Meliora

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Although, people have been limited by the knowledge available to them since the beginning of time. There have been many so called "truths" that have later been disproven with the advancements of scientific discoveries. With our ship's technology one could, theoretically, scream and be heard in space. However, the test subjects for such an experiment are non-existent, so probability aside we still may never know if one's screams could be heard in the vacuum of space.

"Samantha, are you filling up our maintenance logs with your hypotheticals again?" Hisashi asked. I rolled my eyes and looked over my shoulder at him. He was leaning in the door way of the maintenance room, arms crossed across his chest. He looked at me the way he always did when he was teasing me, with a sly smile and mischievous eyes.

"Well at least someone uses it, it's not like you ever do, Mr. Head-of-Maintenance-Engineer. It is your job to, you know." I replied sarcastically, setting the log tablet down in its storage container and locking it up.

"Ugh! Give me a break!" Hisashi said dramatically. "Chairman Harrison doesn't care about the illuminators needing recharging or fixing the air conditioning in Ms. Margaret's room for the umpteenth time." Hisashi complained for the umpteenth time. I shook my head.

"How you became the head engineer on our team, I'll never know." I started to tease, putting my hands behind my back and leaning against the storage locker. "We went to the same school, we were both the heads of our class, I'm smarter than you by a long shot, and much more dedicated to my job, so why you were picked over me? I'll never know."

Hisashi smirked then sauntered over until he stood directly in front of me, leaning in until our faces were only a few centimeters away.

"Well. Must be my charm." He said in a low sultry voice with a smile that showed his dimples. My eyes wandered down to his lips before I quickly looked back to meet his gaze.

"Ha, charm? You'd actually have to be charming for that to work." I replied matching his intense gaze and soft voice. Hisashi moved slightly closer, his eyes moved down towards my lips before quickly looking back up.

"Oh come on, you don't think I'm charming? I'm hurt." Hisashi said without the slightest hint of being hurt.

"Oh for the love of!" At that moment Murdina, another of the maintenance crew, came to the door. "I'm down there, workin' in the vent, sweatin' more than a prized pig at the country show before dinner time. An' here you two are, snogging in the maintenance room!" Murdina said. Her curly long red hair pulled hastily back in a low ponytail, sweat pasting her bangs down to the sides of her face. Hisashi quickly took a step back and ran a hand through his hair.

"We weren't snogging." He said defensively.

"Well could ya?" Murdina snapped back just as quickly as she took a seat on a desk. "For Pete's sake! I swear the sooner the two of you get together the sooner some actual work can get done around here!"

"Who's getting together?" The final member of the maintenance crew, Jorge, asked as he came waltzing through the door.

"Hisashi and Samantha." Murdina answered.

"Oh, puh. That's boring." Jorge said as he took a seat next to Murdina, disappointed that he wasn't getting some hot new gossip.

"We aren't getting together!" Hisashi said a little too defensively this time.

"Why not? You two like each other don't ya?" Murdina asked, staring intensely at Hisashi, Hisashi couldn't meet her gaze. After a few moments of silence from the both of us Murdina continued.

"Look, all you two need is some clear and concise communication. Here I'll show you." Murdina began then turned towards Jorge, "Jorge, I've liked you for a really long time now, would you be my boyfriend?"

"Ew, no girl! You know I'm gay."

"See. Clear and concise communication!" Murdina exclaimed, arms open wide with an expression that said, wasn't that easy!

I rolled my eyes and snorted softly under my breath. Murdina is my best friend. We met here on the ship day one and became inseparable ever since. She knows all my secrets and I know all of hers, which means she knows that while Hisashi and I have flirted with each other for years, it's never developed into anything serious. She knows how much I like him and has dropped hints every once in a while when we were all together, but this! Man, she has never put him on the spot like this before. I looked back up to see Hisashi looking like he was considering something very deeply. He looked over at me, his expression was hard to read. Wait, was he going to ask me to be his girlfriend? Now?! Just as Hisashi started to open his mouth to say something, Jorge interjected with,

"Not to put a damper on this incredibly awkward mood but, how long has that been going off?" All of us turned in the direction Jorge was pointing to see a little red indicator light flashing on the control desk. Hisashi's eyebrows furrowed.

"Computer, pull up ship diagnostics." Hisashi commanded completely in head engineer mode now. The four of us gathered in front of the main monitor on the wall that showed a huge to-scale diagram of the ship and all of its systems. A small red circle flashed at the bottom where the main engines were. "Grab your repair kits guys, it's go time."

"Yes sir." Jorge, Murdina, and I said in unison. We had all become really good friends but we also knew when it was time to get it together, this was one of those times.

The four of us rushed down to the main engine room as fast as we could. Running through the narrow hallways and down what felt like 1000 stairs. Having been on the ship for a few weeks now I had gotten used to its size, but every once in a while I was reminded just how massive this ship was. Running from the middle of the ship to the bottom end of it helped remind me, and my burning lungs helped remind me just how out of shape I had become. After what felt like an eternity, we managed to make it to the main engine room.

"Head maintenance engineer Hisashi! What are you doing down here?" Mark called out while charging across the room, coming to a stop when he was face-to-face with Hisashi. Well as face-to-face as he could be, Hisashi was a bit taller than Mark.

"Head Engineer Mark," Hisashi said seriously, "we got an urgent notification that the ship had a breach down here, we came to fix it."

Mark snorted.

"Well then, you got a false alarm. Look around," Mark stated, opening his arms wide and gesturing around at the pristine engine room, " the only thing out of place here is you. What's the matter, Hisashi, you want to show your team what a real engineering crew looks like?" Mark jeered.

Hisashi took in a calming breath, he and Mark had been rivals ever since they started at the American Republic Academy for Space Travel. They were in the same class and Hisashi was always just one spot better than Mark on everything. Now they were both the head of their teams and Mark used his position as head engineer as a way to try and belittle Hisashi. Mark believed that the maintenance crew was somehow less important than the main engine crew. This wasn't at all true, while the engine crew had more day-to-day responsibilities the maintenance crew needs to understand a lot more complex systems and wiring to ensure that everything on the ship remained working. However, with the ship being so well made, our day-to-day duties were lacking and mundane. Giving Mark all the ammo he needed to take shots at Hisashi whenever possible.

"Look. Marcus." Hisashi began, putting an emphasis on using Mark's full name knowing he hated it, "I have a system that is currently telling me that there is hole in this ship somewhere in this room. Now, it's my job to check the area before calling in any false alarms, so I'm going to do that." Hisashi said before pushing past Mark, being sure to hit his shoulder for good measure.

"Yeah, whatever." Mark muttered wiping at the shoulder of his bright pink jumpsuit. "Oh Samantha, I've been meaning to meet up with you." Mark reached over and put his arm around my shoulders. "You know we haven't had much time to hang out since we got on this ship."

"Yeah, well I've had some more important things to do recently, you know." I replied jokingly, gesturing at my orange maintenance jumpsuit.

"Yeah, well I guess we've all been a little busy." Mark said sheepishly, removing his arm from my shoulders and scratching the back of his head.

"But seriously. If you need something, or just want to talk, you know where I am." Mark said with a kind voice and a friendly smile.

"Yeah, it would be nice to catch up sometime." I replied, returning the smile.

"Maintenance!" Hisashi ordered, his eyes piercing daggers directly into the back of Mark's head. Hisashi had remained cool all through Mark's teasing, and yet he was now very noticeably agitated with him. I nodded goodbye to Mark before following after Hisashi.

"Someone's jealous." Murdina leaned in and whispered in my ear.

"Oh please, he's just mad because Mark gets on his nerves." I whispered back.

"No, he's jealous because both of them fancy you." Murdina teased while poking me in the side.

"Hey, cut it out!" I laughed as I pushed her hands away from my sensitive sides. "Mark is just a friend! He may be Hisashi's rival but he's really a nice guy underneath."

"Oh sure, if you insist." Murdina said, shaking her head dismissively.

"Look here." Hisashi said as he stopped in front of the outer wall of the ship, bending down to look at something close up. "Here it is, see?" Hisashi pointed at a small dime-sized hole in the wall "And… yep, here. The culprit." Hisashi bent down and picked up a small piece of what looked to be an asteroid sitting about five feet away from where the hole was made.

"Oh great, so it wasn't a false alarm. Can we just get it fixed and get out of here, it's hot in here." Jorge complained.

"Yeah, alright. Sam, could you help me prep the wall?" Hisashi asked. I walked over and knelt down next to him and looked out the hole.

"Woah. That is so weird!" I said as I looked directly out into open space. I could see the stars shooting by as the ship continued to sail onward.

"Yeah, that faux-atmosphere is no joke. It encapsulates the entire ship and if there are any breaches it holds all the oxygen inside and its barrier works to keep equilibrium within, making it perfect for long-haul trips into space like this one." Hisashi was beaming as he talked about the intricacies of the ship. Both of us are fascinated by the advancements of technology and geeking out together like this reminded me of when our friendship first started all those years ago in the Acadamy. I smiled as I listened to Hisashi talk about the things he's passionate about, I could have for hours.

…

The four of us worked together to patch up the hole, Hisashi and I worked to stabilize the metal while Murdina and Jorge worked on filling in the hole. Then we curated the patch until it blended perfectly with the rest of the ship wall, as if nothing had ever happened.

"What's going on on my ship!?" Boomed a loud authoritative voice.

"Captain!" The four of us said as we turned and stood at attention.

Captain Robin Smith walked briskly over to us, she was the most famous space captain Earth had ever seen. Captain Smith was from the European British Alliance, England. After she graduated from the United Royal Academy for Space Travel two years early, she joined the European British Alliance Royal Space Force at 20. She has since cultivated a career of being a badass space cadet, becoming the youngest person to become captain of the Royal Space Force at age 30, retired from the military at aged 40, and became a commercial space captain from then on. When Chairman Harrison spun all of Earth on its head by announcing that he was going to fund a huge colonization expedition, he made sure to have Captain Smith right there by his side.

"State your name, station, and country of origin!" Captain Smith ordered.

"Hisashi Nakamura, head of maintenance engineering. Origin, the Trans Asia Alliance, Japan. Ma'am!"

"Samantha Thompson, maintenance engineer crew member. Origin, the American Republic. Ma'am!"

"Murdina Campbell, maintenance engineer crew member. Origin, the European British Alliance, Scotland. Ma'am!"

"Jorge Hernandez, maintenance engineer crew member. Origin, the American Republic. Ma'am!"

Captain Smith regarded us one by one, she had an air about her that was full of authority, she was not someone to be crossed. The gold embellishments on her black captain's uniform glistened in the light as she slowly paced from each one of us to another. She had a stern look on her ebony face and we could tell she was trying to figure out what the best way to deal with us was. Although, none of us knew what we did wrong.

"Head Engineer Hisashi. Tell me why there was a hole in my ship!" Captain Robin demanded. Hisashi took a step forward.

"Yes, ma'am! There was a small asteroid that hit the ship causing the breach, but the faux-atmosphere did an excellent job containing it and the maintenance crew was able to get the hole patched like new with no injuries, ma'am."

"Yes Hisashi I could tell all of that. I want you to tell me, why exactly an asteroid was able to get close enough to the ship to put a hole through it." Captain Smith said calmly, although her words were still cold as ice. Hisashi shifted uncomfortably.

"Ma'am?" Hisashi muttered clearly not understanding what Captain Smith was getting at, her frown deepened.

"When I first got word that the ship had been breached I thought there must have been something wrong with the sensors or that the defense system had malfunctioned. That would be the only way an asteroid could have come close to this ship. I waited for the maintenance log to come through as I was sure it wouldn't take long for your team to run your diagnostics. As time went by and I hadn't gotten a notification I went in to look at what was last logged just in case I missed it somehow." Captain Smith explained. Then she pulled out a tablet and started reading, my face flushed bright red.

"'Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Although, people have been limited by the knowledge available to them since the beginning of time. There have been many so called "truths" that have later been disproven with the advancements of scientific discoveries. With our ship's technology one could, theoretically, scream and be heard in space.' What kind of nonsense is this?"

As I was about to confess, Hisashi spoke up.

"I'm sorry Captain, that's my fault. Our whole journey this ship hasn't needed much of anything in the way of maintenance. That was just my way of having some fun."

I looked up at Hisashi, mouth agape. Did he really just take the fall for me?

"Well don't. This is an official log. Any data we collect now will be used in creating the next colonization expedition, to ensure that any bugs found on this trip won't be repeated." Captain Smith said.

"Of course, ma'am. It won't happen again." Hisashi answered. Captain Smith allowed her look to soften.

"Follow me, maintenance crew." Captain Smith requested, then turned and briskly walked towards the exit of the room. The four of us looked at each other puzzled by the request, then quickly tried to catch up to the Captain.

We followed the Captain through more of the ship's twisting hallways and up elevators. We weren't sure exactly where we were headed but Captain Smith hadn't slowed down since she requested we follow her. I took a moment while the Captain was ahead enough to be out of ear shot to whisper to Hisashi.

"Hey, thanks for taking the fall for me earlier. I don't know why you did, but I really appreciate it."

"You don't know why I did." Hisashi stated looking slightly surprised at first, then his face turned to a pained annoyance. "Well if you don't know by now, then you probably never will. Excuse me." Hisashi quickened his pace to walk directly behind the Captain leaving no space for any more personal chit-chat. His words caught me off guard and I slowed down a little before regaining myself and walking beside Murdina for the rest of the way.

We finally stopped in front of a huge circular door with the expedition's moto Stronger Together written above; we were outside the main control room. The four of us looked at the door with anticipation. None of us had actually been in the main control room, there was never a need, but all of us had wondered what it looked like through this massive door. Captain Smith put her hand on a blank spot to the right of the door and a red light started to softly glow underneath as it scanned the Captain's palm. The light then flashed green and the door opened. The captain must have seen the look of astonishment on our faces as we took in the room for the first time because as she looked back at us she smiled and chuckled softly to herself.

The control room was a huge circle with windows covering the walls almost all the way around providing a spectacular view. In the room were huge transparent monitors all showing different navigational systems and defense systems amongst others. Infront of each monitor were different control desks with two people dressed in black uniforms stationed at each. In the middle of the room sitting on a platform was the Captain's chair surrounded by smaller transparent monitors of its own. The whole room dripped of power.

"Maintenance crew, over here please." Captain Smith called over from one of the huge monitors. We made our way over and saw an outline of the ship with green dots connected by green lines all over the ship on the monitor.

"This diagram shows every sensor attached to the outside of the ship, every one of them is enabled. There isn't a single blind spot on this ship." Captain Smith began to explain. She tapped on the screen where one of the green dots was and the image zoomed in to that specific sensor. The Captain tapped on the image again and it showed the sensor as an illustration where a part of it was cut into and all of its parts were labeled.

"These are the most state of the art sensors in circulation. Not even the Royal Space Force has sensors with this kind of range and accuracy. If any flying object comes towards the ship these sensors will be able to detect it from up to 1000 kilometers away in any direction allowing our lasers to shoot it well before it even comes close to our ship. It's not just the faux-atmosphere that makes this ship perfect for long haul journeys. We have the ability to ensure the greatest amount of safety possible to travel the 1000s of light years to Meliora. So, I ask again. How could that asteroid have gotten past these sensors?" Captain Smith inquired. The four of us looked at each other, then back at the monitor. Captain Smith was right, with these sensors there shouldn't have been anything able to breach the ship, especially not a rogue piece of asteroid. Unless…

"The faux-atmosphere, it surrounds the ship. Is it possible that it's blocking the sensors?" I asked the group.

"No, Chairman Harrison said that they tested it. The faux-atmosphere shouldn't have any influence on the defense systems." Hisashi answered, although even as he was saying it I could see a troubled look in his eyes. Captain Smith seemed to notice it too.

"Wait, Chairman Harrison said they tested it? Was that confirmed on the official test reports?" Jorge inquired.

"Yeah, Jorge has a point. I remember at the press conference the lead scientists talked about testing the ships outer defense systems but they never mentioned the faux-atmosphere as being part of their tests." Murdina recalled.

"So, you're telling me that it's possible that for the past 20 out of our 30 day trip from Earth to Meliora we just happened to not have anything hit us!?" Captain Smith asked, slightly panicked.

"Captain, we should have a look at the official test records." Hisashi said with a sense of urgency.

"You took the words right out of my mouth." Captain Smith said as she started for the door. Just then an alarm started to blare and red emergency lights began flashing all over the room.

"Oh, bloody hell! What now?" Captain Smith exclaimed.

"Captain! There's been an incident on the lower decks." One of the women wearing a black uniform informed while pulling up video footage onto another of the huge monitors. There were four people in bright pink jumpsuits running through the halls of the floor where the main engine room was. All four of them had bright blue skin and they were charging at and attacking the people around them. From the video we could hear the screams of their victims as they went down. We could see the blood spew from their necks as the attackers bit into them. They would eat from their victims and then start to chase after the next thing that moved. As the head attacker turned a corner the camera angle changed and we were able to get a good look at him.

"Pause the video!" I shouted. The lady obliged and paused it on a close up of the attacker's familiar face.

"What is it, do you recognize him?" Captain Smith asked.

"Yes." I said, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. "It's Mark."