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Disaster

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"And so we return again to the holy void. Some say this is simply our destiny, but I would have you remember always that the void exists, just as surely as you or I. Is nothingness any less a miracle than substance?"

-Sister Miriam Godwinson, We Must Dissent







Two years, seven months, two weeks, and three days since we left Planet. And nothing has happened. The meager R and R facilities on board, meant for a month-long trip, were already beyond old. As the de facto leader of the starship, I felt obligated to do something to cheer up the crew. I smiled. You know people are bored when they consider looking out the window entertainment. I looked out the front of the bridge. Stars were whizzing forwards, making it look as if we were going backwards. Our navigator said everything was fine, though, and our scientists said it was "normal temporal light distortion of the four-dimensional photons."

How could I cheer up the crew? Morale was running lower than a hog in death valley, and people had resorted to counting the amount of different metals in the starship. When you have everything controlled by a ingenious computer our programmers named Bill, there's nothing for anybody to do. Then I had an idea....

"All right, everybody! The first monthly laser-tag fight will take place today at 1700 hours in the arena! Arm yourselves with lasers, and set the power so low that it will hurt less than a hangnail!"

At 1700 hours, everybody assembled in the arena. People were milling about, forming "alliances" even though it was supposed to be a free-for-all. I didn't mind that much, it was an exercise in entertainment, not in fairness.

"Let the games begin!" I shouted. Immediately I felt a sting on my left shoulder. "Hey! That wasn't nice!" I called out to whoever shot me. Heather turned around, gave me a big fat smile and a thumbs-up. A gloat. Oh well. The games went on for another hour.

Then, a disaster.

Somebody had knocked in to Roy, accidentally changing his laser to full power. He then fired at Heather, not knowing it was on full power. Heather managed to avoid it. The wall didn't.

The wall exploded outward from the laser blast, showering us all with fiery debris. "What the hell was in there?" I shouted. Fires were burning, and I could tell that a few different people had been hurt.

"I think storage!" somebody shouted.

"What exploded?"

"The back-up systems for Bill!" somebody else returned. I cursed.

The lights flickered, then went out. The only light came from the fire that was burning inside the storage areas. Fires and power failures. What else could go wrong? My comlink clicked. The Second-in-command started talking:

"Bill crashed. It's restarting, but we don't know where we are. The stars out here are too far away for us to tell. Our best hope is to travel at sublight speeds until we get to Hope. It'll take an extra five years, though. Note that, without course corrections, being off by one-zillionth of a degree will mean we won't even see it. Your choice, Cap."

"I knew we shouldn't have installed Windows 2533 on that thing!"

The voice at the other end laughed.

"Do we have enough stores for another five years?"

"Yes, but we'll have to ration it."

"Even with part of our supplies burning?"

"Parts of our supplies are burning?"

"Yep."

"How did that happen?"

"I'll tell you later. Do we have enough now?"

"No."

"Talk to you later. Keep the ship at its current speed."

The comlink clicked. "Out."

My fellow crewmen had put out the fire, but a fourth of our stores were gone. What to do, what to do? We were a blind rock, hurtling through space just over the speed of light, in unexplored territory. The odds of us reaching Hope alive were so low that it almost made me want to say "Turn back."

Then, I got another call from the bridge crew.



AN: You'll find more soon enough. Enjoy this for now!