Across the Void

by S. K. Vaughn

  I don’t have regrets, but I’ll never stop grieving the loss of a lifelong dream.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Perfect. I just wanted to look at my little ocean stars before they’re gone.”

  47

  “The dawn of the solar system,” Stephen used to tell his students, “gave rise to life as we know it, all over the universe. But, like most epic parties, it left one hell of a mess.”

  That line had never failed to get a laugh, but as Stephen and Raj tracked May’s course, the science behind it was grim. The main asteroid belt, comprising trillions of hunks of rock ranging in size from small boulders to planetoids several thousand feet in diameter, orbited the sun between Jupiter and Mars. In Raj’s initial calculations. May’s course was not expected to intersect with any of the groups in the belt. However, Stephen’s solar sail, although generating a surplus of power, had not maintained the preset course as well as they’d hoped. May was helping by making thruster adjustments, but they were not powerful enough to fully counteract the sails, and the cargo rig was heading straight for a dense cluster group. The rocks were far enough apart that there was a chance she could still slip through, but at current velocity, which they didn’t dare alter for fear she would miss the Hawking II, impact with even one of the smaller asteroids would likely destroy the ship.

  “What about using gravity from one of the larger ones to slingshot around the outside edge?” Raj asked. “Then we could reduce velocity so we don’t overshoot the Hawking II.”

  “With our current momentum, that would create more velocity than I would have the ability to counteract. We would overshoot for sure.”

  “Does she have enough momentum to cut the sails loose and adjust her course with thrusters?” Raj asked, looking at his chart. “Never mind—she doesn’t. We’re still going to have to pull her up to this point, just past the field, to get her there on momentum.”

  “Looks like we’re hoping for the best,” Stephen said. “Our worst nightmare.”

  48

  Back on the cargo rig, May’s navigation system was telling her the same thing. Flying through the asteroid belt was her only chance to rendezvous with the Hawking II, and the entry point was rapidly approaching. Just as Raj and Stephen had already concluded, she had no ability to control her velocity, which had increased dramatically, and very little ability to maneuver the ship using thrusters. Remembering what she’d learned in parachute training, though, she knew she could alter course by pulling heavily on one of the steering lines. Because she had more than enough internal power, she could afford to expend huge amounts blasting thrusters on either side in a counterforce move similar to a parachute. This could more dramatically alter her trajectory, if need be, without damping velocity enough to throw her off course.

  “Asteroid belt approaching,” the flight computer reported.

  “Sorry to hear that,” May said arrogantly.

  “Take evasive action.”

  “No, thanks. I prefer to live on the edge.”

  May wrapped her hands around the thruster controllers. Larger rocks in the asteroid belt were coming into view. She would be at the entry point in less than a minute. All she had to do was make it through 2,400 miles of hell, and she was home free.

  “Look, Mom, no engines,” she yelled. “I know you like a challenge, so get a load of this one. Flying a lumbering bulldozer with the brain of a dairy cow and the agility of a cruise ship through a minefield of stony death with nothing but my wits and proverbial balls to guide me. Wouldn’t you be so proud, you fascist drill sergeant?”

  The entry point was upon her.

  “Fuck me,” she said, her mouth drying.

  Blackened, spiny rocks loomed like skyscrapers, blotting out most of what little sunlight there was. The first few seconds of entry went smoothly, but she kept her eyes on the larger boulders to ensure none were directly in her path. In doing so, she never saw the smaller, beach-ball-sized rock coming. It hit the cargo rig’s folded wing on the port side and tore half of it away. The impact felt like getting hit head-on by a freight train. May screamed as it jarred her bones and the seat straps yanked savagely into her body.

  She could feel the rig starting to drift to port, so she blasted it back on course with all the thrust she could pull on the starboard side. Fifty-five seconds. That was about how much time was left on the flight deck timer. Less than a minute to live or die.

  “Kid,” she said, catching her breath, “when you’re older and you tell me you want to be a pilot, remind me to give you a sound thrashing and enroll you in art school.”

  The field got darker, to the point that she couldn’t see past the few hundred feet of light the rig’s landing beacons threw. She took steady, deep breaths to keep her brain well oxygenated, found a focal point in the center of her field of vision that her eyes could remain fixed on no matter what was happening in the periphery, and cleared her mind of thought. Fighter pilot mode. There would be time to react only with muscle memory and instinct. Thinking equaled certain death.

  The seconds counted down at a glacial pace, May made slight moves to steer well clear of potential collisions, but the cluster was getting tighter. She worried about the sails, which stretched nearly 130 feet out from the edge of the ship. Above her, she saw an asteroid the size of an office building and felt certain the top edge of her port-side sail was going to hit it. Reflexively, she hit the topside thrusters to move down and away from it. It narrowly missed hitting the sail, but the move put her last solid landing strut in the path of the top of a larger rock, which smashed into it full force and tore it away.

  Impact with this much heavier body forced the nose of the rig downward. May tried to counteract with thrust but couldn’t keep it from going into a forward spin. The nanomachines were blown out of their sail shapes as the rear of the ship flipped over and ripped through the swarms. It sounded as though the fuselage were being pummeled with sand and rocks, and one of the generators burst into flames.

  Flying completely blind, May was so dizzy that she could barely stay conscious. She saw the clock at zero and brighter space outside indicating she’d made it through the belt, but she had to right the ship and deal with the fire, which had spread to the second generator. Blazing against freezing space, it had nowhere to go but back into the ship. Focusing on the instruments for orientation, she worked the thrusters till the spinning stopped. Then she suited up quickly, depressurized the cargo space, and went EVA with a fire extinguisher.

  The blaze was still raging, fueled by the metal in the nanomachines. They exploded out in great plumes that looked like showers of sparks. She did what she could with the fire cannon to lessen it, but realized it would not be enough. Crawling along the top of the ship, trying to keep the burning debris from incinerating her suit, she released the docking clamps holding down the generators and shoved them out into space.

  The fire cannon snuffed out the rest but blew some burning debris onto her boot, setting it on fire. May tried to kill it with fire foam, but the tank was out. Though she dragged it along the top of the ship, it continued to burn as she crawled back to the cargo doors. The small fire died from lack of fuel, but only after it had fully perforated her suit. The suit kicked into overdrive to maintain life support, but by the time May had resealed the bay door and repressurized the rig, three of her toes were frozen solid.

  49

  May took her boot and sock off. The tips of her first three toes were heavily blistered from frostbite. That would have to be dealt with later to avoid gangrene. Her first priority was to make sure she was still on course. She checked her vector and found that the ship had deviated a little but not enough to miss the intercept with a bit of thruster correction. Next was figuring out if she even had anything to intercept.

  “Computer, have you established contact with the Hawking II?”

  “Affirmative. Distress beacon lock only.”

  “Yes!” May shouted. “What about telemetry or radio comms?”
>
  “Negative.”

  The distress beacon was an automatic signal emitted by the ship in the event of catastrophic damage and crew incapacitation. May wondered how Robert was suppressing that, hiding it from the rest of the team, but, like her toes, she would deal with that bit of dead flesh later. For her, it was a crude life preserver she could use to stay accurately on course, but little else. The absence of any other comms was a clear indication that the ship was as dead as when she’d left it, and Eve was not at the helm.

  “Flight computer, time to Hawking II intercept?”

  “Twelve minutes, fourteen seconds.”

  May checked the rig’s internal power. “Shit.” Thruster use and the second ship repressurization had greedily sucked away her entire surplus, leaving her with roughly six to eight minutes of internal power. She looked at the EVA suit’s power meter. There were roughly forty minutes left on that, enough life support to make it back to the ship, provided she found a way to seal her boot. But when the cargo rig ran out of power, she would have no thrusters to slow the ship down for docking. At her current velocity, she would hit the ship like a missile and destroy what was left of it. Not that there was anywhere left to dock, as the landing hangar had been destroyed.

  May looked for ways to buy more power for the cargo rig. If she killed life support and wore her EVA suit for the duration, that would buy her enough power to use thrusters up until she was two minutes from impact. Not enough to be worth the risk of having zero control just before intercept, and she would still be coming in dangerously hot.

  “Time to Hawking II?”

  “Eight minutes, four seconds.”

  Six minutes to make a decision. She put her boot back on and taped the burn hole. Then she sprayed hull patch over the top of the tape, covering the entire bottom of the boot.

  “Decelerate for docking.”

  She punched the command console. “Tell me something I don’t know, idiot.”

  “Inadequate power for reverse thrusters. Prepare emergency landing countermeasures.”

  “I’m not landing on a planet surface you— Wait, list countermeasures.”

  The console displayed something called “impact foam shell,” a rapid-deployment, fire-retardant foam that spigots positioned all around the rig would spray out with compressed air, encasing the ship in a rubberized shell sixteen feet thick.

  “Can’t hurt. Prepare emergency landing countermeasures for manual deployment.”

  A manual control lever slid out from the side of the console.

  “Time to Hawking II?”

  “Four minutes, fifty-five seconds.”

  May quickly put on her EVA helmet and sealed it to her suit. Then she depressurized the flight deck to normalize with space.

  “Okay. Listen, kid, here’s what’s happening. Since today is your first amusement park ride, I figure we need to end it with a bang. Just over two minutes out, I’m going to hit the reverse thrusters and burn the rest of our power, slowing us down as much as possible. Then, just before we bash into the hangar, I’ll deploy the foam and turn us into a massive superball. With any luck, we’ll wedge into the hangar without dying or doing too much damage to the mother ship. Got it? Outstanding. Flight computer, time to Hawking II?”

  “Three minutes, thirty-three seconds.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  May rested her finger next to the reverse thruster control and watched the seconds tick down. Her stomach fluttered slightly.

  “Easy. I’m starving too, okay? As soon as we park this crate, I promise to put away a full three-course space meal, whether I find it repulsive or not. Deal? Now hold on.”

  Just before two minutes to impact, May got ready to hit the reverse thrusters and deploy the foam. The Hawking II came into view in the distance.

  “Here we are. Looks like we still mostly have a ship, so that’s a good start. Computer, zoom in on the Hawking II with fore camera.”

  May zoomed in to the landing-vehicle hangar. On the side where the hangar door had torn away from the ship, it had taken half the floor and all the landing vehicles with it, including May’s cargo rig. The other side was fire-blackened and pockmarked from shrapnel, as though it had been hit by a bomb. She held off on using the thrusters.

  “Change of plan. There’s no place to land whatsoever. Blow emergency escape hatch, flight computer.”

  “Negative. Bolts are for deployment in atmosphere.”

  “Fine, be that way.” May snatched up a laser cutter, cut through the hatch bolts and hinges, and pushed the heavy door off into space.

  “Error. Error.”

  “Shut up. Time to impact?”

  “One minute, three seconds.”

  “Load speed of this vessel and Hawking II speed to my EVA helmet.”

  Both speeds appeared on her helmet screen.

  “Calculate reverse thrust speed needed for safe intercept.”

  That number appeared.

  “Got it. Let’s hope you’re not as dumb as you sound.”

  “Inadequate thruster power. Landing bay not operational,” it droned back.

  “Thanks for the confidence boost. Well, flight computer, it’s been fun, but I’m breaking up with you. Oh, and it’s not me; it’s definitely you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  At forty seconds, May positioned all starboard side thrusters to blow everything they had straight out and perpendicular to her trajectory when fired. Then she grabbed a hull patch spray canister and a long rod from the ice core driller and crawled up out of the escape hatch. Outside, she held a safety rung with one hand and carefully rested the end of the metal rod on the thruster switch down in the flight deck. Impact was seconds away.

  “Hold on, kid; this is going to make that asteroid thing feel like a casual stroll.”

  May punched the thruster switch with the rod and jumped, slamming her suit’s reverse thrusters into full power. Below her, the cargo rig veered hard left and flew ahead of her, narrowly missing the Hawking II before shooting off into space. May was heading straight for the ship now. Reverse thrusters had knocked her suit speed down close to that of the Hawking II, but she was coming in too fast to survive impact.

  At the last second, she held the spray patch canister in front of her, nozzle facing the ship, and let it rip until it knocked her speed down to a safe number for impact. But it also threw her slightly off course. Veering dangerously to the left and fearing she would fly past, she aimed the suit’s emergency tether at the fuselage and fired. The dart shot out, its long titanium cable whipping out behind, and stuck in one of the jagged pieces of landing hangar wall. The cable reached its full length and caught May, jerking her hard back toward the passing ship. She screamed in pain and felt her suit rip where the base of the tether was attached. The suit atmosphere started to bleed out quickly. May gasped for air as the intense cold rushed in and her body temperature started to drop.

  50

  May remembered the hull patch canister. She sprayed it on the rip in her suit, sealing and restoring her air, but she was still so cold that she had a hard time pulling herself to the Hawking II with the tether cable. The rip had also sucked a lot of power from the suit, as it had increased life support output to compensate. Suit power was down to ten minutes. She started to warm up and pulled harder, trying to get to the ship faster. It was dangerous to assume the ship’s atmosphere was intact. She might need time to get a new EVA battery pack once she got inside. The feeling had come back in her limbs, so she pulled even harder.

  “Come on, baby. Almost there.”

  The dart pulled free from the hull. May’s pulling action made her instantly flip backward. She was tumbling through space, disoriented and grasping for anything. The tether cable caught on the jagged edge of one of the hangar’s ruined walls. When it caught it stopped May’s free fall, but the force of the catch pulled it away from the wall again. May was moving back toward the wall, but also drifting out toward the
edge. If she didn’t stop, she would fly into space. And with her suit down to eight minutes of power, thrusters would quickly deplete life support before she made it back.

  She had no choice but to hit them before reaching the edge. Using just enough to get back to the wall, May grabbed on to it firmly and made her way to the airlock door. It had been damaged and was no longer operational. She cut through the hinges and latch with the laser cutter and pulled it away, crawling inside.

  “Well, kid, how did you like that? Bet you didn’t know your mom was a superhero. But don’t get cocky; we’re nowhere near out of the woods. The outer airlock is off. The inner airlock is closed and appears to be operational. If I open it and there’s still atmosphere in the ship, it will be sucked out, and the force of it will make it impossible for us to go through the inner airlock door. So as much as I loathe the idea of going to another airlock, that’s what we’re going to do. And I’d better get moving, because this suit has a six-minute life-span.”

  May reeled in her tether and moved along the outer edge of the deck, using the handholds and a safety line. The ship was shuddering the way it had before, and May lost her grip a few times when it shook. By the time she got to the airlock door outside the bridge, she had two minutes of suit power left. She opened the airlock with the manual latch, crawled in, and sealed it, then opened the inner door to the ship.

  The ship was dark and freezing cold, just like when she first woke up. But this time, it had also lost artificial gravity. As she moved quickly through the corridor using the antigravity handholds, May’s suit alarms were sounding her last minute of life support. At the EVA locker, she wrenched the door open and searched for a new battery pack in the dark. The suit power ran out, and she had to take very shallow breaths of the last of her residual air. The first battery she found was dead. She threw it aside angrily and snatched up another. It was fully charged. Atmosphere and heat quickly returned, along with her headlamp.