014.01 – Adrift
With engines disengaged, the Savasu cut through space at a constant speed, her hull still reverberating from the engine overburn. Black plasma patches adorned the starboard plating. G.I.Z.I.’s repair drones crawled the outer hull, working to patch what could be repaired.
Kuma’s voice came through the comms: “Engines stabilized, barely. I was able to shut them off just before they went critical. They’ll hold, but we cooked off over half the regulators, and it will take time to replace them. Please don’t ask me to do that again.”
Zion leaned over her console, the violet glow of her screen lighting up her distressed face. “Fuel cells are at red, maybe a jump or two if we’re lucky. If we were low in fuel before, now we’re flying on fumes.” Her tone was calm, as if speaking calmly might make the numbers climb higher.
“Update on the Vorran?” Hagok commanded, voice sharp, trying to maintain some type of decorum.
Zion tapped her screen, toggling from ship status to sensor data. Her display pulsed with a rhythm she recognized. “The Vorran can’t match that burn, but they do have constant acceleration. It’s only a matter of time before they catch up.”
A worried expression dropped over Hagok’s face. “How much time do we have?”
Zion took a deep breath. “Hard to say. A day, day and a half if we’re lucky.”
“Would it be possible to get reflector engines online?” Zea suggested. “It wouldn’t take up any fuel.”
“Reflector engines?” Kolnar scoffed. “Those are meant for short maneuver thrusts.”
“I see where you’re going with that,” Hagok nodded. “Even if they buy us a few hours, that would be worth it. Getro can help with that. Get it done.”
Zea rushed away, nearly taking out Rotan as he was entering the bridge wearing a thickly lined hazmat suit and full breathing apparatus, sealed from head to toe.
“We’ve converted the cargo bay into a temporary med bay,” Rotan advised them. “The Deyran are as comfortable as they can be, all things considered.”
Rhea couldn’t help but snort, leaning back in her harness. “Yeah, real cozy. Nothing says comfort like a plague ward in the cargo bay.”
“Is the contagion spreading?” Hagok asked.
“Because of the lockdown, information is slow coming in. We’re still looking into that, but visually, the contagion is affecting the Deyran rather quickly,” Rotan said, breathing heavily. “Our crew is not showing signs yet.” He continued his labored breathing. “It’s really hard breathing in this…”
Artelle interrupted, “How long do the Deyran have?”
He quickly struggled with his suit and spoke through his visor. “Less than a day.”
014.02 – Quarantine Shadows
The crew managed to shut the alarms off; the emergency lights, however, continued to illuminate the ships’ corridors yellow, a stark reminder of the emergency still at hand.
The cargo bay was at capacity. Beds lined the walls, and on every one of them lay a sick Deyran. Ormi moved among the sick, taking blood samples, while Rotan and Artelle looked at them through the micro-optic array.
Rotan wiped the condensation from his visor and looked closely at the samples collected. He wiped again in disbelief, but there was no mistake: there was a specific mutation that explained why he and the crew didn’t feel sick. He tore the visor off and took several deep breaths.
“Rotan, what are you doing?” Artelle looked at him incredulously. “Are you okay?”
He gasped dramatically. “Oh, thank the stars. I thought I was suffocating in that thing. But the good news? We’re fine—immune, actually! This thing was designed for plants. We don’t have plant DNA or any string of plant DNA. Iovians: 1. Virus: 0.”
Artelle glared at him. “Rotan, focus. The Deyran are dying.”
He blinked at her, genuinely surprised. “Yes, I heard you, and believe me, I’d love to fix their chlorophyll problem, but I’ve been a little busy trying not to pass out in this sauna suit!”
“Can we cure the Deyran?” Artelle questioned.
“Oh yeah, if we had time, maybe,” he said somberly.
“What?” Artelle looked deflated. “You mean they’re going to die? You have to do something.”
“Oh sure, why not? I’ll just whip up an antivirus out of thin air,” he muttered.
“Rotan!” Her voice was sharp, commanding now. “How long?”
He threw up his hands, exasperated. “Longer than a day. Try weeks, months, if we had the proper equipment.”
014.03 – Engine Status
The Savasu had been floating along on reflectors, drifting forward towards no specific destination but trying to put some distance between them and the Vorran.
On the bridge, Hagok got up from his chair and leaned over the forward rail. “Status report?”
Zion stared into her console, eyes shadowed in the violet glow. “Reflectors have been active for half a day and have already bought us four hours. Vorran intercept in thirteen.”
“Weapons,” Hagok ordered.
Rhea glanced up from her console, voice flat. “Weapons online. The one thing on this ship that’s working is the one thing we don’t want to use!”
Hagok opened his comms. “Engineering, report.”
Kuma’s voice came through, every word laced with frustration. “Engines are good but not getting power. I’ve replaced half of the regulators to get reflectors. Plasma feeds are scorched. Need ten hours to complete repairs on that, another five to patch the engines to bypass regulators to the temporary feeds. If we overload them, we may cause irreversible damage.”
“You have ten hours to complete repairs and ready the engines to jump,” Hagok growled.
“You can’t be—”
Hagok cut the comms off before Kuma could finish his reply. “Kolnar, get down there and help him. We need engines.”
“Yes, sir.” Kolnar pushed off at once.
“Once engines are up, where are we going?”
Zea stepped forward, star map flickering before him. “Our best shot is the moon we left behind. The mineral band had signs of utrial crystals. With some refinement, we can convert that into fuel-grade utrium in a week or two.”
“Back to the desert,” Rhea muttered. She cracked a grin, dark humor biting through the tension. “Perfect. I was starting to miss the sand in my teeth.”
“Makes sense,” Zion agreed. “Even if we can’t convert the utrial elements to fuel, at least the Varashi are within communication reach.”
“Plot the jump.” Hagok dropped back down onto his command chair. “Let’s just hope we have something to get us there.”
014.04 – The Cure
The cargo bay stank of fever and fear. Deyran bodies lay sprawled on stretchers, robes clinging to sweat-soaked skin, their almond eyes glassy and dim. The faint sound of the air scrubbers was constant, as if the Savasu itself was struggling to breathe for their guests. The light from above shone down hard on the Deyran; their eyes were not accustomed to the harsh light.
At the center of the bay, Rotan paced in tight, quick circles, his visor tethered to his belt and dragging behind him on the floor. In his hand was a portable display with readouts from the micro-optic array results in real time, scrolling through strings of resonance data.
“I keep saying it, and apparently I have to keep saying it, because it makes no sense. It should, but it doesn’t. Why doesn’t it? This virus is a portable UV-C lamp! It’s designed to shred chloroplast-coded DNA. The Varashi? Toast. The Deyran? Double toast. Us? We lucked out. No plant DNA, no problem.” He pointed at the screen, as if it alone should be enough to convince the room.
Artelle stood firm across from him, arms folded, her face lit by the glow of the sickbeds. “You already explained the problem, Rotan. What’s the solution?”
“The solution?” He laughed. “The one that takes months of lab time, sequencing, trials, and oh yes, a planet’s worth of infrastructure?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Rotan.”
He ran a hand down his face, groaning. “Fine. Fine! The idea—and please, underline ‘idea’ twice—is resonance inversion. We flip the UV-C signature back on itself, scramble the virus’s binding proteins, destabilize it so it can’t lock onto plant cells. In theory, it just…dies.”
“In theory?”
“Yes, theory! Science is just failure dressed up in numbers until it works. And if we’re wrong? Then we’ll have bathed the cargo bay in a light show that cooks every Deyran in it. So, no pressure.”
They were close enough for some of the Deyran to hear. “Sorry, we’re trying to keep that from happening,” Artelle reassured them.
Oromi’s voice came low and even, cutting through Rotan’s panic. “Fire consumes. Fire reflected blinds itself. What is made to destroy may also be turned inward.”
Rotan barked a laugh. “No kidding. The problem is knowing how much fire to use.”
“You can do this, Rotan,” Artelle said simply. “Do it.”
He stared at her, then at the rows of the dying. “So we’re doing this. Okay, no worries. If we succeed, we’re heroes. If we don’t, well…they’re going to die anyway.” He turned back to the console, muttering, “Perfect, just perfect.”
With a violent shove, he dragged the panel open, sparks spitting as he began rewiring. “Fine. Let’s turn the lights into a weapon, or a cure, fifty-fifty.”
Minutes later, Rotan was lying underneath the light control console. “Cross-linking emitters…resonance frequency two-sixty nanometers…counter-phase field…oh, this is such a bad idea. Such a catastrophically, wonderfully bad idea.”
The lights dimmed as the emitters charged, a low hum building in the walls. The sick stirred, some convulsing weakly, their bodies twitching under invisible currents.
Rotan winced. “Oh, great, we’re killing them. Brilliant, history’s going to remember me as Rotan, Slayer of Deyran.”
Artelle’s voice was like iron. “Hold it steady.”
The hum peaked, and for a long breath, the entire bay seemed to shimmer. The resonance field snapped into place, invisible but heavy, the air charged and humming with unseen medicinal light.
Then…silence. The Deyran’s spasms eased. Their breathing settled, shallow but steady.
Rotan’s tablet alerted. He brought it up to his face and noticed that the sample under the micro-optic was starting to reject the virus.
“Is it working?” Oromi asked.
Then, suddenly, the hull lights turned from yellow to their normal shade of light purple, and the sealed bulkheads unsealed themselves.
Rotan dropped his shoulders, exhaling like he’d been holding his breath for hours. “Well, look at that,” he muttered. “Rotan, Savior of Deyran—that sounds better anyway.”
014.05 – The Jump
The bridge light flickered from yellow to violet. One by one, sealed bulkheads across the ship hissed open. The yellow strobes were gone.
Zion’s console lit up with a cascade of green across formally locked systems. She looked up, her calm voice shaky with disbelief. “Quarantine clear. Lockdown has been lifted; we have all systems back. G.I.Z.I., you there?”
“Galactic Integrated Zetetic Intelligence initializing. Please wait,” the automated prompt replied to Zion’s command.
“She’s not fully with us yet.”
“That’s a mouthful,” Rhea muttered. “No wonder we call her G.I.Z.I.”
Hagok opened comms. “Kuma, status.”
Kuma’s voice crackled back, labored. “Almost there. Just a few more minutes.”
“How long before the Vorran?” Hagok demanded.
Zion tapped her console. She had already pushed their trajectory onto the forward display. Violet-threaded signatures closed fast. “Any minute now.”
“Kuma,” Hagok growled, “I could use engines right about now.”
“Working on the last one now,” Kuma said, frustration creeping into his usually calm tone. “Won’t be much longer.”
“Coordinates are already locked. Just tell me when they’re ready,” Zion said.
The ship shook under a distant impact. Zea’s voice cut across the bridge, sharp. “Multiple contacts. Incoming weapons.” A heavy barrage of weapons fire was felt across the ship. “Shields holding at sixty percent.”
“Engines online,” Kuma reported, his voice exhausted. “It’s not pretty, but she’ll hold.”
Hagok didn’t waste any time as he jumped out of his command chair. “Zion. Get us out of here.”
Zion’s palm slammed the execute button. The Savasu roared, engines screaming. Light bent and space ripped open, and the Savasu shot forward, leaving the battle and the Vorran behind.
In the engineering bay, sparks rained, relays blew, panels smoked, the deck shook as if it might tear itself apart, but the drive and Kuma’s bypasses held.
Moments later, they tore free of the void. Ahead, the barren desert moon hung against the dark, lifeless. But they were alive, and the moon provided the one thing the Wanderers needed most: hope.
