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"Hey, you busy?" Alice asks.

He turns in his chair, looking through the pod's door. "Hardly. Come in."

She steps in and produces two plates. "Here, roast beef with garlic, rosemary & girolles, and for desert, I brought Chocolate Love Cake with cherries."

Keylan quickly turns his seat and helps her arrange the plates on the instrument console. "This smells wonderful, you're trying to spoil me."

She smiles. "Maybe. Now I kinda wish I brought some wine."

Keylan grabs a pair of cups, reaches behind him, and pulls out a bottle. "I have some Jeniver."

She shakes her head. "I'll pass then."

He puts the bottle back and pulls out a bottle of water instead. As he starts to pour, the ship violently shudders and the lights change to red.

"Hull breach detected. Initiating containment," the ship announces.

Before either can react, the hatch door closes. Alice nervously says, "Status report."

The ships voice comes through the pod's speakers. "Hull breach, decks 1 through 10, sections B, C, and E. All sections sealed. Structural integrity stable at 83%"

"Deck 1? Status on bridge crew," Keylan states, fearing the answer.

"Bridge crew absent."

Keylan turns and starts punching buttons. "Give me a damage assessment, visual only."

The window lights up, showing a three dimensional view of the ship. Labels and lines appear and several start flashing red, indicating damage. Most are arranged in an angle around a hole that starts at the bridge and angles down and back from it through the crew cabins out the bottom of the ship. There are several more scattered across the upper and lower hulls, behind the main breach.

Several of the red areas start changing to yellow, indicating that venting in those areas has stopped.

Keylan starts pointing to various areas as he assesses the ship. "Engines...computer core...cryo bay...equipment storage...all seem ok. Probably lost some fuel..."

Alice swallows hard and asks, "What hit us?"

"Unsure," the ship states.

"Make a guess."

There's a moment of silence before the ship answers, "A small ship or shuttle also in FTL."

"An FTL collision? Out here?" Keylan asks. "What are the odds of that?"

"Not enough available memory to compute," the ship states.

"Rhetorical question," Alice states. "Are there any other survivors?"

Blue lights come on scattered around the exterior areas, showing the five remaining crew members. From their locations, they know that they're ensigns.

The ship suddenly shudders again. "Structural integrity 82% and holding."

Keylan frowns. "To all remaining crew, this is Brigadier General Araman Keylan, Planetary Research Security Force, Retired. We've lost the command crew, so I'm assuming command of the ship."

"We've been hit by an unknown object but the ship is holding together. We're going to hold off abandoning ship as long as possible in the hopes of getting into the galactic arm. That's still a week away. I'd strongly recommend that you make an escape pod your home till then."

"Right now the automated functions still seem to be running, but I don't know if we're still on course. That will be my first task when I reach engineering."

Still looking at the damage assessment, Alice grimaces. "Uhm, Key. Our corridor is exposed to vacuum, and so is engineering."

He looks at the display again. "Yeah, you'll have to wear the pods enviro-suit while I wear my armor."

"Key, neither are rated for full vacuum."

"You'll say in the pod. Between Drudge and my armor, I'll have just enough time to bring back two vacuum suits."

He opens a compartment next to the hatch and hands the one suit in it to her.

"We're doing this now?"

Opening his armor case, he says, "This can't wait. Once I'm out, re-pressurize the pod and check on the others. You'll be able to talk to Drudge if you need me."

She watches him put on the sections of his armor for a moment, then reluctantly slips into the enviro-suit.

As Keylan picks up his chest piece, Alice presses her hands flat to his chest.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"I'm doing the only thing I can to help you, flooding your system with as much acetazolamide as I can, and some dexamethasone and nifedipine."

"I'm not climbing a mountain here."

"No, you're going to do something far worse." She sniffs and puts her head against his chest.

He wraps an arm around her and calmly says, "I've done this before."

Still pressing her hands into him, she nods. "I know, but you were so much younger then."

"And Drudge has more ability now," he softly counters. "The other survivors don't have the experience needed to do a between-arm course correction."

She slowly pulls away. "You go, and you come back with the suits. You do nothing else. Like it or not, I love you."

"I know, because I love you, too."

She sniffs back some tears. "You gotta go. That medicine won't last too long."

They both finish with their suits, and Keylan steps to the hatch. "I'm gonna have to let the air out slow so your suit don't pop. Once I'm out the door, you get this capsule repressurized."

She nods, and he checks the seals on her suit. With them showing green, he starts letting the air out of the pod.

As her suit slowly stretches out, all the sounds fade away. Seeing her start to worry, he puts his helmet to hers and says, "Almost there, just relax."

She nervously nods, and he turns to the door. As it starts to open he sees her grab for her arm, her suit is growing a bubble.

It's going to burst.

He jumps through the door, hitting the repressurize button on his way. The door clips his foot as it closes, knocking him to the floor.

He scrambles to his feet, and looks through the porthole on the door.

Alice lies crumpled on the floor. Her suit's arm has come off.

"Alice!" he screams, holding his helmet to the door, hoping some of the sound transfers.

Not seeing movement, he softly asks, "Drudge, please tell me her AI's still active."

"He is, and he is urging us to hurry. We have less than five minutes."

Fighting back tears, he says, "Be okay."

Trying to focus on the task, he turns and heads down the port side corridor to find the doors propped open, a section of plating caught between them.

"4 minutes, 23 seconds," Drudge announces. He's already starting to feel light headed, and his lungs are burning. Suit must be out of air.

Trying not to panic, he hits the override and the doors open. The hall beyond is full of debris. He pulls the plating out of the way and then checks the suit locker. The door is peppered with small holes.

A quick check of the suits inside reveals that they too are full of holes. Useless.

"3:45."

He barely heard that.

His lungs are burning, his eyes feel like they could pop. The suit has lost all it's pressure.

He's in vacuum.

He feels the ship shudder again and wonders what the hull integrity is.

He punches the emergency close button and makes sure the doors seal. The lock sets, but no air fills the room. The other doors must be open too. He turns and heads back around to the other side.

• 3:15 - appears before him, and starts counting down. No air means no sound, so Drudge put up a visual reminder using the armor's visor display.

Reaching the other doors, he finds then open. The hall beyond is open and he can see the damage. The hole is nearly thirty meters across. Sparks fly from power conduits, vapor trails from smaller holes, and he can see into the decks above and below him. Most of the debris appears to have been sucked out by decompression.

Collecting himself, he quickly checks the suit locker and finds only one inside.

• 2:15 -

He spent longer gawking than he thought.

He leans against the wall and tries to focus.

One suit. Alice won't survive another decompression, if she survived this one.

Need to close these doors.

He punches the emergency close. Nothing happens. Doors don't have any power.

Manual override.

Keylan tries to grab at the wall panel just below the controls. His fingers are numb. His vision is blurring.

• 1:42 -

Unable to find the handhold, Keylan punches a hole in the wall and rips the panel off.

_Where's the lever?_He fumbles along the wall but doesn't find it.

He staggers to the other wall and rips the panel off.

There it is. He grabs the lever and pulls.

The doors vibrate, and then swing closed.

• 0:53 -

One more pull to lock them.

He pushes the lever back in, then pulls it again.

The lock sets and he falls to the floor.

He grabs for the pressure suit as he climbs to his feet.

• 0:23 -

Using the wall to hold himself up, he tries to stagger back to the pod.

He gets four steps before falling. His helmet comes off and bounces across the floor.

He reflexively gasps, a futile struggle for air.

• 0:11 -

His vision blackens, his body goes limp.

• 0:05 -

He can barely hear his heartbeat echoing through the floor.

• 0:01 -

He stops moving. Blood slowly oozes from his eyes, ears, and nose.