10. Bugs in the Door
Ophir woke with a gasp long before his watch went off. He sat up, drenched in sweat. With a shaking hand, he rubbed his face. Looking at his watch, he dropped his hand. A dull throb settled in the center of his brain and Ophir wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the day.
With a grunt, he stood and dressed, out of his quarters within three minutes. He entered the empty control interface room and got to work. As others showed up, Ophir gave no notice. He moved from his seat once to eat breakfast and take a brief break. He ended up blending into the walls because when Young entered, the Colonel didn’t even glance his way. Ophir wasn’t even listening till Eli piped up, “Maybe it evaporated when we went through the star.”
“It's a closed system,” Rush pointed out.
“You know, all that water went somewhere,” Young stated. “We're down to half of what we had when we got here.”
Ophir pulled up the water system as Rush commented, “I don't understand this.”
“Well, you're the one trying to get the recycling system up and running. Maybe there's a leak somewhere.”
“No. The ship says it's fine,” Eli counteracted.
“If what you're saying is accurate–”
Young cut Rush off. “It is.”
“Then we've got a serious problem,” Rush finished.
“Well, we wouldn't if you did what I asked you to do in the first place.”
Rush rolled his eyes at the Colonel’s comment. “Oh, please. Can we stick to one problem at a time?”
“Running out of water wouldn't matter if we just dial Earth, go home.”
“I already explained that to you.”
“The ship's recharged, the power reserves are full–”
This time Rush cut the Colonel off. “That's the point. They're not.”
“Well, where are we at, then, Rush?”
“Probably about...less than forty percent of their original design capacity.”
Young chuckled. “Think I can't tell when somebody just pulls a number out of his a**?”
“What?!”
Eli jumped in. “Uh, I actually pulled that number out of my a**. He's not making it up.”
Rush shook his head. “Look, if Destiny was ever capable of dialing back to Earth, it was thousands of years ago when the Ancients originally intended to come here, but not now.”
“Well, then, you're right. We have a problem,” Young stated.
“Yes.”
“Again,” Young stated pointedly.
Rush and Young locked gazes for a moment. Rush turned away first, stating, “OK, Eli–”
Young intervened. “Get Brody in on this. He's an engineer. I need to borrow Eli.”
Young nodded to the younger man before he left. Eli obediently followed him, leaving Rush frustrated. Ophir pressed a button and Rush’s console beeped, gaining the older scientist’s attention. Rush read the text before he locked gazes with guarded, amber orbs. He nodded.
Ophir stood up and walked over. He settled behind Rush’s right shoulder as the older man started to work. Ophir had little to do at his console so he had requested the chance to watch the other work, to see how he moved through the systems. It was rather impressive from Ophir’s point of view mainly for the fact that Rush had actually agreed to have Ophir watch over his shoulder. It didn’t last nearly as long as Ophir had expected, though. Destiny dropped out of FTL and Rush was quick to get to the Gate Room.
“Coming?” Rush asked at the doorway of one of the halls.
Ophir shook his head. “I’ll just be in the way. Only two consoles down there and I have a bit more access to the systems here. I have a radio here if you need me.”
Rush nodded, leaving. Ophir grabbed the radio that had been donned his at some point in time and turned the volume down low. Sticking it out of the way, he went to work.
Not even an hour into what he was doing, he was interrupted. However, what had interrupted him wasn’t human. Movement caught his attention and Ophir looked up only to tense. A cloud was shifting at the other side of the room. At his movement, it moved closer. Ophir forced himself to relax as the cloud came to a stop before the console. Ophir could now see the individual particles that created the cloud and realized he was looking at something like a swarm. The swarm shifted around, mimicking his face. The swarm held that shape for a moment before breaking it off. The swarm mimicked Ophir’s face once more before the swarm moved on. Shaking his head, he focused on his work.
A handful of hours later, Rush and Eli entered the room and neither gained a glance from the 23 year old working. Eli was the only one disappointed with that fact. Shortly after their arrival, TJ entered and started to explain something she had seen in a corridor to Rush and Eli.
“So what are we talking about?” Eli asked. “Like, one little cloud of bugs, or are they all over the ship?”
“I'm not even sure that “bugs” is the right word for them,” TJ commented.
“Ha! What about “cloud”?”
“Except the cloud was alive. It was almost like thousands of tiny...” TJ fished for the right word, “...alien creatures.”
Rush nodded, unperturbed. Eli was a whole lot more nervous and he voiced his distaste. “Yeah, I have a problem with everything you just said.”
“What you've just described is, uh...” Rush made a face before continuing. “Well, it's-it's the same as Lieutenant Scott claimed he saw on the desert planet.”
TJ nodded. “That's what I was thinking, and maybe some of them followed him back here.”
“We'd have noticed them,” Eli pointed out.
TJ shook her head. “No, not if only a few came through the Gate. They're like tiny grains of sand.”
“And then what? Started reproducing?”
“Well, if it's a living organism, then yeah, they would.”
Eli was getting anxious. “OK, so now we've got aliens. What if they start bursting out of our stomachs?”
“I don't think they're dangerous. It almost felt like they were trying to communicate.”
Rush nodded. “Lieutenant Scott used the same word.”
“Yeah. At the time, you said he was delirious,” Eli pointed out.
“Well, I was wrong.” Rush looked to TJ. “What do you intend to do?”
“Well, I guess we should stop everyone from wandering around the ship,” TJ commented.
Rush vacated his seat and stepped away, allowing her access to the console.
“After you,” he said.
She looked at the console, uncertain. She turned to Eli. “Um, here?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Eli stepped forward and pushed the appropriate buttons to activate ship-wide comms.
“This is Lieutenant Johansen. We have a situation. It's under control but, as a precaution, I ask everyone to return to their quarters and remain there until further notice. Thank you.” She deactivated the comms.
Rush looked surprised. “You're, uh...you're not going to tell them?”
Eli added, “That we've got aliens?!”
TJ shook her head. “No. We'll keep it on a need-to-know basis. What else?”
“You're in charge,” Rush stated, shrugging.
“And I'm asking your advice. What else?”
“Always consider the greater good. That's it.”
TJ looked away, exasperated. Ophir lowered his gaze back to his console and continued working. What could the aliens have been communicating with him? Silence fell over the control interface room and Ophir settled back in his seat, mind wandering. A sudden beep from his console drew his attention. Ophir read over the results that it showed and sighed. Standing, he clipped the radio to his hip and stashed a few tools in his back pocket before he started down the back hallway.
He took an early turn and walked the length of the hallway before finally finding the stairs. Gripping the rungs of the ladder, he started down to the level below. Stepping off, he started up the hallway and followed it as it turned. He stopped at a console on the wall and activated it. He read what he needed before shutting it off. He turned to his left and continued down the hallway. He stopped at the closed door and knelt before the paneling beneath the door release. He pried the panel off and looked over the wiring. Making a face, he got up and walked back over to the console in the wall.
After a few minutes, the main power went out in the corridor. The only things on were a few emergency lights and the console that he turned off. He returned to the panel and started working with the wiring.
Ophir worked carefully. When the power suddenly returned to the corridor, Ophir jumped back, dropping his tools. Growling, he walked over to the console and turned it on. Glaring at the data streaming, he typed out a brief message before returning the hallway power to nil. The console beeped at him before he could even turn it off and he glared at the reply Rush had sent him.
Unclipping the radio, he snapped into it, “Let me work or this hallway will be useless.”
“We don’t need access to that hallway yet, Ophir,” Rush replied over the radio, static on the edge of the reply.
“Rush, if you turn the power back on in here, you’ll end up electrocuting me,” Ophir snapped, knowing full well he was over exaggerating. He really didn’t care. “I’m almost done. If you are so worried about me, then send someone you don’t need. I’m sure I can find something for them to do.”
Silence answered the hidden threat. Rush answered when Ophir had settled before the panel. “OK. Let me know when you’re done.”
“Will do.”
Feeling triumphant, Ophir went back to work. When Ophir finished, he returned the outer paneling to its place. He walked over to the console and restored the power. Smiling at what he saw, he walked over to the door and pressed the door release. The doors slid apart with little sound, other than the mechanisms in the wall retracting them. A breeze blew past at the slight difference in air pressure caused by temperature.
Picking up the tools, he stepped through and pressed the door release on this side. The door slid closed with ease. When he pressed the door release to open the door, however, it wouldn’t bug. Prying the paneling off the wall under the mechanism, he found the problem. Unclipping his radio, he asked, “Anyone in the control interface?”
“Go ahead.”
“Rush, I need you to shut power off in this hallway to the settings I had set. It shouldn’t be hard to find the settings.” A few minutes passed before the power shut off. A soft smile graced Ophir’s lips. “Thank you.
“How much longer?” Rush inquired.
“Somewhere around an hour,” Ophir informed him, kneeling. “I know what I have to do on this side. It’s the time consuming bit I can’t canculate.”
“Understood. Rush out.”
Ophir went to work. When he grabbed is radio, it had only been 30 minutes since his last call to Rush. “Rush, go ahead and restore power.”
The power returned with what Ophir would guess the press of a button and Ophir pressed the door release. The door opened without a hitch. He placed the radio before his mouth. “Door’s repaired.”
“Young and Scott have returned. We’ll be jumping into FTL in the next hour.”
“Understood. I’ll make my way up, then. Ophir out.”
He clipped the radio to his waistband before picking up the tools on the floor. He returned the paneling and stepped through the door. He pressed the door release and watched as the door slid closed without a sound. Walking towards the console, he glanced at it to see that it was offline and continued walking.
Ophir returned the tools before he returned to the control interface. He settled at his console without a glance at the others there. He knew Rush had looked at him but he had no reason to return the gaze. Flipping through windows, he started to read the scrolling text.
Destiny jumped back into FTL and all but Rush and Ophir dispersed to do different tasks. Rush pressed a button and Ophir’s console beeped as a window popped up over what he was reading. A glance over the text had him meeting Rush’s gaze.
“Yes it was important,” Ophir stated, sharply. “And I’m still planning on working on a few others.”
Rush held his gaze for a little longer before dropping it to the console before him. “Next time, take someone with you.”
Ophir nodded, returning to his work.
...last for a while
