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try to sound funny.
    Nobody laughs.
    “Sorry. What is going
on?”
    They all look at Roy
as if he is now Dr. Akio.
    “I don’t know.” Roy
says, eyes on Bertha.
    “Is she alright?” I
ask.
    “Not good.” Roy says,
one hand pointing at the screen next to the bed.
    I don’t understand
all those numbers on the screen.
    “We have to get the
medicine soon. If—” Bud says with tears in eyes, but he stops immediately when
he meets Roy’s cold eyes.
    “Where is the
medicine? On Earth?” I ask.
    A long silence.
    Damn! I guess they
really don’t like me. Maybe Roy and Bud are also aliens. We will know soon.
    We are just standing
there silently.
    “Where was she
found?” I break the silence again.
    “In the kitchen,”
says Lisa.
    “Anything abnormal?”
I ask.
    “We see a cup of soup
on the table,” says Charle.
    “Is it expired?” I
ask.
    “No, it looks fine. I
drunk one yesterday.” says Lock.
    “Me too,” says
Charle.
    “And me,” says Lisa.
    “I will run some
experiments on the soup,” says Roy.
    “Please do that. In
the meanwhile, we also need to share Bertha’s duty. Now we don’t have pilots on
duty. I will do that.”
    “The rest of us can
share her other duties.” Lock looks around others.
    “Also put in schedule
one more thing. We take turns to look after these two.” I add.
    “No problem.” Roy
says gratefully and others nod.
    Lock volunteers to
take the first round to look after the two girls. Then we leave the medical bay
one after another.
    I go to check the
mainframe. I am the only one who knows the access code to Achilles’ mainframe.
It is located in a special compartment built in the center of Achilles.
Everyone can get into this compartment, but only I can access the mainframe.
Most operations don’t require access to the mainframe and can be done at the
bridge.
    The access code is
actually a slew of numbers. At the very beginning, the design was a combination
of several biometric identifications. Later I made the request to change it so
that if I was incapacitated, someone can still access the mainframe. I
certainly hope I never need to deal with that.
    I should have checked
the mainframe right after I woke up three days ago. Now I can see from the
flight record that nine days ago the crew opened the door at the docking bay.
Then there must be another ship. I guess this happened after the asteroid
shower.
    Hold on.
    I quickly scan
through the data, but couldn’t find any record of the asteroid shower.
    Why?
    “Commander,
Commander?” It’s Jim.
    “Yes.”
    “We just resumed
communication with flight control at Luna station.”
    “Good. Finally. On my
way.” I sprint off the chair and dash to the door.
    In the bridge, my
crews are looking at the main screen. When I join them, they don’t even glance
at me.
    The message reads,
“Achilles, we have been trying to contact you since 09/06/2055. Please reply
this message as soon as possible. Fight control, Luna station. Message sent
16:35, central time, 09/16 /2055.”
    Now is 17:01, so they
sent it about 26 minutes ago.
    “How are we going to
reply?” Roy asks.
    “Start recording.” I
say.
    Roy touches the
screen and a window pops out.
    “Flight control, this
is Achilles. We were hit by an asteroid shower on September 6th 2055. Our main
antenna sustained severe damage and the backup antenna malfunctioned. Only
today we were able to fix it. Jim did a very good job.” I stop for a second
looking for Jim, but he is not among us.
    “Except communication
problem, we are also short on manpower. Dr. Akio left us in the escape pod. I
still don’t know what really happened. Lily and Bertha are sick and in coma.
Right now we have seven people here to do all the work. Commander Jason Yang.”
    Roy presses the send
on the screen.
    A window pops out. It
reads, “Message sent successfully. Received at 17:02, central time,
09/16/2055.”
    “Yes!” I yell.
    Others are rather
calm and quiet.
    I kind of feel bad,
because right