Chapter 2

Hansen was attaching a valve to the gate. One rather obnoxious scientist had told him that it would allow them to monitor the gate. Hansen could have told you the problem with the gate with just one look, though. Its battery had died. It had finally burned through all of its dark matter, effectively causing it to turn itself off.

            Of course, no one cared what Hansen said. Why would they? After all, he was merely a lowly mechanic. Of course, he grumbled to himself, as a mechanic, my opinion should be the only important one. But it wasn’t meant to be, apparently. Hansen had prepared for meddling inefficient scientists, though. He had brought a small dark matter refill pack with him. He gave a short chuckle to himself as he inserted it into the battery slot.

 

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            Captain Serein extended a connection rod to the gate. It would hold the gate in place for Hansen, as well as offer instant monitoring. Serein could have just done this from the beginning, but that idiot Lowry had insisted on hooking up a proper monitoring device. Not Serein really cared. For him it was just another job. He just didn’t like the lead scientist much, so it irked him to have to follow his commands.

            Serein hooked the connector into the proper slot on the gate, taking some fast measurements. Everything seemed fine, except for a lack of power. As soon as he disconnected, he would have to have Hansen repower it. He would do it now, but strange things happened around power surges involving the Gates. The Captain had no doubt that if anything happened, he would be blamed. Or that the one leading the charge would be the lead scientist.

            As he finished with his measurements, a power surge ripped through the ship.

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            Lowry was on his way to the make shift lab he and his compatriots had set up in the lowest level of the ship. All the equipment was ready to go. It had been checked once, twice, three times. Not by him, of course. He was the lead scientist; it wasn’t his job to do such menial work. When the information started rolling, though, he’d be ready. As long as no one got in his way.

            This brought up thoughts of the captain. He hated the man. He was a failure, a small, shriveled husk of the man he used to be. He always wore that damn tan greatcoat, too, as if it could keep his pathetic life from throttling him.  Lowry swore the man must be crazy as well. He had actually volunteered to fly this depressing mission. Then he tried to tell Lowry that the ship had a detector arm sufficiently up to date for this task. Lowry had been unable to help scoffing at that. There was no chance, not on an old beast like this.

            The machines arrayed around the lab suddenly beeped all at once, drawing Lowry’s attention to their screens. He watched as information started rolling in. That was good, maybe that engineer wasn’t quite the bumbling fool he thought. Looking again, he surmised that the only problem was a dead battery. His screens all flickered at the same time, which was immediately followed by a massive shaking through the ship. Lowry activated the batteries in all the equipment, to find that the gates power had come back, and it was sending some kind of pulse through the ship. Realizing what this meant, he grabbed the closet bolted down object- a titanium alloy rail- and braced for the impact.

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            Hansen saw a bright flash as he plugged in the battery pack. He knew Dark Matter was powerful, but he hadn’t thought about the pulses it would send through the ship. He watched the gate activated as he jetted himself back to the ship, seeing the strange whirling mass of colors come to life. He noticed something rather odd almost immediately; he could see stars through the gate, despite having no destination programmed. As stars started being blocked by the ship, he realized something rather important- the ship was being drawn in by the gate. A sinking feeling grew in his stomach as he realized that he might have just caused a giant problem. Again.

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Serein watched as the ship was drawn into the gate. He’d already tried to kick start the engines and escape the gravity, but the pulse had fried the ship.  He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew that the ship as going through that gate one way or another. He grabbed his desk, which was bolted down, and got ready for the sickening drop out of reality.

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            Lowry felt it. A slight shaking in the ship as it got pulled into the gate. There was nothing he could do, which was rare, and rather disturbing for him. He braced for the twisting of time space, hoping that he would come out fine on the other side.

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            Hansen got inside the airlock just as the nose of the ancient ship was being pulled into the gate. H shut the lock and grabbed the rail on the side, ready for a rough ride through the gravity pit of a black hole.

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            There was a strange energy wave in Sector 16. That was the gate they had been heading to check. Captain Selene watched her monitors freaking out about the surge. She hoped the lead scientist wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Loril was a pain, and if she saw this, she would blame Selene, guaranteed. She sighed and continued for the gate. Maybe someone needed help.

            It wasn’t long until the ship picked up signals of another ship, similar in age- and destroyed. A quick scan revealed three living things on board. Selene told the crew to prepare for a rescue. It was going to be a long day.

Reviews

[Amila Jay]

An excellent write, a good read with a lot of action in it as well:)

[Coyote Poetry]

A lot of situations in the chapter. I like the detail and strong description of each event. Writing about a ship is difficult. Take many people and have many problems. Thank you for a excellent chapter.
Coyote