Dusters TWELVE

Dinah smacked her console in frustration, “Fucking do it.” She shouted. Nothing, silence, the rest of the crew was pretty shocked. She never acted like that.

“We’re missing something.” She said. “Shut it down.” She got up and left the Control Room.

She went back to her quarters and played the log file of the original trip and their failed attempt side by side. “What is it?” Dinah muttered.

Fagan’s voice came over the intercom, “Dinah, is there anything the rest of us can do to help here?”

“Think about what changed between the run that got us here and now.” She answered.

Fagan and the others pondered that and side conversations started. Most of the crew gathered in the Galley, which was not a large room, but had a large table they could all sit at.

Norrie was spouting a very negative tirade based on “this isn’t possible.” She was obviously frazzled. They all gnawed on some crackers.

Fagan was watching the same replay Dinah was on a repeater in the Control Room. The time lines of the two log fires weren’t matching up.

He pulled up a field simulator application on the two different screens and fed the data from the log files into each.

As he watched the simulation timeline, he noticed a ripple run over the hull of the ship, under the collectors during the first run. It was only apparent on the trip that brought them here.

He hailed Dinah again. “Can you come to the Control Room please?”

“Why, I’m busy?” She asked.

“I found something you should see!” He answered; she heard the shift in his tone and was intrigued. She put on her coat and headed out.

They had cut back life support to the minimum to save oxygen and power. Sections of the ship were secured, off limits. The ship was rather chilly and any exertion would put you out of breathe fast.

Dinah arrived in the Control Room and settled into the station next to Fagan. It was the Quartermaster’s seat.

“What?” She asked.

“Watch this Dinah.” Fagan said, and he restarted the replay. She watched them, switching from one monitor to another.

“What am I looking for?” She asked.

Fagan backed it up and told her to watch the screen on the left closely.

She saw it, the ripple that floated over the whole hull just as the event happened. “What did that Fagan?” She asked, almost in a whisper and staring straight ahead at the screen.

“When coil 35 failed, it didn’t just cut out. It caused this flux as it failed and if it hadn’t totally failed after 23 seconds, we might be on the other side of the universe.” He told her.

The simulation finished and she looked at him. “Can we do that again?”

“I have to run some simulations to figure out how the failure happened and I want to do a test with only the one coil active. I think it’s possible” He told her.

“What do you need?” She asked, getting up from the chair.

“Just some time, a day or two.”

“You have 12 hours, you have no other duties besides this; and work with Norrie.” She cracked the intercom, “Norrie to the Control Room please.”