Space Race (Space Race 1)

by Nathan Hystad

  “Radiation?” I asked.

  “Within normal range. Suggest counteractive measures before bringing it aboard.”

  Aboard? I hadn’t even considered picking up the rogue ship. I checked the two clocks and puffed out my cheeks as I thought about Oasis’ reaction. On the other hand, if this was a rival Corporation’s beta vessel, using a unique language code to avoid deciphers, they would want me to gather and store it for them.

  I brought Capricious closer, dodging considerable hunks of ice as I thrusted for the target. The hull was dark blue, and a few letters, similar to the text I’d been sent, were painted on the sides. Wings protruded from the hull, telling me it doubled as a suborbital flyer.

  The alarm chimed again. This time, it didn’t stop after the traditional warning bells. “CP, what’s happening?”

  “It appears our movement has tripped a proximity sensor,” she said.

  “Meaning?”

  “I am unsure, but the energy readouts have spiked. Heat sensors picking up a possible detonation.”

  It was a bomb. “Record the incident!”

  I hoped the computer listened, because the entire screen erupted in a giant explosion. My ship trembled through the shockwaves, and thousands of ice particles battered my hull as the alien vessel vanished. One second it was a sea of orange; the next only space remained as the flames snuffed out.

  “Tell me you filmed that,” I whispered.

  “Affirmative.”

  I’d spent most of my adult life in space, hauling people and goods across the solar system, and this was the first time I’d seen anything that shook my nerves to the core. I stared at the empty space where the ship had been, trying to calm my ragged breaths.

  “CP, run scans. Ensure the hull is okay,” I ordered, and watched the reports roll across my screen, replacing the display of alien text.

  “Capricious is functional,” CP said after three or so minutes.

  The clock was ticking, and I resumed course for Eris, wondering if I’d make it in time.

  A day and a half later, I arrived at Oasis’ distant mining operation with more questions than answers. I wasn’t going to risk sending any communications to the Belt, or to Earth, for that matter. There was always a danger using the shared network to convey important information, and I couldn’t lose this valuable edge to one of the other Corporations—not that I really felt like I owed anything beyond this job to Oasis.

  They were just another Primary Corp, fighting to retain their assets and mining resources like the rest of the power-hungry companies. Nobody knew who I was beyond my contract number, with the exception of my handler, and he didn’t seem to like me a whole lot. That feeling was mutual.

  Eris was a barren hellhole, a wannabe planet that had happened to reveal a significant resource a kilometer below its icy surface a hundred years ago, and had since brought Oasis from thirty-third rank to number four among the Primary Corps. Who knew that a cache of metal would be so valuable in producing drive coolers? Apparently, they had, and consequently profited from it for decades.

  A skinny space station orbited the dwarf planet, but the entire crew awaiting pickup was on the surface. I sent a message to Kol, the lead mining operator, alerting him I was about to breach the atmosphere, and I quickly received a return call.

  “Arlo, what kept you? We’re hours from doom!” The man on screen was skinny, his hands nervously wringing in front of him.

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Kol. I made it. You could always use the underground bunks,” I said.

  “Those aren’t safe for the duration of the sun’s orbit. You know the atmosphere’s collapse is imminent!” His eyes were wide, and I glanced past him. There was a total of forty crew in the container, and I was under strict orders to return them all to Earth until Eris’ orbit brought the facility close enough to the sun to melt the atmosphere again. The things Corporations would do for healthy margins.

  “Hold on to your britches, Kol. ETA is twelve minutes.” I ended the call, cutting off his retort, and lowered toward their base. It was an efficient setup. So far, they’d mined only ten percent of the valuable core, ensuring Oasis would have income for centuries—or until someone created a more cost-effective method to cool the drive, and in that case, their placement would drop substantially. Either way, I doubted I’d still be working for them by the time that occurred.

  Capricious was a hauler meant to attach to various units, whether that meant ships, ice train cars, or personal containers like this one. I maneuvered her through the jutting ice chunks circling the base camp, and over the spires of the digging apparatuses, until I hovered above the container that held the workers.

  “Atmosphere collapse in one hour twenty-three minutes,” CP said casually.

  “Plenty of time,” I said softly, tapping the latch icon until my camera view blinked green, indicating we were in alignment. Four arms expanded from my hull and connected to the large boxy container. I pressurized the passageway cylinder, and started pre-flight protocols.

  “Wait!” Kol appeared on the screen again, his face ashen. “I did a count. We’re missing a crew member!”

  I froze in my seat. My eyes were the only thing moving as I checked the countdown digits quickly lowering. This couldn’t be happening. “Kol, you were supposed to count before you sealed the unit!”

  “I did… I seem to have scanned somebody twice. It’s Veera, the biologist.”

  “You can’t expect me to stop what I’m doing and let you out!”

  Kol slapped his palms together and brought them to his chin. “Please, Arlo. She’s somebody’s daughter. If we abandon her, we’re both as good as fired.”

  “But you were the one—” I blew out a lungful of air and tried to think clearly. “How long will it take to locate her and bring her to the container?”

  He squinted, gulping air before speaking. “We can’t leave the container after we’re sealed. It’s impossible to break the program.”

  He didn’t have to say it for me to understand what he was implying. “You want me to rescue her.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if there was any other way.”

  I stared at him through the viewer and shook my head slowly, wanting to decline. “Where is she? Do you have a tag?”

  He smiled brightly, his teeth flashing. “That’s my boy. I won’t forget this, Arlo. Sending you her location now.”

  My screen pinged, and I selected the incoming data stream. The map showed the entire base camp in three dimensions, and I traced a line from Capricious to the blinking red pulse that revealed Veera’s location.

  “What are you doing down there?” I asked out loud.

  “I am securing the—” the AI started to say.

  “CP, I wasn’t talking to you. Keep the container access closed until I return, understood?”

  “Affirmative.”

  I didn’t want the workers entering Capricious with me on the surface. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them… but it was exactly that.

  I jogged from the bridge, heading for the air hatch. This was above my pay grade. If I took into account the amount of fuel, and time, along with the wear and tear on my old ship, the fee from Oasis would barely feed me for a month. I had to find better ways of accruing wealth, because the life of a corporate freight hauler wasn’t what it used to be.

  In the old days, someone in my line of work was thought of as a hero: flying into space, making the dangerous runs in record time. Because in a galaxy where money determined everything, every minute counted for the Corporations.

  My grandfather used to regale me with tales of grandeur. How he worked for the great Luna Corp when they first won the rights to the Moon. He toiled hard for them, and had eventually been able to advance from the cockpit into the boardroom. That was a different era, when the blue collars stood a chance of advancement. Preston Lewis had been a man of vision. I still missed him. His ambition was what had earned him the right to be named captain of the first mission to Proxima, though I
wished he’d turned the position down.

  Things like that didn’t happen now, not after spacecrafts had become a dime a dozen, with thousands of chumps like me fighting for jobs at the lowest cost possible. Free enterprise. Love it or hate it, it was our reality.

  I remember reading from the banned history books hidden in my parents’ home, and wondered what it was like when governments, not businesses, led the people—but at the end of the day, I suspected there weren’t as many differences as the nostalgic elders would have you think.

  “Sir, you have one hour and two minutes,” CP said through the airlock speakers.

  “Did I ask—”

  “You asked to be notified.”

  “Fine. Thank you.” The airlock was shaped roughly like a hexagon, and I gripped the supports as I clipped the ThermaSuit around my legs. The torso banded together, sealing at the hips, and I grabbed the helmet from the shelf last. There were times I wished that I’d been smart enough to hire a crew, and this was one of them. If only I didn’t tire of people so much, it might actually work.

  My helmet flashed dark, and then glowed yellow along the edges before returning clear. My vitals showed to the left, my heartrate elevated above my normal limits. The alarm sounded gently in my helmet, and I shut it off.

  The suit was dark gray, with a computer screen embedded in the right arm, and I lifted it, pressing the communication activation icon with my glove. “Kol, come in.”

  “Go ahead, Arlo.”

  “Tell me the Grav-Seven is still operational.” If they’d deactivated the artificial gravity generator, this was going to be a risky rescue operation.

  A pause. “It’s on, but set to lowest levels, for the base station only.”

  It made sense. When the base was evacuated, why waste the power? But that didn’t help me at the moment. “Fine. Any idea what this Veera is doing in the station?”

  “She’s been acting… strange. Different. I was sure she was coming around, after seeing her yesterday,” Kol told me, his voice wavering in my ears. I could picture him now, avoiding eye contact and twisting his hands again nervously.

  “Strange how?” I didn’t want this to be messy. “Should I bring a Pulser?”

  “I don’t think so.” His tone told me otherwise.

  I used my code on the gunlock, and it hissed open. I took the handheld weapon, lowering it to my leg. It clicked as the magnets latched.

  It was time to retrieve Veera.

  I sealed the airlock to my ship and waited an excruciating minute while this side blinked red lights near the exit. Finally, it flashed blue, and I again added my code. The hatch slid open, and I instantly regretted every life decision that had brought me to Eris today.

  The atmosphere was already beginning to break down, something it did in every orbit. Mining here was a tricky operation. It was a constant balance between being too close to the sun, which caused solid methane ice to convert straight to gas, and being too far away, triggering the atmosphere to freeze and fall like snowflakes.

  The wind was incessant as I lowered from the belly of Capricious, past the container full of people and onto the surface. I moved downward, almost floating like a feather in the low gravity, but finally, my feet landed on the slick, freezing surface. I activated the boots, and my steps became heavier.

  The gusts sent flecks of white all around me, but my helmet’s display allowed me to see my path to the structure I needed to access. I plodded one foot in front of the next, grateful at each step that the ThermaSuit was able to keep me warm and mobile. Eris was as inhospitable as they came, and I couldn’t wait to fly away, even if it meant returning to face my contact at Oasis.

  The base’s primary structure was merely a shell, a box with supplies, and the real camp was underground. The shield was black, making it easy to spot against the white backdrop that was the dwarf planet. When I reached a hundred meters from the entrance, the wind was so strong, my body was tilted forward at a forty-five-degree angle.

  My heart raced, and I glanced at the readouts, seeing how elevated it was. “Calm yourself, Arlo.” Despite my good intentions, my body didn’t heed my advice.

  The walls were high, stretching twenty feet upwards, and I came upon the doors. They used an old lift and lock mechanism, not trusting wireless technology this far out. It heaved up and to the side, and I pushed inward, gaining access to the base. I ran in, slamming the door shut. Inside, it was tranquil, and my ThermaSuit lights guided my path as I followed the trail to Veera’s location.

  There were crates everywhere, filed in neat rows, each probably holding more Elurnium than I’d ever use in a lifetime of flying. I paused, checking my clock. I had under forty minutes.

  The entire camp would be shut down, their power sources on minimum, and I peered around the storage building, seeking cameras in the corners. Nothing.

  I fumbled with a crate and tilted the lid open. The metal samples were encased in containment boxes, protecting the handler from a heavy dose of radiation. I grabbed one, flipping it around in my fingers, and heard my grandfather’s voice in the back of my mind, telling me that wasn’t how the Lewis men operated. I returned it with a scowl on my face, and slammed the lid.

  “Come out, Veera,” I muttered, and sprinted for the set of doors across the room. They parted, revealing wide steps, and that was where I went, lower into Eris’ surface.

  The halls were pitch black, but my lights were powerful, and I made quick work of the corridor. At the height of their operation, the team would have this place brightly lit, with voices carrying through the underground bunker. A day later, and it was a terrifying place, a frozen tomb where you couldn’t survive the long orbit.

  Checking the map, I saw Veera was a hundred meters away, and I pushed faster, anxious to recover her and return home. I dashed over the metal floors and stopped at the end of the corridor.

  “Veera, I’m here to bring you to Kol!” I shouted, my voice echoing from the external speakers.

  I heard a rattling beyond and called out again. Still no verbal response, but it was clear something was going on through the doors. “Fine, make me do this the tough way.”

  I tugged at the lever as the entrance swung open, and she rammed into me, her fists pounding against my suit. The momentum sent me onto my back, and my helmet smashed against the floor with a loud bang. Her fists continued to rain on the clear part of my face shield, a relentless fury of rage filling the diminutive woman.

  My arm lifted in defense, and I saw it then. Her eyes were blood red, a snarl on her lips. She spoke, but I couldn’t understand the words.

  “Veera, I’m trying to help!” I shouted, but she didn’t pay attention; she just hit me again. Her hands were bleeding, and I’d had enough playing nice. I shoved her firmly, sending her clattering against the doors. My Pulser was in my glove a second later, set to the lowest level. The blast struck her in the chest, and she dropped to the ground, unmoving.

  “Kol, I found Veera. But you… have some explaining… to do,” I told him through heaving breaths.

  The clock said I had twenty-three minutes to return to Capricious and depart the surface. I glanced at the unconscious woman and groaned as I picked her up, slinging her over my shoulder.

  I was definitely getting paid extra for this one.

  Two

  “Dim the lights,” I told CP, and the cabin darkened. My headache wasn’t easing despite the injection. The last few days had been some of the strangest in my life. First the self-destructing vessel, then Veera viciously attacking me just hours ago. It had all happened so fast, I hadn’t quite wrapped my brain around it.

  “Dr. Kol Bell is attempting to contact you.” The CP’s voice carried softly, and I rolled off my bed, pressing the door open. It slid wide, and I stalked through the corridors of my freighter, boots clanking against the floor.

  Kol was where I expected him, in my mess hall. It was far too large for a one-man operation, and seeing him inside, attempting to use my coffee pod, felt
out of place.

  “Kol, what is it?”

  He turned, blinking slowly as if I were an apparition he hadn’t anticipated. “Arlo, thank you for retrieving Veera. I must apologize for not being more forthright.”

  I crossed the space in a few long strides, almost grabbing him by his white lab coat. “Are you telling me you knew she was hostile?”

  He moved away, his back hitting the cabinet, rattling my plates. “No. No. Nothing like that. She had been working on a new… project.” I stopped coming at him, and Kol left his empty cup behind.

  The tension fled from the room, and I finished the beverage for him. It smelled delicious, and I used the machine to brew my own cup. Twenty seconds later, I slid it over my dented table and sat across from him. “Tell me about this project.”

  He stared at the cup, steam rising into his brow. “She discovered something important. Buried deep. We’ve been under orders to continue our investigation of the core. Eris has been very fruitful, but we’ve reached a point where we’re producing more of the Elurnium than Oasis can distribute. If we don’t formulate another substance, or if they don’t find an alternate use for our alloy, the facility will shut down.” He took a sip, setting the cup down with a shaky hand.

  “What did she locate?”

  “The core is far beyond the main Elurnium caches, and we’ve moved to a secondary site, across the methane fields. Oasis spared no expense in assuring we had everything we’d needed,” he said. I recalled the last shipment I’d delivered there. It had been substantial, with various contraptions I’d never seen before.

  “Go on.”

  “Veera was the lead on the job, ensuring it was all done to spec. She found… an organic culture.”

  “Organic? In the core of Eris?” I asked.

  “Yes, but we couldn’t tell Oasis yet, because we wanted to learn more about it. If we informed them there was a living being on the dwarf planet, the Corporations would be all over them. Red tape. Delays. Probably ending in my team being forced to evacuate for good. I couldn’t be responsible for this, so we kept it under wraps. We sealed off the shaft, but… Veera went back. She was doing her own research.” He fumbled his fingers into his lab coat’s pocket and pulled out a silver-colored coin. “It’s on here.”