By SilvyrWing
"You know. I have absolutely no idea which way to go. And here I am, sitting in the jumptube talking to myself. You know, I bet the rest of the ship is on fire or something. I always knew it would end this way."
Bova found the foothold he'd been searching for, and pulled himself up the steep incline of the jumptube. He didn't have Radu's strength or innate direction sense, but he knew where he was going. At least, he thought he did. What he imagined he'd find at the end was a hole opened into space from some missile that collided with the ship. Or something like that. Seriously, that was the best case scenario. Worst case, was he'd die before he got to see the fireworks.
Bummer.
Every once in a while, he'd feel the current activate, and try to push him back… Which was odd, considering he's specifically not programmed anything into the tube controls before he left the cargo hold. First of all, because he knew it would just dump him back right where he'd been anyway, and second, by the time he'd decided to crawl up the tubes, it was too dark to even see the controls.
So, needless to say, Bova was all sorts of unhappy, which really meant he was in his element.
"So Thelma and the Christa switched. There's something wrong with that. Gotta be. I wonder…"
The current pulsed again. Since Bova was almost vertical, he nearly toppled back down into the darkness below him. "…I wonder if there's someone that doesn't like me thinking that way." Finding a hand hold again, he pulled himself up, hoping that the path in front of him would eventually even out into something far less dangerous. If he fell, he could die.
Not that they weren't all going to die anyway.
***
"I told you to check them. You never listen to me, though, do you?"
Suzee's hand balled into a fist and she struck the engineering console. It was bad enough that Cat was right, but she didn't have to rub it in! Especially now!
It was a well-known fact that Catalina and Suzee worked best together when they were arguing. It was just one of those things that Goddard and Davenport had come to accept. And while Suzee rarely talked to Cat in their presence, T.J. especially had noted times when the young Yensidian had slipped. Recently, Suzee didn't seem to be trying as hard to conceal the fact that she had an Invisible friend… Probably healthier in the long-run, though the visible half of the pair was making an awful racket because of it.
"Yeah, you were right," Suzee finally conceded. Maybe, she thought, if you hadn't listened to Harlan and followed him aboard an unknown Starship, I wouldn't have to be here ignoring you in the first place!
"Okay, okay. You see that? The… Grozit, I can't remember. It's been so long." Catalina pointed to one of the indicators. Suzee emulated the gesture.
"That one?" She asked. "Hyperdrive maintenance. You don't want that one."
"Okay," Cat said. "That one then. The… That's the Central Processing readout, right?"
"Yeah, that's the one." Suzee touched it, wincing involuntarily at the dimness of it. Why hadn't she noticed before? "Why didn't you tell me these were so dim?"
Cat shook her head, dismissing the statement. "Have Thelma… I mean, Christa… Have Christa print out the readout from that."
Suzee looked up at the android. It was weird, she thought… Every time she saw Christa, she seemed less and less machine-like. It was almost as if the slow transformation was happening right before their very eyes. "Christa, can you print out the data I'm sending you?" Suzee asked, keying in the combination of things she wanted to check over.
"Printing," Christa responded.
"Okay, now why did we do that?" Suzee asked the empty air next to her.
As they continued chatting, Harlan glanced over at Radu. The two of them were leaning against the helm, watching as the rest of them fretted over the engines. Harlan just piloted… Radu was just the navigator. Rosie stood off to the side just a bit… She was more into communications. None of them really had any business being near Suzee and Cat when they were in, what Harlan liked to call, Bitch-mode.
"It freaks me out more when Suzee talks to Cat than the other way around," he commented. Rosie turned a bit, keeping an eye on Suzee and an ear on Harlan.
"Well, we were just used to Cat talking to Suzee all the time," Radu said, shrugging a bit. Rosie gave up attempting to keep up with what Suzee and Cat were discussing, and joined the other two leaning against the Helm. It was interesting to her in a way, but when they got into all the technical babble and terminology, there were very few people on the Christa that could keep up.
"Well, I think it's nice that she and Cat are talking again," Rosie added.
"Who said they weren't?" Harlan returned.
Radu narrowed his eyes, tuning out the other two as they spoke. He'd heard something… a tiny echo of a sound, and it appeared to be coming from the jump tubes. It sounded like talking, though it was too distant for him to get a good listen. Talking? In the jumptubes? Without realizing it, the Andromedan too a few steps forward, only to find his progress hindered by Harlan. Though he could have easily pulled away, Radu turned.
"What's goin' on?" Harlan asked, his own eyes narrowing.
"…I think I hear something in the jumptubes. I want to get closer…"
Harlan pulled his hand away, following a few steps behind Radu. Behind him, Rosie followed, too, careful to remain as quiet as possible. Radu's hearing was known to get them out of some pretty nasty scrapes in the past, and if something was wrong, like Radu thought, (And likely Bova, Rosie mentally added,) then it would be best to allow the ones with intuitions about these things to… take the helm, so to speak.
Radu approached the entrance tube, leaning down into it a bit and tilting his head to attempt to pick up the voice he heard…
"…Had gotten out of this mess in the FIRST PLACE. I can't believe this. This is so fu—"
"Uh…" Radu pulled away quickly. "It's… I think it's Bova."
"Bova? In the jumptubes? Well then… He should be getting here shortly, right?" Rosie stepped around Radu, looking into one of the exit tubes.
Radu shook his head, leaning back in to listen again. He couldn't really make out anymore words… "No, he's not moving. It sounds like he's stuck or something."
Harlan chuckled. "Stuck? Alright. Leave it to Bova. Don't worry, it's probably just the Christa playing another one of her tricks."
"Christa's standing right over there, Harlan," Radu spat, more frustrated with the earther than usual. "Don't you get it? Thelma's in control of the ship now. That's… I think that's why there's problems with the engines. And… That's probably why Bova's stuck in the jumptubes." He turned away, leaning on the wall in front of the entrance tube, bowing his head so that his chin was just touching his chest. Harlan stood in front of him, jaw slightly slack…
"Okay, so you think Thelma's in control of the ship."
"Yeah," Radu responded.
"Well, that can't… It can't be… That…" Rosie hesitated, looking between Radu and Harlan. Thelma. In control of the ship.
"We're doomed," Rosie said.
"Thanks, Bova," Harlan offered… And turned back to Radu just as he disappeared into the jumptube.
At exactly the same moment, next to the engineering console, Christa collapsed, landing with a sharp thud on her knees. Harlan's attention was drawn away from the fact that Bova was likely trapped, and to the fact that the ship's once-android now looked as if she was about to pass out.
Rosie reached her side first, kneeling next to Christa and helping her to lie down. "She doesn't really look so good…" the Mercurian stated, resting the back of her gloved hand on Christa's forehead. Emitting a frustrated grunt, she pulled her hand away. "Not the best person to be checking for temperature, I suppose!" she uttered cheerily, waving Harlan down next to her. The Earther kneeled, imitating Rosie and placing his hand on Christa's forehead. He instantly pulled the hand back, clutching it as if in pain.
"She burning up!"
Suzee leaned over the console, confused eyes resting on the prone android as Miss Davenport kneeled down across from Rosie and Harlan.
"…Dear. I can feel the heat without even reaching for her…" T.J. said.
Christa shivered, as sweat-soaked silver wire and blondish-brown hair fell across her eyes. "…I have to leave! You have to unders--- You… Why don't you understand!"
She thrashed, heavy half-mechanical arm colliding with Harlan's chest and throwing him backwards to land on his rear. Wisely, both he and Miss Davenport backed away. Rosie, though… Rosie's hands gently cradled Christa's shoulders, and her wild trembling ceased. "Christa, why do you have to leave?" she asked. Harlan looked more closely, and could see that Rosie was attempting to draw the heat from the android. It seemed to be working.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry Catalina… Harlan… If I don't leave, the… The rest of the… They'll all… You have to understand!"
Suzee finally abandoned the console, opting instead to kneel next to Rosie… "Do you have any idea…"
Suzee was cut off when Christa continued. "It's going to explode! I've led you here, and now… It's all my fault! I have to make it right!"
The Yensidian's eyes suddenly widened. "She's… reliving the time Cat and I switched dimensions," she said.
Rosie grasped the android's arms tighter, wondering how a machine of all things could be so sick, and so suddenly. She attempted to absorb the heat, but it seemed to continue somehow, as if it were being added to her through an internal source. "Suzee… Get back on the engines, okay? Please?" Rosie never took her eyes off Christa's as she spoke, but she hoped Suzee would listen to her. Thankfully, she did. Wordlessly, the girl got to her feet and sat back down at the console.
Christa shivered again, as if she was cold. "…You're all safe! You're all safe…"
Goddard leaned over her. "…The ship," he wondered. One of your sister ships."
"The Ryst," Christa confirmed, the delirium passing almost as suddenly as it had come. "I… sensed it had been attacked." Pausing, she licked her dry lips. Dry! This was all wrong. She wasn't supposed to be this alive! She belonged with the ship!
"You don't have to talk, Christa," Rosie cautioned as Christa leaned up a bit to look at Goddard. Thankful for Rosie's release, she allowed herself to fall back to the Command Post floor.
As her back struck the ground, the crystal fell out of her forehead, clattering to the tile below.
***
"What the…?!"
Bova was suddenly and completely alerted to the presence of a falling whatever before he even had time to act. It caught him, and sent him tumbling down the jumptube right back into the Cargo hold. Luckily, just before he tumbled across the floor, the built-in air brake thought to kick in and slow him down. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to keep the wind from being knocked out of him.
"Well! I'm in the cargo hold!!" he snapped for what seemed to him to be the hundredth time.
"The cargo hold…? What am I doing here?"
Bova turned toward the voice. "Radu?"
"Yeah." The Andromedan righted himself, looking toward Bova's voice. It was too dark to actually see him. "I was standing in the Command Post, and the jumptube… It pulled me in."
"Something really weird is going on," Bova added needlessly.
And it was at the very moment that the gravity in the cargo hold failed.
***
She was nearly unconscious, floating in space… Or what seemed to be space. Some far corner of her mind knew that it was the ship. The ship she was supposed to be. The crystal had failed. It had fallen out. Without the crystal, there was no Christa. There was not Thelma. Thelma was, after all, the mechanical extension of the Christa, herself… And Christa's tie to the crew. She'd never been out of contact with them at all, she realized. And now it was too late Now, the ship had no soul. No one to tell the life support systems to flush fresh oxygen into the ComPost. No one to run the jumptubes or to keep the Commander and Miss Davenport from working the controls. In fact, there wasn't even anyone to control the artificial gravity mechenism, which was why they were all floating…
Christa was dying.
She had morphed not because she wanted to be human, but because she'd chosen to leave the very thing that was her life. She'd left the ship. And upon leaving the ship, her own mind had decided that it was time for her soul to rest.
So many questions left unanswered! What a fool she'd been, again! First, enrolling in a twentieth century space program that was doomed to fail. She'd failed so many… Her crewmates, and her students. She'd never see home again!
There were voices around her. Shouting. Calling. She dismissed them… Irrelevant. Just let me go, she thought.
One word. Students.
"N… No…" She managed. She would not fail her students again. Her eyes opened. Her mind, severed from the ship, nevertheless fought to find it as she registered the fact that, yes, she was also a victim of the diminished gravity. The crystal was floating not to far away from her… Christa reached out, and allowed weak fingers to close around it.
She could see them.
So much like her, they wanted to prove themselves.
Hello, Harlan. Hello Radu, and Catalina. Hello, Suzee, Rosie, Bova. Welcome aboard, Theresa and Seth.
Thelma, can you hear me?
Christa squeezed the crystal, reaching out her other hand to pull herself along the wall and toward the floor. The others spoke, but she couldn't hear them. Her mind was a horrible mix of binary and code. Their voices barely registered.
Pushing off the wall, she reached out a newly freed hand to the command post, and caught on to it – though barely. Had she missed, Christa honestly didn't know if she'd have the strength to attempt another pass.
No. Don't give up.
Now what do I do?
Do you remember us, Christa?
The voice! It was so familiar… "Esk?" she said outloud. Perhaps she was hallucinating. She did feel very warm…
"…I can't breathe…"
A small voice brought her back to the imperative situation. The words had actually registered, though barely. If the ship's oxygen failed, they would all die. All her students would die… It wouldn't be just her this time.
Tearing open a panel on the Helm, Christa pressed the crystal into it.
"Thelma…"
Yes, Christa?
"…We… We have to go ba—"
Darkness.