On the Bridge of the starship Mathilde was located the center of commands, it regrouped the commanding officers of the ship, some communication officers and technicians operating from there.

One of the communication officers had just received an incoming call in the provenance of the motors area.

“Admiral? An important communication, from Chief Technician Gomez, concerning the motors’ state. He’s asking to speak to you directly.”

“Give me the call, on a secure line.” Responded the old man sitting in the comfier chair of the room. The Admiral was probably the oldest man on board, he had been amongst the oldest men at the start of the journey, but being the chief of the expedition until the ship reached his destination, he had been among those who pass the lesser amount of time in stasis. For most of them, the journey was lasting less than a week or a month, for his most trusted men it was the affair of one or two years, but for him, it has been ten years that the ship had left the Earth’s surface.

“Gérôme? What’s happening?”

“Shit hit the fan Patrice, and it hit hard. The intra-stellar propulsion just gave way, we have no idea what’s wrong with the interstellar one and the thrust adjusters start to give signs of weakening.” The Admiral Patrice Jackson and the Chief Technician Gérôme Gomez had been friends for a long time, and formality had long ceased to exist between them. But it wasn’t in the habit of the Chief Gomez to swear like that, The Admiral immediately understood that his friend wasn’t joking.

“What can we do about it?”

“We can choose to stay in orbit around the planet or land on it, or on one of those giant moons. You can tell something about the probes?”

“They are deployed, but the Bugs destroyed almost all of them, the rest are still inside the ship, we won’t use them for now. We also destroyed the Bugs’ ones. But I’m certain you already know that.”

“Yeah, I know for the remaining, but not for the ones already send out. So the Bugs are still active, that’s some bad news.”

“They’re still there, but they seemed to have the same kind of problems than us. You think you can do something about the motors?”

“In theory, they should work perfectly, I can’t do a thing right now, I’ll need at least a week to understand what is going wrong there. And if it continues at the same pace, we will soon lose all the motors. I think they’ll die just after the landing if you decide to do it.”

“Gérôme, come in the briefing room. I’m calling in all the higher-up for a special meeting.”

“Ok. I finish a thing or two here and I’ll be there.”

Claude was listening to the conversation, he had transferred it to the Admiral and had been unable to resist the curiosity to listen to it. He had done it with a lot of discretion and was positive no one had known of it. As such he was greatly surprised when he heard the Admiral voice in his earpiece.

“Ensign Jirn. Don’t answer me. I know you’ve been listening on the conversation I just had with the Chief Gomez. I understand curiosity’s killing you. But it can be considered as treason. I won’t punish you know, and you won’t lose your head. Act normally or it will be worse. Now, hang over, that I can see I’ve been understood.”

His hand shaking the Ensign Claude Jirn push the button to end the call and turned his head to looked at the Admiral. “Shit! I’m dead! I’m swimming in a pool of shit and nothing can save me. What will he do to me? I’ve heard rumors about some unlucky bastards that anger him, they didn’t end well. He said he wouldn’t kill me, but I’m sure he’s planning far worse.”

“Ensign Jirn! Please call in the General Hanfo and the chief of all the scientistic hub in the briefing room in an hour. They must come with their assistants. You’re to come with me.”

“Yes, sir!” Responded the confused young Ensign.

Not understanding what was happening to him, the Ensign Jirn executed the orders and sent the convocation notices to all the required personnel.

The General Hanfo would be the commander of the army when the ship would land. He was supposed to take over the commanding role from the Admiral until the colony was stable enough to sustain a democratic government. It was also him who had directed part of the fight against the Bugs.

The Doctor Hermand was at the head of all the medical teams of the ship and a renowned surgeon. Currently examining the remained of a Bug and trying to understand their biology.

Professor Hotueh, exobiologist, and Doctor Tiy, leader of the biology research were doing the same work that the Doctor Hermand, but in other laboratories.

The Chief Gomez of course. He's supposed to know the ship like no one else, it’s his parents who made the plans and supervised the construction. Professor Detos, head of the social sciences, and numerous others.

They all gathered in the briefing room to hear what the Admiral had to say.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I have gathered you here to discuss an important matter. Like you already know, we are in a dire situation, the Mathilde is in a really bad shape and the things are not getting better. But there is a solution. There is near us a big planet, looking like the Earth, An E7 to be precise. What you probably don’t know is the fact that the Bugs are in a situation as bad as ours, meaning unable to leave this system. They have already started to take an approach course to the planet. The situation can’t go on like that. Here what I’m proposing, we’re going to change the objectives of our mission, or rather the location of the mission. We’re going to land on this planet and do there what we were supposed to do on Keird. We managed to establish a topographic survey of a part of the planet. Thanks to this map we had been able to determine that the planet is already inhabited, but not the state of the local civilization. We will know more when we’ll arrive in stationary orbit. But before this moment, I would like to hear your professional advice.”