After what felt like an eternity, his feet hit the solid surface of the lift car roof. His arms and legs screamed in protest. He located the roof hatch and manually cranked it open, dropping down into the darkness of the car itself.
The lift opened into the primary engineering corridor, a vast, cathedral-like space that ran the length of the engine core. Here, the silence was different. It was the silence of a dead heart. Enormous plasma conduits, usually glowing with contained star-fire, were dark and cold. The air was still and carried a metallic, ozone-tinged scent of stagnation.
"Proceed forward five hundred meters. The entrance to the main reactor control center will be on your right," Mother instructed.
Kaelen's light beam danced over colossal machinery, each piece a monument to human engineering. He felt like an ant wandering through a dead god's workshop. His training allowed him to recognize the components—the magnetic constrictor rings, the fuel injection arrays—but their scale was intimidating.
The door to the control center was a massive blast door, sealed tight. A keypad and a manual hand-crank were set into the wall beside it.
"Power's out. I assume the keypad is dead."
"Correct. Use the manual release. It will require significant effort."
Kaelen set down his light and grabbed the crank. It was stiff, frozen with millennia of disuse. He put his entire weight into it, grunting with the strain. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, with a screech of protesting metal that echoed through the hall, it gave a fraction of an inch. He kept turning, his muscles burning, until with a final, heavy clunk, the locking mechanisms disengaged. He pushed, and the giant door swung inward on massive hinges.
The control center was a circular room, dominated by a panoramic window that looked out into the main reactor chamber. Banks of dead control consoles sat like black monoliths. But Kaelen's attention was immediately drawn to the window.
The Elysian's fusion core was a miniature sun, or it should have been. Now, it was a dark, dormant sphere, contained within a web of magnetic fields he knew were barely active. It was terrifyingly still.
"The manual restart console is the isolated station against the far wall," Mother said. "It is hard-wired and has its own independent capacitor bank. It should still have power."
Kaelen approached the console. Unlike the others, a single small light on its surface glowed a faint green. He brushed the thick dust from the screen, and it flickered to life, displaying a complex sequence of instructions.
"Okay, Mother. Talk me through this."
"The sequence has seven stages. It must be followed precisely. First, confirm the magnetic bottle integrity."
Kaelen tapped the screen, navigating the menus. His hands were shaking. The schematics showed the bottle was stable, but at minimal strength. "Integrity confirmed. Barely."
"Stage two: Initiate the primary ignition sequence. This will divert the remaining ship power to the initiator lasers. It will cause a total blackout aboard the Elysian for approximately thirty seconds."
A total blackout. Complete and utter darkness. The thought made his skin crawl. "What about life support?"
"It will be offline. Thirty seconds is within human tolerance. Proceed."
He took a deep breath. This was the point of no return. If this failed, he would die in the dark, and the Elysian would be lost forever. He pressed the command.
Instantly, the single green light on the console went out. The faint hum of the emergency lights in the corridor outside died. The silence became absolute, a physical pressure on his eardrums. He was plunged into a blackness so complete he could not see his hand in front of his face. He held his breath, counting in his head.
One… two… three… The darkness was alive, suffocating. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears.
…ten… eleven… twelve… Was the air already getting staler?
…twenty… twenty-one… A sound. A faint, deep thrum that he felt more than heard. It vibrated up through the soles of his boots.
…twenty-eight… twenty-nine… thirty!
Nothing happened. Panic seized him. Had it failed?
Then, a light. A faint, crimson glow began to emanate from the reactor chamber beyond the window. It grew in intensity, turning to orange, then to a blinding, brilliant white. The dormant sphere was awakening.
The console screen flickered back to life. Alerts flashed across it. The lights in the control room blazed on, making him wince. From deep within the ship, he heard a series of distant, powerful thumps as systems rebooted. A low, steady, glorious hum began to build, the sound of the Elysian's heart starting to beat again.
He had done it.
A wave of relief so powerful it made his knees weak washed over him. He slumped against the console, laughing, a slightly hysterical sound in the now-bright room.
"Reactor output is stable at 5% and climbing," Mother announced. "Primary systems are initializing. Life support is nominal across all habitable sectors. Power reserves are now at 4.2% and charging. Well done, Steward."
For the first time, he thought he detected a hint of something other than flat neutrality in her voice. Was it approval?
His celebration was short-lived. As the main lighting came on fully, it illuminated the control room in stark detail. And that's when he saw the second body.
It was seated in the command chair in the center of the room, slumped over the main console. This one was more preserved, mummified by the controlled environment. The person wore the uniform of a Ship's Captain. In its skeletal hand was a sidearm.
Kaelen approached slowly, his joy evaporating. On the console in front of the captain, etched into the dust with a finger, was a single word:
SABOTAGE