Chapter 10: Chief Warrant Officer Gabriel "Gabe" Li

Chapter 10: Chief Warrant Officer Gabriel "Gabe" Li

Gabe sat hunched over his console, his fingers moving in precise rhythms as he navigated through layers of environmental data. Pressure graphs pulsed across the screen, each compartment represented by shifting lines of green and red. The biocontainment module's readings flickered slightly, a 0.6% deviation marked in yellow. Atmospheric integrity logs streamed beside them, comparing past and present trends, highlighting inconsistencies that shouldn’t exist. The ship’s atmospheric regulation was his responsibility, and while everything appeared to be functioning, the pressure discrepancy Aurora had flagged wouldn’t leave his mind.

It was small—just a slight variance—but it hadn’t been there before. He’d seen variances like this before on other missions, minor shifts that seemed harmless until they weren’t. A slow build-up of pressure discrepancies once led to a coolant system failure that nearly cost a crew their lives. Space was unpredictable, but ship systems weren’t supposed to be. Variances led to problems, and problems in deep space meant disaster. Space was unpredictable, but ship systems weren’t supposed to be. Variances led to problems, and problems in deep space meant disaster.

"Li, give me a status report on the pressure systems," Adrienne’s voice broke through his focus.

"Still running within safe margins, but the fluctuation Aurora flagged is real," he replied, eyes narrowing as he ran another diagnostic. "Not a sensor glitch. It’s isolated to the biocontainment module, but I’m seeing microshifts in a couple of other areas too."

"Define ‘microshifts,’" Adrienne said.

"Tiny deviations—barely enough to register. But they’re not random. They’re connected."

"Possible causes?" Aurora chimed in.

Gabe’s jaw tightened as he pulled up historical logs. "Could be a minor thermal expansion issue, but the patterns don’t match typical heat fluctuations. More like…something is dragging us down, like tiny rips in space-time pulling against the ship. The data isn't conclusive, but the shifts are too precise to be random. If these distortions continue, they could start affecting our trajectory."

"Rips?" Noah cut in. "That’s not how pressure works."

"I know," Gabe muttered. "And yet, here we are."

He rerouted additional sensors to monitor the affected areas in real time. If there was an external force at play, he wanted to see it before it got worse.

"AI, give me a real-time scan of all internal pressure zones. Cross-reference with our historical logs."

"Processing," the AI responded. "There is a 0.6% deviation in internal pressure across three compartments. Variance is increasing at a rate of 0.01% per hour."

 

Gabe’s stomach twisted. If the variance kept growing, it wouldn’t just be a systems issue—it could mean structural failure, a slow but inevitable breach. The kind that didn’t announce itself until it was too late. A slow increase wasn’t catastrophic—yet. But if it continued unchecked, it could mean unseen stress fractures, failing seals, or worse—pressure imbalances that could rupture the hull when they hit the Sol shot window.

"Adrienne, we’ve got a trend. If this keeps up, we’ll see noticeable instability by the time we hit the Sol shot window."

"Can you compensate?" Adrienne asked.

"For now, yeah. But I need to figure out what’s causing it before we just throw patches on it."

The line went silent for a moment before Adrienne finally said, "Find the source. Fast. We’re not making this maneuver blind."

Gabe exhaled, his fingers tightening on the console. His pulse pounded in his ears as frustration gnawed at the edges of his focus. He had dealt with malfunctions, false alarms, and bad sensor readings before—but this felt different. This felt deliberate. He ground his teeth, forcing himself to stay logical, but the unease settled deep in his gut. He tapped a command, bringing up an overlay of the pressure zones, then opened a secondary channel to the engineering bay. If this trend continued, he’d need backup. "Echo, I need a second set of eyes on this. Pull up my data and tell me I’m not imagining things." The pressure was changing.