Chapter 14: The Trading Post

After about twelve days, the hyper drive went offline and Ship decelerated to sub-light speed as we approached the remains of the Trading Post.

We sat in the main bridge watching the huge station getting larger on the tactical display. The difference this time was there was no sign of life. There were no power signatures, no lights visible. I was thinking we should deploy marker buoys to show the station as a hazard. We did not need to have a freighter crash into it in the dark.

“Ship, bring us close to the station. Scan the area for other vessels,” said Jem.

“Confirmed. No other vessels detected in the area,” replied Ship. Our vessel parked itself next to the derelict station.

“Ship, please send over some maintenance bots to the station. Have them proceed to the computer cores in the administration hub. They are to interface with the computer cores and download the station log files,” said Jem.

“Confirmed. Launching maintenance bots now,” replied Ship.

“Thank you Ship. That’s all we can do for now. We can rest until we get the logs,” said Jem. We got up and left the main bridge.

I woke up disoriented. The lights in the cabin were out. Usually there were at least the lights of various displays such as the food dispenser or switches by the door. It was pitch black and quiet.

“Hello, anyone else here?” I asked as I prodded around the bed.

“Bri-an, what is going on?” Koluna’s voice asked.

“I think the power is out. Do you have something that can act as a source of light?” I asked.

“I do,” Laine’s voice said, “if I can find it.”

A moment later there was a small amount of light. It came from a device Laine was holding. It helped me to see around our cabin. I searched around until I found our away team uniforms. They had some lights built into them.

“Let’s get these on, and we can go investigate,” I said. We quickly put on our away team uniforms. The cabin looked eerie from the light of our uniforms.

We had left our cabin door open fortunately. I had a scary thought, I did not know where the manual override was, or if there was one. We could have been locked in.

I stepped out into the corridor. It was pitch dark there. This was unusual. Normally Ship lowered the lights while we slept, but they were never completely out like this.

“Ship? Please respond,” I said. There was no reply. This was not good. By now Koluna and Laine joined me in the corridor.

“We should find Jem,” I said.

“I think she slept in her cabin,” said Koluna. I looked towards her cabin, and the door was closed.

“I need to find the manual override,” I said. I looked either side of the door. Eventually I found a panel on the right that I pulled off. Soon I was turning a crank and the door was inching open.

“Jem!” called Laine through the gap.

“Yes?” answered Jem. At least everyone was alive. I kept cranking.

“The power is out. Ship is not responding,” said Laine.

“Do you have your away team uniform?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ll put it on and be out in a moment,” she said. It was good, because I still had some cranking to do before the doorway would be wide enough.

“Koluna, while Jem is getting ready, can you find the stairs? They should be near the elevator,” I said. We needed to get around without power, so the elevator would be useless.

Jem squeezed out of her cabin, wearing her new away team uniform.

“Captain, has this ever happened before? I don’t know the standard operating procedure for an event like this,” I asked.

“No, never.”

“Well we still have artificial gravity and the air seems fresh enough. All crew are accounted for,” I said.

“Excellent commander. Thank you for getting me out of my cabin. We need to search Ship and work out what happened,” said Jem.

“I suggest we split into two groups. For safety reasons, we need at least two in a group, after our experience testing these suits,” I said.

“Agreed. Check your communicator,” Jem said. I called her on the suit communicator and it worked.

“Brian, take Laine down to level three. Check out the main power and the computer. Ship’s AI is down there. See what you can do to restore power. I’ll take Koluna and we will go up to the main bridge to see what can be done there. Keep in touch,” said Jem.

“Yes captain,” I said. We had a plan.

It was slow going, climbing down three levels. The stairs were like a tube with a long ladder in it. There were hatches at each level. I went first with Laine above me as we descended. I could hear Jem and Koluna in the distance climbing up to the main bridge.

We got out on level two. It was dark here. We looked up and down the corridor to work out our bearings.

“Computer Systems, this is the place,” said Laine. I pulled off the cover and worked on the manual override. A few minutes later I had the door open enough to enter.

Inside it was completely dark, save for the light from our suits. “This isn’t going well,” I said.

“Yes. Perhaps we should check the main power first,” said Laine. I wondered why the emergency power did not kick in, or something. It seemed wrong somehow.

We went out into the corridor and moved along until we found a door labelled Main Power Systems. I worked the manual override, and we got inside.

“Everything is turned off. Even the fail-safes and the emergency power!” said Laine.

“Except the artificial gravity and the air. I am glad those two are still on,” I said.

“What do we turn on first?” asked Laine.

“Let’s start with emergency power. I think it will get us lighting and allow us to open doors and some basic functions,” I said. We turned on emergency power. There was a humming from a device as it started up. Then the lights came on, about half the usual intensity.

My communicator beeped, “Brian, did you turn on the lights?”

“Yes, we got emergency power on. Everything down here was off. We are proceeding to turn things on,” I said.

“Keep me informed, out.”

I turned to Laine. “What next?”

“Well, try to turn on main power I guess,” she replied. I wish the training I had done with Ship had focused on this. I’d have to have a discussion with Ship when we got it back.

I turned on the main power. Nothing happened. I turned it off and on again. Still nothing.

“Perhaps we need to get the AI working? It could help us with this,” said Laine.

“I hope it can work with emergency power, that’s all we have so far,” I said. We went back to the other room. At least there was some light now. We turned off the lights on our suits to save power.

Laine went over to what looked like the main console. “This looks like it.”

“How do we re-start an AI?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. I doubt anyone has been in here for a long time,” said Laine. She pressed a key on the main console, and the screen came to life. I hoped she knew more about computers and AIs than I did, because I had zero confidence I could get this working again.

I thought it a good time to check in with Jem. “Captain, we are in the Computer Systems room. Laine is attempting to get Ship functioning again.”

“Good. Getting Ship back is our highest priority. We are drifting in space without shields or cloak or weapons. We are vulnerable like this,” said Jem.