Fractions of a second later–although it felt far longer–the emergency lighting turned on, bathing both of them in a red glow. Lillian looked over to Madeline and could see her mouth moving, but realized that she couldn’t hear a word she was saying. Couldn’t hear anything. She reached up to rub at her ears, but it didn’t help.
[/quote]
Well there's one question answered. But clarification on the scratches would still be nice. I'd use a different verb than 'blew' in the second case, just to keep things interesting.
She gestured to her ears and made a shhing motion. Madeline got the hint and turned to her augs, her fingers wiggling so that her internal system could pick up the letters. A second later, a message popped into Lillian’s field of view.
What was that?
I don’t know, she sent back, But I don’t think we have to report back anymore. With an explosion like that, I’m sure there’ll be security all over in a few minutes.
I think… Madeline hesitated. I think you just saved my life. Again. She grabbed hold of Lillian and hugged her tightly.
That’s what friends are for.
Thank you.
The 'shhing' motion seems a bit weird, makes it sound like she thinks Madeline is being too loud. Maybe she just shakes her head?
It is now clear what augs are, but I think it would be a good idea to mention them some time in chapter 2 so they don't come out of nowhere for this.
As they talked, her hearing started to return. The first thing she noticed was a high pitched ringing. She turned about trying to find the source, but it seemed to be following her as she did. The second was a warning klaxon attached to the emergency lighting. It’s too quiet, Lillian thought, no one will be able to hear it.
Then her brain caught up and she realized that if a warning was going off, there was probably a good reason for it. She brought up a ship’s map on her display. Almost a quarter of the ship was flashing red spread along the entirety of its inner ring and not just where they were.
Look at this, she sent the map to Madeline.
I honestly can't tell if the too-quiet klaxon is supposed to show that she hasn't completely gotten her hearing back yet or not. It should, but you seem to be saying that the klaxon is playing far away and that's why it's quiet.
The last sentence here is kind of awkward. The dialogue and the action, being unrelated, should be separate sentences and probably separate paragraphs.
She glanced at the map on her own display. Those are all the power conduits nearest the gate generators. That’s almost all of them.
Knowing what to look for, Lillian checked her own display. She already knew that Madeline was right.
“We should head to command,” she tried speaking. Her voice sounded flat and oddly metallic, but at least she could hear herself again.
Madeline looked up at the sound of her voice. “Say what?” A pause, then understanding lit her eyes. “Oh. Yeah. We’ll have to use the maintenance access here and here though,” she sent the points to Lillian’s map, “Blast doors are down in most of the damaged sections.”
Looking down the hall, it didn’t appear that the nearest blast door had activated, so they set off towards command.
Again, you're combining actions and dialogue in the first line here I think.
For the first bit of walking, the ship seemed nearly abandoned. While there weren’t that terribly many crew currently stationed on the Borealis, you would usually see at least a few people walking about on their daily business. But everyone seemed to have vanished.
“Probably heading to command as well,” Madeline mentioned, mirroring Lillian’s thoughts. “I wonder why there hasn’t been any sort of announcement.”
“They’re probably still assessing the damage.”
Minor thing: 'that terribly many' is redundant. Use 'that many' or 'terribly many'
“Still, a ‘please remain calm’ or a ‘report to stations’ would be nice.”
As she was talking, there was a flickering as the lights came back on. They both stopped and looked up and then around. It seemed that someone had managed to get the ship’s power rerouted without any trouble. Thank goodness for backup circuits, Lillian thought.
Shortly thereafter, she noticed someone up ahead near what looked like a solid wall placed directly across the corridor. A closed blast door, she thought. That explosion must have been even worse than we thought to trigger the blast doors. As they closed the distance, she saw who it was.
“Jacobs,” she called out. “What are you doing out here?”
“Hans is trapped on the other side.” As if in confirmation, both of the girls could hear someone rapping on the door from the other side. “Do you have your engineering override codes? Mine aren’t working.”
Slight redundancy with 'shortly thereafter' and 'up ahead'. They were talking about blast doors being closed earlier, so why is Lillian not expecting to see blast doors now?
It would be more effective I think to add a 'suddenly' or something to the mention of rapping, to make it clear that the rapping was starting only after Jacobs' statement. Not necessary in any kind of plot-related sense, but would be more clever.
Also, a subtle hint that Jacobs doesn't have access to the panels? Is this foreshadowing? Or is this herring red in colour? Hmm... the game is afoot! Or whatever it is you're supposed to say!
“There’s probably a good reason the door is sealed,” Madeline started.
Madeline called up her display as Lillian walked up beside Jacobs. “How did this happen?” she asked.
“We’d just been tweaking the display for one of the navigation computers in command. We were heading back down when the power went out. I heard the door sliding shut and when the power came back on, Hans was on the other side of it.”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
“My codes aren’t working either,” Madeline cut in. “Lillian, try yours?”
“If neither of yours worked…” she started, but pulled up the commands anyways. As she’d expected, the door refused to budge for either her standard access code or her emergency override codes. Oddly, it wasn’t listing any reason for staying shut, it just refused to open.
“Can we get around?” Madeline asked.
“No. This is one of the section dividers. The blast doors go all of the way through the hull.”
Minor point of confusion here. Are you saying that all the blast doors are section dividers, or that this blast door happens to be a section divider? Previous statements support both interpretations.
Lillian turned to Jacobs. He appeared to be talking with Hans over his comms. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to get the door open. Go ahead down to command. We’ll have to go the long way around.”
Madeline looked up from her display. “That’s not going to work. There’s three more just like this one spread around the station. They’re designed to lock off each of the four sections of the ship if anything goes critically wrong.”
“But we’re not that bad off… are we?”
“I’m sure we’re not. It’s probably just staying closed as some sort of safety precaution.”
“An annoying one.”
“Isn’t that always the case? Staying safe just isn’t quite as interesting.”
“So we’re stuck here?” Jacobs asked, interrupting that particular thread of conversation. He turned his head to one side, listening to whatever Hans was saying. “He says he’ll go ahead to command and radio back when he gets there.”
Another minor thing. Why would he use radio when he has augs?
“Tell him to see if they can open the blast doors remotely,” Lillian asked.
“Aw, you don’t like being stuck here with me? I’m hurt.”
Madeline batted her eyelashes, “I don’t mind.”
Jacobs grinned.
Wait, I thought Madeline didn't like Jacobs? I guess I might have been reading the atmosphere wrong in his introduction...
Also, we seem to be seeing an abrupt shift in Jacobs' personality, though again I might just not be picking up on stuff. It seemed like he was feeling kind of grumpy, and then changed with this last line to being jocular. It would flow better if you added something like 'for some reason Jacobs' face broke out into a huge grin.' before his line, or something like that.
Oh brother, Lillian though. “So what do we do until they get the doors open?”
Jacobs answered, although he was still watching Madeline, “Well, we still have access to the ship’s computers. Perhaps we can figure out what’s going on.”
“How?”
“Security cameras.”
“You have access to those?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
He shouldn’t, Lillian thought. He’s with engineering–not security. “Why?”
“Because I can.”
Minor grammar point. Should be something like 'because I can get it' or something. If the question is 'why do you have access', then 'because I can' is interpreted as 'because I can have access', which while technically correct isn't exactly what he means, which is more like 'because I can get access'.
Lillian sighed. Of course, she thought, at least it’s better than sitting around watching those two flirt. “Go for it.”
Jacobs’ fingers twitched as he accessed his augs and sent a shared display to Madeline and Lillian. Soon they were watching a bank of cameras throughout the ship–the hallway outside the living quarters, the kitchen, the men’s and women’s restrooms (Hey!), and finally command.
About half of the crew was already assembled in the rather tight quarters. She thought that many of those missing were either trapped like the three of them or had somehow slept through the explosions. The night crew–so far as the simulated shipboard day/night cycle was concerned–was minimal, so there probably weren’t that many in their quarters.
No complaints here, this is all pretty solid. Only thing is you might want to mention specifically that the commander was there. So they feel the need to put security cameras in the bathrooms, huh...
As she watched, Hans walked into the field of view. He had made pretty good time, she thought. He seemed to be speaking.
“Can you get audio?”
“Sure thing.” His fingers twitched again and the audio feed started playing.
“… are trapped behind a blast door.”
“Not much we can do about that,” Commander Bryant responded, “we’re locked out of all primary systems.”
“How?” Hans asked.
“We’re… not entirely sure.” Bryant hesitated. “Someone knew our systems damn well though.”
The plot thickens! So Hans made good time did he? Or is it perhaps, that the one behind the blast doors was not Hans at all!
“Sympathizers!” someone called out from the crowd. “They’re back!” another voice echoed them.
Bryant turned and tried to identify the speaker and called back, “there’s no need for that.”
“Why not?” another voice called–one of the security staff judging by his black jumpsuit. “Someone had to do it.”
Minor issue: Should probably be 'someone had to say it'.
“But Sympathizers? What interest would they have in a gateship?”
“Who said it was the ship they were after?” Some in the crowd were nodding–Lillian was glad she didn’t have to deal with this sort of thing; people were notoriously unreliable, particularly in large groups.
“Why else?”
“One of the crew?” someone called out.
Phrasing here is a bit awkward, 'the ship they're after' and 'why else' and 'one of the crew' don't mesh very well. 'What else' would be better.
Not entirely sure what Lillian is trying to say here. Is she implying that the group is volatile, or just that it's stupid? Seems a bit of an overreaction in either case. No clue what the Sympathizers are, but presumably I'll find out soon enough.
“You can look over the roster, but no one has a record with the Sympathizers either way.” Was that a slight hesitation in his voice? The general crew records were available, but surely the Commander had access to some of the more specific details.
Even before he’d finished, another asked “Are we carrying any special cargo?”
“You knew as well as I that we aren’t. With the gate, anything we’d need to carry can be stored back home and brought through in an emergency. The only thing that we have besides the essentials are basic surveying equipment. And the only reason we have that is they just ran out of room to store back on Mars.”
Woah! Huge revelation! So the ship's main base is on Mars, or is it that humanity's main base is now Mars? The latter seems very likely based on what's happened so far.
The talk about the captain and 'special records' is a bit weird though.
A number of people were yelling now. Most of it blurred together into an atonal ruckus, but occasional words stood out. “Not now!” “the gate” “dead in the water” “broken” For the moment, the Commander turned from his crew and was talking with his Head of Security.
Jacobs dimmed the volume and turned to Madeline and Lillian. There was a curious edge to his voice. “So what do you think?”
“We’re stuck here,” Madeline asked. “Does it matter why?”
“I guess not,” he replied, “but do we really have anything else to do?”
“We could try to get that door open.” Lillian suggested.
I can't tell if you're describing Jacob's voice as having an edge to it, the fact being curious as in strange, or if you are saying that his voice had an edge to it that itself was curious. The former would be suspicious, and the latter seems to fit the rest of the dialogue more appropriately. Jacobs' second line is a bit awkward as well, I'm assuming you meant something like 'but do we have anything else to do than speculate as to why we're trapped here?"
Lillian suddenly wanting to escape is a bit out-of-nowhere. Maybe add a line like 'It seemed like no one would be letting them out for a while, so they might as well at least try escaping on their own' or something like that.
Both turned to her; Madeline with doubt clear on her face but Jacobs looking thoughtful. “How do you propose we do that?” he asked.
“We could cut through it,” Lillian had a plasma torch on one of her belts and she rested the palm of one hand on it. It could cut through a steel wall if needed, or weld one back together.
“That’d take hours,” he countered. “Blast doors are designed to be hard to cut through.”
“Explosives?”
“Lillian!”
“Just a thought.”
“Wouldn’t work anyways. Blast doors, remember?”
“Could we wedge them open?”
“I doubt it. There’s nowhere to put a lever.”
These mistakes, apart from the torch, which is less a mistake than a disagreement over how worth-it getting through the doors would be, seem a bit out of place for a mechanic to be making.
Lillian could see that he was right. There were small panels in the walls, floor, and ceiling that slid open when the blast door was closing. The door itself was made of a set of curved pieces that looked like fish scales that closed into an iris shape. The joints between panels were perfectly smooth and the edges would be outside of the corridor, if they were accessible at all.
“There has to be some way.” She hesitated for a moment. “You could hack into the system. Try to override whatever program is holding the doors shut.”
“Me?”
Lillian smiled, “You have access to all those cameras. Don’t tell me you got that through official channels.”
“You heard the Commander. They’ve tried. Why do you think I can get through where they couldn’t?”
“You do have an advantage they don’t,” Madeline cut in, starting to smile again. “You don’t have to follow the rules.”
You're teetering on the edge of sounding silly here. If the commander had been locked out of the ship, why would he still need to follow the rules? And I'm pretty sure that hacking in this case would amount to gaining access to administrative power over whatever kind of network the ship is using, whether by gaining access to an administrative account or somehow accessing administrative functions using your own or a guest account, so for the commander it would basically amount to breaking into your own house after someone stole your key.
“True… What do you think that Commander would say if he found out?”
Lillian pictured their boss–a giant of a man with wild red hair and beard–who only seemed to know one volume: louder.
“I’m sure he’ll thank you for getting control of the ship back.”
Madeline snickered; Jacobs raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, he’ll probably curse up a storm,” Lillian confessed. Then, with her best old-world accent, “Are you brain-dead? Is my system not good enough for you? Hacking, it is not necessary.”
He smiled at that, but Lillian wasn’t sure it was enough. She had to admit–the Commander was kind of terrifying at times.
I'm not sure that 'hacking' makes sense in the context of the above quote. It sounds like the commander is objecting to it on the grounds of pointlessness rather than the grounds of illegality.
“But it really matter right now?” she continued in her own voice.
You probably want a 'does' in there.
“Plus, it’s not like they can do more than slap your wrist,” Madeline added. “We don’t even have a brig. And it’s not like they’ll send you back with 26 months on your contract. Maybe they’ll restrict your access to the ship’s computers…” He mock gasped at that. “…but I’m sure you can get around that.
“Very helpful,” Lillian scowled at her.
“It’s true,” she replied. “Even better, there aren’t exactly that many engineering staff. With whatever had been going on…”
“…they need us.” They could seem him beginning to turn.
Jacobs seems oddly reluctant. He was just practically boasting to them about how he'd gained access to the security cameras, no worries about getting in trouble there, but now he's worried about doing something that could save the ship and everyone on it?
Also, the comment about engineering staff seems a bit out of place. Maybe if you changed the 'whatever had been going on' to something about how they'd been understaffed, and that was why they were getting new crew members. Or something.
Lillian cut in, “The short of it is we can either sit her twiddling our thumbs or we can do something about it.”
“We can, can we?” Jacobs asked, putting a strong emphasis on the first word. “What will the two of you be doing?”
“Um,” Lillian turned to Madeline.
“Helping? How can we help?”
Jacobs smirked, although it seemed half-hearted. His mind was clearly elsewhere. “Stop talking.” He sounded like he’d wanted to say that for a long time. But even as he said it, his fingers started twitching like mad. After a bit his eyes refocused on the display only he could see and he was ignoring the girls completely.
Just an idea, but it would fix most of the problems with the above passages as well as be pretty amusing if you made it so he'd actually been working on gaining access the whole time they were trying to convince him to. You might have actually meant to imply that, in which case you should make it more obvious.
Sensing that she was about to object, Lillian turned to Madeline and gestured down the hall. Both walked along far enough down the curve that they could still see Jacobs but hopefully not be heard. Unless of course he turned one of those cameras on them–she shook her head at that. She hadn’t had the slightest idea how much access he’d gotten to the ship’s systems.
Minor thing; the comment about security cameras as currently written makes it sound like she's worried about him spying, rather than the idle wondering which (I think) you're going for. Which would be out of place, since the only reason they left is so they would stop distracting him.
“What?” Madeline asked when they stopped.
“Let him be. He may be annoying at times…” At least to her, he was. Lately he seemed to be paying particular attention to Madeline. “… But he’s our best bet of getting out of this mess. Plus, he’s usually not like this. You know that.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” But she didn’t sound like she really meant it.
“Sure, but just try not to antagonize him.”
There seem to be a bunch of inconsistencies in how Madeline and Jacobs' relationship is portrayed. At first it looked like she mildly disliked him (though the case could be made that she was just teasing) and he had a crush on her, and Lillian knew about all of this as an impartial observer back in the second chapter, up until now it looked like they were casually flirting and now it seems like we're back at chapter two except Lillian's only just now noticing. The problem's not as extreme as I'm making it out to be, but I want to make sure I get the idea across.
For a second she seemed about to protest, then her face turned to a wicked grin. Oh my, Lillian thought.
“Well we have some time to kill,” Madeline started. “Want to check out the storerooms?”
“You know we can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not supposed to.” Madeline stood and waited, just watching until Lillian went on. “It’s all either private property or equipment for the ship.”
“Didn’t you just give Hans a speech about this?”
She shook her head. “That was different.”
“How?”
“He’s opening the blast doors. Trying to get us out of this mess.” She turned back to look at him and watched his fingers twitching just as madly as ever. “Dang he can type.”
“So maybe we’ll find something in one of the storerooms that can open the blast doors.”
“Uh huh.”
“Hey, it could happen.”
“Like what?”
“Um… a magic wand! Then we can just wave it and wish the doors open.”
“Not likely,” she said with a smile.
“Okay fine. Maybe we won’t find anything that can open the doors. But maybe there’ll be a clue to what’s going on!”
“A clue? You sound like one of those detective vids that were so popular when we were kids. And you heard the Commander, there’s no reason for the Borealis to be carrying anything like that.”
“Exactly. There’s no reason for it. But did he go right out and say it?”
This is mostly good, but as the commander never specifically mentioned anything about blast doors it might be better to say something like 'you heard the commander, he said we're only carrying necessities and surveying equipment'.
Lillian shrugged. She couldn’t quite remember. Plus she couldn’t exactly picture the Commander lying about something like that. The Borealis had a rather singular mission. Take its gate to some other star so that future missions could cheat Einstein. And if there wasn’t any reason for a gate, they would continue on outwards.
“What about the survey equipment?”
She shook her head at that. “You can get the same sort of thing all over the place. Heck, it’s dirt cheap now. Most of the big corporations have staked out enough rocks that they won’t have to survey again for centuries.”
“But there could be even greater riches once we reach Epsilon Eridani.”
“But then why now? We’re still years out.”
I suddenly do not understand the conversation. Is Madeline suggesting they go looting? Or are they suddenly thinking that the saboteur wanted to steal things? Or that the commander wanted to search for riches?
“But if there really are Sympathizers…”
“What would Sympathizers want with surveying equipment?”
Madeline scowled at her. “Separate thought. If it was Sympathizers…”
Lillian cut in, “there aren’t. The Sympathizers have been quiet for years, why would they suddenly attack a gateship?”
“That’s why we should go through the storerooms!”
“What?”
“If there’s a Sympathizer agent on board they’ll surely have, I don’t know, orders or special equipment or something.” She turned and grinned. “You know we don’t have room in our bunks and the public sections are, well, too public. What better place than the storerooms?”
“All of this, based on the guess that the Sympathizers might have come back…” Madeline just waited. She was doing her best to keep a straight face, but Lillian knew that she wouldn’t be able to hide her smile much longer. “Oh, all right. At least if I go with you, I can keep you out of trouble.”
Lillian's caving here is a bit sudden. I can see it happening, but I'd imagine it would be more grudging, more along the lines of 'okay fine we can go, but only because there's nothing else to do and you won't stop bugging me until we do. And don't steal anything or else.'
“Yes!” Madeline did a little dance of glee as Lillian turned back to Jacobs. Hoping to distract him as little as possible, she sent a message.
We’re going to look through the storerooms. Ping us when you get through.
Jacobs looked up for a second, a faraway look in his eyes. He looked first to where they had been standing and, not seeing them, looked up and down the hall. It took a bit for him to find them, as near as they where to the curvature of the ship, but he did. He nodded a short nod and then went immediately back to his work.
Not sure what you mean by 'near to the curvature of the ship'. Is it that they're beyond the 'horizon' from his perspective?
“So where do we start?” Lillian asked.
“Well, we’re here. How about this one?” Madeline gestured at the nearest door.
“Easy enough.” Lillian stepped forward and tried the door–locked. Madeline walked up to the keypad beside the door and entered her access code. A look of surprise crossed her face as the door sprang obediently open.
“That was easy,” she remarked and stepped into the room.
Lillian followed. Inside were a several rows of shelves, stacked full with a variety of crates and boxes. Madeline started down one of the aisles.
“Baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch …” she read off as she went. Lillian started down the other side. Everything seemed to be some sort of foodstuff. Everything was either compressed or preserved in some way to survive the months between supply runs.
“Madeline!” she called, “you were right. The Sympathizers are here.”
“What?” She came running over.
“And they’re plotting to steal all of the cooks’ secret ingredients.”
“Very funny.” She spun on her heel and looked down the next few aisles. “Next room?” she asked.
The next storeroom down the hall was another food storage room, this time containing almost entirely a wide variety of canned foods.
“So many beans…” Lillian commented. “Clearly a diabolical plot.”
But when Madeline tried her access code on the third door, it remained shut.
“Huh. Try yours?”
Lillian sighed. Somehow she knew that having her access code on record was going to cause problems down the line. She typed in her access code and to her surprise, the door opened.
I am confused by the access code comment. Do the doors keep a record of who opened them? If so, and she's worried about being reprimanded later, say so, rather than just 'somehow she knew...'. You used the 'somehow she knew...' bit pretty well before, so don't go and ruin that by using it badly here.
Interesting, Lillian's code opens what Madeline's couldn't. You've shown that they are supposed to have equal clearance before, so either Madeline's locked out or Lillian's being let in. Let's see where this goes...
Inside, the room was painted a sterile white. The lighting was bright enough to make the walls seem to glow and was hard on their eyes. The only furniture was a single table, barely large enough for a person to stand along a side. On the table: a silver briefcase.
As she strapped herself into her seat, Lillian turned and looked for her father. Instead, she saw the friendly mechanic, strapping her father’s suitcase to a row of harnesses along the ceiling.
“Lillian? Are you alright?”
There was a tremendous feeling of weight on her chest as the Squill accelerated upwards on its magnetic track. Then the main engines ignited and the weight doubled. She could it pressing down on her. Crushing her. It felt like someone was sitting on her chest, slowly putting more and more weight on her. The Squill shook and Lillian shook with it.
Madeline was standing directly in front of her, stretching for every inch of height so she could look into Lillian’s eyes.
She looked over at the boy she had been talking with just before the launch. He looks as terrified as she felt. She reached out and took his hand.
She could see a faint sparkle at the corners of Madeline’s eyes and watched as she drew back a hand.
The flight was surprisingly short. Before long, they were looking down on the Earth as the Squill rotated into orbit.
Lillian sighed. She could see the curving coastline where she’d grown up and the lights of the city shining bright. She squinted and imagined that she could even see her house.
“Everything looks so peaceful,” the boy commented.
Realizing that she was still holding his hand, Lillian started to pull away. He held on for a moment, and then let her go.
“My name’s Matt Jacobs. But everyone just calls me Jacobs.”
Ooh...
“Lillian.”
Her stinging cheek brought Lillian back to the present. “You slapped me.”
“Oh Lillian,” Madeline wrapped her arms around her. “You had me worried there.”
“You slapped me,” Lillian repeated.
“I had to; you were so out of it.”
Lillian looked down and could see the faint traces of tears on her friend’s cheeks. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? You’re the one that just spazzed out when we walked into the room.”
“I’m sorry about that, it’s just…” she paused. The room was the same as when she’d first opened the doors, sterile white walls and overly bright lighting. But the table and briefcase were gone. “Madeline… what do you see?”
“It’s just an empty room, nice and clean. Bigger than my bunk. Wonder if they’d let me move in?”
“Did you see…” She hesitated. “a table?”
“A table? You’re not spazzing again, are you?”
Interesting. We'll have to see where this goes.
She was saved having to answer by a chirp on her augs and a message from Jacobs.
Got it. You’re going to want to see this.
Lillian turned to Madeline, but she was already on her way out the door. Lillian turned to follow here, taking a single look back. Just as the door was sliding shut, she could swear that she caught a flicker of the briefcase.
Following Madeline, they jogged back to where they’d left Jacobs.
“I am a genius. Indisputably.”
“Undisputed,” Lillian responded.
Jacobs turned to her and widely grinned. “Made it through the firewall no problem. Took a little bit to figure out why I couldn’t access anything, but once I figured it out–someone just scrambled the system, nothing was actually broken–it was a simple matter of finding the right button to push.”
“And you found the right button?” Madeline asked.
This bit seems to be all good. It sounds like Jacobs is simplifying things for Lillian and Madeline's benefit, but that wouldn't be out of place.
Another interesting point- whoever screwed everything up is no longer monitoring the network, or else is more interested in catching whoever got in than keeping it screwed up.
Jacobs pointed at the door. He must have programmed the gesture into his augs because as he pointed, there was the hiss of pressurized air being released and the door slid open. “Tada!”
Always a flair for the dramatic, Lillian thought. “Come on. Let’s get to command.”
The others followed her through, Jacobs taking a quick bow for an imaginary audience as he did. It was a short walk to command and within moments, they were standing outside the doors.
“If they don’t ask,” Jacobs started.
“Don’t tell,” Lillian finished. Madeline nodded. Together, they strode into the room.
One last minor thing, with the 'don't ask don't tell' bit. It seems like Jacobs would either want no one to know what he did or else want everyone to know he can save the ship. The 'don't ask don't tell' bit seems out of place without justification (maybe something like 'I know you don't like lying to the commander, but...'. Though I can understand the appeal in leaving it how it is. This might be just me.
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Topic: A Sea of Stars (Chapter 24: Aftermath, *finished*) (Read 15378 times)