Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

27 ∞ partners

[27/Oct/2018: Significant addition to first scene.
Thank you Jorkam for the idea!]

Day Seven ∞ Thursday morning

MICKMI SLEPT FITFULLY. A faint echo swelled in her ears, the memory of being startled awake—a time long ago and far away. The alarm switched to a steady beeping.

"Hull breach, Mic Wamba."

Her heart jumped on seeing the vessel's intrinsic intelligence on the holoscreen. The motherly face looked serious. Hull breach? "Amaltea, where?"

"Section eighteen."

That was beside the control cabin. She jumped from the bunk. "How did it happen?" she said as she ran to the airlock control room.

"Stress fracture of the outer skin." Amaltea's voice followed her along the communications strip in the ceiling. "Internal atmospheric pressure decreasing two percent per minute."

Perturbed, she paused at the emergency rack. She had only received her upgraded vessel on her eighth yearday a few weeks ago, and it was already falling apart? If she survived this, she intended to give her Grand Preceptor a piece of her mind.

"Listen to the breath of wind," she reminded herself, taking a deep breath. She grabbed the clear helmet from one of the astrosuits and placed it over her head. Be still and hear...

A sizzle made her look down. Her sinnesband had sealed the helmet to her neck and formed a pseudo suit around her small frame, leaving her hands free. The left half of the helmet's visual interface activated, displaying <<Life support: 30 min. normal usage>> in green.

Here is no danger... here is no fear. She better keep her breathing calm if she wanted to avoid putting on a full suit.

A jog through the corridor took her to the heart of the vessel. As she entered the storeroom, several vertical cabinets flipped open and exposed their contents. Metal rods. Her interface confirmed their constitutions as steel, osmium, iridium, tungsten, titanium, potassium, and the non-metallic carbon.

I better take a lot of them. She had no idea how big the crack was and she did not want to make several trips. Looking around, she found a disposal bin to put the rods in. She took several of each until it could hold no more. She regretted that as she struggled to lift the bin from the floor. The load turned the simple walk to the fore into a long, laborious affair.

A constant hiss of air escaping just outside the control cabin brought her to a thankful halt. She lowered the bin to the floor and peered up, catching her breath. There it was, the culprit: a traverse crack, wide as her arm span.

"Amaltea, what's the status?"

Yellow text appeared on the helmet display, <<Life support: 13 min. normal usage>>.

Mickmi tried to dismiss the prick of fear and slowed her breathing to lower than normal. Why is Amaltea silent? The atmospheric pressure must have dropped twenty percent by now. She swallowed. No need to fear, no need for fear...

She had to act. She had never seen a real hull breach before, nor attempted such repairs. Taking a bar of titanium and iridium with each hand, she focused. As soon as her sinnesband issued the reparations protocol, several service vents near the ceiling opened to let out streams of smoke, like clouds. They descended and billowed around her and the rods with intent. The rods started to shrink as if melting in her hands until they disappeared.