Journey Home

Chapter One

Dead silent and dark as the void, such were the conditions aboard the Dawn as Mathew got up from his bed. “Great, another blackout,” he complained as he stumbled out of bed and carefully made his way to his desk, where he rummaged through the first drawer until he found his flashlight, which he then proceeded to turn on.

Flashlight in hand, he made his way back to his bunk, where he grabbed the special wire reader that was securely placed on the wall to the right of the bunk, removed it from the wall, and turned it on to get the day's briefing. Indeed, there was another blackout, called because scouts returning from patrol detected Eranian FTL readings heading close to the fleet. The blackout is a total kill of all ship power; a trifle of total capacity is left, barely enough to power life support, critical ship systems, and the wire readers that are the sole means of communication allowed aboard the ship during a blackout.