Susix, p.22
Susix, page 22
Huzzar swore. Seethur’s tail slapped the floor hard, startling Hissy.
“Somethings got to be wrong with the computer,” Huzzar hypothesized. “It’s top of the line. That’s why we installed the vecking thing. If it’s not picking up on the problem, it’s damaged.”
“Or that impact fried more than just the hull,” Seethur added.
“We don’t have time to focus on one thing. It could be the computer, the heating system, or that the hit damaged more than we realized. The ship’s internal temperature is dropping too fast. We will start feeling the effects if we don’t find a solution quickly. We need to divide and conquer.”
If the temperature continued to drop, we would start losing function. Eventually, our bodies would hibernate to keep us alive. Out here in space, that would be a death sentence. We’d freeze inside our ship.
“I’ll remove our repairs to the hull and recheck the damage. Maybe there was a puncture that we overlooked,” Seethur volunteered.
“I’ll check the physical heating elements,” Hix said, “maybe something got burnt out.”
I gestured to the computers. “I’m going to reset everything. Hopefully, that will at least point us in the right direction. In the meantime, I will have Seph cut off the heat to all non-essential rooms.”
The pair of them left, taking Hissy with them. While the computer ran, I went back to the power line that Seethur had replaced. I went through the entire thing looking for damage. I couldn’t see any. I replaced it anyways.
“Seph, has there been any change?”
He grumbled, “The temperature is still dropping.”
I swore. “How long until we start feeling it?”
He hummed as he thought. “At this rate, we’re going to get cold in a few hours. The outer temperature is too intense. It will start penetrating our ship fast. We will hit hibernation temperatures before the morning if we can’t get the heat back on.”
“Cut as much of the heat as you can. Hopefully, that will add more time,” I prayed.
I went back to the engine room to check on the computer. The vecking thing was still registering that nothing was wrong. Without any time to spare, I pulled the data from our last system update. With a quick warning to everyone, I deleted our current system and reinstalled our old data. Then I rebooted everything. The diagnostics still read the same.
My hood exploded open. I felt the edges vibrating with anger. “Vecking frozen computer!” I attempted to breathe deeply before I put a fist through the screen. “Huzzar, any updates?”
“Everything is in working order. There aren’t any burnouts. I can’t find any broken lines or fried connectors.” He sounded as worried as I felt. “The vecking thing is powering down for not vecking reason.”
“Start checking all of the main power connectors. There might be something wrong with one of the smaller energy directors.”
I started pulling off the siding inside the engine room, looking for fried lines to the computer. “Seethur, how are things going?”
“I’ve got the repair removed. I’m going over the hull scale by scale.” He hissed. “I haven’t found anything new. The damage to the hull was extensive. Nothing penetrated it. There are scorch marks from the electrical storms. They’re close enough to the engine room that they might have affected the internal system,” he suggested.
“Where along the hull are they exactly?” He gave me the coordinates. I redirected my destruction and started pulling apart the inside of the ship to get to the guts along the areas he had pointed out.
Huzzar came in while I was elbows deep in wiring. He took one look at what I was doing and started working opposite me. We worked for a painstakingly long time following every wire, checking every connector, and running diagnostics on everything.
Huzzar and I were both starting to feel the effects of the cold. My fingers began losing their range of motion. I could already feel myself becoming sluggish.
Footsteps echoed from the hall outside. I didn’t bother turning around, assuming Seethur had come to help. When Hix stopped a tail’s length away from our wrecked internal walls, I opened my mouth to tell him to get back to the healing chamber.
He threw a spacewalking suit at Huzzar. He was already wearing one. “Don’t even bother arguing. Seph couldn’t keep quiet about the heating forever. Tell me what you’ve already done while Huzzar gets into his suit.”
Huzzar and I outlined the problem and all of the dead ends we had hit. We talked about what Seethur was doing on the outside of the ship. Huzzar shuddered as he zipped up his suit. They were thickly insulated.
Hix didn’t say anything as he went over to the computer. Then he started picking at the mass of wires we were sorting through.
“Have we checked if the radiation messed with our system?” He asked finally.
“The radiation monitoring system never registered a surge big enough to affect our ship,” I answered. We had the radiation alarm system hooked up to our backup power supply. There was also a secondary system attached to our biometric monitoring instruments in case of an emergency. Neither had shown an abnormal spike. I even gone back and compared our readings from the first trip through the Graveyard. Nothing overtly abnormal had stood out to me.
“Can you tell me where the coordinates for the hull damage are?” He asked, stepping back.
I pointed out the outline of the hit as I walked around the engine room. “The damage corresponds to a portion of the kitchen. I didn’t hit anything out of the ordinary when I checked it just now. Some scorch marks extend to the navigation room.” I told him the exact coordinates. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”
Hix nodded. “It would be under the co-captains panel system. I’ll start pulling everything apart to see if something has been damaged.”
As I watched him go, I noticed Hissy for the first time since she had walked in. She had stayed out of our way while we had been digging around inside the ship. She was huddled in the corner of the room, away from the sheets of siding we had piled up. She had her arms around her legs, looking worried.
“Seph, can you bring Hissy some clothing? We don’t have a suit for her, but she should have something on right now.” The poor animal had to be in a rough spot.
Inside the suit, it was hard to tell how much the temperature was dropping. My range of motion wasn’t improving, so I knew it wasn’t getting warmer. The last time Seph had updated us on the temperature, we were at two hundred and fifteen sunvals in the rooms with heat. Things were much worse in the parts of the ship where we had redirected the heat.
“I haven’t found anything,” Hix’s comment broke through my train of thought.
My anxiety spiked. Things were not looking good. Even with the suits, our bodies would not be able to withstand the cold for very long. We would run out of energy.
We were out of options.
“Seethur, have you found anything?” I held my breath, waiting for him to reply.
“Nothing,” was all he said.
I closed my eyes. We were going to need to talk about our options. “Come on inside. Let’s have a nest meeting in the engine room.”
The mood was dour as everyone gathered. Even Hissy picked up on it. When Seph came in with heavy blankets for her, she kept pulling on his arm and making noises. He ignored her as he wrapped a blanket around her body and set one on the ground for her to sit on. We didn’t have to wait long for Seethur to join us.
We stood in a circle, all wearing insulated spacesuits. They all looked at me with varying degrees of worry. Huzzar was openly anxious. His tail whipped behind him wildly, narrowly avoiding the piles of metal all around. Seethur was the most stoic. Still, he was shifting from foot to foot, a sure sign of worry. I’d never felt the weight of my position more than seeing their faces at that moment.
“Seph, how cold is it now?” I asked
“I checked before I walked over. We’re about to drop below two hundred sunvals.” His helmet partially obscured his face. I could still see the scarred scales around his eye crinkle. “The suits will maintain our body function down to a hundred sunvuls. We will start feeling the effects of the cold after that.”
“If the ship drops to a hundred sunvuls, how long before we go into hibernation?” I asked.
“It will vary for each of us. Huzzar and I will be asleep fairly fast. Seethur will last longer because he has more cold resistance naturally.”
“At the rate we’re going, how long before the ship hits a hundred sunvuls?” Hix asked.
“Four hours.”
Hix’s tail rattled violently. Seethur’s head dropped back. Huzzar and I swore.
“We need to implement our emergency protocols,” I decided. There was no way I would let our nest die in the middle of space. I wasn’t about to leave the Crown drifting out here for any Susix to pick up, either. “If we get in our emergency pods now, we can coordinate a destination instead of letting the navigation system pick the closest planet.”
“There aren’t a lot of safe planets within range,” Hix pointed out. “We would be choosing between two rough locations. That’s if we arrived there. There’s a good chance our pods would be picked off before we hit the dirt.”
“And there’s no guarantee we would all make it there,” Seethur added.
“Our only other choice is to stay here, freeze to death, and let the Crown fall into someone else’s hands” There weren’t any good choices but at least the emergency pods would give us a fighting chance.
“Let’s not give up yet,” Hix argued. “Let me go out and check the hull with Seethur. Maybe I’ll be able to find something that got looked over.”
“We don’t have the time.” I wasn’t happy about our outlook. I would sacrifice a lot to keep our nest alive, even if it meant leaving the ship.
Seph lifted a hand. “I’m with Hix. I don’t want to abandon the ship unless we have to.”
“We wouldn’t be able to bring Hissy in the pods,” Huzzar whispered.
We all glanced at the pet. Her head whipped around as we all stared at her. My stomach turned. If we left in the emergency pods, we’d be leaving her behind to die.
I hung my head. I would choose my nest over a pet any day. I could live with that guilt if I had to. If it came down to it.
“Two hours,” I said, giving in. “We have two hours to find the problem and get a solution working. We're gone if we can’t get the heat up and running in two hours.” I made sure to put as much venom into my words as I could. I needed my nest to know that this was non-negotiable.
Hix and Seethur barely acknowledged my order. They raced towards the back of the ship. I sent a prayer up that they would find something.
I turned to Huzzar and Seph. “Prepare for departure. Those two will take things to the last second. I want the pods stuffed to the scales with rations. I’ll take care of the Crown.”
I went to the secondary hiding spot Seethur had moved the Crown to. As I removed it from the secret panel inside the fesik’s room, I stared at it. The Crown was deceptively delicate. The bleach-white bones were thin and attractively curved. They looked like they would break if they bent. In reality, they were strong enough to provide a lot of flexibility.
In my hands, the interlaced bones draped loosely. When placed over a Royal Susix hood, the Crown would become taunt, highlighting the intricate pattern made by the gold wiring and glittering jewels. It felt heavy in my hands.
With a heart full of sorrow, I took the Crown to my room. If anyone was going to carry this weight, it would be me. My nest had already sacrificed so much. I tucked the Crown into the side of my emergency pod. It was safe from jostling. The important thing was that if someone scanned our pods, they could pick it out by shape alone.
Hix was right. There were only two planets we could travel to with our pods. They weren’t in opposite directions, but they were far apart. I put in the coordinates for the more dangerous of the two. I would go around to each of the others’ pods and set them to go to the other planet. If the worst happened and another Susix found our pods, I would draw the fire. The rest of the nest would be flying far away. At least, I hoped that was what would happen. What other protections could I give them?
Chapter Fourteen
Cece
Something was wrong, very wrong. Half of the crew had spent hours tearing walls off of the ship. Wiring was scattered everywhere. At first, I hadn’t known why they were destroying things.
Then, I noticed the cold. The ship was usually hot. Warm enough that I wore the least amount of clothing I felt comfortable wearing surrounded by aliens. The temperature started dropping as I watched Meyer and the cobra methodically searching for something. By the time everyone had gathered in the same place, it was getting downright cold.
The snake men were wearing spacesuits. They were form-fitting with narrow helmets and coverings for their tails. Seeing the suits made my anxiety rachet up.
I wasn’t sure what everyone was preparing for. No one had talked to me. No one had tried to gesture to me about anything. They were all focused on whatever was wrong. My mind went to the worst things I could imagine. I was half expecting the ship to start breaking apart.
It had to have been from the storm we had flown through. The ship had rocked and jerked for hours. The lights had gone out. I thought I had felt something hit the ship. Something must have broken during the hours we were tossed around space.
After a very tense meeting, the crew split up. The rattlesnake and the bald guy had raced off somewhere. The King Cobra had left the mess of metal and wiring with a determined stride. Meyer and the doctor had led me back to the hospital. They had started to pile things onto a floating cart. Once it was weighed down, they took it to the kitchen and repeated the process. Then, they went to the storage area and did the same thing.
Once that was done, the pair walked to the crew’s part of the ship. It was noticeably colder there. I followed them as they went into Meyer’s room.
Meyer pushed away piles of things to make room for the cart. He wasn’t very concerned with his stuff. Once he had cleared a path, he went over to his bed. He flipped open the button he had hit before. The one that had dropped his bed into the floor. This time, he lifted up the red button. Under it was a small blue rectangle about the size of a bottle cap. He pressed his thumb to the center.
The floor opened up, and the bed lowered down. This time was much slower than before. I inched forward. As the bed dropped, I saw a small chamber under us. Once the bed was fitted securely into the space, I could see panels and drawers lining the area. There was a computer panel at one end.
Meyer jumped onto the bed. He held his hands out as the doctor passed items to him. The pair worked for a few minutes putting things into the space. Once they were done, Meyer climbed out.
They went to everyone’s room and did the same thing. By the third time, I realized that these might be the spaceship version of life rafts. They were stocking them with food, medical supplies, and necessities in preparation.
I grabbed the doctor's arm as they were filling the last one. I pointed to me and then to the life raft. With his helmet on, I couldn’t see him very well. The visor was darkly tinted, allowing me only to catch his eyes at the right angle.
The doctor didn’t nod his head. If he said something, I didn’t hear it. His tail wrapped around my back and gave me a half-hearted squeeze. It did not comfort me.
We made our way back to the hospital area with an empty cart. By that point, the ship was freezing. My skin was starting to turn red from the cold. I wrapped the blanket I had been given more tightly around myself. I wasn’t the only one feeling it. I could tell that the snake men were slowing down. I had to be mindful of my pace. I kept having to stop myself from running into Meyer.
When we returned to the hospital, Meyer and the doctor headed for the computer. They had been checking on something frequently when we were in the room. Whatever the pair saw was not good. The doctor pointed at the screen, which made Meyer go ramrod straight. They argued back and forth about something.
This wasn’t like the disagreements from before. They weren’t yelling or flirting. They were discussing something intensely. At the end of it, they hug each other desperately.
They walked over to Meyer’s bed and sat together under a blanket. They looked like they were trying to get as close as possible. The mood was somber. It set off every internal alarm I had.
I heard feet rushing down the hall. I raced to the door to see what was happing. The rattlesnake was running toward the other side of the ship. I knew it was him because his suit had a wider tail section than everyone else’s.
I ran to follow him. He raced into the room with the video feeds. There were scrapes of metal scattered around it.
He ignored everything and dove for a hole he had made in the wall. It was in the same place we had shot goals a few days ago. The space was barely wide enough for his shoulders in the suit. He wriggled into it, using his tail to push his body as far as it would go.
I didn’t know what to do. I watched his body as he worked with something deep inside the ship’s framework. I felt anxious just watching. I didn’t know what was happening, but I wanted to do something.
I strode into the room that had been torn apart. No one was in there. I had to suppress a shudder. It was colder than it had been earlier.
My feet were numb as I made my way back to the hospital. The ship was starting to feel like it was winter inside. I was beginning to shiver.
Meyer and the doctor were still huddled under the blanket when I returned. I went over to the little pile of clothing at the foot of my bed and started layering everything. It didn’t matter that the leggings were ripped or that the skirt went to my ankles. I was getting cold enough to know I wouldn’t survive without more layers. It helped. I still wasn’t warm.
I went to the bathroom. I turned on the sand bath. It was freezing cold. I wasn’t sure why I expected it to be hot, but my stomach cramped as the full scope of the problem hit me.
