Winter World

by A. G. Riddle

  “Great. And Min, I’m going to need those navigation parameters pretty soon too.”

  “Nav is the easy part,” Min says. “We need to know how much propulsion power we’ve got, and range—those are the tricky variables.”

  “We agree,” I say. “I feel like we need a working group between our team,” I point to Emma and Harry, “and Grigory and Min. We need to figure out what we have to work with and what we’re willing to use up on this first drone launch.”

  Nods all around.

  I inhale. “Look, the next two weeks are going to be rough. We’ll be working around the clock. There’ll be a lot of back-and-forth among all of us. But it will be worth it. We’ll find out where the artifact is. The status of the Fornax. And most importantly, we could achieve our mission objective months ahead of schedule. All that’s left is to get it done.”

  Chapter 27

  Emma

  James was right: the two weeks that follow are the toughest of my life. Training for the ISS was a cake walk compared to the construction of the Janus fleet. I sleep, eat, exercise, and work.

  The crew is constantly stressed out, constantly arguing with each other about the best way to do things. I realize now that the lack of friction before was mostly because everyone was in their own sphere, only occasionally coming into contact, and not at close range. We’re colliding now. Making demands of each other—on tight deadlines.

  James is the most stressed. Much of the burden of coordination has fallen to him. Though Min is technically flying, James is making most of the calls, setting the deadlines and telling us what needs to get done. There was a time for debate about what to do. We had it, and now we’re all focused on executing as fast as we can. I, along with the rest of the crew, have begun to think of him as the mission commander.

  But lately, a rift has developed between us. A week ago, he took some blood samples and gave me an injection to help with my bone density. He upped my exercise regimen to three hours a day, but I’ve been doing only half that. I need to work. We have to get these drones finished. He’s not happy about my cutting corners on my exercise regime. It’s as if we’re an old married couple, bickering silently about something we know neither of us is going to compromise about.

  I’m soldering a circuit board when he floats into the lab and grabs the table.

  “We need to talk.”

  In my experience, those four words never herald the opening of a pleasant conversation. A wisp of smoke drifts up from the board and hangs between us, like the aftermath of a shot that was just fired.

  “Okay.”

  “Look, Emma, your bone density is critical. You’ve got to exercise more.”

  “We need to finish the drones.”

  “And we will.”

  “We’re already on the verge of missing the launch date.”

  James shakes his head, frustrated. “It’s an artificial deadline. We can push it back.”

  “How much? A day? A week?”

  “If needed.”

  “And what if a day is the difference between a million people living or dying on Earth?”

  “What if it’s not?”

  “In space, every second matters. Of all the people on this ship, I know that the best. This is life and death, and I’m less worried about mine.”

  “You should be. If you injure yourself, it hurts all of us.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “You’re not. Do you trust my medical opinion?”

  “I do. Do you respect my decision to do what I think is right for the mission and the people back home?”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “It doesn’t need to be. James, this is the best shot we have. I’m going to work my tail off until those drones launch. Okay?”

  He exhales. “You are so stubborn.”

  “Says the man who won’t compromise.”

  We stare at each other. I’m angry. I know he is too. I haven’t known him long, but I’ve gotten to know him pretty well.

  Harry sticks his head in the hatchway. His eyebrows shoot up. There are drone pieces floating all over the lab: wires, housings, capacitors—as if a bomb had gone off, and the aftermath of the explosion is hanging in the air. The tension feels about like that. He reads it instantly.

  “Hey… James… could I… get your help with something?”

  Every time I float over to the gym and there’s someone using it, they instantly dismount the bike or drop the resistance bands and announce that they’re done. They’re usually not sweaty.

  James has talked to them. It’s now a ship-wide conspiracy to make me exercise. It doesn’t work. I exercise less as the deadline approaches. We all do. And sleep less. It’s degrading our productivity, but sleep is elusive. All I think about is finishing.

  We miss the deadline. By forty-two hours. But the launch of the Janus fleet is a feat of engineering and teamwork that we’re all indescribably proud of. There’s an electricity in the air on launch day. Everyone is sleep-deprived and stressed, but we’re all giddy as we gather in the bubble and strap in and stare at the wide screen that shows the launch tube. The launcher uses the same principles as the rail gun. Grigory studies his tablet to monitor the reactor, making sure it’s compensating for the launch recoil.

  The ship buzzes as the engines build up electricity, and then, Boom! The first drone fires out, so small and fast we can barely see it, like a BB out of a kid’s gun. Another buzzing, another boom, and the second drone is away. And so it goes, one after another until the ship falls silent.

  All eyes turn to Harry, who’s studying his own tablet. He looks up and grins. “First comm-patch is in: all stats are nominal. We’ve got a successful launch.”

  The cheers in the confined space are deafening. High-fives, a few fist bumps, James turns to me and nods, and I simply reach out and hug him, as if our fight had been flushed out the launch tube with the drones. He holds me longer than I expect, and I don’t let go.

  “Now what?” Charlotte asks.

  Without releasing me, James says, “Now, ladies and gents, we celebrate.”

  Harry opens a cabinet and starts tossing out vacuum-sealed meals. “Kitchen’s open! Place your orders, folks. Steak. Chicken. Mashed potatoes. Shrimp cocktail. Spicy green beans. And freeze-dried ice cream and chocolate cake for dessert.”

  James pulls open another cabinet. “And for the night’s entertainment, a plethora of board games. Decided by simple majority vote.”

  In every way, it’s a perfect night. No screens. No deadlines. No arguing, just all of us eating together and doing something we’ve never done before: playing.

  We’re all stuffed and tired when we finish, but I know there’s one thing on everyone’s mind: a shower. It’s dry in space. We all feel as though we’ve walked through the desert, sweating and accumulating grime, but no one has bothered to shower for over a week. We’ve covered it up with deodorant and kept our heads down, working every spare second.

  James extends his hand, palm down, fist closed, holding eight bits of wire. He makes everyone draw. Charlotte, Lina, Izumi, and I draw the longest ones—we’ll get to shower first. Then the four guys. James and Harry are last. They rigged it. I don’t know how, but they rigged it. No one argues. We’re all too tired.

  The shower is cylindrical and tight, an enclosed tube with a door. There’s no drain, just a suction device that pulls the water out. My skin feels as if I’ve been rubbed all over with sandpaper and coated in sawdust. The water is like a gentle rain washing it away and coating me in a thin lotion, soothing me.

  For the past few weeks, I’ve been sleeping in the lab. Most people have been bedding down near their work. Tonight, I slip into one of the sleep stations: a padded, enclosed cubby like a bunk bed in space. To me, it feels as luxurious as a penthouse hotel suite. It’s soft and comforting, hugging me tight.

  There are only six sleep stations on the ship, and there’s not enough room inside for two. But Grigory has already made himself a sle
ep station in the engine module, and Min has set up a similar alcove at navigation.

  I’m almost asleep when James pulls the curtain back. His face is clean, and he smiles. “Good night.”

  It’s the best sleep I’ve had since the ISS disaster.

  I wake, wash my face, brush my teeth, and float down to the bubble for breakfast. James is there, tapping at a tablet.

  “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” He hands me a water bottle and a tablet. It’s an exercise schedule. For me. This again.

  “I’m not telling you, Emma—I’m asking. Please do this. Or whatever you’re willing to do.”

  I study the screen. Four hours a day.

  “It’s important to the mission,” he says. “And to me.”

  “Okay.”

  The days before the launch seemed to fly by. The days after drag on.

  When contact day arrives—the moment when we should hear from the Janus scout drone—everyone is nervous. We don’t acknowledge it though. We don’t gather in the bubble at the designated time. We’re not that sure about the artifact’s position, not sure exactly when contact will occur, and no one wants to draw attention to the deadline. But I’m acutely aware of the projected contact time arriving and passing with no messages. I think everyone is.

  Another day passes with no messages. We’re all struggling to focus on our work.

  On the third day, James convenes us in the bubble. “Well, let’s start with the obvious: there’s been no contact from the Janus scouts. The implication is that the artifact wasn’t at the position NASA projected.”

  “Or it wiped the drones out,” Grigory says.

  “Or a malfunction,” Min adds.

  “All possibilities,” says James.

  “What’s the plan?” Lina asks.

  “We’re going to figure out what’s wrong, and we’re going to fix it.”

  Chapter 28

  James

  We have problems. And they’re popping up like a litter of kittens.

  I’m stressed. Izumi is all over me about it. She’s all over each of us about our stress levels. She’s mandated we take downtime—at least one hour each day for each of us alone, outside our labs or workstations. So I hide out in my sleep station and review design specs and take notes.

  We also spend an hour each day together in the bubble, all eight crewmembers, conducting a team-building exercise Izumi designates. Board games, talking about ourselves (which is excruciating for me), our feelings (a form of torture, in my view), and how we feel the mission is going (everyone lies).

  Gone is the camaraderie we shared after the Janus launch, that night we ate and laughed and were like one big family.

  Somehow, everyone is looking to me for a plan. I guess it makes sense: the drones are our primary method of completing our mission at the moment, and drones are my department.

  I feel the weight of the next decision like an entire planet on top of me. Guess wrong, and everyone on Earth dies. If they’re not already dead.

  In prison, I felt cut off from the world. And given the way the world treated me before my incarceration, that was fine by me. This is something else entirely. Not knowing what’s going on back on Earth is eating at me. I think that’s true of all of us. It’s part of the tension, and it’s worse for those crew with the strongest bonds to their family and friends. They want to know if their loved ones are alive and well, if they’re safe or if they’re freezing to death in a refugee camp right now. We keep telling ourselves we’re doing the best we can, but so far our best has come up short.

  We’re facing three principal constraints: material, power, and time. In the material department, drone engines are our most critical constraint. We used half of our supply on the Janus fleet. As for power, the Pax’s reactor can only supply so much, and we need that power for the drones and to reach our destination quickly. And then there’s time. There are only so many hours in the day to work, and within those hours, only so many when any one of us can work at peak efficiency. We need good hours. The prevailing feeling here on the Pax is that our next move might be our last shot.

  But I have a plan, and I call the group together in the bubble to discuss it.

  I motion to Harry and Emma, whom I’ve come to see as our core team. “First, we favor sending a small drone to intercept the Fornax and comm-patch the news that the artifact isn’t in the expected location. And of course get a status update from the other ship.”

  Charlotte seems annoyed at the idea. “Are we sure this is a good idea?”

  Grigory seems just as annoyed. “Yes. We thought it was good idea before, and it still is.”

  “It was a good idea when we thought we had news to share,” Charlotte shoots back.

  “This is news!” Grigory shouts.

  Izumi holds up her hands. “You all know the rules. No raised voices. No attacking people—only ideas. We’re taking a ten-minute break. Then we’ll return to the bubble and start over.”

  There are eye rolls and exhales, but the crew obediently unsnaps from the table and sails out in all directions.

  Harry, Emma, and I regroup in the robotics lab.

  “That went well,” Harry says.

  Emma is pedaling the desk bike, which I built for her from spare parts. “I think it’s safe to say we’ll meet more resistance than we did with our first plan.”

  Izumi takes charge of the meeting when we return to the bubble. She passes out small slips of paper.

  “We’re going to take a straw poll on the question of whether to send a drone to the Fornax. Simply write yes or no and the number one reason behind your answer. I will tally the results and collate the reasons.”

  Grigory throws up his hands. “I can barely read my writing.”

  “Then just write a zero or one, Grigory. One being yes. I assume your numbers are legible.”

  He stews but stays silent.

  When Izumi has tallied the votes, she announces, “We are six for and two against.”

  Min shakes his head. “When did we decide this was a democracy? Just because there are more votes for the plan doesn’t mean we should do it. There could be a reason against that negates everything.”

  “So much for anonymity,” Lina mutters.

  Izumi exhales. “The point of this exercise was for everyone to state their first reaction and reasoning—so that we can examine them without fighting. And then we vote again.”

  “Can we just talk about this?” Min says. “Like adults?”

  Izumi raises her hand, but Min presses on.

  “We have a limited number of drone engines, correct?”

  I nod.

  “And once we launch them, and they use up their power, they’re done.”

  “Not necessarily,” Harry says. “We’ve been working on ideas to reuse the drones. Reload their power cells and issue new instructions.”

  Min squints. “What, like some kind of landing bay? Open a hatch on one of the capsules and bring the drones into a space lab? We’re moving at—”

  “No, nothing like that,” Harry says. “We’ve been designing a mother drone. It could recharge the cells in the other drones and issue new software.”

  “Very cool,” Lina says.

  “Very,” Grigory adds.

  I motion to Harry and Emma. “We’re still working on the specs. We’ve got a lot of work to do. But it’s feasible. We’d also be able to launch power bricks from the ship to the mother drone to resupply its power bank.”

  Min drums his fingers on the table. “Interesting. I feel the drones are our most precious resource. Prioritizing their deployment should be our focus.” He glances at Izumi. “That’s why I feel that voting on each drone deployment is not wise. We should look first at our priorities and what the drones could be deployed for, and select missions accordingly.”

  He pauses, perhaps waiting for dissent. No one gives any. I, for one, agree with what he’s said.

  He continues. “I feel that locating one of the artifa
cts is our top priority.”

  “We’re already doing that,” Grigory says.

  “For one of the artifacts,” Min shoots back. “We’re looking for the Alpha artifact. But what if it’s not even there? What if it self-destructed when it saw the probe? What if the explosion is what stopped the probe feed? The Janus fleet could be chasing a shadow. And the position is only a guess. We don’t know its flight capabilities. For all we know the artifact completed its mission weeks ago and isn’t even in our solar system.”

  “What’s your point?” Harry asks.

  “My point remains the same: finding an artifact is our top priority at the moment. And I feel we’re doing that for the Alpha artifact. But the time has come to launch a drone—or drones—to search for the second. We need to consider the possibility that the Beta artifact is the only one we can reach.” Min sets a tablet on the table. “I’ve been working on a flight path to intercept Beta—extrapolated from its last known position and what little we know about Alpha’s velocity.”

  “Can we even reach Beta?” Charlotte asks. “And even if we do find it, does the ship have enough—whatever, fuel or reactor power—to get to it? And return home?”

  Grigory shrugs. “Depends on where it is and how fast it’s going.”

  He leaves unsaid my feeling that none of us are getting home.

  “Once we have that information, we can plan accordingly,” Min says. “And to be clear, Charlotte, the Pax doesn’t need to reach the artifact. The ship just needs to be in range of our drones in order to run tests—and wage war if needed.”

  A silence settles over the group. Finally, Min says, “Look, I want to know what happened to the Fornax too. But that curiosity doesn’t justify another drone right now. We need to find one of the artifacts.”

  Min makes some good points, but his focus is too narrow.

  I hand my tablet to him. It shows the Pax and Fornax docked while moving through space.