Final Countdown

Usual Disclaimer: Don't own Eureka. If I did, I wouldn't have cancelled it (looking at you, SyFy).

"Begin countdown." With Grace's calm order, all eyes in GD's Astraeus mission control room turned to the digital counter transposed across a holographic display of the ship's command bridge. The display filled the center of the room, making its virtual occupants—Grace, Fargo, Holly, Zane and two other scientists—appear to be standing within touching distance of their colleagues back on Earth. They weren't. In fact, they were farther away than any manned spacecraft had traveled, and within seconds of going much farther.

"10, 9…" As the numbers ticked down, the faces around the control room reflected different reactions to the event. Standing alone, the frown Parrish had sported since his absence from the Astraeus team was announced deepened. He turned away from the hologram as the countdown continued.

"8, 7…" Simultaneously, Jack and Allison reached their hands toward the other. They smiled as their fingers touched, glancing quickly at each other before returning their gazes to the center of the room.

"6, 5…" Henry's eyes moved rapidly between rows of buttons and switches spread across the lengthy control panel then back to Grace's flickering image. All was as it should be, but…following his natural instinct for caution, he began scanning every inch of the panel again.

"4, 3…" Jo sat on a chair next to where Henry stood. Her face was blank. To the casual observer, she seemed to be utterly still, calm to the point of not breathing. A more observant person would see the telltale signs of rapidly increasing tension—knuckles whitening as she gripped the table's edge, back ramrod straight. Her eyes were fixed on one spot, the point where Zane's virtual image hovered a few feet away. "2…" She closed her eyes, then snapped them open.

"1."

The space occupied by the hologram turned white as the words "Faster Than Light Module Activated" replaced the numbers on the digital counter. Minutes passed, then the outlines of the Astraeus bridge team began to appear again. Cheers broke out around the room, as scientists leapt to their feet, slapped hands, clapped backs and generally began a rowdy celebration of a mission accomplished. Henry wiped a hand across his face and spun to grin at Jack and Allison, who were hugging in triumph. Across the room, even Parrish was smiling slightly, his bruised ego momentarily forgotten in the face of such an immense scientific advance.

Only Jo remained immobile, eyes intent on Zane's slowly re-forming image. So she was the first to react when that image shuddered, pixilated, then vanished.

"What happened?" she said, looking rapidly around toward Henry. No one responded, so she banged her fist down. "What HAPPENED?" she shouted, gesturing to the now missing hologram. Henry turned away from Jack. "What-". Before he could finish his thought, he realized the source of Jo's concern and rushed back to the control panel.

"It's probably just a problem with the holographic signal. Sending visual data streams from space required new technology, and there could have been some interference with the EM shield. I'll boost the receiver frequency and reboot the system. That should take care of it…" Henry trailed off as he pressed buttons, seemingly at random. Heads swiveled to him then back to the display space, which remained blank. He pressed his lips together and threw a clearly worried look toward Allison. She stepped forward. "How about…" She and Henry spoke rapidly in low tones, punctuating their discussion with jabs at the control panel. Others scrambled for their chairs, calling out readings from the circle of desks around the room.

"Jo, any idea what's going on?" Jack asked quietly. She shook her head. "I don't know. The communications system was designed to work as far away as Titan. They didn't want to rely just on voice communication—the visual data stream was supposed to allow the control team to monitor activity on Astraeus even if the flight team was sleeping, or sick, or…". She swallowed hard, and glanced back at the display space. Still blank. Jack put a hand on Jo's shoulder.

"It's a redundancy, something to ensure that we could always see the team, even if we couldn't talk to them. After Fargo and Zane's little trip around the ISS, the risks of losing all communication with a flight crew were pretty obvious. Having visual and audio signals that could operate independently on an infinite range of frequencies was supposed to make the communications system foolproof." Jack's lips twitched upward. "Foolproof…in Eureka?" he said incredulously. Jo returned his smile, although hers didn't reach her eyes. "Yeah, well…".

"They're back!" Henry shouted. Jo spun toward the center of the room, where the Astraeus bridge now filled the display space. For a few seconds, relieved sighs and laughter drowned out the audio feed. Slowly, though, the control room became silent as focus turned to Grace's words.

"The FTL failed." Her voice was curiously flat. "We know that we're still in our solar system, and we're confirming our exact location now." The control group assigned to position monitoring was bent over their stations, hands flying over the keyboards. "All systems are functional, although…" Grace took a slow breath and squared her shoulders. She continued, looking into the middle distance as she spoke. Her image nearly filled the display. "We almost lost a navigation unit when we stopped. It was like we hit a wall…we rocked nearly 90 degrees then back in a second. The right pod with the primary sensor array split away from the ship with the force…it was barely attached when we stopped moving."

Grace's voice grew quiet. "If it had separated, we might not be able to make it home. But…" Her voice trailed off as she stepped slightly back. Fargo was now visible, sitting with his head in his hands. Holly was next to him, slightly out of frame. A trickle of blood rolled down her cheek. Fargo looked at her for a long moment, then cleared his throat to speak. "We got it back. Zane got it back." He voice was strained. "He went out-". Jo's gasp sounded like a crack through the silent control room. Fargo's eyes turned toward the Astraeus communication screen so he seemed to be looking directly at her.

"Jo, he was amazing." Although he barely spoke above a whisper, Fargo's voice filled the room. "He didn't hesitate. Before we were even off the floor, he was heading out there with a retrieval unit. We know it activated because the array retracted back to the ship. But the engines—they fired up. We don't know why…maybe the rotation, I don't know…" Fargo's voice broke.

"Henry? Would you please pick up a comm-link?" Grace asked. Henry complied, knowing without more to hand it to Jo. The audio feed from the holographic display unit muted.

"Jo…Jo, I'm so sorry…we lost him. When the ship rocked the second time, we think he was thrown clear of the pod." Jo's grip on the device loosened and it dropped to the floor. She didn't notice. Her face was nearly impassive, but her breath was coming in sharp gasps. Jack dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around Jo's upper body. She didn't notice that either, lost to paralyzing shock.

Henry picked the comm-link up. "Grace?"

"Oh God, Henry." Although no sound projected from the virtual Astraeus, the tears rolling down the faces of its crew told the assembled group all they needed to know. "We've tried tracking Zane. He had his flight suit on, and it would have had an active tracking beacon. You know—the range on those things is huge. If we could capture the signal, we could try a rescue." She paused, then spoke with obvious frustration. "But we aren't getting anything. It's like he just vanished. Henry…" her voice shook slightly and she paused. "We don't know…we can't be sure…" She steadied herself. "We don't know if he's alive or…not. And if he's alive, we don't know where in the hell he is."

The control room had become still when Henry muted the Astraeus audio feed. Not a single rustle of paper or click of a keyboard interrupted the quiet until it was shattered with a high-pitched keening.

Still seated at the main control table, Jo was clutching her stomach, her hands curled into fists. "No, no, no…" she gasped between sobs, oblivious to the room full of staring eyes. She shook off Jack's arms and doubled over, repeating "no" as if she would never stop. No one else moved, frozen at the sight of her devastating grief.

With one hand on Jo's arm, Jack looked pleadingly up at Henry and Allison, his own vision blurred with tears. Henry stepped forward and lowered himself to Jo's eye level. "Jo," he spoke quietly but with sufficient authority that she turned her head toward him, without meeting his eyes. "We don't know yet what happened here. Zane may be alive." He looked back at Allison. She looked at him with understanding, but shook her head slightly. Gazing at her for a moment, Henry considered his next words.

"Jo." He leaned forward until they made eye contact. "Zane trained for this. He was equipped for this. He may be alive. If he is, we will find him. If he is…" Henry met Jack's eyes briefly. After a moment of non-verbal discussion, he looked back into Jo's. "If he is, I promise you that we will save him."

The few people within earshot startled at this. Henry Deacon and the truth were rarely, if ever, known to part company. But he'd just made Jo a promise no one had reason to believe he could keep. Silence descended over the room, broken only by the sound of Jo's quiet sobs.

Author's Note: I know, I know…pure misery. I guess the tone of cast & crew tweets about today's final wrap on filming of Eureka got to me. So I took it out on Zane…although I actually do think we may see something along these lines (less potentially fatal, I hope) develop before the season ends.