A Starship Called Starsong

Chapter 10

Well, if this time was different... I ran over to the door control panel and scanned it. :Door control offline. Authorization required.: I huffed in frustration. "Locked, and I can't override it." So much for that hope...

I went back to the others as I pulled up the airlock door map again and stared at it unhappily. "There is no way off this ship at the moment that doesn't involve plummeting to our death. What are our plans?"

Logan scratched his head in distraction as he tried to think swiftly. "The stuff we used to overwrite the upgrade might still be hampering the AI. Is there any way for you to override those airlock doors with that thing? Or track any other crew members who may still be on board?"

"No and no."

"Drat. Give me a moment to think. We will have to see who else is trapped on board, and only you and I have access to level two."

I gave him an odd look. "How did you know I had access to level two?"

He smirked. "I heard you muttering about a misbehaving food heater and scrolled through the completed tickets. I had to go take a peek, and I must say that your wiring job was pretty impressive. It took me almost five minutes to figure out how you managed to make it work like that."

I responded dryly, "I give all credit to the Analyzer. But-"

A faint rumble under my feet had me frantically tapping buttons on my Analyzer. I exclaimed, "Shit! That was atmospheric turbulence! The engines are shifting from overdrive to thrust mode - which means we are already leaving the upper atmosphere! We are no longer docked!"

Logan swore under his breath. "We will have to grab a spacesuit and bail once we are far enough away from the planet to do so safely. Space Traffic Control will have been alerted that several crew members are still trapped on board, so they will be trailing us."

Cynthia was looking quite worried. "Then let's get near the spacesuits, because I do not want to be locked in a room again."

We all started jogging towards the nearest area with the emergency spacesuits. I nervously eyed up the numerous airlock doors that we passed through, but none closed to trap us.

Logan asked me, "Can you find out how many people are still on board?"

"Possibly." I grabbed the Analyzer and tried to watch the screen as well as where I was running while I hit buttons and dug into systems that I really wasn't supposed to be able to access. Whoever had built this ship's programs had not realized how much an enhanced Analyzer could do. There was one system that tracked which communication devices had left the ship, and the number of people still on board wasn't that hard to locate.

"There are 28 in total still on board, but I can't see where they are." With a crew of just over 200, 28 were still on board. There was no way that the spaceship could have accidentally trapped that many people when all they wanted to do was get off of the ship.

We finally reached the emergency exit door. Cynthia went to the cubby holding the emergency spacesuits and tugged on the door. A stunned look crossed her face before she pulled harder on the door securing the suits. In a growing panic, she cried out, "It won't open!"

"Oh no..." I quickly went over and scanned the spacesuit cubby door. :Door control offline. Authorization required.:

Offline?! I didn't know that they even had locks on them! I gritted my teeth before looking at the emergency exit door that separated us from the deadly environment outside the spaceship. On a whim, I walked over and scanned the control panel to that door. :Door control offline. Authorization required.:

I rubbed my forehead, the slight headache was once more present with my elevated stress levels. "Well, we aren't getting out of these doors. What is our next plan?"

To the best of my knowledge, most of those present had been working on this spaceship for longer than me. I seriously hoped that one of them had a lot more experience under their belt than what I assumed and would know exactly what this situation called for.

The blank and worried looks that were being shared were not encouraging. Logan started scribbling furiously on a piece of paper as he said, "We should split into small teams and see if we can locate the rest of the crew. We can regroup in the main agricultural room in an hour. It is the biggest room I can think of, and those plants provide a lot of oxygen."

Yeah, at least until the vents start stealing all the air again... Logan held out the piece of paper so everyone could see what he had written on it.

'The AI is likely listening. I tried to uninstall the upgrade last time, so it won't let me anywhere near the Bridge. Rachel, you will have to go to the Bridge and remove the fuse marked AirLocks. Then any locks on the airlocks will fail, and we can bail. You are the only one other than me with level two access, so you can get into the Bridge without any alerts being generated. You have been all over doing work tickets, so it won't be out of the norm if you go anywhere on the ship.'

He is crazy. I mouthed silently. "Me?"

He nodded and wrote more words down for me. 'You are the only one who has a chance, unless we stumble across one of the Bridge crew still on board.'

My logical mind knew he was correct. That didn't mean that I had to like it. Well, it looks like I am not done annoying the hell out of this ship just yet. I took a deep breath and played along with his earlier words. "I will check out level two and see if anyone is around there."

We all parted ways, although I gave Cynthia a hug before leaving. This might be the last time I would see her. That thought tormented me and made me sad. I really hoped that all of us would see one another again, preferably alive and healthy.

My brother's words suddenly came back to me. 'The crews ended up evacuating before their ships left port. The few ships they are tracking are just meandering through space with no crew on board.'

Each time before, all of the crew members had gotten off if they were docked, while the others had bailed. A spaceship's AI would certainly know how many crew members were left on board due to the software on the access doors that tracked who was on the ship and who was not. If I could access it with an upgraded Analyzer, then the AI surely knew that not everyone had gotten off of the ship.

Things still didn't seem to be lining up... Why was the ship not letting us leave?

I seriously hope the AI isn't out for revenge after how I spoke to it last time...