Voidborn - A Sci-fi LitRPG

“Talia, did you run a diagnostic on the coolant systems?”

Malan's voice cut through the low hum of flickering ship screens and finger tapping filling the bridge, and drew the attention of both Beric and Talia. Beric simply frowned and returned to his work, too fuelled by his own fear to allow any distraction from his work even to insult Malan. Talia, however, did hesitate. Her fingers froze mid–keystroke, and her eyes slid over to him, illuminated by the computer back light.

She chewed her bottom lip. “I did. The report turned up no anomalies. The system is fully functional—why? Do you think you found something?”

“I'm not sure.” Malan's voice trailed off. His mind was a storm of emotions and thoughts, and he was struggling to arrange them logically. The twisting tension in the stomach and the near constant assault from his own memories made it almost impossible to concentrate, and he had no confidence that his suspicions were not founded on much more than trauma induced paranoia.

Then again, the data didn't lie. The problems and anomalous readings he had seen were not unusual when taken individually, but together? They painted a picture anybody with the expertise to see.

“It would be easier to just check and rule out a problem though,” Malan said, a little defensively.

Talia's hands fell away from her screen and she turned her head fully to meet his eyes. “Are you sure that's wise, Malan? Elena would be upset if she found he had left your post without a really good reason.” She leaned toward him, a concerned frown upon her face. “I know you're find this hard—are you sure you have really seen something, and it's not just the stress of the situation?”

Malan ground his teeth, though whether it was because Talia was choosing now to doubt him or if it was because her concerns mirrored his own insecurities, he wasn't sure.

“She would be even more mad if I had the suspicions and we all end up getting torn apart because I didn’t investigate them,” Malan said shortly, and rose to head toward the ship's engine room.

It was only when he looked back for the briefest of moments, and saw Talia's eyes wide with both concern and hurt at his tone, that he realised just how snappy his voice had been. Either way, it was a problem for another time. With any luck, a time after their narrow escape from the forming rift and creatures that dwelt within.

The thought of those creatures drove him to the engine bay in record time. Dual thrusters at the rear of the ship powered the Sparrow, with a small maintenance hub that lay between them. Inside, was a maintenance panel and a matrix of synthetic cooling pipes that wound their way around both the room and the thrusters themselves, in order to regulate the temperature of the engine and allow them to run and there are enough maximum capacity with no danger of overheating.

This cooling system was a closed, pressurised circuit of coolant, however the ship’s wider hydraulic mechanisms were connected to this system. The same cooling fluid that ran through these tubes, ran through the hydraulic door systems of the whole ship, as well as dozens of other smaller hydraulic functions. A leak in this system could severely impact the output of the ship's engines, and a larger malfunction could prevent the ship's engines from powering up completely.

Talia's checks had shown the current system was functioning as intended, however Malan's had shown a raft of inefficiencies, some small and some large, in the ship’s wider hydraulic functions. None of these things are critical, and none of them could stop the ship working, or it engines from powering the wave in the space of full speed. But it could indicate a problem that for whatever reason the scans were not showing.

Malan entered the engine room and nearing a full speed, despite the automatic door practically crawling open. Slightly breathlessly, he gazed around the room, intending to begin a search for one of the many innumerable small defects or mechanical hitches that could indicate a problem with the coolant system that the scans had not revealed.

What he saw instead, made his jaw drop and heart sink.

“H-how this is possible…”

There was no small problem. It's just that there was simply no coolant liquid in the system at all.

He staggered forward towards the network of pipes running around the room, looking for signs that will tell you how this was possible, but even that answer was obvious. The black metal floors were slick and shiny in patches, and above those patches the coolant pipes dripped with the very dregs of the liquid left in the system.

A dozen half–dry wet patches on the floor, laying beneath four almost identical punctures at roughly five foot intervals in the pipework.

Questions raced through his mind and speed the sparrow couldn't match even when it was brand new. What could cause this? How on earth had the ship's computer not flagged this immediately? And, how had Talia's system–specific scans not picked up on this problem?

“Malan, you'd better have a good bloody reason being away from your assigned task,” came Elena’s voice, sharp as the blade, over the ships communication system.

Malan shuffled, still have days from what he found, to the maintenance panel and hit the vox button to respond. “I, ah, found the fault.”

“Report. Tell me it's a problem you can solve Malan.”

Malan let out a breath. “Give me 30 minutes and some sealant and I can do enough to get the ship into space,” Malan said, heart pounding against his rib cage.

“It sounds like there's a however coming, Malan.”

“It's just—I don't see how this damage wasn't done intentionally.”

“Explain.”

“We have leaks in the coolant system. Dozens of them. There in sets of four, and those sets are evenly spaced out. I can't think of a single way that this could happen by accident. And if this wasn't by accident—”

“Then there would be no reason for them not to have a backup plan. And if there is a backup plan in place that we are yet to even find, we are fucked. Would that be an accurate assessment Malan?” Elena asked through what was clearly, even over the comms, gritted teeth.

“It's what I would do,” Malan said.

He heard Elena sigh. “Me too. Still, we have to act in the same way regardless, just with more caution. Sabotage or not, we need those pipes sealed, and the system refilled. Everything else we can deal with after. Time estimate?”

“I wasn't lying when I said thirty minutes. Sealant will do the job for at least one jump to get away from the rift, I can fix it up properly whenever we end up once were safe.”

“Make it happen Malan. I would send down another pair of hands, but yours are my own and the only ones I'm confident in being trustworthy right now.”

There was a crack of static, the sound of the communication channel being closed off, and Malan was once again alone with his thoughts.

The twisting in his stomach had evolved into full-blown nausea. The rift together with a potential traitor in their midst was almost too much to countenance at once. For the life of him Malan could not imagine why any of them would sabotage the Sparrow. It was their only way off the Miotov without waiting an age for a rescue shuttle, when their treachery would soon be discovered.

Malan pushed aside his questions for only just long enough to get himself moving to retrieve the sealant from an alcove in the corner of the room. Keeping enough for emergencies was standard procedure, and he grabbed the applicator and got to work smoothing the off-white gel across the holes in the pipework, even as his mind continued to race.

Who could it possibly be? Beric was the first name that came to mind, but Malan had a hard time imagining it, if only for the fact he didn’t think the man had enough brains to think of something like this. The longer he spent sealing the cooling system, the more he was able to appreciate the precision of the damage done, and the cleverness of the plot.

The pipes had sensors intermittently placed throughout the system, to detect coolant levels and warn of just such faults. Closer examination showed Malan that somebody had performed a subtle rewiring job of the entire system. A clever way to fool the diagnostics programs, and checking hardware outside of standard maintenance had become so rare as technology became advanced enough to self-diagnose issues that almost nobody had the inclination, let alone the knowledge required to perform repairs.

Hell, if Malan hadn’t been so stubborn, it might have taken hours for one of the others to think to check here, if they even managed it at all before the rift opened fully.

Twenty-four minutes later, Malan threw an nearly empty sealant applicator to the ground, and punched the commands into the console to instruct the system to pump reserve coolant through the pipes. Ice-blue liquid surged through the pipework, and Malan allowed himself a satisfied grin as only the slightest drabbles of liquid seeped from a few of the sealed holes.

Moments later, the Sparrow juddered, before roaring to life around him.

“Excellent work, Malan! Now get yourself up here in case there are any other problems.”

Malan let out a breath and made for the door, before a slight buzzing in his pocket brought him up short. He wasn’t carrying a communicator or data slate, which meant—

His hands darted for the device Elena had gave him, and nearly dropped it almost immediately. The screen blared red, and data flew across the screens manically. Malan knew these readings. He’d seen them before.

The rift was open.

Before he could respond the voice from before returned, louder than ever, reverberating through his mind in a rich baritone, as though speakers were pumping the sound directly into his ears.

They have come, Voidborn. And now you must too. Find me, as I have found you, for I can wait no longer. Come, else all will be put to flame and claw and tooth. I have seen it, Voidborn. Come!