Chapter 2.
Several hours had passed since their return to the Javelin. The bodies of their fallen had been collected and marked, the debris from damaged systems had been cleared away and all systems were, if not a hundred percent, good enough.
Itchy stood on the bridge, watching over the various crewmen as they prepared the ship for a Quantum jump to the nearest safe haven. Coordinates were locked in, the Quantum Drive was spooling up and he was fairly certain nothing would fall off the ship when they jumped.
Hat had assured him of that.
"Quantum Drive ready to engage, Sir." Their ship's pilot called out from the front of the bridge and Itchy took a deep breath.
'Let's hope Hat wasn't wrong.' He thought before speaking. "Initiate jump."
He only had a brief moment to tense before the hum of the Quantum Drive turned into a roar and consoles began exploding once again.
'Fuck...'
Nixie had just stepped from her quarters, dressed in a fresh flight suit. The hot shower and clean clothes had helped immensely. She was on her way to the mess, having messaged Hat and Bacon about grabbing some food to help pass the time while they were in Quantum.
Hat would bring Reaper, having taken the younger man in as a sort of apprentice and knowing Bacon, he would drag Ginger out of the Cutlass to join them.
Rather Ginger wanted to or not.
She felt the ship's Qunatum Drive spooling and almost subconsciously blocked out the sound until it changed. The dull hum became a loud shriek and suddenly lights were exploding all around her. The ship lurched and Nixie was thrown back, her head smacking into a bulkhead with a meaty thwack before darkness took over.
Hat and Reaper sat in the mess hall of the ship, each with an MRE and water bottle. Hat was in the middle of taking a bit when Bacon and Ginger joined them at the table. They sat across from the other two and Reaper took a second to glance over their pilot.
Ginger looked considerably better than when he'd last seen him. The tall red haired man sporting a slight smirk as he began tearing open his own meal. He glanced up and met Reaper's eyes, giving a somber nod to the younger man's unasked question.
He wasn't okay, but he would be.
"How'd the repairs go?" Bacon asked, his own MRE open and a beef chunk already held in his hand.
"They aren't good, but it should be enough to get us to HUR-L1." Hat replied before popping another piece of meat into his mouth. "We took one hell of a beating. Gonna need a few weeks in Dry Dock to get her back to a hundred."
Bacon nodded and was reaching for another piece of his meal when the Quantum Drive began spooling up. He glanced uo from his meal, bringing the food to his mouth when the ship made a horrific screech and lurched. Bacon and Ginger were thrown back from the table while Hat and Reaper had the wind knocked out of them as they were forced into the edge of the table.
Food flew through the air and crewmen were thrown towards the back of the ship. Lights burst in their housings and electrical panels exploded in showers of sparks. The whole area was plunged into darkness for a terrifying three seconds.
Red lights began to glow, casting the mess hall into an eerie scene of scattered food and groaning crew. Bacon and Ginger climbed to their feet, Ginger scanning the area as other members of the crew recovered.
"Is everyone alright?" Ginger called out across the room, already moving to help a crewman to their feet. Bacon did the same while Hat and Reaper coughed and gasped in their seats.
"What the fuck was that?" Reaper managed to get out between fits of coughing. He definitely cracked a rib...or three.
"Looks like a power surge." Bacon answered, his eyes moving to Hat in an unspoken question.
"Definitely a power surge." He confirmed, rising from his seat and clutching his side. "I'm gonna head down to the engine room, try and figure out what the hell went wrong."
"No." Ginger stopped hik before he could take a step. "Get to medical and get checked out. I doubt your crippled ass is gonna be any help down there."
"Fuck off, I'd still be more help than you." Hat replied through a grimace as he took a step toward the corridor that would lead him to medical. Ginger didn't respond with words, merely giving a small snort. Reaper followed Hat out of the mess and Ginger turned to face Bacon.
"Can you head to the engine room, see what happened? I'm gonna head to the bridge and see what Itchy has to say."
"Yeah, I'll figure out how Hat fucked up." Bacon laughed as he turned away and headed to the aft of the ship. Ginger began making his way to the bridge, helping any crew he found along the way. The unfortunately small amount of crew that was left anyways.
Nixie groaned as she slowly came back to consciousness. The hallway was dark, but the emergency lighting had kicked on and bathed the wide hall in a vibrant red. She rolled to her side, but felt an immediate rush of nausea hit her when her head moved.
Reaching up slowly, she felt the back of her head and winced with pain before bringing her gloved hand to her face. Blood coated her fingers, shining softly in the red light.
'Yep, definitely a concussion.' She thought as she fought through the nausea and forced herself to her feet. She attempted to take a step, but her legs gave out and she dropped to her knees. The sudden motion proving too much and causing her to empty the contents of her stomach onto the floor of the hall.
Once she was sure she had finished voiding her stomach, Nixie carefully moved herself into a sitting position against the closest wall and brought her MobiGlas up to her face. She connected to the ship's internal comm channel and dialed the first name on her contacts.
"Nixie, are you okay? Where are you?" Bacon's voice answered her after a brief moment.
"Can't say I'm doing to good." She paused to take a breath. "I'm outise my quarters, hit my head on a bulkhead I think. Definitely have a concussion. Can you send someone?"
"I'll get one of the crew to come get you. I'm on my way to the engine room to try and figure out what went wrong. Hat and Reaper are on their way to medical as well so at least you'll have company."
"Thank God for small mercies." She chuckled before groaning as another wave of nausea came over her. "Fuck, this sucks."
She ended the call and slumped back against the wall. Hopefully help would arrive soon, the smell of vomit wasnt doing her any favors.
The bridge was a mess.
Again. Itchy sighed as he surveyed the freshly destroyed command deck. Thankfully there were no injuries, no serious ones, anyways. He brought his wrist up and activated his MobiGlas, selecting a ship wide channel.
"All personnel, report your status to your section lead ASAP." He hated being in charge of the Javelin. Too formal, not relaxed like the ground team.
Not to mention the paperwork.
He heard the door to the bridge slide open and turned to see Ginger entering. A surge of relief washed over him as he realized he could pass off responsibility of command to the red haired pilot.
Ginger noticed Itchy moving toward him and was about to offer a greeting when the black haired man walked right past him.
"You're in charge, Ginger." Itchy was out the door and out of sight before Ginger could utter a single word.
"You son of a bitch." He muttered as he saw the first tech approaching him.
Itchy found himself in the engine room, standing beside Bacon as the shorter man spoke with an engineer.
"It looks like the reactor experienced a sudden surge." The tech explained. "When the failsafe kicked in to prevent catastrophic meltdown, it attempted to dump that excess power."
"Okay, I'm not seeing the issue here." Bacon replied, a note of exasperation in his voice as the tech explained what was basic knowledge.
"The issue, Sir, is that Hat's repairs, or more accurately, his jury-rigging, caused all that excess energy to be dumped into the Quantum Drive."
Bacon and Itchy's eyes widened at the implications.
"Honestly, I'm shocked that the QD didn't explode." The tech glanced over his shoulder at the Quantum Drive's containment unit. "Instead of detonating as it should have, it appears to have gone into a sort of overdrive. I can't even begin to understand it, not without a few hours, maybe days to study it."
Bacon was about to reply when Ginger's voice came over the internal comm.
"I need all ranking personnel to report to the bridge ASAP. This is not optional."
Itchy and Bacon locked eyes with each other before moving quickly to the bridge.
Ginger stood at the command console, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out the window of the bridge. What he saw baffled and terrified him in equal measure. Normally, the view during a Quantum jump was standard. The sun slowly moved across your view, stars flew by and faint wisps of green and blue hugged the edges of the windows.
What he was seeing was anything but normal. The sun was nowhere to be seen, even on the external cameras. There were no stars flying by and the calming wisps of blue and green were angry flames of red and purple.
Crewman scrambled around him in an organized chaos as they attempted to get any information on their current situation. Some would occasionally stop and stare put the window before getting back to their tasks. He couldn't blame them. He could barely take his eyes away from the view.
Bacon and Itchy arrived first, followed shortly by Hat, Reaper and Nixie. Ginger slowly turned to face them.
"Hat." His voice was colder than a glacier. "What did you do?"