… All hell broke loose.
Destiny's lights flickered worryingly and then suddenly an alert roared to life screaming out for attention that it quickly got; Rush's eyes went wide.
"What the hell is going on?!" Volker screamed as he tried to balance in the shaking ship.
"Destiny's engines are overheating!" Came Brody's quick retort, eyes glued to the read out on his screen.
Rush raced to the terminal to see for himself, he dropped Cressida on her feet and started listing every curse word he'd ever some across at light speed; he may have invented a few as well. The ship shook violently and the screaming alarm threatened to deafen everyone aboard, Nicholas' radio crackled to life.
"Rush, what the hell is going on?!" Colonel Young yelled. "Are we under attack?" The scientist didn't respond. "Rush, answer me damn it!"
The Scotsman sighed and pulled out his radio before pushing it into his daughter's hands, Rush didn't even take his eyes from the glowing screen; figuring out what was happening was more important than taking a break for a chat.
"Tell him no."
Cress raised the radio, her own eyes locked on the terminal just as her father's were.
"Daddy says we're not under attack." She told him loud enough to be heard over the screeching alarm.
"Then what is happening?"
"From what I'm reading, there's some kind of overheat in the engine room." She left the channel open as she looked up to Rush. "Daddy, I think it's a fire." Why do I think it's a fire? It could be a lot of things.
"That's a good point, baby girl. Brody check!"
There was silence for a moment - at least from the crew there was, that blasted racket still echoed around Destiny - while every scientist in the room got to work, after a few seconds Colonel Young appeared behind them, face contorted in slight pain thanks to the alarm that continued to attack their ears.
"Right, I want answers and I want them now. What's this about a fire?"
Young didn't stop moving until he was almost directly behind Rush and Cressida.
"She's right." Said Brody, begrudgingly having to admit he liked the girl and her intellect "The computer system is reading a fire."
"Cress, get the Sargent. Two... seventeen. And Brody shut that bloody alarm off, now!"
She didn't need further explanation, it was obvious he wanted Greer on the radio. There was a sense of dread deep down in Cressida's heart and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why, it felt like a sting in her heart, like guilt. It didn't make sense. Cressida chose not to dwell on her internal concerns, there were more important and pressing issues at that moment in time. Instead of all that she did as her father asked.
"Sargent Greer come in, this is Cressida."
Finally the alarm fell dead just as the Sargent responded.
"What is it? Where's Rush?"
She didn't answer his questions, instead she simply told Greer what they needed him to do in that beautiful voice of hers.
"There's a fire, we need you to go to engine room two, panel seventeen and put it out. It'll be easy to find since it's on fire."
She hadn't intended to sound sarcastic, sometimes that part of her she got from her father popped to the surface.
Young took out his own radio and raised it quickly to his lips.
"Lieutenant Scott, I need-"
"I know, Sir. I'm already with Greer. We're on our way now."
Silence descended once more leaving Young to simply watch the scientists and Cress – well I guess she's one of them, isn't she? Doctor Cressida, it's got a nice ring to it – rush about working at lightning speed. May aboard Destiny teased the science team, calling them geeks or nerds, but when shit hit the fan they were the ones Young and the others ran to for answers; to fix it. Young snapped out of his mind when Cress started speaking from across the room at her own screen.
"Daddy at this rate we'll loose all power to the shields."
"The weapons system can't take much more either." Volker added quickly.
"It's out!" Greer yelled through the radio just as the ship ceased its violent shuddering and jolting.
"It's too late, Daddy."
Rush didn't respond and instead watched as Young spoke into his radio.
"Sargent Greer would you please get up here." It wasn't a question. There was a second or two of pause as the he turned back to Rush and continued. "Now, what the hell just happened?"
Nicholas sighed. "There was a fire that short circuited Destiny's power system, we're drifting."
"No shields." Said Brody.
"No weapons." Volker added.
"No heat." Cress finished their little morbid list.
"More importantly the air has stopped circulating." The Chief Scientist said depressingly and ran a hand through his long greying hair.
"How did this happen?" Young asked quickly, shifting foot to foot; something he often did when stressed.
"I don't know." Rush snapped. "I'm good but I'm not that good, I can't see through walls." He sighed. "I need to take a look at it first and we need to do something about the air quickly. If not we'll all suffocate." He turned to face the blonde doctor. "Volker, stay here and see if you can do anything with auxiliary power. Oh, and radio Chloe and tell her to meet us in engine room two. Brody come with me, Cress go have your hand looked at."
"No." She's certainly my daughter. "I'm fine, it's stopped bleeding. I just want to help, Daddy. You need me."
Rush relented for one reason and one reason only, he needed all capable hands working as fast as they could. Cress – in his opinion – was the most capable set of hands after himself.
"Alright, you're right I do need you. Come on." The Colonel opened his mouth to speak but Rush cut him off with a raised hand and paused for a moment halfway up the small steps of the bridge. "No, I have to deal with this quickly, you can moan later."
With that Rush left followed closely by Cressida and Mister Brody.
XXXX
Time went on, the air started to grow thinner and TJ found herself inundated with cases of headaches, they were all starting to struggle breathing and Cress had all but passed out beside her parents. Brody panted and Volker who'd joined them around fifteen minutes previously had even been forced to quit complaining, at least there was one boon from the situation.
Rush was breathless and his hands ached from over work, his back stung from being hunched over and Chloe looked much the same. He couldn't stop though, couldn't give up, he was so close, so close...
"Got it!" He exclaimed with glee.
The vent almost directly above where Rush had been working steadily returned to life, cool air started to flow through the ship once more. Nicholas grinned at Chloe as he forced himself to his feet and drug Cress closer to the vent that had started to shower them with fresh air once more.
"You'll be alright now... we fixed it."
Chloe crawled over to where her daughter and the scientist had collapsed, she lay down and rested her head on his left thigh. Brody and Volker would have raised their eyebrows at the intimate scene had they not been too busy filling their desperate lungs with oxygen.
"Our hero." Chloe smiled.
Rush had never been anyone's hero before and he wasn't going to deny that it felt good.
"It took all of us." He said modestly. "I think... we're just shy of... cerebral ischemia." He shouldn't have been using such big words with such little oxygen circulating his blood.
Slowly air travelled around the ship once more breathing life back into the Destiny crew, after a while Chloe, Rush, Cress had regained the strength to stand along with Mister Brody and Doctor Volker. Carefully – and still dizzily – they made their way to TJ in the infirmary.
"I think everyone is alright." The blonde told them when she finally made it through her patients to the scientists. "There was enough air remaining in the ship to prevent any lasting damage, a few headaches and shortness of breath but otherwise we're good."
For a moment all seemed right with the world, and then realisation dawned on Chloe.
"Wait, what about Eli?!"
"The stasis pods have their own power supply, closed circuit, since it's on a separate system Eli is fine. We've restored power enough for auxiliary, which powers lighting, air flow. It won't last long though."
"What does that mean in the long run, Rush?" Questioned Young as he walked into the infirmary, looking a little paler than usual.
Nicholas sighed but Brody answered the question.
"We're drifting though space-" Volker interrupted his friend.
"With no shields or weapons, so we're open to attack though it's unlikely considering we're in the middle of nowhere."
Cressida coughed. "It'll get cold too, until we drift closer to this systems sun and then we'll cook."
Sometimes she really did have her father's way with words.
"Heat is out too?"
"Yes, Colonel." Rush snapped. "How many times do we have to tell you? Heat is out, shields and weapons are down, auxiliary power won't last. Need I go on? All of us working as fast as we could to get the air back only just succeeded before we all suffocated, God knows how long it's going to take to fix everything else. Fortunately – as Cressida said – we're drifting close to a sun so we can refuel and gain some heat from that, unfortunately that also means that if we don't figure out how to band-aid the shield soon we'll frizzle up."
"Right so air, which we have, then shields so we survive long enough to refuel and then we can get to work on weapons and everything else?"
Rush, Cress, Chloe, Brody and Volker all nodded in unison as though it had been scripted. Nicholas leaned backwards in his seat a bit to look around Tamara to Lisa.
"Doctor Park, I'll need you on the bridge."
"She's still recovering!" Volker objected quickly. "You can't just-" Lisa cut him off.
"I'll help anyway I can, Sir."
"Me and Cress too." Added Chloe, the situation they'd found themselves in was dire and they needed all hands on deck.
"We'll fix it, Daddy!"
"That's my girl." He grinned down at his daughter.
"I'll have everyone gather in the engine rooms, they're the warmest place at the moment and will offer a cooler place when we get closer to the sun." Rush nodded, he couldn't disagree with Young's plan. "And I still want to know how that damn fire started."
They all did.