Human Starpilots

by F Stephan

  “Can you say more?” The younger priest seemed very eager for news. “Is it related to our colony on Fizhert?”

  “No. I won’t say more yet. One option is in Fizhert as you guessed but there are others. For now, we watch and divert everyone from our true plans”.

  “Yes, Father Lapren. I will be back in a week in Adheek to organize the next riot”.

  “Perfect. Thank you. I will leave tomorrow to travel off world. Our scout is ready for a little controlled travel. Don’t wait for me.”

  The two men sat in silence outside until the sun disappeared behind the Range. Then, they went quietly inside to listen to the evening Mass.

  36 Brian

  All first-year students were gathered in the shuttle. It was their first time off the ground since their arrival a year before, and many were apprehensive. The atmospheric launcher was still climbing to reach the breakup altitude. The shuttle was secured on top of it and would bring them to the space station in a few hours. Brian was both excited to learn to truly pilot spaceships and awed by the sheer idea. On Earth, he had never driven one of the precious few cars, and the largest object he had piloted had been a bike. He looked enviously to Leopold and Tasha. Both had piloted small airplanes back home. He closed his eyes again and waited.

  They had left the academy during early morning to go to the spaceport. The ride through the waking town had not been very pleasant, with many tired faces and grunts here and there. Then, they had boarded the shuttle after a long review of the safety procedures and severe warnings against activating their nanites. After the long embarkation, the launcher moved to the runaway and lifted them off. They were all hooked into the tracking system, checking all flight parameters against their lessons, as had been required of them. This distracted them a little from the intense vibrations that shook the small craft.

  Suddenly, the voice of First Pilot Althal came on the speakers. “This is now five minutes to launch. Everyone check your straps. I want my control board green in two minutes.” Loud clanks echoed in the hull as they brought down the secure strapping. Three minutes later, the light in the cabin went green, confirming they were all OK. Willfried started fidgeting. “Stop that,” hissed Emily and Brian at the same time. Willfried smiled at them. Illoma looked inquiringly and Brian mouthed silently, “long story.”

  In a deafening roar, the primary booster ignited. Then, their stomachs lurched as the shuttle dropped from the carrier wing. The transition to autonomous flight was the most dangerous part of the flight, and they all knew it. Brian counted each second in his head, checking and rechecking the power curve of the booster. Ten seconds later, the acceleration smashed them into their seats, and the shuttle initiated its orbital transfer. He heard a few “clonks” around him, and the network informed him on the few, including Leopold, who had passed out. Brian took the time to check the vitals of his friends. He would have a good bruise but nothing more. After seemingly an eternity, the vibrations suddenly stopped, and they were weightless, out of Adheek attraction.

  With the go from Althal, they carefully unstrapped and moved around, getting used to movements in null gravity. Most of them had faced it when coming to Adheek or traveling as pilots’ family, and they were now proficient. Dendrom and Oddoril had never left Adheek, and this was their first experience. Surprisingly, Sonter was at the side of his two compatriots, checking how they moved and helping them correct their positions. Tasha was already with Leopold, checking on him. She looked up at Brian and smiled.

  “He’s going to regret his early boast. Stick his head out during full acceleration. Really! You think he’ll grow someday?”

  “He’s my friend, Tasha. No comment,” answered Brian with a grin.

  Six hours later, everyone watched through the external sensors as the station Zopol became visible through the monitoring. The large wheel had a radius of one kilometer and was located at the Lagrange point between Adheek’s moon and the planet. The center was a massive hangar deck with no air pressure and many robots to transfer goods or repair ships. There were a few pressurized safe zones spread around the facility, small cabins where crews could relax during their breaks without going back to the ring. Around the cargo hangar, industrial modules provided zero gee capacities to their customers. They also held the plant producing the different nanites used on-planet, as per the Federation Charter. From the central hold, four long corridors led to each quarter of the ring, again not pressurized. Every precious bit of air was saved for the populated areas in the ring. Those areas were immediately visible, with their heavy radiation plating and large number of collision defenses. The greatest dangers the station faced were asteroids or space debris. The most frequently used defense systems were slings. Propelling rocks with great accuracy and speed to deviate debris, they were the most inexpensive systems available. No other weapons were allowed on board the station. Even the marines were only armed with tasers while on ships or stations. Other weapons were too dangerous in small, enclosed spaces.

  When they reached the hangar, they saw Kiltan ken Ilmar, the teacher in charge of supervising their intrasystem jumps and a compatriot of Shanak, waiting for them at the dock, suited up.

  “Listen to me, stupids.” They heard a harsh, rasping voice in their mike and shuddered. “Outside, this is dangerous ground. You will suit up and triple check your suit. There was one death last year. I don’t want one today. Did you hear me?” Brian was struck dumb, and he didn’t hear anyone else answer. “Then, you will exit the shuttle, once First Pilot Althal clears you, and you will follow me to the elevator. Then we will reach the ring all together. This is the first step for your education, and you’d better listen well.”

  Nineteen people took a long time to get ready, and both Althal and Kiltan were visibly impatient when, finally, they emerged into the hangar. They were all linked together with cords. Kiltan took no risks. They moved slowly to the west elevator. From close up, it was just a simple circle of metal with a barrier around it a meter high to protect its users. A cable ran through the center of the circle and allowed the elevator to move. They all hooked themselves to different holds on a ring rail just on top of the barrier. Then, Kiltan moved the platform back to the ring.

  The elevator rose slowly, dragging them.

  “I invite you to look at the two space shuttles you will practice normal flight on.”

  Both shuttles were ovoid. The smaller of the two was roughly forty meters in length, all black and covered in radiation plates. Small exhausts were placed at regular intervals around the craft. The larger was one hundred meters in length but exactly the same in shape and form. Compared to the spaceships, they seemed crude. Yet they were also beyond current Earth capabilities.

  “Look, you can see Adheek through the hangar,” Shanak cried out.

  Dendrom pushed herself on the open rail to see and tilted to the other side in the empty space. Sonter, who had been watching her since the exit from the shuttle, caught her and brought her back in under a minute. She escaped the steel bars other contraptions sticking out from the structure by sheer luck and through the immediate reaction from her fellow student.

  “Dendrom, you can thank Sonter. If he hadn’t intervened, you would be spending the next week in the infirmary, learning that you don’t fool around in space. Let this be a warning to all the incautious cracks who believe they know anything about space. I won’t say this again.”

  They were all very subdued until they reached their quarter on the ring. There had been two other accidents when the gravity progressively returned and Oddoril and Leopold didn’t put their feet on the floor of the elevator fast enough. Dendrom and Oddoril both sighed in relief when they felt their weight again. The ring was on three quarters of a gee, but that helped them a lot.

  The rest of the day was spent in logistics and allocating rooms. They also met Station Controller Nillimer. She was dark haired and sleek, a somber Adheeken woman who ran her control center with strict efficiency.

  “Welcome to t
he Station Zopol. We are the main hub between Adheek and the stars. The central deck allows us to transboard goods between atmospheric shuttles and spaceships. The ring provides mainly hydroponics farms used to provide food to the ships and plants to build replacement parts. The rest is living quarters, cafeteria and restaurant, entertainment and training center. This is not the lakeside in Adheek but this is nice place. Please spend the rest of your day learning your way around here. In two days, the intrasystem Heavyweight carrier is announced at the station. Get ready”.

  The training center in the station hosted a 3-D simulator, clearly built by Adheek under a technology closer to what they knew on Earth. They ended with a detailed review of their agenda and the constitution of the different teams, and they all crashed tiredly into their beds when the time came. Brian had taken one look at his room—a small cubicle with a bed, a desk, and an ion shower—and understood that this would be a place for work, not for fun.

  37 Brian

  “On my mark. Three, two, one. Jump.” They were all on both side of the central hangar in null gravity with full vacuum suit. This was the second day of their training. Their current exercise was to jump to the other side without touching the walls and any of the other students. Kiltan was on one side, evaluating their attempts.

  “Dendrom, you have again killed a mate and lost yourself in space. Safety first. Don’t jump if you hit someone”. Li Bao was spinning from the shove she had received from Dendrom. “All of you, the best of you jumped five full seconds after my request. I want immediate action. More than that and in space, you are dead. You hesitate too much for each jump, and you will receive so much radiation you will die. Actually in horrible pain. Now jump back again”. Dendrom and Li Bao had barely reached their position again when the order came. Both launched too fast, at an angle, and tumbled into the others sending everyone in all directions.

  “Great, just great. Imbeciles. Back to your positions. We start again until you succeed. You have a minute to be back and ready to jump at any time. In ten minutes, I will bring one of cargo container and I will ask you to jump around it”.

  The training wasn’t pleasant. Kiltan expected them to demonstrate immediate obedience. They chafed at the violence of the instruction, except for Shanak, probably used to it from his early years in school, and Sonter, who had followed his father on enough flights to know the dire warnings and rigorous lessons were necessary. There had been rebellious outbursts from Willfried and Troum. They had stopped when Kiltan had made the two of them move back to the station from a rope loose in space.

  They were barely back inside when the signal came that the spaceship was on its last jump and that they were authorized to watch its arrival on the main screens. They all ran excitedly with the news free from the training at last. Naturally, Kiltan was already there, deploying in the room a series of 3-D consoles.

  “Welcome, cracks,” Kiltan said. Brian noted that the usual scorn they heard in his voice when they were in space was pleasantly absent. “Mistress Nillimer invites you to follow the arrival using all inputs the station is receiving from emergence. She wants you to monitor as much as you can. Energy on all bands, emergence vector, speed. She tells me that the Heavyweight has a unique signature, and she offers a small jug of ale to the first one who finds it. You will have one hour for your analysis, at the end of which I expect a full report. Sonter, good news, bad news. You have a beer for you at the bar, but you cannot play nor tell your comrades about the signature via link.” Sonter smiled and, turning to all, made a grand salute. There wasn’t a lot of alcohol on a space station but they were a few bottles in each ship moving up. They all went into a frenzy of preparation to try and win this very rare prize.

  The arrival itself was grandiose. A singularity opened just five light seconds away from the station, and the ship emerged slowly from it. Brian was busy on his console for the next fifteen minutes trying to find, through comparison with the DataDump, what made the carrier unique. Suddenly he heard Emily laugh, and it was like a whip for him. “She’s found it. And I have no clue whatsoever.” He continued to work feverishly with Kiltan, counting down the time until end of exam. In the last fifteen minutes, he abandoned his quest and structured his report.

  He was grim faced when he sent it to the teacher and left to get a break in the main room. He was met by a strong buzz in the cafeteria and a good number of laughs, mostly from the regular crew. All other students looked thunderstruck. Sonter was sipping his beer haughtily.

  “OK, what was the answer everyone is laughing about?” said Brian sourly to Illoma, who sat quietly drinking a cup of Zopol, the station tea specialty.

  “There are no specificities, no unique signature.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Standing joke from Nillimer. She asks students to find it on the first emergence of a spaceship every time. The timer is who finds it and proves it based on the DataDump. And guess who won?”

  Brian didn’t need to be asked. He already knew her. He slumped on the couch, and Illoma gave him a sonorous kiss. That changed his mood, and while they chatted he reviewed what he knew of space trade. Before they had left, Mathias had wanted to understand it better, forcing him to clarify how it worked.

  “This is fairly simple. Some trade ships ran a ring road between several star systems. They were always staying at the edge of the systems where they can execute long range jumps”. “They never stop?” had asked the analyst.

  “No. That’s the gist of it. They travel very fast on the most efficient road. Smaller ships move between the planets, often the orbital stations, and the trade ships”.

  “Their travels are a lot more expensive?”

  “Yes, but smaller jumps are easier to manage and more efficient. They allow changing speed up or down. And they carry less cargo than the larger ships. On the whole, this is most efficient”.

  An hour later, Kiltan called them back and published their results. To his surprise, Brian had done rather well, and he felt now much better. He relaxed and waited for the next speech from the teacher.

  “Later today, we’ll rendezvous with the carrier. You will be back here to watch the docking procedure and submit the same report you did earlier today.” Brian sighed. He had hoped to enjoy a quiet evening.

  “Until then, you will prepare for boarding. You will be divided into two groups, because there are not sufficient berths to accommodate you all. Mistress Nillimer will train the remaining half on the shuttle, and that should keep you occupied. So, the ones coming with me are…” Brian listened attentively. Shanak, Tasha, and Li Bao would go. That was hard. Emily and Sonter would stay, and he didn’t know whether that was good or bad.

  Then he heard Illoma’s name and his morale dropped. They would be apart for the next two months while the carrier flew to the outer system and rendezvoused with the trade ship that would arrive to meet it. But it also meant the end of their relationship, one of the conditions Illoma had set from the beginning.

  Brian went to help Illoma prepare her bag.

  “You have become part of my life. I really can’t imagine moving forward without you”. His start was not the best one he had ever thought of but at least it was what he truly felt.

  “I told you what would happen even before our relationship started. I like you but this is the time where it stops”. Her answer was short and her tone sad.

  “I have told how I feel and how important you are to me”.

  “This is what you feel now. In three months, I will be far away and you will have forgotten me. It always ends like this. Better to break now when we are true to our feelings than later”.

  “But if we could go on despite the distance?”

  “Brian, it doesn’t work like this. You don’t know it or you don’t want to know it. But it remains true”.

  They continued to talk throughout the night, Brian trying to push his case from every angle he could think of. In the end, their words were bitter, and Brian left with sentences he would always reg
ret. At their parting, their eyes were red.

  38 Brian

  “Hey, be careful,” shouted Oddoril into her mike. Brian snapped out of his brooding to check his surroundings. He was outside the station on a maintenance operation on the inner ring. They had to control the energy coupling between the solar panels and the station center. Those large cables transferred the energy from the panels toward the station. Every five meters, a coupler connected cables together and allowed a wide flexibility in case the panels broke. The panel would drift away, the cable would follow in any direction, and if needed the station could detonate remotely the coupler, freeing the panel and avoiding any damage to the station.

  For this task, they had been given small readers they plugged into the cabling every three meters. Clearly, the technology was similar to the one used on Earth and need constant caretaking. Brian frequently marveled at the efficiency of the design used by the ancient. Oddoril pointed to a coupling now hanging loose from the station.

  “Sorry, I plugged too hard.” Brian pushed from the station in the cumbersome suit and grabbed the cable. Once secured, he activated his dorsal jetpack and pushed himself quietly back toward the station. Oddoril extended her arm and cushioned his return.

  “Now, fasten the cable again while I move forward, will you?” asked Oddoril.

  “Which cable was it?” The voice from Lieken, the maintenance technician who accompanied them, was harsh and rasping in the headsets.

  “Section thirty-two B,” answered Brian calmly, prepared for a rebuke.

  “OK. It was due to come loose anytime now. When you’ve refastened it, let me know, and I’ll weld it back into position. Take your time and do it well.”

  Brian could hear Lieken confirming the situation to Master Addel, the heavyset and jovial operation controller, while he grabbed the handful of cables and bound them in position with a tightener. He had only done this operation once on board, and it took him a good ten minutes to replicate it in free fall. In the end, when the cable was locked and secure, Lieken reached for him.