There’s Something Lurking in the Engine Room

“Oh, fuck off, Alex!” Jonah grumbled as he threw down his cards against the table. He had been beaten by the tigress, once again. The colorful cards with numbers and symbols printed on them scattered once they hit the metal surface of the dining table. There were a couple of laughs that could be heard once the big Saint Bernard began his little sore loser’s tantrum. The crew of the SS Infinity was having a game night after they swung by Earth and Alex picked up some board games that were popular on that the tigress’ familiar home planet.

“Hah, cheer up Jonah, it’s only your third time playing with Alex, and she’s the only one who knew of this game before today.” Smirked Tashi, a tall Clydesdale, and marksman, who was standing by watching the two duke it out with Alex’s special game of cards. “What’s it called again?”

“Uno,” said Alex as she gathered up the discarded cards on the table back into a neat deck again. “It’s Spanish for ‘one’, and you say it when you’re on your last card, Jonah,” the tigress stuck her tongue out at Jonah teasingly. The Saint Bernard rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed at the tigress.

“You’re lucky you’re my mechanic, or you’d be off this ship at the next stop,” he grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. Jonah felt a couple of pats on his shoulder from a red panda that got up from her seat and brushed behind him. That was Lauré, the pilot of Jonah’s ship. “Alright, alright! Game night is over. I’m heading back to the cockpit, still need to program in the route, will you come with me, Captain? Go over the manifest and figure out where we need to stop first?” The red-headed red panda gave the large canine captain a big squeeze to get him to stop being angry at the tigress for beating him at what was essentially just a silly card game.

It took a couple of seconds for the large canine’s miffed expression to fade away, and the soft hands of the red panda helped. “I’ll beat you next time, Alex, you just watch,” he grumbled as he pushed himself out from his chair and turned his back towards the table. He and Lauré headed out the automatic sliding doors and to the cockpit, leaving Alex, Tashi, and Zach still sitting together in the dining area.

“Captain sure does hate losing,” Alex murmured.

Zach, the ship’s very own zebra, and onboard medic rolled his eyes. “The guy’s just pent up, hasn’t seen his husband for what, three weeks now? I bet 200 credits the next place we port is his home planet, where his hubby is,” he chuckled. Alex and Tashi gave each other a look before they both slowly nodded in agreement with the zebra’s theory.
“C’mon, the guy’s trying his best, he’s been working hard to get our cargo bay full so that we get fed and paid, don’t give him too hard of a time,” the Clydesdale murmured as he stretched his arms over his head and fought back a yawn.

With the deck of colorful cards still in her hand, Alex shrugged her shoulders. “It’s whatever, he’ll never beat me at it, but I’ll let him keep trying.” The tigress chuckled happily while shaking her head. She then raised the deck of cards in her hand up and looked to the two boys still seated at the table with her. “Wanna play a few more rounds?” The fluorescent lighting that illuminated the ship flickered a few times as the striped feline waited for her crewmates to answer.

“Sure,” Zach said with a smile, “But unlike our captain, I’m also pretty familiar with this UNO game, so don’t cry when I beat you.”

Tashi shook his head at Zach but nodded in response to Alex’s invitation for a few more games. “Don’t listen to him, you and Lauré are the only two on this ship who are from Earth and know what UNO is.” He turned to face the zebra and smiled, “He’s bluffing.”

--

“Jonah, is it me, or are the thrusters a little shaky?” asked Lauré as she sat in the cockpit, setting the ship’s course and cruising through the dark and empty void that was space. Jonah stood in the cockpit with a tablet in his hand to check the manifest of what they had to drop off during the next stop and to keep the red panda company as she set them on course for their destination. Upon hearing her inquiry about the shaky thrusters though, he took his eyes off the tablet and walked up behind the panda to get a closer look at what she was talking about.

“They shouldn’t be, Alex just filled us up when we were on Earth,” the large canine furrowed his brows and reached his hand over to hold onto the right thrust control. He pushed it forward ever so slightly and could feel some resistance that wasn’t supposed to be there. He tried pushing the control lever up further with a little more force, and that’s when he felt the shakiness that the red panda was talking about. This time, however, the entire ship shook a little bit, causing some rattling and the lights to flicker. After feeling the shakiness, he let go of the thrust control and pondered for a moment. Meanwhile, the red panda put the ship on autopilot for the time being.

“That’s a bit concerning…” Jonah said softly as he brought a finger to tap at the underside of his chin. The light hum of electronics was heard after the two in the cockpit fell silent. Then, the lights in the cockpit flickered again, leaving them in complete darkness (save for the lights coming from the various instruments) for a few seconds.

“I’ll go ask Alex to go check it out,” the captain nodded to himself. He then handed Lauré the tablet he was using to check the manifest. “Set course for the nearest fueling station, then add Tera72 as the next destination. Leave it on autopilot, for now, don’t push those thrusters any further.”

“You got it cap,” replied the red panda as she took the tablet that was handed to her and began pressing, twisting, and turning all sorts of controls that were in front of her. Jonah turned around and headed back to the dining area where he last left the rest of the crew.

--

“Uno,” Alex said with a wide grin stretched across her face as she laid down her second-to-last card, leaving her with only one card left. The card she put down was a blue number seven, even though putting on a poker face was one of the main strategies to winning UNO, Alex could not hide that grin on her face as she glanced to and from both Tashi and Zach’s faces, and her final card. What color or number could it be? Or was she the one bluffing this time around? Zach furrowed his brow before he pulled a card out from the draw pile, and Tashi did the same. With a shrug of her shoulders, Alex laid down her final card, a black "draw four" card, sealing the fate of the player whose turn it was next.

She won once again.

“C’mon! How do you always win!” Zach threw his cards down on the table and crossed his arms over his chest just like the captain did earlier.

“It’s a game of wit and luck, you don’t have any of that, Zach,” the tigress teased and laughed.

It was at that moment when Jonah came through the sliding doors. The sound of the door’s hydraulics making it known that someone had come in. All three of the crew members that sat at the table turned their attention to the captain and noticed the look of concern he had on his face almost immediately. That big dog was very easy to read, not just from his tail but his face as well.

“What’s wrong cap?” asked Zach. The captain approached the table and stopped once he was close enough for it not to be weird to start a conversation.

“Thrusters are shaky, did you remember to fuel up when we were on Earth, Alex?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, juiced us up to 100% while we were docked there, it shouldn’t be shaky at all.”

Jonah nodded, “That’s what I thought, but Lauré said they were shaky, and I tried them out, they’re really shaky, even feels like they’re a bit resistant, can’t get them at full throttle without it feeling like they’re going to break, the whole ship shakes.”

“Is that what that was?” Tashi raised a brow and Jonah nodded.

The Saint Bernard turned to face Alex and put his hands at his hips, “Can you go down to the engine room and check for me? Make sure nothing is messing with shit down there? Take Tashi with you, in case something happens and you need some help.” Right as the large canine finished his sentence, the lights flickered a few times again, but this time, after about three flickers off, on, and off, they stayed off and the emergency backup lights came on, putting a red glowing tint over everything in the dining room. The idle hum of electronics slowly died down. The ship’s electricity had gone out, but it was still moving, otherwise, they would have heard an expletive echo out of the cockpit by now.

“Shit,” Alex grumbled and quickly pushed herself out of her seat and onto her feet. She wasn’t expecting to be fixing anything on the ship today and she certainly didn’t feel like it. She turned to Tashi and gestured for him to come along with her to check out what on (not) Earth was going on with the electricity.