Snippet #2592988

And everything seemed to be going so smoothly, too.

Or so Chief Lal had thought, the first nano-second after the ship shuddered, and a strange noise surfaced from the Slipstream Drive.

A few actual seconds following that, an alarm started to go off in the engine room, drawing the immediate attention of her engineers and staff, while Lal herself was already up and heading to the Slipstream Drive by the time that occurred. She blocked out the noise of the alert with the sensors in her artificial ears, wanting no distraction as she worked out the problem.

"Chief Lal? What's going on?" the Captain's voice sounded through the comm badge a mere moment later, as Lal continued to diagnose the issue with the Drive.

"I'm not sure, Captain." the Chief replied soon after, her positronic brain going through various calculations and and possibilities in mere nanoseconds. "Something seems to be wrong with the Slipstream Drive. It's malfunctioning in some way...I'm trying to lock down the cause of the error, and from there I'll--"

The Chief was suddenly cut off, the Slipstream Drive brightening up in a sudden flash of light. A moment later, the ship jerked once more, a shudder going throughout the vessel, knocking more than one person off of their feet by the suddenness of it. A general alarm started blaring out of the ship's computer by that point, an automatic Red Alert kicking in.

Lal's eyes widened greatly at the new readings coming from the Drive, as she felt the smallest sense of panic surge through her emotional systems. "Captain! The Slipstream Drive is destabilizing! I'm not sure what's going on, but something's gone horribly wrong with the Drive. We're going ten times as fast as we should be, and as a result the Slipstream Corridor is starting to destabilize and will soon implode, taking us with it!"

The android acted fast, tossing away her datapad as she ran over to the main console controlling the Drive. "I'm initiating an emergency shutdown, Captain. This is going to cause power surges and failures all across the ship though, and the suddenness of the shutdown will strain the inertial dampeners of the ship...so brace for impact, Sir."

Without awaiting further word from her Captain, Chief Lal punched in the necessary code to start the emergency shutdown of the Slipstream Drive. Her fingers flew across the console, going faster than the human eye could follow. If a human engineer had been in charge of this project, doubtlessly they would be slower in entering this code, and because of that the error with the Drive might only get worse, perhaps reaching critical mass before the code could be finished.

But for Lal, it only took her two complete seconds to enter the entire code, and enter the second, confirmation code as well. And those two seconds saved the ship.

For five brief seconds, the lights of the Slipstream Drive went black, and all was still aboard the ship. Then, chaos broke out. A terrible sound, almost like ripping metal, groaned throughout the Nobunaga as the inertial dampeners were put through the wringer, and the lights flickered and surged throughout the ship as the power fluctuated in response to the sudden shutdown of the Drive, many consoles and other areas across the ship surging in sudden sparks of electricity before the automatic shutdown of said areas could be initiated by the ship's computer.

The shaking and groaning of the Nobunaga almost tossed Lal off of her feet, but she barely managed to keep her balance in Engineering. She was not so lucky with the Slipstream Drive itself, however. The machine lit up as a power spike surged through it, the resulting minor explosion targeting the nearest person available: Lal.

The Chief cried in pain, the explosion covering her in electric sparks as a small surge of energy transferred from the Drive to her, overloading her systems and forcing an emergency shutdown of her body. Now lifeless, the android tumbled to the floor, parts of her uniform and artificial skin crackling and smoking.