Across the Void

by S. K. Vaughn

  “Charming,” May said as they walked in. “Smells like a Miami strip club, and I think my shoes are permanently stuck to the floor.”

  “You’ve been to a Miami strip club?”

  “Let’s get a table. Too many wild animals at the bar.”

  Stephen took one look at the bros with backward baseball caps and half-naked women doing glow-in-the-dark shots and nodded in agreement. The strung-out hostess sat them in the booth farthest away from the mayhem, and Stephen ordered, cautioning May that some of the menu items were life threatening. Within a few minutes, they were drinking margaritas and eating a platter of tacos.

  “Cheeky of you to downplay this place. It’s actually amazing.”

  “I only come here for special occasions.”

  “Really? What’s the occasion?” she asked.

  “I’m sure we’ll think of something,” he said.

  They finished their drinks, and the waitress brought replacements before their glasses hit the table. May was beginning to see that Stephen was a regular at the place. He’d seen to it that the two of them had fast service with no distractions. He was quietly methodical, with a reserved intensity that never seemed to wane. May felt she could completely be herself with him, which she knew would be quite challenging for most. Not only was he able to roll with her idiosyncrasies, he embraced them. She didn’t know him well at all, but her instinct was that she had the same effect on him.

  The more they drank, the more attractive all of that became, and, predictably, the greater the chance that May would insert her foot directly into her mouth.

  “So how is it that there’s no Mrs. Knox?” she asked, twirling her drink straw.

  And there it was: Stephen grimaced.

  “Forget I asked,” May said. “I killed the buzz. Emergency. More drinks.”

  “There was a Mrs. Knox, but she ran off with a pilot.”

  May laughed hysterically, mostly out of relief, but also from the irony. Stephen wasn’t laughing with her, so she mentally recorded strike two. “Are you taking the piss?”

  “No, it’s true. An airline pilot. She’s a business consultant. Lots of travel. Million-mile flier. Zero interest in what I did. Actually, she thought what I did was mostly a waste of time. Not a difficult equation to solve.”

  “Sorry. When I drink tequila, I have a tendency to pry.”

  “It’s okay. When I drink it, I have a tendency to not give a damn.”

  “Yeah, but she hurt you. It’s obvious. Oh my God, I can’t stop myself. I’m shutting up now. Here, I’ll stuff my face with tacos until I can sort my shit out.”

  “How can you tell she hurt me?”

  “No,” May said with a mouth full of food, “different topic. Something light. How about casual sex? Jesus, I’m a monster.”

  “You have some guacamole on your chin,” Stephen said, laughing.

  “Wow,” she said. “I shouldn’t have judged the wild animals at the bar before. Turns out they’re the classy ones.”

  “You don’t actually have anything on your chin. I just didn’t want to talk about—”

  “I get it. The ex is off limits.”

  “—casual sex,” he said.

  “Cheeky bastard,” May said. “You’re throwing me for a loop. You don’t give a crap about your ex at all. You just want to watch me squirm for a change.”

  “It is kind of endearing,” he said.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  “Now you’re doing it,” he said.

  “Oh, you’re good, Dr. Knox. But kiss me anyway. I’m not saying you want to, but I would appreciate it if you would accommodate me, because it’s too distracting to sit here thinking about wanting to do it, and—”

  “Okay.”

  He leaned across the table and kissed her. It was a few notches above a peck, just enough to whet her appetite, but not enough to illicit catcalls from the bar.

  “Thank you,” she said, trying to hide the fact that she was slightly flustered.

  “Still want to talk about my ex-wife?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Good. Because if you mix her with alcohol, it could be toxic.”

  “Ah, the poison pill. I had one of those once too. The guy’s ego was so big that we couldn’t fit in the same room.”

  “Why was it so monstrous?”

  “Because it belonged to Ian Albright.”

  Stephen rolled his eyes.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “What, you don’t like him?”

  “It’s not that. Well, it is that a little. Before I opted to go with NASA, Ian wanted me to give him exclusivity on my NanoSphere tech—so much so that he ended up threatening me when I wouldn’t give him the goods.”

  “Sounds all too familiar.”

  “Looks like he hurt you,” Stephen chided.

  “Shut up. He did, but not in the way you might think. Let’s just say it turns out Mr. Former Fighter Pilot, Genius Inventor, and Billionaire Owner of One of the World’s Most Successful Private Space Exploration Firms—”

  “Please go on,” he said, laughing. “I’m shrinking.”

  “Turns out he’s really just a wildly insecure egomaniac who has a temper tantrum like a spoiled brat when he doesn’t get his way.”

  “Well said,” Stephen agreed. “Billionaire temper tantrums can break a lot more than the living room vase, unfortunately.”

  She laughed. “Well said yourself. But I can deal with that. The deal breaker for me was his conspicuous lack of a soul.”

  “No soul . . . How does one know it’s missing?” Stephen asked.

  “Oh, you know. It’s sort of like dealing with artificial intelligence. AI can fake human qualities very well, but it’s clear when you’ve reached the edge of its limitations. That’s Ian. He does a great job of appearing to be human.”

  “Unfortunately, I think I know a lot of people like that,” Stephen said.

  “It’s an epidemic,” May agreed.

  The waitress set a mound of fried ice cream with a lit birthday candle in it in front of them, along with two tequila shots.

  “What’s this?” May asked. “Is it your birthday?”

  “No, I ruined yours the day I met you, so I decided to make it up to you.”

  May felt a swarm of butterflies in her belly. “How did you know?”

  “You showed me your license while I was pouting on the bus bench. And it was Valentine’s Day, so that kind of makes it easy to remember.”

  May stared at the candle in disbelief. The wax was dripping onto the ice cream.

  “Sorry, that sounded a little weird,” Stephen said. “It wasn’t like I meant to memorize your license. My memory just kind of works that way. I saw it and it just stuck. I didn’t mean—”

  “You know what, Dr. Knox? I have an idea.” She was smiling, trying not to shed a tear over how moved she was by his gesture.

  “What’s that?” Stephen asked nervously.

  “When I blow out this candle, let’s forget about everything that’s ever happened between us before this moment. I want this to be the beginning.”

  This time May leaned across the table and kissed Stephen, long enough to elicit wolf whistles from the bar. Neither of them cared. It would have lasted longer if the candle flame hadn’t nearly set May’s top on fire, sending them both into fits of laughter. Their departure from the bar was a blur as he paid quickly and called a cab. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other in the car, or on the steps of her apartment building, or in her apartment. The thought that she might ask him how he felt about all of it before she ripped off his clothes crossed her mind, but she quickly forgot it because she was already too busy ripping off both of their clothes. There was never any awkward fumbling or self-consciousness or hesitancy; only an unyielding urge to satiate the powerful desire they’d been unaware that they had for each other. And, once they were lying there in dark, too exhausted to go on, May knew she was in trouble.

 
; 25

  “How long ago did you receive transmission?” May shouted, out of breath.

  She was sprinting to the bridge, her buzz having quickly turning into a raging hangover. She would have to find time to throw up later. NASA had replied to their SOS signal, and that confirmed telemetry had been restored, giving them control of the ship. On the bridge, May punched up their message on the screen. She beheld it in all its glory, tears of joy streaming down her face. They had also included a prerecorded video, as they were not yet in range for real-time communication.

  “Oh my God, Eve,” she shouted. “This is amazing.”

  “I agree, and I’m also very relieved.”

  “Relieved? I’m fucking ecstatic. They caught us. We were falling, and they reached right out and . . . I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “How about sending the reply message they request confirming your survival and providing more information about the status of the crew?”

  “Right. Yes. Exactly right. That’s what I’ll do.”

  May considered sending a video message, but thought better of it in light of her dismal condition. Hello, Mission Control, drunk-ass Commander Knox here. I’m doing well, except everyone but me is dead, and your multibillion-dollar ship is on the verge of becoming scrap. Oh, and I’m suffering from memory loss because I awoke from a coma a few days ago after nearly dying from a mystery illness. I can’t even remember telling my husband to fuck off just before launch. Anyhoo, awesome to be back in touch with you guys. Really looking forward to hearing about your miracle rescue scenario. Oh, and thanks for the Christmas music!

  Instead, she recorded a very short time-stamped voice message and promised to send a longer report, with visuals, once she and Eve were back on course.

  “Let’s watch the video message they sent, Eve.”

  “Loading that now.”

  May waited nervously as the observation window switched to video screen and NASA’s prerecorded message faded in. Stephen appeared first, standing in the Ground Control center in Houston. May’s heart took off running. He looked good; maybe a little thin and sleep-deprived, but still her Stephen. She walked closer to the screen.

  “Hi, handsome. You’re a sight for the sorest of eyes,” May said, touching his face.

  “Hello, May,” he said, smiling. He was trying to remain emotionally composed. May figured he’d been asked to be the one to speak to her first in the transmission in order to boost her morale. Good choice.

  “I’m . . . we’re all so excited to know you’re able to receive this transmission. As you can imagine, we’ve been pretty worried here. When Mission Control received your SOS, word has it some of the most buttoned-up, ice-water-in-the-veins veterans actually jumped for joy. We all did, in our own way. . . . But enough chitchat. Time to get down to the very serious business of getting you all home. On that note, I’m going to turn you over to Flight and your old pal Glenn Chambers. He’s going to tell you about the rescue scheme he’s been cooking up and put you to work. Take care, and we’ll talk soon.”

  The video cut to Mission Control on Wright Station and Glenn standing front and center, the team standing proudly behind him, waving. Glenn was indeed a dear friend. With his huge, unkempt gray eyebrows that looked like the horns on an owl and a pair of permanently attached, utterly archaic reading glasses, he looked and behaved like your favorite grandfather—if your grandfather were a foul-mouthed Texan who rode a Harley and hunted wild boar.

  “Hey, kid. Welcome to Shit’s Creek. Don’t you worry—we’re gonna give you a paddle, and it won’t be made out of a turd.”

  He laughed so hard that the chewing tobacco in his lower lip nearly flew out.

  “Sorry, hon. You know I’m just a dirty old redneck. Listen, I got all the nerds hopped up on caffeine and the fear of God, working round the clock, and we came up with a pretty nifty rescue plan. I told ’em if they hadn’t built you that goddamned lemon of a ship in the first place, we wouldn’t be talking rescue, but they didn’t think that was too funny. Especially Raj. Man, that pissed him off. He looked like a muppet with road rage.”

  May had a good, much-needed laugh. Glenn was such a crusty old bastard, a pure flyboy who didn’t trust anything that hadn’t been airborne longer than him. He would have gotten on famously with her mother.

  “So, let’s skip the foreplay and get right to it, shall we?”

  An astral map displayed the position of the Hawking II in relation to Europa, Mars, and Earth.

  “Your drift was pretty damned inconvenient. To tell the truth, we’re all pretty amazed you went that far off course in such a short period of time. But don’t worry, we can get her back on track as soon as the engines decide to play nice—especially since you made that trajectory fix. Everyone here was scratching their heads, and I just told them, ‘Listen geeks, you’re dealing with a real pilot. If you think we’d trust our lives to your tech alone, you got shit for brains.’ Case in point.”

  A photorealistic ship schematic replaced the map image. The problem areas—engines and reactor—were highlighted red.

  “The propulsion issue you’re having is a reactor issue and not coming from the engines themselves. For some reason, the reactor has an overload, causing it to switch into and out of safe mode to avoid—well, blowing your skinny ass to kingdom come.”

  “Well, that’s very considerate,” May laughed.

  “The fusion nerds are working on figuring out the reactor right now,” Glenn continued. “The great San Francisco earthquake you’ve been feeling is the engines being out of sync. Here’s a visual.”

  A three-dimensional image of the reactor and its connections to the engines appeared. As Glenn spoke, the areas he was talking about would highlight.

  “One engine gets power and wants to fire up, while the other one doesn’t get enough. The first one shuts down, sending an overdose of power to the second one. Then that one shuts down. Then the reactor has nowhere to send all that power, so it shuts down. A vicious cycle. Sounds a lot like my third divorce. So, we’ve sent your AI a flight program that encourages those selfish bastards to share, creating equal power distribution under constant flux. Kind of like the way your brain distributes weight evenly to your legs to keep you from falling on your pretty face after you’ve been hitting that flask of yours one too many times.”

  “You know me all too well, Glenn. And now for the bad news,” May muttered cynically.

  “Unfortunately,” Glenn said, “all of that means we’ve had to decrease the amount of power going from the reactor to the engines, ’cause we don’t want to start the sync nonsense again. As you may have seen, that kind of thing will pretty much tear your ship in half eventually. Your velocity has dropped to about a quarter of capacity, but this is a necessary evil till we fix the reactor. It just means you’ll actually have to keep on being a pilot for a while, which I know you don’t mind, ’cause you probably want to prove you didn’t just get that job ’cause you’re a chick.”

  “Hillbilly dinosaur,” May said, smiling.

  “I heard that,” Glenn said, having anticipated a return insult. “Oh, and you get to play engineer too. I know how much you love that. We’ll record the whole reactor fix for you and upload the sequence to your command deck as soon as the geeks figure out a way for you to do it without . . . you guessed it, blowing your skinny ass to kingdom come.”

  “You have no idea how skinny,” May joked self-consciously.

  “The good news is, once we get you back to full velocity, here’s that nifty little rescue scheme we got cooking. Let’s go to the map again.” The video cut back to the astral map. “And now for the weather report. We’re not gonna risk trying to bring you back here to the station. Mars orbit is a lot closer, and at the moment, your trajectory is tits-on with its alignment. However, there’s this whole thing called orbital motion. You may have heard about it. Planets moving around the sun and all. Unless you’re one of those Flat-Earth dipshits. In the real world, we’
re gonna get you on a trajectory to rendezvous with our rescue vehicle in Mars orbit. Keep in mind, we’re gonna be making a lot of adjustments between now and then, but we’ll telemeter the hell out of it and keep us in lockstep. If need be, we can also pull some speed from Mars gravity to give you a little bump and take some strain off propulsion.

  “The problem is, our alignment with Mars ain’t as hot shit as yours. And the bureaucrats are gonna bind and gag us with red tape while they wait for their perfect little launch window. Add to that the fact that we’re scrambling our first available vehicle, which appears to be a bit of a dinosaur. But don’t let its advanced age fool you. It might not be as fast as the younger bucks, but it’s still got plenty of thrust, wink wink. Right now, we got a date in a little over nine weeks, pushing nine and a half. I know that’s about three weeks short of what it took you to get to friggin’ Jupiter orbit, but this is what we’re working with. We’ve already adjusted your velocity accordingly.”

  May winced as she thought about all the what-ifs inherent in NASA’s proposed rescue scenario. Anticipating this, Glenn continued.

  “I know you’re probably skeptical about this, and I don’t blame you. Lots of weak links in this chain. But Mars is a hell of a lot bigger a target than Wright Station, and I’m sure you’re not interested in flying that thing any longer than you have to.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” May grimaced.

  “Of course, any light you can shed on the situation will help us dial this in. Drop us a line, let us get a look at you, and give us the skinny. Your AI mentioned multiple casualties, so any information on that is top priority.” He took on a more somber tone. “Sorry you’re having to deal with all that. . . . I suppose I’ll give you back to your no-good husband, even though we both know I’m a hell of a lot sexier than he is. Take care, you dirty Redcoat. We’ll get through this. We always do.”

  The video cut back to Stephen. His face was a mask of professionalism. She could almost hear Robert Warren coaching him. Nothing too personal. We don’t want her to get her hopes up. She needs to stay focused, objective. Fuck him. Seeing Stephen did get her hopes up, which she desperately needed. But it also made her feel homesick and lonely. The NASA shrinks always told her there was no place lonelier than the void of space. The human mind was simply not designed to fathom the infinite expanse of the universe and the cold, utter silence of the vacuum. The farther you got from the sun, the greater the longing to return. It could drive someone mad. Seeing her husband only added to that. She would have done anything to be in the same room with him, to really touch his cheek, smell his awful coffee breath, feel his fingers on the back of her neck. She wanted to scream.