Mischa saw the alert in her room.  She unclipped herself from the sleeping bag and quickly eased herself across the room to her cabinet.  She dressed quickly, pulling on the layers of her jumpsuit piece by piece until she was dressed.  The sleek fabric clung to her, leaving nothing to dangle as she maneuvered through cabins in the microgravity.  She moved to her door, opened it, and grabbed the small handle that ran along a thin wire.  It traversed the spine of the ship, nearly fifty meters from one end to the other.

With a button press, the wire pulled her swiftly into the hall and towards the cockpit.  She released the handle and used the momentum to slip through two sets of blast doors that opened at her approach.  These were the emergency bulkheads that separated the bridge from the rest of the ship.  She rolled over, putting her feet in 'front' of her, and gave a quick kick off the floor panel to vault up the two meter tall ladder that entered the small cockpit.  In front of her was the three command seats and consoles.  Only one was active, with it's nearly 270 console blinking various lights and noises.  She slowed her movement on the headrest of the pilot's seat - her seat - and peered over the hard plastic frame to the readings.

Numerous holographic and pictographic displays showed statuses from everything that could matter.  Reactor power and heat, Hyperdrive functionality, propulsion systems, sensors.  Sensors, that's what she wanted.  The incessant buzzing of the alarm finally forced her to reach up and switch off the blinking light.  She had to focus.  No one was supposed to be out here.  Her body slid over the top of the frame, folding at the hips and the knees, twisting to avoid kicking the instrument panel above her.  She slid down into it and a few solid magnetic clicks grabbed at her suit and locked her into the chair.  The suit would tear before they released unless she hit the proper command.

She grabbed a radio earpiece with a wire mic and patched it into her Comms systems.

"Romeo Echo Victor two-one-one-seven Numinous broadcasting on all subspace bands.  Receiving a distress signal from Point Zero Two Two by Three Four Niner off my vector.  Adjusting Course Heading Zero Two Two points Starboard, Zero One One points Positive Attitude.  Log Mark: Receipt of Signal.  Mark."  The technical side was done.  Interstellar law required all distress signals be documented upon detection with relevant attitude indicators so that if no one made it back and they found her computer, they could at least tell where she was.  She powered up the engines off of slow cruise and prepared them for flight patterns.  A quick check of all of the maneuvering thrusters confirmed the ship's readiness to go.  She tapped a few more commands before reaching down on the seat and pulling out her small, clear, environmentally hardened helmet from the flight seat.  It sealed around her neck, making her suit perfectly airtight.  She leaned her head back into the seat.  Another magnet grabbed the helmet and connected the life support systems to it.  She felt fresh air fill around her face and just a bit of fog appear on the inside of the visor before it cleared.

Fully strapped and ready, she tapped a few runes on the dash and the arms of her flight chair rotated around to deploy the flight stick and throttle.  Her practiced hands found their places on each and in a heartbeat, she kicked the ship's engines to life.

The immediate press of inertia tightened around her.  The ship's powerful engines were perfectly capable of killing her if applied too quickly.  She was well trained, however, and parts of her body as well as the suit she wore tightened to keep blood from flowing too far from her core.  She gave a grunt when things normalized again, heading straight for whatever signal was being broadcast.