the Aftermath

With the ship continuing to spin out of control, Brigham was trapped in the engine room with his dead instructor and a fire that was getting more intense. The ash and smoke only grew larger which made Brigham's coughing worse. He felt like he couldn't take it any longer.

Out of panic, he started banging as loud as he could on the engine room door but none of his classmates heard him. He tried searching for a lock, but the only thing he found was an electronic input machine that he had no idea how to operate. Brigham tried pressing random buttons on the panel but nothing happened.

Just when he had thought there was no hope left, his consciousness beginning to slip away after, he noticed a communication microphone at the door. He pressed the speak button and mustered his last sliver of strength to say: "I am in the engine room locked. Somebody help me. I'm about to die. Brigham."

The blue-haired student couldn't take anymore and fell to the ground. Was this how I was going to die? At 15 with no accomplishments behind my name. His eyes shut.

***

"Brigham wake up! C'mon, wake up!" Brigham heard a familiar voice and someone shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw a teary-eyed Curro shaking him. "Oh thank goodness you're alright!" Curro said and tightly hugged his best friend. "I thought we lost you!"

As Brigham came to he noticed Hitomi was next to him as well. She was the one who probably resuscitated him considering she was the medic of this crew. Looking around the rest of the class Lupus was around him, a little farther away than Hitomi and Curro in order to give him a bit of space to breathe.

"What happened?" Brigham rubbed his eyes. "How long was I out?"

Roy took a step forward and said: "I picked up you calling out in the communication room and I scrambled the signal across the ship and got everyone to come to the engine room door. We couldn't get it open at first, thankfully Curro was there and he successfully hacked the door and got you out. Khalid took a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. You were out for maybe a few minutes once we got you out. You can thank Hitomi for bringing you back to life."

"I don't what I would have done if we lost you." Curro wiped away tears from behind his glasses.

Brigham jumped to his feet as he remembered their situation. "Guys as much as I would love to chat we need to stop the ship, it is still spinning out of control, everyone get back to your posts!"

The crew started to disperse back to their assigned positions, they understood the seriousness behind his voice with each officer running to their computers.

Hitomi still knelt on the ground with an offended look: "Gee Brigham what a hello, you could have said thank you Hitomi," Brigham shouted her a thank you, although Hitomi still wasn't pleased with how haphazard it was. She decided to just sit on the floor, the medic didn't have any way to help with the situation.

With Brigham back in the captain's room and his officers in place, he took control of the ship, "Ana!" Brigham yelled through the microphone, "What's our status?"

"We are rotating counter-clockwise and on a fast course towards the sun. We don't have much time before we're fried."

Brigham issued his next order: "Emidio! Turn on the propulsion to spin the ship clockwise to stop the ship's trajectory."

"Ummmmm," Emidio gave a confused non-response.

"Just do it man! We're going to crash into the sun."

Emidio inputted commands but he messed up big time. He turned the propulsion counter-clockwise and made the vessel spin even faster to its doom.

"What are you doing. I told you clockwise."

"I'm sorry. I will fix it." Emidio's voice cracked but he only turned on the auto-pilot. The AI was confused about what it was supposed to do and it did nothing to help the situation.

"Emidio get it together damn it. What is wrong with you?"

"Don't worry I got it," Curro answered on the other end of the line. "I can correct his mistake through the main computer room." Curro effortlessly made the correct calculations and managed to stabilize the ship through propulsion. The ship now stood in place. (Relative to the sun)

Brigham breathed a sigh of relief, it was the second time his best buddy came through today. First hacking the engine room door and now saving the crew from their course of doom. I knew I could always count on Curro.

"Everybody may I have your attention please," Brigham's voice echoed through the ship as he spoke through the comms. "We need to gather at the engine room and assess the situation.

***

Class Lupus had gone over their predicament. Serpens and Ovis were knocked away and probably crashed on planet Hrkar. The warp speed machine was completely destroyed and they had no way of repairing it. Meaning they were stranded in the Rubin asteroid belt. The regular engines worked but it would take 2393 years to get back to planet Spark's Nova Occasio without the warp.

From the impact, Lupus's spacecraft had with its too allied ships, the long-range communication relay had been disabled. They can't call home, nor can they send out a distress signal. They can only send out communication within the ship or send it to a nearby vessel that would happen to come across them via short-range signals. The likelihood of somebody stumbling onto them in the Rubin asteroid belt was almost impossible given it was a territory that had no commercial value and thus no travelers. The only ones that travel here are a student like themselves from their colony for their exam.

Finally, there was their dead instructor. The fires had been put down, and they approached his lifeless corpse. It was a traumatic and disturbing sight to the young fragile minds of the students. They were seeing a parental figure, someone who had been guiding them through life since they entered the academy dead in front of them. He was cracking jokes not too long ago and now he was gone forever.

The students carried his body to the morgue of the ship where his body was frozen in a special chamber. It was part of the protocol to freeze crew members who died and take the body back home in that state. Upon returning home his body was going to be investigated by the military police and an autopsy was going to be performed. For now, they had merely frozen his corpse for protocol. Class Lupus vowed to give him a proper funeral and find his killer once this was over.

Investigating the engine room confirmed the previous assumption that this was an explosion from the inside. They were not hit with a missile no part of the outside ship was pierced and there clear marks of an inside explosion. Meaning, a bomb was detonated inside, and one of them had to have placed it in the engine room.

Spaceships are inspected in a very detailed manner, especially those carrying children. The bomb had to have been placed after they came on board. Suspicion was brewing amongst the class, and one of them was behind this diabolical act.

Lupus gathered in the mess hall to discuss what was the next step.

"You all know why we are here. Our dear instructor is dead and one of us did it." Brigham spoke with authority. "One of us is not who they say they are. Clearly, we have been deceived thinking we were all comrades. However, we will get to the bottom of this and I assure you all, we will come back from this mission, alive once we catch the bomber."

"The bomber?" Roy raised an eyebrow. "Is that how we are calling this person?"

"Culprit, bomber, terrorist, call them whatever, it's not really important," Brigham said. "Instructor Mok before he died believed that this was either an act by the Americans or the Soviets. To pull our neutral colony into a possible galactic war. The other theory I came up with is they wanted to push us to join NATO or the Warsaw Pact through this act of terror on us vulnerable students. Mok didn't know that the explosion came from the inside when he came up with the first theory."

The rest of class Lupus nodded along as they listened to Brigham continue: "From now on we will all walk around the ship in groups or pairs, walking alone risks us being attacked by the culprit. So be sure to traverse the ship with someone, even when going to the bathroom make sure someone accompanies you. That's at least we sort this mess out."

Curro raised his hand and said: "Hey, Brigham?" His friend nodded and Curro presented his idea: "If it is an act of terror by the West or East, I think I might be able to deduce which of the two were behind this. I can analyze the shrapnel of the bomb amongst the debris, and figure out who the manufacturer of the bomb is. That should give us the country of origin."

"Dependable as always," Brigham said proudly to his best friend. "That's a great idea, listen up everyone these are your tasks. Curro and Emidio will go gather the shrapnel and analyze it. Ljubiša and Khalid will guard the escape pods in case our bomber attempts to escape. Lei Mei and I will go to Mok's quarters to dig through our files. Mok had all the information about each of us as the instructor, which was provided to him by the school. That should hopefully give us some leads. Finally Ana, Roy, and Hitomi you search the ship and try to find some clues."

"Excuse me" Hitomi snapped her fingers, "Who do you think you are ordering us all around."

"Mok named me as his deputy, with him gone I am now in charge. Now guys let's go!"

The class scattered to their tasks. Everyone was determined to find the culprit as soon as possible and bring them to justice.

Brigham and Lei Mei walked together to Mok's quarters in silence. Lei Mei hadn't uttered a word since the explosion, she was amongst those most distraught over their teacher's death. She couldn't gather herself. Brigham didn't take it any better than her, he was just better at channeling his grief. He knew that as the deputy he needed to step up, take charge, and get to the bottom of the mystery.

They soon stood before Mok's quarters, but before they had a chance to open the door, they saw Hitomi running towards them in a state of panic. "Guys, guys, come over here quick," She yelled out at the two.

Without asking what or why, she had an urgency in her voice uncharacteristic of the pink-haired girl, Lei Mei and Brigham rushed back to the mess hall following Hitomi, only to find Ana and Roy at a standoff, pointing pistols at each other.