by G. R. Cooper
As Duncan watched, intently, the Westy fired its maneuvering thrusters and rotated ninety degrees. The destroyer was now moving sideways through space, in front of the miner. Three turrets on the top, flat, deck of the Westy rotated until all were pointed at Duncan. Each turret had two long tubes that Duncan now stared into. Plasma cannons.
A series of black honeycomb like shapes appeared on the side of the Westy.
“Sir, he’s opening his missile bays.” Duncan didn’t see which station had said that, his eyes were fixed on his impending doom.
“Drop shields,” Duncan commanded.
“If you’re going to kill me,” he muttered, “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of making it the least bit difficult.”
“We’re being targeted, sir,” said Clive. Duncan nodded. Waited. The HMS Westy still floated along ahead of them. Duncan wondered if he should send a hail. Decided not to. He checked the broad mining scan returns from the shepherd moon. Nothing. He focused the scan, toward a crater midway up the moon. He didn’t expect to find anything, just wanted to show Eric that he was still busy. He hoped it would send a message that he was unconcerned about the broadside he was staring into. He set a waypoint, just off the moon above the crater. That would slow him automatically as he approached it.
He looked back into the maws of the plasma cannons.
“Clive, what happens when we die?”
“Sir?”
“If he fires. When he blows up our ship. What happens to us?”
“You’re regenerated at the last space station you’ve been to. Any objects you’ve discovered or skill points earned since your last station visit are lost. Your ship, since it’s insured, will also be regenerated at the station, but any cargo in the hold will be lost. You’ll also need to purchase insurance again each time your ship is lost.”
“Have I earned any skill points for mining?”
“No sir. Skill points for shipboard operations are earned slowly through doing the activity. They can also be purchased or, occasionally, certificates can be found as loot.”
His ship began to slow as they approached the moon. Suddenly, the maneuvering thrusters on the Westy fired. It rotated ninety degrees again, this time facing him. It also slowed, matching their pace until, instantly shrouded from the rear in the glow of its engines flooding with full thrust, it streaked over his ship. A collision alarm sounded.
He brought up the damage control. It looked like the Westy had skimmed along the top of his ship. One of his mining drones was incapacitated. None of his other systems seemed to be affected.
“Can we fix that?”
“Yes sir. Estimated time is ninety minutes. I’ll begin now. If you EVA, you can fix it much more quickly.”
“Ninety minutes is fine, thanks.” Duncan acknowledged. He still had the other drone.
After about five minutes of coasting, he had reached the waypoint. Stopped. The Westy was approaching the L5 point. As it arrived, Eric jumped. Duncan hoped he’d gone far far away. He changed from the damage control screen, showing eighty minutes work left on the mining drone, and brought up the mineral scan.
The scan was still focused on the moon’s crater, now only a few hundred meters away. It registered a faint anomaly.
“Clive, what’s that? In the scan,” he asked.
“We can’t tell, sir. It’s very small. It’s not ore. We seem to be at the furthest limit of detection. Even with a focused scan if we were much further away, we wouldn’t be able to detect it.”
Duncan thought. Wondered. Decided. He turned and left the bridge, entered the hangar, turned right and went through the small airlock.
Duncan, in his EVA suit, approached the surface of the shepherd moon. The moon wasn’t anything like the size of Earth’s moon, Luna, but it was much larger than the rocks that made up the planetary ring that it helped create. The gravitational pull from shepherd moons was what helped planetary rings keep their sharply defined edges. They were usually found orbiting just inside of or just outside of the ring itself. This one was more or less spherical. Rocky, with a few craters showing. It looked like it was roughly the size of a space station.
As he reached the moon, facing it as though floating prone just above the surface, he saw the anomaly his scan had detected.
“What the fuck?” he muttered, then louder, “Clive can you see this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you make of it?”
“It looks, sir, like a meter high plinth with a button on top. A red button.”
“Thanks,” said Duncan, dryly. “But what should I do?”
“Press the button?”
“Thanks again, Clive. You’ve been most helpful.” He reached out, pressed the button. The button receded into the plinth, which began to retract. To retreat into the moon itself. When it had become flush with the moon’s surface, a split appeared, tracing above and below Duncan’s position.
It took him a second to realize that a door was opening. He looked from one end of the crack to another. Two panels seemed to be sliding apart, leaving him in the middle of the opening. The door, now opening more rapidly, was at least one hundred meters tall. It stopped moving when the opening was roughly square, and larger than a football field in area.
He was staring in awe at the dark square when it lit from within. Two rows of flashing lights, a hundred meters apart, stretched into the darkness, the alternating flashing giving the illusion of two single parallel lights receding into the distance. Landing lights.
“Holy crap,” he said aloud, “this is a landing bay. A hangar.”
He thrust inside. He couldn’t see the other end of the bay. The lights seemed to go until they met at the vanishing point. He spun upward, to face the ceiling. The size of the bay was only a little larger than the door. Airlock doors appeared periodically down both sides of the bay, near the floor.
“Who owns this thing, Clive?”
“Apparently, you do.”
Stunned, he began thrusting back to the ship. “I don’t understand, Clive. What do you mean?”
“This is without precedent,” answered Clive, “but it seems that the system considers this loot. An alien artifact. And you now own it.”
Duncan thrust outside the door, back into space, toward his ship.
Duncan walked into the bridge. The view forward looked deep into the space station. His space station.
“Clive, can you dock for me?”
The ship began to move forward, through the door. As it reached the second airlock inside the hangar, the ship stopped, began drifting to the left. At the left wall, it again stopped, began dropping until it reached the floor.
“Shall I close the hangar door, sir?” asked Clive.
“Please.”
Duncan walked to the port side of the bridge, to the airlock door. He walked through and entered his space station. He was in a room that seemed to run parallel to the hanger. It was only about ten meters across, but stretched one hundred meters to his left and as far as he could see to his right. To his left was one additional airlock, to his right they continued into the distance. Next to each airlock was a stair that climbed fifty feet to a walkway that ran the length of the room.
He walked up the stair next to him. As he reached the walkway, he saw that it looked into the hangar bay. He could see down into the bridge of his ship, and back as it stretched to closing hangar doors. He saw small drones working to repair the mining drone, occasionally sparks and glows showed as they welded. The ship took up the near half of the hanger. Ships could apparently be berthed sided by side the length of the bay. He couldn’t begin to guess how many ships could fit.
He turned away from the view, walked back down the stairs and across the room. A door was on the wall opposite each of the airlocks. He walked through the closest one.
“Destination?”
He thought, then said, “Control room.”
The small room’s second door opened, he walked through, into a large sem
icircular room. It had a large seat near the back, next to which was the door he walked through. The ground sloped away from the chair toward the front of the room, which also widened as it deepened. The front side was dominated by a large screen which currently showed the view outside of the station. The effect of the room was like a movie theater, with one chair sitting on the back wall. Clive stood next to the chair, on the opposite side from which Duncan stood. Duncan sat in the chair.
Judging from the view, Duncan thought the control room was located just above the hangar. His view showed the planetary ring and the gas giant on the right side of the screen. The left was blackness and stars. He thought he was looking directly toward the L5 jump point, which lay behind the moon but on its orbital path.
“Can I get a nav map on this screen?”
“Yes, sir,” one appeared.
“Overlay the area out the viewport.” A translucent pie slice extended from the moon. Duncan zoomed in on the view, until it showed only the area around the fourth planet, centered on the moon. His moon, he thought incredulously. The view was indeed currently directed toward the system jump point. “Can I change the view?”
“Yes sir, we can slew to view from any direction on the moon. It’s currently set to the view you would have if this room had a window.”
That’s what Duncan had assumed. He thought for a moment.
“Clive, I’m not sure what I should do now.”
“Perhaps,” answered the AI, “we could examine your configuration and control options for the station.” Duncan grunted his agreement. To the left of the nav map, a list appeared. The first item was a checkbox labelled ‘Public’. It was unchecked.
His phone rang. Duncan pulled off his helmet, picked up the phone. It was Clancey.
“How the hell did he hear about this?” he muttered, then put the phone to his ear. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing, just worked late. Wondered if you wanted to grab a drink.”
“Sure. Meet you there.” They hung up. Duncan put the helmet back on, looked at the viewport. The checkbox next to the word ‘Public’ was still unchecked. He disconnected, took off his helmet, and headed to the bar. He badly needed a drink. Or more.
Chapter 14
the day before
Charlottesville, VA. USA
After Duncan paid the tab for the brunch, he and Anna walked the pedestrian mall. They walked mostly in silence, weaving their way through the afternoon crowd. She stopped at a vendor table, picked up a pair of earrings. She held them to her ears, looked at Duncan and raised her eyebrows, questioningly. He scrunched his face, shook his head. She laughed and put them back on the table.
“Will you miss me?” she asked as she rejoined him, putting her arm through his.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“No,” she leaned on his shoulder. “Not me. You. If you become an online entity someday.”
“I doubt it,” he said in mock seriousness. “My attractions to you are entirely physically based. Once my biological urges are removed from the picture, what use are you?”
She laughed.
“But honestly,” he said, “I’m an orphan. No family at all. I’m single and I’ve always been single. I have a few close friends, but beyond that there aren’t any real connections I have with anyone.”
She squeezed his arm. “I didn’t know you were an orphan.”
“Yup. For as long as I can remember. I was raised by a series of foster families.” He shrugged. “They were ok, I guess, but I just never really connected with anyone. A quiet, loner kid isn’t much entertainment, I guess. I just ate their food and kept to myself.”
“You’re not a loner,” she countered, “you’ve got lots of friends.”
“I’ve got a few,” he acknowledged, “but I’m still an introvert.”
“You’re very outgoing,” she argued.
“For short periods of time,” he responded. “You see me out a few times a week, for a few hours at a time, but the rest of the time I’m not at work I’m home alone. Being around people feels like it drains my energy. I need a lot of alone time to, I dunno, ‘recharge my batteries’ is a decent analogy.”
“Isn’t that a metaphor?”
“I always get them confused,” he answered.
“Anyway,” he continued, “interacting with people takes a toll.”
“Should I feel insulted?” she asked.
“Not at all. If an introvert is spending time with you, you know it’s because he wants to be with you. You’re not just there to keep them from being alone.”
“And when I need alone time,” he added, “it’s not because I don’t want to be around you, it’s because I don’t want to be around anyone.”
“I feel completely the opposite,” she said, “I need to be around other people, the more the better, to really get my energy up.”
“That makes you an extrovert.”
“So I guess,” she continued, “that’s why I’m always going from person to person. It keeps me going.”
He laughed. “You’re an energy vampire!”
“I vant to suck your chi” she laughed.
“Would a beer suffice?” he asked.
“You bet!”
Duncan entered the key code to let them into his building, then opened the door for Anna.
“Hey,” he said, “how did you get in here this morning?”
She looked at him, her face serious, “I memorized your code the last time we came in.”
“Really?”
“No,” she laughed, “not really. Someone was coming out as I came up. He held the door. He was very polite.”
“I’m so glad our security is so tight.”
“Anyway,” she laughed again as they entered the elevator, “I did memorize it this time, just now.”
“Well,” he said, “go ahead and impress me. What is it?”
“3201,” she giggled as the door closed. She pressed the button for the fourth, top, floor.
“Damn,” he laughed, “I’ll have to see about getting that changed.”
They left the elevator on the fourth floor, walked down the long hallway to his door. He unlocked, opened it, let her through. It closed behind him as he walked toward the kitchen. He pulled a couple of beers out of the refrigerator, opened them, then joined her where she sat, reclined, on his couch. She was fiddling with his remote.
“TV on”, he said.
“Music channel ‘Anna Child’,” she added. His TV began playing her default playlist, scrubbed from his social network connection to her. He didn’t recognize the song. He didn’t doubt that he’d never heard of the band, just as he didn’t doubt that would be the case for her entire playlist. She took the beer he held out, took a sip, then curled back into the couch, looking at him. He sat next to her.
“Won’t you miss your career?” she asked.
“You’re not going to change the topic of conversation, are you?”
She paused, stared at him earnestly.
“I find the topic very interesting. It’s not only like a next step in human evolution, the changes could be huge and instant. It’ll be a quantum leap in our consciousness.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
He took a sip of his beer.
“In any case,” he continued, “to answer your question. No, I definitely would not miss my career.”
“But you do such cool things,” she countered. “You deal with people all over the world, every day.”
“And people all over the world are no different than you or I. All they really want to do is worry about their own concerns. Nothing we do matters,” he said.
He continued, “I’ll sum it up. Before I moved to Charlottesville to manage a little software development startup, I was in charge of development for a Fortune 500 company in Manhattan. In addition to New York, I had teams in London, Paris, Mumbai, San Francisco and Columbus Ohio reporting to me, daily. I was in charge of developing the vision for a seventy million dollar a
year arm of the company. We were the second largest arm of the company.”
He took another sip of his beer, “So one day we were going to have a meeting within the company. Every arm was going to be presenting our plans for the next year. I worked my ass off to get ready. I even had to pull an actual all-nighter the night before the meeting to finish. Everyone else left at five.”
She cocked her head, watching him.
“So the next day, at the meeting, we go around the room. Everyone who was supposed to give a presentation instead had some excuse as to why they weren’t ready. Except me. I was the only one who was done. Do you know what our boss said?”
She smiled, shook her head.
“He said ‘Duncan gets a gold star!’ and then everyone laughed. That was it. It didn’t matter that nobody else had finished, and it sure as shit didn’t matter that I did. A couple of months later, layoffs were announced. I volunteered, took the very nice severance package, and moved here.”
She leaned into him, he put his arm around her.
“So, ‘no’’, he concluded, “I will in no way miss my career.”
They sat listening to music for a while, then ordered a pizza for dinner. Once finished, her ephemeral visit ended as it always did; with a kiss, a goodbye and no mention of the future.
***
Duncan entered the bar, saw Clancey was already there. He took an empty stool next to him. Shannon was working the bar tonight, she approached them.
“Beer?” she asked
Duncan nodded, ”and a tequila.”
“Rough day?” asked Clancey
“Not really,” answered Duncan. “I just feel like having a little of the Don,” he smiled.
Shannon poured a generous glass of Don Julio, put it in front of Duncan, then turned to attend the tap.
