The sounds of sirens awoke her. "Hull breach, I repeat there has been a hull breach," the warnings blared repeatedly.

'What's going on?' she thought as she was trying to get her bearings. It was then that she realized that down was no longer down. In fact, she noticed that the 'gravity', for the lack of a better word, could not have been caused by the normal acceleration, nor could the rotation of the arcs. Instead, up and down were being caused by another source of acceleration.

'Shit,' she thought as she disconnected the webbing at the end of her bunk's cubby.

She was currently inside of a bunk embedded in the wall. It was quite cramped inside the rectangular coffin-like cell and all five sides of it were padded. This was to keep the person inside safe in case of an emergency. After all, the engineers didn't want the occupants to get injured by flying around the inside of a more normal-sized bedroom. Besides, the USS Lexington was a military ship, so making the crew comfortable by giving them larger quarters was far less important than keeping them alive.

As she pulled herself out of the cramped space, Simmons met her as he too crawled out of his cubby. Kobayoshi and Watanabe were also emerging from their capsules. Last of all were Johnson and Anderson.

"What's going on?" Simmons asked everyone, only to be met by shrugs from the others.

She decided to speak up. "We are in a lateral spin, judging from the fact that we are currently walking on the walls. I would postulate to think that a meteor struck and now one of the turning thrusters is firing continuously."

"Why don't we just ask the bridge for more information?" Watanabe said. "They should know what's going on as well."

"Good idea," Simmons replied with a smile. He then walked over to the communications device imbedded into the wall and pushed a button. "Connect me to the bridge."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot connect you to the bridge right now," said a recorded voice. "Please try again in a little while."

"So much for that idea," Simmons said. "I think we should take a proactive approach. Someone needs to get down to main engineering while the rest make our way to the bridge."

"We should also send someone to the front of the ship to secondary engineering," she proposed. "The malfunctioning thruster could be at either end of the ship, and I think we should check it out."

"Okay," Simmons agreed. "Who wants to go where?"

"I'll head towards secondary engineering since I did most of my initial training," she volunteered.

"Okay, who else wants to go with her?" Simmons said.

"Who put you in charge?" Johnson asked. "We are all the same rank, after all."

"Johnson, now is not the time for this," Simmons said. "We need to find out what's going on. There may be injuries for all we know. If you have a better plan, let's hear it."

"No, I don't have a plan," Johnson admitted. "I just don't enjoy being ordered around by someone of the same rank."

"Duly noted," Simmons said diplomatically. "I volunteer to go to the bridge. Who wants to go with me?"

"Well then, I will volunteer to go to main engineering," Johnson replied.

"I'm going to have to pick out the teams if no one volunteers," Simmons said, totally ignoring Johnson's comment.

"I'll go to the bridge," Kobayoshi volunteered.

"I'll go to main engineering," Anderson said while teaming up with her partner from the GUSA.

"Then I guess I will have to go to secondary engineering," Watanabe declared.

"Okay everyone, we'll put on the first emergency suits we come across, just as the drills taught us," Simmons ordered, as they all filed out of the room.

---

A few minutes later, Cooper and Watanabe came across an emergency locker, which was stocked with first aid and other emergency equipment. It also contained four emergency suits.

Unlike a suit meant for extravehicular activities, the crew used these thin plastic garments inside of the ship. The suits also had a helmet attached as well as an hour's worth of oxygen. If the suit detected that the wearer was entering a low-pressure area, it would automatically switch over to its small oxygen cannister.

Basically, these garments were meant to be worn by crew members who had to get through a decompressed area safely. In other words, they were better than nothing until they could reach the airlocks and the many space suits stored there.

"Let's hope that we can make it to the main hull without having to use these," Cooper said as she helped to latch Watanabe's helmet in place.

It was strange to be walking on what would usually be a wall. It wasn't as if the 'gravity' was very strong here in the center of the ship, but it would be a force to be reckoned with once they made it to secondary engineering.

"I just hope we can make it to the airlock at all," Watanabe said as she attached Cooper's helmet.

"We should be fine," Cooper responded with a smile, all the while hoping that Watanabe couldn't see her literally quaking in her boots. 'I don't want her to wig out on me before we can reach our destination,' Cooper thought.

The duo slowly made it through the ship. They were checking every door they came to in order to make sure that there was acceptable air pressure on the other side before opening it. They were also being careful to use their emergency carabiners to clip themselves to the to the sides of the hallways as they slowly progressed. That way, they wouldn't fall very far if the direction of 'down' suddenly became the other end of the corridor.

"Were moving at a snail's pace," Watanabe complained.

"Slow and steady wins the race," Cooper replied. "Right now, there are at least three accelerations going on. For all we know one of them could stop or increase and then where would that leave us?"

"You're right," Watanabe said. "It's just frustrating."

"Trust me, you are not the only one who is frustrated," Cooper agreed. Then she released the carabiner behind her, passed the hooked carabiner in the middle, and then moved forward to the next hook. Then she repeated the process all over again. That way, it guaranteed that her fall would be no further than the length of the ropes.

Eventually, they came to a doorway with a red flashing indicator light.

"Damn," Cooper said. "It looks like we will have to go around."

"Isn't that the hallway to the main elevator?" Watanabe replied.

"Yes, it is, however the ships emergency protocol indicates that we try to go around an area before opening a pressure door. They don't want us to vent areas unless we absolutely have to."

"In other words, we are required to look for a way to get around the breach instead of just venting the corridor. Hmm that sounds like a pain."

"Tell that to the crew members who might be stuck in the area we are venting."

"That's true."

---

After trying four different corridors. Cooper became distressed. 'There did not seem to be any way around this if we are going to get to the lifts,' she thought. 'I really don't want to vent a section of the ship, but we have performed things by the book and that's the next step.'

"Watanabe, it's time for plan b. Which area was the smallest?"

"You mean, which was the smallest area that we could vent? I would say the one next to the mining control room."

"Okay, time to go and make some noise."

"Roger that."

---

Since they were close to the inner edge of the rotating arc, the spin gravity was low. That made the acceleration due to the faulty thruster seem more powerful than it was when they were in their sleeping quarters. Cooper and Watanabe used the low acceleration to make it back to the area in question. 'When we go outside the ship on the trek to secondary engineering that is really a force we will have to reckon with.' Cooper realized. 'I guess we will have to worry about it later.'

After activating the com on the wall, she said, "This is Lieutenant Cooper. Because of the ongoing emergency, I have to inform you that the areas in and around B-3 will be depressurized in five minutes. Please leave that area at once. I repeat all areas in and around B-3 will be depressurized in five minutes."

After five minutes, Cooper went to the sector's emergency vent control and broke the glass over it. Ten seconds later she pulled the lever. There was a loud, whooshing sound as she vented the atmosphere to the outside of the ship. Both of their flimsy garments ballooned outward, making the duo look comical as they went to the proper doorway, entered her emergency code, and then went into the previously inaccessible section.

'Well, that is one hurdle down,' Cooper thought as she motioned for Watanabe to follow.

Cooper was all but joyful as she reached the bank of lifts used to travel between the rotating arc and the main hull. 'The trip is now one third complete,' she realized as she hit the elevator call button. Then her smile dissolved into a frown when the elevator she called never arrived.

'Time for plan c,' Cooper thought as she pried the lift doors open with her hands. Once open, she used the lights attached to her helmet to look around. On two sides of the shaft were a pair of very long ladders. 'Looks like we are going to do this the hard way.'

---