Chapter Two: ADRIFT
Twenty-five minutes after drive failure…
"Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond."
…
"Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond."
…
"Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond."
…
Consciousness returned slowly. Her head felt like it was full of cotton, and there was blood dripping from her nose. The gravity still worked, so that was something. The air was hazy with smoke, and her mouth tasted bad, so she worked her jaw a few times before shoving her bone goggles atop her head, and shakily responding.
"Pilot Brooks… responding."
"Control to- Moira, are you all right?"
"No. Nothing's broken, but I'm bruised all over, and must have started bleeding from my nose while I was out."
"Medical telemetry shows you sustained a brief surge of almost thirty-five gravities of deceleration."
"That explains the headache, then."
"Can you tell us where you are, Pilot? The ansible allows for communication, but without a radio signal, we have no way of locating you."
And now her mouth tasted of ash, just like the stench of burned electronics that pervaded the command deck.
"Let me see if the star tracker survived."
It took a moment to swivel her chair back to the forward position, and boot up the HUD systems revealing the white text "NO SIGNAL" on every screen segment. After taking a deep breath, Moira began to check over her suit.
"Command, the drive rings' failure may have stripped the outer hull, I have no cameras. I'm going to take a look outside."
"…Acknowledged, Pilot, we'll keep the line open."
After (carefully) checking her suit, and taking another deep breath, Moira stepped into the airlock, and sealed her helmet. Once the lock depressurized, she clipped a safety line to an anchor point, and carefully climbed out onto the hull. In the light of her helmet lamps, she saw she'd been right, the exploding drive rings had completely stripped the hull, bathing it in a fire of exotic particles that had eaten and eroded away all of the radiators and most of the Whipple shielding, leaving behind shattered stubs, and a field of bare mounting points. The bells of all the chemical engines and both fusion torches were a dented ruin, and all four rear solar arrays had been sheared off completely. The four forward arrays' armored covers looked scorched and battered, but the port and starboard covers looked the least damaged.
The ravening energies of the detonating drive rings had also fried every single camera in their armored housings, including the highly sophisticated star tracking cameras.
"Control, it's… bad."
"Acknowledged, pilot, we see it too. Diagnostics say you have three green solar arrays, but the rest of the external emplacements are coming back as "not found". Stand by, we'll try to deploy them."
There was a rumble beneath her boots, and then a *thud*, as the covers for all three solar arrays on the port, starboard, and dorsal sides blew away. Then the panels themselves extended silently, and locked into place. They then rotated, before Moira shielded her eyes as a shower of sparks from the dorsal array froze its rotation at a forty-five degree angle. Residual sparking flashed eerily off the ruins of the hull, until she had to look away.
"Basic radar's operational as well, but the synthetic aperture can only scan the forward arc."
Suddenly, the voice in her ear was full of urgency. "Pilot, you need to get back inside."
Without hesitation, Moira retraced her steps, and then as she removed her helmet, she heard it, a sound almost like rain on a tin roof. It lasted for a few minutes, and then stopped.
"Control, was that what I think it was?"
"Affirmative. You seem to have made it to the outer edges of the Oort Cloud."
"What, no congratulations?"
"Glad to hear you're in good spirits, Moira, but you're still in a region of space we have only the barest knowledge about, and without knowing exactly where you are, we have no way to rescue you."
"But you can sweep the cloud with drones and find me, right?"
"…Yes, we can do that."
"Not sure I like that hesitation, Command. Give it to me straight."
"I'm sorry Moira, but even if we shifted the entire company to building nothing but drones, we couldn't find you before your supplies ran out."
"So… We're going to have to use it."
"I'm sorry, but yes."
