"Alright, alright I will leave it at that." Tariq waved his hands as he left the two of them alone in the gym. Both Erick and Elari laughing after the door closed behind him.
"I can't believe he just did that." Elari tried to focus on her set, counting her reps as Erick did the same thing. Erick still trying not to laugh about the whole thing.
"Hey at least he left it at that after you kind of yelled at him." Erick was trying so hard to focus on his reps and not laughing at Elari.
After the workout, the stale tang of sweat gave way to the comforting hush of the ship's night cycle. The corridor lights dimmed, and the ambient hum of the Legacy settled into a gentler, almost lulling vibration. Erick and Elari's laughter trailed with them as they navigated the narrow halls, their steps soft as if reluctant to disturb the fragile peace.
Later, in Erick's quarters, the world felt reduced to the crumbled sheets and the gentle tangle of limbs. The overhead lights were muted, casting a faint golden haze across the bulkhead and the tousled dark of Elari's hair as she lay sprawled beside him. The ship's soft thrum pressed up from beneath the mattress.
Morning came as a gentle intrusion as the artificial dawn bleeding through the edges of the door panel, coaxing them awake. Elari blinked, her eyes adjusting to the pale, mechanical light. She could feel Erick's steady breathing beside her, his arm draped loosely over her waist, anchoring her in the small gravity of shared space. For a moment, she lay still, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat and the familiar distant rattle of the Legacy's pipes.
Erick stirred, shifting against her with a muffled groan. "Please tell me it's not morning yet," he muttered, his voice gravelly with sleep.
She smiled, pressing her face into the crook of his shoulder. "Technically, it's morning everywhere on the ship."
He cracked one eye open, offering her a lazy grin. "Remind me why we don't just stay in here all day?"
Elari rolled onto her back, stretching contentedly. "Because my dad would break down the door saying something about how we are being lazy and not doing our job." She nudged him with her elbow, both of them softly laughing. "And because someone has to keep the Legacy from falling apart."
He sighed theatrically, but there was no real protest in it. Together, they lay for a moment longer, before the inevitable call of the day coxed them out of bed.
Just like the other day Erick went through the Legacy working on fixing old or broken systems with minimal parts and replacements to do so, for his first long term voyage on an exploration vessel he did have to admit that the peace and quiet was the most common thing from day to day, everyone just seemed to do there own thing unless something important was happening, in fact most the only time Erick had spoken to the captain was over video screen, he couldn't recall ever seeing the captain face to face except when he first came aboard back on earth and that was months ago at least he had Elari to keep him company and a endless list of repairs to keep him busy.
And today was no different after a long day of working on fixing the ships water regulator Erick arrived in the mess hall again to sit down and enjoy a somewhat decent synthesized meal with Elari, as she sat down next to him, she leaned over and sniffed his hair.
"You smell cleaner than you have in days." She joked as her tray made contact with the table a soft clank of metal on metal.
"Yeah, that's what happens when a water pump sprays you with one hundred precent pure water." Erick rolled his eyes playfully at her antics.
The two of them sitting and eating together for lunch had become a tradition over the last couple of months, though Erick did have a tendency to complain about the state of the Legacy and Elari would just simple pretend to listen to her boyfriend complain about the ship for the hundredth time or so about how this problem or that could cause massive malfunctions at some point or another. That was until all his complaining became reality.
"I'm telling you Ely that this ship won't survive another long-haul trip like this if we don't do a complete retrofit of the entire ship." Erick gently slammed his hand down on the table at the same time the Legacy lurched, and the metal hull made a strained scraping sound.
Both Erick and Elari slowly sat up as another strained sound came from the ship, just then the hull of the mess hall exploded outward, Erick quickly activated his magnetic boots just as Elari was pulled off her feet towards the hull breach he quickly grabbed ahold of her waist and arm pulling her back as best he could.
"Emergency protocol activate inner shielding in sector H1!" Erick screamed as he pulled Elari against him, both of them panting for breath as the shielding activated and gravity returned to normal. The red lights began to flash, and steam hissed from the vents as the emergency alarms began to blare and an automated voice began to speak throughout the Legacy.
"Warning, Warning catastrophic failure in engine one, system failure in emergency fuel pump, system failure in fire suppression system, Warning, Warning." The voice continued to repeat the message over and over again.
"Come on Elari we need to move." Erick pulled on Elari's wrist as he began to run towards the exit of the mess hall.
"Attention all crew this is the captain speaking report to the nearest escape pods I have activated the emergency distress beacon, I repeat abandon the Legacy." The voice of captain Talor came over the intercom slightly broken by the alarms.
Erick and Elari ran as fast as they could down the ships corridor rounding the corner to where the found Nova kicking at the hatch for one of the escape pods cursing and screaming in Chinese.
"dǎkāi nǐ zhège yúchǔn de lāj (Open you stupid piece of junk.)" His foot hammered against the metal of the door as his hair bounced back and forth with each kick.
"Jiang move let me get it." Erick pushed the comms officer to the side grabbing a tool from his belt and squatting down to start cutting away at the metal.
"wǒzhīdào wǒhuì sǐzài zhèsōu lājī chuánshàng (I knew I would die on this piece of junk ship)." Nova continued to scream in Chinese as spark flew from the metal hatch.
"Jiang speak fucking English you know only you and Erick speak that carp." Elari screamed, trying to be louder than the ship's alarm.
"zhèbúshì wǒdecuò, nǐzhǐ shìyígè yúchǔn de fēixíngyuán (it's not my fault you're just a dumb pilot.)" Nova spat back at her just as the door that led to the escape pod opened.
"Both of you calm the fuck down I got it open and Jiang if." Erick's voice cut off as the hatch opened only for the three of them to realize that there was no escape pod in the lunch bay.
"zhè tāmāde shìshénme táoshēng cāng zàinǎli (what the fuck is this where is the escape pod.) Nova yelled and pointed franticly at the empty bay that was supposed to house the escape pod.
Erick turned and slapped the man across the face hard enough to get his attention. "Jiāng, nǐxūyàolěngjìngdiǎn, chuánshàng hái yǒubié de dòujiá cāng, bù néngdōu shìkōngde, érqiěhuìshuōyīngyǔ, nǐzhīdào wǒde zhōngwén búshì zuìhǎode. (Jiang you need to calm down there are other pod bays on the ship they can't all be empty and speak English you know my Chinese isn't the best.)" Erick spoke in an accented Chinese tone as he addressed Jiang.
After regaining his composure, he apologized to both Erick and Elari as he was supposed to be the older member of the crew and the one to take charge in these kinds of situations to be corrected by his junior was enough to snap him out of his panic. The three of them checked every bay on their way through the ship each and every bay was empty eventually they found themselves on the command deck and cockpit along with the other three members of the crew.
"Captain Talor explain this bullshit now where are the escape pods, and why did the ships engine explode like that." Tariq slammed his hands down hard on the galactic map display of the ships command deck.
"It would appear that the ship was in a worse state then we were informed after letting our last engineer go and it would appear that he was also selling of parts and supplies then reporting false information to the corporate board as such they believed that the ship as at one hundred precent before our departure from earth. Captain Talor kept his calm even as the ship was falling apart.
"Navigator Elari what is our current projected heading." Captain Talor asked.