Free Starship Revenant (The Galactic Wars Book 3) by Tripp Ellis Page A

in deep space. There had been documented cases of entire crews going insane and turning against one another. The USS Providence at the turn of the century. The USS Rampage in the colonial war.
    She wondered if that’s what happened here. There were many times aboard the Scorpion where she felt like she was going to murder someone if they said that same inane phrase one more time. Or if she had to listen to their annoying cackle, or see their stupid smirk one more time. After months and months of monotony, sometimes someone’s very presence just made you want to stab a kitchen knife through their eye socket.
    But this was hardly a long stretch in deep space for her. This was just a product of an overactive imagination and too many ghost stories.
    Zoey climbed up another deck and plodded to the CIC. She had expected to find skeletons or corpses drifting through the passageways. But there was nothing.
    The CIC was dark and empty. Her flashlight beam danced across the control consoles. They were dark and powerless.
    There was a clipboard, a pen, an empty bottle of wine, and other odds and ends floating in the air.
    “Where are all the bodies?” Mitch asked.
    “Maybe they evacuated the ship?”
    Zoey stepped to the command station and brushed away the layer of frost that coated the display.
    Mitch grabbed the wine bottle out of the air and read the label. “Château Delacroix.” He raised his brow, impressed. “That’s an expensive bottle of wine. Maybe the captain of the Revenant was drunk?” He let the bottle float back into the air. It tumbled around, freely.
    “Here goes nothing.” Zoey initiated a boot sequence for the ship. She pressed a few command keys but nothing happened. After a few moments, the display flickered to life. Other command consoles began to light up in a cascading array. Just as she had thought, the ship had gone into a standby mode, conserving energy.
    The system came online in safety mode. It was a limited mode that brought only essential components online in order to minimize complications, if some components were malfunctioning. It was designed to avoid an entire system lockup.
    The emergency lighting came up throughout the ship. The hallways and compartments were still dim and dark, but at least you could see your way around now. It was probably the first time the entire ship had been illuminated in years.
    Back on the Zephyr , Declan could see the Revenant’s running lights illuminate. He tried again to make contact with Mitch and Zoey, but only static filled the comm line.
    The Revenant’s computer automatically ran a diagnostic to detect any faults. Zoey watched the console as it ran through a list of checks.
    “So, what’s the word?” Mitch asked.
    “It’s still processing.”
    After a few minutes, the system completed its diagnostic.
    “Shit,” Zoey said.
    “What is it?”
    “Good news and bad news. The atmosphere processor checks out. But the engines and reactors are off-line. We’re running on the backup fuel cells now. Looks like there’s a breach in the hull in sections 167 through 172.”
    “If it’s small enough, we can repair it”
    “I can seal off those compartments, for now.” Zoey selected the compartments on the display screen and closed the hatches.
    “I’m going to activate the artificial gravity.” She pressed a button on the console. Everything that was floating around the room crashed to the ground. The wine bottle smashed into thousands of shards. You could hear the echo of debris and clutter clanking throughout the ship as the objects impacted the deck simultaneously on multiple levels. Zoey could feel the slight rumble beneath her feet.
    She paged through a few more screens and activated the atmosphere processor. “It’s going to take several hours, but we should have breathable air before too long.”
    Plumes of dust and particles rushed out of the air vents as the system rumbled to life.
    Zoey tabbed through the display, trying to pull up the