The DeHavilland Twin Otter that James mentions for skydiving is a real plane used by the United States Army Parachute Team.
The speck became an asterisk and bloomed into a proper space station, with a large central dome radiating into six landing pads.
The LEO transit station fuels and stocks vehicles parked there, a bit like loading food and drink onto aircraft at airports. The central hub has a very airport-like waiting area. The original scene was extended and covered all this, but was cut because it didn’t advance the plot.
Earth-Sun Lagrange Two was a popular place. Anything placed there would take one year to circle the sun, the same as the Earth.
Earth-Sun Lagrange Two is a real place. In real life, there are several probes, telescopes, and spacecraft currently at Earth-Sun L1 and L2. ESL2 is somewhat unstable, but I’m assuming the Hayden-Pratt test facility is capable of making its own course corrections.
“Fun fact,” Hitoshi said. “The biggest asteroid that thing’s ever fired on was only twelve meters.”
As I realized ships were routinely achieving fractions of light speed, the implications of catastrophic collisions with Earth became a problem. Earth would need to have a “no wake” zone similar to speed boats near shore, and a way to enforce it. The UNSDEF array concept was born. I further explore this in my short story Signal Loss.
The Comet looked big from the control room, but as they approached it loomed spectacularly large. Nose to tail it measured fifty-two meters. It was rare to be outside of a spaceship, and easy to forget the true size of one when you were accustomed to the cockpit view.
Once I was at an airshow where a ladder was set up next to an F-14. You could climb up and peer down into the cockpit. I recall just how big the ship was, compared to what I was used to seeing in movies. The Comet is much bigger than an F-14, but the idea of scale is the same.
“Bernard’s Beauty, you are cleared for launch”
Yeager named his Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis, after his wife. It seemed appropriate for Hitoshi to name the Comet Bernard's Beauty.
The Earth was a brilliant sapphire to his starboard, and Mars was a copper star forward.
I admit that I'm such a nerd that I plugged the story's date into a solar system simulator to determine the distance between Earth and Mars as well as how they would appear from the cockpit of the Comet.
There was no physical sense of speed—with Riggs there wasn’t even acceleration
The Riggs drive is a fictional variant of the Alcubierre drive. It works on a similar concept, but different execution. RF drives received some press last year, although conventional thinking still says reactionless drives are impossible. If you want to approach significant fractions of light speed, you need a way around the rocket equation, however, which limits how fast you can go based on your exhaust velocity.
“You were thinking in objective time. We would have been dead within the first seven seconds, on our timeline."
I got all the way to end of the story before it occurred to me that forty-three seconds would pass in just a few seconds for the crew due to time dilation. So, if you didn't die nearly instantly you were doing better than the last run.
“We’re in trouble.” Red icons began spilling across the left screen. “Primary and tertiary are already in resonance."
For a famous example of resonance in a mechanical system, watch the video of the Tacoma Narrows bridge ripping itself apart. It's not quite how resonance between Riggs waves works, but it's the general idea.
Hope you enjoyed the story!
To Kiersten, my muse.
And I’m not just saying that because you have your own Spock poster.
1
Seventy Days
Kyan Anders drifted in a room brimming with a hundred billion stars. Radiant golds spanned familiar constellations, but it was what lay between the stars that captured his attention. Smudges of galaxies against ebony sky. Glowing stellar lanes dusted with rose. Objects no man could see from Earth, but here they were impossible to miss. It was like seeing, truly seeing, for the first time.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Rios said, “but I’ve just received Harmony’s morning broadcast.”
Kyan glanced at his watch. “On my way.” He hooked his instep under a rung and descended into the habmod. A loose gray blanket and sock drifted by. He pushed towards the port comms module, sailed through the daylight rings of the transit tube, and emerged in a halo of screens. An ocean blue baseball cap velcroed to a command chair read Aristarchus. “Give me a quarter gee vectored along the hab axis.”
The floor fell against Kyan’s feet as he pressed on the cap and laced his arms through the chair’s harness. The Addison Aerospace logo faded on screen with the comms log. Thirty-five conversations separated by seven hundred and sixteen minutes. Kyan scrolled to the newest entry.
A young woman wore an Aristarchus cap over blond hair. Behind her, late afternoon sunlight dappled leafy greens. “Hi, Dad. So, first things first, if I know you, you’re probably all stressed out thinking something happened because my message is early.” The signal pixelated as she spread her fingers, palms facing him. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine. There’s some morning alerts for flares and I’m trying to avoid them. They’re going to get worse, and it might screw up the blackout window. So this sucks. I hope you’ve got some good music queued up.”
An alert bubbled on the screen:
RIOS - Received 06:20 local - HELIOS reports M-class flare activity expected 08.02.80 06:48 through 08.02.80 13:21.
Expected magnitude M2-M4. Minor communications disruptions expected with inner planet broadcasts.
A graphic illustrated line-of-sight between the Aristarchus and Earth. Waypoints showed the Earth’s path over the next few days, a string-of-pearls slipping behind the Sun. Complex field line patterns signified radio interference. Rios updated them with the HELIOS info and the patterns swelled. Earth’s comm tag changed from green to yellow and all of the pearls shifted colors. Yellow, orange, red, black. Signal loss in three days.
Harmony swiped a finger over her bracelet and an ultrasound popped up. Kyan leaned forward. Harmony Richardson, 18 weeks. “There’s your grandson, looking good! I think we’ve browsed a thousand names. I like traditional, but Ryce prefers trendy. You know him. We’ll figure it out. Anyway, we’re keeping the name secret until he’s born. You know, keep a little bit of surprise.”
Kyan’s eyebrows raised and he mirrored her smile. He rested his fingers on the screen. His grandson. She’d told him the evening before his departure. Eight more mission days, then twenty-six transit days. A little more than a month until he could be back with his family.
“Oh, and not sure how much news you’re picking up,” Harmony said, “but something wild happened yesterday. You know that guy who’s always in the tech feeds with the ‘keep dreaming big’ meme? He’s been talking this new ship that twists space, and yesterday he finally got it to work. Well, sort of. He flew to Mars in twelve minutes. Crazy, huh? Check this out.” She flicked her bracelet. Twelve Minutes to Mars. The photo showed James Hayden propped up in a hospital bed, wearing a neck brace, giving a thumbs up. “It says the tech’s at least three years out, but can you imagine? Instead of twenty-six days, you could be home in twelve hours.” A white cat sprang onto her lap and she stroked its fur. “Okay, looks like Halley wants to say hi, too. Well, I miss you. I’ll check the feed for flares, and may need to bump our time tomorrow. Talk to you soon.”
Kyan smiled and tagged the ultrasound. “Rios, give me a hard copy of that.” He slid the photo into the elastic board beside his chair. A dozen other photos were nestled there, pictures of him and Harmony wearing backpacks, family photos of him, Harmony and Lake during the holidays, when Lake was still his wife, and a dog-eared postcard with azure ocean water lapping over bare feet. Getting Away from It All.
He did a quick once over. A little silver stubble, but acceptable. “Hey, kiddo. Bummer about the flares. Rios updated comms lo
ss to Monday. How are you feeling? Have you felt the baby move yet? I have a million questions.” He tapped the interface and a new window showed orbital diagrams. Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, all on one side of the sun and the Aristarchus on the other. “Not too much to report. I’ve got my final images of Sedna. Today I’ll switch to Eris, then it’s Oort cloud cataloguing and heliopause measurements for the next eight days. You know, I’m not looking forward to comms loss, but it’s awesome for sensors. I’ll be at the quietest place in the system.” Kyan glanced at the family photo. “And for today’s musical selection I’ve got one that me and your mom listened to a million times when she was pregnant. Classic 50’s progressive rock.” The opening chords of Farther strummed in. “Enjoy. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you.” He sent the message and stared at the Addison logo a minute before a sweet scent reset his attention. “Okay, Rios, what’s on the docket for today?”
“Breakfast. I’ve got some eggs and french toast heated for you. It’s the most important meal of the day.”
“Really? Going with the mom approach today?”
Rios’s voice was full of inflection. It was hard to believe he wasn’t sentient. “Addison parameters, crew health.”
“Okay, so, after breakfast?”
“Reposition the drones for Eris imaging. Review night log anomalies.” Rios paused. “Would you like to know about the anomalies?”
Kyan leaned his head on a bent arm. “Do I have to say it?”
“Three visual occultations during wide-field imaging. Would you like to review them now?”
“Just put them on the screen already.”
Three circled stars appeared, each turning black as an object passed before it. Infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and radio data accompanied the images. Object one was fifty degrees kelvin with moderate reflectivity. Distance was unknown. Rios guessed it was a scattered disc object, and Kyan confirmed. Object two had similar properties. Object three, though, was unexpected.
“You ran sensor diagnostics?”
“Twice. Sensors are within norm.”
No reflectivity, temperature near cosmic background radiation. As far as the sensors could tell, it was a hole in space passing in front of a star. Except it wasn’t a hole. Even a black hole would have some sensor data.
“Any ideas?”
“I checked microwave and x-ray wide field imaging, and found occultations along the same flight line. Based on parallax, it’s probably close, less than half an AU.”
Kyan scratched his cheek. “Okay, retask the drones along the flight line and configure for narrow field imaging. Let’s log it for now.”
“Logged as Unidentified Scattered Disc Object 235C. We need twenty hours of Eris imaging. It’ll add another mission day if we retask.”
He glanced at the ultrasound and back to the unidentified object. Now seventy mission days. It was tempting to just forget about it, log it as an unknown, but he was curious, and curiosity was one of the main things that brought him out here. “Proceed. Let’s also try a radar burst and see what we can see. Can’t hurt.” He unclicked his harness and stood. One-quarter gravity was similar to the Moon, and he bounded like an Apollo-era astronaut. “I’m going to grab some breakfast while everything gets positioned.”
“We seem to have a mystery.”
“I know,” Kyan said, emerging from the transit tube. “Isn’t it great?”
2
Contact
Freefallin’ with my eyes closed reachin’ for a hold. The music blared through the cabin, guitar chords cranking loud enough that vibrations displaced objects in the ship’s microgravity. Kyan sang along as he sat cross-legged in the maintenance bay, one of the drones sitting in pieces at his feet. They’d lost USDO235C despite their earlier retasking. The radar pulse was now seven light-hours out, long past the half AU where the object was last seen. So on to plan B, which involved taking things apart. It was Rios’s idea to recall drone one, remove the x-ray and microwave arrays, and swap in the short range advanced infrared module. The other drones returned to Eris duty.
“Kyan,” Rios said.
Burnin’ up, glowin’ bright, Kyan sang, picking up a screw with the magnetic driver tip.
“Kyan, may I turn the music down? It will be easier to talk.”
“No you may not. This is one of the best songs ever written. 2050 was a great year for music. Red Mania. The Insomniacs. Those were some awesome concerts.”
“I notice your vocal patterns are more stressed lately.”
He glanced at the ceiling. Rios’s voice came from there, so it seemed the place to look. “Meaning?”
“You’re grumpier than usual. I monitor crew health. Are you reacting to the news of becoming a grandfather?”
Kyan slipped and fumbled the driver. It bounced off the floor and sailed into the air. He reached for it and missed. “Okay, we’ve talked about comms privacy.”
“The ultrasound file was clearly tagged. It was impossible for me to receive the file without being aware of its content.”
The driver drifted in a lazy arc and Kyan snatched it. He took a deep breath and resumed his work. “No, the grandfather thing isn’t the problem.” It still sounded odd, saying it. “The problem is that I’ve been out here thirty-five days and I’m going a little stir crazy.” The driver whirled. “And I’m really not looking forward to comms loss.”
“This is a common issue with long duration flights. If you agree, I can help. Addison has a counselor available. I can send a request now, and we can have a have an initial session before comms loss.”
He snapped the module into place. “No, I don’t need a counselor. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it.”
“There are several library programs available for—“
“Let’s just concentrate on this.” He closed the top panel, tightened a dozen screws, and evaluated the drone. It was a gunmetal beach-ball-sized sphere with a dozen bumps and lenses. The silver Addison logo reflected his face, stretched as if viewed through a fisheye lens. “Okay, ping it.”
Red lights blinked twice and changed to white, strobing in unison. A side display scrolled startup icons.
“Receiving power-on report,” Rios said. “All functions verified. Telemetry looks good.”
“Let’s get it in the launcher.” He slipped two hands under the drone and attempted to stand into a squat.
“Wait—“
Kyan’s face flushed, the drone raised three centimeters, then he dropped it. He blew out a deep breath. “Cut engines to point zero five gee, ten-second step down.” His hand slid behind his back.
“Acknowledged. Are you injured?”
The floor eased up on Kyan’s feet. He reached down, scooped the drone and slowly lifted it. Now it didn’t have much weight, but it still had plenty of inertia. He guided it over to an open rack which looked like something from a bowling alley. “No.” He straightened up. “Okay, yes. I’m going to the dispensary…I don’t know…to get something.”
“Why didn’t you use the hoist?”
“I thought at one-quarter gee it would be light enough to lift. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Can I suggest—“
“No.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Look, I know you’re only trying to help. I don’t mean to be short with you.” He opened his eyes and pushed off. The microgravity was nearly indistinguishable from zero gee. “Anyway, good idea swapping the AMOIRS mod. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
An unexpected pause. “Thank you. Hopefully the object is still within range.”
Kyan ascended into the core junction, caught a handhold on the floor, and pulled himself starboard. The wall to his right fanned into a triad of semicylindrical rooms. A rectangle of buzzing UV lights bracketed the nearest doorframe. He passed through them, caught the wall tether, and eased to a halt. The dispensary was hospital white and wouldn’t have been out of place in an emergency room. He found the muscle relaxants, swished a bulb of water in his mou
th, and swallowed the pill. “So, you’re thinking we’ll pick up the bow shock?”
“Well, if we can’t see it, we can look for what it affects. Anything it collides with must get warmer. We might be able to see a thermal tail, and follow the tail to the origin.”
He placed his hand on his lower back and exhaled. “Don’t get old, Rios.”
“I’m not sure what to say to that.”
“Well, me neither. Is the launcher ready?”
“It is.”
“Engines at zero. Launch drone.” A push and he left the dispensary. A tug and he ascended towards the habmod. The drone’s launch echoed through the ship, but it was the chirp from the port comms module that caught his attention.
“Comms contact,” Rios said. “Wide-beam. Alpha-numeric only.”
Kyan glanced at his watch. 14:43. Nearly three in the morning back home. “A contact out here?”
A few moments later he settled into the command chair and reached for his hat, but he was still wearing it. A tap on the interface and the Addison logo glowed against a blue screen. Another impatient tap and the message displayed:
Watts - Picked up your radar pulse on passives. Nice to have company so far from home. What brings you to the edge of nowhere?
“Another runner?” He blinked. “How far is the pulse now?”
“Sixty point four AU.”
“So, they could be anywhere between here and Neptune.”
“Halfway, to allow time for response, but wide-beam suggests origin is less than ten AU. Based on dispersion, I can narrow the possible field.”
Hayden's World Shorts, Stories 1-3: 43 Seconds, Signal Loss, Aero One Page 4