Lilliana had once had an alarm clock in her quarters, but it had long ago been commandeered by Regan to serve as the timing element for a device of the mechanic’s own devising. Said device had not been of a sort that was conducive to the long-term health of its component parts, and Lilliana had never bothered to replace the clock, for three reasons.
One, the preference for a personal clock was a holdover from simpler times as the ship’s computers could awaken her with an auditory signal and a change in lighting at any time of her choosing.
Two, any clock she brought on board would swiftly meet the fate of the previous one.
Three, it would be a cold day in hell before circumstances actually permitted her to sleep until a time of her own choosing.
The tone which awoke her on the approach to Rylea was not the melodious chiming of bells she had selected as her wake-up song, and she certainly hadn’t requested a red strobe pattern.
She slung aside the curtains of her four-poster bed and stumbled out of her cozy sleeping quarters into the office/sitting room of her suite. In a ship designed for a crew of over one hundred but populated by only three dozen, everybody who wanted them had private quarters, and she had the best. At least, the best apart from Daniel Shays, who had converted the forward hold into his own luxury apartment. Her quarters, which would have been the captain’s, were convenient to the bridge, but she frequently regretted the lack of a proper console inside the bedroom itself.
She acknowledged and canceled the shipwide alert with a wave of her hand, registering the words “power”, “engine”, “of”, “loss”, and “total.” That would go a long way towards explaining why the readout showed that they were traveling at only a quarter of the speed of light, though they were still more than a light-hour away from their destination.
There was a flashing frowny face symbol at the bottom of the screen. She punched it.
“Hello, Daniel,” she said, as pleasantly as she could. “Can I help you with something?”
“I’m taking a bubble bath,” he said.
“How nice for you,” she said.
“I don’t like red alerts when I’m taking a bubble bath.”
“Well, if you file a copy of your bathing schedule on the main computer, I’ll see what I can do,” Lilliana said, cutting off the intercom. She affected the slightly put-on tone of command necessary to engage the attention of the voice-activated system and said, “Open joint channel to Adams and Bard.”
Two lines appeared on the screen, listing Adams, Galatea and Designate Bard, Regan. Both of their locations were listed as “Engine Room.”
“‘hoy, Chief?” Regan said as soon as the line beeped open.
“We going to explode, Bard?” Lilliana asked.
“D’ya mean right now, like, or are ya more speakin’ in general?” Regan asked. “My experience is that most things explode, sooner or later.”
“That’s because sooner or later, you blow most things up,” Galatea countered. “Before another word is said, I would like to point out that I was only following the instructions as they were given to me, and that I did so against my better judgement and under extreme duress.”
“What… exactly… has happened back there?” Lilliana asked.
“Nothing!” Regan said.
“Certainly nothing that is my fault,” Galatea added.
“Nothing we can’t fix with a bit o’, ya know, ingenuity an’ perspicacity an’…”
“Oh, do you even know what ‘perspicacity’ means, you one-eyed barbarian?”
“Well, course I do… it’s a word coined in honor o’ the legendary lost City o’ Perspica, from which all modern deoderant…”
“Children, please!” Lilliana said, closing her eyes and praying once more for strength. “What happened?”
There was a silence on the intercom, more profound and tangible than if it had merely went dead, and then Regan piped up.
“So, we’re mindin’ our own business, like, right? And then this swirlin’ purple vortex portal thingy just rips open out o’ the fabric o’ space, and these fangly-mouthed beasties come pourin’ out, and before ya know it, they’ve good as…”
“Galatea, what happened?” Lilliana asked.
“No, wait, it gets better!” Regan protested.
“It was not my fault,” Galatea said.
“What wasn’t your fault?” Lilliana asked.
“Well, if ya insist on skippin’ the best part o’ the story,” Regan said, “the upshot is… we managed to… er… cook a few o’ the fuel bars.”
Lilliana sighed in relief. That was bad, but not insurmountable… gold was expensive, but not as expensive as engine repairs would have been, and they were only a few hours out from Rylea even at their current speed. They would need some assistance slowing down and maneuvering into port, of course, and that would cost still more… but they’d got off cheaply, considering what they had escaped from.
The profit margin of the voyage would shrink, but perhaps not by too much… that depended on one thing.
“How many bars is ‘a few’?” Lilliana asked.
Silence again… very unreassuring silence.
“How many?” Lilliana asked again, insistently.
Again, it was Regan who found her voice first.
“Fewer than a dozen,” she said, with enforced cheeriness.
Lilliana felt her internals lurch.
“How many fewer than a dozen?” Lilliana asked.
“Well, ya know, we haven’t really had a chance to do a proper survey of the situation,” Regan said. “But… me best guess would be… somewhere generally in the neighborhood of… two. Two bars.”
“We cooked two bars?” Lilliana pressed. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“Er, no… more that we cooked two bars fewer than a dozen,” Regan said.
“So, out of a total of ten fresh bars,” Lilliana said. “We lost ‘two fewer than a dozen’.”
“It’s not my fault!” Galatea said again.
As the enormity of their loss settled in on her, Lilliana couldn’t help but be struck by the utter pointlessness of the protest.
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