The Doctor James Romia was so tired, he had worked almost without breaks. He had been woken at the start of the fight to work in one of the emergency clinics. The ship had a complete and well-equipped hospital in it, but it was too far away from the battle lines, so a lot of closer rooms had been arranged to be used by the medical teams.

He had to work on the injured that came back from the front lines and manage to patch them, so they could go back to fight the Bugs. As all the other doctors he had been forced to separate the fighters in three groups. Those he could mend enough so that they could continue the fight, those he could stabilize enough to put in stasis so that they could wait to receive more heavy treatment and the last group, those that nothing could save.

He was actually taking a break, he had been forced to by his assistants. And during this break, he could eat and sleep a little, but he also had to check the global situation on the ship. On the 5,000 military men on the ship, only one thousand was still alive, but 700 of them was put back in stasis waiting for the medical teams to be able to take care of them. The ship had had 45,000 non-military passengers on board, half of them had been awake up to fight the Bugs but only 10,000 had survived the fight, with just 500 of them still able to continue. All the survivors would need psychiatric support, and most of them would receive some mechanical prosthetic, going from just some fingers to the four members passing the lungs and the liver

Gigantic numbers, too much to really feel something, they were of the range of statistics, but everyone would have lost somebody in the fights.

James’ job had been to minimize the casualties, and it wasn’t finished. The fights may have stopped, but the injured continued to come to him. His break was ending, and he had to go back to save lives.

Three days after the Jump, like the men were calling the strange phenomenon that had transported the ship from a place in the galaxy to another, nobody was understanding how it could have happened.

The scientists were lost in their theories, the calculations and simulations ran on the computers were showing that to make a transfer of this magnitude, the required energy would be incommensurable. The very nature of the Jump was the subject of most of the debates on board.

The command center had ordered the mechanics to focus their repair on the most damage systems, the automatic defenses. Understanding what happened and how it happened were secondary to the crew and the passengers’ survival. If the Bugs were to resume the fight, the Mathilde would be ready.

Another subject of conversation was the location, where were they? Even if the question was secondary, the people were curious to know. According to the astronomers, they were nowhere on the mapped galaxy. The location of the stars didn’t correspond to any of the sectors of the Milky Way.

The third chat’s topic was about the planet. They had been transported to the outskirts of a solar system, and if this one was gathering something like 15 planets, one, in particular, focused the attention of the humans. The one categorized as an E7, meanings comparable in everything to the Earth but seven times bigger.

The command center had planned to put the ship in orbit for the time of the repairs. It would allow for small scientific or supply missions. And in case of emergency, they could evacuate or land on the planet and start there their original mission.

Millie Evans was a mechanic on board. One of the youngest, and the shortest of those not still in stasis. And as such, she had been designated by her superior to crawl between the pipes. Normally it would be a job for a robot, but none of the specialized were remaining, they had all been destroyed during the fight.

The reason for her nomination wasn’t sitting right in her stomach, but it was true, so she had grudgingly accepted to crawl behind the antimatter’s confinement chamber. As long as she wasn’t going too near of it, she was safe, but she didn’t like the situation. And she was there since twenty minutes, crawling between burning and freezing pipes, she was positive she would catch a cold.

“They gonna hear me the ‘big-brothers’, forcing a cute little girl like me to do such a scruffy thing! It’s me who gonna take the full load of it in the face. ‘Nothing to fear.’ ‘You’re completely safe.’ I’d like to see them here, crawling in the dust! And the worst! I haven’t found anything!”

She had crawled there for most time than necessary, checking everything twice. But everything seemed perfectly fine. She was about to check a third time when she heard Her chief, Gérôme, in her comband.

“Millie, you hear me? If you haven’t found anything yet, get out, we have some news.”

“I’m coming. And I hope there is a big glass of fresh water waiting for me.”

The fact that Gérôme had contacted her while she was so near the antimatter’s confinement chamber and was asking her to exit the place meant that it was serious news.

“So? What is it this time?” Asked Millie once she had rejoined the other mechanics and grabbed a bottle of ambient temperature water.

“This time, that the transitional engines that went down. Barely five minutes ago. With that, we have lost the interstellar and intra-stellar propulsion. We only have the thrust adjusters, the stabilizers, and the retro-rockets. We can land on that fucking planet out there and that’s all!” It was a rare sight to see Gérôme swear, Millie immediately knew that he was telling the truth and that he had no idea of why it was happening.

“And how does it concern me in particular?” Inquired Millie, a bad feeling in her stomach.

“You, little mouse, you will go there this time. Take a twenty minutes break and be ready to crawl again.”

“Yay… When I stop crawling near antimatter it’s for crawling near plutonium… Yippee…” It was written all over Millie’s face that she wasn’t enjoying the situation.

“Stop complaining. Did you find what’s wrong where you were?”

“I only found things that were where they were supposed to be and in good condition, just not fucking functional. And I don’t know why.”

“Watch your tongue, Millie. Go take a shower, eat a bit and be ready for your next crawling mission. I’m tired enough like that and I still have to inform the Bridge”

Mumbling and ignoring the compassionate glare of the other mechanics, Millie went to the women locking room, a big room, almost exclusively for her.