by Kate Kyle
"Whoa." What an info dump, and so heavy duty.
"That was a philosophical essay way above my head," she said. Actually, she did understand it, and he did have a point, but gosh… why drag out a bomber to kill a fly? "I just meant to make a nasty comment about your beloved Europe. Is life really so much more interesting over there?"
"You've never been?"
"No. I left my hometown in Alabama to go to the Pilot Academy in South Australia. We performed a couple of launches from the Marshall Islands, but that's all the Earth-bound travel I've done," she said, trying hard to hide the fact she felt embarrassed about it. "And you?"
"Been here and there," he replied evasively. "Mainly within continental Europe. Obviously, I had to travel to your launch site in PanAm."
"What about space? Is this your first time?"
"No. I've been… up in the orbit a couple of times."
Not a complete newbie then… there was some hope that her plan B, such as it was, would pan out.
"Can you cope with a higher g?" she asked.
"Depends. How high?"
"I'll have to sit down and properly calculate that, but it won't be any higher than 3g. And for a short period of time, if needed. The ship won't let us accelerate beyond that."
His eyebrows curved up.
"Why not?" he asked.
So, there were things she could teach him!
"Because of the limitations built in the fusion drive. By the designers."
"What do you mean? And why are there limitations built-in?'
"That's the way Rebels' Republic controls space. Thou shall not go faster than 3g," she said. "And when in the Asteroid Belt, thou shall not go faster than 1g, because I say so," she added.
Funny. She never thought she'd utter this phrase out loud aboard an RR ship.
So much for Big Brothers from Beyond Neptune controlling space. The little space on her ship was a world of its own.
She reached into her pocket for the handheld device.
Bother! It was in her cabin, with that awful woman. She'd have to get the device when she checked on Lulu. Now, she had to make do with whatever she had available.
She pulled a pencil and a sheet of recycled paper from the locker in the wall panel right in front of her—the same ones she used to make the asteroid elimination calculation. Her well-planned emergency event.
Ha.
How her world had changed since then.
She drew a quick diagram to help herself picture the ship's current position and its trajectory, and punched the numbers into the control panel's calculator module. Fortunately, as long as the function didn't require connecting to any outside network, it could still perform the complex calculations.
Once she received her numbers, she rechecked them twice. And then, she allowed herself to relax her back, which was actually aching.
"Thankfully, I don't think 3G will be necessary," Jax said, leaning against the back of her pilot's seat. "If we accelerate to 2G, we'll reach Segedunum before running out of resources. And that's should be safe for all of us, including the sick people in the pods."
And including the baby, no, scratch that, the fetus.
"How long?" he asked.
"Seven days. Can you manage that?"
"2G for seven days? Sure. The boredom? Hm..., ” he said. "I'll try my best to entertain myself. Did you include the crazy lady in your pod in your calculations?"
"Yes. I can't put any of you back into stasis. But, from time to time, we may need to keep her and you in a deep sleep." She turned to look at him. It was a bit of a test for him. "This would assume you'll do it willingly."
His face, now with some of the color back, seemed unaffected by the news.
"I suspected you might need us to do something like that. I've no problem with sleeping long and hard." He smiled. "Will ease the boredom. Anything else I can do to help?"
She glanced at her calculations once more.
"We can recycle some water. There is also nutri-fluid in your and … her pods, and we can use the supply. But other than that, we may be a little short on fluids. Food will be a real issue though. I can last days with very little on board, without my cognitive abilities being affected."
She could, no doubt. Multiple bootcamps had proven this. Not sure about the little life developing in her, though.
But then, back in the day, most women never knew they were pregnant until the tests were able to detect it, and they carried on with normal life…
Of course, these days, most women who fell pregnant knew very well that they were about to become pregnant. And they had enough food and drink, and everything else necessary… Gee, the whole freaking point of needing a baby license was for the prospective parents to be well prepared for parenthood!
Having said that, this had been a relatively new development. Only existing for the last hundred years or so, following the total failure to boost the population numbers after the Big Pandemics. Prior to that, women often got pregnant unwillingly and unknowingly and carried on with their lives as if nothing happened.
That was what she remembered hearing from various unofficial sources. She never dared searching the Net for any info about pregnancy, which would have been immediately flagged up and reported to the Academy's offices. Actually, she was hoping to do some research once out of the Earth's jurisdictions.
Ha.
Maybe she'd do it in Segedunum.
"Let's get to the destination asap," she said. “Agreed?”
Smiling, he nodded.
“Agreed.”
"Preparing to accelerate."
7
Jax
The following seven days were just the same as most of her piloting experience in the Academy: long and boring. Due to the food and drink restrictions, she couldn't even experiment with various nutridrink mixtures and dry food packets as she and Hunter always jokingly planned to do once they were in proper piloting jobs.
How her world had change since her last shared joke with Hunter, which, incidentally, happened to be the one about 'abstain orders' during the water supply system breakdown at one of the field camps.
If she'd abstained as advised, she wouldn't have been in her current ‘condition’. But back then, unprotected sex seemed like a good joke. Some students did this as a way to protest against the government interfering so much in their lives, such as by adding fertility inhibitors into the water supply, and only allowing those with baby licenses to procreate. For her and Hunter it was a crazy thing to do when one had no fixed plan for life, except for progressing to the next stage in the pilot academy. They were going through the motions and dreaming of 'the real life' after graduation.
Sadly, the whole graduation thing didn't feel real to her. Her classmates and even her ex-boyfriend were all crazy about finally earning their pilot's credentials and being able to fly to more and less exotic destinations. Most of them would end up piloting climbers on the space elevators, or shipping stuff between the orbital station and the few explorations in the Belt.
All that, courtesy of the Rebels' Republic and their tightly controlled fusion technology.
Having said that, thank God the Rebels controlled space exploration. Without them, the Solar System would be full of gunships whizzing around and blazing everyone and everything that didn't comply with the current moral principles of the said gunship’s current owner.
Rutger's preachy comment from a few days ago might have been convoluted, self-righteous and too far gone, but he had a few points. Humans were not as peaceful, friendly, curious or collaborative as they used to be. Following the Pandemic Years and the Climate Wars, counties pulled back and focused on recovery and wound licking, not collaboration and alliance-building. This resulted in a situation where everyone seemed to have retreated into their little, private holes, focused on defending their position, their resources, their values and their worlds.
But even this narrow-mindedness, self-determination provided people with a goal. It provided som
ething to dream about and strive towards. Mining asteroids, terraforming Mars, reverting the damage done to Earth. All this gave a great purpose in life for those working towards the new world.
Yeah, but not for Jax.
Jax was yet to find her own purpose in life.
In the meantime, she stared into the cold and dark void, drank little, ate less, evacuated the leftovers from her body, and slept in short bursts only to wake up and repeat the sequence again.
Ah, and every few hours she would check on her medical cargo and two awake, or half-anaesthetized passengers.
Lulu Zhou expressed a desire to stay asleep between the limited meals.
Fortunately for Jax's introverted, antisocial self, Rutger was too tired by higher gravity to talk, or maybe too challenged by the boredom of space that he chose to be placed in a medically-induce deep sleep most of the time. That also saved on air, food and water. And once she started to decelerate, he managed to locate his personal pack in the storage and began to spend the awake time with his tablet. He swore to use it only in read mode and not even try to connect it to the system. He read a little and then asked her to wake him up when they were approaching Segedunum.
For the most part, Jax was left to herself. Thank goodness. She wasn't good with people.
The closer they got to their destination, the more restless Jax grew, every day checking her body for signs of the other life growing inside her. To her relief, she could feel nothing.
Feeling nothing made it easier to deal with the situation the way she wanted to deal with it.
She tried very hard not to think about it too much, which was the whole point of the idea of the resolution adjournment, as it was called on the Si-Carb website.
If anyone was able to preserve embryos, it was the clever medics from Rebels' Republic. Not only did Si-Carb have expertize and equipment required to conduct such a delicate operation, their liberal laws also allowed for this to happen. Similar interventions were probably possible in New China, alongside their famous banned-in-PanAm designer babies services, but they didn't offer the discretion or the political stability of Si-Carb clinics.
So that was why she was on her way to Segedunum. The fetus would be removed from her uterus and placed in stasis in a special incubator until… until she was able to take care of her… baby…
No, no, no…
She couldn't think about the developing cells as a baby. Thinking of it as a fetus, a collection of cells was easier. Otherwise, the guilt, the shame and the regret would be too much to cope with. No matter how physically removed she was from her family, how much she rebelled against her parents' traditional values, her evangelical upbringing drilled into her that life began in the womb and was sacrosanct. To make things more complicated, Jax believed that baby licenses were a good thing. Yes. Despite all its failures and limitations, including the fact that her own parents were allowed to have a second child, even though they shouldn't have, Jax supported the idea that not everyone was ready or able to be a good parent.
She definitely wasn't. Not now.
Get yourself sorted first, Jax McCarthy, then, bring another human onto this world.
Simple.
Jax rechecked the coordinates for the umpteenth time. Soon, she would be able to use the radio comms, or even sooner, depending on the position of the nearest transmitters and all the outside, so called 'weather' factors.
She powered the comms system up and then woke up Rutger.
He seemed confused and quickly excused himself, mumbling something about needing to go to the bathroom.
A quick thought popped at the back of Jax's head, but she dismissed it, as the static noise coming from the radio comms started resembling real words.
Finally, TNSS was in contact with the external world.
Jax sent her request for approach.
It several minutes for the Segedunum Space Port to reply.
"Segedunum Port Control confirming your message, TNSS. Why haven't you sent anything earlier? We're expecting you, but in two days' time. What's happened?" The voice sounded muffled, but it was unmistakably female and an actual human rather than a computer.
Thanks goodness, it was easier to explain her ship's irregular situation to a human. Humans could accept a simple 'no effing idea' as an answer. An automated control would just repeat the message until someone shot it dead.
"We have laser comms damage," Jax explained. "Physical." She gave a quick description of her earlier encounter with space debris.
"Any other damage?"
"No, the ship is in one piece, from what I can see, but the operating system shut down due to an unexpected event."
"A virus?" there was a note of alarm in the woman's voice.
"Don't know," Jax replied truthfully. "But I've kept everything offline since the incident."
"Until now?"
"No. We're still offline. I'm going manual. Request to approach manually, by the way."
"No problem. We'll guide you from here, if needed as well."
Fortunately, there were no issues with landing or docking.
Rutger returned from wherever he'd gone to and strapped in for the procedure. Lulu was asleep in Jax's cabin.
As soon as the ship docked safely, another voice came through the comms.
"Pilot McCarthy, this is Frank Rosa, from the Si-Carb Retrieval team," a male voice said. "You're carrying ten passengers in stasis. We're ready to take over as soon as you're clear."
Yeah… That was unavoidable.
"Mr. Rosa," Jax replied. "We are ready for your arrival as soon as we're clear for disembarking. Two passengers are out of stasis due to system issues, but in a stable condition."
"Who are the passengers?" Frank Rosa's voice took on an anxious note.
"Lulu Zhou and-"
"Baron, I'm all good," Rutger shouted just by her ear. She ducked instinctively before she noticed his tall body towering over her.
Jax swiped her mic mute. It would have slammed if the touch buttons made a sound.
"Are you insane? Stay put and shut up. This is my ship, and my job," she growled.
He grinned.
"Sorry, Captain, just wanted to make sure you get my name right."
"Shut up and return to your seat. I'm not stupid."
She un-muted the mic, her heart still pounding, but she had this situation under control.
From the corner of her eye, she observed Rutger walking away from her seat. He was wearing a pair of dark green-gray combat trousers and a matching jacket. He must have found the bathroom, or whatever it was he went to.
"A break in comms, sorry, Mr. Rosa. Did you say the retrieval team is coming for Ms. Zhou or everyone all together? She's … fast asleep."
How much was she supposed to tell the port authorities about the woman's behavior post-revival? Or maybe, should it be Si-Carb people or medics?
There was no recording on board. But then, Ms. Zhou might decide to report Jax's actions against her.
She needed to mention at least something.
"Mr. Rosa?" Medical people were probably the safest ones to tell. And the ones who should be informed anyway.
"Yes, Captain?" the voice was still somewhat anxious.
"About Ms. Zhou. She's stable, but I had to… give her something stronger to sleep," Jax said. "She was acting in a highly irresponsible, erratic manner, putting other passengers at risk by attempting to access the control panels in the medical bay. She didn't do any harm to anyone. I didn't let that happen," she added quieter.
There was a silence at the other end for a while.
"Thanks, Captain," Mr. Rosa said finally. His voice emotionless. "We'll check all the passengers. Are you reporting the incident?"
Jax cleared her throat. She had a reply ready.
"No harm done to the ship, so as long as the passengers… patients have suffered no harm, I'm happy to wave that."
"Okay. We'll send someone for Ms. Zhou. ETA about seven minutes after the docking is completed. Then,
we'll get everyone else. She's priority."
A quick technical exchange followed and a few minutes later, Jax was prepping the ship's airlock to open.
"We've got to get that woman out of my cabin," she said to Rutger, who was standing by the crash couch, holding his pack and watching the main screen display the view outside the ship.
"What?" he winced. "Ah, the infamous Ms. Zhou… Can't the retrieval guys handle it?"
She eyed him. There was some restlessness in the way his gaze shifted from the screen to her, to the entrance.
"Do you have somewhere else to be?"
He gave a sharp laugh.
Fake, Jax judged.
"In fact, yes. Why?"
"Where?"
"Anywhere but here."
"Because?"
He shifted from foot to foot.
"Things to do, people to see," he replied, looking at the screen again.
"I thought you were keen to get to the destination."
"Yeah, but in stasis. Remember, my implants are-"
"I thought they could fool the scanners. Besides, they seem to be much more interested in our friend who's hopefully still tied to the pod in my cabin."
"Okay, but as soon as they are out of the ship with her, I'm off, too," Rutger said.
"You can't. They have to check on you."
"That's exactly why I need to be away from here."
"Why so?"
"So, they don't realize there is nothing wrong with me."
"How did you even think you'd fool them?"
"It's easier to fool them when you are in stasis, than when you are walking and talking. Don't worry, I'll be back later. Need to get those implants, fixed, right?" He flashed her a smile.
She wanted to argue more, but first, she ran out of reasonable arguments, and second, a group of individuals with a wheeled pod arrived and requested access to the ship.
