Whiskey Romeo

by James Welsh

  She had almost finished the arc around Carina towards the broken drill when the star suddenly imploded into a black hole. None of the crew onboard the launch was expecting it. One moment the star was hovering, shining like a nectarine after rain. The next moment, the star had collapsed into its shriveled pit. The wilderness around the launch had seemed to split into two from the trauma. The launch shook like a branch, to the point that they thought the ship was going to snap.

  And that was when they heard it: not a snap, but the descending hum as the engine began slowing down. There was no more solar wind pushing against the sails, and suddenly their ship was dead in the water. True, there was no friction in deep space to slow them down, but Winter was worried more about maneuvering. Even in the nothingness of space, there were dangers to avoid. She tried frantically to turn the ship away from the suck of the black hole and towards the shining coat of stars in the heavens.

  The ship groaned at her touch, as it was already conserving its energy. Like a traveler lost in the snow, the launch immediately pulled its energy from all non-vital parts towards its heart: the system that provided the crew with heat and breathable air. But like the lost traveler, the ship was turning to a statue in its limbs. Already, the ship was turning sluggishly.

  Winter was so desperate at the controls, she didn’t even realize that the lightning prow gracing the front of the launch was no longer working. The lightning prow, which warned her of the blackberries, or graphite meteoroids, that littered the star system. If the blackberry reader had been running, it would have since warned her of the spray of blackberries up ahead, their orbit upset by the star’s collapse.

  The blackberry that hit them was a little over three feet wide. If that seemed small, that’s because it was – but that didn’t make the meteoroid any less dangerous. Winter gasped as the blackberry suddenly leapt out of outer space, camouflaged against the pitch. In the split second that she saw it, she thought that the blackberry was heading straight for the window. Instead, the meteoroid darted underneath the ship, and an instant later there was a terrible grinding noise. Winter couldn’t see what happened, but she could feel it like a bullet. She was so in-tune with her launch, she knew immediately that the blackberry had crushed the intake of the turbine. Her suspicion was confirmed a few moments later, as the already low levels of photons plummeted down to zero.

  And the blackberry had cracked against the hull with such speed, that it caused the launch to tumble headfirst into the dark. Winter tried to scream, but instead of words only blood rushed up – she could feel her face burning, and she was becoming faint. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take before going unconscious. She pressed her hand against the ceiling, as if to brace herself, but there was no way she could except continue falling into hell.

  There was a second smash, this time against the launch’s tail, as another blackberry collided with them. This one hit so hard, Winter could actually feel the fabric in her seat harness tearing from the stress. But that impact turned out to be an angel, as it broke the ship’s tumble through space, at the cost of cracking the tail section.

  The ship had now returned to a steady glide, although this time it was starved of the power from the dead engine. They were now floating through space like a swan in a lake, as if the universe hadn’t just broken down around them. It was a peace that Winter thought she didn’t deserve, like the silence after a battle. As Winter’s breathing returned to normal, she remembered that she wasn’t alone aboard the launch. She turned to see the scared faces looking back at her, their chests like bellows pumping air into their wide eyes like fire.

  The cabin was buried in a grave of silence. Finally, Dart asked in a little voice, “What do we do now, Pilot Winter?”

  Winter looked at the miners, secretly hoping that one of them would take over. But every miner – Dart and Bach and Orange – was looking at her, as if she was an opened door to get out of the rain. Winter was especially shocked to see that Bach was looking at her with blind respect – Bach, the same man who spent his entire life treating rules like blasphemy. And as Winter took in the sight, she realized that she was never more alone in her life than she was in that moment. And a tiny room in the corner of her mind wondered if that was how Joyce felt, alone unless someone needed to ask her a question. She wished Joyce was there – the chief pilot would know what to do.

  Winter found her voice but not an answer. “I don’t know.”

  As she said this, the launch continued floating in the riptide wrapped around the black hole, like a leaf swimming in a brook. They knew that the creek of debris was nothing more than a straw, and they would be sucked into the jaws of the black hole soon. And as the miners prayed to their gods, Winter prayed to Joyce.

  ***

  It was only minutes, but it felt like months since the star had collapsed. Already, the crew in the downed Ship Pi had lost all sense of time. The lights in the cabin had given out ten minutes before, as the emergency generator rerouted what little power it had left towards maintaining the oxygen levels. And so, sitting on the papers of darkness, the miners and their imaginations wrote down their fears. They may have been young, but they felt like old men, afraid of death as it walked towards them and took its time in doing so.

  Suddenly, Dart began trembling, possessed by his nightmares. The shaking rose up from his knees to his chest like floodwaters. When it finally reached his throat and he screamed, he screamed for all of the people onboard the ship. When he screamed, he sang of their dead hopes and their born fears. When he screamed, he said more in those few seconds than he had ever said in his entire life. But everything dies, even a frustrated scream – Dart’s voice cracked and broke apart. He then buried his head into the graves of his hands.

  If it had been earlier – before the end had come – Orange would have lied and said that he wasn’t scared, and Bach would have made a vicious joke just to see Dart get upset. But none of them saw a point in life anymore: their church in the sun had burned down to the ground. There was nothing sacred anymore, only profane. And that was when the heating gave out in the cabin. Already, Winter could feel an electric chill in the air, as the temperature in the cabin dove. It would not be long until they were as cold and dead as the space outside. Every system failure was another step into death’s arms, and there was nothing they could do except march.

  One by one, the miners closed their eyes and waited to die. It was only after the three men had closed their eyes that Winter dared to close her own. Somehow, she felt it was the right thing to do. Before she closed her eyes, though, she reached out to the instrument panel. There was only light left in the cabin: the soft red light illuminating the life support monitor. She patted the monitor, and words were passed unspoken between woman and machine.

  She leaned back in her chair, making herself as comfortable as possible. And that was when she closed her eyes and waited. The second she squeezed her eyes shut, she saw a tiny speck of light in the darkness. As numb as her mind was from the cold, she was able to focus on the light. Winter watched, fascinated, as the crumb of light grew like a plant from a seed. She remembered the old stories, of how the dying walked towards a bright light in their final moments, and she wondered if it was her turn.

  She walked towards the light, because there was something in it that felt like home. There was something familiar in the hum of light, something that she had felt before, but she wasn’t sure what. And so she walked into the light, wanting to understand what it was she was feeling. She did this, not knowing that she was walking into life instead of death.

  Her eyes snapped open as she understood. Just ahead, she could see Ship Nu hovering in space like a hummingbird. It was casting its powerful searchlight through the cabin, drowning the shadows. Winter winced and raised up her hand, trying to shade her eyes from the burning light. Her eyes took a few moments to adjust, and when she peered past the searchlight, she could see Joyce sitting in the ship’s illuminated cabin.

  “You came for
us,” Winter whispered through chattering teeth, knowing that Joyce couldn’t hear her. She twisted in her seat and called back to the others, “Our rescue’s here!”

  These welcome words immediately brought the miners back to life. Their eyes gasped awake, and the miners cheered as they saw something they thought they would never see again: hope.

  Just as Ship Nu had appeared, though, it vanished, twisting and diving out of sight. Dart demanded, “What happened? Where did they go?” He wondered if maybe he had hallucinated what he had just seen.

  “They’re going to connect with our hull,” Winter said. Suddenly realizing that there was work to do, she turned to Bach. “Get the airlock ready.” She then said to all three men, “And suit up – we’re going to change ships.”

  The men struggled to be the first one to unbuckle from their seat harnesses. As they floated into the cargo hold at the back of the launch, Winter gave herself a moment to exhale until her lungs were shallow. She fought back the urge to cry with clenched fists – instead, she rocked back and forth in her chair, laughing a little and saying over and over, “Thank you, Mystery, thank you.”

  Meanwhile, in the cargo hold, the miners were busy pulling on their spacesuits. Bach had already activated the airlock, a compartment in the middle of the hold that looked like a bell jar. Just as they were clicking their helmets into place, Ekwe floated up to the top of the airlock. The hatch beneath him closed, and there was a hiss of air as the bell jar equalized its pressure to match the hold.

  As Ekwe wriggled his way out of the jar, Bach asked over his suit’s radio, “Is today the day when I finally say I’m glad to see you?”

  “No time for jokes,” Ekwe said quickly. “We have to get into the other ship – now!”

  “What’s wrong?” Bach asked as Ekwe herded Orange into the airlock. As Ekwe slammed the airlock door shut and opened the hatch to the outside, he said, “There’s a patch of blackberries heading this way. It’s going to be here in a minute.”

  “Oh,” Bach said blankly before suddenly comprehending. “Oh!”

  “Where’s Pilot Winter?”

  Bach jabbed a thumb back towards the cabin. “She’s in there.”

  Ekwe pushed himself past Bach and floated towards the hold door. He peered into the dim cabin and called out, “Pilot Winter, let’s go!”

  “I’m coming,” Winter said, so soft that Ekwe could barely hear her. She was still sitting in her chair, looking out the window.

  Ekwe turned back into the cargo hold. Bach was now squirming into the bell jar, ready to eject. He performed his usual routine of taking exactly five slow breaths before entering outer space – before he could finish the fourth breath, though, the hatch opened and he was sucked into the vacuum.

  As Ekwe next guided Dart into the bell jar, he heard Winter’s voice.

  “Ayotunde.”

  “What is it, Pilot Winter?” Ekwe asked, too busy to turn around.

  “Ayotunde,” Winter repeated. “Look at me.”

  This time, there was a gravity in her words that made Ekwe glance back. He saw Winter floating in the doorway, her face calm and cool. There was a bay of silence between the two, before Winter bridged it with the words, “Tell Mystery that I’m sorry – for everything.”

  Ekwe didn’t know it, but the launch had already been hit by a spray of blackberries. The rocks were small, but they moved fast, and one of them had cracked the glass on the window just two minutes before. And the glass was strong, but not that strong. There was a spider’s web of cracks traveling across the window, and the glass was ready to break at any second.

  Winter pressed a button just inside of the cabin and the door slammed shut. As the door closed, Ekwe could see through the door’s port window, which was going to be his torture. He watched as the glass dam broke and the flood of vacuum rushed into the cabin. And one second Winter was there, and the next was darkness.

  ***

  Ekwe was able to get Dart and himself from Ship Pi to Ship Nu in time. Joyce disconnected from the mortally wounded ship and shot off into space just as the patch of blackberries ripped apart Pi.

  It wasn’t until they were well out of the danger that Joyce relaxed at the controls. She had to conserve the ship’s energy – Carina was her ship’s main source of power, and the sunshine she leeched from distant stars charged the ship’s engine, but slowly. And so the launch roared through space, towards the waiting colony. The rescued miners cheered weakly worn out from their ordeal.

  But Joyce wasn’t ready to celebrate – not yet. Instead she wanted to take a census of those she rescued. And so Joyce asked Ekwe, “Did we get everyone?”

  “Pilot Winter – she didn’t make it,” Ekwe said after hesitating.

  Silence fell across the cabin. Both Bach and Orange looked wildly around, refusing to believe the truth, swearing that they had seen Winter get on the ship with them. But the funeral looks on both Ekwe and Dart confirmed the worst. Ekwe continued. “She closed off the hold door before the window broke. She saved Mr. Dart and I.”

  “But at what cost?” Dart squeaked. He couldn’t understand how his life was worth dying for. A glance at Ekwe’s face told the same story, as the mathematician couldn’t calculate an answer either. Even Bach and Orange were treading water in their grief – the two men realized how much trouble they had given Winter over the years and how there was no way to take that back.

  Ekwe said to Joyce, “And Pilot Winter gave me a message to pass onto you. She said that she was sorry for everything.”

  Joyce didn’t say anything – instead, she turned back to the controls and continued flying. The men were too busy reflecting on the tragedy to notice that Joyce was wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Every on board the launch realized that they now had debts to Winter that could never be repaid, whether it was their life or respect or friendship. They were now slaves to her memory.

  CHAPTER 8

  As the other launches blasted their way home to the colony, the miners wondered how they were going to wake up from their nightmare. They had less than an hour left before they touched down at the dock and had to bless the colonists with the tough news. And they needed an answer before they told them the problem. But no matter how many times they ran the maze between the jigsaw puzzle pieces, they couldn’t piece a good answer together. The only answer they could come up with was a terrible one, and on Ship Delta they were arguing over just how terrible the idea would be.

  Coil was shaking his head. “That’s not going to work, and you know it.”

  Canto was both restraining herself and breaking out of her restraints. “And why not? Why else would we have even installed that damn Pelican if we had known it wasn’t going to work?”

  The Pelican that Canto was referring to was a massive airship, one that was buried in one of the craters on the surface of Janus. Years before, when the colony was being built, the architects knew that they were going to need an emergency getaway if the colony was facing destruction. And so they had carved a tunnel from the colony up to the crater, and they had hidden an airship under the crater’s gravel. If need be, the colonists could escape to the Pelican, fill it with the abundant leak of hydrogen from the planet’s heart, and float away. Once the airship was high enough above the planet, the hydrogen would be released and the ship would orbit Janus as an artificial moon. Inside the ship, there were massive cryogenic tubs, designed to keep every colonist alive through suspended animation for upwards of ten years, until help arrived.

  Coil sighed. “The only thing the Pelican could keep alive is hope. It hasn’t been used since it was buried in the crater. Hell, I don’t think anyone’s even performed maintenance on it in the past decade. For all we know, it could be broken. And what if it works? Would we be able to get out of range of the black hole with the airship?

  “We can tow the airship out to a more distant orbit,” Pilot Thaden pointed out, her eyes fixed on the outer space ahead.

  “And how are we going to get a dist
ress signal to Earth if the black hole keeps interfering with our radios?” Coil asked her.

  “Dmitry is working on that,” Thaden assured him. “He’ll figure out a way.”

  “And what if he does?” Coil demanded. “Who’s going to answer? You think the charter’s going to rescue us? That star was the only reason why the charter ever cared about us, and it just collapsed into a black hole.”

  Canto snorted. “Well, you can give up if you want, but I’m not. I hope someone backs me into a corner, just so I can show them how hard I can fight.” She gestured at the claustrophobic cabin around them and snarled, “Do you want me to demonstrate?”

  “Quiet back there,” Thaden called back. As she said that, she fired off another burst from the lightning prow, checking for any blackberries ahead. “Let’s get safely back to the colony first, and then you two can tear each other to pieces.”

  The cabin quieted down, but the soup of anger still simmered between the two. If only they understood that they were both angry about the same thing – that they were suddenly worthless without their star – then maybe the miners would have called for a ceasefire. Nearby, Nash – who was nothing more than a sailor caught in the storm – was tired of being chased by death all day. Having sailed out of the thick of the storm, the cabin around him finally quiet, Nash rested his head and went to sleep. He did this, not realizing that while the waters were calm, he had only passed through the eye of the storm, and that there were winds ahead, waiting.