Ezra's First

Part 5

Six hours later Ezra was sitting in the galley with a spoon full of food halfway to his mouth when all of a sudden all the ships systems seem to shut off.

Red emergency lighting illuminated the ship, all computer terminals went blank, the noticeable hum of the ships engines disappeared and the ship became silent.

Ezra leapt from his seat and rushed to the bridge, Daniel exited his room behind him and headed towards his station while trying to put his uniform back on.

Ezra instantly knew it was the ships onboard defensive countermeasures that shut off its systems, it was trying to make the ship as undetectable as possible. He could hear the whir of the ships heat sink, a device that absorbed all the ships excess heat into a hyper conductive brick that was then shot off into the depths of space.

This meant their ship's systems had detected a ship it didn't recognise.

"I'll do a check to make sure we're actually undetectable, you perform and scan and try to figure out what we're trying to not be detected by." Ordered Ezra, he assumed that no matter how hurt Daniel might be feeling he would follow a direct order.

Ezra went about shutting down additional non-necessary systems, the automated stealth system was good, but it was a generic one size fits all that the ships onboard AI kick started to give a humans the time to do it properly themselves.

It was also protocol to Ezra to start to bring the ships weapons and defence systems online. This wasn't something the AI was programmed to do automatically in case that wasn't appropriate, Ezra could also choose which systems, in what order, to activate slowly as to maintain their stealth.

"The ship identified a trace of an object it believed to be artificial just behind the systems gas giant. We're too far out to get a good enough scan, we'll be able to know more in about another thirty thousand odd light years. "

Ezra checked the ships read-outs. While the engine was off, they still had a considerable amount of momentum, they would cover thirty thousand kilometres in about 55 minutes.

"If it is artificial, it's probably using the gas giant and as a slingshot , so they'll potentially be more visible as they progress around the planet."

"In that case then it's either coming towards us or heading away from us."

"Let's hope the latter, Ship, set condition to red alert."

Announcing red alert on a two person ship was slightly useless, Daniel could see that the ships defensive systems were active and the odds of the unidentified object being human were very slim.

However what it really signalled was that he and Daniel needed to get changed into their combat suits. Which were lightweight suits they wore over their current clothing that offered baseline protection from the dangers of combat, such as shrapnel, fire, loss of oxygen. The suits carried eight hours of oxygen and light touch medical systems that could administer pain killers, or even sedatives if the situation needed it. Ezra shared some sympathy for Daniel to whom the last time time he was in one of these suits, he suffered near fatal injuries and many of his crew mates were gravely injured or worse.

They both silently donned their suits, which were conveniently stored in the wall panel's adjacent to their stations and then got back to the job at hand. They briefly performed a test of the suits internal comms, but until shit hit the fan they could still speak to each other in the open air.

Now that he was back sitting, waiting, no longer on the auto pilot years of combat drills has trained him for Ezra could feel the crushing anxiety creep into his chest. Whatever this was, could be his first brush with combat, the enemy race, or even worse.