Captain's choice

Main power down to 47%, life support failure in 72 minutes. The klaxon blared out.

“Well, that’s not good.” Captain Michael Flynn tapped away at the computer and silenced the alarm. “Lt Enders, can you give me more power to life support? I don’t know about you, but I quite like breathing.” Lt Marcus Enders floated through the engineering airlock and into the main cabin. “I don’t know what to tell you captain” he sighed “The solar storm fried half of our battery cells which means we’re running on a maximum of half the power we should be, and that’s not all. He paused “What is it?”Captain Flynn said sternly “Well, we have life support for 70 minutes, I can stretch that out to maybe a few hours by closing off sections of the ship and confining the crew, but the bigger issue we have is the habitation pods. The children.

The SS Genesis was the first earth made FTL generational ship. A vessel designed for deep space travel and loaded with a special cargo of 250 Children and their parents who were currently placed in suspended animation with the express purpose of taking over control of the ship and the eventual planetary colony the Genesis was designed to set up.

The captain felt his stomach drop. “How long?” Enders swallowed. “About ninety minutes before the cryogenic systems start to fail.” Flynn moved toward a wall panel and spoke into a radio ““Senior staff to Control immediately. All other personnel report to the habitation zone. Repeat, all non-essential personnel report to the habitation zone immediately.”

A few moments later commander Lydia Jenson, XO of the Genesis and Lt Cmdr Kamala Ulrich, the navigator floated into the control room. Enders explained the situation again, outlining the nature of the situation. “I’ve worked out” he said “If we jettison one of the sci-labs, the kitchen area and the gym, we can reduce the engines to about 60% capacity. We can also cut the power to the lights and heat in non essential areas which will stretch the life support to about 8 hours, but it still doesn’t help us with cryodeck.”

“What about space suits?” Asked Kamala " We confine non essential personnel to the habitation zone, and we kill the life support to the control room and engineering, and we just survive in the space suits and divert all the rest of the power to the Cryodeck.” Lydia shook her head “The space suits only have about 3 hours of air each, they’re designed for space walks, not long term use, plus they’re practically useless for us to actually use any internal systems.

Flynn looked through the observation window toward Cryodeck. Two hundred and fifty children, plus the parents. He’d spent five years escorting them across the stars. He knew every name. “The colonists are the priority ”he said glumly. “We all knew it when we signed up for this mission., we have to keep them alive at all costs.” He fell silent for a moment, considering and then spoke again “Ulrich, we’re still several years from our intended final destination, are there any other planets en route we can change to? Anything at all?”

Ulrich move towards her station. “Not currently” she replied “we’re in the middle of nowhere right now. The nearest planet is maybe 10 months and that’s with FTL operating at full capacity, at 60% like Enders suggested, we’re looking at 16 months.” Flynn sighed “Well, we’re not making any progress floating here talking. We’re down to an hour now. Ulrich, Enders. Make preparations to jettison the sections we discussed, Jenson, speak to the rest of the crew and make sure they understand what’s happening, be ready to move everyone to the habitation zone and deactivate life support everywhere except the control room and there in 15 minutes.” “Yes sir” the crew responded in unison. Moving out of the control room.

Flynn floated over to his chair and strapped himself in, closing his eyes. There had to be a way to fix this. He found his mind wandering, “What would captain Kirk do?” The thought made Flynn smile despite himself. He’d spent half his childhood watching old science-fiction reruns and imagining himself on the bridge of a starship. Back then the captains always found a way to save the day in forty-five minutes. He was finding out first hand that real life wasn’t nearly so simple. “Captain, ready to jettison” came Ender’s voice over the comms.” “Make it so” another Star Trek reference the crew had teased him about the first time he’d used it. “Sir, if we’re all going to die soon, I just want to point out that Stargate is much better than Star Trek.” Flynn smiled “Noted Lieutenant, now get back up here please, I’d much rather not die, if only so I can tell you exactly why you’re wrong.”

Enders entered the control room. “There is… one thing, I’ve thought og” Enders said quietly. Flynn looked up. “Spit it out, Lieutenant.” Enders hesitated. “The FTL reactor has a manual override. We can force the drive into overload for a few hours, give us a boost to our systems. I’ll need to confirm with Ulrich, but I think we can cut the transit time from ten months to maybe six.” He swallowed

“It’ll burn out the FTL drive permanently, but we can reroute the excess power back through life support… and the Cryodeck. It should be enough to stabilise everything.” Flynn leaned forward slightly. “There’s an awful lot of should in there, Lieutenant. How confident are you?” Enders glanced down at his datapad. “It’s never been done before. So I can’t give you any degree of certainty other than… it’s technically possible.

The ship creaked faintly around them, as if reminding them that time was still moving, even if they weren’t. “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Flynn asked. Enders didn’t answer immediately. “Because of what it takes to do it,” he said finally. “The system is normally computer-controlled. The storm fried that layer. Someone has to manually climb inside the reactor housing to engage the physical override.” He looked up. “And stay there while it runs, the radiation suits aren’t designed for more than maybe a 15 minute exposure. This will require someone to hold the reactor open while we jump. That’s exposure no human can survive.” Silence fell again. Ender’s words hung heavy in the air.

Ulrich and Jenson entered the control room. “Everyone is ready,” Jenson said, then paused as she felt the weight in the air. “What’s happened?”

Flynn didn’t look away from the console. “Enders has found a solution,” he said. “It’s not ideal.” He explained it in simple terms. No embellishment. No technical optimism. Just the facts. When he finished, neither Ulrich nor Jenson spoke immediately.

Then Jenson shook her head slightly. “No.” Ulrich didn’t even try to hide her expression. “So,” Flynn said quietly, “I’ve made my decision.” That got their attention. He finally looked up. “I’m going.” The protest came instantly—both of them speaking at once. Flynn raised his hand. “I don’t want to argue about this,” he said. “My decision is final.”

He turned slightly toward Enders. “Lieutenant. Make the preparations.” Then to Ulrich: “Go with him. Help get things ready.” “Commander” He looked at Jenson, “stick around, we have a few things to work out.” Enders and Ulrich left, leaving Flynn alone with Jenson. “Michael” Jenson spoke but trailed off, unable to find the right words. “Don’t say anything” Flynn replied quietly “it needs to be done, there’s no other way. What kind of captain would I be if I wasn’t willing to do this for my crew, for the colony. Once I’m…” he paused as the words stuck in his throat. “Once it’s done, you’re the captain. I’ll transfer my command codes to you now. Your only objective is to keep the colony safe, get them to a planet.” Jenson nodded. “Now” he said “Do you mind if I have a moment alone?” Jenson nodded again “Of course sir” she said and left the control room.

Flynn laughed to himself as he floated alone in the control room. For the first time since the alarm sounded there were no more decisions to be made. After five years this was how it ended. No drama or glory, just a maintenance hatch and a broken rector

He made his way over to captain’s chair again. Entered his command codes and transferred full command control to Jenson, then he opened up the video log and began recording “Ships log, day 2078. This will be my final log as captain of the Genesis…

Flynn made his way down to the engineering deck. On his way down he passed through the habitation zone where the rest of the crew were gathered. No one spoke as he floated through. No cheering, no applause as if no one really knew how to react. He reached the engine room and was greeted by Jenson, Enders and Ulrich next to the reactor. Enders pointed inside “You can see the override switch on the far back wall, that needs to be locked in the down position. That’ll begin the power override. Your rad suit will protect you for the first 15 minutes and maybe a little past that, but full transfer takes at least 35 minutes. Once the override is complete we’ll get a boost to the engines and we can transfer the power to the life support and Cryodeck.” Flynn nodded silently.

Flynn put on the rad suit and floated towards the reactor hatch, pulling himself inside and made his way over to the override switch. “Ready on your mark” came Ender’s voice over the comms. Flynn took a breath, he’d always wondered what he’d say if it ever came to this. A funny line, a witty retort like in the movies? instead he opted for a simple “do it.”

He pulled down the lever. At first he felt nothing. The radsuit was doing it’s job Enders’ voice came through the comms “power transfer at 9%…12%….17%” The minutes ticked by slowly. His radsuit gave out an exposure warning. This was it. “Power transfer 27%…..36%….” The suit finally stopped it’s warnings. Flynn started to feel hot, and his body began to ache all over “Transfer at 68%……74%…… 83%” His head was pounding, his skin was itching “89%….94%……transfer complete. You did it captain.” Cheers echoed through the radio but Flynn barely heard them. He felt dizzy and disorientated. He called out one final time “Enders?” “Yes sir” “You’re still wrong about Stargate” “Yes sir” Enders let out something between a laugh and sob and then, silence. “Sir?” … “Captain?….”Michael?”

Six Months later…..

The Genesis was no longer a ship. It was a colony. The ship completed the FTL jump as planned and, as predicted burned out the engines in the process. From there it was a simple task to bring the life support and Cryodeck back to full power. Now, six months on, the first structures were being built, prefabricated houses. greenhouses, schools. A future, slowly being assembled, a new world taking shape.

At the centre of it all stood a name painted across the main habitation block. Flynn Base.