The display for monitoring the status of the capacitors was comprised of text tags, in a grid, marking off precisely how high a percentage they were at capacity (zero percent) and how many farads in total the system held (about sixty).

As Jam poured energy into the system, the monitor did not react, for the first perhaps five seconds. Then the percentages began to rise.

5.0% [04820.15f]

There was an audible crackling, and arcs leapt off the piece of machinery Jam was charging. They bounced off the floor, and sparks crawled around the edges where they landed.

13.2% [12726.25f]

A thick, low drone filled the air. There was a distant crackle from one of the capacitors.

38.1% [36733.88f]

Everyone's fur would begin to stand on end. The air became increasingly more oppressive, in spite of the gentle breeze filling the room.

78.8% [75972.94f]

The air was thick and greasy, and filled with a unpleasant ozone taste that stuck to people's tongues.

99.3% [95737.15f!]

The maintenance terminal suddenly lost coordination, and the neat grid of measurements was elbowed off the screen by a massive, expanding block of text that began to occupy more and more of the terminal's limited monitor space, and grew rapidly.



The power terminal ceased to accept electricity, directing Jam's charge out into whatever nearby metal would take it. There was a shower of sparks from the ceiling as an arc of lightning melted a bite-sized hole out of a structural beam, and a distinct whine began to emanate from the piece of equipment she was directing power to.

For an unsettlingly long time, nothing seemed to happen. The only person who would be aware of any change in the ship's operation would be Tau — assuming the robot was around to watch the screen begin to change again. It began to tick down various operational cues, progressing towards an event that was only given a clue towards by the eight letter marker that the system used to refer to it: 'lincnalt'

Then, a human-readible sentence appeared on the screen.



The group — situated as close to the core as they were, abruptly began to drift off the floor, and gently fell towards the right wall of the room.

The computer continued its silent monologue, gently informing the world at large of the space station's impending action. Then, there was a final sentence.



The terminal display began to pour down a coarse torrent of jet activations and results, as the station began to tumble, with titanic slowness. The world began to tilt.

With a crushing, relentless ponderousness, like some prehistoric mastodon turning around in place, the space station ARK began to increase its rotational speed. Simultaneously, across its earth-facing surface, massive columns — ion jets designed to augment the titanic construction's altitude — began to fire, projecting glowing blue beams down at the surface of the planet below, crowbarring the ARK into a higher orbit, against all natural laws, and against the stern punishment of physics.

The room seemed to tumble around them as the group found themselves inexorably slipping towards another wall from the wall they were currently standing on, which was currently torn between being a floor, a wall, or a ceiling.

As the ARK pivoted, structures in the distance shriek and groaned. The room around them seemed to undulated, gently, kicking off whoever was touching its walls.

The door at the end of the room shifted away from the doorway. Air began to rush out of the room at an increasingly dangerous rate as light filled their surroundings.

The horrifying, inexplicable gravity-warping, and accompanying sense of extreme disorientation went on for what seemed like forever, but might have been, in reality, maybe one or two minutes, and then…

Silence.

The last creakings and poppings of the stressed space station trailed away.

Then the lights came on.

Then the gravity came on, and everyone who did not quickly prepare themselves fell, awkwardly, to the floor. Air stopped leaving the room. An emergency shield had covered the exit, turning the gaping wound in the ship's surface into a sort of impromptu window. A gentle rushing noise filled the room as local circulation systems began to activate, connecting with other, larger air systems across the ARK as the newly-restored computers tested each section's atmosphere for toxins.

There was another sepulchral howl from the ARK's massive skeleton, as the ARK fired its thrusters again, but this time, the gravity did not flicker off. Order was maintained.

Outside, the shields were activated. They sparked and flared unpleasantly, resisting the massive cloud of space debris that had been assailing the ARK some moment previous. Peace was restored.



The door had fallen away from the far end of the room, revealing the area of the ARK that had been impacted. A chunk of half-melted metal was lodged in the middle of the distant room. It had ploughed down through three stories of the ARK's face, and come to rest directly in front of the group responsible for activating the station's jets.

Even if no-one gave it more than a second glance, it was obvious that it was not a piece of rock or random chunk of debris. It was too regular. In spite of its scars, and the massive, glossy black streaks of carbon that smeared its surface, it was very obviously a capsule of some kind, no bigger than an escape pod. On the one section of the capsule that was still legible, were the words:




It didn't matter if anyone bothered to look out the makeshift window that had been bored into the room, or if they waited to get back to the hangar to notice, but as the ARK began to approach sunset, sailing serenely into the penumbra of the planet, it would become rivetingly obvious that the field of debris was a ships' graveyard. It would become apparent just as quickly that, as far as the eye could see — scarred, deformed by blast marks, seared by the sun, flaking and dented — the corpse spaceships were all marked with logos of recognizeable companies, militaries, and countries — all from Earth.

"Yes. Yes. The Tasmanian devil is punching people. In the face. Uhm. Oh dear. I hope he doesn't go for—"

*Click.*

Rock had just twisted the knob on his radio to the "off" position, while a very tired look on his battered face conveyed just how much he was ready to move on.

"Let's head back," he suggested to his group, before strolling for the door.

...

Along the way, he shot a sideways glance at Jam.

"... Good job, by th'way," he mumbled. His sincerity was tainted with a touch of smarm, however. "Good thing you're wearin' a helmet, though."

OOC: After I got home from work today, and reread last night's post, it felt rushed, and less in-character than I wanted it to be, so I rewrote with a fresh head. Not of dire consequence, but I'll sleep better knowing I played my own character right.

Her half-second beam took a turn for the sassy, delaying her steps just long enough to roll her eyes and shake her head at the back of Rock's, before reclaiming her pace with a couple of springy bounds.

"We can't all be as cool as you, babe," she lamented in a mock-pained sigh.

"Besides," the mischievous monkey added brightly, with a playful pop on the other primate's (good) shoulder. "'Least when I get hurt, it's funny."

"You could stand t'learn a thing or two from me," she added dryly. "Your injuries are almost never comical."