The Last Voyage of the Sakura. Part 4

Posted on 05 May 2018 @ 2:38pm by Ensign Miraj Derani

612 words; about a 3 minute read

Day Fourteen
(MD118)

Borgon has gone into the Norfolk Island computer. It’s slower than a becalmed barque. But he's in. It was a colony ship. Unlike its infamous sister ship, this wasn't all augments. Some augments, and their families, and friends. A mixed colony, wanting to start anew. So where were they? They were on board when it launched, but the ship is intact, no signs of boarding, no signs of anything. Borgon is converting the logs and charts for me, so I can see if I can figure out its course. Considering it was sublight, I'm amazed it got this far out in four hundred years.

Day Fifteen
I was walking past Captain O'Keefe's quarters. I heard him talking to someone else. He was shouting, telling them to go away. Which was strange, because quarters are supposed to be sound proofed. I thought he was talking to Borgon, but when I asked him about it, Borgon I mean, he denies even speaking to the captain today.

Day Sixteen
O'Keefe is in a foul mood. First thing, he marched us down to sick bay. Which is just a broom closet with a holoemitter. The EMH is ancient. A mark 3 that can't have run for more than a few hours. He made the EMH give us all shots against radiation, all the basic stuff, alpha, beta, gamma. Really old school.

Soon figured out why. We all walked over to the Norfolk Island and we tried to figure out how to shut down the nuclear engine. It’s prehistoric. All carbon rods and water cooling. Borgon got it figured out, and mostly I just had to watch the dials (Dials! Hell’s bells, that's prehistoric) in case they did anything interesting.

There was a lot of creaking, and groaning and protesting. But everything shut down. And once it was shut down that ship was just too quiet. So much silence, just hanging there. Sucking sound out of everything.

Day Seventeen
The captain seemed in better spirits this morning. I guess he got a good night's sleep, because I slept like a baby. After I'd done the usual course checks I started going through the files from Norfolk Island. It looks like it was aimed at Procyon, which would have given the Andorians a big surprise if they made it.

Looks like everything was doing okay for the first, I guess fifty oe so years? They got about five light years out, and then all their navigation went screwy. Can't see why. There's nothing on the charts I have. I've got the computer trying to figure out how they ended up going off at a tangent. They were all asleep, so there's no Captain’s Log or anything to go by. Just sensors sweeps and everything, all automated and regular.

Day Eighteen
This ship is starting to get on my nerves. It feels... tight... small. LIke its closing in. I keep thinking I'm seeing things. Like shadows going the wrong direction, but when I check, everything's fine.

And strange things keep happening too. Just a little while ago, I'd just got back from my break when all the lights went out. All of them. All over the ship. Borgon started swearing, because that shouldn't have happened. It was just the lights. Nothing else seemed affected. The computer stayed on, the warp core was fine, it was literally just the lights.

It lasted about of a minute. A minute in not quite darkness, and I swear to Davey Jones, the shadows were moving like they were alive.

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