Draft 2

Month 1 (Day 30, 22:00 hours). The Persephone.

At forty-one degrees Fahrenheit, the lower logic hub was a freezing metal coffin. Helen pushed the micro-probes into the primary breaker panel.

“Madam, the automated failsafe is initializing,” Unit Seven warned from near her shoulder. “Cargo Bay 4 will be completely severed from the power grid in forty seconds.”

“Not if I blindfold the computer first.”

Helen gripped the primary breaker and ripped it open, temporarily severing the connection to the ship’s mainframe. She jammed her hydrospanner into the gap, bypassing the automated relay and manually bridging the circuit with a copper shunt.

Sparks showered over her. The ship’s subsystems smoothed out into a steady hum.

She checked her wrist-console. The warning lights flickered from red to green. She had forced the grid to accept the power draw without tripping the slip-drive’s failsafes.

“Manual bridge successful, Madam. Power flow is stabilized, though operating at ninety-nine point eight percent of the secondary grid’s maximum capacity. It is a highly precarious balance.”

“It’ll hold,” Helen said as she packed her tools. She climbed back up into the ship’s habitable zones.

As she brushed dirt from herself, she saw Claude Kinskey strolling toward her.

The Chief Science Officer pushed an empty anti-gravity loader-cart in front of him.

“Helen.” Claude politely nodded as he prepared to pass her. “Working late, I see.”

She stepped sideways, physically blocking his path.

Claude stopped the cart and looked at her.

“What did you plug into the grid? And don’t tell me it was a humidifier.”

“I assure you, I have no idea what you mean.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I just spent the last half hour in the logic hub because Cargo Bay 4 tried to pull enough raw amperage to trigger a ship-wide failsafe. Something in that bio-dome nearly shut down the slip-drive’s containment field.” She gestured to his empty cart. “Did you bring unauthorized cargo aboard?”

Claude adjusted his glasses. “I brought aboard highly sensitive, classified Omni-Corp research materials. As you know, our terraforming mandates often require the transportation of experimental botanical samples. The initialization of their localized stasis fields requires a temporary, albeit significant, surge in power. I logged it with the dockmaster.”

“You didn’t log it with Engineering. You don’t splice into my grid without a requisition form. If you had blown that relay, we would have lost all climate control in the lower decks.”

Claude sighed with condescension. “I am operating under Level-1 corporate non-disclosure agreements. My work is beyond your purview. Your job is to keep the lights on and the engine running. I suggest you focus on your wrenches and leave the science to me.”

Before Helen could fire back, Claude effortlessly guided the hovering cart around her and continued down the corridor.

Helen stood there. She hated the Omni-Corp suits. They always hid behind corporate protocol and expected the blue-collar crew to just mop up their messes.

She tapped her wrist-console, pulling up the schematic for Cargo Bay 4. Sure enough, the primary access doors glowed red. Kinskey had just initiated a Level-1 Quarantine lockdown on the entire bio-dome.

“Madam, your heart rate is—”

“I know, Seven.” Helen rubbed her temples.

She could use her Chief Engineer override to force the doors open, march straight down to Cargo Bay 4, and see exactly what kind of “botanical sample” required enough power to run a small city block. But she needed rest. She didn’t have the energy for a turf war with the science officer tonight.

“Seven, I need you to do something for me.”

“Awaiting instructions.”

“Kinskey just locked down Cargo Bay 4, and I’m too tired to go down there and fight him for the override codes right now. I want you to go into the ventilation system. Bypass the primary seals and slip into the bio-dome. Tell me exactly what he hooked up to Humidifier 7B.”

“Executing covert surveillance.” Seven zipped upward, slipping through the slats of the ceiling grate.

Helen leaned against the bulkhead, listening to Seven navigate the ductwork. She debated whether to stay up and wait for John to return or get something to eat and go to bed.

“I have visual access to Cargo Bay 4,” Seven said in her earpiece.

“What do you see? Did he bring aboard a secondary cryo-tube?”

“Negative, Madam. I am looking at a standard Level-5 Omni-Corp agricultural transport crate. It is stamped with the company’s green leaf logo. It is currently nestled between two vats of oxygen-producing hyper-algae.”

“Just a crate? Nothing else?”

“Visually, it appears to be standard terraforming equipment. However, my thermal and electrical scans indicate highly suspicious anomalies.”

“Define anomalous.”

“Science Officer Kinskey has spliced industrial-grade microcontrollers directly into the humidifier’s power supply to feed this crate. Furthermore, the crate is drawing a massive amount of cryo-coolant from the ship’s primary veins. Statistically speaking, unless Dr. Kinskey is attempting to cultivate an ice-age redwood, this power draw is illogical for standard flora.”

Helen rubbed her shoulder. “He’s hiding something in there.”

“Indeed. The power and coolant draw has been meticulously calibrated. It is hovering exactly zero point two percent below the automatic shutdown threshold. It is a masterpiece of electrical parasitism.”

A masterpiece of parasitism. It was arrogant, dangerous, and completely on-brand for an Omni-Corp researcher. If it was corporate contraband, an experimental bio-weapon, or just highly illegal black-market seeds, it wasn’t her problem. As long as her grid held, the Persephone would fly.

“Leave it alone, Seven. We have the grid stabilized. Return to me.”

“Acknowledged.”

Helen pushed herself off the wall. She was officially done for the night. They still had plenty of time left of their layover before they broke orbit for the Dead Zone, and she was not going to spend it chasing Claude Kinskey’s dirt-samples.

She made her way back to Engineering first. She unbuckled the utility harness, letting the hydrospanner and micro-probes clatter onto her workbench. Then she unzipped the coat and hung it on its designated hook by the door.

Leaving the workshop, Helen walked up to the main deck and headed for the mess hall. The room was empty and dark. She punched a sequence into the synthesizer and waited as the machine spit out an unappetizing bowl of synthetic beef stew.

Carrying her bowl, she made the short walk down the hall to the Captain’s quarters.

The door slid open and Helen walked inside. She set her food on the desk and collapsed onto the edge of the bed. She looked at the photograph of the salvage rig taped to the wall. The dream.

She pulled the bowl of stew onto her lap. The ship was docked, stable, and quiet. But as Helen ate her stew alone, something felt off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

A looping video of Helen noticing a Level-1 Quarantine lockdown.