“REPORT!” Kreelin bellowed as he did his best to stay in his chair. Those around him were far less successful at keeping their footing.
“Sir, the discharge grid has overloaded!!!” Harvey said in a surprised tone from the engineering console.
Toli picked himself up off the floor, stepped unceremoniously on a part of Heevii and rapidly made it to the monitor that Uronii and Harvey were taking in. “Hells!” Toli pushed Uronii out of his way, sat down in the station chair, and began pushing buttons at a feverish pace.
“Sir, navigation and con are offline!” Lake barked in a high-pitched growl as she pounded her small-gloved paws on her unresponsive console. From behind Kreelin another monitor station exploded, sending a crewman flying. Within that moment a wave of mental pressure slammed into Kreelin’s mind, momentarily blocking out the dire reality they all faced. Kreelin turned to his right just in time to see Heevii wink out of existence from the stairwell and in a flash of light reappear next to the injured man as he was about to hit the floor. With two thick limbs, Heevii reached out, grabbed the crewman, laid him on the rattling deck and attempted to stop the bleeding from several large gashes.
Kreelin quickly recovered from the near overload that Heevii’s talents had just put them all through and looked at the tactical display next to his chair and saw that if they didn’t slow down quickly the Starhawk and everyone onboard was going to have to be scraped off the side of Baradas Station. “Go to manual and slow us down!”
Lakes ears flattened against her head as her paws continued their rapid jabs to get her station to respond. “Really? Now why didn’t I think of that? Oh, because I’ve tried manual override four times now.”
“Lake, now is not the time,” Kreelin growled back at her glib tone.
Raina in quick succession, released her flight harness, grabbing a toolkit and rushed to Lake's side where she began opening access ports, which billowed a continuous cloud of smoke and sparks.
As Kreelin helplessly watched their docking destination loom ever larger on the viewscreen, the crew did their best to stop their runaway ship. Micro-units crawled by and heartbeats thundered a fate-driven counterpoint over the metal wrenching howl of the uncontrolled engines of their beloved ship. Kreelin brushed a bead of sweat from his eye as sub-units became micro-units of life left to them all. This was not how their lives should be ending but he was powerless to do anything. Raina jerked her soot-covered head out from the access port and yelled, “Now, try it now!”
Without hesitation, Lake’s paws once again raced across her console and with a screech and bone-rattling shutter the Starhawk began full reverse thrust. For long micro-units, the bulkheads shook and screamed against the strain until the ship shuttered and finally came to stop mere feet from her docking port.
“Okay, that could have gone better,” Raina said as she let go of the breath she was holding as well as the back of Lake’s chair.
Lake shrugged and smiled devilishly up at Raina. “Aw, where’s your sense of adventure? I say let’s do that again because I don’t get nearly enough excitement from this job.”
Kreelin’s hands shook as much as his voice did as the sudden shot of adrenalin that now coursed through his veins slowly subsided. “Lake, get us moored and shut down as soon as possible,” He turned to look at the aft engineering monitoring station and his eye grew dark. “Toli, take as many people as you need and find out what just went wrong. I want a report on my desk in the morning.”
Toli stopped amid pressing buttons and looked back at his captain and father, his own eye unreadable. “Yes, Sir.”
“Heevii, is he going to be okay?” Kreelin asked as the gueglot lifted the injured crewman up to his wobbly feet.
“I think so but I need to get him to the medical bay on foot, jumping to get him there would only worsen his condition.” The crewman looked relieved to hear that last part.
“I don’t think many of us could take you jumping so soon anyways Heevii,” Kreelin said lightly as he rubbed his forehead once more. “Alright everyone let’s figure out what went wrong and get this bird back in business.”
* * *
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