Chapter 2: Contained: Experiments in Darkness
The sterile, chilled air of the Command and Control center was a shock to Derek’s system after the furnace heat of the conduit. The blue-tinged light felt artificial and unforgiving after the lab’s bloody pulse. Around them, the crew worked with focused efficiency, their voices low and calm over the hum of machinery and the persistent, but now manageable, alarm.
A senior technician with a shaved head and a face etched with stress lines hurried over. “Captain McCall. Dr. Albertson. The system logged your lifesigns moving through a decommissioned conduit. That was… inventive.”
“It was that or become part of the atmospheric sample,” Diana said, her voice still breathy. She ran a hand through her hopelessly tangled curls, leaving a smudge of conduit grime on her temple.
The tech, Chief Larsen, didn’t smile. “The lab module is sealed and quarantined. The structural integrity is holding, but the EM pulse fried its primary and secondary control nodes. It’s a dead zone.” His eyes flicked to Derek. “Your initial report on the oxygen regulators was the last clean data we got from there. You two are lucky to be alive.”
Derek became acutely aware of every eye in the C&C on them. He stood a little straighter, the Captain’s mantle settling back onto his shoulders, feeling tighter than before. “Status of the storm, Chief?”
“The main wave is passing, but we’re still catching the tail. Shields are at forty-three percent and regenerating. Most of the base is on internal battery power.” Larsen’s gaze lingered on Diana’s disheveled state, then on Derek’s own grimy uniform. “Medics are on standby if you need clearance.”
“We’re fine,” Derek said, too quickly.
“Aye, just a bit toasted,” Diana added, offering a weak smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She was looking at Derek, a silent question in her exhausted gaze.
The adrenaline was receding, leaving a hollow, shaky feeling in its wake. The memory of the kiss in the red-lit lab, the feel of her hands on his neck, the desperate crawl through blinding heat—it all crashed into him at once, conflicting violently with the sterile, procedural environment of the C&C. He needed a moment. Just one moment to process the fact that his entire, orderly world had just been cracked open.
“Chief, we need five minutes. Decompression,” Derek said, his voice leaving no room for argument.
Larsen nodded, his attention already returning to a flashing schematic on a nearby console. “There’s a maintenance locker down corridor B. It’s clear. Report back here for debrief.”
Derek didn’t wait. He took Diana’s elbow, his grip firm but not rough, and guided her away from the central hub, through a sliding door into a quieter, narrower hallway. The door hissed shut, muffling the sounds of the crisis. Here, the lighting was dimmer, the air still and cool.
He found the locker, a small recessed door marked with a gear icon. He tapped the access panel and it slid open, revealing a cramped space filled with shelves of components and toolkits. He pulled her inside and the door closed, plunging them into near-darkness, save for a single strip of low-level bioluminescent lighting along the baseboard.
In the close, quiet dark, the only sounds were their breathing.
Then Diana was on him.
Her hands came up, framing his face, pulling him down to her. This kiss was different from the first. It wasn’t a challenge or a surprise attack. It was hungry, full of the shared terror and the blazing triumph of survival. It tasted of sweat and fear and pure, undiluted want.
His own control, so carefully rebuilt in the C&C, shattered. He backed her against a shelf, the metal digging into her back, his hands sliding from her face down to her hips, gripping her through the thin material of the flight suit. He kissed her back with a desperation that shocked him, a raw need he’d spent years burying under discipline and duty.
Her fingers scrambled for the seals of his suit, her touch clumsy with urgency. “I need to know,” she breathed against his mouth, her Scottish brogue thick and warm in the dark. “I need to know if you’re real under all this… Captain.”
He captured her wrists, gently but firmly, pinning them against the shelf on either side of her head. He could feel the frantic race of her pulse beneath his thumbs. “Diana,” he murmured, his voice a ragged whisper. “We’re in a maintenance closet. The base is falling apart out there.”
A slow, wicked smile spread across her face, visible in the faint glow. “You say the most romantic things.” She strained against his grip, her body pressing against his. “And you’re the one who dragged me in here. So either debrief me, Captain, or stop talking.”
He stared at her, at the brilliant, messy, impossible woman who duct-taped explosions and kissed him in the middle of a solar storm. The woman who made him feel more alive staring into a breach than he ever had following a perfect flight plan.
He released her wrists. Instead of pulling away, his hands went to the collar of his own flight suit, yanking the seal open. “It’s Derek,” he said, the words a surrender. “In here, it’s just Derek.”
Her eyes gleamed in the dim light. She reached for him again, her touch slower now, more deliberate, tracing the line of his jaw, the corded muscle of his neck. Her scientific curiosity was back, but it was fused with a deep, humming warmth. “Okay, Derek,” she whispered. “Let’s see what makes you tick.”
Her fingers found the hem of his undershirt, sliding beneath the fabric to touch the skin of his stomach. He flinched at the contact, a sharp, electric jolt. Her touch was cool against his feverish skin. He lowered his head, burying his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the scent of her—ozone, sweat, and something uniquely, fundamentally her.
His own hands found the seals of her suit, working them open with a soldier’s efficiency that felt strangely intimate in the context. The tough fabric gave way, and he pushed it down over her shoulders, his palms sliding over the thin cotton of her tank top, feeling the fierce, quick beat of her heart beneath his hand.
It was then that the world outside their tiny, private universe decided to reassert itself.
A new alarm blared, different from the others—a piercing, undulating wail that cut through the metal walls. The base-wide lockdown.
The single strip of light in the closet died, plunging them into absolute, suffocating blackness.
Diana froze, her breath catching. “What now?”
Derek’s body went rigid, every sense straining. From somewhere deep in the base, a low, resonant groan echoed, the sound of immense metal stress. It was the sound of the moon itself complaining.
“The structural integrity field must be fluctuating,” he said, his voice low and tight in the dark. He didn’t let her go. His arms tightened around her, holding her close against the shudder that ran through the deck. “The lockdown seals all sections. We’re stuck in here.”
The all-consuming hunger of a moment before was gone, replaced by a new, more primal tension. The darkness was complete, a physical weight against their eyes. The only sounds were the relentless, skull-drilling pitch of the alarm and the distant, ominous groaning of the base.
Diana’s hands, which had been exploring, now clutched at the fabric of his shirt. “Stuck?” Her voice was small in the overwhelming noise.
“Yeah,” Derek murmured, his lips close to her ear. He could feel the frantic thumping of her heart where his chest pressed against hers. Or maybe it was his own. In the absolute black, with the world seeming to tear itself apart around them, there was nothing but the feel of her in his arms and the terrifying, exhilarating uncertainty of what happened next.
He held her tighter. “We’re stuck.”
The groaning metal faded into a low, persistent hum, but the lockdown alarm’s shriek remained, a needle in the ears. In the absolute black, Derek’s arms were the only solid thing, a anchor in the chaos. Diana’s breath warmed the skin of his neck where his flight suit was still open.
She shifted against him, her movement a small disturbance in the dark. Her fingers, which had been clutching his shirt, relaxed slightly, tracing a slow circle on his chest. The gesture was contemplative, not fearful.
The alarm cycled to a slightly lower pitch, and in the relative quiet, her voice was a soft, wry murmur near his jaw. She looked up at him, though neither could see the other’s face. “Derek,” she said, her Scottish lilt cutting through the din. “What should we do with all this time in lockdown?”
A low, grinding shriek of tortured metal answered her, vibrating up through the deck plates and into their bones. The sound was deeper and more visceral than the alarm, a promise of structural failure that made the closet feel suddenly flimsy. Derek’s grip on her tightened instinctively, his body shifting to shield hers from the door.
“That didn’t sound like the shields regenerating,” she whispered, the playful note in her voice utterly gone.
He was already moving, one hand releasing her to fumble in the absolute blackness. His fingers brushed against cold metal shelves, knocking a small tool to the floor with a clatter that was swallowed by the alarm. “My comms unit is dead. The EMP from the storm must have fried it. Yours?”
“In my lab coat. Which is in a sealed-off lab module, remember?” Her own hands pattered over his chest, his arms, a blind search for reassurance or a plan. “So we’re deaf and blind in a metal coffin.”
“We’re not dead yet.” His voice was a flat, calm counterpoint to the chaos, a tone he’d learned in simulators that always ended in fire. He found her shoulders again, his touch firm. “The lockdown protocol is automatic. It means the AI detected a cascade failure somewhere, but it contained it. This section is holding.”
Another deep-throated groan echoed from the far end of the corridor, followed by a distinct hiss of decompressing air that was there and then gone. Diana flinched, pressing closer. “Holding for how long?”
“Long enough.” He guided her down into a crouch, his back against the door, pulling her between his legs and against his chest. The position was practical, a way to brace and share warmth, but the intimacy of it sent a fresh, unwelcome jolt through his system. He could feel every breath she took. “Conserve oxygen. Just in case.”
She relaxed into him, her head resting back against his shoulder, her curls tickling his jaw. The scent of her was still there, underneath the sharp smell of his own fear-sweat. “You’re surprisingly good at this. The calm-in-a-crisis thing.”
“It’s the job.” He stared into the nothingness, his ears straining to filter the alarm from any new, more telling sounds. The memory of her hands on his skin, the feel of her mouth on his, felt like a dream from another lifetime. “You’re not so bad yourself. For a academic.”
She let out a soft, shaky laugh. “You should see me with a blown fuse and a budget report. Pure terror.” She was quiet for a moment, listening to the frantic beat of his heart against her back. “That kiss in the lab….”
“Was a mistake,” he finished, the words coming out harsher than he intended. He felt her stiffen slightly in his arms. “I’m your security detail, Diana. Or I was. Fraternization regulations are a mile long.”
“Right. The regulations.” Her voice was flat. “Because rules are what really matter when you’re about to be spaced.”
He had no answer for that. The truth was, the rulebook felt like it was burning in his pocket. The want was still there, a live wire under his skin, humming alongside the fear. It was messy and complicated and everything he’d spent his career avoiding.
A new sound cut through the din, not metal this time, but a voice. It was thin, distorted, and coming from a small, forgotten grille near the ceiling. “—any personnel in Sector Gamma, please respond. This is Chief Larsen in C&C. We have a partial integrity alarm in your corridor.”
Derek was on his feet in an instant, pulling Diana up with him. He shoved a shelf aside, the tools on it clattering, and pressed close to the grille. “Larsen! McCall and Albertson. We’re in the maintenance locker off corridor B. What’s the situation?”
The response was crackled with static. “Captain? Thank Christ. The lockdown isolated a pressure breach in the connecting junction. It’s sealed, but the structural sensors in your section are reading intermittent stress fractures. We can’t risk opening the bulkheads yet.”
Diana found his hand in the dark and squeezed it. Her fingers were cold. “How long?” she called out toward the grille.
“Best guess? Two hours. Maybe three. The system needs to run a full structural diagnostic before we can safely disengage the locks.” Larsen’s voice hesitated. “Sit tight. And try not to move around too much.”
The grille went silent, leaving them with the resuming, solitary wail of the alarm. Two hours. In the dark. With the base groaning around them like a dying animal.
Derek slowly slid down the door to sit on the floor, pulling her down to sit beside him, their shoulders touching. The fleeting hope the communication had brought evaporated, leaving a heavier silence in its wake.
“So,” Diana said after a long moment, her voice carefully light. “Two hours. You still haven’t answered my question.”
He turned his head toward her, though he could see nothing. He could feel the warmth of her arm through both their suits. Every regulation, every protocol, every reason this was a catastrophic idea screamed in his head. Then he remembered the look in her eyes in the red glow of the lab, right before she kissed him—not fear, but a fierce, brilliant defiance.
He reached out, his fingers finding her jaw in the darkness, tracing its line until his thumb brushed her lower lip. He felt her sharp, indrawn breath.
“Screw the regulations,” he whispered.
Then he kissed her.
Then he kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. It was a collision of teeth and desperation, a raw transfer of all the fear and adrenaline that had been burning through them for hours. Her hands clawed at the back of his flight suit, pulling him closer as if he were the only solid thing in a universe coming undone. The alarm's shriek was a soundtrack to their racing hearts.
He broke away, breathing ragged. "Diana—"
"Don't," she cut him off, her voice husky. Her fingers found the final seal on his suit with a sharp tug. "No talking. No Captain. Just this."
The tough fabric gave way, and she pushed it down his shoulders, her palms sliding over the damp cotton of his undershirt. He could feel the fine tremor in her hands, or maybe it was in his own skin. The world had narrowed to this dark, groaning closet and the frantic woman unraveling him.
He helped her, shrugging the suit down to his waist. The cool air hit his sweat-soaked shirt, raising goosebumps. Her exploration became more deliberate, more scientific. She traced the hard line of his collarbone, the defined muscles of his shoulders, mapping him like one of her strange atmospheric phenomena.
"All this discipline," she murmured, her breath hot against his neck. "I want to see what's underneath."
She let go of him and he could feel her slide down him. All he could hear was the sirens going off. Before he could think, her mouth was on him, sucking and licking through the thin fabric of his undershirt, her teeth scraping over a nipple. A sharp, electric jolt shot straight down his spine.
His head thumped back against the metal door with a dull clang. "Christ, Diana."
Her hands were at his belt now, fumbling with the clasp. The systematic, curious scientist was gone, replaced by something far more primal and hungry. The distant groan of the base was a bass note to the roaring in his ears. He tangled one hand in her curls, not to guide her, but to anchor himself.
The belt clicked open.
A different sound sliced through the alarm, clean and digital. A single, resonant chime.
Then silence.
The deafening lockdown alarm cut out so abruptly the sudden quiet felt like a physical blow. The only sound left was their own harsh, overlapping breaths and the faint, returning hum of the base's normal systems.
The bioluminescent strip along the floor flickered, then glowed steadily. Light. Harsh and real.
Diana froze, her forehead pressed against his stomach, her hands still on his open belt. He looked down, his own desire rapidly cooling into a cold, sharp dread. They were illuminated now, half-undressed and tangled together in a closet full of wrenches and spare parts.
A calm, automated female voice echoed from the comm grille. "Lockdown protocol disengaged. Structural integrity confirmed. All personnel report to assigned debriefing stations."
The voice repeated the message. Diana slowly pushed herself up, her movements stiff. She wouldn't look at him. She scrubbed a hand over her mouth, her cheeks flushing a deep, mortified red. The wildness in her eyes had been replaced by a stunned horror.
She took a step back, hitting the shelf behind her. A spool of conduit wiring clattered to the floor.
"Diana," he said, his voice rough.
She shook her head, finally meeting his gaze. Her hazel eyes were wide, glassy with a confusion that mirrored his own. "That was... the systems came back online."
"Yeah." He straightened up, his movements feeling clumsy and alien. He fastened his belt, the sound of the buckle echoing in the small, now-quiet space. The Captain was slamming back into place, and it felt like putting on a suit of armor that was three sizes too small.
He reached for his flight suit, pulling the heavy material back over his shoulders. The fabric felt like a prison. She just watched him, arms crossed tightly over her chest, as if she were trying to hold herself together.
The main door to the locker hissed open.
Blinding C&C light flooded in, outlining Chief Larsen’s silhouette. "McCall? Albertson? You two in one piece? The all-clear just—" His eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside, taking in Derek’s disheveled uniform, Diana’s flushed face and wild hair. His sentence died in his throat.
Larsen’s expression shifted from relief to careful, professional neutrality. "Debriefing is in Conference Room Two. Fifteen minutes." He didn't wait for a reply, simply turning and walking away, his boots echoing on the deck plating.
The silence he left behind was heavier than the alarm had ever been.
Diana smoothed down her hair with trembling hands, a futile gesture. "Right. Debrief." Her voice was a thin, strained version of her usual brogue.
She moved to walk past him, out into the corridor. Derek caught her elbow, his grip gentle but firm. She flinched.
"Wait."
She stopped but didn't look back at him. Her shoulder was tense under his hand.
"What happens now?" he asked, the question leaving him more exposed than he had been moments before.
She finally turned, her gaze sweeping over him—from his freshly sealed flight suit to his eyes. The connection was still there, a live wire buzzing between them, but now it was tangled in a knot of protocol and shame.
"I go to my debrief," she said, her voice flat. "You go to yours." She pulled her arm from his grasp. "That's what happens now, Captain."
Then she walked away, leaving him alone in the closet that still smelled of her, the ghost of her mouth on his skin and the crushing weight of the rulebook settling back onto his shoulders.