As she sat down next to Kim, she remembered what they said and realized that this wasn't the first time someone from the crew is making such snide statements. They think her prudish.
"Kim, am I prudish to you?" she asked Kim who had been stuffing her face as they sat in the large cafeteria of the ship
"What?" Kim asked between munch of her egg burger.
"I mean, do you think I am like boring or prissy, like you know. Do you?" she rephrased
"Um, I, uh" Kim stuttered, "You are yet to touch your sandwich, it's getting cold" Not like it was hot in the first place. Kim was avoiding the question.
"So you do think, I am prudish" Aurora lowly said, shocked by the realization.
"What? No, it's not— "Kim was interrupted by a loud alarm sound, resounding in the starship. The alarm lights flashing red.
The starship alarm lights were designed to display three colors; yellow, green and red; depending on the severity of the cause of the alarm. Red is when it is extremely severe, an emergency that cannot be ignored.
"What is happening?!" Aurora shot up from her seat alarmed, she along with many others, soon the ship was rowdy with people moving frenziedly through and fro, trying to find the cause for the alarm.
"Everyone to the pods now! This is not a drill; I repeat this is not a drill!" Jeremy's voice boomingly instructed over the PA system.
The crew members began to move hurriedly to their pods, while Aurora found herself headed to the executive control room. She couldn't just go hide herself away in the pod without knowing what the exact situation is. As a matter of fact, the mention of the pods only made the situation more serious and made her more curious; they were not to use the pods till rations began running way and they were to go into hibernation, which is to be in a year's time, or when in extreme emergency that they have no option but to secure themselves in the pods.
"What is going on?!" Aurora yelled above the panic as she entered the executive control area now painted in alarming red lights
"Aurora, what are you doing here? You are to be in your pod" he asked and reprimanded at the same time.
Aurora looked around and saw Blue and the others here already, Kim coming in behind her, panic written clear as day on all their faces. She ignored his question and asked another instead, "Have we been hit by an alien spaceship?"
"Oh, I wish that was the case" Anderson answered her with no trace of his trademark amusement on his face or humor in his voice. What the heck was going on?!
Amidst all the shouting and movements, Aurora heard Blue clearly shout, "the ship levels are rapidly dropping, Captain!"
That startled Aurora and she looked to the screen only to confirm what Blue had just said. "Oxygen is now at 73% and going even lower" she read the screen information aloud. "68% now"
"Damn it!" she heard Bradley swear from somewhere to the side of Jeremy, "What do we do, Captain?"
"Everybody calm down" calm Jeremy's seemingly calm reply, though Aurora knew he was very far from calm on the inside. It was a convincing farce. "Blue turn on backup, pump in more oxygen and try to get the levels back up. Anderson shut down the evacuated units of the ship, lets focus the energy on the still occupied areas. Bradley and Parker ensure the others are calmly in their pods. Mindless panic is the last thing we need right now everyone"
Aurora agreed with that, standing by herself nodding her head as everyone got to accomplish their tasks. "What do I do?" Aurora asked Jeremy who seemed to have forgotten her presence.
"Find out what the fuck is going on?" he told her. Immediately she nodded and went to get to work only to stop mid step as what he had told her to do just hit her. Why did she have to open her mouth and now she had gotten the worst task. How could she find out was is going on when that was the first thing she had asked when she got here. If they who se everything in executive control don't know how could she?
"How am I to do that, Captain?" she asked as she went back to Jeremy
"I don't know, Aurora, you are resourceful. If anyone can find it out it is you" he told her looking convinced of what he just said. The faith he had in her showed brightly in his eyes increasing her own confidence in herself.
"Alright, Captain. I am on it" she replied headed to the main control panels. As she stood by in front of the panels, facing the screen, with Blue working on optimizing the ship's energy levels and increasing the oxygen, she asked herself 'on what?' she couldn't reply.
If they were not hit by an alien spaceship, could it be maybe some other space matter had collided with the hull of their ship? Or maybe their ship's system was being overridden by another ship planning a hijack not far off. She went to work, searching their radar for the presence of any other ship huge enough and advanced enough to handle such a system hijack of a ship as big and advanced as theirs.
She kept on turning up empty at each search as she searched their radar multiple times, increasing the radius of her search each time. Just when the presence of a huge ship came upon their radar kilometers away, the entire ship system returned to normal as though nothing had happened. The energy levels of the ship were restored.
"Hell yeah!" she heard Anderson holler, good humor back, "We did it!" in her periphery she saw crew members hugging each other as they expressed their gratefulness to God and congratulated themselves on how they handled the situation. Though, to Aurora, she knew they did nothing. Whatever happened started and ended all by itself. Her mind went back to the ship the radar had just picked up and she looked back at the ship radar, but she couldn't see the ship anymore.
"What?!" she said in shock, her voice lowered by all the noise the others were making, "Where did it go?"
She ran the search again and again, widening the radar's reach, but still no sign of the ship she had earlier seen. It was as though it had simply vanished into thin air. Unbelievable.