34.

The morning following Maria's ordeal it would be discussed, obviously not in her presence, as to whether or not she should be informed as to what was and is going on outside of the ship. The Pathfinder had arrived at something quite spectacular and the obvious thing to do in light of recent events was to let Maria rest; however, when she awoke and had seen for herself what was going on outside through the small circular view ports in her bedroom, she soon made her way to the command center bringing along Cindy with her.

With all that is happening outside of the ship, Maria was not surprised with the hive like level of activity she came across throughout the command center. Despite all this activity it didn't take long for Maria to make an inquiry even though it would be an inquiry to which she already knew the answer to.

'Why was I not informed?'

'Do you really need an answer?' asks Simon.

Taking her position at her regular console in the room, Maria glances down towards the ships chief pilot before beginning to gather data of her own. With the way the command center is set up Maria's station is a short distance behind Simon's console while also being up on a higher level.

'How long has it been since we first came across this?' she asks.

'Just over ninety minutes now' replies Simon.

'Ninety minutes and no one called me? Ten or fifteen minutes I'd understand but a whole ninety minutes?'

'It is amazing, isn't it?' Jeff asks rhetorically, 'I have never seen anything like this before, but I have heard the stories of the Northern Lights and the likes back home.'

Outside of the ship an aurora of neon like lights stretch across thousands of meters of space. As deep as it is wide, this light show in space is a sight worthy of awe and wonder.

'Are those bolts of lightning?' asks Jeff referring to the flashes of white light happening often and spread across and between the layers of neon colour.

'Yes', replied Maria feeling an urge to offer a lesson and deciding to be quite reserved about all that currently is, 'what we are looking at here is an electrical storm.'

'I did not know they could happen in space,' said Simon.

'Sure they can, and it quite likely means there is a planet not too far away, most probably on the far side of the storm.'

'An inhabitable planet?' asks Jeff.

'Quite possibly yes, but we would need to determine that for sure' replies Maria.

'Then what are we waiting for, shouldn't we just head right through it?' inquires Jeff.

'Hold on there a minute, as I have already mentioned, that storm is electrical and if we get too close to it then it could knock out every system on board this ship, including gravity and life support. The power generated on this ship is for the most part the same as what we would be used to back on Earth. Lighting, our computers, basically every system we have available to us is all electrical. That storm out there can possibly create a blackout in here. Remember our reboot upon having left Earth? We do not want a repeat of that or worse ...'

It is just as well then, that Jeff so happens to be sitting at the secondary piloting station. His impulse would have been to head straight for the storm with the intent to fly right through it despite it being necessary to wait to be given the go ahead and that impulse could have been disastrous. Of course, it is the primary piloting station which generally runs navigation. Still, will all that there is, disaster may just be on the cards.

'Jeff, have you brought us closer to the storm?' inquires Maria as she continues to collect date while also considering that knowledge of how impulsive Jeff can be.

'No, I haven't. I am not in control of navigation, Simon is.'

'Well, I haven't moved us not in the last while anyway' speaks Simon.

'So, if we haven't moved forwards then the storm must be coming our way. Simon, I need you to move us back a bit.'

Simon works at his controls and the storm continues to move closer. Looking confused he works the controls some more.

'We are not getting anywhere Simon, what is happening?'

'The engines are working; we are just somehow being drawn towards that storm when we should be moving backwards and away from it.'

Maria contacts engineering through the com system and Robert responds.

'We are having a bit of a problem up here Robert, we need to get away from an electrical space storm, power from up here is not strong enough and we are moving closer to it instead of backing away. Is there anything you can do to help from down there?'

'No, there is no point in adding power to the engines. Adding power does not mean they will work any better than they already are, if anything it is quite possible more power may draw us in quicker.'

'Any suggestions to what we can do then? We need to get away from that storm. It seems that we are definitely being drawn toward it.'

'The only thing I can suggest is that we use the booster system to power right through the storm, if we do that, we will enter the storm but it would be at the speed of light so we would actually hardly spend any time within the storm at all. We would pass through it so quickly that the amount of time we do spend in it would not even register on a stopwatch.'

'Alright, we will need to do that as soon as possible. At this rate I imagine we will be inside the storm in a couple of minutes, how soon can we use the booster?'

'It is ready whenever you are.'

'By the way, it is quite likely that there is a planet on the other side of that storm, if we activate the booster, what can we do to avoid hitting the planet.'

'There is no need to worry about that. As you know we have a deflector system which allows us to completely miss anything that may stand in front of us while we move at the speed of light, even if there is something as large as a planet which may be as close as being on the other side of that storm.'

'Yes, you know me and I indeed know all about the deflector system, hearing you explain that may put others at ease. Alright, Robert put the ship on immediate alert; we are going to use the booster in the next few seconds.'

Maria waits for just about a minute before giving Simon the go ahead to start the booster, however they were about to encounter another problem. The energy bubble collapses almost as soon as it is activated. Robert knew immediately why this happened. The storm had already begun to interfere with the ships systems.

'Maria, due to the levels of interference we are experiencing already, we are going to need to do what we have done once before and turn off everything and begin rebooting.'

'What? It took fifteen minutes the last time to reboot. We only have seconds; we need to use the booster and we need to use it now. Is there anything else we can try?'

'Give me a few seconds ...'

'We may not have a few seconds.'

Maria considers having spoken too soon; it isn't all so long since had mentioned that reboot. Simon soon attempts to activate the booster once more. The bubble begins to form but collapses for a second time. Main power also soon begins to fail. Lighting begins to flicker. Main power swaps back and forth with back-up power. Everyone in the command center as well as engineering begin to presume that this is it, the end of the road. They are doomed so soon into their journey, maybe they've been doomed right from the start.

Answers aren't coming. They would have to reboot while spending time inside an electrical storm, something that could not be allowed to happen as the storm would knock out all efforts to regain power.

With seconds to go before entering the storm Robert relays a message directly to Simon informing him to try the booster again and on his mark, for he has managed to get the backup power to kick in fully and the backup would take over as the main power source long enough for a full cycle of booster speed to work. Simon's controls had not powered down during any of this time. When he notices the power to his console strengthen and upon hearing Robert's instruction and mark, he activates the booster, the energy bubble forms though not quite to one hundred percent of capacity and the ship powers into light speed without a hitch.

All out doom has been averted though just when one problem had been avoided, another one makes itself known. As with most operating systems on the ship, if it is not manually operated then it is electrical or a mix of both. While having lost power temporarily in the switch over to back up power, the holding cell area had momentarily become unlocked. Two security guards had been on duty, standing outside the holding cell which held Philippe captive.

One of the two guards lost his balance when the ship went to light speed such was one effect of the fluctuating power and the bubble not reaching one hundred percent. Philippe used this to his advantage, attacking the other guard first upon escaping the holding cell. That first member of security, the one who had lost his balance, just so happened to be George Jones, he had been given a duty to perform and a prisoner escapes on his watch ... the very last thing he could hope to happen.

The ship may have averted an electrical disaster but now a cannibalistic serial killer was and is once again free, hell he hadn't even been held captive all that long, a matter of mere hours in fact. The only advantage the ship's crew had this time in comparison to when Philippe was the unknown killer is that he is no longer so much unknown.