No Way Home

Part 1

Caroline leaned by the viewport in her quarters and stared out at the stars, clutching an unopened book.

She wanted to escape into its pages and shut out reality.  In a sense, reading Tara Morgan and the Incantations of Unreality was the perfect escape.  It was an adventure story with familiar characters, their world of magic, and the love Tara and May had for each other.

Rebecca, her second-in-command, lay in a coma in the Orion’s infirmary. There was no telling when or if she would ever regain consciousness.  Though she and Caroline weren’t exactly friends, she was an invaluable part of a crew and a decent human being.

Now was the sort of time that Rebecca would be shoring up the crew’s low morale.  Her absence would make that far more difficult.

The dimensional portal which the Orion had passed through to reach the nexus was badly damaged. Dr. MacNeil and Erica had assured her that with time they might be able to repair it, but then they had doused that hope by admitting that they needed more time to study the technology.

The Orion itself was undergoing repairs as it held position near the centre of the nexus.  The battle damage from the engagement with the Siphen was still being assessed.

In a nutshell, she and her crew weren’t going anywhere.  Even after repairing the ships’ damaged systems, the chances of them returning home were, for the moment, slim to none.

Caroline turned away from the view and crossed the room to dejectedly sit on the sofa, rubbing her face and blinking away tears.  She was back on her feet as she realised she needed to talk to someone, and thumbed the comm unit.

For whatever reason, be it a system malfunction or because Rhona was helping with the repair efforts or sound asleep, she couldn’t raise her best friend.

Caroline frowned and attempted to contact Erica instead, and was relieved to hear the chief engineer’s voice.

“Reed here, go ahead.”

“Erica, what’s the status of the comm system?” Caroline asked.

“Working on it, Captain.  The system itself is fine, but power isn’t getting through in some sections, which at the moment you won’t be able to reach.  The ship itself is responding to perceived system damage by reducing power flow, but we’ve been checking each system deck by deck and, apart from the sections with damage to the hull, we can’t find any damaged energy conduits.”

“Alright, Erica, thanks for bringing me up to speed.  I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Caroline flicked the comm panel off and reluctantly placed her book back on the shelf, resolving to read it later, when she didn’t feel so emotional.

Then, she retreated to the fresher to splash some cold water on her face.  It was some small comfort that the water was still running.

Caroline looked in the mirror as she dabbed her cheeks and mouth with a towel.  Her skin seemed pale and a lock of hair had escaped from the clip behind her ear.

But on a positive note, at least she didn’t look like she was about to burst into tears.  She gave a small, tired smile and set about fixing her hair.

Still anxious and feeling the need to talk, she gathered her composure and straightened her posture, leaving her quarters to see if she could find Rhona.

Descending several decks, she stopped by Rhona’s quarters and pushed the entry chime. Once again, there was no answer.

With a sigh, Caroline started back towards her quarters, but stopped in mid-step, realising that Rhona wasn’t the only friend she could talk to, just the one who knew her best. Mustering her composure again, she set off for the guest quarters, where she would likely find Isamura.