Continuation from Chapter 2
Originally posted to A03
Fall From Grace
Chapter 3
By the time she stirred, much of the constant crushing pain in her skull had dulled. It was still ever present, but not as overwhelming. Mariner blinked open her eyes and sighed with relief when the row of chairs hanging above her came into focus. Some of her symptoms had abated at least. Sleep can do the body good it seems.
Her heart rate spiked. Just how long had she been asleep? That much improvement could only happen over the course of hours. She never wanted to get a full night’s rest. That damn stint in a Klingon prison trained her to get deep sleep in any condition, which is the second worst part about the whole experience. Never should’ve let Tendi talk her into getting rest. A rescue ship could’ve flown by hours ago and now they’ll never find her.
Why did her friend have to be so god damned insistent? Couldn’t she understand they were in a life or death survival situation? The least she could have done was wake her up before she slept too long…
Shit. Mariner closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and groaned. That’s right. Tendi wasn’t really here. She’d hallucinated the whole thing. The mysterious concussion was making her see her friends for some reason instead of something fun. The only good part of a severe head injury was getting to have off the wall hallucinations. There were several ex’s she wouldn’t mind appearing to her in various states of undress. But no, she got bossy Boimler and Tendi. Couldn’t even hallucinate right.
And no, she did not buy Boimler’s theory that she’s scared and desperately wanted her friends’ help. Boimler is an idiot and not always as smart as he can be. Especially when he suggested that…
Mariner winced when she realized she was cursing her own hallucination's intelligence.
Best thing to do was to just get to work figuring out how to not die and hope her fucked up brain had healed enough to stop messing with her. Sitting up, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and started formulating a plan.
“Good morning Mariner!” A cheerful voice greeted her.
Well that was too much to hope for.
“Did you sleep well?” Rutherford was as chipper as ever as he crouched in front of an open panel, looking at readings on his tricorder.
She groaned as she extracted herself from the thermal blanket now tangled around her. “I don’t suppose you’re not a hallucination and are in fact the rescue party?”
“No luck,” he said with a bright smile.
She tried to ignore him as she opened one of the corner supply cabinets that were now on the floor. Inside she found several bright red emergency environmental suits. The full body suits weren’t as tough and protective as standard EVA suits, but they were quicker to don and took up less space. She slipped off her boots and outer layers of clothing. Once her uniform was neatly folded and placed on the turned over seat next to her, Mariner pressed a button on the suit’s armband causing the material to relax and expand. This allowed her to easily pull on the normally skin tight survival suit.
Suits that applied pressure directly to the skin had the advantage of being much smaller and easy to store on cramped escape pods. The major drawback however, was unlike traditional EVA suits which maintained a constant internal air pressure regardless of higher or lower external pressure, these suits were only intended for environments with lower outside pressures. Given that most of the time, crew in an escape pod would only need to worry about vacuum conditions and designers needed to fit sixteen suits in a pod, it made sense to include the shittier model.
Once the body portion of the suit was on, Mariner deactivated the assist feature and the suit returned to its normal compression fit. It was a strange feeling, having extra pressure all over her body, squeezing her. She’d worn one several times before during evacuation training, but she’d never had to get used to the fit. A fact she was grateful for.
In the compartment which would normally be above the suits, were the helmets. She grabbed one and locked it into place.
“Hey, Mariner?” When she spun around, Boimler was back and looking at her with concern.
She rolled her eyes. “What do you want Boims?”
“What are you doing?”
She was already halfway up the row of chairs which acted as her ladder before she answered. “What does it look like? I’m going outside to take a look at the damage.”
“I can,” He huffed as he tried to keep up with her climb, “see that. You know going out there is dangerous, right?”
“Not any more dangerous than staying in here.” She’d reached the hatch and crawled into the cramped one person airlock and closed the inner door. Given the escape pod’s orientation, she had to lay down in the space. It was like a coffin. A cramped, space coffin where someone might find her pressured body.
Mariner shut her eyes to try and purge the dark thoughts.
Boimler’s face filled the circular viewport on the inner door. “That’s really debatable Mare.”
God this guy could be such a worrier. “I’ll be fine. I’m just going outside for a bit.” She touched an internal panel and started the depressurization process. After a couple seconds, a light at the “top” of the outer door turned green, letting her know it was safe to open the hatch.
When the door slid open, Mariner shifted her body and poked her head out. The landscape was barren and hostile with tall spikes of rock jutting out of the ground. With the setting sun, those ominous formations cast long finger-like shadows over the sand and rock. The cloud cover she spotted earlier had grown much thicker and flashes of lightning occasionally illuminated the roiling masses. At least the rain of debris had stopped while she was asleep. No need to worry about chunks of starship landing on her.
The pod’s entire surface was covered in a thin layer of red dust. Grabbing the top of the pod with both hands, Mariner started to pull herself out. When her upper body was out of the airlock, her hands slipped on the dust. Mariner fell backwards, nearly tumbling headfirst out of the airlock onto the rocky ground below. She threw her foot out, catching it on the inside of the airlock and stopping her fall.
She could just feel Brad coming up with an ‘I told you so.’ Trying again, she grabbed onto the edge of the airlock hatch, and pulled herself back up. Eventually she managed to get up enough to throw a leg over and roll on top of the pod.
“Screw you escape pod,” she softly exclaimed to no one.
From there she could finally assess her situation. This style of escape pod had four drive pods, one in each corner. As her escape pod had its drive pods hanging down like legs, she could conclude that it had been attached to the upper decks, right on top of the saucer. From where she stood, the drive pods looked intact. However, a wide strip of hull running along the height of the pod had been torn away, revealing severed conduits and damaged systems all the way down. The pod had taken a hell of a hit.
If maneuvering or navigational systems were among the damaged components, that would go a long way towards explaining the landing orientation. Another piece of the puzzle she see were the imposing walls of rock to the pod’s usual top and bottom. Now that she had a full view, it was clear she’d landed in some kind of depression or canyon. It would be a hell of a climb out. Not far from the legs, there was another drop off. The pod had come to rest on a flat section part way down this canyon or depression. From what she could see, the true bottom was much further down.
So she definitely wasn’t walking out of there. If there was even anywhere to go.
She retrieved her tricorder and scanned the damaged section. Her stomach sank. It was worse than she thought. The primary subspace transceiver was just gone, probably ripped out with the missing hull panels. The secondary was probably still intact, but all the severed power conduits were probably the reason it wasn’t functional. Bypassing or repairing them somehow might work. Unfortunately with the pod on its side, there was no way to access the areas she needed.
Mariner got down on her knees to stick the tricorder into the damaged section. Scotching and antimatter residue were all over, damage consistent with getting caught up in an explosion. The next finding however was more perplexing. Gas readings detected trace amounts of nitrogen and oxygen. Those gasses didn’t even come up in the atmospheric readings, so there we no reason to find them with the tricorder, unless…
Fuck. Mariner scrambled along the length of the damage, trying desperately to find the source of the leak. The inner hull was punctured. A small hole, probably almost microscopic, based on the lack of warnings inside. But it was enough that she was probably going to suffocate long before she ran out of supplies.
When she crawled back inside the pod, first thing she did was pull off the suit’s helmet. She needed room to breathe and think. From the inside she tried scanning for the leak without success. For the moment the pod’s atmospheric systems were maintaining a constant pressure, but there was no telling how long that would last. Without knowing where the leak was, there was no way to patch it.
“Have you tried reducing the internal air pressure?” Tendi stood behind her, reading her own tricorder. She held up the device and started scanning for the leak as well.
“Why would I do that?” Asked Mariner. “I’m trying not to have my blood boil.”
“Well, flow rate is a function of pressure differential and cross sectional area,” Tendi enthusiastically explained. “If we want to reduce the rate at which the air is flowing out, we need to either reduce the cross sectional area of the hole-”
“Which we can’t find.”
“Or reduce the pressure differential,” Tendi said as she finished her science lesson.
Mariner crossed her arms. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of stopping the leak?”
Tendi looked at her with reassurance. “The reduction doesn’t have to be to unsafe levels.” Sensing Mariner’s unease, Tendi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and smiled. “You’re going to be fine. Drop the air pressure down to just above six point three kilopascals and bump the oxygen content to as high as you can get it. This lower pressure will buy you some more time and the increased oxygen will prevent hypoxia.”
“Whatever man,” Mariner shook her head in disbelief that she was actually going to do this, “if you say so.”
“More accurately, if you say so,” her hallucination responded with a cheeky grin.
Mariner rolled her eyes and got to work. After a few minutes of messing with the atmospheric controls, the pod’s atmosphere was starting to change. She kept the suit on and the helmet handy, just in case. Listening to an admitted hallucination probably wasn’t her best idea, even if the hallucinations’ advice was technically her own.
The ongoing leak proved she didn’t have as much time as she thought. The only way to get help would be to get above the radioactive cloud and hope a passing ship would pick up her transition. If she didn’t, she was going to slowly suffocate all alone on this god forsaken planet, surrounded by the wreckage of her ship and friends.
Why did she leave them all to die? What even happened to them? There really wasn’t time to put it off any longer. Might as well catch that bat’leth. She sat down on the back of a bottom seat and adjusted the panel on the arm until she could somewhat comfortably watch it. Her heart was pounding as she took a deep breath. She had to know.
“Computer,” she called out, “show recording of this pod’s boarding.”
The screen flashed to life showing a view from the top of the corner furthest from the hatch. For a few seconds the recording showed an empty escape pod. But then the hatch slid open. flashing red lights could be seen coming in from the ship. Mariner watched as on screen, she stumbled into the pod, falling to her knees, barely stopping herself from landing on her face. The Mariner on screen’s legs were shaking and she had an unfocused expression as she pulled herself to her feet. Based on the blood dripping down her face, she already received her injury, the one which prevented her from remembering. With shaking hands, the one in the recording dragged herself into the closest seat and pulled the harness into position.
That Mariner fumbled with the in a vain attempt to access the arm control panel, only to go limp and slump forward. She lost consciousness before the pod even launched. There was a tinge of relief at that. Maybe she didn’t mean to leave everyone behind.
After a few more moments, the recording showed the pod door sealing before launching on its own. Almost immediately after launch, the unconscious Mariner shook violently from a massive impact. It had to be whatever damaged the pod.
“Computer, stop playback.” She’d seen enough. Next she needed to know what led up to the destruction of the Cerritos. Before any escape pod is launched, the ship’s logs are downloaded onto its memory along with recent sensor readings, communications, and recordings of bridge audio. Each pod contained a perfect record of the events leading to the mothership’s demise.
“Computer,” said Mariner, “show me the U.S.S Cerrito’s last recorded logs.”
The computer beeped with an error. “Logs not found.”
She felt a chill. For there to be no logs, something had to go very wrong. “Retrieve any data from the Cerritos.”
“No data found.”
“How is that possible?”
“There are no logs pertaining to the U.S.S Cerritos in memory.”
Mariner felt sick. Her one hope for finding out what happened to her friends was dashed. Either the computer core was somehow damaged as well, or something prevented the Cerritos from transferring its logs. Whatever happened to the ship must have been sudden and devastating. But not so devastating that she wasn’t able to run away, leaving everyone else behind. She really was a coward.
“Maybe there’s a way we can restore the logs using an algorithmic repair?” Rutherford was there next to her, looking over her shoulder at the screen.
“I’m not in the mood!” She snapped. “Go the fuck away! I don’t need your help. You’re dead! You are all dead. What’s the fucking point in finding out how?” Almost everyone she cared about was dead and she didn’t even know why.
“You don’t know that Mare.” Boimler appeared on the other side of her. Looking back revealed Rutherford had vanished. “You have to trust your friends and your crew.”
“Trust them to what, Boimler?” Mariner shot to her feet and screamed at him. “I wasn’t there to protect you!” Anger and helplessness boiled up inside. She turned and started slamming her fist into a seat over and over again. All this shit was too much. She’d been holding all theses feelings inside until they exploded. That stupid panel that refused to show her the logs was mocking her. Mariner unleashed a primal yell as she grabbed it and wrenched it free from the arm, leaving behind sparking wires. She spun around and swung it against the wall again and again until its shattered pieces littered the ground.
Breathing heavily, Mariner tossed what was left of it aside. No one was ever going to find her. No one would ever know what happened to her friends.
No. She was not going to die there. She was going to escape.
Mariner grabbed a PADD from the supplies and started running the numbers. This was her only option and it was going to work. Waiting to die was not going to happen.
“Mariner,” asked Boimler, “what are you doing?”
Pulling out her tricorder, she took a reading of the ship’s power reserves. “When I was out there, the engines looked intact.” She entered the reading into the PADD. “If I can reactivate them, I should be able to fly out of here and into a low orbit.”
Boimler folded his arms and looked at her skeptically. “And then what?”
“What do you mean, ‘and then what?’ Then my transmitter won’t be blocked by radiation and someone will come find me.” She had to get to work. Power reserves were dropping thanks to the severed conduits outside. If she waited too long, there wouldn’t be enough power to make it into space, let alone a stable orbit.
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Boimler asked more forcefully this time. He made no effort to hide his dislike for her plan.
God he was such a pessimist and a scaredy-cat. “Then I die,” she shrugged. “Worst case the pod comes crashing back down and I die.” Mariner dismissed his concern.
“Then that’s a bad plan.”
She clenched the PADD, threatening to break it in half. “Oh yes, I should sit around and do one of the dozen better options available to me,” she shot back. “What would you have me do, wait?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me?” Mariner was taken aback by Boimler’s response.
“Stay breathing, stay safe, and stay alive. You need to give whoever’s looking for you the biggest window of opportunity possible.”
The complete ridiculousness of that, she shook her head in disbelief. She’s always been on her own. “Years of experience has taught me that when it comes down too it, I am the only one I can count on.”
“Mariner please, your friends are smart and capable,” Boimler pleaded with her to understand, “even more than you are.”
She brushed him aside and pulled out a different chair’s access panel to start programming the sequence. The first thing she needed to do was reroute all available power to the engines. Unfortunately escape pods weren’t designed to take off from planets, so she’d have to bypass a shitload of safety protocols.
“Mariner are you sure the engines are fully operational?” Rutherford replaced Boimler in the pod. “Have you tested them to make sure they’ll all fire?”
She didn’t bother looking up from the work. “If I do that, I’ll waste valuable power.” They were trying to slow her down. Her friends were just too scared. If they had their way she’d slowly suffocate all alone on this barren planet. She ignored Rutherford as best she could as she completed the safety override. His help wasn’t needed anyway.
“You’re not thinking clearly.” Tendi then the one next to her. She waved a medical tricorder in her face and looked at the readings with concern. “Mariner, you’re hurt and you’re panicking, you’re going to make a mistake.”
Mariner glared at Tendi. “If you and your friends are not going to help me, then go away.” She inputted the flight she calculated into the pod’s computer. Mariner took a deep breath. It was now or never.
It was awkward at first, getting situated in a seat that was lying on its back. But she managed it, locking the solid U shaped harness into place as she lay back like a twentieth century astronaut. There was only so much she could do about her racing heart and her shaking fingers. Luckily, the flight would be largely automated.
Boimler was seated next to her. “Please just listen,” he desperately tried to get her to listen.
Mariner groaned and rolled her eyes. “I assume you will all be gone by the time I reach orbit? You guys have been just the worst hallucinations. Seriously, zero out of ten. No help or nudity whatsoever.”
“Have you considered that maybe deep down you know this is a bad idea, and you know that only your friends could talk you out of this?” Boimler pleaded.
“Just shut up already!” Mariner was one-hundred percent done. Even her stupid imaginary friends didn’t trust her and weren’t going to help. Once again she had to do everything herself. Choosing to ignore Boimler, she activated the sequence and held on.
The pod shook violently as the engines hummed to life. She’d turned down the inertial dampeners as much as she could to save power, so it was going to be a rough ride. Power reserves started draining, but it was fine, based on her calculations she had plenty to spare. The pod slowly broke free from the ground and began to right itself.
“Ha ha! What did I tell you Boims?” She exclaimed in her excitement. Mariner’s heart was racing, she was going to make it.
The pod lurched backwards, over correcting itself. An engine status alarm started blaring. The pod suddenly dropped and Mariner was nearly lifted out of her seat. Her panel showed one of the four engines had died and another was losing power.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” she desperately tried rerouting power as she was gripped by panic. There was a proximity alert followed by a bone rattling impact as the unstable escape pod slammed into a rock wall. Alarms started blaring for the remaining two engines. This was really bad. Mariner hopelessly tried to stabilize the engines, only for them to cut out completely.
Mariner’s escape pod plummeted, smashing against a rock wall as it fell deeper into the ravine.
Originally posted to A03
Fall From Grace
Chapter 3
By the time she stirred, much of the constant crushing pain in her skull had dulled. It was still ever present, but not as overwhelming. Mariner blinked open her eyes and sighed with relief when the row of chairs hanging above her came into focus. Some of her symptoms had abated at least. Sleep can do the body good it seems.
Her heart rate spiked. Just how long had she been asleep? That much improvement could only happen over the course of hours. She never wanted to get a full night’s rest. That damn stint in a Klingon prison trained her to get deep sleep in any condition, which is the second worst part about the whole experience. Never should’ve let Tendi talk her into getting rest. A rescue ship could’ve flown by hours ago and now they’ll never find her.
Why did her friend have to be so god damned insistent? Couldn’t she understand they were in a life or death survival situation? The least she could have done was wake her up before she slept too long…
Shit. Mariner closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and groaned. That’s right. Tendi wasn’t really here. She’d hallucinated the whole thing. The mysterious concussion was making her see her friends for some reason instead of something fun. The only good part of a severe head injury was getting to have off the wall hallucinations. There were several ex’s she wouldn’t mind appearing to her in various states of undress. But no, she got bossy Boimler and Tendi. Couldn’t even hallucinate right.
And no, she did not buy Boimler’s theory that she’s scared and desperately wanted her friends’ help. Boimler is an idiot and not always as smart as he can be. Especially when he suggested that…
Mariner winced when she realized she was cursing her own hallucination's intelligence.
Best thing to do was to just get to work figuring out how to not die and hope her fucked up brain had healed enough to stop messing with her. Sitting up, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and started formulating a plan.
“Good morning Mariner!” A cheerful voice greeted her.
Well that was too much to hope for.
“Did you sleep well?” Rutherford was as chipper as ever as he crouched in front of an open panel, looking at readings on his tricorder.
She groaned as she extracted herself from the thermal blanket now tangled around her. “I don’t suppose you’re not a hallucination and are in fact the rescue party?”
“No luck,” he said with a bright smile.
She tried to ignore him as she opened one of the corner supply cabinets that were now on the floor. Inside she found several bright red emergency environmental suits. The full body suits weren’t as tough and protective as standard EVA suits, but they were quicker to don and took up less space. She slipped off her boots and outer layers of clothing. Once her uniform was neatly folded and placed on the turned over seat next to her, Mariner pressed a button on the suit’s armband causing the material to relax and expand. This allowed her to easily pull on the normally skin tight survival suit.
Suits that applied pressure directly to the skin had the advantage of being much smaller and easy to store on cramped escape pods. The major drawback however, was unlike traditional EVA suits which maintained a constant internal air pressure regardless of higher or lower external pressure, these suits were only intended for environments with lower outside pressures. Given that most of the time, crew in an escape pod would only need to worry about vacuum conditions and designers needed to fit sixteen suits in a pod, it made sense to include the shittier model.
Once the body portion of the suit was on, Mariner deactivated the assist feature and the suit returned to its normal compression fit. It was a strange feeling, having extra pressure all over her body, squeezing her. She’d worn one several times before during evacuation training, but she’d never had to get used to the fit. A fact she was grateful for.
In the compartment which would normally be above the suits, were the helmets. She grabbed one and locked it into place.
“Hey, Mariner?” When she spun around, Boimler was back and looking at her with concern.
She rolled her eyes. “What do you want Boims?”
“What are you doing?”
She was already halfway up the row of chairs which acted as her ladder before she answered. “What does it look like? I’m going outside to take a look at the damage.”
“I can,” He huffed as he tried to keep up with her climb, “see that. You know going out there is dangerous, right?”
“Not any more dangerous than staying in here.” She’d reached the hatch and crawled into the cramped one person airlock and closed the inner door. Given the escape pod’s orientation, she had to lay down in the space. It was like a coffin. A cramped, space coffin where someone might find her pressured body.
Mariner shut her eyes to try and purge the dark thoughts.
Boimler’s face filled the circular viewport on the inner door. “That’s really debatable Mare.”
God this guy could be such a worrier. “I’ll be fine. I’m just going outside for a bit.” She touched an internal panel and started the depressurization process. After a couple seconds, a light at the “top” of the outer door turned green, letting her know it was safe to open the hatch.
When the door slid open, Mariner shifted her body and poked her head out. The landscape was barren and hostile with tall spikes of rock jutting out of the ground. With the setting sun, those ominous formations cast long finger-like shadows over the sand and rock. The cloud cover she spotted earlier had grown much thicker and flashes of lightning occasionally illuminated the roiling masses. At least the rain of debris had stopped while she was asleep. No need to worry about chunks of starship landing on her.
The pod’s entire surface was covered in a thin layer of red dust. Grabbing the top of the pod with both hands, Mariner started to pull herself out. When her upper body was out of the airlock, her hands slipped on the dust. Mariner fell backwards, nearly tumbling headfirst out of the airlock onto the rocky ground below. She threw her foot out, catching it on the inside of the airlock and stopping her fall.
She could just feel Brad coming up with an ‘I told you so.’ Trying again, she grabbed onto the edge of the airlock hatch, and pulled herself back up. Eventually she managed to get up enough to throw a leg over and roll on top of the pod.
“Screw you escape pod,” she softly exclaimed to no one.
From there she could finally assess her situation. This style of escape pod had four drive pods, one in each corner. As her escape pod had its drive pods hanging down like legs, she could conclude that it had been attached to the upper decks, right on top of the saucer. From where she stood, the drive pods looked intact. However, a wide strip of hull running along the height of the pod had been torn away, revealing severed conduits and damaged systems all the way down. The pod had taken a hell of a hit.
If maneuvering or navigational systems were among the damaged components, that would go a long way towards explaining the landing orientation. Another piece of the puzzle she see were the imposing walls of rock to the pod’s usual top and bottom. Now that she had a full view, it was clear she’d landed in some kind of depression or canyon. It would be a hell of a climb out. Not far from the legs, there was another drop off. The pod had come to rest on a flat section part way down this canyon or depression. From what she could see, the true bottom was much further down.
So she definitely wasn’t walking out of there. If there was even anywhere to go.
She retrieved her tricorder and scanned the damaged section. Her stomach sank. It was worse than she thought. The primary subspace transceiver was just gone, probably ripped out with the missing hull panels. The secondary was probably still intact, but all the severed power conduits were probably the reason it wasn’t functional. Bypassing or repairing them somehow might work. Unfortunately with the pod on its side, there was no way to access the areas she needed.
Mariner got down on her knees to stick the tricorder into the damaged section. Scotching and antimatter residue were all over, damage consistent with getting caught up in an explosion. The next finding however was more perplexing. Gas readings detected trace amounts of nitrogen and oxygen. Those gasses didn’t even come up in the atmospheric readings, so there we no reason to find them with the tricorder, unless…
Fuck. Mariner scrambled along the length of the damage, trying desperately to find the source of the leak. The inner hull was punctured. A small hole, probably almost microscopic, based on the lack of warnings inside. But it was enough that she was probably going to suffocate long before she ran out of supplies.
When she crawled back inside the pod, first thing she did was pull off the suit’s helmet. She needed room to breathe and think. From the inside she tried scanning for the leak without success. For the moment the pod’s atmospheric systems were maintaining a constant pressure, but there was no telling how long that would last. Without knowing where the leak was, there was no way to patch it.
“Have you tried reducing the internal air pressure?” Tendi stood behind her, reading her own tricorder. She held up the device and started scanning for the leak as well.
“Why would I do that?” Asked Mariner. “I’m trying not to have my blood boil.”
“Well, flow rate is a function of pressure differential and cross sectional area,” Tendi enthusiastically explained. “If we want to reduce the rate at which the air is flowing out, we need to either reduce the cross sectional area of the hole-”
“Which we can’t find.”
“Or reduce the pressure differential,” Tendi said as she finished her science lesson.
Mariner crossed her arms. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of stopping the leak?”
Tendi looked at her with reassurance. “The reduction doesn’t have to be to unsafe levels.” Sensing Mariner’s unease, Tendi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and smiled. “You’re going to be fine. Drop the air pressure down to just above six point three kilopascals and bump the oxygen content to as high as you can get it. This lower pressure will buy you some more time and the increased oxygen will prevent hypoxia.”
“Whatever man,” Mariner shook her head in disbelief that she was actually going to do this, “if you say so.”
“More accurately, if you say so,” her hallucination responded with a cheeky grin.
Mariner rolled her eyes and got to work. After a few minutes of messing with the atmospheric controls, the pod’s atmosphere was starting to change. She kept the suit on and the helmet handy, just in case. Listening to an admitted hallucination probably wasn’t her best idea, even if the hallucinations’ advice was technically her own.
The ongoing leak proved she didn’t have as much time as she thought. The only way to get help would be to get above the radioactive cloud and hope a passing ship would pick up her transition. If she didn’t, she was going to slowly suffocate all alone on this god forsaken planet, surrounded by the wreckage of her ship and friends.
Why did she leave them all to die? What even happened to them? There really wasn’t time to put it off any longer. Might as well catch that bat’leth. She sat down on the back of a bottom seat and adjusted the panel on the arm until she could somewhat comfortably watch it. Her heart was pounding as she took a deep breath. She had to know.
“Computer,” she called out, “show recording of this pod’s boarding.”
The screen flashed to life showing a view from the top of the corner furthest from the hatch. For a few seconds the recording showed an empty escape pod. But then the hatch slid open. flashing red lights could be seen coming in from the ship. Mariner watched as on screen, she stumbled into the pod, falling to her knees, barely stopping herself from landing on her face. The Mariner on screen’s legs were shaking and she had an unfocused expression as she pulled herself to her feet. Based on the blood dripping down her face, she already received her injury, the one which prevented her from remembering. With shaking hands, the one in the recording dragged herself into the closest seat and pulled the harness into position.
That Mariner fumbled with the in a vain attempt to access the arm control panel, only to go limp and slump forward. She lost consciousness before the pod even launched. There was a tinge of relief at that. Maybe she didn’t mean to leave everyone behind.
After a few more moments, the recording showed the pod door sealing before launching on its own. Almost immediately after launch, the unconscious Mariner shook violently from a massive impact. It had to be whatever damaged the pod.
“Computer, stop playback.” She’d seen enough. Next she needed to know what led up to the destruction of the Cerritos. Before any escape pod is launched, the ship’s logs are downloaded onto its memory along with recent sensor readings, communications, and recordings of bridge audio. Each pod contained a perfect record of the events leading to the mothership’s demise.
“Computer,” said Mariner, “show me the U.S.S Cerrito’s last recorded logs.”
The computer beeped with an error. “Logs not found.”
She felt a chill. For there to be no logs, something had to go very wrong. “Retrieve any data from the Cerritos.”
“No data found.”
“How is that possible?”
“There are no logs pertaining to the U.S.S Cerritos in memory.”
Mariner felt sick. Her one hope for finding out what happened to her friends was dashed. Either the computer core was somehow damaged as well, or something prevented the Cerritos from transferring its logs. Whatever happened to the ship must have been sudden and devastating. But not so devastating that she wasn’t able to run away, leaving everyone else behind. She really was a coward.
“Maybe there’s a way we can restore the logs using an algorithmic repair?” Rutherford was there next to her, looking over her shoulder at the screen.
“I’m not in the mood!” She snapped. “Go the fuck away! I don’t need your help. You’re dead! You are all dead. What’s the fucking point in finding out how?” Almost everyone she cared about was dead and she didn’t even know why.
“You don’t know that Mare.” Boimler appeared on the other side of her. Looking back revealed Rutherford had vanished. “You have to trust your friends and your crew.”
“Trust them to what, Boimler?” Mariner shot to her feet and screamed at him. “I wasn’t there to protect you!” Anger and helplessness boiled up inside. She turned and started slamming her fist into a seat over and over again. All this shit was too much. She’d been holding all theses feelings inside until they exploded. That stupid panel that refused to show her the logs was mocking her. Mariner unleashed a primal yell as she grabbed it and wrenched it free from the arm, leaving behind sparking wires. She spun around and swung it against the wall again and again until its shattered pieces littered the ground.
Breathing heavily, Mariner tossed what was left of it aside. No one was ever going to find her. No one would ever know what happened to her friends.
No. She was not going to die there. She was going to escape.
Mariner grabbed a PADD from the supplies and started running the numbers. This was her only option and it was going to work. Waiting to die was not going to happen.
“Mariner,” asked Boimler, “what are you doing?”
Pulling out her tricorder, she took a reading of the ship’s power reserves. “When I was out there, the engines looked intact.” She entered the reading into the PADD. “If I can reactivate them, I should be able to fly out of here and into a low orbit.”
Boimler folded his arms and looked at her skeptically. “And then what?”
“What do you mean, ‘and then what?’ Then my transmitter won’t be blocked by radiation and someone will come find me.” She had to get to work. Power reserves were dropping thanks to the severed conduits outside. If she waited too long, there wouldn’t be enough power to make it into space, let alone a stable orbit.
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Boimler asked more forcefully this time. He made no effort to hide his dislike for her plan.
God he was such a pessimist and a scaredy-cat. “Then I die,” she shrugged. “Worst case the pod comes crashing back down and I die.” Mariner dismissed his concern.
“Then that’s a bad plan.”
She clenched the PADD, threatening to break it in half. “Oh yes, I should sit around and do one of the dozen better options available to me,” she shot back. “What would you have me do, wait?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me?” Mariner was taken aback by Boimler’s response.
“Stay breathing, stay safe, and stay alive. You need to give whoever’s looking for you the biggest window of opportunity possible.”
The complete ridiculousness of that, she shook her head in disbelief. She’s always been on her own. “Years of experience has taught me that when it comes down too it, I am the only one I can count on.”
“Mariner please, your friends are smart and capable,” Boimler pleaded with her to understand, “even more than you are.”
She brushed him aside and pulled out a different chair’s access panel to start programming the sequence. The first thing she needed to do was reroute all available power to the engines. Unfortunately escape pods weren’t designed to take off from planets, so she’d have to bypass a shitload of safety protocols.
“Mariner are you sure the engines are fully operational?” Rutherford replaced Boimler in the pod. “Have you tested them to make sure they’ll all fire?”
She didn’t bother looking up from the work. “If I do that, I’ll waste valuable power.” They were trying to slow her down. Her friends were just too scared. If they had their way she’d slowly suffocate all alone on this barren planet. She ignored Rutherford as best she could as she completed the safety override. His help wasn’t needed anyway.
“You’re not thinking clearly.” Tendi then the one next to her. She waved a medical tricorder in her face and looked at the readings with concern. “Mariner, you’re hurt and you’re panicking, you’re going to make a mistake.”
Mariner glared at Tendi. “If you and your friends are not going to help me, then go away.” She inputted the flight she calculated into the pod’s computer. Mariner took a deep breath. It was now or never.
It was awkward at first, getting situated in a seat that was lying on its back. But she managed it, locking the solid U shaped harness into place as she lay back like a twentieth century astronaut. There was only so much she could do about her racing heart and her shaking fingers. Luckily, the flight would be largely automated.
Boimler was seated next to her. “Please just listen,” he desperately tried to get her to listen.
Mariner groaned and rolled her eyes. “I assume you will all be gone by the time I reach orbit? You guys have been just the worst hallucinations. Seriously, zero out of ten. No help or nudity whatsoever.”
“Have you considered that maybe deep down you know this is a bad idea, and you know that only your friends could talk you out of this?” Boimler pleaded.
“Just shut up already!” Mariner was one-hundred percent done. Even her stupid imaginary friends didn’t trust her and weren’t going to help. Once again she had to do everything herself. Choosing to ignore Boimler, she activated the sequence and held on.
The pod shook violently as the engines hummed to life. She’d turned down the inertial dampeners as much as she could to save power, so it was going to be a rough ride. Power reserves started draining, but it was fine, based on her calculations she had plenty to spare. The pod slowly broke free from the ground and began to right itself.
“Ha ha! What did I tell you Boims?” She exclaimed in her excitement. Mariner’s heart was racing, she was going to make it.
The pod lurched backwards, over correcting itself. An engine status alarm started blaring. The pod suddenly dropped and Mariner was nearly lifted out of her seat. Her panel showed one of the four engines had died and another was losing power.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” she desperately tried rerouting power as she was gripped by panic. There was a proximity alert followed by a bone rattling impact as the unstable escape pod slammed into a rock wall. Alarms started blaring for the remaining two engines. This was really bad. Mariner hopelessly tried to stabilize the engines, only for them to cut out completely.
Mariner’s escape pod plummeted, smashing against a rock wall as it fell deeper into the ravine.
