How I Blew Up The Ship.

(A true life account taken as a creatively done snippet from Ms. Yasmin Adimar’s journal.[i])[/i]

Captain Yasmin Adimar looked out over the main hangar. Her pride and joy, the INDIGO NOVA, was still being prepped for its next voyage, after a close encounter with a vindictive swarm of hungry space weevils, that had since created a substantial breach in the NOVA's hull. Her know-it-all little brother Jay Quintelle was busy in the office behind her, sorting out the final paperwork for the ship.

"Almost ready to head down and take a look?" She called through the office doorway, as Jay looked up and grinned. "I'm sure Wizzy will've kept the boys in check."

"Sure hope not. Otherwise there's no chance of getting out of this hole 'till next month. That is, if she's actually been doing her job…"

"What!?"

Jay clamped his free oil-stained hand over his mouth. "Nothing!"

"That's what I thought you said," Yasmin retorted sarkily, yawning lazily, and grabbing the licensing papers away from him and gesturing for him to follow her outside.

'Wizzy' was Yasmin's nickname for her sister-in-law, Eliza Quintelle, the chief engineer in charge of rebuilding the INDIGO NOVA. As they walked down onto the lower loading platform, she smiled at one of the workers that was still swishing the side of the dazzling purple ship's main hull wall with gleaming wet paint, before turning to see them, and opening her mouth to speak.

"The interior's almost done. Took it ages, it did." She took a short-lived gasp. "Had to strip the bunk rooms and everything."

"Can we take a look?" Jay asked warily, eyeing the thinly visible reddish band of skin around the bottom of her ring finger, where her wedding ring should've been. Typical of him, it was the only present he'd ever given her. "Hey, you took off your ring!"

She rubbed the named finger sorely, and hid it from view. "Had to take it off when I went with Mark down the air ducts. I knew you'd be positively DEVASTATED of I had lost it already."

Jay blushed unnecessarily, and nodded affirmatively.

"Ah, yes, very devastated indeed. Uh, um…can we go in, then?"

She paused, and nodded, handing Yasmin the captain's key card. Jay tried to follow, but she barred her arm across his chest, plainly denying access.

"Leave it out," he groaned, and pushed past.

§

Neither Yasmin nor Jay could clearly recognise the ship where they'd spent the majority of their rememberable lives. Every detail was different in some way, somehow as if it were a different ship altogether: even the Martians Trading Corporation insignia on the door handles was a different colour, despite the fact that Jay couldn't even remember what colour they'd been to start with.

Eliza followed them with her regulations MTC clipboard nestled comfortably in the crook of her elbow, and, as they made their way into the captain's bunk room, the couple flopped down on the bed, while Yasmin stayed standing, and Eliza handed her the clipboard.

"So," Jay started, before either of the two woman could begin to speak. "How long until we can leave the hangar?"

"No idea. Days, weeks, months - who knows? Could just be a matter of hours."

"Why don't we know?" Yasmin asked tentatively, dragging Jay off the - no, HER - duvet, and leading them through to the main drive room, where Rebecca and Emily were busy with booting up the new ship computer.

"The drive plate's damaged badly still, and the risk of another hull breach is too high for us to chance it. Space weevils started the problem, but it'll be the lack of atmosphere out there that'll be the thing to finish it."

Jay sulked, and began to fiddle with his own wedding ring, bored. "In English please?"

Eliza ignored him, and whispered to Yasmin, "Just make sure he stays away from the control panel," as she walked over to see what was malfunctioning with the computer.

"Madame, si vous plait ouvre la potre?"

Eliza sighed. A new computer was meant to make life easier for the crew, wasn't it? And yet, here she was, trying to figure out as to what language the damn thing was speaking in. She herself had no knowledge of anything other than English, and the rare dotted areas of Latin that she'd had crammed into her mind as a child. So she did the only thing she knew to:

"Captains Adimar and Quintelle! Get over here!"

Jay and Yasmin both sighed simultaneously. Yasmin cursed briefly under her breath, and paused before joining Eliza over by the control panel.

"I know I'll really regret this later," she whispered to her brother quietly, "But it's good to be back for once."

§§§

As Isla strode into the drive room, everyone looked up, startled. She gave them all her seemingly priceless grin of approval, and sat down beside Captain Adimar.

"Are we back online yet?" Adimar asked her curtly, not bothering to peel her eyes away from the hologramatic face that was branded on the computer screen, who was still gabbling gibberish like yesterday. "'Cos I really need some good news just now."

Isla fidgeted. "Uh…"

Adimar sighed as if she was mere dirt. "Officer Yemen!? Any updates on progress in hull reconstruction, I asked."

"I think it's almost done. But I'm not sure. You'd have to ask Officer Quintelle about that."

"Well I'm asking you instead!" She snapped, turning her attention back to the foreign-speaking computer again.

"I-I-I…"

"We need to leave," a gruff voice interrupted, as a drunkenly wasted Captain Quintelle sauntered back in again, clutching an almost empty can of Martian Larger. "Now."

Adimar looked up. "We can't. The hull's not properly closed yet."

Quintelle lost his balance, and leant over on the control panel, hanging on loosely as the can crashed to the floor. "We don't have a choice."

"Why not? We're not expected back at HQ until March."

Someone else interrupted now, Officer Fiona Ford.

"President Thwart televised a new war appeal this morning. Says he needs all crafts and their crews back at headquarters ASAP. That must be what you mean, Captain Quintelle."

"Sure is. Those vermin from Yerox have escaped, and he needs all the help we got. Munitions, mostly: that much is obvious."

"Alright, alright, I guess you're right, Jay."

"Mm."

She turned back to Ford. "Go get everyone back on board, as soon as you can. Prime the cannons ready, and prepare for lift-off in ten minutes."

She curtsied. "Yes, Captain," and scarpered off out the airlock, which was still sitting partially dormant, after being wrenched away form its hinges by the engineer's just after docking.

Adimar turned to her brother, a stern look of knowing coming over her eyes.

"Jay, go and help her. There's so many places over the span of Lunapolis people could've gone within the last half hour. There's no way of knowing where everyone is. Try to catch Mark on your way out, too. Gordons—"

The officer went to follow Captain Quintelle out the doorway, but Yasmin held her back roughly.

"…We need to make contact with President Thwart immediately."

<end creatively done snip>

“Ms. Adimar! Wake up, please!”

She opened her eyes to see Seymour staring over her. “Huh?”

“You’ve been asleep for nearly an hour,” Jade explained briefly to her, as she sat up, and wiped away the dribble form her chin swiftly. “We thought that maybe we should’ve moved you back to your quarters, but…”

“I wouldn’t let them,” Jay answered on Jade’s behalf, as he cut-

<snip>

“Ms. Adimar!?”

“Seymour!” She snapped strangely unnecessarily, sitting up on her bunk. Her head was burning up, it felt. “Where wasI just then?”

"Asleep. I got someone to bring you back here."

"Did I miss anything?"

"Quite a lot, actually..."

<snip>

(A few minutes earlier...)

“Right” Cass snapped as she stepped into the room “I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to hear that we managed to stabilize Jay and that, while he remains in a coma, he doesn’t appear to be deteriorating any further”
She paused to scan the faces of the assembled crew
“Needless to say, we lack the facilities on board here to engineer a cure for anything as sophisticated as a nanophage virus - so we need to find somewhere that might have those facilities; and for that we need a drive room so we have access to the long range scanners and more accurate scientific instruments”
“Pancakes imbecilic actions have cost us the last of our resources, so as of tomorrow we are on a resource mining mission” Cass continued “There’s a gas giant about six AU from here with a ring system, which we can mine for resources and fuel; after that we rebuild the drive room and start looking for somewhere we can find a cure for Jay”
“Do what you want tonight” she sighed tiredly “We arrive at the giant and start work around midday tomorrow”

<end snip>

"So...?"

"So," Seymour sighed, leaning back sleepily in his wheelchair, "Like I said. We arrive at the giant around midday tomorrow."

"What smegging time is it?"

Seymour checked his watch, and Yasmin stood up, and walked groggily over to her locker. "About midnight." He paused. "Maybe. My watch's probably wrong, though."

She pulled out a yellow t-shirt, and yanked it over her head as she spoke. "So, what actually did happen!?"

"What do you remember?"

"Well, I remember the guys got out of Justin's assault course thingy, then we were in the Refectory, having supper. Jay came in, and..."

"Wrong," Seymour corrected her. "That must've been when you started dreaming."

She stared at him. "Are you sure, Seymour."

"Yes, I'm smegging sure alright. He's still in the medibay."

"..."

That's when she woke up.

OOC: Sorry for going cuckoo. Does it look a little bit more alright now?