Is this a writing/drawing challenge for Sapphic September 2024, because I didn't see any, and my brain just waterfalled this all over a page?
It can be if you would like it to be.
No pressure, like, at all.
But if you do, maybe tag your works with Sapphtember so people can discover them?
The bridge rocked with the latest impact, and there were cries of alarm and frustration as crew members were thrown against their restraints.
“Captain! We can’t take another hit like that! Our shields are only at 17%!”
The Captain shouted at the pilot. “I want full evasive maneuvers! Maximum thrust!”
The pilot strained with the haptic controls. “I’m... doing... the best I can, Captain! We need to jump out, now!”
The Captain gritted her teeth against another near miss. She slammed a button on her chair’s arm console. "Engineering, what’s going on down there? We need to jump out, immediately!”
The Chief Engineer’s voice came scratchily over the internal comms. “Sir, the NavComputer, it’s... it’s uncalibrated! It needs more time to calculate!”
“You have thirty seconds, if that, Lieutenant Irya! Get it done, or we’re all cooked!”
“Aye, Captain.” Lieutenant Irya, down in engineering, stared at the jump core. The ship rocked again, and she steeled herself, then unsealed the hatch, and went inside. Past radiation warnings, a maze of wires, and beeping red diagnostics indicators, she found the NavComputer.
It looked like a young woman, her head missing from above her nose, connected directly to a giant cable leading into the structure she found herself in. She was curled up, naked, on a crash couch. She shivered in the sweltering waste heat of her own processors. The ship shuddered, and she screamed, her hands going to her ears.
Lieutenant Irya got her feet back under her, then knelt down and took one of the NavComputer’s hands. “Hey. Hey! It’s okay. We’ll get out of this.”
“No! No we won’t! We’re doomed! This ship will be destroyed, 98% certainty within the next two minutes!”
“NavComp, listen to me. You can do this. There’s always a way out.”
“No! That’s not it at all... there’s, there’s... there’s too many ways out! I can’t see which one to take! Any one of them could lead to disaster, to more death, to our instant demise, unknown percent certainty within the next ten-year cycle!” Diagnostic screens lit up all around them, showing bright dotted lines around the sector, all ending in giant red X marks.
Lieutenant Irya took the computer’s other hand and held them both tightly. “It’s okay! NavComp, you don’t have to know everything that’s going to happen! We can’t stay here, but as long as the crew and the ship are together, there’ll be a way for us to survive. I promise you, if you can just make a decision, we’ll be there to back you up. Nobody will take you away from us. Okay?” She waited for a moment, staring earnestly at NavComp’s face, aware of the cameras in the corners of the tiny room where NavComp’s real eyes were watching. Slowly, gently, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the computer’s.
The displays, one by one, winked out, until there was only one left. The lights around it went from red, to yellow, to blue, and finally, to green. “Jump course locked in,” breathed NavComp against Lieutenant Irya’s cheek.
The Captain’s voice rang out through the comm system. “All hands! Jump course locked and hyperdrive ready! Brace for Jump!”
Lieutenant Irya jumped onto the couch, and set her crash restraints alongside NavComp’s. As the hyperdrive blended the fabric of space and time together, the two women held hands, tight against the possibility of the future.
