by M. D. Cooper
The captain nodded slowly as her plan unfolded. “This could work.”
ANDROMEDA
STELLAR DATE: 3265305 / 01.02.4228 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Andromeda
REGION: Interstellar space near Kapteyn’s Star
Tanis sat on the pristine bridge of the Andromeda, one of the Intrepid’s mid-sized cruisers.
At seven hundred and twenty meters long it was not the largest ship in the main docking bay, but it had stealth technology which would be more than effective against whatever sensors a mining platform possessed.
The Intrepid was another story. It had reversed orientation years ago when the fusion engines began their braking burn. To anyone in the Kapteyn’s system, the ship looked as bright as many nearby stars.
Now, with the knowledge of Kapteyn’s occupation in hand, the braking had been halted and a new entry plan was in place for the colony ship. It would enact several elliptical polar orbits around The Kap and use the star to slow its entrance. The Intrepid would ultimately enter the system on the far side of the star from the platform with a minimum of visible burn.
The Andromeda was still close enough to the Intrepid for tight-band laser comms and Joe was saying his fourth farewell over the Link.
Tanis felt a lump swell in her throat and tried to hold back tears. It wouldn’t do for her command crew to see her crying on the bridge.
She never expected to fall so deeply in love with someone again—in retrospect she had never really known what love meant.
Angela’s warm presence filled her mind and she knew that no matter what, she would never truly be alone. Her meld with Angela had deepened over the years to the point where she never even thought about it anymore—except when she overheard her AI and Bob talking about it.
She could hear their conversation now, nothing to worry about, all plans regarding trajectory and orbital mechanics. Corsia, the ship’s AI, was in the conversation as well and Tanis looked into her mind through Angela’s eyes.
She did all this while still talking to Joe, an ability that barely gave her pause anymore. She knew from the scans the Earnest did on her before the trip that her inter-neural connections were now over fifty percent higher than a non-augmented human—something that should have made her less mentally capable, not more—and that many portions of her brain were directly tied into Angela’s neural net.
When Joe mentioned that he poured Tanis a cup of coffee in the morning before remembering she wasn’t there, Angela almost cried in Tanis’s mind. It startled both of them. Tanis could tell her AI paused her conversation with Bob and Corsia, taking a split second to recover.
Tanis reminded herself that Angela was much younger than she—her AI had spent almost her entire life with Joe nearby. For all intents and purposes Angela was as married to Joe as she was.
As the two ships reached the point where the relative velocities began to make the laser comm lose fidelity, they said their final farewells.
The connection ended and Tanis drew a long breath, catching Trist’s eye. Her friend gave her a warm smile and a hug over the Link.
Tanis sat quietly for some time. The pain in her chest and the lump in her throat were going to take some work to overcome.
She tried to regain her composure as she looked around the small bridge. Trist was at the scan and analysis station, running through the external sensor arrays, ensuring that decades of inactivity had not caused any glitches. At the helm was a GSS ensign named Petrov, a capable pilot Joe had hand selected for the mission.
“All engine tests show green,” The ship’s AI reported over the speakers in the bridge. Tanis found it odd that Corsia preferred to communicate audibly, but that wasn’t entirely unusual for an AI. She must have relayed it over the link elsewhere on the ship because Jim, the chief engineer chimed in.
Corsia responded.
Tanis had learned that Jim and Corsia had worked together on several ships before they both signed up for the New Eden colony. They had never been embedded together, but they behaved as though they had been.
Tanis checked the reports from the barracks, confirming that the Marines were all in stasis, protected from any hard burns the ship would need to do as it entered The Kap system.
Tanis switched the bridge’s main holo to a visual of the Andromeda’s position relative to the Intrepid and The Kap’s stellar system.
After undocking from its mother ship, the Andromeda had executed several short burns, establishing a trajectory which would take it insystem stellar east, on the far side of the star from the incoming platform. At the same time, the Intrepid had executed a burn that would take it over the star’s north pole to begin its long elliptical loop.
The ships were now moving apart at a speed of several thousand kilometers per second. That rate would increase dramatically when the Andromeda executed its main insystem burn.
“Firing maneuvering thrusters,” Petrov reported as he executed the pre-programmed flight path to properly orient the ship in space. “Ready for fusion burn in three minutes.”
Tanis gave herself to counting the seconds, keeping her mind off the years that she would spend apart from Joe as they slowly moved into the system.
“Executing burn,” Petrov announced as the timer reached zero. Compared to the asteroid run Tanis and Joe had made on the Excelsior in the Estrella de la Muerte system, this burn was a mere annoyance at only 10g.
It was three hours long though. Even as a hardy space-farer, with the best dampening implants and an acceleration couch, Tanis knew it would be at the edge of bearable.
Probe data showed the mining platform and the system’s smaller rocky planet to currenlty be on the same side of the star. The larger terrestrial planet, along with severals small icy worlds on the system’s outskirts were opposite the approaching platform.
The Andromeda would pass those worlds first, scanning for signs of civilization—though Tanis didn’t expect to find any.
Though the star was reasonably close to Sol, no colonies had ever formed here—mainly because there were more ideal locations closer to humanity’s home star. The FGT terraforming ships had flown past The Kap with barely a thought to the old red dwarf.
To Tanis’s knowledge they had never terraformed a world orbiting a star as far down the main sequence as The Kap.
So who was here?
Chances were, that if the system was settled, there would be satellites which would ultimately spot the Andromeda. Hopefully, at that point, enough information would be in hand so she could formulate a plan.
Those worries were still well over a year away. The following five-hundred days would be consumed by the slow, elliptical entry into the system.
Tanis had not decided if she would go into stasis for the duration of the trip. Back on the Intrepid, Joe would not be going under. He planned to spend the time readying his pilots for whatever they might face in The Kap system.
The three hours of burn pas
sed by slowly, and when it was completed, the crew ran final tests before reporting to their assigned stasis chambers. Two hours later, Tanis was the last person awake on the ship.
She realized she was avoiding even the thought of stasis, finding small tasks to complete beforehand. She examined her thoughts and realized it was nearly a phobia.
“Who would blame me?” She whispered to herself. “Every time I go under something horrible happens.”
Tanis laughed, “Too true, I’ve had my share. I guess it’s not that I fear stasis, I just don’t want to wake up alone anymore.”
She decided to stay awake.
The time wore on slowly. Tanis had long conversations with Angela and Corsia about every topic she could think of, read several dozen books, watched hundreds of vids, and took up blacksmithing in the ship’s small machine shop.
Her early attempts didn’t turn out well, but she managed to make a pair of small knives which had excellent balance and held an edge as well as steel could.
Mostly, especially as the trip wore on, she found herself staring out the windows in the port lounge, watching Kapteyn’s Star get brighter.
She was surprised at how comforting it was to have a star nearby, slowly getting brighter. Unlike LHS 1565, which was barely larger than Jupiter, Kapteyn’s Star was a third the size of Sol and had a much more bluish light than Sol or a younger red dwarf.
“Can you believe this star is nearly as old as the universe itself?” Tanis asked no one in particular.
“Imagine what it has seen. When it was young the cosmos as all dust and heat…quasars shining everywhere.”
the ship’s AI replied.
“A lot of people think stars are sentient…in their own way.”
“True, but what a word it would be.” Tanis knew she sounded a bit crazy—but she also knew that the way she was thinking was normal for humans in isolation. “Imagine it staring into the oncoming Milky Way galaxy for millions of years as its tiny dwarf galaxy faced destruction from our massive spiral. Now it’s trapped, orbiting the core of its destroyer, still moving opposite all the other stars around it.”
The AI didn’t respond and Tanis continued to reflect on the star. The dim, red light in the darkness of space had witnessed the end of its own galaxy, it would witness the eventual collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda—and eventually the merger of all the galaxies in the Virgo super-cluster.
And then, as the universe accelerated apart it would eventually find itself alone; with no light from other stars reaching it and none of its light reaching any other star. Until, at the end, it would run out of fuel and, in one final sputter, blink out. Nothing more than a slowly expanding cloud of hot gas in a cold, lightless universe.
“You’re funny, for an AI,” Tanis’s tone was droll. “I know I shouldn’t lose myself like this, it’s just at times I feel as though we’ll never reach the end of this journey. We’ll just drift forever in space like this little star, and eventually I’ll be alone with no one else.”
Tanis felt a tear streak down her cheek. “You’re more to me than just any companion, Angela. You’re as close to me as my very self.” She let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I never used to be this soft.”
“I suppose I have. That was not one of my better days,” Tanis let out a long sigh and closed her eyes.
PURSUIT
STELLAR DATE: 3266048 / 01.14.4230 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Andromeda
REGION: Kapteyn’s Star System
“If I were hiding out in this system—and I don’t know why I’d ever do something like that—I’d maintain a lookout here.” Commander Brandt pointed at a small dwarf planet orbiting the star at a distance of 4.5AU.
The Andromeda was just under 6AU from the stellar primary and 3AU prograde from the planet Brandt was pointing at.
“With our braking wash pointed directly at the star there’s no way they’d spot us then,” Lieutenant Smith said.
“We haven’t picked anything up from that world,” Tanis said. “Either they haven’t seen us, or no one is there.”
“I have to say,” Brandt shook her head, “this is pretty weird. We ignored this stupidly named star for over two thousand years and then the very same year we show up, someone else is mucking around in here? With a mining platform no-less?”
“Yeah, it smells,” Tanis agreed. “That’s why we’re out here taking a look. I can promise you one thing, whoever these people are, there’s no way they’re expecting the Intrepid.”
“Let’s hope not. Though, from what I can see about how things have evolved over the last century, interstellar traffic is increased a lot, people may be more prepared for visitors than they used to be.”
“Traffic may be up, but it’s all to and from Sol. There’s not a lot of ships moving between other systems, with the exception of Alpha Centuari, Sirius, and Tau Ceti,” Trist added. “Certainly nothing through here, and definitely not anything from where we were.”
“No point in speculating further on why they’re here, other than asking them,” Tanis said. “The Intrepid is still weeks away from entering its polar orbit. I think we should continue our plan to loop around the star, and then break away to swing past that little world.”
“Are you sure we should hide ourselves so much?” Trist asked. “I mean, I’m the thief here, but I can’t help wonder if we just announce ourselves maybe we’ll get a warm welcome.”
Tanis leaned back in her chair. Perhaps Trist was right, she had become jaded over the years, expecting everything to be a threat.
“You may be right, Trist, but it’s not a chance I can take. I do promise that I’ll try diplomacy before violence. I’ve had my fill of being shot at.”
The next few days were uneventful as the ship drifted insystem, approaching the star for a slingshot back outsystem. The bridge crew fell silent as the Andromeda skirted past the outer reaches of Kapteyn’s corona and got its first clear look at the space beyond in almost a week.
Scan updated and the holographic projection of the stellar system refreshed, showing the innermost terrestrial planet the mining platform was moving toward, and the platform itself.
Since the Intrepid’s probe had first spotted it, the platform had slowed considerably and was close to entering an orbit around the world. Tanis couldn’t help but wonder why a platform that appeared to be built for asteroid mining was moving toward a world. She voiced the question as she knew it was on all their minds.
“Beats me,” Trist shrugged. “It doesn’t even seem to have a load, although it is a big one—from well fitted too. Definitely not some old scow.
“Is it emitting any sort of ID or call sign?” Tanis asked.
“Nothing,” Trist replied. “Its engines are the only emission, it—.”
orsia interrupted.
“That’s an interesting development,” Tanis mused. “One of these two may be friendly to us—or we could find ourselves in the middle of an unpleasant conflict.”
“That seems like a leap,” Trist commented.
“Anyone following right behind you, but moving faster is pursuing. Especially when the first is not emitting any signals.”
“Do you think they can see us?” Petrov asked.
“If they look right at us, yes,” Tanis replied. “Let’s hope they don’t.”
The Andromeda took thirty minutes to arc around the star and pass behind it again. During the passage, Corsia released a small probe that would gather information and relay it whenever it orbited around the star.
“Now let's check out this other world,” Tanis reviewed Petrov’s burn and vector, approving his calculations, as did Corsia.
“I doubt we’ll find anything there,” Command Brandt said. “My guess is that the platform and whoever is chasing it just got here themselves.”
“That’s my thought as well,” replied Tanis. “But since our trajectory was pretty much set, we may as well be prudent. We’re going to have to arc out a bit to brake anyway.”
In the end, Tanis decided to angle above the dwarf planet and brake slowly, hiding their wash as much as possible. This would allow them to change course more rapidly if the dwarf planet was empty and they needed to get back to the platform in a hurry.
The closer they got, the more apparent it was that the dwarf was barren. A day later their suspicions were confirmed. While the small world held the ruins of some robotic survey machines, there was no sign of any recent activity on the gray and pitted surface.
“Either there is something really well hidden there, or this is what it looks like, an empty planet.”