Erika’s bravery puddled to the elevator floor.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what counted as mutiny, but she’d disobeyed Captain Ryder. If that wasn’t mutiny, it had to be pretty close.

  Captain Ryder might be the traitor. He might have wanted Theo and Clive to die. You did the right thing. Erika repeated that over and over in her head like it would save her.

  The elevator doors groaned as they opened.

  Ryder and Naoki waited at the console. Ryder bared his teeth into a grin. Naoki’s expression shifted subtly so Erika couldn’t read his face.

  “Good to see everyone alive and well,” Ryder said. “Judging by how you aren’t carrying that bug alien with you, we still need to capture it.”

  “And its billion children,” Aymeric added.

  “And its–” Ryder huffed. “That’s on you to figure out. What I know is that–”

  The lights went out. They came back a second later, and during that time, Ryder’s face hardened.

  “Well that was fucking fun,” Mi-Cha called from the pilot’s seat.

  Ryder turned his gaze to Erika.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be a rockstar scientist? Tell me how we deal with this alien bug,” Ryder said. “Actually, why didn’t you know how to deal with it in the reactor room?”

  That second question pierced Erika. She instinctively winced.

  “I think the Aranea is attracted to radiation,” Erika said.

  “It stayed close to the reactor core,” Theo added.

  “Okay, so it wants to stay there,” Ryder said. “Lemme guess: you can’t work with that thing in your way?”

  “No,” Theo answered.

  “Well then, I can shut the reactor off, and we can draw power from the shuttle,” Ryder said.

  “The fuck!?” Mi-Cha shouted. “That baby bitch shuttle can’t power the whole Ark!”

  “It only needs to do that for a little bit,” Ryder said. “Until Erika and her gang clear the aliens out of the room. Which should be easier once the reactor’s off, right?”

  “I think so,” Erika said.

  “Still, we could suck all the power from the shuttle. Then what?” Mi-Cha said.

  “Then what?” Ryder repeated. “We don’t need to leave the Ark until it’s touched down on Earth.”

  “If the aliens overrun us, we’ll need the shuttle to flee,” Erika said.

  “We won’t be overrun,” Ryder snapped. His words lingered on the air.

  “We will transfer the power,” Clive said.

  “Someone on my side! Thank you!” Ryder said. “So here’s the plan: Theo and Clive wire up the shuttle. Erika, Aymeric, Petra, you three clear out the Aranea. Understood?”

  “We should take some time to think through our plans,” Naoki said.

  “We don’t have time. Alright everyone, to work!” Ryder said.

  Mi-Cha turned back to the flight controls. Clive stepped into the elevator, and Theo lumbered after.

  Aymeric and Petra looked to Erika for a better plan, but she didn’t have one.

  ? ? ?

  The shuttle sat on its landing gear and awaited what happened next.

  “We’re at the shuttle,” Theo told his comm. “It will take us about half an hour to connect its power to the Ark.”

  “Okay, okay, keep me updated,” Ryder said.

  The shuttle wasn’t Theo’s area of expertise, but his knowledge of the Hell’s Ark and ships in general meant that he could intuit how to operate on the smaller ship.

  Theo and Clive headed for the back of the shuttle, where a small reactor sat unpowered. The reactor would only be able to power the Ark for a few hours, with only the most basic systems running.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  A few hours is enough time to fix the main reactor.

  Theo approached the core, tools at the ready.

  ? ? ?

  Erika, Petra, and Aymeric went to the third floor of the ship with a net gun, shock spears, and slop that the Aranea ate. Erika wanted to charge into the reactor room again, but she knew the Aranea and its larvae would bully the science crew out after only a few minutes. A new plan was necessary.

  The adult Aranea came from the lab on the third floor into the reactor on the fourth. If it was capable of going one direction, then it should be able to move in the opposite. The scientists would lure the adult Aranea to the third floor, capture it, and experiment on the creature to look for ways to incapacitate the larvae. Once the young were dealt with, Theo and Clive could fix the reactor, and the Hell’s Ark would be one step closer to Earth.

  You’ll need to capture the Carnifex and Lamia, too. They are both far more dangerous than the Aranea could ever be. Erika tried to push this thought away, but it lingered in her mind like a bad smell.

  While Petra set up a camera aimed at the lab airlock, Erika placed the Aranea’s food down and checked the camera with the computer. She half expected to see the Carnifex on screen, but the hall was empty.

  “We’re good,” Erika said.

  The two headed around the corner to find Aymeric checking the weapons.

  “See the Carnifex around?” He asked.

  “No,” Erika answered.

  “Are we gonna sit in this corner?” Petra asked.

  “I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Aymeric shrugged.

  The scientists sat on the floor, and huddled around the laptop. The floor was uncomfortable. Erika hoped the Aranea would appear soon.

  ? ? ?

  The asteroids were getting closer, and Mi-Cha couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. She had spent the past hour digging under the pilot controls in search of some connection issue that meant the Ark couldn’t fly. Surprise, surprise, there was nothing. The engine explosion didn’t rattle out connections in the cockpit; the problems were all in the reactor, and all out of Mi-Cha’s hands.

  She hauled herself off the floor, and brushed her jumpsuit down.

  “Any luck?” Ryder asked from the console.

  “Yeah, found your mom there,” Mi-Cha said.

  Ryder cracked a smile. It normally wouldn’t register for Mi-Cha, but she was wired up and the Captain’s smile pissed her off.

  “You know? Fuck this straight in the ass.” Mi-Cha marched into the elevator.

  “Where are you going?” Ryder asked.

  “Take a guess.” Mi-Cha slammed the button on the elevator, but it shut as slow as usual.

  Ryder probably assumed Mi-Cha would go to her cabin, but she wasn’t going to the second floor. She had a better idea in mind.

  The elevator opened on the third floor.

  The scientists were gathered near the elevator, crowded around a laptop.

  “Need something?” Aymeric looked up from the screen.

  “Just checking some shit.” Mi-Cha nodded to a door on the side.

  Aymeric glanced at it, then looked back at Mi-Cha. He didn’t say anything, but he was asking: are you okay?

  Mi-Cha gave him a curt nod, then stepped through the door. The room was jammed with heavy machines that growled and hissed at each other. Those machines were responsible for recycling and treating waste aboard the Ark. It was exactly where Mi-Cha wanted to be.

  She navigated the narrow halls of the treatment plant, toward a back corner. The noise around her rose. Mi-Cha was sided by two machines she couldn’t name. Both burped out noise that would drown Mi-Cha’s voice out, at least to anyone who wasn’t directly at her side.

  Mi-Cha glared at the wall. She imagined the crew lined up and looking very disappointed in themselves, because they should be. Mi-Cha focused on the spot where she imagined Ryder. She thought about the engine explosion, and how it could have been avoided if the Captain had just listened to Theo for two seconds.

  “Ryder, you fucking idiot,” Mi-Cha started.

  ? ? ?

  Theo and Clive turned the shuttle bay into a labyrinth of wires between the shuttle’s reactor and the power control console within the bay itself. The first of the cables they lied down weren’t long enough to reach, so they had to connect more together. They had to navigate the cables through the bars of the power control console, then force them into place with some tinkering. Theo did his best to convince the power console to take energy from the shuttle, but it was never designed to work this way.

  And there’s only one way to know if this succeeds.

  Theo stood at the wall, and placed his hands on the switch.

  “The connections are in place. When I flip the switch, everything will go dark for a moment, then come back online.” Theo said.

  “Thanks for the heads-up. Lemme know the moment you hit that switch,” Ryder answered.

  “There is also a chance this doesn’t work.”

  A pause.

  “Okay. Okay, but we gotta do this.” Ryder said. “Count it down.”

  “Three, two, one.” Theo pulled the switch.

  The shuttle bay went dark. Machines that constantly hummed went silent. Theo heard his and Clive’s breaths mixing together in the air.

  ? ? ?

  Thirty seconds passed in darkness. The power should have come back by then.

  Ryder listened to his own breath rattling in the galley. He wished Mi-Cha was there instead of wherever the hell she’d gone. It would have been nice hearing someone else breathing.

  It would be nice for the ship to come back online.

  The Hell’s Ark was Ryder’s ship, dammit; he could navigate it with his eyes closed. He could lock and unlock doors at a whim. He should have control over the whole ship at any given moment.

  Ryder balled his hands into fists.

  The lights came back. The familiar hum of the Ark returned.

  Ryder blew his anger out through his lips. He pulled up his comm.

  “Was it supposed to take that long?” Ryder tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but he still heard it.

  He waited for Theo to explain what happened and why the ship was in total darkness for about a minute. There was no reply.

  “Theo, Clive, are you there?” Ryder asked.

  Silence.

  “Theo, Clive, hello, come in,” Ryder said.

  Still no response.

  Ryder tried to get in touch with Naoki next, but he was silent, too.

  Ryder marched to the console, and checked the systems. The environmental systems, and lights, and door power, had all returned. The ship wasn’t completely back, though; some systems, including the comm network, were still offline. Ryder looked for a way to reboot the system from the console, but if there was a button to do it, he couldn’t find it. When Theo and Clive returned to the bridge, Ryder would order them to fix the comms. It was too important to leave down.