Ikaruga, deck 7

[Dead Reckoning]

Jim sat on the bed, staring into his own reflection. It had not been a calm few months.

The retrofits had gone, in theory, as planned. The upgraded core was supplying Ikaruga with all it needed and then some. With systems fully powered and under load, the core was seeing a load index of 54%. Activating the jump drive raised the index to 87%. However, the external fuel feed was still necessary. For some unknown reason, the drive would not use all the available power core.

That was where the troubles began. The science division began rerouteing cabling, adding larger feeds, attempting to at least see how little fuel could be required if it was managed to get the core to 100% load. The fourth attempt saw disaster. Shortly after opening the feeds, anomalies started coming up. Radiation spikes in locations that didn't make sense, navigation detecting slight disturbances outside the ship. And then the flood gates opened. Moving beyond spec, the core was outputting 105% it's expected output, a large majority being diverted from other systems directly into the jump drive. 105% was within operating parameters for short times, but the jump from 87% to 105% lead to the envelope being far larger than expected.

In the excitement, Jim ordered Ikaruga through the gravity field. But size of it was putting undue stress on the core. Looking back through the logs, it was fluctuating from 101% to 112% load index. A warning flashing on the core deck was missed due to everyone celebrating how clever they were. The field collapsed as the core went into a fail-safe shutdown.

What was supposed to be a jump to the neighboring system ended up being a jump into the dark space somewhere in the Omicron cluster. Worse, the core was heavily damaged and could hardly move the ship, much less create the power to even attempt to make another wormhole back to the starting point. 6 other ships had been pulled through the envelope with Ikaruga. Dreamweaver, an Aquilon. Fortitude, a Fearless. And 4 transports. They had not sustained damage from the field collapse.

There was nothing out there but silence. Dreamweaver and Fortitude took up defensive positions on either side of the limping Ikaruga while the transports were torn apart for their materials. Long range scans showed nothing, but this far out anything was possible.

The transports provided enough armor and material to the core to a stable repair. The fail-safe shutdown, while crippling at least maintained the integrity of the structure. Shuddering to life after the repairs, Ikaruga could fly with a minor radiation alarm. Hard to fully seal a core without the proper tools for bending metal shielding. Dreamweavers scanner had roughly approximated the current location and a course was set for Omicron-74. Jumping was out of the question, the core was wavering at 20% output on minimal systems.

The flight back was trying. Some crew men lost hope, some began to lose their sanity being in the dark so long. Fortitude had a near mutiny that almost cost us the ship. Several men were locked up for the remainder of the flight. Jim helmed the Ikaruga while Brooke helmed the Dreamweaver. Fortitude was under Brookes command. Eventually, alertness subsided. Where originally there was fear of the dark, now there was only dreariness. There was nothing to fear from the dark space but themselves. A routine was settled into. Mind the core, mind the engines, count the days until the return or until food was exhausted. The biodomes were working overtime as they had to also feed Dreamweavers crew as well.

After 6 months and 6 days, the 3 remaining ships crossed the threshold into 74. This journey was at an end. It was time to repair and carry on.