Tagrale - Desolate Stars

Chapter 4-1

4

Jenna woke with a start as something stabbed into her shoulder. She flailed around for a moment, struggling with the feeling of falling, then snapped fully awake.

She blinked rapidly, trying to work out where she was. Finally she realised she was still in the small space set aside for the hard reset of the systems. But she was now floating close to one wall and twisted ninety degrees from where she had been. That was why she’d struggled to work out where she was… what had been down was now across from her.

She didn’t remember falling asleep. No, that was stupid… who ever did? But she didn’t remember getting tired or deciding to sleep. She remembered floating, finding peace in the thought that she’d achieved her childhood dreams, but not feeling sleepy.

She checked the time on her datapad. Four hours had passed! Four hours and yet she was still alive. Her first instinct was to reach for the oxygen cylinder, but she resisted it. Low oxygen could be an issue but the real problem was a build-up of carbon dioxide. In the small space it should have been more than enough to start causing her major issues by now. Not least of which would be mental confusion, which she didn’t seem to have.

She shivered as a cool breeze played across her skin, then frowned. A breeze? Was the life support working? Had the systems finally started?

No. She couldn’t hear anything, and the console was still lifeless. Then how was there a breeze? And why hadn’t the level of carbon dioxide overwhelmed her by now?

The answer hit her as another draft made her shiver. She was the difference. She was in a small area and was radiating heat. That was keeping the area warm even as the rest of the ship cooled, and that temperature difference was causing the breeze which in turn was refreshing the air around her.

“Great. So I’ll stay alive till I truly freeze then!” she muttered.

She stretched, then winced as her movements drove her into the sharp edge of the wall once more. She pushed herself off, righting her orientation, and pulled herself down to the console. It was still completely dead.

She raised a hand to smash it down on the console, certain it wouldn’t help but equally sure it would make her feel better. Her hand stayed frozen in mid-air as she noticed something she hadn’t before… one of the leads for the console was floating loose!

Not by much. In fact by less than the width of her finger, but it was out of the spot it should occupy. It looked as if the sudden transition to weightlessness had caused it to come loose… and so caused the console to remain inactive.

“s**t!” she shouted, slamming her hand down on the console after all.

Then she grabbed the lead and jabbed it in. The console immediately came to light, displaying a simple message…

System Reset Completed.

All of the tension, the worry and the fear came out in a deep laugh which Jenna couldn’t keep in. Really? That was it? She’d been floating here worrying and trying to decide on how best to face death because of a bloody loose connection? She kept on laughing and couldn’t stop for several minutes. When she finally did she felt much better… and more than ready to get things going again.

This time the screen only had one option for her to take — continue. She did, and the text on the screen flickered to display a new message.

Welcome. Please enter the master-code you wish to use.

She’d known this was coming but it was still something she hated. Choosing a passcode generally was bad enough, but the master code was… well, the master code. It gave access to everything, allowed anything to be overridden. If it was forgotten then only a full system reset could change it. She sure as hell didn’t want to go through that again.

Her first instinct was to use the same code she’d used for the Vision. It was embedded in her mind and no one else would know it. Not even Paula. Jenna had given Paula full access to the ship of course, but the master code went beyond allowing someone else full access. It allowed them to do anything.

She couldn’t use the code from the Vision. Something was holding her back. She wasn’t sure if it was fear that someone would somehow have got hold of that code or just a feeling that it would be disloyal to the Vision to reuse it.

Maybe it was both. In theory there was no way Harry could have learnt the Vision’s code, but she sure as hell didn’t want to take any chances he had. He’d given her nasty surprises too many times already.

On the other hand, the last thing she wanted was to forget the code she entered, or to store it somewhere that it could be found. Finally she settled on a variation on the code she’d used on the Vision. Close enough to be easily remembered, but with the last seven characters changed in a way she was sure she could remember.

She entered the code, then re-entered it three more times when prompted. For the first time she felt whoever had designed the reset procedure had made a good design decision. It was a pain to enter the code four times, but it sure as hell eliminated the risk of entering the wrong code.

The screen switched to a message telling her the change was processing. A series of dots slowly unfolded, but when they filled a row they simply disappeared and the process restarted. It did at least show that things were happening, but it gave no idea of how long it would take before this phase completed.