Pan-Pan

"**Pan-Pan"** is the twenty-ninth episode of the podcast, and the first episode of Season 3. It was originally released on 14 February, 2016.

## Episode Description

Pan-Pan. (noun) An international radio distress signal, used to signify a state of urgency on board a craft. Plus, very simple instructions, Space Yukon, adventures in grease monkeying, Disney table manners, and killing everything and everyone.

## Plot Summary

Minkowski is recording and sending out a distress call about the current situation aboard the U.S.S. Hephaestus - “severe damage on multiple systems” leading to the structure itself being compromised and a missing crew member - during which she asks for immediate assistance and reports that it has been one hundred days since the events of Episode 28 *(‘Who’s There?’)**.* Once her recording is finished, Hera informs her that the rest of the crew (Hilbert and Lovelace)  are both ready for the day’s repairs once she is. She suggests that some information would be best shared with them, but is cut off by Minkowski before she can say what that information is.

The repairs are revealed to be on the station’s thermal systems, with Hilbert as technical support, Hera monitoring the systems, and Lovelace there as physical support. Disagreements between the crewmates start quickly, only getting worse when Hilbert and Hera’s history comes back and pushes them into actively ignoring one another, telling Lovelace to work on different things. This leads to a further argument that Minkowski begins to shut down, but is interrupted by an explosion.

Their argument starts again when the crewmembers are back inside and Minkowski attempts to work out what exactly went wrong. She manages to cut it off successfully this time before revealing exactly how dire their situation is, with 137 systems on the station showing critical failures. She wrangles them into silence and all of them are about to leave before Hera tells them they can’t.

It turns out that the explosion damaged a major part of the thermal system, which Hera had to shut off in order to perform a reset, meaning that the only room on the station at a temperature suitable for human habitation is the one that they’re in.

While Minkowski had managed to shut down the conflict for a little while, it starts back up again three hours later. Lovelace asks what their plan is - “is a different part of the station going to fall off each day?” - and Minkowski tells her that their best plan is rescue, hoping that her distress calls will be picked up by the relatively nearby Hermes station. Lovelace suggests building another shuttle, like her old one. Hilbert proposes sending a pulse-beacon relay message directly to Marcus Cutter back at Command, but is shot down.

Another issue with the generator reveals itself, and Hilbert is sent to go and fix it, as Lovelace is still recovering and Minkowski can’t go out of concern that either Lovelace or Hilbert would kill each other. Lovelace begins to question Hera on her capability and capacity to keep the station functional, saying that she’s to blame for many of the Hephaestus’ problems, before asking her to count to ten. Hera’s voice glitches on the number “eight”, which only serves to drive the point Lovelace was making home.

When Hilbert returns to the room he and Lovelace have their interpersonal history brought up, culminating in her punching him after he openly admits to killing each member of her original crew. This leads to the reveal of the fact that Hera blames Lovelace entirely for Eiffel’s jettisoning into space, which Minkowski takes responsibility for, before saying that it was something no single person can be blamed for, like the fact the station is falling apart.

Minkowski reveals the information Hera was trying to push her towards sharing at the beginning of the episode - that the station has major stress fractures which can’t be repaired, and are causing many of the system failures and faults throughout the station. Hera estimates the station’s remaining lifespan to be somewhere between sixty and one hundred days and, when asked why she hadn’t shared this information, Minkowski says it was because the others “didn’t need to know,” not wanting to add something unfixable to their stress.

Later on, Lovelace meets with Minkowski alone, changing her mind on an earlier-discussed matter and telling her she should send a pulse-beacon message to Command, as it is the job of the commander to ensure their crew doesn’t die. The episode concludes with Minkowski rebroadcasting her earlier distress call over the pulse-beacon relay.

## External links

* Listen on Libsyn.
* Official script.