May We Meet Again

Chapter Ten

"What about breathable air?" Esme asked. "Food?"

"Emergency rations," Carlisle said. "And the air?"

"We've got about a week," Charlie answered. "If that. The oxygen recyclers were cracked, no working water reclamation system, and we were subsisting on MREs."

"What are we going to do?" I gasped.

"Use the Ark as it was intended," Sinclair replied. "This was never meant to be a permanent solution, only a stop gap measure until the Earth became habitable. The kids proved that we could go down to the surface. We need to use the Ark to bring us to the ground."

"How?" Esme squeaked. "The Ark was twelve individual stations that are barely held together as it is. It'll come apart."

"No longer twelve stations," Carlisle sighed "More like seven and a half."

"This is why we have Sinclair," Charlie said quietly, squeezing Sinclair's arm. "He's one of the smartest engineers here and he can ..."

"I'm going to do my best to predict where the Ark will come apart," Sinclair finished, scrubbing his hands through his short curly hair. "It's not an exact science, but we should have a pretty strong chance of getting down to the ground. We'll need to break free of the outer ring, using the thrusters to break our orbit. Then, using the maneuvering thrusters, we can slow our descent once we're in the atmosphere."

"What are we waiting for?" I pressed. "If we stay up here, the people who are injured will get worse. The glitchiness with the gravity is making it difficult to treat our patients. We can't perform surgery and except causing the gravity to stop, making it virtually impossible to repair the injuries ... their insides will float out, as will their blood."

"We need to do a risk assessment," Sinclair said. "Figure out where the safest places are to have everyone buckle into land on the ground. We also need to ensure we land close to Mount Weather. It would be pointless to land the Ark if we put it down in Siberia."

"We need to let Mount Weather know," Carlisle said. "How? We can communicate on the Ark with the internal sensors, but our antenna was sheared off when the Exodus ship broke free. We can't ..."

"Morse code," Charlie offered. "Everyone had to learn it while taking Earth skills. The kids also learned it. We may not be able to speak to them on the comm, but cause interference in our signal in code? It'll take time, but it's doable." He knocked his hand on flickering table displaying all the damaged systems on the Ark. "We have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it." Blinking to me, he reached for my hand. "We're going to the ground."

xx MWMA xx

Bella

I woke up with a jolt. I was comfortable and too warm. I shifted, seeing Edward curled around me. The room was dark, with some ambient lighting along the walls that glowed a soft gold. Wriggling, I managed to get out of Edward's tight hold around me. Padding down the hallway, I went to the bathroom and scrubbed my face. I looked at myself, shocked at how haggard my appearance was.

My skin was sunburnt, with freckles splashed across my nose, forehead, and cheeks. I had a haunted gaze, with dark circles underneath. I appeared to be almost shell-shocked. I'd lost a lot of weight due to the lack of regular meals, making the clothes I wore hang on me.

"Princess?" Edward grumbled, walking into the bathroom, rubbing his eyes. "You okay?"

"Where's your shirt?" I quipped, deflecting his question.

"It's warm in here," he yawned, sliding his muscular arms around my body, and nuzzling my neck. Never in my life would I expect Edward Cullen to be a cuddler. He was so rigid on the Ark, keeping everyone at arm's length.