10E4

by The Keyboard

A runabout is trapped in an alternate universe which is profoundly different from its own. What effects will its presence have, and what will its crew decide to do? This story is set in the same universe and timeframe as "The Loop", and draws some inspiration from the anime "Suisei no Gargantia".

4. Chapter 4

The Senegal drifted out of the anomaly, its cuboidal warp nacelles darkened. The spatial anomaly that had brought the unassuming visitor into this universe disappeared behind it, leaving nary a trace. The tiny craft seemed so serene; as if it had been that way for thousands of years. But this could be no further from the truth; within the ship's bioneural gel packs, an intelligence was deciding the vessel's fate.

Passage through unidentified anomaly: complete. Ship status: critical. Impulse engines: offline. Warp drive: offline. Life support: offline. Shields: offline. Phaser beam arrays: offline. Torpedo launcher: Offline. Tractor beams: offline. Sensors: heavily damaged. Destroyed subsystems: 589. Damaged subsystems: 3482. Recommended course of action: engage repair systems. Repair systems at 2% efficiency. Estimated time to repair completion: approx. 8.0264 days.

Then the computer turned to an equally pressing matter: the occupants of the craft.

Status of pattern buffers: 30% damage. Time required for memory reconstruction: 317.7893 days Estimated accuracy: 99.92%.

And then, to a slightly less pressing matter: their location.

Sensor efficiency: 3%. Conducting panoramic scan of star fieldstar field matches galaxy: Milky Way. Triangulating positionposition approximate to last known position. Detailed scans required to refine coordinates. Conducting scans of immediate surroundings. Multiple entities detected within 5 million kilometres. Average entity composition: 91% Fe, 8.5% Ni, 0.5% C. Analysis: ship is within asteroid field. Large energy source present 501,348,872.2km from ship. Estimated class: Type G star. Increasing scan radius to estimated size of type G star system. 7 entities with diameter1000km within scan area. 3rd such entity from type G energy source contains elements necessary for carbon-based life forms. Increasing scan resolution at region occupied by entity. Structures incongruous with entity composition present on entity's surface. Height of largest structure: 26km. Singularities present within orbital space of entity. Number of singularities within scan radius: 3438…

The computer inquisitively pried out every piece of information it could about the universe it had been brought into, saving them for the time when its masters awoke. In the meantime, 316 days passed…