Far From Home: The Complete Series by Tony Healey

then shook his head. He looked down at his hands, clasped together on the desktop, as if they held within them the immensity of their situation. “Damn.”
    “I know,” King said.
    Greene looked up. “Do you think we’ll be okay?”
    Jessica looked away. On the far wall, facing opposite the display screen, a large bay window offered a stunning view of the nebula. An alien place in alien space.
    Inside her chest she felt a pang of loneliness that surprised her. “I hope so,” she said. “I hope so.”
     

 
     
    5.
     
    Ensign Ken Dunham handed over the reins to Ensign Yamato at the end of his shift, and explained the progress that had been made so far in getting them back up to speed. The munitions section looked totally different to how it had days before.
    “Where’s Swogger?” Yamato asked him before he could walk away.
    “You know, you’re not the first person who’s asked me that today,” Dunham said.
    Understanding dawned in Yamato’s face. “Ah. Well, he looked like he was in a bad way, you know … when it happened.”
    Dunham nodded. He knew what he meant by ‘when it happened.’ Of course he was referring to the explosion, and the death of Captain Singh.
    “Have you seen him about recently?” Dunham asked him.
    “Nope. Only the day after the accident. He was in the service tunnels, drunk as a skunk. I thought I’d leave him to it,” Yamato explained.
    “Yeah, well. I guess I better check in on him. He can’t stay like this forever. We could do with the help down here. I can’t keep covering for him,” Dunham said. He thanked Yamato and left.
    First he tried Swogger’s quarters, but there was no answer. Then he went to the service tunnels that ran through the ship, between decks. They were really no more than a crawl space but when you reached a junction they were about three metres across. Enough space to sit on your own and get drunk without anyone noticing.
    It didn’t take him long to find Swogger. He crawled from the tunnel closest Swogger’s quarters, towards the front of the ship. As he approached the first junction, he heard Swogger’s mumbled voice echoing down the tunnel.
    Right , he thought.
    “Lieutenant,” he called.
    There was no answer, but the mumbling stopped.
    “Lieutenant?” he called again. He kept crawling forward. “Are you okay?”
    “Get lost!” Swogger yelled down at him. Now when Dunham looked up, he could see the Lieutenant staring at him. He looked a state. “Don’t come up here!”
    Dunham stopped. “Sir, you can’t stay up here. If we have an overload somewhere -“
    “Gah!” Swogger spat. “Leave me be!”
    “Sir -” Dunham said.
    “I’ll come out when I’m good and ready, boy. Now get lost!”
    Dunham shook his head. There was no way Swogger was going to let him through to the junction. It might end up in some kind of fight, given the way he was shouting at him. He started to crawl backwards, reversing back down the tunnel.
    Now what do I do? he thought, frustrated. I can’t call security. It’d be bad for Swogger. They guy is just in a bad way.
    They’d lost a lot of people. And Swogger had been there when the Captain died with them. Now he struggled to cope.
    But getting others involved won’t help the situation. It’ll just make it worse for him, Dunham thought. Maybe if I leave him to it, he’ll snap out of it eventually. Catch him when he’s back in his quarters, sober. Have a chat.
    As he exited the tunnel and was back on one of the corridors, he decided that was the best course of action. He was confident it’d all blow over eventually. The guy was just traumatised, and drowning his sorrows a bit.
    In the meantime, Dunham would hold the fort. He was sure they could keep Swogger’s problem from drawing the attention of the senior officers. By the time he pulled himself out of it, nobody would know it ever happened.
    * * *
    Lieutenant Lisa Chang was tired but happily so. The training of the newbie’s on the bridge had