ARK NOVA

Chapter 6 Embers in the Dark

The first rivet had been more than a piece of metal; it was a seed. In the twenty-four hours that followed its placement, Cargo Bay 4 had blossomed into a frantic, chaotic, and undeniably hopeful hub of activity. The single expert team had been broken up, its members now serving as foremen and teachers for dozens of smaller crews.

Aurora watched on a monitor from the bridge as Kei Tanaka, looking exhausted but energized, patiently guided the hands of Dr. Aris Thorne, the poet laureate, as he made his first clumsy but successful plasma weld. A small cheer went up from his work group. All across the bay, similar scenes were playing out. The Colony Division was learning. Progress was slow, agonizingly so, but it was real.

The QAS interface reflected this fragile progress.

Project: Hydroponics Bay (Tier 1)

Progress: 3%

Time Remaining: 11 days, 12 hours.

Worker Efficiency: 42% (Sub-Optimal)

Morale: 28/100 (Critical)

The numbers were still terrible, but they were all trending in the right direction. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Aurora allowed herself a flicker of something that felt dangerously like optimism.

That was when the alarms went off.

It wasn't the piercing shriek of a hull breach, but a deep, guttural amber alert that vibrated through the deck plates. On the main screen, the reactor status icon flashed yellow.

“Report!” Aurora snapped, her optimism vanishing in a flash of cold adrenaline.

An engineer from the reactor deck responded, his voice tight with stress. “Captain, we’re getting massive power fluctuations from the core. The energy draw from the construction project is… it’s unstable. The containment field is flickering.”

Linh was already at her console, her fingers flying across the interface. “The total power consumption is thirty percent higher than my most aggressive projections,” she said, her voice sharp with disbelief. “It doesn’t make sense. Even with the inefficiencies of a new workforce, the tools themselves have regulators. They shouldn’t be able to draw this much power.”

Mac’s voice came over the comm from the cargo bay. “What’s going on, Captain? The lights are browning out down here. My people are getting spooked.”

“Keep them calm, Mac,” Aurora ordered, her mind racing. “Shut down all non-essential work crews. Power down everything but the lights.”

She watched the reactor schematic, her heart pounding in time with the flashing yellow icon. The power draw dipped, but the fluctuations remained, spiking erratically. This wasn't just a strain on the system. This was something else.

A new window popped up in her QAS display, its text a stark, unwelcome red.

WARNING: Reactor Integrity at 74%.

Containment field instability detected.

Cause: Unregulated power surges.

Recommendation: Cease all non-essential industrial activity immediately.

Time to potential cascade failure: 3 hours.

Three hours. If they couldn't stabilize the reactor, the Hydroponics Bay would be the least of their worries. The entire ship would become their tomb.

“Linh, can you isolate the source of the surges?” Aurora asked, her voice dangerously calm.

“I’m trying,” Linh replied, her brow furrowed in concentration. “The surges are too sporadic. They’re not coming from a single source, it’s more like… a parasitic drain that jumps between systems. It’s illogical.”

Mac’s voice returned, lower this time, meant for Aurora’s ears alone. “Captain, a word. Privately.”

Aurora switched to a secure channel. “Go ahead, Mac.”

“My foreman for Sector Gamma just reported in. A master diagnostic kit went missing from a maintenance locker near the primary coolant conduits about an hour ago. He thought one of the new workers had misplaced it. But that locker is nowhere near the cargo bay.”

A cold dread washed over Aurora. A missing toolkit. Illogical power surges. A location near the ship’s most critical systems. The pieces clicked into place with sickening certainty.

“Mac, meet me at maintenance junction 4-Alpha. Bring two of your best people. No sirens, no alarms. Move quietly.”

“Understood,” he replied.

Aurora turned command of the bridge over to her executive officer and moved toward the lift, her face a grim mask. The ghosts of Docking Ring 7 had been a heavy burden, but they were ghosts of the past. She was beginning to realize there were more immediate demons to contend with.

Maintenance junction 4-Alpha was a cramped, dimly lit corridor deep in the ship’s engineering section, a maze of pipes and conduits that hummed with the barely-contained power of the fusion reactor. Mac was already there with two grim-faced militia members, their sidearms drawn.

“This way,” Mac grunted, pointing his light toward a coolant control panel.

The panel was supposed to be sealed. It wasn't. The cover hung ajar, and inside, the neat, color-coded wiring was a mess. A crude device, cobbled together from components in the missing diagnostic kit, had been clamped onto the main power regulator. It was a bypass, designed to siphon energy in random, massive bursts, deliberately overloading the system. It was amateurish, reckless, and lethally effective.

“It’s not a strain,” Aurora whispered, staring at the device. “It’s sabotage.”

Mac knelt, examining the wiring without touching it. “Whoever did this knew just enough to be dangerous. They weren’t trying to steal power. They were trying to break the reactor.”

He looked up at her, his face illuminated by the beam of his flashlight, and in his eyes, she saw the same terrible understanding that was dawning in her own mind. The greatest threat to the Ark Nova wasn't the cold, unforgiving void outside.

It was the enemy within.

The QAS chimed, its soft tone an insult to the gravity of the moment.

New Priority Quest Generated: A Serpent in the Garden

Objective: Identify and neutralize the saboteur.

Consequence of Failure: Reactor Core Meltdown. Ship Destruction.

Time Limit: 2 hours, 41 minutes.