Space Station Acheron

by F Stephan

  “They wouldn’t be attacked, you said,” the large Marine said, red with rage.

  The Envoy nodded, agreeing with her. “Three rockets loaded with neurotoxin.”

  “Old munitions!” answered the weasel-faced Yasmina. “Commander, the rockets were a century old, fired from a hidden spot three kilometers away. The neurotoxin, more recent. We will decrypt its molecular structure and track back to their manufacturer.”

  “What do you mean by old munitions, Chief?” The Envoy’s voice betrayed his anger. “I have one Marine under heavy care, and we will need to run a full diagnosis on our three pilots. Do you understand what this means?”

  Anaru intervened before the other could flare up again. “Yes, we do, Nashiz. We have been tested once again. They weren’t really trying to succeed, or they would have used more recent equipment. They just wanted to take a measure of our capabilities.”

  “Well, it worked. I’m sending the Pilots back in space. We can better protect them up there.” The Envoy had an edge of finality to his voice that frightened Anaru.

  “That will impede their action. Get them further away from the popular support here.” The President lowered his voice, trying to restore some reason to the discussion.

  Poiz Grayt laid her hand on the Envoy’s, acknowledging the point. “President, we understand. Now, Yasmina and the CPC forces need time to find what’s happening. With the other attempts against Federation personnel and the attack in NorAm, we know our facilities are threatened by a coordinated effort.” And soon, they won’t be testing us anymore, Anaru thought with a wince. “During your investigations, our pilots need to get the station and ship working. This is only temporary, you understand.”

  Her voice was calm and reassuring, but Anaru didn’t like it. They were being pushed away from their base, sent to distant outposts. We are losing ground.

  He shot a glance at Yasmina, who nodded. “Trouble is, we’re up against professionals, people. They hid their tracks well. Let’s send Mister Sengare and Bauer back up.” He faced the Envoy again. “I’ll need to keep Miss Podorovski a little while longer for the next United Organization meeting in New York. We need a live witness for our government’s representatives to acknowledge the threat.”

  Wilfried

  Space station Acheron, August 19, 2140

  The airlock cycled and Wilfried prepared himself to enter the space station for a second time, feeling still weak from the neurotoxin. Poiz had ordered the launch of the shuttle barely ten hours after the attacks. In itself, the procedure had been mercifully quick, barely three minutes into high orbit, but his body hadn’t recovered yet and the journey hadn’t helped. His nanites were busy repairing damage from the acceleration and the toxins, but there was a limit to what they could do. The flight and spacewalk had been a holiday after that.

  “How are you doing, Wilfried?” asked a concerned Wolm over the radio comm. With his white scar and greyish face, today he looked more like a zombie than a devil. “Still in control?”

  Losing control over their nanites was the great worry of all Pilots and Marines. The little robots were amazing but would take over the body and mind of their host in a minute if left unchecked. And weakened states were ideal conditions for those sorts of accidents.

  “Yes. I’m good.” Wilfried felt the ache inside him, the struggle to keep the nanites at work, but he had enough energy to manage. The airlock flashed green, showing that the air was now at standard pressure and breathable. “Let’s go.”

  Wolm removed his helmet, indicating to Wilfried that it was OK, and began undressing. Wilfried followed, retching from the stale odor. He swallowed a chunk of energy bar, fighting the nausea, and opened the main door to the station.

  This time, the only person waiting for them was Maricar, the station mistress, in her black-and-white uniform.

  “Welcome on board, Pilot. How may I assist you?” Her jaw was set, her smile rigid.

  “This decision was not mine, Maricar,” said Wilfried softly.

  She nodded, still avoiding his gaze.

  “The three of us are all convinced you’ve done a great job here. And we need experienced people like you. Would you like to become the operations coordinator? Retaining same salary and advantages as of today?” He didn’t like having this conversation, but it was better to lay the options out in the open. “Or you can return to Earth to a new position if you wish. We will support you in any of your decisions.”

  She hesitated, clearly in the midst of an internal struggle, before she answered in a nervous voice, “I can’t return yet. I will remain with you up here.” She raised her head slowly, tears in her eyes. “I have spent too much on this. I want to see it through.”

  Leopold

  Charon, August 22, 2140

  Leopold watched Earth from the bridge of the Charon. The plastic island in the Pacific, the irradiated deserts in South America, China, and Russia.

  “I like your planet, honored Pilot.” He heard the engineer, Hawkeyes Noul, arriving behind him. Her voice was high pitched and irritated Leopold even now, after having worked with her for two weeks to continue repairing the ship.

  “Thanks, honored Engineer. There are so many scars.”

  “You should see my planet. Our historical records have been lost but ancient battles have left precipices and valleys everywhere. From space you can see the marks of giant claws upon our continents.” She had seldom spoken of her planet and the image rendered Leopold speechless. “So, we are meeting today our crew?”

  “Yes.” He laughed. “I’m glad we will have more hands to finish the repairs. I don’t like the frailty of our ship.”

  “It slept ten millennia before your friend Brian found it. Some amount of time should be expected before it runs at normal efficiency.”

  “And he left us with it to go to the Core World with Emily while I agonize over the environmental controls.”

  “Honored Pilot, you shouldn’t speak of a fellow pilot like this. Finding a ship is an incredible gift he gave to your world. And environmental controls take longest to stabilize. We will have to tweak it a bit more.”

  Tweak. What an understatement. We have no clue about how the Ancient made it work – no manual, no explanations. We are trying and adjusting as we go.

  “Look at them.” The shuttle aligned itself with the ship, and six figures moved out of the main airlock. “We are lucky Wilfried has launched a magnetic hook.”

  “At least only one of them has thought of linking himself to the shuttle. You should reward him and let the others drift for a while.”

  Leopold snorted. “Are you mad? You want them to quit? We don’t have that many candidates, you know. All our fellow students prefer secure jobs on the ground to a life in space. These are the only ones willing to come to us.”

  “More will come in time. This is new and some people don’t like it. But most humans love to fly. Trust me, they will come.” With that, Noul left him standing in the middle of the bridge, waiting for Wilfried to gather his lost sheep and bring them to Charon.

  Sighing, he went to the common room to conduct the welcome reception.

  “This is unacceptable,” Nick, an Australian Greek navigator with a small beard neatly trimmed and dark eyes, bitched in English. “We could have ended up lost in space. We are more valuable than this.”

  Leopold sneaked behind him, catching him off guard. “Trainee, you ignored the procedure. You left a ship and you didn’t hook yourself. And you’ve got the nerve to complain? This is space, and you’re not that valuable if you can’t follow a simple order. Ignore protocol once again and you’re grounded. Final.” Leopold’s voice was a deep rumble, anger flaring in it. “Is that clear, Nick?”

  Nick turned, red-faced, and began to reply before catching himself. “Yes, sir.”

  “And from now on, you’ll speak in Federation Standard. All the time while onboard.”

  Everyone around him nodded around, the words sinking in.

  “Congratulatio
ns, Rana,” he continued. “You were the only who linked to the shuttle.”

  The small Indian doctor brightened. She seemed awed by the ship.

  “Anyone unhappy with what I said?” he continued, not raising his voice.

  “No, sir,” was their collective answer, voices subdued.

  Leopold surveyed them. “Anton and Tom, you’re old timers from Luna. Why didn’t you hook yourself?”

  “Don’t need a hook on the moon, sir. Sorry.” Tom, the JapEnglish environmental manager, looked at him directly in the eye, standing his ground. Anton, the burly Russian cargo master, moved to support his friend.

  Leopold nodded. “Well, new rules here. You’d better learn them. Now, make yourself at home. I’ve allocated rooms as is usual in Federation ship, but you’re welcome to change them if you wish. Let’s go on a tour.”

  They followed him to discover the ship, Leopold introducing each room in turn. Nick and Jay, the NorAm engineer, played at being Academy divas. Jay was especially good at looking blasé. In contrast, Rana, Tom, and Anton seemed delighted by what they saw. Kids on an outing. How am I going to make them work together?

  At the end of the tour, Leopold began handling tasks, telling Tom, Rana and Jay to work with Hawkeyes Noul on the environmental controls, and telling Anton to work with him to prepare the cargo area for departure.

  Days went by, Leopold running simulation after simulation. His crew wasn’t good, his team members didn’t react as they should, and he despaired. Worst of all, they didn’t understand how dangerous their actions were.

  After one week, he assembled them on the main bridge, everyone standing at his or her own console. All were fitted with Federation interfaces, allowing them to interact with the machines without nanites.

  “Very well, we’re going for a run. Nick, our navigator, has plotted a nice course around the moon and back. You’ll all get acquainted with your console and check how the ship is behaving. OK?”

  “Why don’t we go directly to the asteroids?” The retort came from Jay in a sniggering voice. Her reaction annoyed Leopold even more since he had seen the young woman in the engineering section late every night, getting to know the Ancient equipment. She would be an asset if she stopped her act and began to work hard.

  “Because of the numbers of simulations you’ve failed until now. We’ll jump into hyper when I decide we’re ready. Any other questions?” he answered in an unusually dry tone.

  The rest of the crew avoided his glare.

  “Well then, let’s go. Acheron, we’re leaving for a moon run.”

  Leopold didn’t have to wait for a reply. With the shuttle back to Earth, they were the only ship in the whole solar system. He closed his eyes and activated just a touch of nanites. Tendrils extended from his hands to connect him directly with the console. He heard gasps on either side of him. Now he could access all parameters from the ship with a single thought. On a simple run like this, he would be able to test his crew without endangering the ship.

  In seconds, the ship left the vicinity of the space station and accelerated toward the moon, propelled by the gravity distortion generated by the singularity hosted in its belly. Leopold monitored it constantly, but the little effort didn’t put it under any strain. It remained at a nice ninety percent, far from the ten percent where it would obliterate them.

  “Environmental?”

  “Air, water, radiation are all under control.”

  “Doc? Cargo? Science? Engineering?”

  “Great,” came in a chorus of voices. Still, their speech was hesitant, in the unfamiliar Federation Standard. Jay had become entranced by her readouts, spreading multiple 3Ds around her. Anton, Tom and Rana were watching the external view.

  “Honored Engineer?”

  Noul was in the secondary control station, running a separate check on the ship. “Honored Pilot, we are all ready for this smallest of trips. Let the wind bear us away.”

  Two hours later, the ship inserted itself perfectly into a lunar orbit and passed into the dark side of the moon. Everyone around Leopold looked bored. The excitement of the departure had now dissipated, and Leopold suspected many had called up side games on their consoles.

  “Spike. Singularity is spiking now,” shrieked Jay. “No, we are losing stability. We are down to sixty percent.” Panic rose in her voice.

  “OK. How can you get it under control?” Leopold said coolly.

  Jay was striking madly at the different screens around him. “I’ve no idea.”

  Infected by Jay’s anxiety, Tom called, “I’ve got an environmental degradation. Power is dropping to the main fans. Air is not cycling in the ship anymore.”

  The others were now focusing on their consoles, actively checking what was happening.

  “OK, Tom, work together with Jay. She has diverted to control the singularity. How can you use what is left for you? Jay, the singularity is reacting to an external signal, a gravity disturbance it has picked up. Isolate it to counter it.”

  “Pilot, radiation shielding is dropping.”

  “Tom, we are behind the moon. Not a priority yet. Navigation, cargo and science, can you give a hand to Jay and Tom?”

  “No, I’m doing OK,” came a short reply from the engineering desk.

  No, you aren’t, thought Leopold, looking at the increase in the power spike.

  A minute passed before Jay spoke again, now in a panic. “Singularity is still dropping. Now fifty percent. I can’t control the drop.”

  Tom added, “We’ve got a side effect on environmental. Degradation on the air recycling units.”

  Leopold waited for a full minute more. Nick and Anton were stuck in the middle of the bridge. Jay was mad with her controls, insulting the console openly. Tom and Rana were looking stupidly at their own desks, doing nothing.

  “OK, I’m taking control. Watch the main screen.” Leopold took over from his console, engaging his nanites fully. With a single thought, he isolated the oscillator’s frequency and began building a counter sequence. Hawkeyes Noul had set up the exercise earlier, without telling him the sequence she would use. He accessed the main database and found the parasite, a Jupiter–Titan tidal gravity wave. He projected the sequence to the main screen. Looking at the data in front of him, he built a counter sequence and stabilized the singularity slowly, step by step. Once finished, he moved back to environmental, restoring power everywhere. The readouts returned to normal, except for environmental, which was still glitching from time to time. Hawkeyes sent a silent confirmation that she was on top of the issue.

  “Well, well, well. You know the basics, that’s clear. But your reflexes are lacking. This is a true tidal lock we could meet in our path. And your cooperation is non-existent. In a jump, we would all be dead. Congratulations.”

  Everyone was looking down at the floor of the bridge, chastened by their failure.

  “The good news is that we are not dead, and you can learn. Let’s get back to the station. Debrief on arrival.”

  Susanna

  Mongolia, August 25, 2140

  “As usual, your servant is where the United Organization does not expect her to be.” Susanna cast a dazzling smile at her audience, basking in the cool morning weather of the Urals.

  “I’m in one of the largest farms on this side of Ulan Bator, in the no-man’s-land between Reborn Russia and Middle China. Brave farmers are still fighting the wilderness, the droughts, and the mutants from the Gobi nuclear blast to keep humans riding in the steppe.”

  A large panorama opened behind her, with the mountain looming far in the horizon and the rolling hills in between. In the far distance, a grotesque shape could be seen, enough to scare the common citizen.

  She turned toward a young peasant wearing a traditional outfit. He had dark, intense eyes, dark hair, a knife at his woolen belt, a perfect picture. “Saikhan, you were the first to raise the alert. What happened?” She spoke in the local dialect, getting the words from her implanted translator. Subtitles would appear fo
r her audience. Never, ever change Susanna’s voice was a rule of the show.

  “I check the bee farms. We gather honey, you see, from early February to late July. But in May and June, they’ve begun to die. Full hives collapsed in days. We’ve been asking for new gene-engineered species, but we haven’t received any yet.”

  Susanna turned back toward her audience, the drones now flying over the different hives. “And this is just one farm, the first who alerted us. If bees start to die again, like they did years ago, what will we do?”

  Other animals and mechanical pollination wouldn’t be enough to care for all orchards around the world. That famine had left scars on most countries. Snapshots of the last Pollination Riots now appeared above her.

  “And, my dear fans, I ask you this. During all this time, what is the government doing? Is the Federation even helping us cope with this emergency?” She finished her question with her hand raised, pointing to the few stars still lingering in the morning sky. “They couldn’t protect our pilots here on Earth, the station is barely working and, according to our sources, our only ship nearly exploded yesterday behind the moon. Where is the Federation? Hiding their discomfiture? If you want to know more, vote for our instant referendum request on the show’s portal.”

  Keep engagement high was her motto. And this one was a winner. Judging by all of her sources, opposition to the Federation was beginning to increase at last. It would draw their attention and offer her the opportunity to get her revenge on her family. And from the little Russian brat as well. Poor little girl.

  Wilfried

  Space station Acheron, August 25, 2140

  Night had fallen on the station. After another exhausting day in which they had assembled a new module into the ring, Wilfried and Maricar had dismissed the whole crew for a good night of sleep after a quick celebration meal. Wilfried retired to his quarters to continue checking the maps of the station. Since his arrival, he had focused on the facilities – air, water, electricity – trying to identify bottlenecks by night and correct them by day.