Catapulted from the launch bay, the shuttle rotated and dove under the bell of the Sea Wolf, on its way to the rocky debris field outside. Sleek as far as shuttles go, and not without a few surprise weapons hidden under its antiquated-looking hull, it spewed out blue exhaust in its wake as the thrusters ignited to full acceleration. On its side, painted in black lettering, were the words Merciless Errands.
The vessel continued its trek past the underbelly of its mother ship until it finally cleared it at the far end. Free from the shadows, it was greeted by sunlight that shimmered across its metallic hull.
Julius sat behind the controls of Merciless Errands. Its cockpit was spacious as far as shuttles went, with a copilot seat and a living area to the rear with bunks. The cockpit was enveloped by a holographic viewscreen, its images showing their environment as well as symbols and navigation information.
An open trap door on the floor led down into the engine compartment. From it, he could hear the continued commotion that began the minute they launched.
“Quit your whining, Murdock,” Julius said. “Can you stabilize it or not?”
“Damn it, Julius-- you’re crazy! I can’t see shit with this helmet on and you want me to work on this while you’re flying.”
“Nobody said you had to wear a helmet. If it bothers you, take it off like I did mine.”
“No way,” Murdock said. “I’m not going to die from decompression when this thing hits something from this stupid stunt of yours.”
Julius turned his attention back to their surroundings. Islands of debris drifted around them, forming dense pockets of asteroids and other space junk. In the distance, he could see the dense debris wall. The wall of debris seemed to move on its own, as if some invisible conveying system was at work.
Unseen by the eye, gravity streams pushed and pulled everything in its paths. The strange anomaly stretched out for several thousand kilometers beyond the ships home position, creating a camouflage that outside sensors could not penetrate.
The streams went in multiple directions, with some of the paths intersecting and crossing each other. This created constant collisions among the rocks and junk. Clouds of space dust traversed the empty pockets.
The unpredictable nature of the debris fields kept scientists and other interested parties away from it, leaving it for Julius and Laina to use as a secret base.
The path through it was a closely guarded secret that only Julius and the pilots knew. The Sea Wolf itself had a precisely plotted jump coordinate to a cleared-out area of the field. Once inside, the mother ship was effectively shielded and protected by the surrounding streams.
Julius maneuvered the shuttle in between two large asteroids that were on a collision course with each other. The ship slipped in between the two boulders, skidding to within a mere meter of touching them.
He looked at the rear display and could see the two boulders collide with each other behind them. Julius smiled. It was probably fortunate for Murdock that he did not see Julius pull that maneuver.
Ahead he could see the debris wall drew nearer. At that moment he felt a hard shudder.
“Shit!” Murdock shouted from below.
“What just happened?” Julius said.
“The starboard propulsion nozzle is locked!” Murdock said. “The port one is compensating, but you won’t be able to navigate the streams like this.”
A collision warning beeped on his instrumentation. Ahead, Julius could see their shuttle driving toward an island of debris. Compensating for the locked thruster, Julius managed to skid around the debris unharmed. He could hear the sound of debris pebbles bouncing off the hull as they escaped the collision.
“What was that?” Murdock said.
“Relax, just a little bit of rain. But we’re approaching the first stream, so you better get that thruster stabilized. I’ll compensate manually for now.”
“You’re insane, Julius!”
Julius gripped the control stick with one hand and operated the throttle controls with the other. He was pleased to have analog controls in his hands instead of the holographic variety. The panels were the old liquid-crystal type with variable gauges and monitors displayed two-dimensionally. Julius did not mind the older technology; he’d grown up on it, after all. It also reminded him of his days as a fighter jockey back in the UEP military.
The ship suddenly rolled and skidded on its own. Julius tried to compensate with the other thrusters, but the shuttle continued to move erratically. He looked at the projected course plot on the navigation screen reticule. A few light pockets of debris stood in the path. He rotated the course plot to see if changing their z-axis position would give them a better course. However, the other courses were not favorable without full control of the ship.
“Murdock, how much longer on that thruster?” he said.
“I don’t know if I can fix it from here. I think it’s the navigation controller, and that’s not in here.”
“Where’s the navigation controller?”
“Outside,” Murdock said. “On the starboard—aft panel. You’ll have to shut off the engines and stabilize us first before we can attempt a fix.”
Julius tapped a few keys on the panels, a buzz sounded. He tried again and got the same response.
“I can’t shut off the starboard nozzle,” he said. “Would the controller affect that?”
Murdock climbed out of the lower compartment and walked to the forward controls. He tapped a few keys and scowled.
“Shit! The backup controller isn’t working either!” He stopped and swore again. “Of course it’s not! You never had one! It was already burned out when you got your hands on this piece of shit!”
Julius looked at the current course plot; it would take them to the debris wall within minutes if they could not stop it. He turned off the computer assists and went to full manual control. Applying thrust to the port thrusters, he caused the shuttle to move in a continuous loop. It would still be a matter of time before a stray rock would cross their path.
“We need to hurry,” Julius said. “You need to talk me through fixing the navigation controller.”
“What? Just turn off the power to all the engines!”
“Turning them off would not slow us down,” Julius said. “We’d still have enough momentum to smash into the debris field wall, unless we can get complete control of all the thrusters.” He reached over to his helmet and began to fasten it on.
“You’re going outside?” Murdock said.
“Of course,” he said. “Give me the tools I’ll need… now!”
Murdock rushed into the compartment and pulled out a metal rod with a tiny touch panel on it.
“Here,” he said, handing him the tool. “If you connect this to the controller, I can upload a fresh copy of the firmware remotely. That should reset the controller and give us back control of the thrusters.”
Julius grabbed the tool and shoved it into one of his suit pockets. He then walked over to the airlock and stepped inside. The door shut behind him.
“Link check,” he said into the conference channel.
“Yeah, I read you,” Murdock replied.
Julius attached the retractable lifeline to his suit and gave it a hard tug. He then tapped the airlock control panel inside. The lights in the airlock turned red and a timer counted down from ten seconds on the panel.
He checked his suit gauges and waited for the outside door to open. The countdown hit zero. The pressure doors slid open, revealing his ocean— the ocean of space.
Julius stepped forward, his magnetic grip boots keeping him planted to the ship. He reached the outside and could feel the lightness of zero-g pick him up as he slowly left the artificial gravity field of the shuttle.
He placed his first step out of the airlock and onto the ship’s hull. He swung his entire body out of the airlock and let the magnetic boots lock him into place.
Standing on the port side of the ship, he felt the momentum of the shuttle push him down into the
hull. He struggled for a moment to keep his knees from immediately giving way. It had been a long time since he had been on a space walk and he had forgotten what it felt like.
Regaining his balance, he took a moment to look at his surroundings. The grandness of mostly empty space greeted him. Despite being surrounded by the debris phenomena, he could still see the stars and distant nebula seep through the veil of rock.
Julius focused his eyes to the distant beauty beyond the debris. For a brief moment, he could see the ugliness of the debris contrasted against the beauty of the stars. It was as if someone had drawn a yin and yang symbol onto the canvas of space for him.
A piece of space junk, drifted close to him, snapping him out of his reverie. Something about the piece caught his eye. It was apparently moving on a similar course as the shuttle. Reflexively, he grabbed it before it drifted away. It appeared to be a sheet of metal hull plating. He angled the sheet toward the ambient light of the sun and noticed military markings on it. He could not read it, but he could run it by the computer later to identify it. He attached a belt line from his suit to it and tugged it along with him the rest of the way.
Julius made it to the starboard side of the shuttle. Once at the edge, he had to be careful to firmly plant his boots onto the hull as the reduced gravity from the dive could easily launch him into space. Another few steps and he would be there.
As he walked, Julius half expected a chunk of debris to whack the back of his head. This whole thing could have been avoided if he had waited for Murdock to fix the ship before launching, but that would have been too predictable. He had become accustomed to the constant repetition of life. The last decade felt like a recording played back on a loop. He always wished for something to break the endless cycle, even if it hurt a little.
“Okay, Murdock,” he said as he reached the panel. “I’m there. How do I open it?”
“There’s a release button next to it. It should be colored green. Just press it for five seconds.”
Julius reached down carefully and depressed the button, holding it down. He counted off more than five seconds, but nothing appeared to happen.
“Not working, Murdock,” he said.
“Shit!” Murdock swore. “I don’t know—it has to open! Do it again.”
Julius reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his flicker pistol.
“Any danger in using a flicker pistol on this?”
“Yes! You’re right near the fuel cell! If it goes too deep, you could blow us up! Don’t do it!”
Julius adjusted the pistol’s setting and aimed it at the panel.
“Murdock, do you know what’s worse than being killed by sudden decompression?”
A glowing blue beam of accelerated protons shot out of his pistol and ignited the panel. It flew off in pieces.
“Being forced to live in a loop,” Julius said in answer to his own question.
Julius pulled the metal rod tool out of his pocket with his free hand.
“The panel is off. Now, what do I do with the tool?”
“I hate you, Julius. Hell… Anyway, there should be a hole it fits into. Just slide it in. Tell me when you’ve done that.”
Julius leaned forward toward the panel. It had a large hole in the center surrounded by various smaller ones. He slid the tool into the large hole. The end of the tool lit up when it was all the way in.
“It’s in,” he said.
Julius turned to his right and looked at the midsection of the shuttle. He could see the starboard thruster going out.
Without warning, he felt his feet go under him as the ship pushed heavily against him. Julius fought to keep his footing, but both magnetic boots lost their grip on the hull. He threw his arms forward to try to grab the hull but he was already drifting past the ship. Julius held onto his lifeline as hard as he could; he knew what would be coming next.
The lifeline’s slack gave way and it snapped him hard, making his body do a complete turnaround, facing the shuttle. The line broke his momentum and he was now drifting about twenty meters away from the shuttle.
“Murdock, pull me in!”
The lifeline began to retract and pull him to the airlock. Once inside, he laid the metal sheet on the floor and touched the airlock controls. The outside door closed and the airlock began to pressurize. The inner door opened and he took off his helmet.
Julius picked up the metal sheet he’d snagged and inspected it further. It was light for its size and seemed to have been part of a ship’s hull plating.
“What is that?” Murdock asked.
“Something I found out there,” Julius said. “A piece of hull plating.”
“Well, is it worth something?” Murdock said.
“Not to you, but it does have sentimental value. It might make a good gift.”
Murdock gave Julius a puzzled look.
“We’ve had enough fun out here,” Julius said. “Let’s continue to Deimos-1.”
Chapter 3: Transient Motions
“We now embark on a new age. What was once known as the Internet is now an Ocean of knowledge that we bring to the cold dark of space.”
Lewis Edwards I, Co-founder of Omega Research Corporation, July 2046