by Drew Cordell
“Hey, buddy, let’s put our helmets back on just in case,” Vinny said to his son as the ship finished its final course adjustments. The Delver still looked like a speck of dust on the horizon, and the optics on the Hopper could only slightly make out the boxy outline of the ship. Unlike the Hopper which was sleek and round, the Delver wasn’t built for atmospheric exposure, and Nick suspected that they had a rough flight on the way back up to space.
Nick shrugged and replaced his helmet on the suit, latching it in place and flipping the switch to toggle the O2 tank.
“Stay in your flight chairs, we’re going to initialize some forward burn to slow you down,” Jess said through the radio. The Delver was getting closer, slowly materializing in front of Nick. It always looked so huge from the station, but now it looked microscopic in the seemingly endless realm of space. Nick’s chair rumbled, and blue beams burned from front exhaust ports on the Hopper. Nick’s head was pulled forward, but it wasn’t anywhere near as intense as taking off from Earth’s atmosphere.
The ship slowed further and approached the side of the Delver, everything looked fine to Nick, but this was his first time flying in space, his first time out of Earth’s orbit.
“Guys, everything looks good. You’re coming in with a relative velocity of one meter a second; this should be a piece of cake,” Jess said.
Nick was anxious to board the Delver; his mom would be waiting for them. Nick’s thoughts drifted back to Lucky, who was probably one of the unluckiest men on the station. Like his father, Lucky was also an engineer, but he had managed to lose all six lotteries that had taken place in his lifetime, even with his extra entries. Nick’s father had told him that Captain Wallace had even offered a free ticket to Lucky, but he had declined to preserve the integrity of the system. Without winning the lottery, Lucky couldn’t marry, and he couldn’t have any children. Nick didn’t know everything about it, but he knew they always kept the population of the station at thirty-five. Though the station could technically handle the load of recycling the air of fifty people, the food situation and the difficulty of space farming kept the artificial population limit low.
A couple of people had died during Nick’s lifetime. He remembered the funerals and launching the bodies out the airlock. It was strangely peaceful watching the bodies float away gently into space, into the comforting darkness.
Even now, if Nick focused on one point in space, one little star on the horizon, it didn’t look like they were moving in the vast black sea. His dad said that space was like an ocean. Nick hadn’t known what an ocean was before taking Ms. Bransley’s boring classes, but he still had a hard time contemplating immeasurable depths of water on the surface of Earth. Water was one of their most precious resources on the station, and it was silly to think there was a seemingly endless supply on Earth.
The Delver was close now, and Nick suddenly felt intimidated by how large it looked. It seemed like the larger spacecraft was going to swallow the Hopper and spit it out as a trail of vapor and debris. Fortunately, the rest of the procedure was uneventful and went exactly as planned. The rest of the docking procedure lasted less than two minutes, and the two spacecraft were safely connected. The airlocks opened, and Nick and his father floated into the interior of the Delver. Nick couldn’t believe that only fifteen people had made it off the station, it just didn’t seem right. He then realized that they didn’t have the farms anymore. How would they make food? How would they survive? Nick saw Haley and Nicole and suddenly felt the weight of everything that had happened. Haley and Nicole looked scared but happy to see Nick as he floated over. Monica floated over to his dad and said something, and the others on the ship started to get out of their chairs for the first time since blasting away from the ISS.
Nick saw his mom as well; he was sure she would make it on the Delver since she worked in Agriculture with her friend Natalie. When she saw him, she scooped him up in a hug and gave his dad a sorrowful look. Nick’s dad came over and wrapped his arms around the both of them. Nick was thankful that they were both safe. For now, everything was all right.
9
Reggie helped Jess out of her chair and made minor adjustments to the Delver’s trajectory, positioning the ship toward the Moon. He still had no idea what they were going to do, but visiting one of the lunar or Martian bases seemed like the best course of action. They had managed to salvage seeds, food, and some farming equipment from the station before it went down, and he knew they’d have to start over somewhere. The Delver wasn’t built like the ISS at all, and he knew they couldn’t viably farm on it. Conditions were cramped as it was, the ship was only built for ten. Jess looked tired, and she was surprisingly light in his arms. Her jet-black hair was plastered to her face in a layer of sweat, and he knew she needed to rest after taking a heavy dose of the stims.
“Let’s get you out of that suit,” Reggie said to her as he began unzipping the front.
“You want to at least buy me dinner before you strip me, Captain?” she asked with a smirk, giving Reggie a flirty look and biting her lip seductively. Reggie felt himself blush but continued what he was doing. “I’ll be sure to save you a nice protein bar, Jess,” he said with a nervous laugh, chalking her behavior up as a side effect of the drugs. She was lean and toned under the flight suit, and she was sweating through her old clothes. “You’re going to feel much better after you sleep,” Reggie said to her as he helped her float to one of the bunks on the cockpit.
“Care to join me, Captain?” she asked, giving him a sly look and opening her arms.
“Maybe later, Jess, and not while you’re like this,” he said with a laugh. After strapping her into the bunk, she passed out almost instantly. Confident she would feel better after some sleep, Reggie checked the flight controls once more to make sure they were set on autopilot before moving into the cabin to check on the others.
He needed to take a better headcount and run logistics before drafting a plan of action and taking everyone’s vote. He was their captain, but the station, now reduced to the USS Hopper and Delver, was a democracy. He still needed more information about the encrypted signal they had cracked and needed to know who or what had shot them down from space. None of it made sense. Why shoot down a space station after the world had gone dark eighty-three years ago? It had something to do with the signal, but surely the attacker knew the ISS didn’t have any quantum computers on board. No matter which way he looked at it, it seemed like their only option was one of the five lunar bases. He wasn’t sure how the bases had fared after eighty-three years, but the lack of communication from them was discomforting. He remembered the encrypted, quantum-based signal from Earth mentioned Lunar Base Echo, and he was filled with the fear that one of their best shots at survival could also be extremely dangerous. Something was wrong, and he needed to figure out what.
10
Vinny looked over the ship’s manifest and added notes based on what the passengers of the Delver had brought with them. Aside from standard operating payload, the Delver also had some additional electronics, enough oxygen and the means to recycle it for years, and personal possessions. When they scraped everything together and took inventory, there was enough food for them to survive for a few months as a group without efforts of replenishing their food supply. He hadn’t had the chance to talk with Captain Wallace yet, but their options looked limited to either the Moon or Mars, especially if they wanted to grow food again. Vinny’s wife, Chelsea, had been working on taking detailed inventory of all the agriculture equipment. She had pulled her dark hair back under a headband and was recording something on a datapad.
Vinny knew enough about the technical capabilities of the Delver to know that the kitchen would be able to synthesize the flavor and texture of the potatoes they had to keep them from going insane, but there wouldn’t be as many options as were available on the ISS. No matter what, there was a finite amount of ways potatoes could be served. They had some other crops as well, beans, and a unique species of mushroom th
at was high in protein and tasted decent enough for the nutritional value. If they converted one of the rooms in the ship into a fungus farm, they’d be able to stretch their food reserves, but he didn’t want it to come to that. Chelsea would be up for the challenge of stretching their food supply, but Vinny knew they’d be much better off on a base.
“Honey, do you have access to the technical specifications of the lunar and Martian bases?” Chelsea asked Vinny, moving over and sitting in the chair next to him.
“I'll have to go over it with the captain later. I don't have it right now and don't want to go down to engineering until everyone has had a chance to talk things over or I'm needed to fix something.”
“Okay, I love you, Vinny.”
“Love you too, sweetie.”
The others on the ship were moving about, trying to find things to do to be helpful, but it was clear most were still in shock. Vinny didn’t know exactly how everyone else felt, he had expected something like this for years. They had been living in a deteriorating space station that threatened to give out every single day after all. He only wished he could have done something different to save the others.
Captain Reggie floated to the center of the room, bracing himself on a support bulkhead of the Delver.
“Everyone, I need to make an announcement. The children should leave the room,” Captain Reggie said.
“Negative, sir, they're in this with us, and I think they should hear it,” Vinny said, casting a glance at his son and the two younger girls.
“They're just kids,” Monica started, but the captain cut her off.
“Monica, Vinny’s right. We need complete transparency if we’re going to thrive as a group.”
Monica and Vinny nodded, and the captain continued.
“Jess is asleep in the cockpit, and I expect her to remain that way for a couple of hours as she recovers from the stim pills. She already knows this information and told me her vote in the matter. The ISS going down wasn't the result of widespread mechanical failure. We were shot by a missile from Earth after decoding the Phantom broadcast. The broadcast itself is quantum based, which means we don't have the capability to read it on the Delver, and couldn't on the ISS either.
“It looks like whatever shot at us did so because we cracked the encryption, even if we couldn't read the data stream underneath. What's even more concerning is that the signal appears to mention Lunar Base Echo which went dark forty years ago and also didn't have any known quantum computers.”
A murmur erupted from the passengers, and Reggie raised his hand to quiet them.
“You're saying there were survivors on Earth with operational missiles?” Vinny asked in disbelief. The devastating widespread failure of the station had shocked him, but the fact that something shot the station down was even scarier.
“We don’t know if there are survivors or not, it could be AI controlling a missile silo that didn’t want us to decrypt that signal. Jess and I don’t have any idea what the signal is, but we did manage to pull the data from the station’s mainframe before we escaped on the Delver. As of right now, I’ve positioned the ship to head to the Moon. If we’re going to survive in the long run, we’ll need to either go to the Moon or Mars. If we don’t burn again, we can land on the Moon in twelve hours. With our velocity, burning will cost us more than it’s worth because of the fuel we’ll need to spend to decelerate and put us in orbit. I’m going to speak with Vinny, Monica, and Chelsea, then I’ll report back once we’ve worked through the logistics of our situation and our options,” he concluded to the group before motioning the three over to the kitchen to meet. The survivors of the station seemed like they wanted to know more but seemed distant still, probably from the shock.
Reggie floated through the airlock into the cramped kitchen and buckled himself into a metal chair bolted to the floor as Vinny, Monica, and Chelsea did the same thing.
Reggie cleared his throat and looked at the others. “Thanks for meeting with me. We need to discuss our future and where we’d like to try settling in our new lives. Both the lunar and Martian bases are dark, and the satellites orbiting them aren't responsive to our scan queries. We’ve got the technical specifications for each base, so I want you three to thoroughly go over the files once you’ve completed our inventory.”
Vinny interjected. “There’s no way of knowing what kind of condition the bases are in until we’re in orbit. If everything was stored correctly and we can get power on the bases, we should be able to synthesize new fuel for the Delver. We might find additional working spacecraft at the bases as well; I’ll check the rosters.”
“I’m not worried about finding more ships. We’ve got the Delver and Hopper; we’re going to need to settle somewhere while making sure we’ve got enough oxygen, water, and food to sustain us. We also need to have enough materials and replacement parts to keep life going,” the captain responded.
“You don’t think we’ll ever go back to Earth?” Monica asked.
Reggie shrugged, “I don’t know. As of right now, it’s not an option. We can’t take a missile hit to the Delver, it will pop the ship’s hull and we’ll all die. We’re not as modular as the ISS was.”
“We’ll look into the bases and try to find one that can support us. I also want to find one with a decent comms array in case Earth tries to nuke us or something,” Vinny said.
“From my knowledge, any one of the bases will give us better farming opportunities than the ISS,” Chelsea added.
“I agree. Monica, please look into the comms stations on the bases while Vinny and Chelsea evaluate the survivability,” Reggie said before turning to Vinny. “We need to assess distance to Mars as well. If something on Earth tries to kill us, we’ll have more time to respond than if we were on the Moon, but we’d also go through more resources before we arrived at our destination.”
“What if we sent the Hopper and a small party to the Moon, while the Delver starts the path toward Mars?” Monica asked.
“That’s a possibility. If we unload the Hopper’s O2 tank, we can save fuel for the trip. The Hopper can also catch up to the Delver way before we’re set to arrive. Even with a heavy burn cycle, it’s going to take us a month to reach Mars.”
Monica cracked her knuckles, something she always did while she was in deep thought. “What if we send a party on the Hopper to the Moon on heavy burn while the Delver stays back and orbits until we’ve scouted it out? The optical scanners are good enough, and we should be able to spot any serious problems before landing on a lunar base.”
“How many working EVA suits do we have?” Reggie asked.
“Ten in pristine condition, and another three that are good for short runs or replacement parts. More than enough to attempt satellite repairs,” Vinny said.
Reggie shook his head. “Negative. Whatever shot us down from Earth has been broadcasting to the Moon for eighty years. There’s no telling what would happen if those satellites start picking up that signal. I don’t think it’s worth the risk. If anyone is going to the Moon, we should just do a manual visual QC on the compounds with the ship’s scanning equipment then decide where to send the boarding party. We won’t know anything about base resources until we send a team to the ground. If we’re lucky, we’ll manage to pick up signals from the base. Who knows? Maybe the bases just aren’t broadcasting their signal strong enough to reach Earth. We could arrive to find them full of survivors,” Reggie concluded.
“I don’t think that’s likely, boss,” Vinny said, frowning and leaning forward. “I volunteer to man the Hopper and scout the lunar bases with my family and a couple others, though.”
Chelsea nodded to Reggie.
Reggie sat back against the hard chair, appraising the couple. “If anyone is taking the Hopper on a Moon run, I want Jess flying it. We’d want to do the sweep as fast as possible to have all the information in front of us before making the costlier decision of traveling to Mars.”
“So we’re set, Captain?” Vinny asked.
>
“No. We’ll wait for Jess to wake up then talk to her and everyone else. This needs to be a democracy, and we need to rely on everyone for this decision. That being said, we don’t know if anything is lurking on those bases, and I don’t think you should take your son with you on the lunar scouting mission if you are on the crew.”
“We’ll do our research,” Monica said, clapping a hand on Vinny’s shoulder to quiet him.
“I appreciate it,” the captain responded.
Vinny mustered a smile and disconnected his seatbelt. “I’ll get going on the research, Cap.”
Vinny floated over to the systems room of the ship and strapped himself in a chair before grabbing a datapad from its wall mount. Chelsea and Monica joined him, and they began reading about the technical specifications of the five lunar bases and two Martian bases available to them. The information was forty years old, and aside from physical structure, Vinny knew they couldn’t trust the information to be accurate. Database records were great, but something had caused the bases to go dark. He knew there could still be danger no matter where they went. His new reality was danger, but he had to do his best to protect his wife and son, they were his world, and he needed to do everything in his power to give them the best lives possible.
In the end, he knew they would probably be better off if they scouted all the locations to find the best, unless of course, they hit the jackpot on the Moon. Vinny rubbed his face and frowned at the stubble that had accumulated over the past few days. Razor blades were scarce, and he doubted he’d be able to scrounge a new one anytime soon. He’d probably have to settle for a chemical shave. He was going on the scouting run, and he wouldn’t leave his family behind. No matter what, he would be by their side at all times.
11
