try to find my bearings in the roll and send out opposing hover thruster bursts, slowing the insanity. If there was anything in my stomach, I’d be a lot more miserable.
“Please…” Dizziness grips me. I find the controls blindly. Opening my eyes only makes the disorientation worse. “If anyone can hear me, I have thirty minutes left! My people are starving! Send help! This is Aera of Centurion! I’m in a SunFlux stuck in a solar storm!”
Another wave slams into my ship, knocking my helmet against the side of the pod. Rigidity leaves my body. My head lolls back from the thought-shattering hit.
The universe tips and spins. And all I see is the chip, my father's chip, its honeycomb pattern hovering before me.
I don’t know how, but I find the strength to lift one arm and drunkenly capture it in my hand.
Dad…help me.
Tools and gear tumble through the cabin. My backpack drifts by, pieces of MRE bars and crumbs flying out of it. Navigation systems black out. Other systems crack. Thrusters sputter. Screens flicker. Colorful light blazes over the windows.
I clutch the chip to the armor on my chest, unwilling to let this galaxy take this one last piece of my family away from me.
“Please… Anyone.”