The Field of Reality

by Aditya Deshmukh

  “There was one other thing the virus fucked up. It blocked the air supply,” Omar says. “By the time we knew, we all fainted. It took hours for the system to get rid of the virus. The air ports opened. We checked on you immediately, bud,” Omar says, rubbing Madden’s back.

  Madden gives a deep sigh. “Wow.” He pauses again and remains quiet for an entire minute. “Holy fuck. That’s a lot to take in. But I’m sorry to doubt you guys.” He pauses. “Thank you.”

  “We don’t give up on our own so easily.” Cap smiles. “Glad to put all this confusion behind us.”

  Madden returns the smile this time.

  Cap’s attention goes back to the screen.

  Madden notices it for the first time. The hologram produced by radar is a projection of everything that extends hundreds and hundreds of miles from them. It should show other ships, some big chunks of debris and nearby stations. But while it was supposed to show everything, it showed nothing.

  “Guys, where exactly are we?” Madden says, swallowing.

  “On the fringes of the solar system,” Savitri says, shivering.

  Madden chuckles. Their faces remain steady. “Wait, you guys are really serious?”

  The feeling is worse than when he almost stepped out of the Godlith into the inviting hands of the cold space. Then, there was at least something out there. Other ships, debris, and the asteroids, and the numerous stations lining the Pluto Belt. There were humans. A few hundreds of them. But here, the space was empty, like really empty.

  Men had the potential to go beyond the solar system. But those were usually one-way trips. The idea of colonizing the outer planets was still unrealistic. Mars wouldn’t allow Earther ships to pass to their side. Earth would keep Mars busy with all these little dances of war. And the outer planets continued to remain barren, except for a few stations that had germinated everywhere from Venus to the Pluto Belt back when people took the Earth-Mars Coalition seriously.

  Beyond the Pluto Belt there is nothing. And with the war getting worse, there wouldn’t be anything here for centuries.

  Madden gazes upon the screen. “Okay, so why the fuck are we going so slow?”

  “We were running low on fuel since weeks. And we were at max acceleration while trying to outrun Earther ships. Then we fainted. And while we were passed out, the Godlith burnt almost everything,” Omar says calmly. “We wanted to send a message to the HQ, see if they can send us fuel. But our high-range comms are fried.”

  “Not just fried,” Cap says. “I had a look. They have been cut clean. Must be some really accurate shot. Or the universe is just pissed at us.”

  Madden chuckles. “First Mars calls me a traitor, then you tell me we are out here, in the middle of nowhere, with no fuel left. And now the comms are gone? Wait, is today April Fool’s day?”

  Savitri points her finger at the fuel indicator on the main screen. The bar is down to 3%. The comms section on the side of the main screen is also flooded with “Connection Lost” prompt messages.

  “Shit. So we are stranded,” Madden says.

  Cap nods.

  “And as the war is still going on in the Pluto Belt, I doubt when they’ll get time to check on us,” Savitri says, scratching her nose.

  Omar laughs.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just praising your optimism,” Omar says.

  “What? You think they won’t try to check on us?” Lines form on Savitri’s forehead.

  “They will,” Omar says. “But they won’t be able to track us. Our transponder doesn’t read the Godlith anymore. The system hasn’t figured out how to correct this yet. So HQ will probably assume we are somewhere in that gigantic debris forming its own belt just beside the Pluto Belt.”

  “But we shouldn’t give up just yet. We still have some fuel. We can explore nearby,” Cap says.

  Omar laughs. “What are we going to find? We are in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Guys.” Madden clears his throat. “Where are we headed now?”

  “Towards the solar system, of course,” Cap says.

  “We need to change course. We should go further out.”

  “Are you crazy?” Savitri says. “We already can’t make it and you want to further decrease the odds?”

  “We won’t make it anyway. And out there…I don’t really remember, but before the war I used to work for a contractor. Just repair gigs. And sometimes we visited weird places. The radar would pick up nothing, but we would have the coordinates. And there would be an empty out-of-order stealth ship waiting for us.”

  “A stealth ship?” Omar’s eyes widen. “What kind of work you were involved in, man?”

  Madden shrugs. “I was never told. It was good money. But yeah, day by day, my anxiety grew, and I eventually left…But the point is, we are nowhere. We just might be able to spot something out there,” he says, his hands joining. “We gotta turn the ship.”

  “We did look around while we were there. There’s nothing but that dwarf planet Goblin. I don’t think it would be wise to waste more fuel there.” Cap sighs.

  “Did you study Goblin? I think it also has a moon.”

  “Not much. It was the last point of the solar system. I couldn’t stand being there.”

  Madden looks her in the eyes. “Then we need to return. Dwarf planets and their moons make for good hiding spots. I bet we will find some stealth tech just beside them, hidden in their shadow.”

  “You have an interesting theory,” Omar says. “But it sounds more like wishful thinking.”

  Cap spends a minute rubbing her forehead. “Turn the ship.”

  “Cap?” Savitri says.

  “It’s not like we will get anywhere with our current trajectory. But Goblin…if Madden is right, that’s our only chance.”

  And what if I am wrong?

  Omar meets his eyes. Both swallow.

  An hour later, the alarms are beeping. The comfortable ambient lights of the Godlith turn red. Omar and Madden are patching up the holes in the hull and replacing the punctured panels. Omar speaks into his comms. His face pops up as a small window in the corner of the main screen. Savitri’s and Cap’s eyes are fixed on the screen.

  “What’s going on? We out of fuel already?” Omar asks.

  “Goblin’s moon isn’t a moon,” Savitri says, horrified. “We are now in proximity with a—I don’t know what the fuck that is.”

  Savitri taps a few buttons on the dashboard and Omar and Madden are now staring with their jaws wide open. The moon is only a shell, a hiding structure. Half of the humongous space station of the same size peeks through this rocky cocoon. The radar misses it completely; it must be stealth tech then. It’s not his field, but Madden knows the basics. They have traps for the radar, so the emitted signal never receives the sensor. Their heat profile is also made to mimic natural things, like asteroids, so that they are not so obvious even in infrared. The technology is expensive, and scaled up to this level…Madden now understands what the word priceless means: something so awesome it doesn’t make sense to measure it in terms of money.

  Omar cracks a smile. “Looks like you got your wish, engineer.”

  The Mammoth,

  At the Fringes of the solar System

  AS THE MIGHTY SPACECRAFT FILLS THE ENTIRETY OF MADDEN’S VISION, HE GASPS.

  His five year term with the contractor took him to dozens of places all over the solar system. He thought he had seen all sorts of spaceships. But the one looming over him is so unlike anything he has ever seen. He is awestruck. He cannot place it. For its size, it can be a space station. For all the stealth tech, it can be a warship. Except that Madden cannot spot any weaponry.

  What puzzles him the most however is that this beautiful structure is empty and dead. No lights emit the spaceship, which is understandable if the ship needs to stay hidden. But the reactor is also switched off.

  “What exactly is it?” Savitri’s voice fills his comms.

  “No idea,” he says.

  Ma
dden, Cap and Omar are headed to the mysterious ship, while Savitri remains on the Godlith. It’s Madden’s first time venturing so far away from his own ship. His work for the contractor involved inspection and last minute revisions. By then, the ship would be fully functional. To enter the new ship, Madden always used docking tubes, which had air and gravity. He didn’t have that kind of luxury now. But he has Omar and Cap beside him, ready to catch him if space overwhelms him. Madden is grateful, but also embarrassed because he’s killing their speed.

  “Got the ID?” Cap asks.

  “No go. The ship doesn’t have a transponder, which shouldn’t be surprising obviously. Or maybe the whole system is just dead.”

  “Cap, you sure we should explore this ship? What if it’s a trick?” Omar says, warily watching the monstrous structure.

  “Then they would have shot us already. Besides, this thing looks like someone spent generations of riches to build it. I know we are pretty awesome, but don’t think someone did all that just to welcome us with a cheap trick.”

  “I’m using all the sensors. None is picking up anything. Just saw the heat profile. Yeah, their reactor is definitely dead. Also, the ship doesn’t have any weapon systems. Lucky for us.”

  “Took generations of riches, huh, and nothing to guard it? Maybe we can’t just see the weapons yet.”

  “Cap’s argument still stands. If they wanted to shoot us, we would be long dead,” Madden says.

  “So what do they want?”

  “Look at the airlock,” Cap points towards an opening in the center of the ship, towards the bottom.

  “I can’t see anything,” Madden complains and narrows his eyes. “It’s too dark.” The entire ship is black, as if it’s made of space itself. But it’s more solid. Maybe some kind of an alloy.

  “I see it,” Omar says. “Yeah, seems like it’s open, Cap. We are still alive, dead reactor, open airlock. I bet the Mammoth is empty.”

  “The Mammoth?” Cap says.

  “Yeah, we need to call it something, right?”

  “I like it,” Cap says.

  Omar grins. “We were here for the fuel, but stealth tech, huh? There may be a lot to salvage.”

  “Easy there. We don’t want to run out of luck,” Savitri says. “I already have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Yeah? Why would anyone desert such a beauty?” Omar says, approaching the airlock.

  “We can think of that later. First we find out where their engineering deck is, get the fuel and leave,” Cap says, following Omar. “Everyone, standby. Engineer, make sure your cameras are on. We will have to report to HQ with what we find here.”

  Madden nods in his claustrophobic suit.

  “Activate the cameras. I want every view,” he orders the Suit Assistant, which gets to work silently.

  Madden then joins his crew mates, who are at the mouth of the airlock. He waits patiently for a moment, but when the two show no inclination to move, he glides up to have a clear view of what’s ahead.

  His air chamber was refilled to full capacity, but Madden feels as if the entire supply depleted because of some unknown leakage. His lungs refuse to take in more air. The space suddenly is colder and the sweat on his forehead is frozen.

  There are seven dead bodies floating in the airlock. They wear a black uniform with a logo on their chest. The triangle with a dot at its center is something Madden could identify even in his sleep. Of all the ships he has been to, a majority belonged to New World Systems, a solar system-spanning private company owned by the system’s richest man, V.K. Narayana.

  Some corpses are holding what look like textbooks. Madden never expected to see something so archaic again. Then again he didn’t expect to see a mammoth of a ship with dead bodies in its belly. Other corpses are gazing at their hand terminals, utterly oblivious of the empty space around them. A woman has her frozen eyes on a hologram of a set of equations emerging from a portable projector strapped to her hand. Other than the empty glassy eyes, white lips, and shrunken flesh, the sight is almost comical. It’s as if a bunch of nerds walked into the airlock mistaking it for a conference room.

  No one speaks a word for two whole minutes. They are as lifeless and still as the corpses.

  “Cap, the mission still on?” Omar asks, gliding toward the door. “I can take a sneak peek and inform you if everything is alright inside.”

  “Yes,” Cap says. “We still need the fuel. But wait. Savitri, send a drone first.”

  “It’s dark. With those cheap sensors, the drone will keep slamming into walls. It will take a lot of time to find anything useful. And we shouldn’t lose much time, in case someone’s on their way here. No company would let go of what looks like the universe’s most expensive spacecraft,” Omar says. “I’ll hardly need a minute. Won’t go too deep.”

  “Okay. Be careful,” Cap says after some thinking.

  Madden is still suffocating, but when Cap glances at him, he holds his breath and pretends to be okay.

  “You can go back, swap places with Savitri, if you’re not feeling well,” Cap tells Madden on a private channel.

  Madden gives half a smile. “Well, they are dead. The dead don’t bite,” he says and holds his breath again.

  Cap is staring right at him, evaluating him. She smiles and returns her gaze to the Mammoth. Madden sighs with relief and wonders why he acts so funny every single time he has a personal moment with Cap.

  As he overthinks, Cap studies the bodies. “Savitri, send a drone anyway. While we are inside, see if you can find something here. Estimate when they died. Don’t leave the Godlith, and keep our weapons ready, just in case. And monitor the radar. Warn us immediately if you think someone is coming.”

  Madden wonders what if they are also using stealth tech. It would be impossible to detect anything until it’s too late.

  Madden is rescued from the torture of overthinking as Omar gives them a thumbs up.

  “No time to check the entire thing. But at least this deck looks okay,” Omar says. “And this is the control deck. I checked the controls. Along with the reactor, auxiliaries are also off. More like drained. The batteries are warm, so the Mammoth might have been alive recently. Computers are okay. Maybe they have an independent power source. All air lines are closed. Temperature systems won’t work without power. Even if there are people hiding here, they’ll be long dead.”

  Cap and Madden follow Omar inside. The Mammoth is as black from inside as it is from outside. The passageway is narrow, so they proceed in single file. Despite the headlamp, Madden bumps his head into the ceiling and the sides of the passageway more than he likes to admit. Soon, they emerge in the control room.

  Cap and Omar seem to be doing well, but for Madden everything is still dark. Maybe it’s their training. Martian marines don’t have the advantage of numbers like Earth, so every marine is trained brutally. They can work in the dimmest lights, and chase things that cause the softest noise.

  Madden is glad he has superhuman partners.

  Cap and Omar study the main screen. Madden heads for a desktop just near the pressure door and gasps.

  “Something wrong?” Omar asks, gliding toward him.

  “There’s a body here,” Madden squeaks.

  “Strange I missed it. Sorry.” Omar makes a sorry face and observes the corpse. “Shit, that looks painful.”

  A young woman with sharp features and beautiful big eyes is looking up, her neck stretched, her mouth wide open. There is only silence in space, but Madden can hear her scream. A terrible sound full of frustration that chills his spine. There isn’t enough light, but he can see the glint in her glassy eyes, and the icy tears glistening on her frozen cheeks.

  “The others seemed pretty okay, as if they didn’t know they were breathing vacuum instead of air. But this girl…looks like she died normally. She struggled a lot before giving up her last breath,” Cap says, watching her closely. “Omar, Madden, go get the fuel. Savitri, update me as soon as you find anything. I’ll remain
here, see how these people died.”

  Cap stares at the monitor in front of the dead girl, frowning.

  “Kind of obvious to me why they’re dead. These people look like scientists. So some kind of research project.” Omar’s attention focuses on the dead woman’s chest, on the logo. “The deaths appear to be caused by something internal, rather than an outside force. Maybe they were working on something deadly. Maybe someone tried to do the right thing,” he says, staring at the dead woman and through her. “She cut the air supply while the others were in the conference room. She dumped the bodies in the airlock because she wanted them away. In order to focus. Then did some last minute stuff before cutting the air here also.”

  Cap looks at Omar, amused. “You seem to know a lot about how stuff like this works.”

  Omar stares at a distance. “My mom was a scientist. Worked on something dangerous. Came to her senses, and killed everything, including herself, before it would get into the wrong hands.”

  “God, I’m so sorry,” Madden says.

  Cap opens her mouth and closes. This is the first time Omar ever showed a hint of vulnerability. He is their strength, an invincible force they can always count on. Someone supposed to be infallible.

  “It’s alright,” Omar says, bringing his eyes back to Cap. “I’m past it. I don’t usually bring it up, but I know you. You will try to figure out what exactly happened here. But don’t dig too deep. If my mom’s story,” he says, looking at the dead woman, “and hers match, we don’t want to uncover whatever they gave up their lives to hide.”

  Cap returns to the main computer. Omar watches her with a steely gaze.

  “I respect you sharing this with me, but I see a number of ways her story could have ended.” She meets his gaze. “I won’t go far. And if there’s anything dangerous, I will delete it,” Cap assures.

  Omar steps toward the other pressure door, which would take them further into the engineering deck. Madden follows him, but dreads the idea of floating into narrow dark passages again.