SPACEHOUNDS Chapter 1

[Shameless]

Ayato looked at it again, and sighed.  "very well.  Keep me updated.  I'll send a message to Yesult  and Karen, but until we know something concrete, we'll play it safe.  Maintain a safe distance, and let's continue on."

Even as he spoke, he typed up the text, sending it to their personal coms via the pad in his command chair.  "Gravitational anomaly detected, initial indications suggest primordial black hole, has altered Asteroid orbits.  We'll be passing through its wake.  Maintain vigilance of critical systems."

 

It was likely not much of a threat, but given the schedule and the mission, he couldn't do much more.

[Nina]

Meanwhile,

Mr. Todd, after his initial fascination with space flight settled in and spent most of the flight so far either working in his sleep compartment or in the passenger area oblivious to everyone else as he buried himself in his work via his computer.

 

Carrie Dawes had enlisted Karen's help in setting up and calibrating the life support pods and while they were doing that they established a good working rapport. Carrie even accompanied Karen on her duty rounds, as she found the operations of the craft incredibly interesting. It was during a routine check of the life support controls down in the under-deck when Karen's personal data terminal sounded that she was receiving a message. Karen read the text message twice her brow furrowing.

Carrie noticed the change in the other woman's demeanor, "Karen? Is something wrong," she asked?

 

Yseult had just come forward from the drive section to fix a sandwich when he too received the Text from Ayato. A primordial black hole? That would be the find of the century. Forgetting the sandwich she headed forward to the control room.

[Exile_Jeane]

The words 'primordial black hole' inspired a moment of confused dread as she took in the message, a frown settling onto her lips. Asteroid orbit-altering black holes didn't just pop into existence, did they? The government, at least, had people looking for that kind of weirdness in case one of the floating rocks or iceballs decided to pay Earth a visit. Carrie's question brought her out of her musing prematurely, snapping her com unit shut.

 

"Something's knocking asteroids out of place, and we're about to cross it's wake, " she answered bluntly, "Cap'n wants all hands to make sure we're good while we do."

 

Right. Simple enough problem, simple enough solution. A ghost of her previous good cheer came back as she stood up, "And for me, that means getting back to my station to make sure my babies keep purring. You know the way back to your cabin, right? If, God forbid, anything happens, I know I feel better doing my job if you're safe doing yours." 

[Asarasa]

Not only would a primordial black hole be a remarkable discovery of scientific significance , it was also of some concern. There had been tests and adjustments to using Gravity Impeller technology in some respects inside a gravity well, but so far, they only had mathematical projections as to how an impeller drive would react in proximity to something with the gravitic mass of a black hole.

 

Yseult's sensible flats whisked softly on the deck - never a floor on a ship, whether the ship travelled the seas or the stars - as she entered the control and took a seat at a console to monitor the drive and the gravity field it produced, as well as to look at the readings of the gravitational anomaly Eisley had detected.

 

"Ayato, Ms. Eisley," Yseult said by way of acknowledgement as she took her seat.

 

"Rachel, please," their new comms and navigation officer said, glancing briefly away from the sensor controls to flash Yseult a quick grin.

 

"Rachel," Yseult repeated with a sharp nod and a faint curve of her lips. "This is an intriguing event you are finding for us."

[Nina]

Karen escorted Carrie back to her compartment and they parted with Karen giving the medical technician a little wave as she turned and headed back to inspect the underdeck and the secured cargo. She didn't see the other woman's lingering gaze or the smile she had.

 

Up on the control deck, Arjun stepped through the open hatch a bulb of coffee in his had and an 'I'm still waking up' look on his face, "Good morning, and what intriguing event is that?"

 

Karen took the small elevator down and was changing into her power-suit as regulation required anytime personnel went into the cargo hold while underway. She had already stepped into the suit and sealed the lower portion and was reaching for her helmet when it rattled from a slight vibration of the shelf it set upon.

 

Now in her experience space ships shook and rattled all the time the big engines produced incredible vibrations. Or rather they did. These new ships with the GIDs they didn't, now, even the slightest hint of motion was unknown, no impossible, according to Yseult. The gravity field protected the vessel inside while it, the field, moved through space. The shelf rattled again with a slight vibration. Karen grabbed the helmet and set it over her head she had to inform the captain...

[Shameless]

Ayato nodded to Arjun,   "Didn't expect you to be up, so I didn't send it to you, but Rachel believes she's detected a primordial black hole, and that is what's disturbed the orbits of some of the asteroids ahead of us.   We're plotting a course  away from it, but we're still likely to be moving through an edge of its wake.  We're going to do a full scan as we go, and maybe once this mission is done, we can come back and find it again."   In truth he'd already logged the potential find, crediting Rachel with the potential discovery pending confirmation.

"Much as I'd like to investigate it now, we have our mission."

[Nina]

"Hey boss, did you guys feel that vibration up there?"

Ayato turned in his pilots chair and looked at the tiny speaker from which Karen McKenna's voice issued. He hadn't felt anything, he glanced back at Rachel and Yseult, both of whom had immediately turned to their respective panels.

"Oh my god." Ysuelt's voice was barly a whisper but Ayato and Arjun, who had quickly taken his seat, looked back at her.

"What?"

"The Impeller field, it has grown in strength, but this is not possible."

"What do yo mean grown in strength?'

Both pilots had turned back to their panels and saw no warning or anything unusual.

Ysuelt shook her head in disbelief. "My panel is telling me that less than a minute ago the field grew in strength by approximately ninety exojoules and is increasing by a factor of 3 every .03 seconds!"

Rachels alarmed voice broke in, "Something happening I'm picking up wild variances in the gravity currents nothing is lining up with the charts."

In the background the whispers of the computers grew in intensity as they struggled to keep up.

Spoiler

have questions? ask.

 

[Shameless]

Ayato heard the alarm in Yesult's voice, and checked his data, They were still on-course, and decelerating and their arrival time was still on the set target.   The strangest thing was that the drive output is pegged out, which was something out of the ordinary to be sure.  More than that, the course corrections from Rachel's station were all showing invalid solutions.

It was perplexing, most of all, because none of his screens showed them to be in any danger, or even a flicker of warning.  "None of this makes any sense."

He looked up to the others.  "I'm showing all of NAV's course corrections as Invalid, and the output's pegged out.  Yet we're still on time and decelerating.  Just what is going on here?"   unvoiced he was concerned that somehow the PBH was affecting the gravity drive, hell they really had no idea how it would in this situation, which was why he hadn't planned on investigating coming in.  Ayato was still relatively calm, but he was inwardly concerned.   It was his hope that The others would find the answer quickly, so they could extricate themselves and proceed, intact with the mission.

[SalmonMax]

"Some kind of interaction with the black hole?" speculated Rachel as she swiped another display into view and squinted at it slightly. "That doesn't make much sense to me though...a gravity well is a gravity well. Unless the event horizon itself had somehow crossed the impeller field, I can't see why there'd be trouble. And if that'd happened, we'd definitely have known about it."

 

She paused, then glanced at Yseult. "Right? Because...a point of nearly infinite gravity in an impeller field...we'd have noticed that."

[Nina]

While Ayato questioned Yseult Arjun was running his own checks and like the lead pilot he was getting invalid after invalid response to every single course in the files Rachel had programmed. "Eisley, none of your courses are checking out i need to know where we are going and what is ahead of us."

 

Rachel who cut a glare at the back of co-pilot's head as she ran her diagnostics and current mapping scans again then her heart skipped a beat and the blood in her veins ran cold. She swallowed and hit the reload and the same results flashed on her panel.

"They are wrong because the currents have all shifted." She looked at everyone in the control room.

"They are all flowing towards us."

 

Down below, Karen not receiving any answer from above closed up her suit and opened the airlock and stepped through into the cargo hold. she looked around for an shifted containers or anything else out of place when her eyes passed by the loading lock a flash of multicolored light through the observation window caught her attention. She moved tot he port and looked out, instead of the blurred gravity field she had expected what she saw was a hole in space right where the field should have been but that wasn't the craziest part , that was the streams of colored energy following into the hole and through it from outside the filed...

[Exile_Jeane]

Nothing nothing nothing… Wait. That was new. Her eyes narrowed.

 

"Captain? The vibration's stopped but I'm sending you the feed from my helmet. Pretty sure this isn't supposed to be happening," Karen sent up to the bridge, frowning in the solitude of her helmet. She'd been on choppers that were on their last legs and you paid attention to every strange thing they did or noise they made. This reeked of that and with two newbies aboard, she didn't like that one bit. Breathe in. Breathe out. A few pick button presses and the haunting visual was on it's way up to the cockpit.

 

"Tell me we're good please," the former marine asked into the link. 

[Asarasa]

On 2/1/2020 at 2:06 PM, Spacehound Director said:

"They are wrong because the currents have all shifted." She looked at everyone in the control room.

"They are all flowing towards us."

 

"Dis donc, that is explaining the problem, I am thinking," Yseult said, eyes glued to three projected displays, focusing on the puzzle and readouts desperately so she that she wouldn't dwell on fearful possibility she'd never see her husband or babies again. "But not how the problem, it is beginning."

 

Yseult grabbed one holographic display with a graceful gesture, putting it to the side and blowing it up for everyone to see. Another gesture, and she added a second grouping of readings to the first.

 

"Bien. The impeller field, it is growing at a rate that is being at least an order of magnitude beyond the design parameters.  The field, it is already far beyond any lab or field-tested level ever recorded, and still, it is growing." The striking scientist shook her head in awe and reserved terror. "To be growing like this, we would have to be deep inside the gravity well of a star itself, or of something analogous."

 

Yseult pointed to an ever increasing number, the number of exojoules, energy the gravimetric transducer had already converted from the gravitational force acting upon the ship. "We are still collecting energy from whatever anomaly is acting upon the impeller field. Other than this, the Gravity Impeller Drive is operating in a regular fashion. The energy, it is stored in the field of a magnetic bottle fashioned of Quantum-gravitic matrices. The limit is can be storing is unlimited... in theory... I am believing."

 

With the thumb and forefinger of one hand, she began twisting her wedding band on the other. "If this is not being so... the only way to be stopping the drive from collecting more energy is by turning it off. This... is not being advisable. We would be under the full effects of the gravitation force acting upon the ship, which would be catastrophic and final upon us, and likely the same for the Polaris."

 

21 hours ago, Karen Mckenna said:

"Captain? The vibration's stopped but I'm sending you the feed from my helmet. Pretty sure this isn't supposed to be happening,"

 

Ayato snagged the feed sent to his console, stretching and turning it for everyone on the bridge to see. Studying her own displays, it took Yseult a moment to notice the new feed from the helmet cam Karen had sent them. At first, Yseult tried to look at it through her displays, then she leaned over in her chair to look around them.

 

Yseult's mouth dropped open, her dark, speculative eyes wide, at hole pierced into the fabric of space, and the prismatic streams of light flowing past the Polaris and falling into that hole. With an effort, she tore her eyes from the image to look back as though she could see what was behind the Polaris just by looking that way, but then her eyes snapped back to the impossible sight on the display.

 

21 hours ago, Karen Mckenna said:

"Tell me we're good please," the former marine asked into the link. 

 

"We are witnessing something that no humans are ever seeing before," Yseult replied in an awe-stricken tone that suggested it was both good and bad.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Asarasa

[SalmonMax]

Rachel's eyes widened as the latest set of calculations resolved, and she updated her display with the projections based on that information.

 

"Uh...okay. I am not a hundred percent sure how to tell you this, but I think I've worked out what's going on. Just to warn you, it's kinda bad news."

 

She cleared her throat. It was really hard, being the one who had to relay this. She'd always been bad at giving people unpleasant facts to their faces.

 

"I've finished running the numbers on the black hole's orbital path, and based on that and the time that Vesta went dark...it looks extremely likely that the black hole 'hit' Vesta. In the process its orbit shifted and it picked up a lot of mass...and what looked like a near miss before was actually much, much worse."

 

The navigator drew in a deep breath to steady herself. "The black hole is currently inside our impeller field. What's more, there's a really weird interaction going on...I've never seen anything like it. We're sort of...tethered to it somehow. The energy in the impeller field is increasing the mass-energy of the black hole and causing it to accelerate...and it's dragging us along behind it. Which shouldn't be possible, because that's a closed loop. We're accelerating it, it's accelerating us...violation of conservation of momentum...but that looks like what's happening."

 

She was quiet for a moment. "At this rate we're going to get to significant fractions of c. We're already past .5 and unless we can decouple ourselves from the black hole it's only going to get worse."

[Nina]

Karen couldn't take her eyes from the port and the...thing out there, she could hear the command crew over the open channel.

"We have to do something!" Arjun's usually calm voice said over loud and with a bit of panic slipping in.

"We cannot disengage the drive that would leave us under the full effects of the singularity." Yseult sounded calmer than she should be.

Karen blinked, oh shit, "Skipper, it just got bigger."

Ayato scowled at the new information "Keep an eye on it chief let me know if it grows again. I need options people"

"Captain," Rachel Eisley said, "we are in the grip of the black hole and it is still following its orbit, and moving fast. In about six minutes its going to start falling back into the asteroid belt." She glances over at Yseult, "Our impeller is feeding it gravity upping its mass to, what...about...?"

"It is currently at an increase of one hundred and six times its it's original mass," Yseult's voice sounded hollow.

Arjun stared at his controls. "If we put all of the power into the drive and used it for acceleration this much power we could breakaway."

"Sorry to interrupt."

Ayato look at the open hatchway and Mr. Todd who was standing there leaning in.

"I overheard your conversation, that channel is open," Todd pointed at the com panel. "Look if these two ladies are correct this black hole is going to wreck havoc if it goes back into the asteroid belt. Thousands of lives, maybe millions, maybe the entire solar system, could be at risk. You can't let it go back and you can't let it keep growing."

 

Spoiler

if you need ideas get with me

 

[Shameless]

Ayato looked at the computer plotted figures after listening to everything.   "We're working on that Karen, stand-by."

He looked over to the others. "We can't shut the field down, we'd die and accomplish nothing.  We can't let this thing continue it's orbit, it potentially puts everyone at risk in the system.  Is there a way we can stop letting it pull us, and instead pull it out of this orbit and eject it from the system?  We've got about 6 minutes before it reaches the apogee of its orbit, and starts back in, moving alot faster than it is now.  We've got massive amounts of excess energy, is there a way to use it to change the course of the black Hole?"   

He left unsaid that the risk to the ship, and everyone on board, was quite high, but they had to do something, and they were definitely against the clock.   "Plotting the course is easy enough, but Will it work, and will we be able to escape the grip of the hole's effect after breaking its orbit?"

He looked to the others.  "I'm open to other suggestions from anyone at this point."  He wasn't panicked, but of course he was afraid.  It was a terrible, exciting moment in human history, and certainly they'd all be famous when they got home, provided they ever made it.   As Captain his goal was to complete his mission while seeing to safety of his crew, and his own idea put them at risk, but he didn't see a better option.

[Asarasa]

Yseult shook her head minutely at Arjun's query without looking away from her displays, slender frame taut from controlling her fear. "It is being an idea, but not a feasible one, I am thinking. The black hole, the anomaly, it is being entangled with the impeller field, and it is being the impeller field that moves us through space, not the ship. By its nature, the black hole, it should not being able to interact with the impeller field, much less being stuck to it."

 

The French-Canadian woman drummed the fingers of her left hand on the console, a rapid staccato of thought. "Without understanding how the black hole is being entangled with our impeller field, I am not seeing how to decouple it." She glanced over her shoulder at Arjun, an apologetic tilt to her head. "I am believing if we manage to change course, we would be taking the black hole with us..." Her voice softened as she add in afterthought, "... if it is a black hole."

 

Her attention focused on Monsieur Todd and Ayato as they added their comments and concerns, lips tightening into a thin line, a finger tapping them as she pondered possible solutions. "We are having an exponentially increasing surplus of energy. In theory, it is being possible to be increasing the thrust of the impeller field to exceed that of the black hole, which should be allowing us to alter the course of the black hole."

 

Yseult hissed with an intake of breath. "If possible, that is being one problem. We would still be subject to the ever increasing acceleration. It... may be possible to reverse the polarity of the impeller. Hypothetically, there is the potential to collapse the black hole. But this being only the coarsest of theories. This is being never done, and likely never conjectured about it. There has been a notable lack of singularities to test impeller fields on. Trying to form micro-singularies for testing purposes has been frowned upon since the CERN super-collider was developed a century ago."

Edited February 8, 2020 by Asarasa

[Exile_Jeane]

Karen thought, watching the spiraling singularity out the window.

 

She didn't get most of the theory being flung over the coms, only the grimness of the situation keeping her from rolling her eyes when 'reverse the polarity' entered her ears. Did Yseult really just say..? Wow. Okay. Boil it down to the essentials, the kickable parts that you could get rid of to make the badness less bad. No, A black hole didn't, to her knowledge, have kickable parts. Think simpler. Two bodies, grappling with gravity, about to fling back into civilization to the doom of untold numbers of people. Like the world's worst joint lock with the judge counting you down to elimination. You couldn't fight your way out of a joint lock against a smart opponent, cost you an arm and a strike to the back of the head for your trouble. Karen frowned in realization.

 

A black hole wasn't smart. All it was was a lot of stuff in one place.

 

Hell, it was probably less smart than a platoon's pile of dirty clothes. It couldn't do anything other than what it was doing right now unless they were dealing with godlike aliens. But in that case, she might as well take off her helmet and walk out the air lock. Screw that, she had people and a poinsettia back on Earth. "I say go for it. Yeet the damn thing out the solar system at apogee. That's when we'll be slowest, right? Heck, if it does collapse, that's when we'll be farthest from anyone," she offered, chuckling grimly, "Not that it will. Worse ways to go than saving lives in any event."  

[SalmonMax]

"So, the impeller field is stronger in the presence of strong gravitation, right?" Rachel asked over the intercom. "But the black hole's mass increases, and therefore the amount of power we need to move it increases, the more we 'feed' it. I'm thinking there might be a small delay though, between us giving it power, and it getting more massive. If that's true, then we could change its course during that delay. Charge the impeller, drawing on the increased gravity it's giving us access to...then immediately, like within microseconds, go to max thrust. Then we'll drag IT, at least for that moment. Enough to change its trajectory. Then it increases in mass and it's dragging us again."

 

She took a deep breath. "I think it might only work once though. There's a limit to the amount of power we can safely charge the impellers with. One try, and we'd need so much power that we could fry our systems before we could shift its increased mass again. What do you think, Yseult?"

[Shameless]

"You're the best crew I've served with, I have faith that in the short time we've got before we have to act, you'll do your best to ensure we succeed, just as we always have." There was a quiet confidence in his tone. Technically, they'd be failing the given mission for the first time, but this was bigger than that, this was more important than the company, than each of them.

"Without any other viable or semi-viable options, we're going to try this. We'll put everything we've got save minimal life-support into the Impeller field, and time our shot. Just as we reach apogee we'll sling this thing out of the system and with luck, as it accelerates we can cut it loose. If not, then we'll being going for one hell of a ride. Everyone back home will be safe, though."

 

"Rachel, you're going to plot exactly when we have to execute this maneuver. Everyone not involved in this needs to strap in. I don't want anyone flung across compartments, Karen can you anchor yourself where you can continue to observe the anomaly visually We cant track it with our cameras. We have no idea what the aftermath of this to the ship will be."

 

He nodded once, and made sure all ship- board recorders were on and recording and would continue, even when they rerouted power. When this is over, well, it'll be a good to have footage. That thought reflected his own hope, that his crew and ship would survive this. More than anything, if they did survive this, he wanted to make sure everyone got the credit for their part in this moment in history, they deserved to go down in history for how they handled this situation.

[SalmonMax]

"I'll have to code a quick autopilot program to do it," Rachel replied, giving Ayato a pleased look. "No human beings' reaction time is quick enough to cycle the thrust up before the black hole finishes putting on mass."

 

She got started, bringing up a keyboard image onto her console to type the code in.

 

"If this works, there shouldn't be any getting flung around. Just like normal impeller flight, everything in the field is affected simultaneously by equal force. No sense of motion." Rache coughed then and added, "Not a bad idea to strap in though, because this is definitely outside the manual."

 

Ayato couldn't quite stop himself from asking, "What happens if it doesn't work?"

 

Eisley winced a little. "Then the impellers can't handle the load or fast transition, the emergency breakers trip and cut power, and the field collapses. ...and we get sucked into the singularity and destroyed."

 

She turned a little to give the captain a look. "Still, if you have to go, pick a way that people will talk about, right?"

[Asarasa]

Yseult gave Eisley a sour glance, nostrils flaring in a silent snort. She was not as sanguine about sacrificing herself for the benefit of others, many others even, when it appeared her family was not in immediate danger. However, despite the slim chances, this extraordinary idea seemed to be their best recourse to save their own lives, with the lack of time constraining their available options.

 

"I am rather be surviving, me," Yseult countered coolly, as she briskly adjusted the operating parameters of the GID for the completely unconventional stress they were about to force upon it. As well, she plotted the modification to impeller field itself that might be able to collapse the singularity, frowning deeply at the rushed calculations. This is why she had wanted to be in R&D rather than in the field. Time limits were the bane of true research and development.

 

"Here." With a sharp gesture, she threw a holographic representation of the modifications she had made over to Eisley's station. "This is being what I can do so the impeller field, it is not immediately failing when we are making it do more than what it is supposed to be doing."

[Nina]

Ayato looked at his crew and made a terse nod, “Lets do this. Karen, are you in position?”

“Tied down, watching and recording the lightshow,” the armored crew chief said as she checked the restraints hooking her to the wall before the port.

 

Ayato glanced at Arjun who was sitting stiffly, staring straight ahead. He started to say some thing but stopped, what could he say that would make any difference. With one last glance at his own controls he looked up and said, “Alright initiate your programs now.”

 

Behind him Rachel and Yseult did as instructed and in a few seconds the programs and computers took over. Time seemed to crawl to a standstill, each second that ticked down seemed to take forever. Each of them started to say something but didn’t. Both women had their hands ready to abort at the commander’s order. That order didn’t come. The Black hole, now the size of a basketball reached the apogee of its orbit and the computers executed its unorthodox programming.

 

Carrie Dawes woke in darkness and cold, at first she panicked but that eased when the cabin detected her movement and the lights came up softly. She unstrapped herself from the bed and went to get up only to find that her motion sent her sailing across the small cabin into the far wall. She was weightless and there was no gravity. Grabbing her medical bag in case anyone was injured, she made her way forward stopping to check on Mr. Todd who was still unconscious but looked uninjured, leaving him undisturbed she continued to the flight deck.

 

Karen opened her eyes then blinked. She was floating in front of the porthole still tethered to the wall and she was staring at a river of stars unlike anything she had ever seen. The black hole was gone, and the impeller field was gone, all she could see was space and more stars than she had ever seen in her life and not even one of them was familiar.

 

Spoiler

flightdeck crew you can wake up as Dawes is coming onto the flightdeck. gid is off and everything else is on standby. fusion reactor is functionald and lifesupport is functional. get with me in PM so i can answer your questions before you post.

thank you

 

[Shameless]

We're alive  That was Ayato's first thought as he came to, the bridge lit with the red emergency lighting.  He couldn't feel any pain, and quickly moved to unstrap himself from the command chair.  His first priority should probably have been his ship's status, but for him it was the crew. As he unhooked himself, he realized they had no gravity, so very carefully,  He went round checking on and rousing each of the crew on the bridge, starting with Arjun.   The fellow pilot looked at him abit bleary-eyed

 

"Ayato?"

 

"Yeah, we made it, I'm going to check on the others, but I want you to get started on a full systems check.  I want to know what we've got left.   We've got emergency power at least, but no Gravity.   After I check on everyone, I'm going down to check on Karen and the others."  Ayato answered back patiently.

 

Arjun nodded in understanding.  "Did we do it?" 

 

"No idea, but I'm gonna say "Yes" for now, since we're alive."  That made him smile just a little as he got to work, and Ayato moved on to the next person.
 

Ayato will move to check on each of them, trying to rouse them gently.  I'm fine with you all writing him engaging a little smalltalk, advising them of the status as he knows, and lack of gravity.  He'll ask Yesult to look into the GID status, and Rachel to give him their position.

[SalmonMax]

"Ugh...all right," muttered Rachel as her eyes fluttered open. She looked around, then waved her hand in front of her face. "I don't look like spaghetti," she said. "So...good start. Lights and gravity off though. That's...weird..."

 

She leaned over her console and touched it. Blue and yellow lights blossomed, and her face appeared cast in reflected glow. She squinted slightly.

 

"Fiat lux."

 

At more touches on the console, the running lights brightened, and the darkness receded and was gone. She went on the intercom then, "Look out everyone. Gravity's coming back in three...two...one..."

 

A quick glance around the folks on the bridge to confirm everyone was ready, and she turned that on as well. Weight tugged familiarly, and boots thumped onto the deck plating. Rachel sagged in her seat for a second, then sat up straight and brought up more information.

 

"Well, the good news is we didn't lose power. Which is why we're still here, I expect. The bad news is that everything reset at some point. I'm going to have to reboot the major systems before we can tell where we are and what we're doing. Shouldn't take long though."

 

Rachel flashed a smile at Yseult. "Thanks for stepping in there. I very much prefer this ending to the other one."

[Asarasa]

Yseult's eyes were wide, showing white all around, as she panted heavily, hands splayed on her console, almost clinging to it. She hadn't been trained in EVA procedures, and had only ever taken the one mandatory session about acting in a micro-gravity environment that all assigned to a spacecraft were required to take. She and her stomach hadn't liked it then, and they didn't enjoy it now either. Yseult was still trying to collect herself from the bout of unconsciousness and recovering from being returned to an environment with gravity.

 

"Bien. Oui, this is being much better," Yseult agreed, returning Rachel's smile with one much weaker as her panting slowed. She pinched the bridge of her nose trying to dismiss an incipient headache, then shook her head and began looking through her displays. "The impeller fields, they are being down, so they energy stored in them, it is going too. I am needing to reboot the GID before running diagnostics, to be seeing if there is being any damage to be repaired before I am feeling safe re-engaging it. Should be able to get that done before we run out of the residual charge" Ysuelt unbuckled and stood up, "I am going to the drive compartment aft I'll do the reboot and diagnostics there."