Evolution
steel container shot past my face and crashed into a cabinet. From the cabinet spilled silverware that did a crazy zero g dance. Somehow, Anna and I had both been thrown into the ship’s kitchen.
    The red lights blinked off, then on, flickering a few times before remaining steady. The room spun around us. In a dizzying revelation, I realized that I was the one spinning. Pots and pans floated before me as if on strings, doing their own crazy spins as they clanged into one another.
    “Grab onto a wall,” Anna said.
    I reached for the wall, stopping myself from spinning. I stayed still, willing my rising nausea to go away.
    “You alright?” Anna asked.
    “Not sure. I think I’m going to be sick.”
    “You should be alright in a second,” she said. “The ship is anchored to the floor with struts, so it’s not going anywhere.”
    That was good to know. Upon hearing this, I already felt better. I let go. Anna pulled me away from the wall.
    “We need to get to the cockpit,” Anna said. “There’s a transceiver and we can see if the others made it.”
    Samuel and Makara probably had, because I had seen them at the end of the Alpha Tunnel, in the Inner Ring. Unless that part took a direct hit, then they were probably okay.
    I pushed myself along cabinets and walls to get to Odin’s main corridor. I turned to the cockpit, clawing along the smooth walls to propel myself. Upon entering, I pulled myself toward the captain’s chair, and strapped myself in. Outside the front window I could only see darkness. The lights in the hangar were all out, and for all we knew, all of the air was as well.
    “That’s not good,” I said.
    “Here,” Anna said, flicking a few buttons on the dash.
    Odin hummed, powering on. I could hear the fusion drive in the ship’s back firing up.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Powering on the ship to get life support running,” Anna said.
    “We need that,” I said.
    “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
    “ Hey .”
    “Sorry,” Anna said. “You’re sitting in the captain’s chair, and you made an obvious statement. It had to be said.”
    Anna flipped the transceiver on, finding the frequency to communicate with Skyhome.
    “Skyhome, this is Anna Bliss. Alex and I are on Odin . What is your status, over?”
    Anna’s voice would be spilling out of every speaker connected to the Skyhome network. Dr. Ashton or the others could be anywhere.
    To my relief, the radio crackled to life.
    “Anna, this is Ashton. Samuel and Makara are both with me in my office. Something hit the habs, and all of Delta Quadrant depressurized. Thankfully, everyone made it out in time. It only affected the Mid Ring. The blast doors kept the air in everywhere else. We were lucky. I guess those monthly drills were good for something.”
    Those drills had been my bane. Getting up randomly at 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning and sprinting for the Inner Ring was no fun, but it least it had trained me on what to do in a situation like this. Although, Anna’s hab door malfunctioning had not been part of any of the drills. Usually, the drills gave us three minutes to get to the Inner Ring. This time, we had half that, and it was for real. I’m just glad I remembered the Odin .
    “Glad to hear you guys made it,” I said. “But how do we make it out of here? We’re stuck on Odin if the entire Mid Ring is depressurized.”
    “The whole Mid Ring isn’t,” Ashton said. “Just Delta Quadrant. But we have no idea what the hangar is like, so don’t go outside . I need to assemble a team to do an EVA, and see if we can get that puncture sealed. It will take hours to find that hole and seal it, and pressurizing and heating Delta Quadrant could take even longer.”
    “So there’s literally nothing we can do right now?” Anna asked.
    “Affirmative,” Ashton said. “As soon as the atmosphere’s back up, getting the Ring rotating again should be no issue, granted that there was no damage to the mechanics of the station. If

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