“Much better. All right, I think I’m ready for those topos, Hitoshi.”
3
ESL2
Earth-Sun Lagrange Two was a popular place. Anything placed there would take one year to circle the sun, the same as the Earth. Permanently eclipsed by the Earth, approaching it was like driving towards a small town in the desert night. Oases of lights glistened from dozens of structures. Beyond it, the spectacle of the Milky Way bisected the sky top to bottom, great glowing lanes of stars dappled with amethyst smudges.
The pearly lattice of the UNSDEF x-ray laser array drifted two kilometers overhead. James’s nav screen flagged it and an infographic appeared with prohibited velocity vectors in Earth proximity. The skull and crossbones icon summed up consequences.
“Fun fact,” Hitoshi said. “The biggest asteroid that thing’s ever fired on was only twelve meters.”
James flicked away the infographic. “We’re its favorite target, anyway. Understandably.”
The HP test facility grew into a brick with cylinders protruding from each side. The Pegasus slid silently next to one of the airlocks.
“I’m pressurizing the hangar now,” Hitoshi said. “Environmentals will take a few minutes. Control room’s ready, though.”
The airlock cylinder opened into a room with six orange and cream spacesuits affixed to the walls. With Hitoshi’s help, James slid himself into the first suit. He handed Hitoshi the slate before closing the seals, tethered the helmet to his hip, and disengaged the suit from the wall.
“As cool as this looks, you know this isn’t going to help much if I implode.”
“Sorry, boss. I insist. The usual emergency areas aren’t, uh, accessible on the ship. You’ll see what I mean.” Hitoshi pressed Ananke back to James’s pocket.
“Okay,” he said, and pushed off. The airlock closed behind them, and the door opened to the control room.
Several workstations were arranged in a forward facing arc. The entire front wall was a transparent partition between the control room and hangar bay. Six red robot arms were folded into sleep positions in the hangar, and a silver ship with twin fuselage bridged by a passenger cabin rested between them. A wing jutted from each side. James knew they were nacelles housing emitters for the ship’s radiation shields, but he still saw wings. Looking at it, he envisioned the World War Two F-82 Twin Mustang. In reality, it was a Comet LR4.
“Hangar’s at temp. We’re good,” Hitoshi said. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Got to love the silver hull.”
James stared silently at the ship for a long moment. A slight smile crept across his face. VG may be outselling them on the orbital craft, but Hayden-Pratt dominated the intrasystem market, and the Comet was a great example why. “Points for style.”
He grabbed the wall tether and pulled himself towards the communications panel. “Well, time to tip our hand.” He keyed a code and the transmit icon blinked, waiting. A shift of color caught his eye and he noticed Ananke’s screen tumbling with orange and green. She watched the moment intently, her emotions transparent on the screen. He reached a silent decision and pushed the send button.
The hangar door opened and a burnt, antiseptic odor wafted out. The Comet looked big from the control room, but as they approached it loomed spectacularly large. Nose to tail it measured fifty-two meters. It was rare to be outside of a spaceship, and easy to forget the true size of one when you were accustomed to the cockpit view.
Handholds guided them along the underside of the nacelles and fuselage. Light spilled from a curved, open doorway. Hitoshi and James each flanked the entrance and poked their heads inside.
The interior of the ship looked like a particle accelerator had vomited. Chrome cylinders sprouting millions of fiber optics sprang forth from a jumbled mass of metal blocks. Only a one-meter clearance led forward to silhouetted seat backs.
“Well, shit, Hitoshi.”
“Yeah, about that. So, we pretty much had to repurpose the entire cabin to make the reactor fit. I mean, we’ve could’ve gone bigger with the ship, but then the mass increases, and you need an even bigger reactor.”
“So, I’ll be sitting on a one terawatt fusion reactor.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll be fine. I mean, you don’t have any fillings or anything like that, right?”
“A couple of screws in my left arm.”
Hitoshi considered it a second. “Bah, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
James smirked, and pushed inside the doorway, walking himself along the cramped machinery with his hands. He slung around the co-pilot’s seat, but stopped, facing back towards Hitoshi.
Three seats were available here. Two of them contained blue crash test dummies, complete with flight suits. Dozens of yellow circles marked the sensor locations on each synth.
“Meet your crew,” Hitoshi said.
James eyed the empty seat. “One of the dummies is missing.”
“Uh, nope. That’s you.”
James quirked his head, and Hitoshi said, “We included the mass of the crew in our last setup. Three test dummies. The middle one was about the same mass as you, so you’re taking his place. Need to keep the other two. Either that or redo the setup.”
“Gotcha. This is going to make an awesome group photo.” He pulled himself into the seat, clicked in, and attached Ananke to the center console.
“James,” Ananke said, “I’ll relocate to the ship’s core now.” A second later the starboard screen pulsed with red. “I’m here.”
A tone sounded from the center communications console and several icons scrolled by. A few of them included the UN logo with irritated yellow exclamation marks.
“You’ll be happy to know,” James said, “that our launch window and flight plan have just been cleared by UN regulatory. We received a reprimand for failure to file twenty-four hours in advance, and next time we’ll be fined.”
Hitoshi looked back at something in the control room. “Yeah, UNSDEF just targeted us with a range finding laser. That was quick.”
“James,” Ananke said, “now that I’m here in the core, I’d like to state that you don’t need to do this. I’m capable of executing the test solo.”
“Sorry, you’re stuck with me.”
Hitoshi looked up from his watch. “Okay, Sarah’s ready. She’s in a Pegasus at Mars-Sun L1.”
James felt a flush of adrenaline. Twelve light-minutes away. They were really going to do it.
A tone interrupted his train of thought. CALL FROM WILLIAM PRATT pulsed on the center console. He knew this was coming, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. The video feed popped up on screen two.
William wore a black workout shirt with his hair matted, catching his breath. The upwards perspective of the video indicated he’d made the call from his watch. A swatch of trees and sun wavered behind him. Looked like a great day for a run.
James waved an orange gloved hand. “Hey, Will. What’s new?”
A ten second lag, then William responded. “What’s with the latency? Where the hell are you? I just received a UN notification of a Riggs launch.” He cocked his head slowly to the side. “Why are you wearing a spacesuit?”
“Oh, I think you know the answer to that.”
Another mind-numbingly long delay. James multi-tasked and started powering up the Comet’s systems.
William squinted. “Are you sitting in the Riggs vehicle?”
“Just taking her out for a spin.”
He flushed and raised his eyebrows. “Are you crazy? You’ll be dead in less than a minute if you fly that ship.”
“Well, that’s the thing, I’m not doing the flying. Remember how I mentioned we needed an AI to predict the manifold flux?”
“Good day, Mr. Pratt. I feel very confident about our mission,” Ananke said.
“Bernard Riggs’s AI. You put Bernard Riggs’s AI in the pilot’s seat.”
“I was Bernard Riggs’s partner, Mr. Pratt. Certainly you don’t mean to imply that AIs are personal property. Besides, I’m
honored to take part in this mission. I strongly feel that Bernard would want me to be here. You should know that I’ve conducted thousands of simulated flights over the past two months, and will be publishing papers based on the predictive flux routines developed for this flight.”
“Both of you need to get out of that ship now and return to Earth. There are no more test flights.” He leaned closer to the screen. “James, you’re going to get yourself and Ananke killed. Please, listen.”
“There are no unmanned solutions to the problem. I accept that risk,” Ananke said.
James finished keying in some commands on the overhead. “All right, Will, looks like I’ve got to wrap up our convo. You know, if things go south, I’ve left some messages for you and many others, but I’d like to say that you’ve been a hell of a partner. We really built something, together. Changed the world for the better.” He stopped and motioned to the co-pilot’s chairs. “You know, I’ve always imagined this moment with the two of us sitting here, just like the old days. But, we’ve got different visions, so here I am.” He lingered on Will’s image for a long moment. “Ping you when we arrive at Mars. Later, buddy.”
“James—“
He closed the comm.
Hitoshi poked his head back in the door and said, “Man, hard to bite my tongue for all that.”
James cleared his throat. “You were never here, my friend. At least, not until we get to Mars. Then you can smile for the camera.”
“Right. Well, so a few more basics to cover. Galley and toilet are on the starboard side. Pretty tight to get back there, and by galley I mean a bunch of energy bars and water, but it’ll do if you get stuck someplace and need to wait a day or two for Sarah to pick you up. The medbot is back there, too. Just in case.” He paused, then smiled. “It’s been awesome working on this with you. You too, Ananke. Be safe.”
“Thanks for everything. We wouldn’t be here without you.”
Hitoshi pointed to James’s hip. “Helmet.”
“Right.” He untethered his helmet, fastened it in place, and gave the thumbs up. For all the times he’d been in space, this was the most he’d ever felt like an astronaut.
4
55 Seconds
James watched Hitoshi drift back into the control room on the cockpit externals. Red strobes accompanied a depressurization countdown, and a blue rectangle sprang to life around the space doors. He reached up, pressed an icon on the overhead, and the Comet’s running lights blazed bright.
“All right, moorings are off,” Hitoshi said over comms. “Usually we do this on auto, but you have the stick for this one.”
James grinned. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The Comet had more of a fingertip interface than a flight stick, and James rested his hand in it. He nudged the ship off the hangar floor and held it in position. In response, the space doors slid away from each other to reveal a widening rectangle of black dotted by white pinpoints. James could make out different colors in the pinpoints: yellow stars, orange stars, blue stars.
“Bernard’s Beauty, you are cleared for launch,” Hitoshi said.
James pushed the ship forward and it glided silently, easily, out of the hangar. The Earth was a brilliant sapphire to his starboard, and Mars was a copper star forward. The field panned as he centered Mars along the ship’s nose.
A single, intense emerald light radiated from the UNSDEF array. The targeting laser locked on the Comet.
“Moving into launch position.” Gravity increased as the test facility fell away. James tapped the controls and edged up to two gee, then three gee.
“Easy there, speedy. Do I have to say, ‘killer laser array’?” Hitoshi said.
“Drive charge at ninety percent,” Ananke said. “One minute until threshold.”
The Comet cut its acceleration and zipped along at a constant velocity. The facility was a twinkling spec behind him, and the UNSDEF array a dazzling green star.
“Guess what? Skywatch3 just picked us up on imaging. Feed’s live. I’ll patch you in,” Hitoshi said.
A window appeared on the cockpit screen, and James stared at himself. The Comet’s silver hull was a distortion of reflected stars in the image’s center, nearly invisible except for swaths of light showcasing the fuselage and logos. Synchronized strobes pulsed from its nacelle tips.
James opened a channel directly to the Skywatch3 feed. “Hey, everyone! James and Ananke here. We’re heading to Mars! Wanna watch?”
Streams of icons with thumbs ups scrolled by the social feed. William Pratt’s icon prioritized itself to the top, urgently blinking GODDAMMIT, JAMES. STOP! Several of James’s other friends added to Will’s plea, but endless strangers wished him luck. The feed was up to fifty thousand, and rising quickly.
“Twenty seconds to threshold.” Silver waves spun on Ananke’s face. She was scared, and, unlike James, couldn’t hide it with a smile.
“Keep dreaming big, everyone. There’s three hundred billion stars waiting for us.”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
James waved at the camera. “Back in a flash. Here we go!”
“Three, two, one. Initiate.”
For a few queasy seconds gravity yanked on him in all directions at once. Everything in his field of view seemed to swell with a deep breath, hold it, and exhale. Then he fell—not the endless freefall of orbit, but something else—a collapsing like a star shrinking into a black hole, an implosion. It rebounded, and in another second it stabilized. He was in normal weightlessness once again, and his stomach tried to get its bearings.
Mars rested dead center on the screen in front of him, surrounded by stars. Each of those stars slowly coalesced. The colors changed: yellows, oranges, and reds turned blue, and Mars’s coppery light faded to violet. The aft camera showed angry red stars converging on a crimson Earth.
Ananke’s voice was steady, professional. “Primary, secondary, and tertiary waves are stable. Manifold flux less than zero point zero one percent.”
James’s hand hurt, and he realized he’d dug his fingertips hard into the control surface. The fastest he’d ever traveled was point nine percent light speed, and that was after three days of continuous acceleration. There was no physical sense of speed—with Riggs there wasn’t even acceleration—but the mental awareness was intense. He needed to concentrate on relaxing his grip and reading the displays. “Right. So, reactor’s stable, green lights on all structural feeds.” He caught himself, and chuckled. “I suppose I don’t need to read this to you, since you’re living in the ship’s core.”
“No problem, I could use the help.”
He glanced at the chronometer. Its digits ticked up: 0:42, 0:43, 0:44.
“Well, we’re still alive.” The stress was still in his voice.
A slight, unexpected pause. “So far, so good. You know, I think that…wait, one second—”
The stars on the forward screen had congealed into a deep blue smudge. They blurred twice for an instant, stabilized, and repeated the cycle. He felt a vibration transmitting through his chair with each sequence.
“We have a problem,” Ananke said. “Harmonics are developing between the primary and tertiary wave. Compensators are responding.”
The vibration grew stronger, and the pulses now were a staccato barrage.
“Shut it down,” James said.
“We’re in trouble.” Red icons began spilling across the left screen. “Primary and tertiary are already in resonance. A shutdown will collapse the secondary wave prior to the primary, resulting in destabilization. We need to change the primary wave frequency to break the resonance.”
He worried during the silence as the AI thought, then Ananke said, “The only way to do that is to change the mass of the ship. We have fifty-five seconds.”
Fifty-five seconds. James’s stomach sank as adrenaline kicked in. He didn’t need to look at the colors on Ananke’s display to know the fear in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
&
nbsp; A lateral shake synced with each pulse, and he unclasped his harness. His eyes darted around the cabin. “The mass. Higher or lower?”
“Either. At least two hundred kilograms.”
His gaze stopped on the co-pilot’s chairs, and he lunged towards the harnesses. With both hands he pulled the first crash dummy out of its chair, braced himself, and threw it back towards the ship’s door. He repeated the action with the second dummy and sailed into the galley. “How much?”
“Fifty more kilos.”
The galley consisted of an inset cabinet with rows of water bulbs and wrapped energy bars. Everything sloshed to the ship’s vibrations. He guessed twenty kilos, tops. He saw the medbot, a white spheroid attached to the wall with a spider-like assortment of appendages and tools. He yanked it off the charging mount, shoved it towards the front of the ship, and pushed himself towards the cockpit.
James pulled himself into his chair, snapped the harness, swatted the medbot towards the door, and keyed a quick sequence into his controller. “Brace!”
An alarm klaxon, an agonizingly long pause, and the door abruptly opened.
The cabin atmosphere venting to space occurred with the same speed as a popping balloon. It shoved him hard to the left while the ship pulled him mercilessly to the right.
His helmet speaker blared, “James! Impact in—“
James had crashed an aircraft once. The violent smash and loud rending of metal seemed very familiar. It felt like his ship had been dropped from a height onto its right nacelle.
A sharp ringing filled his ears as numbness spread across his neck and shoulders. Reality briefly receded in a haze of light, but he pulled his focus back to the cockpit.
The entire left screen was a patchwork of red rectangles and blinking yellow alerts. Strobing alarms sounded silently in the vacuum. An external feed of the Comet’s starboard side showed half the nacelle missing, molten metal glowing brilliantly at the breach. Orange sparks floated like fireflies until they hit the boundary, then flashed into instantaneous meteor streaks.
Hayden's World Shorts, Stories 1-3: 43 Seconds, Signal Loss, Aero One Page 2
