by M. D. Cooper
Jason glanced up at the SSA display and noted that the icon denoting the ‘heavy’—an oversized ore freighter that must have been under thrust for several hours—was nearing the mark where it could engage its fusion drives without causing any damage to the station or nearby craft with its ionized plasma stream. By its trajectory, he could tell it was bound for El Dorado.
“Say hello to Lysander for us, buddy,” he said, and heard Tobias chuckle from his position at scan. Jason looked over at the AI, then let his gaze drop to the big cat strapped in at Tobias’s feet. He caught her staring up at him, ears pricked forward and golden eyes gleaming. “Glad we asked Marta to take care of Beck for the launch, are you?”
Jason grinned down at her. Tobi’d always had a thing for speed.
He looked back up at the display just as the freighter hit the light-second mark and lit up its drives, and the holo dimmed to compensate. He watched as the readings climbed back down into the safe zone, showing that their path was clear. Three hours later, he triggered their MFRs to engage thrust. The Avon Vale leapt forward, and those aboard her experienced a surge of acceleration as the spacecraft was officially underway.
An hour later, as Jason was busy replotting their waypoints to the heliopause, Calista took over and mentally keyed their final transmission to the planet’s Space Traffic Control center.
“Huh,” Jason commented, glancing over at her. She raised a brow enquiringly. “STC’s not usually that friendly to me,” he replied, scowling slightly at her.
Calista’s lips twitched, and Jason could tell that the former ESF pilot had found something funny—he just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Jealous, are you, flyboy?” she asked, arching a brow at him.
“Hmph,” he grunted, annoyed. “She’s just never wished me a happy Tuesday.”
Tobias chuckled. “Think you’re losing your touch there, boyo?”
Jason scowled over at the Weapon Born as Calista broke into a grin.
“Well, flyboy, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she said. “It’s a traditional greeting within a certain group of pilots that dates back—oh, centuries, I suppose.”
Jason’s eyebrows climbed up to his hairline. “It does?”
“Mmmhmm,” she said, her eyes dancing.
Jason’s brows drew back down as he thought for a moment. “Can I join?”
She looked him up and down, her gaze assessing. “I don’t think you have the right equipment for it.”
He looked nonplussed for a second, and then grinned. “Well,” he drawled. “I’ve never been told that before.”
She burst out laughing, and Terrance looked from one to the other and then back again. “Am I missing something here?”
“It’s a women’s pilot organization, Terrance,” she explained.
The exec looked up at the ceiling and shook his head as Jason snorted, and then responded.
“Guess you’re right, ESF. Think I’ll just stick with the equipment I have.”
JELLYFISH AND SOLAR SAILS
STELLAR DATE: 07.10.3192 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Comm Buoy Deployment Position Number One
REGION: 600 AU from Proxima Centauri Star System
Seven weeks later, they’d reached the position marked for the deployment of the first comm buoy.
Jason and the rest of the crew were on the bridge, staring up at the main holo, where an image of the communication buoy rotated slowly. It was rounded and slightly concave and seemed to be made of a translucent, bluish-white material, with arms that appeared to drift gently in the interstellar winds.
“Looks like a jellyfish,” Jason muttered. He turned his head sideways, as if studying it from that angle might change his opinion of the object he was viewing.
“Jellyfish?” Terrance queried, his eyes fixed to the gossamer-thin disk surrounded by a dozen antennae extensions, each radiating outward.
“Man ‘o War, I think,” Jason equivocated, one hand drifting down to scratch Tobi absently behind one ear. He dropped his hand and scowled, fixing his eyes on the woman next to him as she burst out laughing.
“What do you want to bet it’s some kind of old-Earth animal?” she said, swiveling in her seat to meet his glare, her eyes dancing with humor.
He snorted a laugh, relaxing back into his own seat. “I guess you could call it that,” he amended, “but I prefer to call them damned painful nuisances.”
At her quirked brow, he explained. “They weren’t included in the Future Generation Terraformers’ biobanks because the FGT didn’t consider their benefits to be worth the hassle, but someone decided to experiment with them in Lake Chinquapin when I was a kid, thinking they’d help transport carbon through the underground water table.”
“Sure felt like it did at the time. I got stung by one before the habitat’s environmental team removed them.” He shook his head at the memory as he closed the image file. “Hurt like hell.”
Shannon’s projected image turned back to face the buoy. “No jellyfish here, so you’re safe. Technically, this is a sail. You can’t see the material stretched between the antennae because it’s a self-repairing monoatomic film, built with enough flexibility to allow micrometeorites and other dust particles to punch right through with little impact on the unit.”
The AI pointed to the concave disk. “The MFR is embedded in the center of the disk, along with the comm system itself. Otherwise, it really is just your basic sail. The tech hasn't changed for centuries, actually. It’s still made from silicon and silica, which makes it ideal for dissipating excessive heat from the comm lasers while extracting the communication embedded within.”
Jason cocked his head at the engineer and looked back at the image thoughtfully. “And we’re deploying how many of these?” he asked, glancing over at Terrance.
“Thirteen hundred.” At Jason’s low exclamation, the exec explained. “Tau Ceti’s thirteen light years from Proxima, so we’re seeding them a little over six hundred AU apart.” He shrugged. “It’s the standard distance the FGT used when they laid the first comm system between Sol and Alpha Centauri.”
Jason nodded absently, his eye on the chrono as the deployment window approached. “We’re thirty seconds out.”
“Confirmed,” Calista responded, and as they watched, a gantry arm extended from their amidships cargo area, its payload ready for release.
When thirty seconds had passed, Jason murmured, “Mark,” and Shannon adjusted the image on the holo for a closer view of the package. They watched the buoy unfurl, and then Kodi confirmed telemetry.
Given that the ship was now traveling at over forty-one thousand kilometers a second, the buoy would take some time to come to its designated station-keeping position. It would be Kodi’s job to monitor it and make any necessary adjustments.
Jason heard Terrance let ou
t an explosive breath at the navigator’s words.
“Very nice,” he said, then turned to Calista and Jason just as the bridge’s doors slid open.
They turned to see Jonesy step aside, allowing Marta onto the deck.
Tobias chuckled. “Making a house call, doctor?” the Weapon Born asked.
The physician crooked a smile toward the AI and shook her head. “Ever the plight of those of us who practice medicine. No one voluntarily seeks us out, it seems.” Her gaze swept the humans on the bridge as she asked, “Everyone ready?”
Terrance stirred and shot Calista a questioning glance. She nodded and straightened.
“Finish slaving your boards to Shannon’s team,” Calista instructed in what Jason privately called her ‘captain’s voice’.
Jonesy pulled out a hyfilm checklist and tossed it up onto the holo. One by one, every station on the bridge switched from human interface to that of an AI. Shannon would run the ship while Kodi ran scan and comm; Landon and Logan were tagged for security and weapons.
“Confirmed,” Jonesy said, nodding back at Calista. “And I’ll be around for the first shift of meat-suit duty, if anyone needs a human interface.”
Terrance snorted at that, but stood and clapped Jonesy on the shoulder as he passed. “You let medical know if you get tired of Shannon’s engineering training regimen, and decide you want to join us in stasis, you hear?”
Jonesy cocked a brow at the exec, but nodded as Terrance shot Shannon’s avatar a smile.
Jason hid a grin as Terrance turned back to Jonesy and stage-whispered, “She’s a slave-driver, you know that, right?”
“I heard that!” Shannon planted her hands on her hips and scowled at her boss.
Calista burst out laughing as Terrance’s grin widened.
“You were meant to. That quality’s one reason I hired you in the first place,” he reminded her as he stepped out into the corridor just off the bridge.
Jason slid from his XO chair and glanced over at the engineer as he followed Calista toward the bridge’s exit. “Shannon, seriously, you really should get a humanoid frame. You’re as fond of human gestures as Gladys is,” he said, mentioning a member of their team who had stayed behind in El Dorado.
Shannon’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms and shot him a glare. “Jason Andrews, you take that back right now. I’m nothing like Gladys.” The AI threw her virtual hands up in exasperation. “Stars, Jason! She sheds.”
Tobias made a noise that sounded like a strangled snort, and Jason saw Jonesy hide a smirk behind his hand. Jason just grinned wickedly at Shannon as he followed Terrance and Calista into the corridor.
Calista’s eyes danced in amusement as he joined them. “You do like to gamble with your life, don’t you, flyboy?”
He grinned and glanced over at Marta. “Doc’s not going to let Shannon do anything to me while I’m under, right Marta?”
The doctor shot him a repressive look, although he could see her lips twitch. “Oh no, you’re not dragging me into the middle of anything. If it’s not medically related, I’ll steer clear of it, thanks.”
“Speaking of medically related issues…do the cats get their own stasis pod, or should Beck bunk with Terrance? Asking for a friend.”
He smirked as the exec whipped his head around with a scowl.
Pointing his finger at Jason, Terrance warned, “Stay out of this, Andrews. I’m not sharing my pod with a kitten who farts.”
Jason couldn’t help a rejoinder. “It’s stasis. I’m pretty sure that when all atomic motion stops, so do farts.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.” Terrance’s voice was laden with a combination of dread and dismay as he stopped and called for the lift.
Marta raised one brow. “He wouldn’t have issues if you’d stop slipping him food from your plate.”
Jason coughed to suppress a laugh as Terrance’s face reddened.
“Busted,” Jason grinned as the lift doors slid open, and all the organics, save for Jonesy, followed Terrance inside.
“Shut up,” the big man muttered, his eyes fixed to the roof above him as Marta entered. She held the door open as Tobias approached.
“We’ll pull you out periodically, and as needed,” Tobias assured them, then winked at Terrance. “If for no other reason than to air out your pod, lad.”
Terrance groaned and the Weapon Born shot him a roguish grin. Behind Tobias, Jonesy smirked and then called out, “Sleep well.”
As the lift doors closed, they could just make out Shannon’s voice.
“They won’t be sleeping, Jonesy. We’ve been over this.”
ACCESS DENIED
STELLAR DATE: 02.17.3235 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ESS Avon Vale
REGION: Interstellar Space between Proxima Centauri and Tau Ceti
Forty-three years into the journey….
The Avon Vale’s habitat ring had become operational midway through the twelfth week of their journey, after they’d cut their 1g boost. As soon as the ship entered its cruise phase of the trip, the ring had begun to rotate. Seven hundred meters in diameter and two hundred meters wide, it provided a little more than four hundred square kilometers of surface area. A generous amount of that space had been allotted for gardens, parks, and other growing things. Ponds and modest lakes that had been drained for the boost phase were refilled once the habitat ring began its spin, and the simulated sunlight was set to follow the ship’s diurnal cycle.
The hab-ring parks were Terrance’s favorite spots within the Vale. He’d spent a few weeks during every rotation he’d been awake enjoying them before returning to stasis.
Forty years and four rounds of stasis later, he found himself seated once more on his favorite bench inside Hideaway Park. The park had been so named because of the penchant people had to sneak away for a few minutes’ respite from the drab grey of the shipboard bulkheads.
One arm resting along the back of the park bench, Terrance held his eyes shut as he enjoyed the feeling of warmth from the simulated sun on his upturned face. The gentle stirring of the air was just enough to simulate a light breeze without triggering the disconcerting sense that the ship might be venting atmosphere.
Terrance chuckled at that, which caused a nearby figure to stop and look inquisitively over in his direction.
Terrance groaned as Beck raced toward him and then leapt at his outstretched feet, clawing at their soles.
Marta had kept the kitten out of stasis for the first year, wanting to ensure uninterrupted growth. She told Terrance that Beck had insisted on visiting his stasis pod once every few days, where the doctor found herself needing to reassure him that yes, even though Beck couldn’t smell him, Terrance was fine, he was ‘just sleeping’.
he bemoaned, and a snicker sounded inside his head.
His lips twitched into a satisfied smile, and he rose from the bench, following as Beck dashed away from him. He couldn’t suppress his chuckle as he watched the cat gamboling around the greenspace, chasing imaginary prey. Although the creature had more than doubled in size during the year he’d remained out of stasis at the onset of their voyage, his personality was still that of a mischievous teenager.
ket of scrub.
Terrance snorted.
He’d grown fond of Beck. It was a good thing, too, as the cat—whose head came to his mid-thigh when standing alongside him—somehow managed to find him no matter where he was on the ship.
Terrance watched him race up the trunk of a tree and pause in the vee of one of its lower branches.
As he approached the tree, the cat peered down at him from where he had stretched out along a sturdy branch, his tail waving lazily back and forth. Terrance saw Beck gather himself up, the feline’s rear legs bunching together, as he knew they did prior to a leap.
Oh no, here it comes....
Something caught Beck’s attention, and the cat shifted. Terrance winced, easing one of the cat’s claws off his neck and back onto the padded protection of the jacket he wore.