It's been twelve hours... The only thing I've been doing was sitting by Mei, watching the life support and battery power draining together. I would occasionally stand up to go take a look at the sensors console to see if anything was passing by, only to remember that the sensors were shut down.
"Would it help if we sent everyone to sleep?" Mei asked. "Maybe that could be easier on the life support."
"Good idea, but then we will have to decide who gets to sleep and who needs to work." I said.
"I think... Anyone who does something related to weapons, sensors or navigation can sleep." she said. "We can leave the engineers to the chief."
"Navigation can't." I said. "We may be unable to run our engines, but we still need nav systems to measure radiation pressure from the Sun or gravity perturbations - anything that can affect our orbit."
"It would be of little use without the sensors." Mei said.
"Right..."
Our conversation was interrupted by a buzzing sound, and a voice from the ship's intercom in announcement mode.
"All personnel, shuttle bay doors opening in one minute. Clear the area and secure bulkhead doors."
"Do you think they did it?" I asked Mei. "If we get solar power, we will have more time to think of ways out of here before we die."
"I don't know; I'm not an engineer, just a mathematician." she said. "We will see if it works, and if it doesn't, the shuttle will come back in and they will start working on it again anyway."
A second buzzer was heard.
"Bulkhead doors closed and locked. Shuttle bay external pressure equalizer running..."
Since the bridge was exceptionally silent, we could hear the sounds from the shuttle hangar. The air inside the shuttle bay was getting sucked back into life support before opening the doors and exposing the hangar to the vacuum of space.
"Pressure equalized. Unlocking and deploying shuttle bay doors..."
Electric servos moved the shuttle bay doors out of the shuttle's way, and the shuttle was released - at least that's what I could guess from the sounds.
"Commander!"
Professor Yamamari was using the intercom to reach me.
"Professor, any good news?"
"Yes, sir." he said with excitement. "We are successfully receiving the excess energy that's being produced by our shuttle's photovoltaic panels. However, bad news too..."
"Bad news?"
"Even though we can generate some power, it won't be enough to recharge the batteries. The ship is using battery power faster than the solar panels max production rate."
I turned to Mei.
"Admiral, is there anything else we can shut down?" I asked.
"Well, since everyone is out of the shuttle bay right now, we can shut down everything there."
"Please do." I said. "Professor, we are shutting down more systems. Please measure again periodically and report."
"Yes, sir." said the professor before the intercom channel was closed.
"Mei..."
"Yes?"
"Please go over all of the ship systems and shut down whatever isn't necessary for the crew's survival." I ordered.
"I don't think we forgot about anything, but sure thing." she said.
"We either need a better power source or less power consumption..." I said, thinking out loudly. "Wait!"
"What?" Mei was surprised by my reaction.
"Mei, turn on internal sensors." I said.
"Wh-why?"
"Just... please!"
"Alright." she said. The sensors console on the bridge came back to life. It took a while before the computer booted up, but eventually, I could see some data.
"We are all missing the gigantic source of energy right next to us." I said.
"Which is?" Mei asked, her voice indicating doubt.
"The fuel!" I said. "We have an enormous amount of fuel left in the tanks! If we can just convert it into energy-"
"We COULD do that if the reactor was still operating." Mei said.
"You don't get it." I said. "I'm not talking about nuclear fission, I'm talking about the chemical energy stored in there. Well, it's true that it won't be as efficient as a nuclear reactor, but if we burn all that methane and oxygen, we can still get enough energy to recharge all batteries multiple times!"
"You make sense, but how do you think we can just burn that fuel? We don't have thermocouples or anything."
I just stared at her.
"Or... do we?" she asked.
"We do." I said. "The nuclear power reactors themselves have some. We can detach and use them."
"How?" she asked. "Will we just burn the fuel in the tanks? The explosion would absolutely obliterate the ship and everything else in the vicinity!"
"There is one way to burn that fuel without causing fatal explosions." I said. Mei thought about it for a while as if she was trying to solve a riddle.
"What is it?" she asked.
"The chemical rocket engines. The ship's tactical maneuvering thrusters." I said. "We could use their combustion chambers for the burning, but instead of radiating the heat away, we could turn it into electricity! Not only can we get power for life support, but we can also move the ship, albeit slowly."
"Okay..." she said. "Good thinking. But, a question..."
"Go ahead, ask me."
"Excuse me, I'm not an enigneer... But if this was possible all along, why aren't all ships generating electricity from rocket engines already?" Mei asked.
"Because spending the fuel's chemical energy on thermocouples drastically reduces the engine's efficiency." I said. "But that being said, some ships do actually generate electricity from rocket engines."
"How much efficiency do you think we will lose?" asked Mei.
"That's a job for our engineers." I said. "Either way, I'm giving them their next task before we run out of life support."
Chief engineer George, although displeased by my unorthodox orders, acknowledged his task and started working. None of our engineers had any chance to stop and rest for a long time, unlike most other crew members.
"Sir, the intercom..." said Mei. "It's from the medical bay."
"Wha- oh, I didn't notice." I said, and answered the intercom. "Commanding officer here, we hear you medical bay. Go on."
"Sir, we have about twenty dead bodies here in the bay, from the missile strike during the last engagement and the following explosions. We can't store them in the cryogenic chambers while in energy conservation mode. What do we do?"
That was probably the last kind of question I was expecting.
"I-I... Don't you have any suggestions?" I asked.
"The consensus of the medical personnel here..." the doctor said, and paused. "Is to throw them out of the airlock, simply."
"Wait, wh- no!" I said.
"Sir, we have no choice, we need the medical bay to serve other injured people!" he said.
"Can you extract pure hydrocarbons from the bodies?" I asked.
"Umm... No." was the reply.
"I... I really don't know, doc." I said. "Don't just throw them away, bury them into the fertilizer mix or something!"