Nightingale

SEVEN

There were several minutes of tense bodies in the cockpit, as the ship regained control of itself. Even Ymal slowed his usually frantic and swift hands at the controls, now orderly and calm. All seven crewmembers waited in silence, save for Yuki snuffling, trying to get hear tears in check once again. At last Leon spoke out.

'How is it looking Ymal?'

'We've lost that air lock, there is no way to get that back. I've now locked the doors either side so nobody will wander down there at midnight still half asleep and accidentally get themselves sucked out into the blank space. The only way around now is through the lower hatches, but that should be ok.' Leon slumped further back into his chair and closed his eyes in despair. He was at a total loss of what to do. He desperately wanted to try and make it to the other side of the blank space, and yet there were still a good two weeks to go; they were barely a sixth of the way across. His ship was damaged, for no reason at all, as far as he could work out, and there were mysterious blackouts.

'Are the engines back at full power?' he asked nervously, apprehensive and worried about a negative response.

'They seem to be so, captain. I'll just double check now...' The ship's navigator brought up another screen on his Halo-Core and scanned through the data presented to him.

'I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be at full power.' Leon opened his eyes, looking out of the window to the blackness ahead of him. He was starting to make out a few specks of light, two weeks in the distance. They were tantalising, taunting him with the promise of grand discovery. And yet he knew that his ship was compromised, and in need of a good repair. The safety of his crew was the most important part of the mission.

'Ymal,' he began, and then fell silent again, questioning what he was about to decide.

'Captain.'

'Set a course for Outpost 73, we're getting out of here.' The crew turned to look at him, curious glances being thrown around the room like marbles.

'Leon, are you sure?' Prissy asked him.

'Yeah, I mean, so what if the air lock is out? We weren't going to use it anyway. Apart from that the ship is back up and running, ok we had a technical glitch but if we look into it we can find out what went wrong and get Nightingale working fine again without any hitches,' Holden tried to reason. Leon shook his head.

'No. I've got a faulty ship, banging outside and an exploded air lock. There's something seriously fucked up with the ship, and I want to know what it is. Celestria can find out better than we can wandering around inside the floating tin can on our own with a guide on a Halo-Core. I can't risk my crew.' He looked around at his companions, who had become more than companions now; they were his friends. 'We're getting out of here and back to civilisation, before anything else screws up. Ymal,' he looked towards his pilot, who locked eyes with him. He was asking him in his head, 'are you sure about this? I'll do it if you want, but make sure you are absolutely certain on it.' Ymal kept the gaze up for several seconds, the room reduced to the hum of Nightingale's engines and the occasional bleeping and blinking of the software. He nodded in confirmation.

'Copy that Captain. Nightingale.'

'Yes Ymal,' the voice returned, the first time since the power had fully returned. It was only now that Jenny realised that she sounded much better now that all her systems were back, as if her voice had come down with an illness, and now she had rested and was back to feeling 100% again.

'Turn us around and head us towards Outpost 73.'

'It's out of my scanning range I'm afraid. If you give me a direction I will be able to tell you when to lock on to the Outpost.'