Chapter Three: Trapped

Transport Shuttle:

Lieutenant Anthony Kaiser banged his fists against the closed airlock as if somehow, he could make it open again. It was a malfunction he could not explain, and he was not sure if he could think of something that would make sense. He could feel the eyes of Jayne Sumner and Kimberly Ashfield on him as he tried to think of ways to fix this problem.

'Sure thing, I can solve this,' he thought to himself ruefully.

He stood up and took a step back from the airlock. For the time being, they were stuck and there had to be some way remedy that. The thought came to him that maybe he could try to work his way in through the control panel and find a way to make the airlock disconnect. The Delphi did not have the technological complexity of the Mercury class battlestars, and that could work to his advantage.

"Sir, I don't think you're going to beat it into submission," Sumner called out behind him.

"No, Sumner, but it's going to make me feel better," he retorted.

"You still don't know what made it happen?" Ashfield asked.

No, he did not and that was something that bothered him. He thought of all the times when he had ferried passengers over to the decommissioned vessels that made up Inactive Reserve, and never had this taken place.

"I wish I did, but I have an idea," he said as he bolted from the airlock towards the front of the shuttle.

"What are you going to do?" Sumer asked as she ran to catch up with him.

"Probably the last thing you would expect a man to do," he said as he took the communication's receiver off of its mounting and held it to his mouth, "I'm going to ask for help."

"Yeah, that's the last thing I'd expect any man to do," Ashfield agreed.

Under normal circumstances, he would not have been concerned. However, when the Superintendent of the Inactive Reserve was trapped on a hulk of a battlestar that had minimal power it was better to be proactive with their current problem.

"HQ, this is Shuttle 0725…do you copy?" he asked.

There was a burst of static and he waited a few seconds before he repeated the question. Again, the only response was the static that came through the speaker.

'What is happening over there?' he asked himself as he waited to see if someone would reply.

"Can we just disconnect from the airlock and go get help?" Sumner asked.

"It's not that the airlock is closed, it's the fact that the shuttle is securely moored to it and locked in place," he said before he added, "If I pull the shuttle away it'll tear out the part of the bulkhead where the locking pins are located, and we'll be sucked out into space."

"Okay, so we'll just stay here and wait for help to arrive," Ashfield said.

"Exactly, I'm not taking any chances until I know we can safely detach," Kaiser replied.

He rested his head against the bulkhead and closed his eyes as he waited for a reply. Hopefully, someone would answer, and they can get some help to solve this mess they were in.

Delphi

Hangar Bay Three:

Colonel Moses Lindley looked over the list of pairings he had made, and he began to have doubts. Something tugged at his mind and told him that he needed to rethink the decision. His eyes looked around the hangar bay and for an instant he felt as though they were not alone on the Delphi. He quickly banished the thought from his mind. He knew there was nobody else onboard besides them.

"Follow me, I want to take another look at the pairings I made," he said to the group.

"Come on, Colonel, can't we just go ahead and get it over with?" Spencer Glanville asked.

"My ship, my rules," Lindley reminded him.

"What's the matter, Glanville, something to you spooked?" Eric Flint teased.

"That's enough Flint! If I want you to ask a question to the civilians, I'll let you know," Lindley said.

"Yes sir," Flint quickly said.

"Let's follow Colonel Lindley and see what changes he makes," Robert McClintock said before anyone else from the museum group could say something.

The group stepped through a hatch that led to one of the workspaces attached to the hangar bay. The lighting half illuminated the workspace and still managed to give it an eerie atmosphere. Equipment stood unused since the day the Delphi was inactivated and sent to the Reserve Fleet. Tags of various colors had been affixed with different notes and initials penned on them.

"What room was this?"

"This was one of the carpentry and fabrication shops," Lindley said as he walked over to inspect one of the tags, "Looks like the Faststar Leopold Museum on Leonis put in a request to have this machine sent to them either before or after the Delphi goes to the scrapyard."

"Those frakkers are going to be disappointed," McClintock said as he walked over to a nearby table and spread out a set of paper blueprints of the Delphi.

"You're pretty sure of yourself, Mr. McClintock," Flint said before Lindley silenced him with a look before he could add anything further.

"I have the money to pull it off," McClintock said, "I just need to get the Colonial Fleet to sign off on my plan."

"Good luck with that," Vance said before she too got a warning look from Lindley.

"Here's what we're going to do," Lindley said before any of his people could respond to McClintock's office, "Mr. McClintock and I are going to go to the O-1 Level to explore the CIC and the other rooms."

"I'm okay with that," McClintock said.

Lindley nodded his head and turned to his attention back to the deck plans, "Flint, you and Ms. Halstead are going to take the O-3 Level."

"Yes sir, I'll be able to find my way around," Flint said as he walked over to pair off with Ashley Halstead.

"That's what I'm counting on," Lindsey said as he ran his finger along the deck plans, "Vance, you and Mr. Glanville will go explore the Second Deck below us."

"Understood, sir," Vance said as she and Glanville paired up.

Lindley turned the page over to the next page of the deck plans to decide who he would pair up next.

"Dale, I want you to take the Lawson brothers down to the Fourth Deck where Engineering is located," he said.

"What about us, sir," Joseph Bethell asked.

"You and Essery are going to the Third Deck where the emergency generators are located, the two of you are going to make sure they keep running," he said to them, "Okay, we have our handheld radios and I suggest we use them. Other than that, stay close to your partner and make sure you watch your step out there."

Without a word the group split up into its pairs and they made their way to the hatch that led back out to the hangar deck. There was a ship to explore, and danger that needed to be avoided.

Transport Shuttle

Kaiser remained seated with the radio held in his hand. It was all he could do to not let his frustration boil over. For the life of him, he could not figure out the equipment malfunctions that he had dealt with since the visit to the Delphi. First the airlock door had slammed shut, and now he could not get headquarters to answer him.

"HQ, this is Shuttle 0725…do you copy?" he repeated.

He could hear the weariness in his own voice, and he chided himself for the fact that it had come out. A look over at Ashfield and Sumner showed that they had both fixed him with curious glances. An exasperate sigh escaped his lips and he shrugged his shoulders.

"I wish I knew what was going on, they should have answered by now," he admitted.

"You have to be kidding me, everything worked fine when we left," Sumner groused as she walked by him to look out of the forward windows of the shuttle, "HQ looks to be okay from here."

"For whatever reason, we don't seem to be getting through to them," Kaiser said as he tried one more time to get a hold of headquarters, "HQ, this is Shuttle 0725…do you copy?"

"Shuttle 0725, this is HQ, we hear you loud and clear," a man's voice said through the radio.

Kaiser recognized the voice of Andrew Towner, one of the Radiomen at Headquarters. He finally felt a burst of hope that maybe their luck had finally taken a turn for the better.

"Hey Towner, Gods knows I'm glad to hear your voice," he exclaimed before he got his emotions back under control.

"Lieutenant Kaiser, what's going on, sir?" Towner asked.

"We're having some trouble with the shuttle," he said and after a pause he added, "We attached to one of the airlocks on the Delphi, when the door malfunctioned and shut on us. I can't get the shuttle to detach, and I've lost contact with the team inside."

"Towner, how quickly can you get a shuttle out here to help us out?" Sumner said after she had snatched the radio from him.

Kaiser wanted to say something to her, but she had asked the question he was about to want answered. All he could do now was wait and see what response was going be…if there was going to be one.

"Listen, right now Colonel Lindley has me up to my eyeballs in outgoing messages that he needs me to catch up from yesterday's power outage," Towner said.

"Towner, this is Sumner, you can take a couple of minutes to get some help out here to us," she said.

"Tell you what, just let me get through these next couple of messages in the queue. You know how Colonel Lindley gets when things aren't done on his timetable," Towner replied.

"Right now, Colonel Lindley is on the Delphi and we can't get a hold of him by radio. I don't think he'll mind you taking time to send home help our way," she said with more irritation than before.

Kaiser reached over and took the radio from her and held it to his mouth. He waited a moment to make sure there would be no irritation in his voice. All he could

Inactive Reserve Headquarters

Radioman Third Class Andrew Towner ended the connection to Kaiser and Sumner and leaned back in his chair. They might need help, but he did have more pressing matters that needed to be dealt with. The outgoing messages that Colonel Lindley had given him were caught up on, but that was not what had him so occupied. He picked up a remote and unmuted the television that was mounted on the wall to his right. The screen flickered to life and the pyramid game between the Gemenon Twins and the Canceron Hydras. He had bet a hundred cubits on the match, and he expected the Twins to walk away with the win. Instead, the Hydras had put up more of a fight.

"It looks like Canceron have made a switch and are substituting Arvin Burwell for Jaxton Belford," the announcer said.

"That's right, you play defense so you can keep the Twins from scoring," he called out to the television.

The way he saw it, Canceron's coach had decided that with a tied game he needed to play for overtime and try to keep Gemenon at bay. He heard Kaiser's voice as he tried to contact him through the radio again, but he turned up the volume on the television to drown out his voice. When the game was over, he would investigate how he could get someone out there to the Delphi. Right now, he had a pyramid game that he needed to finish.

"Hey Towner, it's not looking good for Gemenon," someone said from the doorway to the radio room.

"Listen Jantzen, all the Twins need is for Draylon Barrus to get hot again and they'll score the next goal the need to put the Hydras away."

When Jantzen had walked away, he got out of his chair and walked over to the door. He quickly closed it and walked back over to take a seat. He would eventually get to Lt. Kaiser's request for help, but there were some things more important in life and the Twins were his great love. If a wannabe Viper jock had to wait a little while to get the help he had requested, so be it. Besides, it did not sound as if they were in danger.

Delphi

Hangar Bay Three

The group walked back onto the hangar deck and looked around the empty expanse before them. Even with the lighting overhead the area still looked dim because all the lights were not on and the ones that were lit were not at their full brightness.

"Good things that yellow caution tape is up or else someone could fall down there," he muttered as he walked over to the nearby bulkhead to try to adjust the brightness.

The panel had been installed when the Delphi had arrived at the shipyard at the beginning of its time in the Reserve Fleet. It allowed for him to easily adjust the intensity of the lights without having to go to CIC where the main controls were located. He moved the dial up that should have raised the brightness, but nothing happened when he did. It was probably more of a reflection of the quality of the light bulbs after a couple of decades with no maintenance.

"Okay people, I can't promise the lighting will be all that great throughout the ship so for the love of the gods be careful out there," he said.

"You heard the Colonel, keep an eye out when you're on your assigned decks," McClintock added.

"Let's move out," Lindley called out to the group, and they split into their respective groups.

"Which way are we going?" McClintock asked.

Lindley pointed out towards the far end of the bay that connected Hangar Bay Three to Hangar Bay Two.

"We have a passageway just beyond where the hangars join, we can use the port side to start our way up to the O-1 Level," he said as McClintock followed the lead of his index finger.

They neared a section of the hangar deck that had been cut away to get to the decks beneath. He shined a light down to see how far down the hole went. He was surprised to see that it only seemed to go to the deck below. If he had to wager this compartment had been the ship's bakery attached to the galley. He closed his eyes and for an instant he could remember when the smell of freshly baked bread when he served on the battlestar Aeolus. He opened his eyes and for a moment he thought he saw movement off to the side of his vision of the deck. Instinctively, he moved his wrist so that the light would shine in the direction but there was nothing.

'Probably imagining things,' he thought to himself as he turned his attention back to McClintock, "Come on, Mr. McClintock, we're wasting time here."

Transport Shuttle

Kaiser laid down on the bench and wondered just what was going to happen next. He had a feeling that Towner had something else going on, but since he was stuck here on the shuttle, he could not prove it. All he had was time on his hands to think it over until help came, or until the airlock door opened.

"Come on Towner, all you got to do is send off those messages and then get some frakking help here," he muttered under his breath.

"You're a ray of sunshine right now," Ashfield said as she sat beside him.

"I'm not normally this irritable, I'd just rather not be stuck here with a faulty airlock," he said as he looked over to the Delphi's airlock.

"I understand, I'd rather be onboard exploring the ship with the rest of the team," she said.

"For me, once you've been on one battlestar you've been on them all," he said as he chuckled at the thought, "It's a different world on one of those, I remember when I reported onto the Atlantia when I was out of flight school."

"I wish I could have made granddad proud and served on one," she said as she looked out the window where the hulk of the Delphi's forward hull seemed to stretch on forever, "Maybe I can make up for that by saving this one ship as a museum."

"You don't think he's proud of you now?" Kaiser asked.

He watched as she thought about it and shrugged her shoulders at the question. He thought of his own family and wondered what they would have thought if he had not joined the Colonial Fleet after he had graduated from Amphion University on Virgon. When he had been removed from his squadron on the Atlantia he had wondered what would happen next to his career, and then Colonel Lindley needed a shuttle pilot to ferry personnel to the ships of the Inactive Reserve.

"Honestly, I think he feels the military would have been more honorable than the work I do on Tauron in public relations."

The two turned their attention to a noise at the airlock. He saw that Sumner was back at work on the control panel.

"Hey Sumner, there's not much we can do about that," he called out to her.

"I got to give it a try, Lieutenant," she replied to him as she worked to get the control panel loose.

He got up from where he lay on the bench and walked over to her to see the progress she had made. He had his concerns though, and his instincts told him that this was a bad idea.

"Sumner, I think you need to stop so you don't make anything worse," he said.

"With all due respect, sir, I can get this," she said as she got the panel loose and went to look inside.

"I don't know what else could happen if you tinker around in there, so step away from the panel," he said with a firmer voice.

"I just need to get in there and get that airlock open," she said as she began to reach in.

"I'm giving you an order, step away from that panel!" he said in his best command voice.

She began to reach her hand into the panel, and he noticed the lights began to dim inside the shuttle. He reached over to grab a hold of her hand to yank it away as a shower of sparks escaped from the interior of the control panel. The two hit the deck hard as the airlock opened to reveal the inside of the airlock on the Delphi.

"It's open!" Sumner said as she stood up and made a dash for the door.

"Wait!" he said as he reached to grab her ankle.

"Let go of me!" she shouted as she lost her balance and stumbled back towards him.

The airlock hissed and slammed shut again. Kaiser sat up and looked at the metal door, and silently thanked the gods that he had been able to get a hold of Sumner before she tried to go through. Otherwise…it would not have been a pretty sight.

"No!" Sumner screamed as she ran to the door and began to bang on it as if her fists could somehow make it open.

"Hey, it's going to be okay," Ashfield said as she walked over and tried to comfort her.

"I can't be trapped in here," Sumner said as she finally got herself under control.

Kaiser walked over to the cockpit and took out a bottle of water and a medicine kit. He opened the lid and took out a bottle of sedatives. They were something he had brought onboard after he had a passenger who had suffered a panic attack when he had ferried the man over to the cruiser Midas.

"At least these are fast-acting," he said to quietly as he walked back to where Sumner still sat with Ashfield.

"Here Sumner, take these and they'll help you get some sleep," he said to as he handed her the pills and the water.

The two led Sumner back to the bench and had her lay down. They sat nearby until they were certain she was asleep.

"I didn't see that coming," Ashfield said to her.

"Same here, I don't know what it was that got her spooked," he admitted.

"Do you think it's the Delphi?" she asked.

"We're all rational humans here," he said before he added, "There's no such things as ghosts…despite the rumors."

"Where did all those come from?" she asked.

He was about to tell her when another shower of sparks escaped from the control panel and the shuttle went dark as it powered down.

"That's not good," she said.

"Give it just a moment and the power will kick back on," he said.

The two waited in silence in the darkened shuttle for the lights to come back on. Kaiser figured any second the lights were going to come back on.

'Any second now, the power will come back on,' he thought as he tried to fight the growing concern in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong.

Neither said a word as they anticipated the power to come back on in the shuttle…seconds passed, and nothing happened. Unless the auxiliary generator kicked in, they were on a shuttle with no power and no life support.

Author's Note:

I realize it's been a really long time since I last updated this story, and even that sentence feels like an understatement when I read it back to myself. I thought I'd try to get back into it and see what I could make happen. I'm still getting my bearings again on where I was going with the story and the characters, but so far so good.