In this chapter, Rush's idea is tested as Destiny faces another problem.

Note: I made a lot of this programming things up so I am very sorry if all of this sounds to unreal but I tried to make it sound as sci-fi as possible.

Chapter 8

"Can I just say," began TJ as they headed to the Control Interface Room. "This has to be the dumbest idea that I have ever been a part of."

"By all means, I am open to suggestion," hissed Rush, although he stopped and took a deep breath. He shouldn't snap at TJ. The woman was just trying to help. "We don't have much of a choice, Lieutenant."

As if to justify his point, the ship lurched in the all too familiar way when they dropped out of FTL.

"TJ," came the start from TJ's radio. "We've dropped out of FTL. I'm in the infirmary, where are you?" asked the colonel as she and Rush found their balance once again.

"Hallway just after the infirmary,' replied TJ to the radio and soon enough the Colonel had caught up with them, just in time to steady Rush who tipped dangerously forward.

"You're up," remarked Young as he got Rush to a somewhat standing position. "Well somewhat."

Rush glared at him. "I'm guessing dropping out of FTL wasn't planned."

"Destiny has been transferring all its energy to one particular system," began Young as they all headed for the Control Interface Room.

"Which system?" asked Rush as he immediately went to an empty console, the Science Team surprised and relieved to see him awake, but not really wishing to answer his question much to Rush's annoyance.

"Which system?" he repeated, rather forcefully this time and the looks they all exchanged just aggravated him even more.

"The chair," replied Young, studying the man who remained focus on his console.

"The gate's not dialing," said Rush. "No planet in range…we can't be drifting towards a star because there's no one in range as well..."

"Didn't you hear-"

"I heard what you said Colonel but it's not like you're going to let me sit in the damn thing so either you say something useful or you let me look at the problem at hand," snapped Rush and TJ was immediately by his side. Rush raised his free hand to stop her.

TJ stopped but still gave him a concerned look. "What did I just say about stressing you out?"

"Either you make sure the Colonel doesn't talk for the next few days or we try out my plan of cancelling it out," said Rush, not even bothering to look at her but focused on the consoles. "Have you tried trying to transfer small amounts of energy back to our systems?"

"Our access before have been shut out," replied Brody. "It's like everything we've done so far has been reset."

"Everything?" asked Rush, looking at him then to Eli, Volker and Park. "The ship went to it's basic programming because of the attack."

"Like how a person uses his primary instincts to survive…" began Eli, getting Rush's point. "But shouldn't everything we've done with the ship still be intact?"

"It's somewhere," replied Rush. "We just can't access them right now-"

"Ahh Dr. Rush," began Eli, raising his hand as though he was in class. Everyone turned to him and Rush quickly made his way to stand next to the young man, looking at the console.

"What?" asked the Colonel.

"I tried doing an overwrite to one of the systems we haven't touched yet," began Eli. "But it's led to a set of programming I've never seen before." He motioned with his hand to the console. "Basically, it's telling me that I can do my overwrite if I access the energy of the ship."

"Meaning someone has to sit in the chair," finished the Colonel for him. "How about working around it?"

"It's going to take some time," said Eli, already regretting his choice of words as the Colonel glared at him.

"Which we don't have time for," replied the Colonel.

"Well besides not sitting in the chair, do you have any plans Colonel?" asked Rush, heading back to his console. "Eli, try finding a way around it while the rest of us try stealing energy from the chair to the FTL drive."

The next few minutes were filled with tense tension, a few reports saying that they couldn't get any energy back to the FTL drive by this or that, Rush's sarcastic and harsh replies, TJ hovering by his side, Eli reporting every five minutes that he hasn't made any headway and the Colonel pacing.

Which was all broken when the temperature in the room suddenly dropped.

"Colonel?" came the voice of Lt. James from Young's radio.

"What is it?" asked Young immediately over the radio.

"Atmosphere was suddenly vented out some of the rooms and hallways," reported James. "Not to mention the noticeable decrease in temperature. Some of the areas are so cold we can see our own breathe as we talk."

Everyone in the interface room looked at each other.

"What's the safest place for everyone to gather?" asked Young to Rush.

"Mess Hall?" offered Eli. "Gateroom is dark without energy and I doubt the Observation Deck is anything but livable right now."

Young turned to Rush who nodded. "James, have everyone move to the mess for the time being as we try to get Destiny's system back online."

Rush plotted all the rooms and hallways where the atmosphere was vented as Young paced once more. "Why would the ship suddenly vent the atmosphere?"

"Same reason why things suddenly grew cold," offered Volker. "Saving power."

"And she's still saving it," said Rush suddenly in alarm as he showed everyone what he had plotted. "Rooms and halls are still being vented atmosphere and with temperature dropping."

"Everett!" came the frantic call.

"What is it David?"

"You know how the doors in the hall all close to stop whatever problem spreading throughout the ship or keep atmosphere intact for the rest?" began David and everyone could hear the urgency in his voice. "Well. we're ushering people to the mess and hall doors are suddenly closing all around us, like we're all being trapped to one location."

"The mess," replied Young as he turned to the Science Team who all scrambled onto their consoles. "Is anyone else not in the mess?"

"The remaining people, besides you and TJ are the Science Team," replied David. "The rest of the remaining people are running."

They could all hear the doors closing, louder each time. "Everett, they're basically following us. I want to hope that it'll stop in the halls."

Young turned to everyone else. Besides TJ, they were all frantically working on their console.

"I can't access whatever this system is," shouted Park.

"There's one in Ancient," said Eli, glancing up Rush who immediately stepped to see Eli's console.

"I've manage to slow it down slightly," said Brody, eyes concentrated on his console. "Eli, try overloading that particular system with anything you can think off."

"To slow down the processing, got it," said Eli, moving to another console.

"Safeguards to the mess hall," shouted Rush and Volker and Park got to work.

Rush was frantically working on the console and cancelled everything out. It was a race against time if you will and a lot of people were going to die if he didn't stop whatever system or program or whatever it is that was happening with Destiny's system.

It was conserving energy, why what for? And why was it suddenly giving most of it to the chair room? Maybe if he could get some away from the chair room and into life support, the ventilation of atmosphere and temperature drop would stop…

That was a big maybe and he didn't even know if he could get any power from the chair room with all the blocks suddenly in place...the whole thing was a-

"The whole thing's a bloody mess! I may have to start from scratch."

Kiva studied him and turned to one of her men who grabbed Olan and started cutting off the other man's oxygen.

Rush tried to get up but Varro placed a strong hand on his shoulder, keeping him on his chair.

"No more chances." Kiva began walking towards him.

No she walked away, this wasn't what had happened...no...There it was again, the device. Kiva was once again standing over him, no-

Rush gasped and his eyes focused on TJ's concerned face hovering above him. He looked around and found himself on the ground, the Colonel, standing a few feet away from them, everyone else still standing by their consoles but concerned written all over their face.

"Your plan worked," whispered TJ and Rush suddenly looked at his hand, which now had a small shallow cut, held by TJ who had a knife in her other hand.

"Physical pain tethers one to reality as many people have come to realize," grunted Rush as he quickly stood and despite his bleeding palm continued to work on the console.

"Rush," someone began but his mind kept flickering back to the Lucian Alliance ship and Kiva so he dug just made a fist, sinking his fingers to the wound as pain shot up from his arm. It may have been a shallow cut but from experience it was always those that hurt as hell.

"You need to rest," began TJ.

"I rest and everyone in there dies," said Rush as he once again tried to solve the trouble. "Brody!"

"Slowed it as much as we can," said Eli. "It's about ten few more doors away. Maybe the safeguard-"

"Don't be a fool to count on that," hissed Rush. "Try finding a way to stop-" Rush's eyes widened as he realized something. It was a long shot but it could work. The ship was conserving power so it won't really look back and check… "Tell Colonel Telford that we're shutting the lights in the room."

Young studied him but radioed the others. Rush turned to Volker and Park. "Volker, Park, try this."

Rush transferred the data from his console to theirs and both of their eyes widened. "This could work."

"Just get on it." hissed Rush as he went back to trying to get power from the chair as a backup plan.

"What's happening?" asked Young.

"Dr. Rush is having us program that the mess hall has already been used already to decrease power consumption," began Park as Volker focused on their console. "Like telling Destiny that the mess hall has already been vented of atmosphere and dropped temperature."

"You're going to try and fool an ancient ship?" asked Eli.

"It's saving energy right?" began Volker as Park took over the console. "It won't waste power to recheck what it has already done."

"So instead of trying to stop it, we pretend to try and help it," continued Park as she suddenly brightened up. "It's skipped a few parts of the hallway just outside the mess."

"David, you guys ok?"asked Young to his radio.

"We can hear the other doors from a few halls away," began David. "But it's not as loud as though it was just outside the door." He paused. "Temperature is cold but not as cold as it was outside the mess."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, even Rush as he slumped slightly. That was close-

He was back on their ship, Dannic, the device and there was nothing but pain and his screams-

"Dr. Rush!"

"This will eventually kill you."

"Rush!"

"You can make this stop."

"TJ do it again!"

He withered away as the device stopped but he was still swimming in a sea of pain-

Rush gasped as though he broke the surface of the water much to everyone's relief. He manage not to hurt himself further as TJ made a shallow cut, this time on his arm and was slightly bigger.

"You wouldn't come out of it instantly like earlier," began TJ, apologetically. "I had to-"

"Not a problem," mumbled Rush as he only manage to sit up and lean on the nearby wall. "Thank you…"

"I can't keep cutting you to get you out of it," replied TJ weakly.

"It's the only solution we have for the moment," answered Rush weakly. "If you didn't earlier, what would have happened to everyone in the mess."

TJ just looked at him sadly before sighing. "Let's cover that up."

Rush shook his head. "Pain helps me keep it at bay so-"

"And risk that getting infected, no chance," argued TJ. "Punch it against a wall or grasped it with your other hand, that'll send pain right to your brain."

"There has to be another way to deal with that," began Eli. "You can't just-"

"It's a temporary solution until we fix the ship," began Rush, as he surrendered his injured arm to TJ. "I'll find another one once we're in FTL heading for a good energy source and hopefully a planet where there is a possibility of food other than fruits and leaves."

TJ finished covering the cut on his palm and forearm and Rush quickly stood and headed to the console. "Any luck in finding all our workarounds?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"How I wish this was like your ordinary computer with a reset point and everything…" mumbled Eli as he concentrated on his console again. "I do that all the time when-"

He stopped talking when he turned to Rush who was giving him a wide-eyed look. "What did I say?"