When things go South

<OOC>
Hey dudes! What's goin' down in groove town then? As you can see, despite my best efforts, I'm back! And damn excited too. I miss you guy and girls and I'm happy to be writing again. Now with a character who has a character, thank God. Hope you like him :)
<OOC>

Dr. South had just finished putting on his pajamas before feeding his pet beetle, Reggie. “Who's a good little buggy?” he said as though he were talking a baby, “Yes you are! Yes you are!”
He tickled his pet's crystalline looking back and it chirped loudly in appreciation. He smiled. South had had the beetle since he was a child on Io, where he found it in his mother's garden. It was only very small back then, no bigger than his thumb, but over the years it grew to the size of his hand. South knew Reggie would likely out live him by years, the species had an average life span of about 200 years.
The time ship Satrid hovered high above the ground, projecting a holographic image of the night sky around it so that any onlookers in England, 1562 would see nothing out of the ordinary, lika an experimental time ship from the year 12,000. South had been assigned to the ship as it's chief researcher, studying forms of news and previously unknown life through time and space, as well as the effects of time travel on living organisms. He loved his job. Especially the opportunity it gave him to see new and unusual life. Well, new to him anyways. They were hanging about in 1562 to recharge the ships experimental time drive after a trip to the carboniferous era, where the good Doctor and his research team were chased through the jungle by two meter long centipedes. He was particularly pleased that he managed to capture a very fast 3D photograph of a Pulmonoscorpius during the chase, an image that he now proudly displayed on the wall above his bed with a holo-projector.
He had collected quite an eclectic array of this from his travels on the Satrid, most of which he stored in an old fashioned locker that took up half of the space in his small closet. The other half was taken up with his clothes, some of which were folded up on the floor to make room for a worn brown suit that he wore on special occasions, and a large leather satchel, filled with various scientific instruments that he carried that he carried with him on away missions. His favorite item was displayed proudly on the desk that jutted out from the wall next to the closet; a 19th century microscope he had purchased on one of his many trips through time with the crew of the Satrid. Each of the 27 crew members was allowed a certain amount of shore leave for each time zone they passed through, so long as they didn't try and change history and provided the environment didn't present any immediate danger. Next to the microscope was a data pad containing pictures of the many crew on their maiden voyage to the year 65 million B.C.E. Where they witnessed an asteroid smack into the planet Earth. On top of that was a pocket watch from 1902. He had traded a pair of mirrored sunglasses to get it, even though strictly speaking he wasn't allowed to leave items of the future in the past.
He yawned, and stretched, laying down to sleep. It was already long past the time everyone else usually went to bed, and ship had been in low power mode for about 4 hours now. South lay down on they gray sheets, and nodded off to sleep as the 16th century moon beamed down on the Satrid from the stars above.

* * *

The chief technician of the Satrid sat at his desk running a few routine check on the Time Drive. It was late, but this was his routine; to work on the vessel when it's not being strained. What better time than when the crew is mostly asleep? He set his bowl of cereal down on his desk and looked down, over the railing to his right. The time drive of the ship was large. Larger than it needed to be for the ships size. The idea was to increase the power of the field so that the ship could travel further in time without having to drop out of the vortex and recharge enough energy to fold space-time yet again.
He sighed. I was boring work, but the pay was good. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes before looking back at the screen in front of him. He felt a hand on his shoulder, the sudden appearance of another person made him jump, sweeping his arms to the side, upsetting his bowl of cornflakes. “Jesus you scared me!” he said to the other engineer who had snuck up on him. “Sorry, I thought you heard me come in.”
“No I didn't bloody well hear you come in! Now look at this mess!”
He reached for a towel to start cleaning up the spillage, all the while, unbeknownst to the both of them a small stream of milk and artificially flavored corn product trickled down the side of the desk, and over the railing, dripping onto the top of the rotating time drive. The milky substance, alien to the time drive's native workings, sparked on contact, and the drive began to emit a high pitched whining noise of 'bleep! bleep! bleep!' and 'whiiiiIIrRRr', building as both engineer looked worridley at eachoth, them back at the time drive, both saying in prefect unison, “Smeg.”
They ran from the room, sealing the door behind them, and as the reached halfway down the corridor, the time drive erupted into a brilliant array of sparks and artificial lightning, accompanied by a thundering noise that shook through the hull, the time field it was generating growing until it enveloped the ship, before finally detonating with enough force to blow the ship into separate pieces. Now, this would worry many people, and indeed ruin their day, however, the possibility of a time drive overload was foreseen by the ship builders, (perhaps not under these exact circumstances, but still foreseen), and therefore the drive room was designed to contain the for of a small atomic explosion, and each compartment of the ship, including the crew areas, to seal itself off, and seperate from the hull as escape pods. What they could not design, however, was a way to to keep the time field contained to the drive room, and they all asked each other “What would happen if the drive exploded in the time field?”
Of course no one had an answer to this, or any ideas on how to prevent it if it did happen, so they just left it at “Let's hope it doesn't happen.”
But, of course, it just did.