Page 13 of Adrift! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #2)

“How long before it becomes critical?” Mr. Evens asked, his earlier enthusiasm dimming like the resonark; discovering the atomic element of love wasn’t much good if they weren’t breathing, Ikaryo thought savagely.

“Unknown,” the captain said. “Suvan?”

“If a blockage goes system-wide, we’d have maybe a few days if we conserved air.

” The chief engineer stepped back, and only his pale eyes gleamed through the gloom.

“It needs to be cleared. But even at decreased levels, the anomaly’s aperiodic functions will destabilize the capacitorus if someone isn’t here to adjust manually. I…can’t leave.”

Something passed between the captain and chief, then Nehivar nodded once. “Griiek to atmo-hall,” he barked into his comm. “We need to find the block.”

“Already on my way, Captain.” The deck tech’s chirping voice couldn’t entirely mask the strain. “I know I have four, but I’m going to need more hands.”

“You’ll have them.” Nehivar glanced around the room. “The rest of you crew, with me. Mind comms. We will not be alarming the passengers.”

As they rushed out, Ikaryo matched his pace to Nehivar. “Captain, I may have relevant experience.”

“Bartending?” Nehivar’s golden eye narrowed. “Ah, filtration, of course.”

“Also distillation, sanitation, and atmospherics mixing.” Ikaryo lifted the elbow of his alloy arm. “And a certain amount of brute strength.”

Without breaking stride, the captain clamped an approving paw on his shoulder, flexing just enough that Ikaryo felt the pressure of claw points. “Definitely counts as an extra extra hand.”

Despite the surge of satisfaction at the acknowledgement, to Ikaryo the ship’s familiar corridors felt different now, faintly menacing. Was that a subtle staleness that hadn’t been there before?

But when he took another nervously questing breath, his disquiet eased even before his augments could identify why.

Remy was beside him.

She must have felt his attention because she glared sidelong. “Don’t you dare tell me I can’t come along just because I can’t sing.”

So much for being soothed. He wanted to stop, to confront the misunderstanding immediately, but he knew he needed time to talk out the heart of her pain.

Time they might not have.

“Your voice has power, Remy. You know I felt it when you sang. And if there’s air enough to breathe after this, I’ll tell you what else I feel.”

But her green eyes stayed little more than furious slits—as if she’d never reflected the longing glow of the resonark.

Or his own lonely cyber lights.

The lock into the atmo-hall was wide open, but none of the delicious garden air drifted out. Nothing was moving.

They passed the roses toward the filtration access panel where three of Griiek’s four slender arms and half the rest of her were already buried. Ikaryo caught a whiff of their delicate perfume but it seemed muted already, the lush blossoms softening around the edges.

Was the whole ship slowly dying?

With no trajectory to pilot them along at the moment, Delphine was assisting the deck tech with lume sticks and tools.

She gave the captain a nod. “Bio overgrowth in the tanks. The bactoalgae is engineered for rapid growth to support oxygen production, but not like this. Sent the flow specs to Chief; he thinks rerouting so much power to the containment unit let the system stagnate just enough to clog.”

Griiek popped her head out of the tank, her slightly bulbous amphibian eyes wide. “Sent a sample to Chef too. They say it’ll make a good salad.” The deck tech’s tongue did a sweep of her wide mouth.

At least someone could enjoy this fiasco.

“We’ll all be breathing salad if this spreads to the main atmospheric recyclers,” Delphine warned.

“How do we clear it?” Nehivar asked.

Griiek emerged from the tank, arms dripping with green slime. “There’s so much, so deep in the lines. We need special equipment and cleansers, nothing available on a short cruise.”

And their unexpectedly longer cruise might be coming to an ugly end.

Ikaryo scanned the atmo system schema on his datpad, mentally reviewing his synthequer stock, the supplies he and Chef had just inventoried, anything at all. Filtration and fermentation, purification and pressure systems—

He peered over the little Monbrakkan into the tank. “If we can’t get to the lines manually, can we flush it through?”

“Flush it how?” Delphine asked. “We don’t have the tools and chemicals we need.”

“We’ll use carbonation to create the force.” He turned to Griiek. “We already have water here. Can you tap into the CO2 removal bank, route it here?”

She blinked her large eyes rapidly. “More carbon dioxide? But that’s what will cause a problem if we can’t clear this block.”

What the little deck tech meant was it would kill them.

The captain laid a calming paw on her upper shoulder. “And now it can be part of the solution.” He turned to Ikaryo. “I see where you are going with this. But will the reaction generate enough power to blow the lines?”

Felicity, who’d been standing to one side, shook her head. “Club soda is going to save us?”

“With a few cinder fruit seeds, I hope so.” Ikaryo sent some rough math through his datpad. “Chief, can you check these numbers?”

After a tense moment, Suvan’s grumble emerged as the calculation along with a brief simulation flashed back on their devices. “You want to dump a carbonated cleanser cocktail into our air.”

“Cinder fruit is only acid enough to sting when you already have a cut on your finger,” Ikaryo said. “Even as a concentrate, it won’t eat through the lines. Probably.”

Remy sucked in a breath as she watched the simulation, then puffed it out hard. “Like a monster-size Mentos and Coke experiment.”

Felicity laughed, although everyone else looked baffled. “Yes! We did that in science class too. I was the only one who wore my goggles.” She nudged the captain. “Never mind. It’s an Earther thing.”

All eyes slanted to Nehivar whose gold gaze rested on Ikaryo. “It’s a solid idea. Or a bubbly one, I suppose.” He glanced around once. “Unless anyone has something else?”

In the silence, the blorp of ooze sliding off Griiek’s fingers into the slimed tank water seemed too loud.

“Do it,” Nehivar growled.

“Recommend increasing the initial pressure,” Suvan said. “Or we’ll be doing this again in a few days.”

“I’ll need to use all the cinder fruit this time,” Ikaryo warned. “We’ll have to find or synthesize something else after that.”

“Then we should go even harder now,” Suvan countered. “Sending new computations. Should be quite the show.”

Ikaryo swallowed. Easy for the chief engineer to say, hiding down in the guts of the ship. “Griiek, be prepared to sequester the output. It won’t hurt the garden, but we should filter the water and reflush the lines anyway.” He had to believe it would work. “Let’s get the CO2 patched in.”

“I’ll go for the cinder fruit,” Remy said. “I know where it is.”

He grabbed her hand as she turned away. This would work. “Can you bring my lucky bar rag too?”

Her jaw shifted, and he wasn’t quite sure if she was holding back her anger at him…or a reluctant grin. “If I find it, yeah.”

“It’ll be right there,” he assured her.

Without another word, just a glint of her green eyes, she squeezed his hand once and ran.

He swiveled back to the others. “Let’s reroute those lines.”