The Command

Suddenly the air was full of coffee-colored smoke and the stink of burning plastic. The lights went black, succeeded by faraway glows as the relays popped on the battle lanterns.

Sanders tore past, hauling ass up the ladder like a monkey in the zoo, somebody threw a firecracker in their cage. Somebody else rattled after him. Maybe Akhmeed but she wasn’t sure. She started to follow, then hesitated, coughing as acrid smoke bit her throat. Shouldn’t they try to do something? Pull out the little SEEDs, the emergency air canisters they had to carry in the space, and check things out?

To hell with it. She spun and ran after them, dropping her qualification book, boots ringing the deck plates. The smoke was getting thicker by the second. Now it burned like acid in her throat. She went to port and aft and up the vertical ladder. But at the top she caught something sharp with her head. Stars shot though her brain, and she staggered back, gripping her skull. But forced herself up again, coughing hard now, and turned around twice before she got her bearings and forced her numb legs to push her up the ladder to the IR flat.

This was it, the top of Main One. Only where was the door? Smoke and darkness, and somewhere outside the echoing bong of the general quarters alarm. She felt around and got her hands on the dogging bar. Closed tight. She almost screamed, but when she heaved the quick-acting lever whanged up and there were faces glowing in the emergency lighting and she stumbled through into Helm’s arms, coughing and mopping blood off her forehead with the sleeve of her coveralls.

* * *

They stayed in the passageway for a while. Helm tried to make her go to sick bay to get her head taken care of, but she wouldn’t. She let Akhmeed put on a dressing to stop the blood running down her forehead, though. She felt sick. Helm made her sit down with her head between her legs.

The lights were out in the p-way, probably all over the ship. It was hard to make out what people were saying, and she only gradually realized it wasn’t them, it was her hearing. The petty officers were isolating the space, snapping off breakers and closing valves from the emergency control panel. The Porn King said he’d been back by the feedwater tank in the lower level when the big bang went off. It sounded like it was above him. Cobie said it was above her, too, from the PLCC. Helm said it smelled like an electrical fire, and whatever it was had dragged all the gens off line when it went.

“We don’t have any power?” she yelled at him. “Anywhere?”

“You don’t have to scream, I can hear you. Feel how we’re rollin’? We’re dead in the water. They’re probably trying to start number three back aft. They can do an emergency start with HP air from the Epsy”

She wasn’t sure what the Epsy was although she’d heard it mentioned. It was in Main Control, she knew that.

“Whassup?” The investigator, bulky in oxygen breathing apparatus and mask and red hard hat. The rest of Repair Five lurched and stumbled behind him. Helm told him quickly — explosion, smoke — and pointed him down the ladder. The guy looked at her. “She hurt? You need to evacuate her.”

“She’s okay. I need her to isolate the space.”

The investigator shrugged and pulled the tab off his canister. He seated it, sealed his mask, and sucked. Smoke curled behind the eyepieces. The oxygen candle lighting off. The number-two man paid out line, and he disappeared into the darkness.

Power came back, lights lit, the slam of breakers echoed along the passageway. The ventilation whirred up the scale, and the smoke started to clear, at least out here. “Are we gonna go back down?” she asked Akhmeed.

“Sure. Unless it’s actually on fire down there.”

They hung there for fifteen minutes, listening to the repair party shouting and passing word. It was still dark in there. You didn’t deiso-late the space until you knew what went wrong. Then they started backing out, and she heard the 1MC announce the fire was out and the reflash watch set, and desmoking commenced by method A. The guys got up and she did, too, getting ready to go back in.

Only she didn’t want to. Her lungs still hurt. The black oval of the door was a nightmare she didn’t want to go back into. She told Akhmeed she had to pee, she’d be right back.

She sat hunched in the stall, shivering, wiping her eyes with toilet paper. What if she didn’t go back down? They’d put her on mess cranking till forever. Talk about her like she couldn’t take it. And they’d be right. Sure, you’re scared, she told herself. You just fucking got to go back down, that’s all. She thought about Kaitlyn. She had to do this. For her.

“Hey, Kasson! You in there?” Helm, cracking the door.

She screamed back to fucking close it. “I said I had to pee.”

“Sorry. Just checking, in case you passed out or something.”