Reality crashed back in around them, accompanied by the deafening wail of the warning klaxon. In the red glare of emergency lights the cockpit looked smaller than ever. Leonardo floated in his seat, held down only by the harness. He ran his tongue over his teeth, wanting to spit out the taste of dust in his mouth. Psychosomatic, Donnie always said, with a dismissive gesture. But every jump made Leo feel like he had swallowed a lungful of ash. Raphael was still strapped in, shaking his head, dealing with his own post-jump issues.
Leonardo shut off the klaxon. A message in glaring red obscured his screen. Oxygen scrubbers offline. Reserve tanks at 89%. Eighty-nine percent meant they had a leak somewhere. It meant limited time to repair and get themselves to the nearest rebel-friendly base. Leo spoke into his headset. "Mikey? Don? Acknowledge."
"Blargh," said Mikey over comms. "I think I'm gonna hurl." Standard issue Mikey response post-jump, so Leo ignored it.
"Don? Donnie. Acknowledge." The seconds stretched out, bringing with them a flicker of fear in his gut. He tapped at his screen, checking to see if the engine room was intact. It was. But still no answer from Donnie.
"I'll go down." Raphael unclipped his harness and pushed himself toward the door.
Leonardo nodded. He remembered a blast rocking them before the jump. A quick scan of the hull showed impacts everywhere. They must have run into a torpedo swarm. But what happened to the shields? Offline, said the readout. A large, red area covered the hull at the rear of the ship.
"Donnie, respond," he said again, a fruitless exercise if Don was injured, or-
"I'm here, dammit. Stop calling me, I'm trying to stabilise the reactor."
Leo breathed out in a rush which turned into a hiss as he gritted his teeth. Donnie was fine, he just hadn't thought it worth the effort to let his brothers know. Fine, Donnie. Be angry with me. But you still have two other brothers. He pushed the thought away. "Did you hear that, Raph?"
"I heard. Coming back."
Raph pulled himself through the hatch, Mikey right behind him, and they settled into their seats. Leo rubbed his arms. He went through the readouts on his screen. Oxygen scrubbers offline. Heat generators offline. He hadn't been imagining the chill in the room, then. Gravity offline. Internal power offline. The only things still working, as far as he could see, were systems and the engine.
He mentally braced himself and spoke into his headset. "Don, I need a status report. Life support is offline, I need to know how long-"
"When I'm done, that's how long. I need all the power we have left. Now leave me alone."
"Well, someone's bitchy today," Michelangelo said into the silence.
No one smiled. Leo kept his eyes on his screen, his expression neutral. He'd been trying so hard to keep their interactions civil, to not trigger arguments in the cramped conditions aboard ship where none of them could get any real privacy. In the last few weeks he and Donnie had settled into politely ignoring each other, which was almost worse than the fights. He rubbed at his face. The cracks were beginning to show.
Leonardo pushed down the sour taste in the back of his throat. He needed to focus on their situation. Maybe they could send a distress signal. "Mikey, can you open comms and see if there is anyone close enough to pick us up?"
"Sure!" Mikey fiddled with his console while Leo searched for some power he could divert to life support. Donnie might prioritise the propulsion system, but mobility was no good if they didn't have enough air to get home. He should order Donnie to divert some power to life support. But ordering Donnie to do anything lately was an exercise in futility.
"So," said Mikey. "Where exactly are we?"
Leo looked up. "We should have come out near the Kitalpha system."
Mikey spun his chair around to face Leo. "Well if we did, it's awfully quiet out there."
Leo pulled up the navigation screen, and stared at the unfamiliar star field. "What the-" He keyed in the location finder.
Location unknown.
No. He extended the search out to a nearby star, shifting their field of view.
Location unknown.
A prickle of worry ran up his neck. He set the nav comp up to search in their visible radius, looking for a familiar star.
"Well?" said Mikey.
Leo bit his lip. They couldn't be lost. They were just outside normal range, that was all. He realised Mikey and Raphael had swung around to face him. "I'm running a location search."
"Which means we're lost," said Raphael, folding his arms. "Did something go wrong with the jump?"
"It must have." Leo went back through the moments before the jump. Rolling to avoid the torpedoes. Donnie running out. Calculating the acceleration value. He pulled up the calculations and went over them. He couldn't see anything obviously wrong. And then the impact, just before the jump. Had it damaged the jump computer?
"I need to talk to Donnie."
Raph grunted and turned away. "Yeah, have fun with that."
Leo unclipped his harness and pushed off to the door. He should stay here and talk to Donnie over comms. But things were tense enough. He'd rather have this conversation face to face, where maybe he could read Donnie's cues and avoid another vicious argument. "Helm is yours, Raphael."
"Yippee," said Raph. But he waved a hand to Leo as he exited the cockpit.
