Isolation

Chapter 15

"What happened?" Mansell asked Sara.

They were alone on the bridge, and the captain was not happy.

"One of them was having trouble getting his harness on," she said. "I fixed it and got us out of there."

"You didn't have yours on," he said. "The system said your tether was empty. I thought you had died."

"It floated away. I didn't have it close enough to grab."

"You're lucky Timothy was there to save you. Otherwise, you would be with the thousands of bodies drifting in space."

"I'm sorry, sir," she said.

"It doesn't change the fact that there is still another casualty to add to the masses with the potential of it being two. You need to be careful. Luckily, the one that didn't make it was expendable, but you're not."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Did he really just say that?

"No one on this ship is expendable," she said.

"We have to be careful when it comes to risks, Mrs. Whitfield, especially you. I know you're not the most qualified to be doing this, but it's more than the rest of us. When it comes to choosing between you and another person... it needs to be you."

"Other people can learn," Sara said. "We have the Sim on the ship. We can use it for training exercises."

"The Sim on the TransArk is not Zero-G compatible. That technology only existed on the colony."

"Not if we shut down the gravity cores," she said. "It would be true Zero-G."

"Out of the question. I'm not going to potentially put other people at risk when we have you that can do it instead. If you feel like you're not qualified to be in the position I put you in, I can have you demoted to civilian status again, and we'll just potentially starve instead. We both know the latter is not an option."

"Of course I want to help," she said. "If something happens to me, I can't be replaced. Someone needs to learn what I know. You saw what happened. I almost died. Next time, it might be completely out of my control. We need more people to learn."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," he said. "In the meantime, your break is over. Get back out there before the survivors throw a riot. Go!"

She winced at his sudden change in tone.

"Yes, sir."

~~~

James jerked his head toward the sudden boom that caused birds to fly out of the trees. Everyone stopped moving. Judy jumped on her rock.

"What was that?" She asked.

James looked around.

"It sounded like a bomb," Aiden said.

"I'll go check it out," James said. "Juno, with me. Vera, you come, too. If it's another ship, they might need help."

"I'm with you," she said.

"Aiden, stay here and guard the camp. Be ready for anything."

"We got this. Go."

James and Vera, along with their wolf companion, took off in the woods.

"Everyone, listen up!" He shouted. "If it's the Drax, they'll be tough to kill. If it really is another TransArk... we can't let them into our camp."

"What are you talking about?" Judy asked. "We have injured. We don't know how to survive out here."

"We can sure as hell try," he said. "Besides, think about it. If there are other ships out there, what took them so long to get here?"