Kayla was busy skimming through boring documents on her tablet computer when she felt it. The familiar sensation when the perturbations of space-time created by the space craft you are riding on gradually fizzle out. A somewhat loud alarm went off on the bridge.

"Captain!" Kayla said to the elf captain sitting a few seats from her. "Cut the power to the SPG! If we've been sabotaged there might be a bomb that goes off once we get back into normal space time!"

"We haven't been sabotaged, humaness" the elf said. "The SPG in this model spacecraft are notoriously flakey. It's probably a problem with the attenuator calibration." He said starting up the diagnostics. Kayla got up. She could already tell the gravity well generator was starting to fail as she felt her weight oscillating between normal and very light. She reached over the captain's shoulders to push a few buttons.

"What are you doing!?" the Captain shouted.

"There! The backup SPG isn't working, too! We've been sabotaged. Turn off the power to the SPG now!" At this, the captain did as he was told. A few seconds later, their weight disappeared. The captain let out a sigh and cursed loudly.

"Let's go down to the maintenance deck to see if we can fix this" the Captain said to one of the other crew members on the bridge. He and that crew member swam out and Kayla followed them. It was quite difficult to make it all the way down to the maintenance deck. When she got down to the deck the Captain and a couple of other crew members were with him, removing façade and pieces to take a look inside.

"There's the charge right there" one of the crew members said pointing to a small device that looked like it could have fit in with the jumble of different cables and parts.

"Disconnect the bomb and then we will fix the SPG" the Captain said.

"It won't work" Kayla said. "This isn't an amateur saboteur job."

"Fine. If we can't fix it, we'll just activate the distress signal and someone passing through this SPG lane will pick it up and rescue us."

"I'm betting that has been sabotaged as well" Kayla answered.

"Didn't you check that before we activated the SPG?" the captain asked.

"Yes, but I'm guessing there's some kind of timed mechanism on it. We need to think of some other way to send a distress signal. Otherwise we're just wasting our time."

"I agree with her, Captain" one of the crew members said. "We could launch a barrage of alpha particles from our main power reactor. Someone will pick them up and come and investigate it."

"Okay, so let's assume for a minute that that isn't really dangerous and can cause an explosion that will kill all of us. Do you think that maybe some scientist or astronomer might happen to come by and be curious as to why there's alpha radiation trillions of miles from the nearest sun?"

"Unless you know of a better way, Captain" Kayla said, "We should do it. Otherwise we all sit around twiddling our thumbs while waiting to exhaust our supply of oxygen." The Captain just stared straight ahead for a moment and heaved a sigh.

"Nichols" the Captain said looking at the middle-aged man floating next to him that had suggested the idea, "I want you to keep a very close eye on the vitals of the reactor and make sure the beam is directed straight into the SPG lane!"

"Don't worry, I've done this before" the man said. "Well, sort of. The alpha beam can create a heck of a light show." The captain swam out of the room, and Kayla helped the two remaining crew members begin to disconnect the bomb.