Peering over the topmost balcony of the engine room, Mars looked down the three floors, looking down towards the bottom. The main reactor to the Galactic shuttle hummed with an intensity that filled the whole craft. Several long and thick tubes jutted from the massive bulkheads, the mass cables that regulated and transferred power snaked down over the last balcony where the section of the engine room hung down and split towards the large collection of reactors that sat in the cargo hold.

Mars took a long ladder that descended along the outside of the two exposed balcony decks of the engine room and the final floor of the cargo hold, bringing herself down towards the last one that hung over the cargo hold. She shimmied herself around the ladder, walking along the steel-grate platform that lined the bulkheads and various fuel containers that interfaced with the external turbines. As she did, she looked out over the balcony, seeing the operator's platform where TB60 stood, overseeing the power transfer both from his perch on the raised platform and from a mounted display. She approached without a word, watching as he switched between several different screens on his display.

At long last, TB60 saw Mars approaching from around one of the large main columns that fed fuel to the external engines. Reaching over to the analog control panel, he flipped the plastic case over a switch and hit the concealed 'DOWN' button. The steel plate of the platform he stood on jolted once, making the thin platform wobble before the electric engine beside it slowly lowered him, whining the whole way down as the piston beneath depressurized. As his platform lowered to be level with the balcony, the extended track that the platform was mounted on retracted, pulling him close to the balcony as well. Once the platform was level and flat with the balcony, having reached a complete stop, TB60 reached beneath the monitor of his overseeing setup, pressing on either side of the mounted computer rack where two arms released the computer held inside, pushing out just the end for TB60. He grasped the thin, wide computer, firing up the touch display that encompassed the front of it and switching it into tablet mode.

As TB60 slid his hand through the hand grip beneath, Mars stood at the entrance to the controller platform. She watched carefully as, as TB60 finished situating himself, his true expression came to full view; optimistic, but somber.

"Your report, TB60?" asked Mars.

A black screen came up on TB60's tablet. He had stepped around off the platform to come alongside Mars, showing what the tablet was trying to pull up, where moments later the white lines of a wireframe diagram appeared. The tablet had drawn the morning's cargo hold layout, a detailed diagram of everything held inside the shuttle. In bay 'B', just beside the current area they stood in, rows and rows of storage reactors appeared, about forty. About half had red caution marks on them with a linked annotation.

For effect, looking to Mars for just a moment to see that she was paying full attention, TB60 started to open up the linked annotations, where they appeared on a side view of the diagram, a digital slide-out drawer with several individual notes that appeared like sticky notes. Though the individual annotations were all different, written by different members of the inspecting team in the cargo hold, all Galactic scientists, all written in different styles, the exact same lengthy string of an error code kept appearing.

"Now, this," said TB60, "this here is what we got when all of us were performing routine inspections overnight. We found all of the reactors here are suffering from these issues. It's not a hardware defect with the reactors themselves—we built all of them in-house, engineered and designed by the high Galactic scientists—it's an issue with the power supply. Now—"

"What do you mean 'an issue with the power supply'?" Mars interjected.

TB60 ran his finger beneath the identical error code string on another random annotation he had opened. "This error code means that the power we've collected is extremely unstable. It's seemingly corrupted. Think like if water had been poisoned with lead, or if it were radioactive. All of the power in these containers is completely unusable. If we swapped out the reactor we have currently in this shuttle with one of these, the entire turbine complex would overload and turn this whole town into a gigantic fireball."

Mars swallowed inaudibly, holding her resolve. "It's completely unusable?" she asked.

"Not unless we discharge all of it, remove the power to some other kind of storage until we can filter it."

"We have to filter the power?" Mars had tried to hide the skepticism in her voice, but she had finally failed. Her voice wavered a bit, even if her focused gaze never did.

"Your plan is to take the twenty 'bad egg' reactors and run them through a gigantic surge protector? And that surge protector does not even exist?"

"It's extremely hypothetical."

"We've been on this mission for four days. Today is the last day we were outfitted for as far as supplies and planning. I have to report to Master Cyrus tonight why our mission is going the way it is. We don't have time for 'hypothetical'."

Sitting atop a storage unit, Mars ran a hand through her hair, hunched over with her legs dangling over. She threw her hands into her lap in defeat, looking up with tired eyes and looking over her shoulder, looking at Geegee.

Mere feet from Mars, Geegee squatted with a plastic tray, poking a plastic bag. The plastic bag sat in water, steam coming up all around it, droplets of condensation beneath the bag. The bag was full of a yellowy-orange solid, flecks of parsley showing up on the surface, as well as chunks of vegetables that showed against the bag. As Geegee took a knife from her utility belt, clicking the release and exposing the silvery blade, she made a long cut along the edge of the bag. The prepared soup dumped out of the bag and into the thin layer of water. Geegee shook the bag vigorously, shaking out the thick, viscous liquid. The far end of the bag shuddered and stopped as she shook, and Geegee's eyes went wide. A large chunk of frozen soup slid out, falling flat and sliding in the thawed contents of the tray.

As Geegee's frightened expression panned up to Mars, Mars waved it off, reaching and accepting the tray from Geegee when she offered it. She took the plastic-wrapped spork and napkin from her as well, beating down the plastic-wrapped ware against the surface of the container until it popped, the spork and napkin coming free. Without a thought, Mars dove into eating the soup straight away, not thinking about flavor or texture.

Behind her, TB60 was squatting over a tall reactor, atop the small platform mounted over the top of the main structure. A long coiled cable had been attached to a port atop his tablet and was processing information as fast as it could. Though he was mindful of the loading window on the tablet, he watched carefully as basic data and rudimentary diagrams of the energy contents flashed beside him. Though his expression was stony, a bit of that rigid expression faltered.

"I've resolved to work with my top people to make a basic model—a simulation of the energy purification process," said TB60. He watched as, on the tablet screen, the full data table appeared on the status of the reactor. It was as grim as he had expected moments earlier.

"That's a start," Mars said, midway through chewing a chunk of frozen soup.

TB60 detached the cable from his tablet. Taking the hand strap on the back of the device, TB60 pressed the tablet screen-first against a wide, flat holster on his hip, where the corners of the tablet snapped in and locked into place. He then swung his legs over the end of the platform, levying himself down by holding the guardrails until he found the first rung of the latter beneath him, crawling down the ladder that ran down the side of the reactor.

Mars finished her soup silently. After scarfing down the majority of it by spork, she lifted the tray to her lips, tipping it back and drinking it all. Once finished, she wiped away the soup from her lips with the napkin, then wadding up and tossing it into the tray. She dropped the spork atop it, setting it beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it disappear. Geegee had hastily put it away, putting it with the rest of the trash that she had generated making the meal. Mars watched Geegee's diligence in silence, and then turned back towards the bottom of the storage crate where TB60 had appeared, waiting.

"TB, get started on that. And… Give us a moment…" Mars said, her voice appearing more confident than it was in reality as it echoed off the walls of the cargo hold.

As both Mars and Geegee passed between two low-hanging coolant tanks, following a narrow path with caution markings one either side, the lift platform sensors kicked in, the lights on the control console lighting up. Mars stepped on first, and as she turned the starter key, flipping open the plastic case on the control buttons, she looked to Geegee, who had paused.

Geegee was on the steel-studded platform, but she was kneeling in front of the silvery coffee canister she had set down on it. A small holster atop the coffee canister held a stack of papery cups, and Geegee took one out, sliding it beneath the nozzle. She pumped the plastic button atop, filling it with steaming black coffee. She took the full cup, passing it up to Mars.

"Sorry, I forgot to earlier," said Geegee, masking a sigh beneath her breath.

Though Mars took the coffee, she gave Geegee a weary look, considering what she said as she took a sip. The simmering black coffee was refreshing, the bitter sensation lingering in the corners of her mouth, bringing a bit of light to her eyes despite her worried expression. She then pressed in on the lift button, toggling the green button and watching as it blinked.

The platform beneath them jostled once, and then lifted the two of them at a crawling pace, the motors whining all around them. The pair stood in silence, watching as they passed through the many different sets of balconies and the thin catwalks that snaked between large fuel tanks, some grunts having woken and arrived for the morning shift.

Towards the top of the tall open engineering space, the final balcony approached. Mars readied herself, watching and waiting until the lip of the lift was level with the open space of the balcony. Mars then pressed in against the green button, ending the blinking and releasing the sprung lock inside. The magnetic lock on the gate ahead of them released and swung open, allowing them to step off. Mars didn't, instead turning her attention to Geegee.

"Are you okay?" asked Mars.

"Am I okay? I mean… Are you okay?" Geegee was avoiding eye contact, only referencing her by looking to the corners of her eyes, her lips remaining pursed as she asked the tentative question.

Sighing, Mars walked ahead, stepping onto the balcony and walking ahead. At the door's console, the touchscreen coming to life and asking for authentication, Mars keyed in her own personal clearance code, authenticating with a swipe of her thumb over the fingerprint reader. Satisfied, a chime played out and the door hissed, sliding deep beneath the wall.

"I told you, I'm just a bit worked up over just how far we've slipped behind on things," said Mars. "I just want to make sure that… As a leader, I'm performing at my best and so is everyone. If this mission goes any more sideways, it's all on me, and there's already a lot I have to answer to."

Geegee walked the corridor, keeping pace with Mars. Though mindful of the silvery coffee canister that swung beside her as she walked, she slowly turned her eyes down, thoughts creeping in as she considered everything Mars had to say. It made her a tad distracted when she had to pause and let other grunts walk past her, but she continued walking just as she had, lost in thought.

As the hallway bent, turning into a small sublet of a hallway before turning into the main corridor of the shuttle, Mars took the detour towards the steel door of her quarters, keying in another clearance code into the touchscreen console in the wall beside it.

"I just… You don't seem like yourself…"

As the door beside Mars opened into the darkness of her sleeping quarters, Mars turned on Geegee, giving her a deathly serious look. A pallor had fallen on her features, making her look paler than usual, almost in human. Her eyes had a hypnotic quality, a glimmer deep beneath the red tint of her irises. It made Geegee freeze up, paying attention but feeling a deep clenching fear inside.

Moments later, Mars' features softened up. She straightened herself and stood more upright, no longer the hunched over, defensive monster she was seemingly imitating.

"Sometimes when you lead, you have to do some unsavory things."

When Mars finished speaking, Geegee still found herself frozen, gazing off into the dark depths of Mars' quarters. She didn't follow.