After the double-vision effect ends, Colonel Dana Sterling takes a deep breath.
She places her two left fingers on her neck and punches the flesh, feeling pain.
She is nearly certain that she is still alive.
She looks at Admiral Rick Hunter, who goes to a device mounted on the wall.
"Hunter to Bridge," says the commander of the Robotech Expeditionary Forces Command, "status report."
"We are still alive, sir, " says Captain Rodrigo Ramirez. "we are still trying to get a fix on our position; we have defolded out of hyperspace. Now that we are not in imminent danger, we have already ordered a damage and casualty assessment."
Hunter takes a deep breath. "That will take up a lot of work. You can debrief me at the end of the day."
"Aye aye, sir," says the Pioneer captain.
Dana and the others know that all that can do is wait. Few of them are experts in deep space vessel operations.
Ooooooooo
For the next few hours, the crew and Space marines aboard the Pioneer take a look at the damage resulting from the mystery attack. Many of them take pictures, while others make scans using electronic equipment. Drones are deployed outside to take video of the exterior of the battered robotech battle fortress.
Near the end of the day, Admiral Hunter meets with Captain Ramirez.
"What's the latest, Captain?" asks the admiral.
"VIP and officer staterooms are completely depressurized," answers the captain. "We'll have to jury rig a berthing area for you and the guests and my officers."
"But there is more, I suppose."
"Seventy confirmed dead, with twenty currently getting emergency medical treatment. We only have the auxiliary forward sick bay operational. Propulsion and fold drive is offline. The hyperspatial communcations system is in pieces. Our present position is outside the galaxy- about four hundred light years below the bulge."
"So we are cut off from the rest of the galaxy."
"Yes, sir. What we have going for us- all we have going for us- is that our water treatment and organic reprocessing systems are still operational at barely enough capacity. We will still have access to clean water and food and sanitary supplies. As Dr. Khoury put it, we don't need half of the crew sick from cholera or dysentery."
"Dr. Khoury?"
"He's our chief medical officer now."
"I see." The admiral stays silent for a second. "This ship is no stranger to me, Roddy. I was aboard during her maiden voyage for the Pioneer Mission- that was twenty years ago.
"This crew, however, is a stranger to me. I don't know them. You do. You'll be making most of the decision-making now, Captain. I chose you for this command two years ago; I know you'll pull us through."
"We have your back, Rick."
"all we need from you, for now, are end of the day summaries. And a meeting tomorrow. There's something we have to take care of, but there are so many other things and we need to sleep. But what I am thinking is something we need to take care of tomorrow."
"Sleep will be a luxury for the next few days."
ooooooooo
Dana's sleeping space is much smaller.
Instead of the one-bedroom suite that had been her stateroom, all she has is a curtained stall in a large room that had just been converted into the provisional guest quarters. Admiral Hunter's other guests are also domiciled here. A basic cot is now her bed- much smaller than the king-sized bed in her stateroom.
She only wears a sleeveless green underblouse and green shorts; her MARPAT camouflage is lying on the floor next to her cot.
She is too stressed out to be able to sleep. She figures the attack on Earth must have commenced.
Did they win?
Was Earth still there?
Or did the Invid destroy the Expeditionary Fleet and their Sentinels allies?
And what about that mystery enemy?
And she wonders how Em, Nick, and George are doing.
Ooooooooooo
The following morning, breakfast is served, which is vegetable-rice stew- a staple on board United Nations Spacy vessels. The limited menu is not surprisingly due to the officers' mess being unavailable.
Dana finishes her stew. It reminds her of the meals that she had when she was deployed in forward areas to fight against what was left of the Robotech Masters.
"I hope ve had a good night's sleep," says Dr. Emil Lang.
"We haven't," says Admiral Hunter. He stretches, not feeling completely rested. "We need to take a look at the protoculture matrix."
"Okay," says an Air Force lieutenant colonel. "Shall we go, sir?"
"The matrix happens to be in a part of a ship that has been decompressed and sealed off," replies the admiral.
Miriya Parino Sterling swallows another spoonful of stew. "so we send a probe to take a look," she says. "I am sure the people on board have a probe to spare."
"They have their hands full," says Hunter. "But we need to look at the matrix. It's the only one humanity has."
Minutes later, they meet with Captain Ramirez and the Pioneer's senior leadership.
"I do not like having to assign people to this when our hands are full, sir," says the captain, wearing his service khakis. "But in this case, we need to look at the matrix."
"Zending a probe wouldn't be enough," says Dr. Lang. "Ve need to actually check the matrix's systems. Vhich means someone vill have to actually go there. And given my expertise, I vill be vone on them."
For a moment there is silence among everyone gathered in this room.
"We'll have to send people in spacesuits," says Ramirez. "And as captain, I must be part of the team."
"No, Ramirez," says Admiral Hunter. "You are the captain of this ship, so you need to captain the ship. I will personally lead the team. Normally, as an admiral, I command fleets, but since we have no contact with the rest of the fleet, I can more than afford to spare my time."
"Aye aye, sir," says Ramirez. "I can detail officers to help draft the plan."
ooooooooo
"..and that is how it's done," says the Space Marine gunnery sergeant who wears MARPAT. "any questions, ma'am."
Colonel Dana Sterling feels as if she is wearing a spaceship. One thing her current threads have in common with a a spaceship is that it is vacuum-sealed, designed to keep air in. It is gray in color, with a MARPAT pattern. The others also wear space suits. Aside from Admiral Hunter and Dr. Lang, Space Marine Colonel David Ortega, the commander of the Space Marine detachment, and Command Sergeant Major Walera Gashtar, the senior enlisted Marine, are with them, along with two other Space Marines.
All of them walk towards an airlock. One of the Space Marines, a Lieutenant Johnny Wolff, looks at them.
"Sirs, ma'am, take care," says the lieutenant.
The inner door shuts, and a hiss is heard as air is evacuated. The gauges inside record the pressure dropping from 760 mmHg to near zero.
A green light on the outer door lights up.
"Please make sure your boots are magnetized," says Colonel Ortega. The others make a last minute check, reaching down to their feet and glancing at the indicator lights.
And then they walk out, each step feeling as if the deck is sticking to their feet. The first thing they notice ahead of them is seeing a whole bunch of galaxies. Individual stars are too far away to be seen explicitly. The galaxies are a great distance away, at least millions of parsecs, and some even billions of parsecs, the light they are seeing having left long, long ago.
for a moment Dana and the others wonder about the people in those galaxies far, far away, what trials and tribulations they endure.
"The breach is this way," says the Space Marine colonel, walking along the outer hull of the crippled robotech space fortress. The walking is slow, with everyone wanting to make sure they keep contact with the ship.
And then they all reach the place where the hull was ruptured. The alloy surrounding the hole is jagged and twisted.
Ortega looks at a display on his faceplate, generated by a heads-up display (HUD) system. "The matrix is less than a hundred meter walk from this hole," he says. "I'm going."
and so the colonel goes in, followed by Command Sergeant Major Gashtar and Admiral Hunter. Dana helps Dr. Lang get inside.
The only light comes from their helmets. They all walk carefully; the simulated gravity is inoperative here.
Hunter notices some corpses moving around in the hallways, some of them bouncing off the bulkheads.
"Maybe we should send a team to retrieve these crewmen," says the admiral.
"Sir, there is so much we have to do," says Colonel Ortega. "And the vacuum of space is a great preservative."
"Let's continue, team."
and so they do, occasionally pushing bodies out of the way. None of them hear a sound except for their own footprints, as there is no air to transmit sound.
Dr. Lang stops and leans against a bulkhead.
"You okay?" asks Dana.
"Zis valking is tiring on my old bones," replies the researcher.
They continue walking for a few more minutes, pushing away the occasional body, shining light on the path ahead.
And then they reach it.
It is a tall structure, maybe the height of a three-story building. They all illuminate the stenciling with the headlamps attached to their helmets.
Lang recognizes this as the protoculture matrix, which refines the flower of Life- the oldest known multicellular life form in the galaxy- and refines it to protoculture, which has uses as a fuel source and for bioengineering.
And this protoculture matrix is the only such matrix under human control.
Dr. Lang immediately goes over to a metal boxlike structure that is a console and it soon lights up.
"I vill need to connect this laptop to zis thing," he says. He looks around the console and finds something. He takes a cable, plugging it into the back, and then plugging the other end into his laptop.
"Will this take long?" asks Admiral Hunter.
"It vill," says Lang.
"I'm glad I had the captain stay with the rest of the crew."
And so they wait. Occasionally, they hear the occasional update from Captain Ramirez or his staff.
"It is taking a long time, sir," says Ortega, pressing a button so that only the admiral receives his transmission.
"I'd rather have boredom than hearing that our new enemies have found us," answers Hunter.
"Looks like the protoculture matrix is okay," says Dr. Lang. Let's get back to ze pressurized sections zo that we can get out of zese zpacesuits."
"All right, team," says Hunter. "We fall back."
And so they go through the motion, carefully stepping on the deck making sure each step sticks, pushing aside the bodies of the unfortunate souls who happened to be in the vicinity during the disastrous Neutron-S test and the subsequent attack by the mystery enemy.
After walking along the outer hull, once again taking some time to gaze at the expanse of galaxies in the very, very far distance, they reach the airlock. Command Sergeant Major Gashtar presses a button, and a red light appears on the exterior door even as air fills the chamber and the gauge's needle rises. Once it reaches about 760 mmHg, a green light shines at the interior door, and they open it.
A dark-haired, amber-complected man wearing a stiff-collared white coat appears before them. "The captain is attending to other matters, sir," he says. "Welcome back, Admiral."
They all re-enter, with Colonel Ortega the last among them. Some Space Marines help them get out of their spacesuits.
"I need to analyze zis data further," says Lang, already walking down the hallway.