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The young woman sighs as the gentle beeping of her morning alarm drags her from a pleasant dream. She carefully stretches before feeling next to herself on the narrow bed.

As she comes fully awake the alarm stops.

The young woman brushes down her body, feeling from her chest, over her firm belly and down across her thighs. She feels that the thick hair that covers her body is quite disarrayed and the insides of her legs are quite the mess.

She sits up, sighing again and asks the room, "Clay?"

There is no response except the quiet whisper of ventilation.

A gentle beep sounds to let her know that she has a message waiting for her on her personal assistant.

The woman stands and makes her way towards the attached sanitary facilities. As she steps into the shower she asks the room for the message.

A feminine computerized voice emirates from a speaker in the ceiling, "Claymont regrettably had to leave early to assist with some urgent external repairs. He says that he will message you as soon as he gets back inside the shell."

As she activates the shower with a practiced touch to the control surface, she asks, "This was too big for the active crew?"

The computer replies, "All of last shift's external repair crew were suddenly removed from duty by a sudden medical emergency."

The gentle mist of the shower efficiently soaks the shower's occupant while still allowing her to converse with the computer. "All of them?"

"There was apparently a malfunction in one of the food preparation machines and after they ate their mid-shift meal, none of them were able to return to work."

"Oh my, are they all okay?"

"All are recovering in the medical bay and should be up to full strength in a few days."

She steps out of the shower and uses a grooming tool on her entire body. She has long and thick hair that cascades down her back which takes more time to arrange than the rest of her pelt. The hair on her nearly prehensile tail is even shorter and easier to manage than her body hair. As she's preparing for the day she asks the computer, "Is there anything else I should know?"

With no noticeable pause the computer reports, "There is an increased number of breakdowns all over but nothing life threatening has been reported. Elevator seventeen is caught in a loop going between 3 sections. No one has been able to shut it down yet. Half the treadmills in the gym have stopped working, cause so far is unknown. Most importantly, Trilla's pet lizard picked the lock on its cage again and can not be found because it apparently ate its tracker by biting off it's own tail."

She laughs, "I keep telling Trilla that she should not keep him in a cage. He's too intelligent. Probably could teach that little guy to fly scout missions."

The computer has nothing to say about that so just chimes an acknowledgment.

As she makes her way to her suite's main room, the young lady sits at her little table and finds the box which contained her personal medical equipment. She slips a finger inside to receive her daily doses though the tiny port in the side of that finger.

The computer reports, "There are no significant changes to report."

"Thank you," the woman says as she stands and heads to the door.

The hallway was quiet as the door slides shut behind her. A few people can be heard passing by in the nearest of the cross corridors but none of her neighbors usually wake up this early. Using her guide she strides towards the busier corridor.

As she turns the corner, she is assaulted by a happy voice in front of her, "Cinders!" The other woman grabs her in a hug. "So good to see you again!"

Cinders puts her guide into rest mode and hugs her friend back, "Melody, when did you get back?"

"Going to the gym?" Melody asks.

Cinders confirms and Melody leads her there.

"Yeah. When you go into the Command Academy, they lock you away for the first few months but now I can continue my studies from anywhere, so I moved back in with my old crew."

"Oh? Won't they have a problem with you now outranking them?"

Melody laughs, "Not as long as they get to enjoy some of the perks."

The two women reach the gym and Melody leads Cinders to her usual treadmill, which still seems to work. Melody takes the next on in line. Cinders uses voice command to set the treadmill for a five minute warmup, then a three mile run over mixed hilly terrain. Melody copies the program to her own treadmill and they chat as they run.

Cinders slips her guide into the charging slot that is mounted to the side of her desk as she sits. She puts her hand to the center of the desk which logs her in and connects the system to the audio implants in her ears and starts reading through the first dozen reports in her inbox. She stops her reading when she hears her boss approach.

Cinders turns from her desk.

"Hey Cinders," he says as he rolls up.

"What's up?"

"I don't know," he says, sounding flustered. "I know you just got here but it appears that all my files are being translated."

"Translated? Into what?"

"I don't know," he now just sounds baffled. "I'm reading along and all of a sudden the text just starts changing. I look at the next report and it's changed too and into a different language than the first. Can you see if you can figure out what's going on and who started this?"

"Sure," Cinders says as she bookmarks her own work and opens a new process.

With no warning, everything goes silent, except for gasps from the man next to her.

The computer stops talking in Cinder's ears, the ventilations fans have gone silent as well and the only noise that can be heard are the surprised exclamations of others in the office.

"What the...?" Sammy sounds completely confused.

"What's going on?" Cinder asks.

"Everything has gone dead," Sammy replies.

"Everything?"

"The lights, the vents, the computers," Sammy rattles the control on his chair, "my chair. It's completely black in here. No lights. Everything's just dead. The emergency lights haven't even come on."

Cinders turns to call someone from the next room and that's when she notices something else. Stunned, she whispers, "Gravity is off too." She grabs her desk to keep herself from floating away.

Sammy groans, "Oh, this is bad. This hasn't ever happened before."

Cinders carefully pushes off from her desk and floats to the nearest wall. She finds the door and calls into the next room, "Jay, Simon, you two okay?"

Two male voices reply in the affirmative.

"Anything working for you two?" Cinder asks.

Jay finds the door as he floats over, "Nothing," he says. "My little emergency pocket lights aren't even working."

"Sammy's chair is dead too. Can you two take care of him? I can't handle that monster in zero-g."

"Yeah," Jay says. "We got you Sammy."

Simon thumps into the wall on the other side of the door and mutters, "Ow, just bent a finger the wrong way." He pokes his head around the edge of the door when he gets himself under control again. "Comms are down. Nothing's working."

"Cinders?" Sammy asks, "Could you go see if you can open the main door? If ventilation is off, we need as much airflow as we can get."

"Right," Cinders replies as she floats along the wall away from the three men until she finds the main office door. She feels for the controls and then yanks open the panel that would normally be below them. Inside the panel is a small fold out crank. Bracing herself against the wall and what used to be the floor, she grabs the stationary handle in one hand and the crank in the other. The door cranks open smoothly and she can feel a slight breeze enter.

"I have it open," Cinders says.

Farther back in the office thumps, exclamations and instructions can are heard as everyone else attempts to make their way to the front of the office suite.

Outside in the corridor, similar noises are heard as people try to understand what is going on and find their way to a surface to hold onto. A few people are starting to panic as they are unable to find purchase in the microgravity.

Grabbing her guide from the desk, Cinders checks and it too is unresponsive. She calls Jay over. "I think you have the most zero-g training of all of us."

"Yeah, lot of good it will do me since I can't see anything," he says.

Cinders pats jay on the shoulder and guides him to the main door, "That's my department." She hands one end of the guide to Jay. "I want you to swing me out into the corridor. I'll grab a floater and then you pull us back to the wall."

"Got it," Jay says as he anchors himself using the doorframe.

By sound alone, Cinders floats out into the corridor while keeping hold of the other end of her guide. She finds one of the people who are stuck to far from a surface and tells Jay to pull them back in.

Panting, but calming down when she touches the wall, Glenna thanks Cinders and Jay. "Oh my, that was scary. I didn't know where I was, can't see a thing, gravity is gone, no up. At least I have a wall now."

Cinders and Jay move down a way and pull two more people in. Cinders reached out and grabs on whatever she finds, leg, tail, ear, she does care as long as she is able to grab something.

When they reach the nearest intersection they tell others about the technique and other things are found to help pull more people to a surface. The last person Cinders pulls in is Melody.

"Oh Cinders!" Melody gasps, "So glad you grabbed me. What do we know?"

"Nothing. Everything is out."

"I know," Melody shudders against Cinder's side, "It's dark, really dark, like looking outside with blackout glasses on."

"Of course," Melody laughs at herself, "that means nothing to you."

"It's quiet, too quiet. No computers, no machines of any sort, no vent fans," Cinders agrees.

Melody twitches, "I was on my way to Central Operations, now I'm all disoriented. I should get there if I can."

"Wait," Cinders turns to call behind her, "Jay, you back with Sammy?"

Jay calls back, "Yeah, you do your thing."

Cinders grabs Melody around the waist and pushes off the wall.

Melody squeaks, "Hey!"

"Reach out your right hand," Cinders says.

Cinders pulls Melody along and they bounce in a slightly different direction each time they hit a wall. This way they make progress along the corridor until the next intersection.

A man's voice is heard immediately after the sound of scraping metal as a wall panel is moved to the side. "There," he says, "we have access to the maintenance tunnels."

Cinders floats Melody over and bumps into the man. She apologizes, but asks, "You got a hatch into the maintenance tunnels open?"

"Cinders? Oh, yes, this is Timothy. My crew and I were down here to work on a wonky fan when the lights went out."

"Timothy, I've got Melody and she needs to get to CenOps. Can we get there from here?"

"Yeah," Timothy confirms, "two floors straight up."

Melody asks, "Which way is up?"

Timothy has Melody feel around between the ladder and the hatch opening until she finds the sign inside the wall that shows section and deck indicators. "Techs have to be able to find a hatch in the dark, dense smoke, whatever, so we learn to read the signs by touch. When you get there, turn the handle on the hatch and you will be right outside CenOps."

"Cinders, come with me," says Melody.

"I can't," Cinders pants suddenly.

"Why?"

"Clay."

Melody gasps, "He could be outside!" Melody grabs Cinders' arm for a moment before she grabs the wall and pulls herself into the hatch and starts to crawl up the ladder.

Timothy says, "Down all the way to the bottom, four ladders to the left. It's a long way. You want company?"

"No," answers Cinders, "these people here might need more of your help. I'm fine in zero-g and otherwise this is my normal."

"Right," Timothy replies.

Cinders pushes off, letting one hand slide down the outside rail of the ladder as she descends. After the trek through the gently curving maintenance tunnel, she finds the fourth ladder and the nearby handle. As she pops the hatch open she hears men's voices on the other side.

"Man, you had us scared for a while there," one voice says.

Cinders hears someone struggling from a suit while several other men are busy cranking open the airlock door.

"Is everyone back in?" Cinders asks.

"Cinders?" Claymont is surprised. "Well, of course you could find us down here."

Cinders floats towards Clay who's still half in his EVA suit and hugs him.

Clay continues, "Yeah, everyone was attached when whatever this is happened. Everything went dead in our suits. Air, thermal, propulsion, comms, all gone. If we hadn't been close to the lock we probably would have frozen out there."

"I'm glad you all were able to line back in. At least no one was wearing a power suit," Cinders said.

"Yeah," Clay said. "Isn't your boss in a power chair?"

"Yeah, Sammy's fine." She gasps as a thought occurs to her. "Oh no, I hope no one's on life support right now."

Someone who Cinders doesn't know speaks up, "I got a look at some of those machines when I punctured a lung a while back. They have manual controls just like the doors. Someone's got to be there to pump but it'll keep people alive until the power comes back on."

Cinders relaxes a little, "Oh, well, I hope they have someone if there's anyone in their."

"Probably is," the same voice says, "they don't leave people alone when they're on those machines. Too many things can go wrong and to support mental health."

Clay finishes struggling out of his suit, which isn't as easy when there is no gravity.

"Everything electrical is out. Do we have anything chemical for light?" He asks the group in general.

"Yeah," says another man. "If I can get to the shop I should be able to find something. Magnesium at least."

"That's pretty dangerous but it's a start," another man says.

"Cinders," Clay asks, "you came through a maintenance tunnel, could you lead Jer to it?"

Cinders asks, "Which one's Jer?"

"Me," answers an earlier speaker.

Cinders reaches out and grabs Jer's shirt.

"Hey!" Jer laughs but follows where Cinders directs him.

The two collide with the far wall and within moments Jer has found the hatch.

"Thanks," he says and orients himself to the floor before moving off down the corridor.

Cinders floats back to the rest of the group.

Clay asks, "So, what do we know, Cinders?"

"Not much," Cinders replies. "It was just another day at the office when everything just went dark. Everything. Well, a normal day, except things were going weird."

"Weird?" someone asks.

"Gym equipment and elevators doing unexplainable things then my boss just came to me saying that all his reports were being translated into random languages as he was trying to read them."

"We barely even got to look outside before everything went dark," Clay says.

"I got Melody up to CenOps before I came down here," Cinders says.

"They let Melody out?" asks Clay.

"Yeah," Cinders replies, "on the job training, I suppose."

Clay laughs, "One blaze of a first day."

After some loud banging and more than a few choice swear words the men cheered as Jer returned carrying a makeshift magnesium lamp. He says, "I should get over to the chemicals lab to see if we can make some chemical lights."