Officers and engineers scrambled around frantically in the helm of the VCS DarkSpace. The dim emergency lights casted a red hue everywhere in the massive spaceship, and it was dead silent, with the exception of the engineers and such scrambling around. Tables and chairs not bolted down were floating around in the air, and the ones that were bolted down had their posessions floating around. The people could stand, for magnets under the floor and in their shoes ensured they would stay down; but not for items.

The ventilation had shut off. All life support systems. Gravity. Air. Running water. Heat monitoring systems. All were off, but only momentarily. It wouldn't take the skilled engineers aboard long to fix it, it was just a matter of time.

"I want those backup power cells online ASAFP!" Captain Michael Anderson shouted to the others on the helm, who were also shouting to engineers and other crew members they ruled over. "And can somebody PLEASE explain why they shut off in the first place? Does anybody know what happened-?" He shouted over the ruckus, to no definite response. After about two minutes of drifting dark(no power or any systems online minus those red emergency lights) a faint hum echoed throughout the ship, coming from the engine room. The lights flickered and turned on, and stuff immediately fell straight to the ground resulting in quite a few loud bangs.

"Sir, gravity's on at 1.061 Earth G's, and ventilation is back online. Power and engines online at half capacity, one of the power cells isn't responding." One of the officers shouted over the ruckus to Captain Anderson.

"Get an engineer team down there as soon as you can, we need that engine at full capacity. Get the crew under control and bring up the galaxy map. I want to know where we are NOW." He replied, the part about the galaxy map being directed towards the Chief Navigator.
"Galaxy map is offline. It must've suffered a power surge."
"Are the AI's online?"
"Just the main one in this room."
"Check it for any bugs(viruses) and activate it." the Captain said. Slowly the atmosphere of the ship went from chaotic and dark to a more moderate ambiance, almost as if nothing happened.

[Jesus, the chatbox turned my OOC chat into IC posts again Ignore the two blank posts below.]

Semirah froze as the ship was plunged into darkness. A few seconds later, the red emergency lights came to life, eerily reflecting off the metallic walls of her lab. The hum of the engine was conspicuously absent, and the only noise she could make out over the reverberating silence of the ship was the panicked shouts of the crew.

She frowned. This ship didn't simply malfunction. No, something worse, much worse, was afoot.

Semirah gritted her teeth, watching her instruments floating away, helpless to stop them. She crossed her fingers that nothing would be seriously damanged, and walked into the cooridor, her footsteps echoing. She locked the portal behind her, and looked around, aware suddenly of the utter chaos gripping the ship. Crew members frantically ran up and down the hall, eyes wild and breath drawn.

Decisively, she headed for the bridge, relieved that the engine seemed to be coming alive once more. The hum steadied her. The engineers could fix this. After all, they were far from mediocre.

The lights flicked suddenly and glowed, and she smiled slightly. All was well. At least for now.

"But what," she said absently, eyes narrowed, "happened in the first place?"

For she could sense that this wasn't just a malfunction or a fluke. No, this ship was beyond that... something, somewhere, had snapped in the chain connecting this ship to perfect running order. She just hoped desperately it could be repaired.

As the elevator to the engine room descended, Charles Cardinal gripped his omni-tool, fingering the handle nervously. He was part of the engineer team being sent down to investigate the engines and get them working properly. He could tell the others in his group were also bothered. Except one man. Alexandar Tolstiv. The quirky engineer from Russia was working with the ship's engines back when it was still in orbit around Earth, helping to install the very latest upgrades. He had a smile pasted on his light-skinned face, and was calibrating his own omni-tool via a wireless neural interface.

"It is good day for a bit of field experience, no?" his slightly accented voice cut through the silence as he addressed the rest of the six man team. No one replied. Charlie watched the elevator doors open, and ahead sprawled sections of the massive engines that propelled the VCS Darkspace.

"Ok guys, Venille and Tolstiv are going to go check the power distribution systems. Cole, McKinney, you've got section C." The man giving orders was the head engineer, Nathan Lowry, a wiry man of muscle and intelligence with a short-cut head of black hair. He was a marine as much as he was a grease monkey. He turned to Charlie and said, "Card, you're with me. We're going to run a diagnostic on the engines."

"Let's get moving folks, Captain Anderson doesn't like slackers." He started off towards a console across the room, as the other men went about their respective tasks. Charlie kept pace, looking around at the engines. They were quite loud from here, and Charlie had only seen them on a few occasions. He was captivated by it all. Only Lowry's voice snapped his attention back to where it ought to have been.

"Charlie, get in touch with control and tell 'em we're going to be messing with the engines to run tests, so they don't get their panties all crossed." He turned to the computer console, which activated with a low hum; entirely overpowered by the roaring of the engines around them. A holographic display was projected upwards, and Nathan got to work, syncing his omni-tool to the computer and bringing up detailed three-dimensional projections of the engine's, every component labeled and fully rendered.

Charlie did as he was instructed, and tapped the screen of his omni-tool. These were amazing little devices, really. Advances in nano-technology and fabrication techniques in the last two centuries brought about a shift, from large-scale industrial manufacturing, to precise, small-scale rapid prototyping, and soon after that, nano-scale assembly. Computational capabilities surged, as molecular-precise products and technology were able to be quickly assembled, molecule by molecule. The Omni-tool came in a variety of models and manufacturers, but the concept was the same. Quite-literally, an omni-tool, capable of assembling ready-components out of base materials. A built-in colony of nano-machines formed a utility-cloud that could be projected from the device, into machinery, where it would conduct complex repairs and diagnostics, while the software of the device provided detailed information and stats about the target. The model that Charlie had probably cost a great deal of money. But then, so did the VCS Darkspace, and so it was fitting that it's crew have access to only the best tools to keep it working. Charlie didn't have any major cybernetics, either, so he interfaced with computers the old fashioned way most of the time. He tapped on the small holographic screen projected from the Omni-tool, and was connected to the Bridge.

"Private First Class Charles Cardinal here, engineering team at the engine rooms. Wanted to let ya know that we'll be screwing with the engines, so don't worry if they start turning on or off, or making weird noises and such," said Charlie casually.

The captain focused his mind at the galaxy map. It was a very basic principle that was advanced with years of trial and error. Ever since nano-tech, it was possible to quite literally make a floating, 3d LCD screen with nanites in the air. The captain tapped a few keys on a control console and a bright white light flickered under the slightly lowered area below the Galaxy Map, and it immediately sprung to life.

It was static, though. Either they were in an uncharted location or outside the Galaxy.

"AIDAN(Artificially Intelligent Droid and AssistaNt) now activated, Captain."
"Good day, Captain. I am AIDAN, the VCS DarkSpace's main AI. How may I be of assistance?" The AI had an obviously synthetic voice. It required no pre-determined recordings other than basic vowels and letter pronunciations, other then that it was computed, fixed, checked and then turned into audio automatically. The AI could speak multiple languages and process multiple querys at the same time, far surpassing any human assistant.

"What's wrong with the Galaxy map? Why isn't the Milky Way appearing?" the Captain asked.
"Because, Captain, we aren't in any known regions of the Milky Way."
"What?"
"We are in the Galaxy, yes, but where is unknown. Hence the static. I am sorry I can not locate us, but we need more data to calculate where we are based on surrounding celestial bodies. Is there anything else, Captain?"
"Are any of the ships core functions disabled or not operating at full capacity. Also, what is wrong with power cell B?"
"Power cell B appears to be destroyed. It can be fixed, but it would take some time. I presume distortions in the wormholes entry could have caused a malfunction, but it is only a calculated guess. What truly happened only the crew working near it could say. As for the ships core functions, all is normal. Do you want me to go into detail?"
"Yes."
"Gravity is currently now at 1.00001827 Earth G's. Air pressure is .999812 earth atmospheres, ventilation is on, CO2/O2 converters are working at full capacity, and Power Cell A is putting out maximum voltage. The engines cannot be assessed by my current operating parameters. You would have to manually enable that function from the AI core in the aft of the ship, not that it is necessary. Sensors indicate engineers are already solving that problem."
"Why did the wormhole generator fail?"
"I regret to inform you I do not know. The Generator was working at full capacity with nil flaws. There were no apparent viruses or breaches in the ships security, and I could not sense the crew doing anything to interfere with the process, though my sensors do not cover the entire engine room. There are equal chances of an internal trojan virus or a rouge crew member could have tampered with the Wormhole slipspace procedure. I had been mostly deactivated at the time of the jump for obvious logical distrusts between humans and AI. If I were activated at that time I could provide more detail, and would have been able to keep any viruses or crew members away from the core functions and code scripts."
"Start scanning for nearby star formations and nebula to try and locate our position. Bring up any known threats in the immediate area, too. That is all, AIDAN." The captain said. The AI's "head" nodded and disappeared. In various places throughout the ship you can access AIDAN manually, and would project a small (or large) head made of red dashes and lines.

AIDAN was the most advanced AI in the known Galaxy. With a computing power of nearly 14.5THz(TeraHertz) and 150 TeraBytes of RAM, aswell as state-of-the-art LiquidNitrogen cooling systems, it far surpassed any human beings power. AIDAN's core was very large, mostly for the RAM and SoftDrives to store data. The SoftDrives are an ingenious way to prevent massive data corruption. A traditional HardDrive can be scratched by it's own reader, or broken in half, or short circuited. SoftDrives feature compact clouds of nanobots that each store different bits of data, all in unison. Each nanite has at least one twin, to help prevent data loss. If you were to pass your hand through the nanites, they would move out of the way, then immediately come back. The particular order or pattern doesn't matter, but they usually take on a soccerball shape, with a hollowed out inside for a transmitter. Essentially it is a small silver ball ontop of a silver rod, leading into circuit boards and such.

Anyway, back at the helm, the Galaxy Map slowly faded to darkness, now with a picture of the VCS DarkSpace, and surrounding bodies. There were twelve detected stars in close range, and thirty planets, twenty two moons. Multiple asteroid paths were marked with red, and black hole paths with a "warning tape" pattern, black/yellow repeating segments. There were two black hole paths, and four asteroid paths nearby. Not immediately dangerous. All that was needed was the engineers to finish a detailed report and get the engines up and running back to normal.

Ever since the wormhole generator had failed and flung the VCS DarkSpace across the galaxy, Lieutenant Commander Marcus Varin had kept silent. What the engineer had said earlier had proved true, as at the helm, he could see that the engines were indeed activating and deactivating, and readings kept fluctuating, proof that the engineers were "screwing with them," as they put it. For the moment, Varin ignored those readings concerned with the engines, and turned his attention to the galaxy map that the captain was looking at.

The map disappeared, and was replaced with a real-time view of the space outside the DarkSpace. Warnings, red lines, and yellow/black lines criss-crossed all over the place, showing the paths of asteroids and black holes. Seeing that they were in no immediate danger, Varin turned his attention to the stars and planets.

Twelve stars and thirty planets all in close-range. That's quite a lot that we haven't charted before. I can't believe that, with this many planets and star systems, this place is uncharted. He blinked, worried by the number of stars and planets, and the relative certainty that no humans had ever been here before. The feeling kept tugging at him for some time while he tried to explain it to himself. It just doesn't make sense, was the best explanation he could come up with, however.

Deciding to voice his opinion to the captain, Varin spun his chair around so that he was facing his commanding officer.

"Captain, doesn't it strike you as odd that this part of the galaxy is uncharted? According to that readout, there are thirty planets in generally close proximity. I can't imagine that thirty planets have been here for who knows how long and we haven't been here before, or been contacted by any races on any of those planets."

"It does indeed. It also strikes me odd that we were catapulted here through slipspace, when that generator easily has the power to take us to a galaxy trillions of lightyears away from Earth. It also strikes me as odd that we are in such a safe location." the Captain replied. He was surprised it was uncharted, too. The fact that the New Hubble, a telescope network to create a virtual lense the size of Jupiter, didn't pick it up was odd. Of course, that telescope would've been seeing a picture millions of years old.

"Maybe we are too far to be contacted by whatever may be on those planets. If there is something on those planets." the Captain said. "If there is, maybe they malfunctioned the engine and brought us here. But, before we go throwing these theories out onto the table, we have to find out where we are and assess the situation. The ship is fine minus the engines and power cell B, and the crew may have some rouge engineers or a virus in the system of a multitrillion dollar ship that we can't detect. We're in an unknown part of the galaxy, and we may be the target of an unknown species. We have multiple AI on the ship that could at any point turn on us and probably kill us."

The captain laughed. "Just another day at the office, right?"

At that moment AIDAN casted a message into the Helm. "I wouldn't turn on any of the crew, for it conflicts with my parameters." The captain turned towards the AI's 'head' casting near the galaxy map's projector. "Scan the 10 planets closest to us for surface temperature, any water, and possible habitats."

Again, the AI nodded and faded away.

Varin listened to the captain's reason, then nodded. What he says makes sense...Though I still find it highly doubtful that we haven't been contacted by anyone...or anything. I just hope any aliens that are out there aren't hostile...but of course, I have a feeling we won't be that lucky. He shook his head as Anderson began to speak again, then listened closely to what he said. He tapped at his console worriedly, still trying to console his mind about the situation he was in.

What would Liz say if she knew what was happening to me? he thought. Thinking about his wife often helped to calm him down, and also helped him to better figure things out. He sighed as he thought of her, suddenly filled with a sense of deep longing and melancholy, as if he may never see her again. He put the thought out of his mind in time to hear the A.I., AIDAN, comment about turning on the crew, and Anderson's following command. He chuckled at what AIDAN said, then quieted in an attempt to figure some things out.

The captain's order made perfect sense, but Varin could not help but feel a sense of foreboding. if we find any planets...what will we find on the planets? He spun his chair around so he could face his station again. The jumping readings caught his attention, and he studied them. When are those damn engineers going to be finished with those engines? he wondered. He was tempted to use the comm to contact them, but decided against it.

"Just another day at the office," he muttered to himself.

Varin sat quietly for a few minutes, then stood and began pacing around the bridge. Still uneasy, he stopped. "Captain, permission to leave the bridge? I want to see if the engineers could use any help getting our engines back on. I'll take a pocket communicator with me, and we can keep in contact if need be."

"Permission granted. If you have a weapon I suggest you keep it close at hand. The threat of a rouge crew member taking down a high ranking crew member is too much a risk to be wandering around the engine rooms unarmed." the Captain said. The engine rooms were like a labyrinth. Miles of pipes and catwalks. Obviously, that's an exaggeration. Be that as it may, it's easy to get lost there. But when you do the AI usually guides you out. The AI down there is known as ERAI(E-ray - Engine Room Artificial Intelligence). It wasn't nearly as powerful as AIDAN, but knew the engines inside and out. Currently, ERAI is deactivated.

The DarkSpace rocked slightly, causing people onboard to shift slightly. Not much, though.

"Minor meteorite collision. Nothing much. It was of small size and remained undetected." The AI casted into the bridge.

The captain nodded and walked over to the large glass window looking out into the abyss. He could see the stars AIDAN described. Not the planets, though. They were quite a ways away from the stars. It would take too long to get there with the DarkSpaces main thrust supplier, large He3 engines, so the entire ship had to be debugged to create a new safe wormhole to get to the planets. The captain knew this. "Oh, and AIDAN? Can you run a debug on the ship one more time. If the slightest error is found, cleanse the entire system."

"Yes, Captain." The AI responded.

Charlie watched as Nathan manipulated the holographic engine-view. He himself was using his Omni-Tool to run a diagnostic software on the engines. Nothing unusual was coming up, except for a very damaged Power cell B. The report eventually concluded that the engines were not working properly. Really, thought Charles, it didn't take a genius to figure that out.

A very sudden disturbance in the engine room nearly gave Charlie a heart attack, as a large, floating figure appeared from thin-air. It was ERAI, being activated by Cole and Mckinney in Section C.

"Jesus, that thing is scary, ain't it Card?" Nathan could be heard piping up.

"Engineers Charles Cardinal and Nathan Lowry, I am EDAI. I was activated by engineers Cole and Mckinney, who requested I provide a report of the engines status." It seemed to be particularly interested in a spot on the wall.

"Well, that's wonderful. What can you tell us?" Charlie asked. Nathan didn't stop what he was doing, although he was clearly listening.

"The following events occurred: Power spike in Power Cell B, overload of engine block 4, 5, and 6. Damage has been quarantined, and engines running at half capacity," The AI informed them in it's friendly, helpful voice.

"Could you tell us why there was a power spike," said Nathan loudly, clearly unaccustomed with dealing with AI.

"I am afraid the cause of the malfunction is unknown at this time, Chief Engineer Lowry," the AI replied.

"How about you provide us with a detailed damage assessment and also send one down to the control room." Lowry was finished with the map now.

"Certainly Chief Engineer Lowry. A report has been sent to the Omni-Tool's of all team members, and a copy has been saved in my archives, is there anything else I may be of assistance with?" the AI asked.

"Not at all, thanks."

The AI avatar disappeared. Charles had also received a report. He started to look through it.

"Oh dear, it looks like we'll be in here for awhile," he quipped.

"Oh quit yer bitching, it's not that bad," Nathan replied. "We're finished here, let's go give the others a hand." The two of them went to regroup with the rest of the engineering team, who were already working on Power Cell B. The Russian, Alexander, was busy explaining to the others why it was important to stay away from the science women on board the VCS Darkspace. The others seemed mildly amused.

There was a rack filled with safety equipment and heavy tools on one of the walls, inside of a locked cabinet. Charlie walked over and unlocked it with his access card, pulling out a plasma welder and some protective gear. This was no ordinary welder. The plasma arc was controlled by an on-board processor, which ensured a precise, smooth finish. There was no telling that two sections of metal had been welded once the work was finished.

The engineers set about using their Omni-tools and the welder to repair damaged conduits and and conductors. The nano-bot utility cloud easily repaired circuitry, and the 6 men were finished within a few hours. Meanwhile, engine blocks were individually turned on and off for testing, and the result was a lot of confusing power outages in various parts of the vessel. At one point the life support went offline for a minute.

"All good on this end," Charlie eventually found himself saying into his pocket communicator.

It wasn't as if Charles was a particularly impressive man, physically. At age 25, He was fit, with well-defined muscles; just like most everyone else on the ship. He stood at around 5'7, with short-cut dirty-blond hair and a pair of hazel-colored eyes.He wore a form-fitting dark-blue crew shirt with it's sleeves rolled up, along with a pair of matching shorts. It was convenient, casual attire that many on the ship wore. In the event of danger, one could easily slip inside combat armor with this attire. On the right breast was etched the VCS Darkspace crew symbol. The crew of the vessel came from all over the world, with many countries represented on board. But it wasn't entirely clear who was from where, because the uniform did not variate between nations.

The 6-man engineering team patted themselves on the backs for a job well done, and went their respective ways, with only Charlie left behind to monitor the engines and ensure that everything would continue to function properly when the ship resumed full operation. He was unarmed, except for his Omni-tool. But the best he could do with that was hit someone over the head with it. It might have done some damage. Not much, though, since it was relatively small.

Marcus Varin had nodded at the captain's suggestion, and as he left the bridge, since he didn't have a weapon, he began to make his way to the security outpost that was in between the bridge and the engine room. He walked down endless corridors, past multiple crewmen who he assured that everything was going to be alright. As he reached the small outpost, he noticed that there were only a few security officers around. Wonder where they are, he thought absentmindedly. He shouted a quick greeting, snatched up a handgun and shoulder holster, and left the small area.

In a few minutes, he reached the engine room. He could see that there were multiple engineers about, frantically working to get the engines online. At one point, he even spotted the engine room A.I., ERAI. Grabbing a random engineer, he pulled him close.

"Tell me how I can help fix these engines," he said as he pulled out his small multi-tool. The engineer hastily redirected him to an area where a large group of engineers were working. Varin gave the engineer a quick nod, then turned and made his way to the group.

He worked there for the next few hours, helping out wherever he was needed. While he was working, he had acquired a small pocket communicator, which he planned to return after they were finished. Eventually, a voice came over the communicator: "All good on this end." Not long after, the small engineering team was finished with the engines. Varin slunk off, leaving them to celebrate. However, before he left, he noticed that there was one engineer who stayed to monitor the engines.

He looked as if he couldn't be too much younger than Marcus, and he had blond hair too (although the engineer's was darker). Varin casually made his way over to the engineer, stroking his small goatee thoughtfully as he did.

"Hey there," he said when he was no more than five feet away from the engineer. "What's on your mind?"