Andy slapped the emergency klaxon. Tim and Cara would know to strap in. Checking his data against the original flight plan, he calculated a hard burst through the engine.
“Daddy?” Cara asked over the comm. “What’s going on?”
“Dad?” Tim said sleepily.
“I’m here,” Andy said. “Strap in. Both of you. We need to execute a hard burn.”
The flight plan came back sub-optimal, which was close enough. He nearly entered the command to execute before realizing he hadn’t buckled his own straps on the seat. Andy fumbled them into place, wincing as they automatically tightened down on his wounds.
Reaching for the console again, he activated the flight change.
Sunny Skies groaned around him as the engine flared to full capacity. The weight of increased gravity crushed him into the seat. As his vision blurred, he tried to comfort himself with the studies that said kids endured high-g maneuvers much better than adults, even with augmentation.
In the periphery of his vision, the display swam in and out of focus. The weak spots on the drive’s containment bottle danced and spread until their edges met and merged.
There was no sound as the emergency shutdown procedures activated, meaning the drive was dead. A yellow icon blinked on the display.
All Andy heard was his own tired gasp as the weight from acceleration was suddenly gone and he rocked forward in the seat straps.
Chapter Seven
STELLAR DATE: 07.25.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Approaching Asteroid Belt, Jovian Combine
Andy watched the drive status display fizzle down to a series of disconnected lines floating on a black field. He swallowed. Tapping the console, he tried to bring up the holographic system but got an error. The regular visualization system had been down for months.
He closed his eyes and let his head drop. He was aware of Cara asking him if he was all right across the com system and he knew he couldn’t answer her yet. Without opening his eyes, he flicked his connection to mute.
Still strapped into the seat, Andy attacked the air in front of the console. Kicking and punching, he felt tears gather in his eyes.
“Damn it, Brit!” he shouted. “Damn it!”
He slashed at the air, straining his muscles against twenty years of memories that had been so good at one point, memories that now only brought failure after failure. He was going to have to find a place for the kids. He couldn’t maintain this life. Everything was crumbling around him.
“Damn it, Brit! I need you!”
His right fist caught the edge of the console and pain flared up his arm. He didn’t let it stop him. He let himself experience the moment of rage at his wife for leaving him alone, for leaving the kids alone, for leaving him to be the one who would have to make a life for them. It had been Brit who’d wanted to make Sunny Skies work.
He raged at the dark, squeezing his eyes closed, not wanting to remember all the steps that had brought him here. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t keep living this way.
Exhausted, Andy sagged in the seat and let the straps hold him up. Fatigue, pain and anger dragged at his arms and legs like weights pulling him under water.
* * * * *
His mother cried when he told her what he planned to do. The tears burst out from her eyes, glistening in the afternoon light, but she nodded stiffly, wiping her nose.
“I knew you would do something like this,” she said, then gave him a small laugh. “I’d have done it myself if I’d had this opportunity at your age.”
She hugged him and pulled his sister close to hug him as well. His mother had the strength to never let him know all her worries.
When Andy told his dad, he looked for the moment of flat anger on Charlie’s face before the smile came. But his dad only nodded and pulled him in for a long hug.
Then his dad pushed him away, gripping his shoulders. “Academy, huh? What’s that all about?”
“It means I’ll go to the TSF school and be an officer when I graduate.”
“Did they tell you anything about this school?”
Andy shook his head, uncomfortable because he hadn’t thought to ask. He had been too overcome by the promise of a real future to irritate them with too many questions. He hadn’t wanted the dream to disappear. He’d signed the documents with his personal token—the first time he had ever used it—worried that at any moment Kass and Hilton would withdraw their offer. Kass hadn’t stopped grumbling about his portion of their lost enlistment bonus.
Andy was going to be an officer in the TSF. He didn’t know what that truly meant yet, but the words alone were enough to fill him with excitement and a sense of purpose. He didn’t mention to his parents that he would also be receiving a neural implant prior to attending the academy. That fact seemed to cheapen the transaction somehow. It felt better to talk in terms of his future, using the words from the recruiting posters.
The TSF gave him a week before he had to leave. During those seven days, Charlie barely let Andy out of his sight. He took his son along on several trading forays, among groups all across Summerville. The items they found varied from electronics to an inlaid antique backgammon board, to a pair of real silk stockings in a sealed plastic bag. Charlie moved from building to building, climbing stairs and crossing bridges, nodding and waving to nearly everyone they passed.
Charlie was tireless. He pushed and probed everyone he talked to, in a constant state of what Andy could only describe as flirtation. Everything was interesting, amusing or not to be taken seriously. When his dad did grow serious, it was time to shake hands and finish the deal.
Andy watched all this and wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. Now that his life in Summerville suddenly had an end date, everything seemed more vivid than it had before. The canals and waterways were more green, the moss and lichens gleaming in the morning sunlight.
At the end of one trading trip, he and his dad stood on the roof of an apartment high rise that was taller than most in the area. Leaning against the crumbled concrete railing, they looked out over the softened grid of Summerville toward the blue-green strip of the ocean on the horizon. Transport aircraft crossed the sky in the distance, gleaming points of light on the blue.
Evening was coming on, and a few stars had begun to show above the ocean. The gleaming strand of High Terra shone high in the darkening sky.
His dad slapped him on the shoulder, then turned away from the vista to lean against the wall with his elbows on the edge, squinting slightly in the breeze.
“I guess it gets harder to come back to Earth, the longer you spend off-planet,” his dad said.
“You can do exercises,” Andy said. “Most people who live off-Earth are augmented in some way, anyway.” It felt strange to talk about this like he was an authority, as though he suddenly knew more than his dad. His mom was so good at keeping her connection to the world outside Summerville through her Link out of her regular conversation. Most of the talk in the apartment was about the people Dad had met through the day, deals he’d made, wonder at whatever new item he brought home, from gull’s eggs to a holographic tchotchke from a dead woman’s apartment.
His dad nodded, not implying an opinion one way or the other. He seemed timeless at that moment, no different than someone who had lived in 2800, or 2400, or 1900. He was a human father staring into the distance as his son left home for the first time.
Charlie turned his head to look at Andy, his gray-blue eyes nearly translucent in the evening light. He nodded. “I think you made a good deal,” he said. “I’m proud of you, son.”
Andy felt a swell of gratitude. His father didn’t have much to give, but he had love.
His mom didn’t have as easy a time with the idea of him leaving. Several times during the week, he caught her watching him with tears in her eyes.
It had felt infuriating sometimes that his mom could be content with her kitchen, with their living room and its threadbare f
urniture, with the world through their apartment windows, when there was so much beyond those borders. He didn’t have to be satisfied with Summerville anymore.
His sister, Jane, had barely spoken to him the whole week. It wasn’t until the night before he was supposed to leave that she finally exploded on him. Her usually passive face was flushed, her nose and eyes running.
“You’re leaving me, Andy!” she’d screamed at him. “You’re leaving me alone here.”
“I’m not leaving you. Do you think I’m never going to come back?”
“Of course, you’re never going to come back. Why would you come back here when you’ve got a chance to get out? Use your head, Andy. They might have told you you’re super smart, but I know you. All you can think about is what’s right in front of your face. The minute you walk out that door, you’ll never come back.”
He swallowed, knowing she was mostly right. He hadn’t given any thought to the idea of coming back. There was too much to look forward to.
“We’ll get vacations,” he stammered. “And I’ll be able to call. I can talk to Mom over the Link whenever I want.”
“The Link!” she shouted, grabbing onto the one fact of his agreement with the TSF that he’d been trying to downplay: the cheapest part. “You’re too dumb to realize how lucky you are not to have all that stuff in your head all the time. We’re lucky to have grown up here, Andy, but you can’t see that.”
“Jane.” He tried to speak but didn’t know what to tell her. He could only nod and let her rage at him.
“I hope you forget about us!” she’d shouted.
* * * * *
Andy left for the TSF Academy on a cold Monday morning in September.
He met Krass and Hilton at the recruiting station and they led him up to a landing pad on the building’s clean roof, so different than the ruins in Summerville. An egg-shaped military transport waited with its main door open.
A soldier in a green flight coverall stood beside the door. Andy nodded to him as he approached but the man ignored him, staring into the middle-distance, attention apparently on his Link.
“Get up in there and sit down over there,” Kass said, pointing toward a jump seat on the far side of the craft. “Strap yourself in.”
Andy found the straps and buckled in. He looked around the spare interior of the transport, which appeared better-suited to cargo than people. Latch points covered the major surfaces. He had a narrow view of the cockpit where a pilot was checking the holographic systems displays.
Kass ducked to climb into the transport and chose a seat beside Andy. Sergeant Hilton stood outside, talking to the soldier in the coverall. When they were done, he waved at Andy.
“Good luck, Sykes,” he said. “Drop me a line when you get through Hell Week.”
“Hell Week?” Andy asked. The words shot ice through his excitement.
Beside him, Kass laughed. “Guess you didn’t read about that, huh, genius? Hell Week is when they weed out the weaklings. You fail Hell Week and you end up regular enlisted for a minimum of ten years. And I get my portion of your bonus like I should have in the first place.”
Andy felt like he’d been punched. Why hadn’t they told him about Hell Week? Could he prepare somehow? Should he have been doing more push-ups and sit-ups? He gave Kass a despairing look.
The sergeant guffawed, holding his stomach. “Oh, stop it, Sykes. You look like I just stole your birthday.”
The crew member stepped up into the transport and tapped a control to lower the door, which hissed as it sealed. Andy’s seat rumbled as the engines started, making his whole body vibrate. His stomach felt loose as the transport quickly lifted, tilting to one side before righting itself.
The engine hum in the cabin grew too loud to allow them to talk, so Andy could only glance at Krass grinning beside him and then stare forward to watch the world stream past outside the small window in the door.
The flight to the TSF Academy in Seattle would take thirty minutes. His first stop would be the Academy medical center, where he would spend a day in surgery and recovery, before being dropped in with a group of new recruits from all across the northern hemisphere, waiting for the next training cycle to start.
It was in a cold room lined with plastic chairs full of waiting cadets that he first met Brit.
* * * * *
“Daddy?” Cara said.
Andy dragged in a breath and opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep. He looked around frantically, forgetting where he was. His gaze fell on the console, still showing the exploded drive containment bottle, and everything came rushing back. He reached for the buckles holding his straps in place.
Wiping his face, he looked at Cara and found Tim standing just behind her, hugging his stuffed dolphin against his chest.
The concern on Cara’s face stabbed him in the heart. He blinked, then gave her a smile. “Morning,” he said. “How are you guys?”
Cara stared at him, obviously not knowing how to respond, worry plain on her face. “Is the ship all right?” she asked.
Andy nodded. “We have drive problems,” he said. “But the good news is that we’ll arrive at Cruithne Station almost on time.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“Then we’ll see.” Andy looked past her to Tim. “How are you doing, buddy?”
Tim squeezed his dolphin. “I’m hungry,” he said. “Can we have pancakes?”
Andy suppressed a jab of pain in his abdomen as he stood. Leaning on the back of his seat, he said, “Yes, we can have pancakes.”
“Yay!” Tim cried.
PART 2: CRUITHNE STATION
Chapter Eight
STELLAR DATE: 08.24.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Approaching Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony
Sunny Skies arrived at Cruithne Station just as the asteroid was reaching its furthest distance from Earth. He’d been proud of himself back on Kalyke when the navigation plan had lined up well enough that he could pick up cargo bound for InnerSol and charge a slight bonus for the shortened delivery time. Most legit cargo moving from OuterSol passed through Mars, so even a slow-moving hauler like Sunny Skies could charge a bounty for a more direct trip.
Andy leaned back in his seat and activated the automated navigation systems that would ease them toward Cruithne Station’s greater Port Authority. He couldn’t afford docking fees and the crates on board were too big for a shuttle, so he’d need to wait in the queue for Cruithne’s drones to transfer everything station-side.
After ten hours of Alice rescanning the interior sections of the main ship, Andy felt relatively certain there were no stowaways. He had debated for a long time whether he should dump the atmosphere from the rest of the ship, but with the loss of the deuterium drive, he couldn’t risk giving up the safety net of the additional breathable air. He still couldn’t quite believe his astrogation had been on target and they had arrived at Cruithne Station within his forecast window.
Andy was exhausted, having not slept more than two hours at a time over the last four days, and he felt like his body was about to crumble around him. The pain from his disastrous EVA was lessening, but something in his gut still felt off, like a hot coal nestled under his stomach, gradually growing warmer.
“Acknowledge, Cruithne,” he said over the comm to the Port Authority. “Sunny Skies assuming approach vector.”
“You’re late, Sunny Skies,” the irritated port agent replied. “What happened to following your approved approach lane? Are you drunk?”
Andy grimaced and wished that were true. “We’ve lost our main drive,” he said. He hesitated admitting the fact, but if the agent was paying attention to his scans he would have seen for himself that Sunny Skies was coming in on chem thrusters.
There was a pause as the agent presumably verified Andy’s statement. “I see that. Well, we’ll complete standard cargo transfer, but you can’t hang around in the offload lane. Am I going to need to get you towed?”<
br />
“I’ve got local propulsion. I won’t clog up any active lanes. Can you approve a parking orbit?”
“Sending some slots, along with the rates for each.”
Andy swallowed, working to remove any sign of nerves from his voice. “I’ve got illegal cargo to report. Two crates came on board with my load at Kalyke.”
The agent’s bored tone didn’t change. “We’ll have them scanned when the transport drones get to you. Did you verify contents?”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“The onboard firmware didn’t report and I don’t have the scanning capability on board. I’ve got no idea what’s in those things and I don’t care. I just want them off my ship.”
“They’ll come off,” the agent said. “Wait, your point of origin was Kalyke?”
“It’s right there in my flight plan.” Andy shook his head. He’d also stated the cargo’s provenance twenty seconds earlier.
His statement was followed by a long pause.
“You still there?” Andy asked.
“Confirmed,” the agent replied. Andy couldn’t be quite sure who the agent was talking to until he said: “I’ve got your parking orbit verified, Sunny Skies. Address following. I’m sending the fees schedule along too.”
“Fee schedule?” Andy demanded. “I’m not docking. There shouldn’t be any fees.”
The agent ignored him and cut the connection. The list of fees appeared on Andy’s display. He could only shake his head at the prices. Even with the profit from the cargo, he couldn’t afford to hang around Cruithne more than a few days.
Andy wanted to bury his face in his hands but forced himself to remain upright, eyes focused on the console, in case one of the kids came through the door.
His only option that seemed remotely viable was to try to scrap Sunny Skies and buy transport to High Terra or Mars 1. Mars seemed like the obvious option. He doubted he could find work on High Terra that wouldn’t immediately want to pull him away. From Mars 1 they might get down to the surface. Mars 1 ran lower g’s than High Terra, and the surface was even better. The kids could handle the transition to Mars gravity with little trouble and he might be able to find work, he’d heard they were always looking for help handling cargo and security at Pavonis Mons.
Lyssa's Dream - A Hard Science Fiction AI Adventure (The Sentience Wars - Origins Book 1) Page 5