What the Stars May Bring

Damage Control

Descending the elevator shaft went at a slow pace because Cooper insisted on following the emergency protocols all the way down. "I don't want either of us to slip and hurt ourselves," Cooper explained.

Watanabe just shook her head and continued to go down the elevator shaft.

Eventually they finally made it down the shaft, but immediately ran into an issue.

"There's no door here for exiting or entering the elevator shaft," Cooper said. "Plus, there is an elevator car just below us. I think that the best idea is to enter the lift car and see if the outward doorway is clear. Now we just need to enter the lift car. Any ideas?"

"Let's go," Watanabe said after a moment of thought. "Remember the oxygen in our suits is going to run out soon."

Upon carefully checking the top of the lift car, Cooper noticed a hatch to the interior of the elevator car.

"Watanabe, look here," Cooper said with a wave of her hand. "Can you help me find the keypad to open the hatch?"

"Hai," Watanabe answered.

Because of the dimly lit environment, Cooper couldn't find the hatch release. Therefore, it was very helpful to include Watanabe in the hunt.

After a couple of minutes, both Cooper and Watanabe stumbled onto the proper keypad. As soon as Cooper found it, she began entering her emergency codes. Suddenly, the trap door popped open with a hiss and Cooper made her way inside.

Once there, she immediately started entering codes to exit the lift. Finally, the door opened to the primary hull of the Lexington.

---

"Watanabe, how much time does your suit show that we have left?" Cooper asked as they made their way to the nearest airlock.

"Only about five minutes," Watanabe responded.

"Okay, let's go to the aft airlocks. They are closer than the fore 'locks."

"Roger that."

Cooper was trying not to rush and to do things by the book. Luckily, the main hull was a near weightless environment. That way, they could cover a lot of ground with little effort. 'We're still cutting it close.' she thought as she literally glided through the corridors towards the nearest set of airlocks.

"Time," she called out to Watanabe, not wanting to waste precious oxygen on talking.

"Two minutes, seventeen seconds."

'Shit!' she thought as she floated along the currently airless interior of the hull. 'Were not just cutting it close, we're going to be lucky if we don't pass out before we get there.'

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally made it to the aft locker room, only to learn that it too was in vacuum.

"Grab a suit and drag it into the airlock," Cooper ordered as they entered the section. "Also grab an emergency air canister if you can and hook it into the port in your emergency suit."

Watanabe did as she was told while Cooper cycled the airlock with her codes and grabbed a suit and canister for herself.

'Come on, come on,' she thought impatiently while waiting for the 'lock to cycle. In the meantime, she was fumbled with the oxygen cannister trying to attach it to her emergency suit's port. 'Whoever designed these things has never had to attach one in a genuine accident.'

Cooper was seeing black spots in front of her eyes when she finally got it connected. She immediately gasped for breath as the oxygen flowed. As she did so, Cooper drifted over to Watanabe and connected Watanabe's canister for her. The Asian girl had passed out, but she awoke as soon as the oxygen flowed.