Cryo capsules. Ezrael stood infront of one. A Core design cryo capsule. He never imagined the need for them on the Apahanta, yet they would be a necessary evil if it means they all would survive.
The room was filled with them, in multiple rows. There were four more rooms on the same deck filled with those cryo pods. Enough for a battleship usually crewed with at least 400 people. Ezrael turned his head to the side, where Sombra was cleaning a cryo pod using a wet piece of cloth. She had no idea she might be in one of those pods for the rest of her life. The idea was horrible to Ezrael. She was so happy. Now that Leon mentioned it earlier, he had noticed it. Nobody on the Apahanta was as happy as Sombra was.
"Am I doing something wrong?" Sombra asked, having realized Ezrael was staring at her for a while now. She was cleaning the glass surface of the capsule, as dust was covering most of them.
Ezrael formed a smile on his lips. "No, you're doing everything correctly. I was just taking in the view."
"Of me wiping some dust off a cryo pod? It's not like I'm doing a sexy car wash here," she returned with a giggle, slightly blushing at his comment. She first continued with the job until she realized he was still staring at her. "What is it?"
"You know, I was thinking about you a bit." Ezrael moved a bit closer to her, which resulted in her dropping the piece of cloth in her hand. Once more she was blushing. It was easily visible on her rather pale skin. "You haven't been that happy for quite a while now. Why is that. We might die out here, we have suffered casualties, the ship is heavily damaged and we don't know where we are, but you couldn't have been more happy."
The smirk on his lips was gone, allowing a rather firm expression to face Sombra. She however lowered her face, looking down to his legs. "Is it not obvious to you? You know me, Ez."
"It is not that I am not glad about you spreading positive energies within the crew, and what you did last night, with Lorena, was a really nice surprise. But I want to know why you are that happy while we all know we might die out here, in some years." Another step towards her and he stood immediately infront of her.
Something she welcomed. She raised her head again, facing his chest while she reached out to hold his hands. "Because of what Leon said. You know I like Maren a lot, she is a funny girl. Yes, she thinks we're stupid and degenerate, I can live with that. I like her. But she is infected. She will never make you happy. And one day, she would have been your death. You know that yourself. As long as she is infected, she will be the reason for your death. Either because the Nomads want it that way or because you get into trouble for protecting a Wild. That is what she is. A Wild."
There were mixed feelings as she spoke. Anger was one of them. How could she dare to talk like that about Maren!? On the other hand, Ezrael knew it was true. How often had he thought about that himself. How often was her incubus threatening him. How often did she upset him. How often did she lie to him. It was an awkward feeling as Sombra placed her head on his chest, embraced him with her arms. "But now I am stuck with you at the end of the universe. With the man who made my life so much better. Who took my fear from living. Yes, we might die out here. Somewhen. But at least I am with the man I love over anything else. Here, it is just you and me. No Maren. No other women, apart from Lorena maybe, but she is a nice girl and doesn't love you. Here it is only me."
Feeling her warm body as she was squeezing him, Ezrael's heart was beating faster. Her words were flattering. She never had spoken about this, about her opinion on Maren. He knew she was loving him, but this was more than that. Wrapping his arms around her, he returned the hug, simply holding her for a while.
The seconds passed slowly. Suddenly, there was a bad feeling coming up. Hugging her more tight, Ezrael felt bad. He felt sorry. Because tomorrow he would need to lock her away, forcing her to sleep in a cryo pod. He couldn't tell her about it. All she wanted was to be with him, and not even here she would get to have him. Survival was the highest priority. "I'm just glad I can be with you, Ez. In Sirius, there was always something getting between us. But here I can be happy with you. That is why I am happy."
This was horrible, Ezrael thought. He heard her breath. Her chest was pushing against his, slowly. She was content with this, with holding him. She was happy. "Then let us wrap this up here and then we will do something nice together. I have a few bottles of wine in the cargo bay."
This could be her last evening with him. Knowing this, Ezrael tried to remain calm while he absolutely hated Sherry for suggesting this. Even though she was right. Survival, at all cost...
Ezrael opened his eyes. It was time to wake up. "Apahanta," he began, then his head turned to the side, just to find Sombra laying next to him, sleeping like a rock. With a smirk on his face, he placed a peck on her cheek. "Apahanta, please inform Commander Aguilar that Sombra and I will not come to breakfast and don't want to be disturbed." Ezrael sounded. Waking up from the voice of her love, Sombra opened her eyes for a short moment before she snuggled closer to him, placing her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around him.
In the meantime, the crew gathered in the canteen for another breakfast. Leon entered the room a bit later than most other people. His eyes wandered over the view, eventually stopping at Annie, as the young and small woman glanced over at him while biting into her bun. Moving over to buffet to fetch his own food, Leon remained quiet. His eye bags were telling stories about sleepless nights. Other than those of Ezrael, his nights were all about finding a way to return to Sirius. His mood was suffering from it as well. The crew knew this. After having gathered his food, he moved to the table Annie was sitting at. It was quite inviting, as she usually wasn't sitting alone. This time it was different until he joined her, sitting infront of her. "Morning." Leon sounded quietly as he placed his bum onto the seat and pushed the cereals into the milk using his spoon.
"And? Any progress?" Annie returned before taking another bite of her bun. There was a little bit of chocolate cream at the corner of her mouth, a moment later licked away by her tongue. It made Leon smirk for a moment as it reminded him of Ezrael and Maren, as Ezrael often complained about Maren's table manners. Admittedly, she was eating as if she was raised in a barn. A phrase she used to use against Ezrael when he did something she saw as degenerate.
"I read up on Hawking radiation and went through different ideas of harnessing it. Turns out there is not a single way for us to make use of the black hole. Matter of factly, it would be rather likely that we create our own black hole and use the energy from it. I'd need to read more into that, though, and I doubt we have the resources for such an experiment. Means I sort of wasted time for nothing." In thought, he played with the cereals in his bowl, creating little floating hills of soaked cereals on the milk. "I thought about coupling the shields with our artificial gravity generation system to create an gravitational shield bubble to protect us from the black hole. That would allow us to get closer to it, but then again, I see no reason why we should waste resources on that if we can't use the black hole as energy source."
"That's a damn shame," Annie began, placing her bun on the plate. With a finger she cleaned her lips from chocolate cream remains, ending up sucking on her fingertip before continuing. "Any other ideas?" she asked while grabbing her glass of orange juice.
"Nope. I tried to come up with something the whole night, but as it stands, we're stuck here. It's frustrating, really." He shook his head, dropping the spoon in the bowl. Leaning back, he eyed the people at the table behind Annie. "Those people rely on us finding a way, but there is none. We're going to die out here."
"Already giving up?" Annie asked him, giving him a lopsided glance. "Nobody expects you to find the answer instantly, Leon. We will be out here for many months if not even years. Enough time to raise our game. I think you should get some rest."
"The Captain is not here. Sombs neither." Leon commented, as if he didn't listen to her in first place. She rolled her eyes before taking another bite of her bun, once more ending up with a smear of sweet brown at her lips. "They are probably fucking." With a certain disappointment, Leon lowered his head to feed himself some cereals. "Nancy is probably with this Mason all the time. At least she won't miss me."
There was an awkward silence at the table as Leon continued with his breakfast. Annie gave him a concerned look. From all she knew, this Nancy was merely a female version of Ezrael when it came to promiscuity. Keeping her opinion for herself, she continued with her bun, quietly.
There was this extremely uncomfortable feeling, and the worst about it was the fact Ezrael had to act over it. The lights went on and the room was illuminated again, allowing Ezrael and Sombra to see the shiny cryo capsules they cleaned and prepared yesterday. "You know, Ez, I often thought about those things," Sombra said quietly, approaching one of them, touching the transparent glass-like cover. Ezrael gulped, following her. "More than eight hundred years ago, the first colonists left those things to erect the settlements on Manhattan, New Berlin, New Tokyo and New London. One could say it was this kind of technology that gave birth to everything we have here in Sirius. It's really cool you have those things here on the ship."
It hurt to have her be that fascinated about them. He yet had to tell her. There wouldn't be any better moment than now, probably. "The Core, or better, APM produced these ones. They are on most Mako-class ships and on any other bigger ship of the Core, simply to be able to take care of people in various cases. Wounded or traumatic people get stuffed into these capsules to prevent them from dying and in case of a ship stranding because of an unstable jump hole, they are used to keep the crew in hibernation until the ship returned to known space. Sort of the situation we are in."
"Does that mean we are actually using them?" Sombra asked him, eyeing him curiously.
"Yes. I want to have these capsules ready once we run low on food and things. I need your help with this, though." He tried to remain normal while he pondered internally about how he could sell it to her in a way that wouldn't worry her.
She smiled at him, liking the sound of being helpful to him. "Of course! What do I do?"
"We need to test them. To be honest, we never got to use them, and we need to find out whether they are working as intended. So I need you to enter one of these capsules and sleep for a few hours." He smiled. Dying inside.
"Ouh, I can do that. How many hours?" she asked him with a happy smirk before turning around to look at the capsule.
"I mean, we only need some test values, so we get you out of there this evening." Smile.
"No lunch," she commented quietly while staring at the cryo capsule. "But then again, you fed me well this morning." She turned around, smirking widely at him with a slight blush on her face. "And last night."
He returned the smirk. The last hours were indeed rather nice, purposefully. "You'll get a nice dinner this evening, so don't worry. Maybe some cake? I'm pretty sure we have some cake frozen in the cargo bay. From Fort Bush, Sunbucks Cake." Something he actually bought for Maren, as she loved sweets and pretty much everything that was not healthy, to his personal disliking.
Minutes were passing and Sombra found herself in a cryo capsule. "You know, I think they should place those capsules horizontally. Standing here for hours is probably bad for my legs." Again she smirked at Ezrael, who stood next to the capsule, entering some parameters. It was weird to have him being quite all the time, but he probably was just missing out on the breakfast, she told herself. There was a breathing mask hanging next to her and she grabbed it, looking at it. Then Ezrael stood infront of her again, taking the mask from her.
"I set the timer, it will free you this evening. I will have everything monitored, both by myself and by Sherry, so there is nothing to worry about. You will probably just have a nice nap." He was about to place the mask on her face as she interfered, pushing his hands to the side. Giving him a firm look, she exhaled.
"Not without a kiss." She then smirked, and nodding once, Ezrael got closer. To his sudden surprise, she grabbed his face with her both hands and forced him to a long lasting kiss. Then she let go of him, leaning into the capsule again. Something felt wrong about this, she thought. He suddenly had spent so much time with her. The entire evening, the night, the morning without breakfast. It was as if time had stopped. Her eyes were focused on his, trying to reach beyond his typical countenance. Why was she the one to test the cryo capsules? Why was he so quiet? Why was he spending his time with her that much? Why? Why!? "Ez... love. If we are to die out here, don't let me die alone in this capsule, alright? I want to be with you. If I have to die, I want my last days and hours to be at your side. Can you promise me that?"
Ironically, the man outside the cryo tube was the one who froze. For a short moment, Ezrael had looked to the side, almost ashamed. Even while smirking. Then his eyes returned to meet hers. This was horrible. Why was she saying such a thing!? Why was she making this so difficult. "None of us is going to die, Sombs. I promise that. We won't die here. We will survive and you and me will eat some nice chiwi on Curacao."
"Promise it, love." Her eyes turned watery. Ezrael saw it and smiled even more.
"Promised, my little sunshine."
"I love you." Two tears were running left and right down her cheeks. "I love you so much." She ripped the mask out of his hands and placed it on her face. More tears were running, yet hidden behind the mask.
Ezrael stood there, smirking at her. "I love you, too. We'll see each other this evening, Sombs," he sounded with a quiet voice. Stepping to the side, he tapped a button on the interface and the capsule was closing. All internal sensors were on green. One last glance at her and blindly he actived the cryo capsule with a second tap on the interface. More tears were running. Not Sombra's, but his own. His smile was gone. Frustrated, he kept the life signs of Sombra focused. Everything was green. Brain activity was decreasing. Ezrael leaned his forehead against the metal surface above the panel. Even more tears. "I won't let anyone here die..."
The repairs of the ship were almost done. There were only tiny hullbreaches left that needed to be taken care of. And that would mean there was less work to do for the crew.
Since the life support systems were running on minimum, the engine room had turned into a meeting place for the crew. The AP-605940 Energy Core was illuminating the room in a soothing blue light. Ezrael entered the engine room, welcomed by a noticable wall of hot air. It felt instantly like being on Curacao, while the corridors of the ship were turning more and more cold. Looking around, Ezrael spotted Leon at the control panels. Annie was right next to him. It was quite an interesting sight, since both Leon and Annie had removed the upper parts of their Apahanta suits, wrapping them around their hips. While Leon presented his rather skinny upper body like that, Annie wore a black tank top. It was not a rare thing to meet the crew like this. Some of them used to wear civilian clothing over their Apahanta suits sometimes. Yet it was a memorable sight, the two of them standing infront of the control panel, talking about something Ezrael couldn't hear from where he was. So he moved over to them. "Adrianna and Sherry would probably complain about it if I would start showing off my body like that," Ezrael said jokingly, patting Leon's shoulder from behind as he joined the two engineers.
Turning his head to face Ezrael, Leon gave him a surprised glance. "We're not making progress, Ez."
"I don't recall having asked about it," Ezrael gave him back, looking at the control panel. There was a 3D projection of the Apahanta and her internal systems. "I remember how Kalliste Silver always called the Apahanta a coffin. Quite fitting. We're buried alive in some distance void area." He faced Leon again, smirking. "Any new ideas? Theories or something? Do you think we could find jump holes here at the jump hole? Like the one we saw at the Razgriz rift?"
"I thought of that already, Captain," Annie sounded, folding her arms infront of her. She did that often recently, Ezrael noticed. Especially when Leon was around. But then again, it seemed like they were hanging out together all the time since the ship was stranded. "Theoretically, it could be that there are jump holes around here since the stray black hole somehow affects hyperspace. So it could be that it affects subspace as well."
"That is however only if the theories are fitting. We still know jack about this anomaly and we can only assume," Leon clarified. "And then again, the Razgriz rif is tiny in comparison to this thing here. Finding a jump hole using our weakened sensors and our very limited fuel in this area is like trying to find the hay in a stack of needles. Also, the jump hole of the Razgriz rift was in the very center of the gravity well, which is the very reason the Apahanta didn't reach it. Whatever forces allowed the jump hole to be there are probably a few billion times stronger here."
"With other words, you two find it rather unlikely we find something," Ezrael concluded, which was followed by Annie and Leon nodding simultaneously.
"Technically, there is a way to combine our shields with our artificial gravity generation system which would allow us to travel within the gravity well for a certain amount of time, but the modifications would require us to use a lot of resources and time for something we don't know whether it helps us in any way, so that is currently not an option."
"Okay," Ezrael said quietly, randomly glancing over at the energy core. "What's the current output of the core?"
Leon followed his eyes, facing the energy core while slightly sighing. "At a minimum, as ordered. There are some fluctuations but I guess that is simply because we never ran the ship in hibernation mode. Meaning we don't have values to compare and explain. The Core database doesn't find anything on this either, but that is because the Core's AP-609 and our AP-605940 use different energy cores."
"Right, I remember that. But those fluctuations are not dangerous, right?"
"No. Not directly. It just means the energy core is producing a bit more energy than we told it to. It is impossible to adjust to that fluctuation as it, well, it fluctuates in intensity, duration and frequency." Leon smirked. "The Apahanta is a bit bubbly sometimes."
That caused Ezrael to chuckle. The Apahanta was unique, that was true. But then again, anything about the ship was unique. The Captain, the crew, and the circumstances of their disappearance. "Maybe it's a nomad poltergeist. I remember how Astarte called the Apahanta a nomad graveyard. See, coffin is really fitting. To think that parts of the ship are based on nomadic materials and technology." It reminded him of easier times. Looking back at it, it almost seemed like the days when Ezrael tried to communicate with nomads to pacify them was a piece of cake in comparison to this. "Nomads would simply feed on the radiation to gather energy. They would see this black hole as a giant food source, maybe."
Leon and Annie suddenly stared at each other. "Apahanta, list all nomad-related technologies used by the ship. Mark them on the 3D model."
Surprised, Ezrael turned around, watching Leon and Annie stepping closer to the control panel. There were red bits within the Apahanta starting to glow. They all represented parts of the ship using APM's Advanced Hardware, more specificly those parts that used nomad materials. "What are you up to?" Ezrael asked, noticing the satisfied smiles on Leon's and Annie's face.
"... not here, Ezrael..." Lorena breathed quietly into Ezrael's shoulder. They were in a lift, the doors closed. The Captain stood infront of her, very close to her with his face teasingly close to her neck, one hand was holding her back to keep her in place while his other hand was moving her blond hair to the side. The hand at her back was teasingly slow sliding down. Her mind said no but her body said yes. Her own hands were placed on his chest. It almost looked like she was pushing him back, but she was not, enjoying this secretly way too much. "We could be seen like this..."
"Nothing the crew never imagined," Ezrael replied with a cheeky grin. His hand was about to reach her rear as the doors of the lift opened, showing the bridge deck corridor, empty. Slipping out of his hands, Lorena chuckled at him and made a few steps backwards out of the lift while facing him with her flushed cheeks. "You win, this time," he mumbled, smirking over to her as she turned around and made her way to her room. Glancing past her, he saw Sherry approaching the lift. His hand instinctively moved to the panel to his side, blindly searching for the button to close the door. Finding it, he pushed it, keeping the finger on it. The lift doors were closing.
"Apahanta, please stop the lift infront of me, and open the doors," Commander Aguilar sounded. Ezrael's finger pushed the same button over and over again but the doors didn't shut. Sherry entered the left, positioning herself next to Captain Vertiga. Her eyes were fixed on something ahead of them, outside the lift. "Thank you, Apahanta. Please let the lift continue as usual." The doors shut. The lift however did not move. There was an awkward silence.
"You know, you need to tell the lift where to move to. Or at least push a button."
"I'm aware of how this lift works. I also know what that button you pushed over and over again is for."
Another moment of awkward silence.
"I guess none of us is using the lift right now?"
"Might be the case."
Again, a moment of silence. Then Sherry turned towards Ezrael. "Extreme situations sometimes require us to take some measures we usually avoid to make use of, Captain. Since Lindsay Camillo disappeared, it'd be my job to offer you counseling. Of course you could continue with your regular ways of dealing with stress, but at some point it would be nice for me as your left hand to get to know you better. In a non-sexual way, preferably."
Smirking, he shook his head. "I have a personal logbook to help me reflect my actions."
"Your personal logbook won't tell you to stop using me as a stigm of evil for difficult decisions you had to make." A moment of silence. "Apahanta, lock this lift, please." One beep of confirmation later, she stepped infront of him, looking into his eyes. "Ezrael, do you know this is the first time we have been spending so much time with another? Usually you would have left the Apahanta in the meantime multiple times and for days to be with your girlfriend. Or with other women. But now you've been on the ship for two weeks. And we'll be very likely to spend even more time with another."
Chuckling, Ezrael made a step back. "I don't use you as stigm of evil. Stuffing Sombra into a cryo capsule was the only logical decision, looking at the situation. But that idea came from you. And I associate that idea with you. And now I look at you and know that you're about to stuff more people into cryo. That's why you want to talk to me, right?"
For a moment, she looked down, then to the side, then at him again. "There is only so much to do for the crew, Captain. The scheduled repairs are complete. Toru, Tate, Hawkins and Wright are currently not needed. It's a difference whether we have to feed eleven people or just seven."
Once more he shook his head. "Of course Lorena as well. If I didn't know better I'd have said you're jealous, but I guess we really don't need someone at the shield console right now." He exhaled, leaning his back against the wall of the lift.
"I'm not doing this to punish you," she clarified. "I, uh, mean, if you need, uhm, replacement, then, erm, I mean-"
A loud chuckle was interrupting her mumbling. "Lindsay once warned me something like this would happen at some point. She always said that what I was doing would end up in extremely weird situations at some point. She also said I'd do that only for stress relief. And she complained about me never using her as my counselor. And now you stand here and tell me about me requiring some counseling." Ezrael inhaled deeply, then glanced at the Commander. "Sherry, it feels horrible to be me right now. We're now here for thirteen days and I never thought I'd start to feel bored. And lonely. I miss Maren, Curacao, Mittens, hell, I'd pay for a nomad to show up here and just change the pace a bit. Instead, I have to watch my crew doing all the work. They repair the ship, program the KSRs for new jobs, do this and that and I'm a mere biologist and tactician. And loverboy, of course. That's the only thing I've been doing recently. I try to convince myself it helps Lorena to keep her sunny mood, but if we're honest, I feel bored and useless right now while everyone else is trying to come up with good ideas. Leon and Annie haven't been talking to me for three days, they are working on something, and all I can do is doing some fitness, watering the plants in the hydroponics, loosening the dirt a bit and talk to the crew every now and then. Meanwhile others get stuffed into cryo pods because we don't need a shield officer right now or a second biologist or a damage control technician."
"You are the Captain." Sherry made a step closer to him, giving him a firm look into his eyes. "You are the most valuable person on this ship right now. The crew loves you and needs to see you shining as you always do. You are doing a good job with Lorena, that is a fact," she said, seeing a smirk on his lips as he was not believing what she just said. "I'm not joking. Lorena is pretty happy, Captain, because you made her forget she lost many friends when we arrived here. Veronica for example was her best friend and she was incredibly depressed when she found out about her death."
"Did you offer her some counseling as well?" Ezrael asked her, looking at her again.
"She refused, however she didn't give me the impression of her being unstable. But, Ezrael, since I will order her tomorrow to enter a cryo pod, you might talk with her about it tonight."
Ezrael raked his fingers through his thick hair and exhaled audibly. "This is probably one of the weirdest things you ever asked me to do." He smirked.
"My job is to ensure the Captain and the crew are happy and function, Ezrael. I'll make use of any resource available if necessary." She made a step back, facing the lift doors. "Apahanta, please unlock the lift. Deck five, please."
As the lift was starting to move, Ezrael smirked awkwardly. At this moment he was wondering who would require the counseling more. Himself or Sherry?
It was more than two weeks by now since the Apahanta was stuck at the black hole. Ezrael stopped counting the days already as each day felt the same anyway. Getting up in the morning, shower, shave and style, breakfast, daily briefing, morning workout, lunch, system checks, talking with the crew, playing poker in the canteen, dinner, evening workout, resting at the apple tree and then returning to his room. For now, alone. Sombra was in a cryo capsule and Lorena was just entering one. Ezrael stood in the corridor infront to the cryo room, leaning his back against the wall while waiting. Four people were entering those capsules now, five in total now. It was a weird feeling to send those people to sleep. They might never wake up again, or only to find themselves on a space ship without energy. He didn't envy them at all.
For a while he stood there alone until Sherry left the cryo room, looking surprised to the side to spot him. "Have you been standing here the entire time?" she asked him, not a bit of an indication of the surprise in her voice.
"Sort of. Leon just told me to come to the engine room, he wants to show us something." He smirked at her. "I thought I fetch you and we go there together. It might be good news, finally."
Leon, Annie, Ezrael and Sherry stood infront of the control panel in the engine room, looking up at the giant mindmap on the screen. To Ezrael's positive surprise, Leon seemed pretty excited about it, same as Annie. So Ezrael and Sherry metaphorically leaned back and listened to their attempts of explaining what they planned.
"So this is it. Thanks to the little hint of the Captain, we looked into the nomad parts of the ship. We looked up all data we have about them. Function, numbers, values, possible modifications. The thing is, the APM cores are able to gather more energy than any other core in Sirius, thanks to the nomadic parts in it. Our AP-605940 not only uses thermic but also photonic energy as well as radiation. Heat, light and radiation, Ezrael." Leon smirked at his Captain and before Ezrael was able to say something to his defense, as he was well aware what those terms were standing for, Leon continued. "I never thought about it, but this is also the reason why we measure these output fluctuations. This is radiation. Not produced by us but by the anomaly out there. The shields only absorb so much of it, and some remaining radiation rays hit the nomadic parts of the AP-605940. With other words, we've been harnessing tiny bits of energy the whole time since we are here."
Ezrael nodded, understanding it so far. "Can we make use of that somehow?"
"Yes, we can." Leon smiled at Annie, who then took over.
"To be honest, the chances for this plan to fail are high and the repercussions in that case would be catastrophal, Captain. That being said, it is the only alternative to doing nothing." The short woman eyed the Commander first, then the Captain. "We have tried various scenarios of harnessing the radiation of the black hole anomaly, however there is only one scenario we can actually survive. This scenario requires us to alter the Apahanta quote-unquote a bit. This will probably take a month of time and will eat up many resources we have and almost all of our water. And the Gales and the Thumpers. In return, we get one, and only one, blind jump. Meaning we can leave this black hole."
"The procedure will require us to enter the gravity well of the black hole to reach a certain location in the radiation fountain our sensors picked up when we turned them on. We will bend the shields to channel the radiation through the power core, and the power core will transfer the energy directly to the jump drive. We have only that one chance. Once the jump drive is charged, which usually takes only thirty seconds, we will blind jump out of here. I don't need to tell you what can happen if we blind jump. We could leave hyperspace inside an atmosphere or even inside a planet's tectonic plates, we could end up in a sun or anything else dangerous. We also don't know whether we will blind jump back to Sirius, the Lost Sector or Cassiopeia, or even other sectors. We could leave hyperspace and find us at Trenton Outpost, encircled by the Liberty Navy, or in Sector 21, or in Gallia. Or inside the Dyson Sphere. The chances however are extremely slim to get stopped by another black hole. We will, assuming we will as usual leave hyperspace close to a stellar object, probably end in any place better than this black hole. We might end up in a system with ice asteroids, where we can refill our water supplies by harvesting those ice rocks. We might find raw materials we can process in the workshop. We also might just end up infront of Livadia."
"A leap of faith it is. Risking all our current resources to end up in a system that at least allows us to gather new resources. Sounds good to me. How big are the chances of success?" Ezrael asked, staring at the mindmap with his arms folded infront of his chest.
"We'll need to install some security measures to ensure we'll have full control over any situation, but the chance of success is, well, uhm. I say it is good."
"Sounds well enough to me. What do you think, Captain?" Sherry asked, turning towards Ezrael while she kept her hands behind her back.
To Ezrael however, this was a heavy decision. An all-in on this, or rather buy more time until they would come up with a better plan, if there was anything better. They would need time to make all the modifications. Sighing, Ezrael raked his fingers through his jet-black hair. "You probably want me to decide about this right now. Uhm... You know, give me one day to think about it. In the meantime, you two should take a break."
Leon and Annie blinked at each other before glancing back to Ezrael. Sherry simply smirked for one short moment before returning to her neutral countenance. After two weeks, this was a little glimmer of hope. Yet once more Ezrael had to make a decision that would seal their fate.
As the doors opened, the Captain's room was suddenly illuminated. The holographic windows turned on, showing various information about the Apahanta and where every single person on the ship was right now. Ezrael made a step into his little sanctuary on the Apahanta. Moving over to the bed, he sat down at the edge and leaned forward for a while, holding his head in his hands, letting his fingers slowly rake through his hair. For a few minutes, he just sat there like this before he leaned back and let himself fall into the bed, facing the ceiling of the room. Stretching out his arms left and right, he took a deep breath.
"Apahanta, please decrease the lighting of this room by 50%. And, uhm, play something soothing. Some chillwave or synthwave, a retrowave mix maybe. Random playlist of various tracks, please." And shortly after that, the music began to play. Closing his eyes for a few mere moments, Ezrael inhaled and exhaled deeply until he opened his eyes again. He felt tired but not sleepy. His muscles felt sore, especially the back. So he pushed his body up, wanting his legs to lay on the bed as well. Positioning himself comfortably, he began to ball his hands into fists. Then he opened them again, then he balled them once more. He raised his arms from the blanket, letting them hover over it while stretching them.
The music was quite nice to listen to while doing the various exercises of the progressive muscle relaxation. About twenty minutes later, Ezrael was done, feeling significantly more relaxed. Having pushed his shoulder blades into his back to free the torso felt like heaven. With a certain feeling of fuzzyness, the Captain stared at the ceiling. For a few seconds, there was silence, as the current track had stopped. Then the next track started. "Apahanta, could you please decrease the volume of the playlist by 50%? I would also like to record a new audio entry for my personal log, please start a recording now." The AI beeped in acknowledgement and Ezrael took another deep breath.
"Today is, uh, day twenty-two, I believe. For twenty-two days we are now stuck in a supervoid region of space, somewhere between the galaxies. We can't see anything here. No stars, no nebulae, no detectable galaxies on the telescope. Just a black hole, or a black hole-ish anomaly. Sherry and Leon refer to it as anomaly as it doesn't behave like a black hole in the books, but emits light and a rather strong radiation while also having a strong gravitational pull. To be fair, I don't care what it is. It wants to swallow the Apahanta and that is not good.
All this began with the Cultists. We had this emergency call from Omicron Delta, when VS-0074 attacked ships there. A combined fleet tried to take care of VS-0074 but we got horribly overwhelmed as the carrier called in heavy reinforcements. Something we never saw before that. Not having expected that much, the Apahanta took heavy damage and we were forced to blind jump out of the battle. Something went wrong, apparently the jump drive got a hit and didn't stop eating up the batteries, thus we remained in hyperspace longer than usual. We probably would have reached some point in space even more distant, but according to Sherry and Leon, we got caught by this anomaly which affected hyperspace somehow. Does that make sense? Not to me, I have no idea what they are talking about. Situation is, we ended up here, all alone, resources are limited, with a crew of twelve survivors and a warship in a very bad shape."
Ezrael shifted slightly around on the bed, placing his hands on his abs. "There is the possibility of a time dilation between us and Sirius. We left Sirius on March 14, and according to the Apahanta's clock, we're here for twenty two days now. In Sirius, we might be gone for a month already, or for just two weeks. We don't know how time is affected in this area, since we are in an unknown supervoid bordering the gravity well of some black hole-ish anomaly. Sounds like one of those sci-fi stories Sombra wrote about on neural net. Sadly, however, this is all real. Nine people died under my command. Not just crewmen of the Apahanta, but friends, and to some of the remaining crew, family. It is, uh, weird to think about it. I think the fact that Veronica is dead hits me personally the most. A happy but clumsy girl. I remember the first combat situations with her as nagivator and hazard system officer. She used to yell around on bridge." He chuckled slightly. "Captain, let's ram that ship, we can do that!" Another chuckle, then he shook his head. "One day we did and I showed her the repair bills later. She then stopped with that advice.
Vroni was one of the girls I met during my time with the Core. I mean, she was one of those girls. Met her on Alabama when I observed the progress with the Apahanta and she was at the gym, watching me when I refreshed my kickboxing. She never hid her interest, and on the Apahanta, she was always showing up for the morning workout." A short break. Ezrael sighed, kneading his mouth flesh slightly with his teeth. "I feel sorry I didn't get to spend more time with her apart from a few nights. But now she's gone. Lorena Hawkins was her best friend, and nobody was suffering more than her when she heard Veronica died. She tried to hide it all the time but I had some moments with her when we talked about all this. But... this doesn't matter much now.
I, uhm... Since we are now here in this unknown system without a chance of returning to known space or at least getting any resources, Sherry convinced me to, well, reduce our resource consumption. She checked the skill sets of all people on this ship and advised me to put the people who aren't really required for the current jobs into cryo capsules. She was pretty quick at suggesting me to do that with Sombra, since, well, she is merely a transport pilot. Her skills aren't required in our situation. At least for nothing that is absolutely necessary for our survival. So I had to stuff her into a cryo capsule. I didn't manage to tell her that it might have been the last time we will see each other, since, well, chances for survival are generally bad right now and that means at some point we will all enter cryo capsules and hope someone finds us before the Apahanta's power core is dry and we fall into the anomaly, dying instantly.
So I tricked her, telling her she was only testing the cryo pods for a few hours, to check them. But I guess in the end she found out herself. She was crying when I closed the capsule, begging me to wake her up if we really need to die, as she wanted to spend the last hours with me. It... broke my heart to hear her say that. I know she loves me, but this is just... wow. I had memorable emotional moments with Maren as well, but I doubt she would have said something like her. Maren just isn't that type of woman."
His upper body remained unmoved as he angled his leg, placing the boot-covered foot on the blanket. The Apahanta was always clean thanks to the KSRs, so he was not thinking about spreading dirt over the blanket. "I wonder how Maren is. I really miss her. I mean, I was about to marry her. The ring is here. Quality work, done by a really nice molly. Walking around on that Molly base was pretty impressive. Even the villains in Bretonia are charming folks. At least they treated me nicely." He looked down at his thigh, now that he could see it better. The black rubber-esque material of the Apahanta suit was slightly reflecting the lights of the holographic monitors at the wall. "I really don't know how Maren handles this situation. If she loved me at all, she would probably just hide her concerns about my disappearance. Maybe Valery just erased me from her memories and turned her into Unschuld again. Sombra and Leon sort of told me about their true opinions on Maren, which was weird. They like Maren but fear her, because of Valery.
Valery. Little Blue. Sans Valeur. Nomad Incubus. The Evil Within. How often did she threaten me? Maybe Leon and Sombra are right and I should be glad I am rid of this nomad madness. They are not here. No nomads. No incubi. No wild. Just twelve humans who can survive here for maybe years until we run dry. Maybe I should wake Sombra up again. Spend my days with her until the very end? I lost hope sooner than I was willing to admit. And then Leon and Annie came up with a plan. A plan with a tiny chance of success. Leon wants to return home so badly, just for Nancy and Curacao. He proposed to scrap big parts of the ship to prepare it for the anomaly. We enter the anomaly, charge the power core with radiation, charge the jump drive with this energy and do a blind jump out of here. All-in. We could survive for years or die in less than a second. I asked him to give me time to consider his plan, but seeing how confident he was about it, I agreed. That was one week ago."
Another sigh. His hand moved up to his head, scatching it for a short moment. Then he moved his other hand up as well, placing the back of his head on both hands. His laying leg was angling now, the other lifted up to place it on the angled leg, allowing his foot to hang in mid-air. "He said the modifications will take more than a month. In all the time between I can only do so much. I keep checking the new crops we planted in the hydroponics. The potatoes are already sprouting thanks to the plant lights and the good soil. Literally crap. Sombra, Lorena and I had fun mixing the soil. Now Sombs and Lorena are frozen and sleeping. Now the only available woman, for me, is Sherry, who is more like a robot than our KSRs are. But to be honest, if we're doing this leap of faith thing Leon proposed, I might just wake Sombra up and do as she begged me to. Because, even if the plan works, we don't know where we end up. Sirius? Maybe. Lost Sector or Cassiopeia? Maybe. Some weird unknown system very far away from Sirius? Much likely."
Then, for quite a while, Ezrael stopped talking. Multiple times he was sighing, breathing audibly, shaking his head. "This is different than the other times I was facing death. When I got shot by a Core loyalist during the defection of the Apahanta, it was suddenly. And the sudden rage powered me enough to forget about the pain and the consequences. I still have nightmares of me obliterating the young guy. He shot me with his plasma pistol, hit my shoulder and I went berserk, shooting him with the pulse stunner just to break his neck with my boot as he was at the ground." He closed his eyes, narrowing them. "All he did was being loyal to the Core. He was young. Younger than Leon. Luke Shaw was right to judge me for it, for killing my own crewman while forcing the other Core-loyal people to use escape pods. I wonder what Auxesia did with them. I never asked." Opening his eyes again, he looked to the side, where little metal crates with several supplies were standing like a little pyramid. "When I burned in the engine room during the cloaking test accident, it was sudden. There was no time to react. Just instincts. I still remember the pain, the horrible pain of my body burning. I would have died if Adrianna wouldn't have ignored my order to leave the ship." As he exhaled, a horrible chill was running up his spine. The memories were vivid.
"When... when I almost died on the Titanic, it was sudden. I felt nauseous, dizzy and then lost my consciousness. I didn't feel much pain. Only after it. Radiation sickness, not much fun. But I survived. Each time I survived, as if a guarding angel was watching over me. Not that I believe such things exist, as a man of science. Yet, this time, it is different. It feels like death is approaching. Painfully slow, yet fast. In about a month, maybe more, maybe less, we might die. And I have so much time to think about it. To reflect. To think about my adventures and, as Elena called it, escapades. And how inconvenient this way of dying is, to just disappear. If I had died in Delta, people would at least know about it. But now, Maren and all the other people out there in Sirius must be wondering. Is he gone? Did he die? Or did he just leave her?
I remember the days with the Core. Each week they published a list of casualties. Confirmed deaths, and the list of people missing in action. MIA. I think the Apahanta's crew must have been listed on the latter list for a while as well until they found out about me being still alive. And the Apahanta. I remember the day I was working with the Core again, meeting all the new faces. Nodtviet is dead, Matt Bishop never met me and the old guy who ran APM back then was gone as well. Back then, there were this black guy, Nathan Archos, the new Supreme Guildkeeper. And Enma. And Martin McKinsey. And Jack Daniels. And Luke Shaw. And the grumpy granny, Cordelia Lyell. A weird mix, to be honest, and each of them following their own agenda. Quite funny and ironic, to be honest. The Core used to exploit its members. Now it's the other way around. Lyell made her deals with me, McKinsey is just interested in APM being a blooming corporation, Enma used the Core as her own army to get Malta back and it seems Archos was more interested in allying with Gallia than in what we found on the Vault.
Jack Daniels however. I believe there is noone who impersonates the warrior spirit of the Core more than he does. From what I heard, he is one of the clones the Core produced on Alabama. The doctrine of the Core was implanted into his mind. Weirdly enough, he was one of the people who were not hostile to me at all. But it makes sense, since the Core admires power over anything else. Maybe I proved myself as powerful by pulling off the defection and staying alive for so long. Well, until now."
Annoyed, he sat up on the bed, sitting cross-legged. "I can't believe I just started to pity myself. I really don't want to listen to myself being like this. I have a month of time to do all kinds of things I never got to do. Taking Sherry on the Captain's seat. I really wonder how she is dealing with all this, come to think of it. I mean, I should just ask her about it. If we die anyway...
Apahanta, stop the recording, add it to my personal logbook. I doubt I'll get to listen to it again, but why not." A beep, and the recording stopped. Ezrael sat on the bed, again raking his fingers through his thick hair, getting it into shape again. Then he slid down from the bed, checking on himself in the mirror at his cabinet. There was a satisfied smirk on his lips. "Apahanta, please turn the music off." And the music stopped. Like that, Ezrael headed for the door, leaving the room. The lights turn off behind him, the door shut and he faced the door to Sherry's room right ahead of him. Making his steps towards it, he used the door bell.
There was a location onboard the Apahanta which was differing from anything else on the ship. The air was different. The scent was exotic. The crew came here to take a break, to talk, to relax and to close the eyes for a few minutes. It was the hydroponics. Once it had begun to produce beautiful red apples, it did not stop. And thus the crew had a steady supply of apples.
The Captain sat on a bench, looking up at his tree. It was his idea. His own apple tree, on a space ship. On a warship. It was satisfying to have this tree and the crew loved it. The apples were tasty, ensured by two Kishiro Service Robots programmed to take care of the tree. There were no insects on the ship, so their work had to be done by someone or something else.
The warm air felt nice on his bare chest. The fruity, exotic scent was a nice change to the rather neutral-ish air all over the ship. It was different back home on his Corvo, the Hoffnungsschimmer, which was simulating Curacao's air and temperature, until Maren and Valery turned it into an infected hybrid ship. Exhaling deeply, with a bit of voice to it, he frowned, almost stressed. The Hoffnungsschimmer was still out there, somewhere in Sirius. Maren had full control over it. A few things of himself were still stored there, and a great amount of cardamine he and Maren had smuggled from Malta was hidden close to the power core. Once more Ezrael had to exhale audibly. If one single person had found that ship and knew it was his, he was not only declared a smuggler but also all the suspicions about him having deals with the Nomads would have been revived. Although, in the meantime, he informed the authorities and the neural net about the ship being missing, probably stolen, and thus no longer in his possession. Another shaky breath, tensed up, followed by him relaxing again. In the end, the Hoffnungsschimmer was lost. His old home. He now had the Apahanta, and maybe his bungalow on Curacao if Maren would still pay the rent.
Sherry was emerging from her knees, standing up, looking down at her Captain. There was a shy smirk on her blushed face. "You're still eating mostly fruits," she commented with a satisfied expression, just to sit down next to him.
Ezrael nodded with his typical charming smile, pulling up his Apahanta suit again to cover his lower body entirely. "I know a guy who claimed he tastes like créme brulé," he commented with more cheerful smirk. James El Harady was a funny guy. "Thank you, Sherry."
For a few minutes, they just sat there like this, remaining quiet, looking at the apple tree. It was relaxing, even without what she just did, Ezrael thought. It was nice, though. Suddenly, he felt a weight at his shoulder. It was her, having placed her head on him. It was untypical for her to do such things, but Ezrael sort of was used to see her non-authoritarian aspect. After all, she was just a human. Just like him. "Sometimes I really wonder whether I made the wrong decision, Ezrael. As the Commander of the Apahanta, I only meet so many people and have to remain distant to them to stay in my role as a person of authority."
"Are you unhappy? I mean, if we wouldn't face death soon and all that," Ezrael began, taking a hand of hers to place it on his now covered lap. He held her hand, massaging it slightly with his thumbs.
"I don't think we will die. Isley wouldn't have proposed the plan in first place if he wasn't certain about it being successive," she commented, watching his hands treating hers. "But no, I am not unhappy, not at all. Yes, I had to make heavy decisions, just like you had to, and there is blood on my hands just like on yours. But it is satisfying to be on the Apahanta. We have seen incredible things. Systems you would never visit as normal Core captain. Or as anyone else. We have seen miracles and dreads of the Edge Worlds. We have been snooping around in the house systems in areas nobody else would survive to tell about. It is a life of adventures, and I guess that is why you do all these things. The thrill. It is just, sometimes, you start to feel lonely here. At least I do."
"And then I come over and spend a night with you," he said quietly, instantly making her blush again. "I know what you mean. I often was asking myself why I am still doing this, instead of just selling the Apahanta. Auxesia would have paid for it, probably. Not the full price, even though it is one of the most advanced ships of Sirius with the stealth capabilities, the robotic crew and our unique weaponry. And the jump drive. The ship's value has exceeded three billion credits the last time I was checking it. I could sell it and have a nice living with Maren and Mittens and Nancy and Sombra." He chuckled for a moment. "A nice little living on Curacao, with me as daddy, if I'd ever get Maren pregnant. She wants it so badly but her body is fucked up by cardamine, rendering her completely infertile. But then again, I'd probably be a horrible dad. There are many reasons for me to not settle down like this, Sherry. We have enemies. Sirius is at war, with Gallia and the Nomads and all the internal wars. Corruption, et cetera. What we have here is awesome, because we can escape from all that as long as we want. We can go wherever we want. The only judges of our actions onboard and with the Apahanta are just ourselves. And nobody is better at keeping things running on the ship than you. And thus I will do what I can to keep you happy as well."
"What if I wanted a baby?" she asked him, smirking at him.
"... let's not overdo things." It was obvious she was joking and for the first time after months, Ezrael heard her laughing.
"On a more serious note, though, Ezrael. I wouldn't mind it if you would sleep in my bed. We don't know how long we will survive." She grabbed one of his hands, holding it with her fingers between his.
"I thought you were trusting in Leon's plan?" His other hand was cupping the back of her hand.
"We don't know where we will end up after the blind jump," Sherry clarified, still eyeing their hands. "The chances of returning to Sirius would be way higher if we were in the vicinity of Sirius. But out here, we could end up literally anywhere. In the worst case, we end up in another stray anomaly."
"That would be pretty lame," Ezrael said quietly, letting go of her hand to stand up and pull up his suit to cover his upper body as well, stuffing his arms back into the sleeves of the onesie. Pulling up the zipper at his back, he turned towards Sherry, who gave him a questioning look. "I want to show you something. Come."
He offered her a hand, now as gloved as her own. Taking the invitation, the Commander stood up, smiling slightly at him. Following his lead, he entered the new hydroponical extension with her, and to her surprise she saw potato plants. They had breached through the soil, reaching for the artificial lights which where feeding them with tasty photons. They weren't tall yet, but it was a beginning. Ezrael went down on his knees next to a plant bed, carefully caressing the plant. Joining him, she took a close look at the plants herself. "They are nice."
"They take around a hundred days before they can be harvested. But they will be awesome. We'll be the first humans to have grown potatoes at this black hole somewhere in deep space outside our known galaxy. I think that's worthy an interview with the University of Cambridge, don't you think?" He smirked at her, which caused her to smile as well. The worries she just had were gone. Left was the scent of artificial nature on this warship, the warm air around them, and a not unpleasant taste on Sherry's tongue.
The Apahanta was never looking more like a mess than now. Giant cables, leading from power core to jump drive, laying all over the place, blocking many ways and corridors. Walls have been cut open. Other walls needed to be reinforced. Some sections of the ship were empty, others were filled with the former contents of said sections. The shield generator room was filled with new makeshift devices, same as the hall containing the artificial gravitation system. In the engine room, parts of the power core were uncovered. Leon looked up at the power core, seeing parts of clearly nomadic origin glimmering in the light of the power core. To a certain extend it was creepy.
The moment of truth was approaching. The operation was scheduled for tomorrow. Everything was prepared. The work was done. The ship was modified and the simulations had promised success. Many scenarios had been run, each one with different variables. Possible flaws were found and countermeasures had been installed. There was only so much that could go wrong, and only so much to do about it. There were worst-case-scenarios that would result in death and destruction, but those were unlikely. Unlikely-ish.
"Feels weird, eh?" Annie asked him, joining him and following his eyes up to the power core. "We could be dead tomorrow. It's a weird mix of excitement and fear."
The blonde surferboy turned his head towards her, smirking awkwardly at her. "I used to tell Nancy not to worry in situations like these, as worrying is wasted time. But now my heart just doesn't stop beating wildly. I can't calm down no matter what I do. Last night I slept only two hours, and I don't feel tired. That's what the body does to you when you're about to face death. You're expecting it to happen any moment." His look was raising again, up to the power core.
"The Captain said it would be the best time to do things we neve thought about, you know." the short girl with the black hair sounded, smirking at Leon. "Would you like to do something special with me?"
Leon's expression told stories about his confusion. Was she willing to do it now!? Finally!? "Ouh, uh, of course!"
Weak red light was illuminating Sherry's quarters. The leather-like material of the two Apahanta suits at the foot of the bed was reflecting it slightly. The scent of wine was in the heated air, sweet red fruit wine. Some was spilled on the bed, some of the floor. The blankets were all over the place, one halfway hanging down from the bed, one pushed against the wall where the holographic window was. Sherry's hair was messy, a few strands of wet, sticky hair glued to her face, her body as shiny as Ezrael's. She sat on his lap, smiling down at his face as he lay infront of her, both of them nude. She had a hand on his chest, supporting her body as she felt exhausted. With the other hand she held a glass of aforementioned sweet red fruit wine. She took a sip and then leaned carefully forward. Ezrael opened his mouth a bit as she approached his face, pushing her lips against his. It didn't quite work out when she opened her mouth as the wine was running down her and his mouth, which instantly caused her to laugh and Ezrael to smirk widely. "Didn't quite work as intended, eh?" he asked her in a teasing way while she was still chuckling.
She shifted slightly on his lap, having her legs left and right from him. "Bitt'noff mo' thanI c'n chew," she sounded in a mix of breathlessness from the laughter and lack of alcohol resistance. Gently she started to lick the wine off his chin and his lips. A funny feeling as she usually wasn't as clumsy as now. "Yo'so cute, Capt'n!"
"I really didn't expect you to get drunk from wine, you know," Ezrael commented, taking the glass out of her hand to place it on the night stand.
Before she even realized what he just did, she merely watched him stealing her glass. Then she slapped his chest with her supporting hand, giving him an indignant look with her mouth wide opened. "I'notdrunk!" she breathed in her defense, sounding rather wasted. "I'not drunk, Capt'n. I'm Comm'ner Sherry Agu-ilar. Agilar. You don' pr'nounce the u. Sherry Agilar. Like Charon Agilar."
"Who's Charon Aguilar?" Ezrael asked her, smirking as he was quite amused by her.
"Tha's my mommy. Sssharon Agilar," she returned, eyeing the glass at the nightstand. "She's dead as fuck, Ez. Corsairs bombarded Canaria three years ago an' she died an' boom I join' the Core." She leaned to the side, not going for the glass but for one of the bottles of wine next to the bed. Ezrael held her sides, making sure she wouldn't drop out of bed. Successfully grabbing the open bottle, he lifted it up and took a long sip, then she chuckled, smiling at Ezrael. "An' now'am here with you'nside me," she added. "Rea'y to die as heroes t'morrow. Dolor transit, gloria aeterna est, right?"
"Your drunk latin is better than your drunk english," Ezrael commented and grinned, taking the bottle from her. "I think you had enough already. You can have more of this if we survive tomorrow, okay?"
"Whatif we don' survive. Whaddif we die t'morrow?"
Ezrael shook his head. "Then you're dead before the headache will stop. But at least you had a fun night before your death, isn't that great?"
She leaned forward, laying down onto him with her head next to his. Her arms were wrapping around him. "I hope I wasagood Commander. People rarerelly say nice things t'me."
"I can't imagine a better second-in-command than you, Sherry. You did great, and you'll continue doing great no matter where we end up to tomorow. The crew loves you, they just can't tell you." He began to stroke her back while she pushed her face against his cheek.
"Onedid, and I killed her," she mumbled into his cheek, followed by a kiss.
"No-yes I, urgh, I'm fucking tired." she just returned. "This was'a nice ev'ning."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Ezrael simply stated, now having a harder time to breath with her weight on his chest. It reminded him of Maren who always slept with her head on his chest, other than Sombra who kept her body next to his. "We won't die tomorrow. I'm 100% certain of it. If not, you can blame me later." he said quietly, moving up one hand to rake through her hair. All she did in response was moaning slightly. They remained laying like this for a while. Eventually she began to snore and Ezrael rolled his eyes.
An hour later, Ezrael left her room, feeling refreshed from the shower he took. Unlike Sherry, he was rather resistant to alcohol. Wine was something he enjoyed for many years now, especially when he had an alcohol problem before joining the Core. That was in the past, however. The scent of the sweet wine was slightly on his Apahanta suit. Sherry must have spilled some over it at some point but he didn't see any stains. Not that the black waterproof material would have shown much.
Standing in the hallways of the bridge deck, he first wanted to return to his own quarters until he heard voices. And music. He turned to the side. The noise was coming from the bridge. Moving in that direction, he stopped infront of the bridge doors. Then he entered his bridge.
To his surprise, he found Leon and Annie there, sitting in the seats of Captain and Commander with remote controllers in their hands. His glance wandered over to the main screen, which was not displaying the black hole or the ship's systems but a game. Leon and Annie were playing games on the bridge, using the main screen. The sound was rather loud and they didn't notice Ezrael standing in the door. Smirking and shaking his head, Ezrael moved towards them, sitting down as well. They merely continued, and after one or two minutes, Annie offered Ezrael a controller as well. Leon had had something else in mind when Annie had asked him to do something special with her, but this was nice as well. And so they spent the last night at the black hole playing games...
Sherry stood on bridge, wearing an EVA-suit just like the rest of the crew did today. Additional protection from radiation, although in comparison it was just minimal. Her heart was beating fast, yet she did not allow herself to show any indication of fear. Same as Ezrael, who had joined Leon and Annie in the secured engineering room. The rest of the crew was either at the bridge or at the protected areas. Those areas had been reinforced, separately shielded and contained everything valuable to the crew. Personal belongings, but also food, water and other resources. The hydroponics were one of those areas. The cryo chamber was another, just like the medical bay and the bridge deck.
"There is no need for you to be here, Ez. Everything will be controlled by the Apahanta herself, and if something goes wrong, it will go wrong all over the ship," Leon explained, facing Ezrael who sat on a desk. The engine room was flooded in blue light as usual. The reactor was still at minimum output, although the Apahanta was already facing the black hole.
"I prefer to die next to my best friend. Also, if something goes wrong, I might have the chance to slap your butt before we die." Ezrael smirked, sweating slightly as he had to carry the extra weight of the EVA-suit. Same as anyone else.
Leon and Annie were standing infront of another control panel. The final simulation just had ended, with success, using the most recent sensor values of their surroundings. The blonde looked up, over to Ezrael. "On your command, Captain."
Inhaling deeply, Ezrael remained quiet for a moment. He closed his eyes. Death was facing them all. They could survive out here for years. But they wanted to return home. To Sirius. At all cost. Ezrael felt his breathing. His heartbeat. It would not slow down at all. There was no better moment than now. Now was the time. "Apahanta, open up a ship-wide audio channel."
"To the brave crew of Battleship Apahanta. This is Captain Ezrael Vertiga.
Ahead of us lies death. In a few moments, we will face death. Dance with the death. But it is not our time to die. I do not say this because I always try to see things positively. I say this because I have the best crew. We started out as a rag-tag bunch of people of all places. Each one of you had their own reason for joining me. For becoming a part of the crew. The family. A part of the ship. It is not our time to die. Not here, not to something like a black hole.
We will not die today. We will live on. We will tell the story of Battleship Apahanta. We will tell the stories of our friends. Those we met. Those we lost. Those we will meet. We will survive.
We don't know where we will end up. But I will see each one of you on the other side."
"AGS Shields at 100%" Leon stated, eyeing all the values on the console infront of him. As the Apahanta was entering the gravity well of the black hole to reach the target destination, the engine room began to heat up. The radiation was increasing rather fast. The power core began to glow brighter and brighter. The initial blue light turned more and more into a red one. "We will reach the jump area in exactly five minutes now," the surferboy added.
It was the longest five minutes of Leon's life. It felt like the eyes of the entire crew were on him. It was his plan. His calculations. Nine people already gave their lifes, and it was his job to ensure the other twelve would not share the same fate. Sweat was running down his face. Even with the cooling of the EVA-suit, it was more a matter of stress sweat. And fear. The fives minutes had passed eventually, the Apahanta's engines stopped, but the shields were at overcharge. "Jump drive is charging now, thirty seconds!"
Sitting in the center of a radiation fountain, the Apahanta's general radiation level increased rapidly, even with the shields absorbing the majority of it. Ten seconds passed, the ship was steaming. The giant cables were overloading with incredible amounts of energy, only cooled by low-Fahrenheit-water and heat sinks.
Only ten seconds left. A weird noise made Leon look up. Annie was no longer standing, and Ezrael moved over to her. She lay on the ground. "Don't worry, she merely collapsed. Her vital signs are okay-ish."
Nodding, Leon looked at the panel again. Three.
Two.
One.
"We're jumping!"
The ship shook as white particles grew around the Apahanta, emitted by the jump drive. The plan was working! Whirling around the Apahanta, they caused a leak in truespace. In a matter of seconds, the battleship was thrown through hyperspace. Radiation was decreasing, the shields collapsed.
Ezrael opened his eyes. He could hear the steam rushing through cracks in the giant cables. All over the ship. This was calculated, and the Apahanta took care of it, following a fire suppression protocol. This was why they wore the EVA-suits. There was no oxygen around. Only in the secured areas.
Finding himself on the ground, not realizing what just happened, he tried to stand up. Looking around, trying to get a grip on the situation, he noticed Leon was on the floor as well. He was laughing. Ezrael got on his knees, crawling over to Leon. He was alright! "Why are you laughing!?"
Smiling, Leon glanced at Ezrael. "We're alive. We made it, Ez."
And Ezrael realized it was true. They were alive. Temperature was dropping, the red light of the power core was slowly turning blue again. The rush of adrenaline was ceasing. They really survived it. Standing up, Ezrael offered Leon a hand to help him up as well. As they moved over to Annie to help her up, a beep sound announced an audio channel being opened.
"Captain, the jump was successful. Please come to the bridge, you want to see this."
Stopping for a second, Ezrael realized they just did a blind jump...
After a few minutes of EVA-suit walk, Ezrael reached the bridge. Sherry was standing in the middle of the commanding stage, having her eyes glued to the main screen until the Captain arrived. Realizing the bridge crew wasn't wearing their helmets anymore, Ezrael took off his helmet as well, just to take in the heated air. It was hard to breath but not impossible. "Report!"
As the Captain moved towards her, he glanced over at the main screen, unable to look away. "Chief Isley was right. All his calculations were correct. We're having multiple hull breaches in areas he predicted and the KSRs are currently fixing it. Will take a few hours until we're fine again. The ship has begun to reclaim endangered decks, filling them with oxygen. No crew casualties, no critical damages. Waiting on Isley's report on power core and jump drive." She noticed how he was staring at the main screen. "Sensors are currently checking the background stars for known constellations."
"Doesn't look like Sirius to me," Ezrael commented. Shades of blue and purple, a blue sun and some planets in the distance. And they were in an asteroid field, so much was obvious. "What do the sensors say so far?"
"Four planet-sized stellar body, one of them a gas giant. The others seem to be two ice moons and volcanic one. It also appears the asteroids around us are crystalline. We just saw one crashing against the outer hull, density and toughness aren't dangerously high. That means we could refill out water tanks, which is good news." She smiled at him for a moment. "No black hole detected."
"That is good news, but also means it is not over yet. I guess we start with the repairs right away, I want all systems checked, all decks combed for any damages, starting with the habitated ones. You'll stay here and keep me informed about the sensors. I want to know everything about this system. We don't know where we are, and this means we could be in someone else's territory. I also wa-"
Sherry interrupted him instantly. "We can't conntect to the neural net. There are no human-known radio signals or other signals detectable so far," she explained.
"Still. Mankind once thought we were alone in Sirius until the nomads appeared, and this could be an unknown galaxy. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Putting on his helmet again, he moved to the doors, intending to leave the bridge. "I'll see where I can help in the meantime."
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