Codename Alpha

Chapter 7

"Something must be wrong with the inertial dampeners, sir. I'd say we just experienced that pretty close to how we would if we didn't have any to begin with. Heading is 2-4-1 bearing 0-4-2, velocity 8,034 kilometers per hour. Course estimate is confirming that we're nearly free of the collision course, but it's going to take another burn to get us there. After that, we should be in a semblance of an orbit."

I picked myself off the floor and made my way back to the diagnostics console. "Sir, I'm getting conflicting data from each dampener monitoring point. C-Deck says it's dampeners are at 43 percent capacity, whereas E and B are giving me no returns at all. I'm sure you get the picture, sir." I felt the onset of a headache as I read more of the diagnostic reports.

"You didn't notice the first time? Good god, ensign. Helm, proceed with second burn, on your mark."

Once again, I stood up and walked to the communications and repeated my earlier message. Halfway through, I felt my surroundings swerve, indicating that Max had rotated the ship. Sure enough, he began a countdown. I grasped on tightly to the metal support bar once again, making sure to hold on even tighter as Max counted down.

"Mark!" He shouted.

What followed was a repeat of the burn prior. This time, however, I wasn't flung out of my seat and onto the wall.

"I'm glad to report that we're now in a stable orbit. We're going to be getting close to the surface when at apoapsis, but it should be okay. Sir, if it's alright with you, I'd like to try and stabilize our orbit with the maneuvering thrusters when we reach periapsis. It should even things out and make it a little less elliptical."

"That sounds good. How long before we reach periapsis?" Ibrahimov asked.

"About twenty three minutes, sir."

"Alright. Set us facing... whatever it is we're facing. Pearce, work with Couture and see if you can get the telescope working."

"Aye, sir," Max, Couture, and I all said.

I stood up and walked around the corner to where the engineer was working with the damaged computer consoles. Although most of the burnt rubber smell had gone, this area had it particularly badly. The carpeting was rather unpleasant to stand on, being abnormally dry and rough.

"Anything I can help you out with?" I asked Couture, who was doing something with power cabling, inside a destroyed portion of the bulkhead.

"Actually, I was just about wrapping up, given the supplies I have." She pulled something in the wall, and then there was a loud clicking sound. The computer consoles suddenly flickered to life, all showing black terminal screens. That is, the ones that hadn't exploded, or that had screens still in one piece.

The blank screens suddenly began to overflow with white text as they automatically rebooted. After a few seconds, the cracked screen of the console I was closest to suddenly came to life, showing a very high-definition picture of space, with a grid overlay. "I take it this one is the telescope, I said. "Max, we're facing the moon, right?"

"Yeah, it should be directly ahead," he shouted back.

The telescope computer seemed to be designed to be able to pick up on any visual discrepancies or anomalies in it's view of space, according to a window I opened by pressing a few random keys. I set it to do just that. After around ten seconds, it highlighted a specific portion of space and zoomed in, to where there was a white dot, just slightly larger than all the others. "I've got something," I announced.

There was an option to project the telescope view onto one of the ceiling mounted televisions at the windshield. It prompted me as to which one I wanted it to go to, but the choice wasn't hard, seeing as all but two had shattered screens. After it was put up, I zoomed into the moon further.