T-Plus 9

Each UEA uniform had a distinct color: blue for the technicians, white for the scientists and doctors, brown for supporting staff, and purple for the mysterious order of Navigators. The young girl standing before Esther and Joey wore a custom uniform with a short coat and overly long sleeves. The purple fabric had long been blackened and dirtied with burn marks and stains, but it was still evident under the touch of their flashlights. Esther noted, with a glance, there was a shoulder patch with two stars that matched the two star design on the front.

The girl was young. Based on her youthful attire and young face, Esther would say she was in her late teens, underage compared to many of those working in space, but you could never guess a Navigator’s age solely based on appearance. The Navigator flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder, her blue eyes boring into them. There was a haughty angle to her chin as she addressed them.

“Obviously,” she said, responding to Esther’s previous statement. “You two are a technician and a scientist.”

Joey gestured with his flashlight, his jaw agape. “What’re you still doing here? I thought the Navigators evacuated first!”

“I would have long been gone if it hadn't been for all the debris blocking me in," she snorted with a twist of her head. "And so? What’re you still doing here? After us, scientists and doctors should’ve evacuated next.”

She gave a pointed look down at Esther, who could only remain silent in response. Her situation had been even more embarrassing in comparison. Who else would’ve gotten shoved into a locker by accident?

“The hull breach blocked us in too,” Joey replied, much to Esther’s relief. “And there were a few other... complications.”

“How expansive is the damage?” the Navigator demanded, crossing her arms.

Esther and Joey exchanged looks. The intern motioned for Esther to speak. He took a seat where he stood, forcing the Navigator to also take a seat across from him. There weren’t any chairs nearby, so the three of them made a circle with the lights in the center.

“The original breach was on the second floor, according to my seniors,” Joey explained.

“Second floor?” the Navigator interrupted, her palms slamming against the ground. She stood up again, pacing within the range of the light. They watched as she muttered to herself, the words too unintelligible with how quickly she spouted them under her breath. Just as sudden as she cut them off, she sat back down again, glaring at the intern to continue what he’d been saying.

“Uhh-um, right... The second floor’s a mess, according to my seniors. The second quake seems to have originated from the third floor, but from the looks of it, it only knocked a bunch of things around. There’s a bunch of those aliens on all the floors, but the seniors said they first saw them up here, so they should’ve originated from somewhere around here.”

“What has Triton said?”

“We’re under quarantine,” Esther answered, waving away the girl’s next barrage of questions. “Indefinite. If they knew you were up here, they might send someone up, but we don’t have a way of sending messages with the power out.”

“Then fix it,” the girl demanded, her eyes stabbing into the intern’s dirty blue uniform. He whipped his head side to side in the quickest denial Esther had seen. “Then where are your seniors,” the Navigator corrected, swinging her gaze toward Esther now.

“They went downstairs to search for more food supplies,” the doctor said evenly. After a pause, she added, “And I don’t think sending a message is the most pressing issue at the moment.”

“Huh? What else is important other than getting off of here?” the Navigator questioned, crossing her arms. She puffed her bangs out of her face, rolling her eyes as she muttered, “I shouldn’t have accepted this post.”

Esther stood, bracing herself against the wall. The feeling in her legs had returned, and speed walking was within her limits. The intern got back on his feet, securing the flashlight back onto his shoulder strap. The Navigator watched the two of them as they prepared to head out again.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I don’t know about you, ma’am,” Esther said, pointing her light at the corners of the room. “But you can’t stay here if you want to leave.”

The room they’d ducked in was one of the laboratories adjacent to the main ARCNAV laboratories. Although not under tight lock and key like ARCNAV, this lab was close enough to be considered an integral part of the Station’s reason for being built out this far. The room was a mess, the tools and equipment swept off the shelves and lab tables by both quakes. There was evidence of a fight with aliens, their pink splatters staining the floor, tables, and parts of the walls. Even the most privileged personnel had it rough, huh.

“How have you been moving around?” Esther asked, turning back towards the shorter girl. “You can’t have been stuck here the entire time, right?”

The Navigator sniffed, standing beside them now. She was patting the dust off her uniform, crossing her arms when she noticed their gazes waiting for her answer. She pursed her lips before deciding to answer the question.

“No,” she answered, glancing away. “Every time I needed to leave, I’d bend space a little, so they wouldn’t notice me.”

“Huh? Bend space? What do you mean by that?” Joey asked, mimicking the scoffing tone the Navigator had seconds prior. “If you got stuck in here, you just needed to tell us, and not make some childish lie.”

“Hah? Why would I lie?” the Navigator sniffed, assuming her usual tone with them again. “Do you not know what a Navigator does?”

“Don’t you just act as spaceships’ navigators?”

Both women stared at the intern. Esther sighed, shaking her head as the Navigator gave her deepest scoff yet. The doctor seriously wondered how Joey had made it this far, and had the requirements to be able to step into this Station.

“Navigators,” Esther said, beginning her lecture, “do indeed act as spaceships’ navigators. However, even experienced ship captains are able to travel through the stars without needing a specialized Navigator.” She paused, dragging on the silence as she watched the intern lean forward to catch the rest of her words. “Navigators are powerful psionic humans capable of bending the fabric of space, therefore they’re integral to our warp technology.” Esther paused again, waving at the actual Navigator beside them. “Of course, most can’t actually do anything big without a fusion reactor, but tricks like going through walls shouldn’t be too difficult even for a Rank Two.”

“You know a lot for an unaffiliated scientist,” the Navigator remarked. Her facial expression was the very image of amazed, probably a compliment coming from her.

“Not too much,” Esther said, brushing her off. “That much is common knowledge in the scientific community.”

“Wait! So you can actually bend space?” Joey exclaimed, hopping up and down in excitement.

The two women ignored him, continuing their own conversation. The intern eventually calmed down, deciding to make himself busy by surveying the rest of the room as Esther pulled some more information from the Navigator.

“My name is Esther Emerson. I’m the residential doctor for Clinic 2C.”

“Audrey Zimmerman,” the Navigator revealed, patting the emblem on her chest. “Rank Two Navigator. I was in the lounge by myself when the first quake happened. It blocked the door, and I was stuck there until the second quake. Luckily, there was snacks stocked up, so sustaining myself wasn’t difficult.”

“Couldn’t you just shift out?”

The girl pursed her lips again, averting her gaze away from the taller woman. She crossed her arms again, twisting her body away. If Esther squinted, she swore she could see a light blush on the girl’s cheeks, but she ignored it.

“There was too much debris on the other side for me to make it out in one jump. Getting stuck in the remnants of a wall has never been on my bucket list.”

“How far can you shift? You’re a Rank Two, so I’m assuming about five meters without equipment?”

“How rude,” Audrey huffed, turning back to face Esther. The blush had turned into a furious flush, her lips in a pout. She regained her previous fervor. “I’m an upgrade away from Rank Three, so I can manage about ten meters.”

“Can you shift while taking other people with you?”

“If it’s just one person about my stature.”

“How many times can you shift in a day?”

“Umm, three?”

“How many times have you shifted today already?”

“Once?”

Esther gave a nod, tapping her chin as she thought about their future plans. With a Navigator with them, evading the aliens became a little easier. At least one of them could make a quick getaway. Audrey blinked her long lashes, coming out of the stupor of being interrogated. She put her hands on her hips, snarling as she narrowed her eyes at Esther.

“Wait a second, you know a lot more than just ‘common knowledge’ about Navigators, Dr. Emerson,” she accused.

The doctor gave a small smile. “Perhaps.”

“Doctor!” the intern called, reconvening with them. “There are still aliens out in the hallways. How’re we going to get out of here?” The knocking at the door confirmed his words, and they could see the barricade vibrating from the force behind the door.

“Do you think you can break through them?” Esther asked, calculating distances in her head.

Joey scratched his head. After a moment, he nodded. “If it was just me, I should be able to. Well, unless they’ve completely blocked the door up to the ceiling. But what are you and Miss Navigator going to do?”

“We’ll manage. You think we’re able to leave now?”

“I think so. Where are we heading? The long way around back to the Engineering Bay?”

“Wait, we should head into ARCNAV,” Audrey interrupted with a stomp of her foot. “I want to grab some equipment from there and verify that no other Navigators are still stuck in here.”

“I concur,” Esther said with a nod. “The technicians say the epicenter of the hull breaches originate from around here, but from the state of this laboratory and the corridor, it wasn’t any of the surrounding labs. The only place left would be the interior of ARCNAV. Otherwise, the evacuation system wouldn’t have closed so quickly while leaving one of their precious Navigators here. I want to check on what caused this mess and brought the aliens to us.”

“But, it looks like the Nereids have made a nest in there as well,” Joey argued weakly. “We might not make it too far.”

“Then all the more reason,” Esther said with a shake of her head. “If we can get some information about our new neighbors, then it’ll be safer for us later when we try to get the power back on.”

“You’ll tell my seniors it wasn’t my idea, right?” the intern sighed after a while.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she retorted, rolling her eyes. Did he really think Hensley and Jiang would get mad at him with coming with her and the Navigator on this escapade. Well, now that she thought about it again, maybe they would, especially Hensley.

“Okay, let’s start when they stop knocking then.”

It took less time for the noises at the door to go away than the last. Joey approached the door first, shoving away as many boxes he had stacked as he could. He gave them a nod once he was ready to rush out. Audrey, on the other hand, already had her eyes closed as she focused on wherever her psionic powers came from. From Esther’s knowledge, Navigators, even when they did have their specialized equipment on them, needed intense concentration to be able to manipulate the fabric of space.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Audrey said with a nod, her eyes still closed. “Don’t get sick.”

The process of shifting took less than a second. By the time Esther had blinked again, they were outside in the corridor. She hadn’t realized, but her stomach had dropped, and as she blinked she could feel it recovering in a nauseous manner. She covered her mouth, keeling over for a second, recovering her sense of being. Fortunately, Joey had attracted the aliens’ attention, and they were hoarding around him like space pirates to rare treasure. It gave her just enough time to find her legs and sprint past him and head back toward the ARCNAV entrance.

The giant alien had wrenched the entrance wide open for itself. They could easily fit in the hole it left. As they came closer, Esther couldn’t see too many aliens, and the two women easily made it past the door. The doctor threw a glance over her shoulder, making sure the intern was still behind them. He was, although she could see bloody streaks on his pant legs and arms.

They streaked past the entrance, aiming for the closest closed room. Audrey pulled a door to their right open, slamming it shut behind them and shoving the closest pieces of in front of it with Esther’s help. Esther took another deep breath, leaning against the closest wall after seeing there weren’t any aliens in this room either. She allowed herself one breather. Just one, before she had to tend to the intern’s wounds. She’d been doing too much running today.

***