by Steve Rzasa
The aft explodes in a white spray of fuel and fragments.
All of it passes without sound. My breathing’s harsh, rapid.
Without warning my thrusters fire, shoving me away from 602 at a perpendicular. Before I can react, I’m slammed on another 90-degree vector, and then pushed forward, accelerating. A red warning in my HUD tells me the jets are exceeding safe recommended thrust.
Blast it! If this keeps up, the pack will explode, just like drone one. Either that or I’ll fly off from Marconi and 602 until my fuel’s expended.
I buck and twist. Got to change my vector. If I can get close enough to 602—snag one of those masts—
The pack boosts again, and I go spiraling off. Stars whirl into white smears. Vertigo grips my head, shakes it, and I can’t figure out where I’m going or where the comms ferry is.
The alert’s pulsing, insistent. Now a timer: 30 seconds to thruster pack failure.
Translation? Explosion.
I strain an arm, bending it against the acceleration forces mashing my muscles. Almost—there—
The release triggers. I bounce off the pack, the impact throwing me off. I grab one of the thrusters at the corner. I yank until it’s got the spin slowed to a gradual drift, then kick off. The pack and I head in opposite directions.
It blows up near enough to me that I shield my faceplate. Bits of debris pepper the suit. No punctures. Please, Lord, no punctures.
The hailstorm stops. I hazard a look.
Starbursts of debris everywhere, spreading out as if in time-lapse. Black spots at the edge of my field of vision. Hyperventilating. Don’t panic. The suit’s intact. Oxygen levels are—
Oh. Fifty percent depleted.
I’d slap my forehead if not for the helmet. Oxygen reserve was in the thruster pack. Great.
Okay. Time to inventory.
Three drones destroyed.
One thruster pack, also destroyed.
I have no way to move.
And 602? I crane my neck. The comms ferry’s half a klick away, according to my suit sensors. Might as well be an astronomical unit, for all the good it does me. The vectors are terrible. I’m moving away from the ferry, at a couple meters per second, at a 120-degree angle. Pieces of my drones are drifting with me.
The oxygen will only last a few hours. So, I have that long. Assuming no flares light up space.
I activate my wrist comm, and get nothing. No link to 602, or Marconi. There goes my last option.
Or…wait. What a moron I am. The ferry. Its comm systems are working, according to the last download Drone One gave me before everything went haywire. If I can get to it, I can communicate with Marconi. The emergency response protocol will kick in. All the ship’s computer has to do is lock on to my transponder and maneuver in close enough for me to hop on.
It’s the maneuvering that poses a problem.
I do a quick scan of the area. Drone One’s debris is nearest me, but there isn’t a piece left larger than the palm of my hand. The aft section of Drone Two, however, is tumbling at my velocity and a bit farther away than One. My suit tells me the good news—our vectors will cross. Bad news? It’s going to take fifteen minutes.
That’s fifteen minutes of me drifting ever farther from Marconi, and the comms ferry, and deeper into the star system. Immense distances scroll through my head. I block the thoughts best I can, but it’s hard to summon songs, or verses, or anything other than cold hard math.
After what seems like forever, Drone Two’s fragment is near. I watch its spin, timing it, and contrast that to my own. My feet. They’ll be in position to contact first.
Steady.
Breathe.
The quarter-meter aft end of the drone tumbles into me. I absorb the hit with my feet, bend my knees, and get a tenuous grip with my gloves. Okay. Step one is done. There’s an access panel for the aft thrusters. I pop it open, reach in for the control circuit.
Reconfiguring the command pathways takes three minutes—I’d be even faster if not for these gloves. Everything’s a go. I twist the end around, facing the comms ferry. It’s distressingly small. So’s Marconi. I reach inside the panel, toggle the thrusters.
Nothing happens.
I repeat. This time white gases spurt from the nozzles, but cut off in a single, limpid plume. We’re barely coasting.
No. Come on. Move!
The fuel cells are drained. They have to be. I turn the drone, grabbing for the thruster bank cowling. There’s a plasma torch hooked to my belt. I cut it open.
As I thought. Empty.
My oxygen levels keep dropping. What am I going to do now?
Okay. The drone fragment. I can use it as a launch point. Get myself to the comms ferry.
But one of the other sections of either Drone Two or Three might still operate. I could use the thrusters on that. Then again, they could be just as empty as the one I’m holding.
Time to choose.
I orient my back to the comms ferry, and put my feet on Drone Two’s aft. It’s barely big enough for me to fit both boots side by side. One good shove, and I’m off, coasting toward the ferry. Drone Two’s section shrinks among the stars.
Comms Ferry 602 grows larger, but it’s slow going. That oxygen level keeps dropping. I breathe slow and deep. Have to relax. Have to keep the panic from my head. Picture the basement, and the carols.
But the question keeps snapping me back to the present: Would God let me die out here? I mean, alone, drifting in space, air draining away until I pass out, fall asleep, stop breathing, and freeze solid. Or burn up.
It takes an hour to reach the comms ferry, and by the time I latch on to its 20-meter bulk, my body is stiff, and sweat soaks me. Oxygen levels are below 15 percent.
I crawl hand over hand across 602’s surface, steadily, carefully, not wanting to miss a handhold and go spinning off into space. The HUD’s relentless oxygen display sits at the right corner of my vision, taunting me.
My MarkTel authorization codes let me into the ferry. A hatch opens, and for the first time in hours I’m safe inside something manmade. No air, though: ferries don’t carry life support. Why should they? Data doesn’t need to breathe.
I slide open a panel. There’s a broad space, curved, between the inner and outer shell of the ferry. It’s a large storage room, basically, with junction boxes and access panels everywhere. A second, identical hatch is right in front of me, dark metal surrounded by red and white emergency stripes.
A red screen glows to my left. This is where the ferry’s trove of comms data lives. Right now, it’s empty. Everything the scientists from BC8 wanted to send went out with 601.
It takes some finessing, but finally I get 602 to latch on to Marconi’s comms. All the messages and data I’ve received streams across the screen. Perfect. I punch in the code for Marconi’s retrieval protocols, and send it.
I glance out the hatch. There’s Marconi, no bigger than the tip of my finger.
She isn’t moving.
What? That’s impossible. I punch the code, send it again.
Only, it doesn’t send. The message sits there, dormant, and no matter how many times I try resending, it just spools in a circle.
“Not possible. She’s receiving data. Why won’t it send anything?” My voice cracks. Disuse takes its toll.
It hits me. The red screen. Fear’s muddling my thoughts, making me see crooked. It shouldn’t be red. Specs say it’s blue when systems are normal.
The malfunction from before?
I hurry through a diagnostic, and when the results glow on the screen, I let out a moan. There’s a virus in there. Malicious code. The ferry’s CPU identified the precise time it went active—which was when Drone One exchanged information with the ferry. From there it spread to all three drones, and the software operating my thruster pack.
But it started here. Somehow. It must have been added during manufacture—wouldn’t be the first time some digger was installed just for kicks. Coders showing off how they can
manipulate software and hardware of even the most powerful, wealthiest corporation in the galaxy.
Only this time, it means I’m dead.
There’s no way to send to Marconi. There’s no way to call to anyone. Even if I could, it would be more than a day before a fast ship could reach me.
I’m too short on time, and air.
I slam my fist against the screen. The impact pushes me back, floating. A wordless cry passes my lips. I pound on the bulkhead, movements slowed by zero gee. My heart pounds and my breath comes in gasps.
A good five minutes goes by before I calm down. What a waste of air.
So what? If I’m going to die here, is five minutes going to matter?
A white line flashes across the screen. Incoming message. The ferry’s still linked to Marconi, so anything she gets winds up in here.
It’s from Melinda Qin.
Desperate for contact, I drag the hardwire connector from my wrist comm. It fits neatly into a socket below the screen.
“…you’re doing well. We’re all counting down the first ferry’s return. Did everything go alright with the second? The sensor boys say they saw something odd on their scopes, flashes of light. I hadn’t heard anything from you and… I was worried. Contact us as soon as you can, please.”
She pauses, looks at something off screen. Nods. “There’s three of us here celebrating tonight. Just, quietly, of course, because the others aren’t exactly pleasant about this holiday. The rest of the staff are in the lounge. Our administrator told us we can either ‘mark our day’ as he called it in the Comms closet or not at all. Anyway, I told the others, Ferris and Alejo, that you were a believer, too. We came up with something.”
Her voice goes soft, and starts in with the familiar words: “Silent night, holy night…”
Two men’s voices join. My suit fills with their music. Before long, I’m mouthing the lyrics, then adding my song to theirs. A chorus of four, separated by time lag and millions of kilometers.
Light pours through the open hatch. Alcova’s star. My heart stills as I sing “The dawn of redeeming grace…”
Our voices trail off at the last stanza. My throat’s raw, but my spirit’s refreshed.
Melinda smiles. “Merry Christmas, Captain. BC8 out.”
The screen goes blank.
I blow out a breath. I can face it, now. The end. Just having that contact with other people. People like me. It reminds me that all I believe is not simply words on a page, or text on a screen. It’s truth. Truth made tangible on one dark night, thousands of years ago and light-years away.
He’s still present. In this system. On this ferry.
For the first time since the thruster pack failed, I’m filled with—
A thought pops into my head. A few of the ferry’s systems were impacted by the virus, such as the ability to send, and the ability to make the tract shift. But some systems are still operational.
I pull up the diagnostic results again. Scan the lines. Come on…There!
Without pause, I open the second hatch.
Inside the comms ferry is the Raszewski sphere, a 10-meter space crisscrossed with braces and wires and tubes. It’s dark as night, no illumination except my suit beacons. At the very center is the multifaceted jewel of the singularity generator, the heart of the sphere. I can’t see anything other than a pale yellow glow around its seams, but the power emanating from it is palpable.
I float through, to the hatch on the opposite side. Beyond that, I locate the thruster controls.
Just like 601, 602 has its own bank of thrusters. Minimal fuel, though, for infrequent orbit adjustment. Little’s needed to get the ferry up to thrust and me back to Marconi.
When I get there, though, I’ll have to jump ship.
Rewiring and reprogramming the thrusters to respond to manual command—not automatic orbit calculations—takes time. So much time that my oxygen sensor’s alarm starts chirping. I’m sucking at dregs.
My breaths are shallow. I head back to the entry hatch, treading the thin line between not expending air too fast and moving as fast as I can.
Trembling fingers fumble once, twice, to connect my wrist comm’s hardwire back into the main screen. Out the hatch, Marconi’s gone, and I see only the fringes of brilliance from Alcova’s star.
It set in the sequence I need on my wrist comm’s display, and fire off a quick prayer.
First burst.
I hear nothing. My hand picks up the gentle vibration through the bulkhead. Outside, stars slowly shift position. The glare brightens.
There’s my ship. My home.
I use a second burst to neutralize the ferry’s rotation. Marconi’s still drifting on its vector. I’ve factored that. The ferry’s aimed slightly ahead.
Here goes.
The third burst is a steadier shudder. The ferry eases ahead, gaining velocity, until my readout says 9 meters per second relative to Marconi.
I kill the thrust. It’s going to have to be fast enough. Anything slower, and I’ll be blacked out before 602 reaches Marconi. Faster, though, and I’ll rip an arm off when I try to grab on to the ship.
Everything becomes a haze. I see double of my hand, of stars, just like I’ve made a tract shift. Am I gone from Alcova? Maybe I’m headed back home.
Bright lights. Oxygen indicator. It’s blood red. Not good.
How long has it been? Five minutes? Ten? Can’t read numbers.
Closer.
Marconi, God bless her. Looks like a construction model. Clean lines, two gaps where the deployed comms ferries hung. Beautiful ship. I see her majestic as any dragon.
Closer.
Thrusters? Some fuel left. I want to risk deceleration—but I can’t mash my hands against the wrist comm.
Somewhere, Melinda’s face. Urging me. Go.
I leap.
Marconi’s hull is “under” the 602. Headfirst, I feel like I’m flying straight at her. But I’m aiming at her sphere, amidships. Aft hull slides by. No! If I miss…
Don’t think about it.
Cooling vanes. Tall, thin. I reach out. Gloved fingers brush across the nearest one.
Missed.
But the motion shifts my trajectory, bleeds velocity. I slam into the next one, on the port side. This time, I grab hold, ignoring the screaming pain in my chest, my gut, and my head.
I won’t let go.
Can’t…
Blackness.
Light. Bright, obnoxious light.
I feel way better than before. Deep breaths fill my lungs with familiar scents, and though I would have deemed them stale, it’s the freshest thing I’ve ever experienced.
I’m in bed, with a set of med-scanners hovering by my side. Dehydrated, blood pressure stabilizing—looking good. It takes a moment for me to realize I’m not floating, and am resting comfortably on the best mattress ever.
The last thing I remember is colliding with the cooling vane. I wince, and press my hand to my abdomen. There’s a brace underneath, and bandages. The med-scanner shows a pair of ribs getting knitted back into shape by nanites. That would explain the blue tubes in my arm.
So how am I in bed?
A moment later I have an audience—Blue and Scarlet. They trundle in, followed by the rest of the hamsters and the brassjackets. My very own heavenly host.
I blink furiously. “Thanks, guys.”
They sit there, lights flashing.
I sigh, and tap the proper recognition signal on my wrist-comm. [Operator restored.]
They swarm out, headed into the corridor and their posts beyond. Blue and Scarlet linger a second longer—I might be imagining that—before rolling off after them.
I get it. They’re rudimentary autonomous machines, following protocols programmed deep in their CPUs. The ship’s sensors told them I was in danger, so they reacted.
Still, it’s nice to know they’ve got my back.
Comms Ferry 601 returned on schedule. I set her up for continuous deployment, then set course for A
lcova Prime.
I managed to re-task one of my sensor probes with Blue and Scarlet hitched along for a ride. They brought 602 back in, and docked it. It’ll take some time to fix it—meanwhile 603 took its place.
By the time all that’s done, I’m exhausted. My body’s still healing. But I’ve got a protocol to follow, too.
Major damage to comms ferry systems and/or hardware may be repaired by a visit to the nearest company depot, government facility, or private station. It’s in the MarkTel regs. They’re willing to overlook a few days’ detour if they can save the half million.
I set course for Alcova Prime, and once the controls are set, I lean back in my bunk to read for a while. The greenhouse window beckons, with poinsettias perched like the bow to a giant wreath. I’ve got one in mind to drop off, when I make the station in 23 hours.
It’s Christmas Day, after all.
BAIL OUT: A HUMAN INTERVENTIONS JOB (2016)
I WROTE THIS ONE FOR an anthology that was specifically seeking stories about the ways in which humans could be essential to a galactic society. The organizers didn’t want to show humans as a destructive force, but as proponents of all that is good.
My impulse was to revisit the alternate timeline of For Us Humans, in which an alien confederation added Earth to its protectorates in 2001. The story is set in 2016, after fifteen years of this peaceful and economically beneficial integration. I went with a multiethnic American crew, as a way of paying homage to the Star Trek programs—and to reflect the reality of a nation that is made up of varied but interesting parts.
November 2016
He was the ugliest creature the Administrator had ever seen. How could it possibly be sentient?
The Administrator judged it to be a male, as it lacked the grace of the female of the species. He had to duck through the portal, and towered over the room at twice the Administrator’s height. Poor being maneuvered with typical bipedal clumsiness. Two limbs as gangly as bayai vines swung back and forth in hypnotic fashion. The biological aberration needed two more eyes. Why were his clustered together so closely on the face? Without evenly spaced tentacles he was poorly constructed. He had brown flesh, lacking spots.