PART THREE: BEFORE AND AFTER
"Chief?" Captain Brookes stared at the star field as it distorted into an unfamiliar form. "What's going on with the warp drive?""Chief Marlow?" The Star field returned to normal, although now those stars were very different. "What the hell?"
"Claire," Captain Brookes rose from his captain's chair and pulled on his knitted sweater. "You have the bridge while I go see what our Chief Engineer has done to our god damn Warp Drive."
"Yes Captain." Claire Franklin watched as Captain Avery Brookes left the Bridge in the navy-blue sweatter his mother had knitted for him.
...
"Captain!" Avery turned to look at the source of the voice speaking his name. A disturbed Doctor Scott stepped out of the medical bay. "What the hell was that with the star field?"
"I'm just going to discuss it with the Chief Engineer." Avery scratched the hair below his lower lip with the edge of his thumb nail and promptly lied. "Apparently there was a glitch."
"From the medbay window it looked like we were directly over a bloody great whirlpool." Kai Scott shook his head in amazement. "I have never heard of anything like that."
"If it happens again," Captain Brookes continued toward the back of the ship. "Remember to get a photo."
...
"Chief Marlow?" Captain Brookes adjusted his sweater until its slight lopsidedness no longer felt uncomfortable and left the Gantry way. "What the hell just happained?"
"Sorry Captain." Marlow was snuffing a fire in an EPS conduit."Its the warp field."
"It under went an inversion." Something flashed and blew. Whatever it was, it would need replacing. "God damn it!"
"You will be thrilled to know..." Avery Brookes examined a board lit up like a flashing christmas tree while Chief Engineer Marlow was focused elsewhere. "...that Doctor Scott saw what appeared to be a giant whirlpool directly beneath the ship from medbay window."
"Thats not good." Marlow contemplated the readout. "It should have been visible ahead of us."
"If that's the case..." Avery turned to Marlow. "Why was it below us?"
"It means one of the Naecelles was out of alignment..." Marlow sat the nuckle of his thumb in his left eye socket and dragged towards his cheek removing dust. "...enough that we were tumbling sideways."
"Can you fix it?" As Randal Marlow looked up to give Avery an answer the Las Vegas shuddered as it took the impact of something. "What the fuck?"
"Deploying Beacon-Sat." Claire Franklin's voice screamed the words over shipwide coms catching their attention as the alarms indicating the Naecelles were taking atmospheric drag sounded. "Entering Planetary Atmosphere."
"Commencing Aerobreaking." Franklin's voice continued through the checklist in Avery's brain. Aerobreaking reduced the pressure experienced by the Warp nacelles and their pylons and the alarms deactivated.
"I need to get to the bridge." Avery left Chief Marlow to monitor the systems. The Warp drive was no longer the problem.
"Oh Shit!" Claire Franklin's voice echoed concern across the ship.
"All Personnel to crash positions." The ship began pulling up forcing Avery to grab the gantry rail to steady himself. "Sixty seconds to ground."
"Marlow!" Avery looked back at the Chief Engineer exiting the engineering section and running. "Get you ass up here quickly."
"Fuck." Neither he nor Marlow were going to make the distance. "We are not going to make it"
"Engaging breaking thrusters." Claire Franklin's voice was a scream as the force of impact tossed Avery and Randal from the gantry, and a coolant pipe ruptured just in time to spear Captain Avery Brookes through the back halting his motion through the air as Chief Engineer Randal Marlow flew past him into the edge of a cargo block Painted with the words BARN before dropping to the bottom of the cargo bay.
The Ship's Automated Systems began ejecting the most forward of the Cargo blocks in order to shift the ballast load to the rear of the ship for what would come next. Alien Atmosphere poured in through the gaps along with rain. Organic debris of an alien ecosystem dropped into the hold. A crack in the hull of the ship bled black murky water from the external environment. It flowed around Chief Marlow's uncolcious body.
Block four ejected after the first three, the words BARN painted large and Red on its metal exterior distinguishing it from its companions. It landed to the left of the Las Vegas next to Block two crushing a swarm of large, leech-like creatures that had never encountered anything like this before.
...
Doctor Scott descended the stairs constructed from the reoriented main gantry and stared at a swarm of giant black leeches making a nest of the cargo bay.
"Well..." Kai Scott sprayed a few squirts of Saline at a leech and triggered a bulkhead door to isolate the cargo section from the upper level. "So much for getting to the food stores."
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