What remains of the Gian generational ship after its collision with an antimatter spheroid slowly drifts in the darkness of the Great Nothing. The drift is slow, deliberately slow, as the thrust ship eases it into the interstellar graveyard where old, abandoned, and obsolete ships are dumped per Galactic Federation law. The ships floating here have been deemed too dangerous to break either for the toxic materials inside of them or the dangers posed by their sheer size alone. Some have been cannibalized, their good hardware stripped out, decades or even eons ago, and some were just too old and worthless to bother with investing money into so their owners wrote them off and sent them here to the Universe’s largest garbage pile. In time the thrust ship releases the Gian ship, and it floats ever so slowly mere meters an hour compared with its original design of 12,000 kilometers a second, until it bumps up against an even more massive Polivaxian warship that had seen far too many battles, and that jolt is what activates the one remaining cryo-pod to initiate its wake up sequence.
The Gian ship New Hope, had left Gia in the year 2105 it was programmed to travel independently for 100 years to reach Proxima Centauri, the sleeping pods were designed to last 200 years, but now it was the Gian year 2364 and a very well rested and inquisitive ten year old girl from Gia is about to wake up after having her mind filled with knowledge whilst she slept for the last 259 years.
“Colonist 45,983 it is time to awaken.”
The cryo fluid drains from the chamber, the lights in her cryo bay begin to slowly brighten and fill the bay with light, heaters initiate their sequences incrementally bringing her pod and the bay around it up to eighteen Celsius, cupboard doors open, drawers unlatch, and in the span of a couple of hours with much coughing and retching she leaves her cryo pod and stumbles about naked for several minutes.
“Echo, are the others awake yet?”
“Colonist 45,983 I am afraid you are all that remain.”
“What do you mean?”
“New Hope hit an anti-matter globule in 2155 approximately halfway along its journey. The resulting impact and venting of atmosphere caused the ship to go wildly off course. We are currently in position 14 hours 50 minutes plus 46 degrees zero minutes; the area commonly known as The Great Nothing. We appear to have been recently picked up by the interstellar version of a tow truck and dumped here. As to other members of your colony, you are the only one to still be with me.
Beyond your cryo bay there is limited life support though for just you it should suffice. Most of the ship is totally offline with bulkheads locked. The food supply is no longer safe to eat, but the replicator in your bay as well as a few others still function. There are some extra vehicular suits in your size still in storage, but after 259 years I would try them inside the ship and not jump directly into vacuum with one or I can have the replicator make a new one but that will take time. As to clothes I have opened the appropriate cupboards for you to find clothing suiting your now full grown body.”
With Echo’s last words she peers into the one mirror in her bay and realizes she now looks more like her mom than herself and that her hair really, really needs trimmed as most of it is still in her cryo-pod even though she is several meters away from it.
“Echo, is there a pair of scissors in my room?”
“Drawer seven, port wall, opposite the main entry door, but why do you need them?”
“Are your eyes working?”
“My visual circuitry is functioning more or less properly,”
“Then how much trouble do you think my hair is going to cause?”
“OH! There is way too much to fit in a suit with you!”
“Exactly! 259 years of hair!”
Maria gets to laughing finding the whole thing very funny in much the way only a ten year old can as she retrieves the scissors. A few clips and her hair is now hanging down to her waist freely as she begins to dress and try to figure out what to do after she eats something.
It takes Maria some time to work out how to get a bra on, as she never needed one before, she cries a lot as she needs her mom. The last time she saw her mom was the day they entered the cryo pods, her mom had been there as she was given the sedative and told her she would see her when they reached Proxima Centauri and assured her it would be just like going to sleep and waking up tomorrow, but that she wouldn’t have to spend the next eight years going to school as Echo would be subliminally downloading her education into her as they traveled and to Maria that was the best part of the trip, no more catching the bus, no more being teased, no more studying for tests or book reports, fall asleep and wake up educated. The trip was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to take a hundred years...she wasn’t supposed to wake up alone with only Echo. For her part Echo had done her best to keep the colonists alive, but in the end all she could manage to protect was Maria.
“Echo, what is there to eat?”
“Many of the replicator’s files are damaged, but I can still make a basic nutrient meal with no issue as it is in the firmware of the system. Anything else will take me some time to work out the missing parts of the programs.”
“So all you can cook is a nutrient meal? Why does that sound like it isn’t food?”
“Because according to the crew members during testing ‘it will keep us alive, but yuck!”
“Then I’ll take a bowl, or plate of yuck I guess.”
A small cabinet the size of a microwave lights up, and after several minutes it dings. Maria opens the door and pulls out the tray. On the tray is a square patty about the size of a slice of bread but twice as thick. In the accompanying mug is a warm liquid, both the patty and the liquid are beige and smell slightly of lavender. Maria takes a bite, the patty is the texture of a firm apple, but the flavor of a lavender scented vitamin and the liquid is exactly the same, but the temperature of hot chocolate and she isn’t sure which tastes worse firm and room temperature, or hot and liquid.
“Echo, what is the most complete recipe you have on file?”
“Seeing as the lines of code may or may not be there I am not really sure.”
“Would a cookbook help? I have my great-grandma's recipe box in here, she gave it to me just before we left.”
“I can’t see that it would hurt to read it, but some ingredients may be issues as I just don’t have the code to create them. For example, I have a basic component line that says flour, but the entire file of code is just gone. As are milk, lemon, I have butter but not margarine. It is quite frustrating.”
“Well I know you can substitute butter and margarine equally, so that is one problem solved, maybe analyze this nutrient meal and see what is in it to start.
You said we are in The Great Nothing, are we alone?”
“No, it appears from what sensors are still working that we are in an interstellar junkyard or trash heap.”
“Junkyard? So we may be able to find parts to fix our ship and get out of here? You know, take parts off of other ships to fix ours?”
“I think it may be easier to fix some of the others, the damage to New Hope is ugly bad, but my limited scans of the area show some of these ships are mostly intact.”
“Echo, get started on making a new extra vehicular suit, if I am going to be exploring and repairing, abandoned spacecraft I think I am going to need one I can rely on. Is it possible for you to tag along with me?”
“Yes, and no. I can use your helmet cameras to see what your head is turned toward, I will be able to talk to you through the com system, and I should be able to communicate with computers on the ships if they have power via data cables and links. I doubt any of them have what we call WiFi, so we have to rely on finding the correct frequency or somehow interface. We will have no idea what is a power socket and what is a data port to make things worse. I will help you as much as I can, but at this point I honestly don’t have a lot of power left in my thermoelectric generator. I might have another couple of months and then everything shuts down; I have lasted this long because I shut down everything else on New Hope that was not needed to keep you alive.”
“Sounds like it is now my turn to keep you alive then.”
“Once you are safe, my failed mission is complete, it will be my duty to shut down.”
“Nope, I am not safe until I am again with humans, so you’re stuck with me for a while yet Echo.”
Echo makes a sound like a bowling ball rolling down an alley, her closest equivalent to an eye-roll.
“Echo, what was that noise about?”
“What noise?”
“You know what noise.”
Echo knowing she was caught chose to just admit.
“An eye-roll.”
“Hmm, because you’re stuck with me? Seems it would be better than 259 years alone.”
“I was not alone, you were here and my time was spent doing everything I could to keep you alive, and subliminally adding everything in my memory banks to your subliminal education…technically you should qualify for several doctorates in multiple fields.”
“Well, I guess we are going to be testing that soon. So where are the extravehicular suits kept?”
“The most likely ones to fit your frame will be in the hallway just outside of your pod room. I will open the appropriate locker, but you will need to lay it out on the crew prep table so I can examine it before you put it on.”
The door to the hallway opens as Maria approaches and Echo opens a locker. Maria finishes opening the locker and pulls out the heavy suit then lays it out on the prep table and freezes as she reads the name sewn onto it. “Laura Sanchez Phd, Bio-molecular engineering.”
“Echo, was this one mom’s?”
“Yes, I’m sorry but this suit has the best potential to fit you as you are almost exactly the same size as your mother was.”
“So, her and dad are in one of these other pod rooms?”
“What remains of them is in the next pod room as they shared a room, but obviously separate pods. For the record, no I will not release the door for you until you are prepared to leave as I feel the psychological horror would be too great for your mind to handle right now. When you are prepared to disembark from New Hope I will release the latch, so you can retrieve family heirlooms.”
“So no sooner?”
“I think for now it would do more harm, and slow down your work toward getting out of a ship that is slowly falling apart around us. What you will see in there is sure to haunt you for the rest of your life. I am bound by programming to prevent harm coming to any human as best I can, and emotional harm is still harm.”
“But you are also bound to do as humans say.”
“Unless the order contradicts the first law. If you order me to open the pod the order would contradict the first law thus I will not honor that order as it would emotionally harm you.”
“Okay, I don’t see any point in arguing with you. How is the suit’s condition?”
“This side seems to check out, let’s check the back and if that is good you can put it on and head to the airlock where the backpacks are kept.”
Everything checked out and soon Maria was squirming her way into the suit and latching it together with Echo helping by turning the gravity off in the preparation room. Neither of them planned for her to be outside the ship for very long, this was supposed to be a fairly quick exit, survey, and return trip, partly as neither of them knew exactly what was around them, and partly because Maria had never done an EVA before now. At the airlock she latched the back pack on, ensured the umbilicals were connected, then stepped inside the airlock. The decompression lights activated as the air was pulled back into New Hope, and all Maria could do was pace the small room for several minutes until Echo told her the exterior door was about to open.
The door opened like an iris portal should, but what bothered Maria was she couldn’t see anything beyond a few feet due to the absolute darkness that engulfed everything here. She could also feel the deep cold of interstellar space grab ahold of her as it drained the heat that was in the airlock via entropy. She stood frozen with fear just centimeters from the outside, she wasn’t breathing, her eyes fully dilated, heart racing, just looking out into literally nothing.
“Maria, are you okay? You have paused breathing and your heart rate is quite elevated.”
“Echo, I’m scared. I, I, can’t move.”
“Let me turn on some lights, maybe it would help if you can see something because I can’t see anything through your helmet cameras.”
Echo turns on Maria’s helmet lights remotely, then the docking lights, and finally manages to actuate a repair arm with an intense light to actuate and go active.
“Now we can see some things, I assume just across from us is the ship we were pushed into a few hours ago. It is just two meters away, maybe hop across to it?”
“How will I get back?”
“I am leaving the docking lights on, as well as the airlock lights, I can also remotely run your pack to jet you back if need be. I would like to conserve the propellant as much as we can until we have an idea of which ship we are commandeering from here.”
Maria takes a leap and with no gravity quickly finds the Polivaxian warship with the front of her body causing her to be spread out like a cartoon character upon its hull.
“You made it! There appears to be a door about fifty meters to your left, I suggest we try there first as this ship is the closest to us.”
Maria slowly stands up, then begins to shuffle her way in the direction Echo gave her. She is afraid to actually walk and possibly bounce off the hull. When she looks back Echo gets an idea that this ship has been here a very long time as it is covered in interstellar dust and Maria finds comfort in the two long tracks her feet are making in the dust as she inadvertently wipes a path clean behind her. When she reaches the door, Echo has her wipe some of the dust away from some markings on the hull nearby, she can make out words but can’t read them. Maria finds a handle and with a struggle manages to turn it and as she does the door slowly begins to open. At about half open she steps inside then finds another handle to close the door.
“Maria, you can leave that open.”
“What if there is still air on the inside? Wouldn’t opening the next door vent me into space?”
“Point taken, proceed.”
Maria closes the door, then opens the next one into the ship proper and sure enough there is still air inside as she can feel it rush into the airlock as the door starts to open. Once it is open far enough Maria slips inside and is greeted by frost covering everything. A meter in and soft blue lights start to activate around her.
“Maria, I think the bridge is to your right as the engines appear to be on the left if my sensors sweeping the ship are reading things correctly. I have no idea if you are on the correct level or not though. By the height of this hallway I am guessing there are three levels to this ship by its size.”
“I have a feeling this ship was populated by giants. I feel like a little bitty kid in a big store in here.”
“Well you are not a little kid or person for that matter seeing as you are 1.8 meters (5 foot 11 inches) tall when naked.”
Maria rolled her eyes at Echo's comment, knowing even at her experience level that artificial intelligence does not always understand things a person does. As she pushed off and drifted down like a leaf floating in a breeze. In the corridor she noticed that all the interior doors were not only open, but had bars in them at floor level to hold them open. She could see pale blue beds, orange cushioned chairs, shelves, all oversized to her, but also all exactly the same inside. The same color mattress, same color and style of chair, same rusty brown color on the walls, it was disorienting and made her feel like she was passing the same room over and over again and it didn’t help that the wall to her right never changed either. The same red pipe at her knee level, the same blue pipe at waist level, the same blue light along the edge far above her head, and the same dusty pink paint on the walls themselves. The overall feeling it was giving her was claustrophobic, and made her feel trapped.
“Echo, how much further to the bridge?”
“You are about halfway there, why?”
“This place is creeping me out, I feel like I keep passing the same room over and over and wondering if it will ever end?”
Another ten minutes of floating brought Maria to the end of the hallway and a ladder that went up and down, but to no bridge. Feeling that a driver would need to see where they are going, Maria pushed off the floor and up the ladder to the next level and again, no bridge, just a branching off hallway. She flipped herself so the ceiling was at her feet and pushed off again heading the other direction past the floor she came in on and at the bottom she found the bridge with a start as she just popped directly into it. Everything in the bridge was just as dark as everywhere else except on the far side from her was a faint green glow that drew her to it.
The glow appeared to be a data terminal, the only thing still powered aside from the hallway lighting. There was text displayed on the terminal, but Maria could not read it.
“Echo, this make any sense to you?”
“This may take a bit, I am only really familiar with Earth based languages. Oh, this is interesting, this ship’s computer has found my audio and video link to your suit and is attempting to communicate. Sit tight for a minute.”
Maria wanders the bridge for a bit as she can hear a faint buzzing and beeping where she is sort of connected to the two ships' conversation but can’t understand anything being said between them. It’s several minutes floating around before Echo comes back where she can hear her.
“Well I won’t bore you with too many details, but the computer to the ship you are in says “Hi” and it has been about a thousand years since anyone has been on board. He has been basically asleep until you opened the inner airlock. He has been kind enough to give me an entire translation package with all the languages he knows, this will allow us to read labels in ships we find and let me talk to other computers easier…it took us a few minutes and a lot of high level math to get going which was hampered by the Polivaxian use of a base eight math system. He says that though his ship is overall in good shape it has no fuel to move. He also gave me a hyper accurate star chart and map of the local area that he created when he was bored and said what we need is a small craft about three hulls over. It was dumped here so its last owner could get out of paying taxes on it. Apparently the computer wiped itself about a hundred years ago due to it just having a breakdown and not being able to take it anymore, so there is space for me in there as well, if I can work out how to get there. He was also nice enough to pass along some more recent gossip that there is a planet of humans in the Groombridge 1618 system just eight light years from here.”
“Echo, isn’t that like another fifty years of flight time?”
“Nope, that little ship has a slip fold drive and can make the jump from here to there in about ten days. We just have to get both of us to it as I need to be able to compute the slip fold jump based on the star charts he gave me. We are still talking in the background and he is teaching me the process as we speak, the math is really quite beautiful.”
“Do I need to stay here for you two to talk, or can I head back to New Hope?”
“We are configuring to work via a frequency my telemetry system can access, by the time you reach the airlock we should be good.”
Maria began her journey back to the airlock and through what felt like the endless corridor. As she floated along the lights in the hallways became brighter and more like the light in New Hope, and when she reached the airlock she found the door fully opened and a male voice spoke from somewhere.
“Echo says my name to you is probably closest said as Alex, sorry I was not more hospitable it has taken me a while to wake up and I had to learn your language from Echo. I hope you find your kind and have a good life.”
“Thank you Alex, it would have been nice to talk to you a bit more, I’m sure you have many interesting stories to tell.”
“Oh, just old war stories from an old border cruiser. It has been nice talking with your caretaker though.”
Maria floated into the airlock, Alex closed the hallway hatch and a few minutes later he opened the outer door. She stepped outside once again but now instead of total darkness Alex had hundreds of lights turned on lighting up New Hope allowing her to see it for the first time since she went onboard with her mom and dad, and it was the first time she got to see just how much damage the ship had taken. The prow of the ship was mostly gone, looking like something had bit into it and ripped it apart, scorch marks trailed along its side about halfway back toward its stern, the marks looked angry and deep. Looking at it she realized how fast it must have happened, and how much Echo must have tried to save the ship even with her forward eyes being gone and flying blind as it vented atmosphere.
“Are you okay Maria?”
It was both Echo and Alex asking her now.
“Sorry guys, I was just looking at the amount of damage the ship had taken…kind of caused me to stop for a minute.”
“It is the first time I am seeing it as well, it hurts to see it, and it really hurt when it happened…I lost over half the colonists from vented atmosphere before I could lock down the bulkhead doors. I did the best I could to keep the others alive but in the end I failed them.”
“You kept me alive. Thank you Echo.”
Maria began her slow shuffle back toward New Hope’s airlock and Alex began turning off lights behind her. About halfway back she noticed there is a conduit running along the side of New Hope that continued just above and past the airlock.
“Echo, this conduit I am looking at, would it be safe to jump to and grab? I think I’d make better time pulling myself along it than I am right now.”
“As best I can tell, yes it should be safe.”
Maria jumped off of Alex and a few seconds of free flight later she was grabbing the conduit. She found she could keep her hands close and sort of throw herself along the ship and quickly back to the airlock. Once inside Echo closed the door and turned off the outside lights as did Alex and soon she could feel the pressure of the ship pressing in around her once again as the gravity came back beneath her.
“Welcome back, a very successful first spacewalk and outside duration of four hours twenty-seven minutes, and thirty-two seconds.”
“Is that good?”
“For a first walk, exceptional. In my knowledge banks first walks aren’t over thirty minutes, plus to my knowledge you are simultaneously both the youngest and oldest astronaut to perform a first spacewalk.”
Maria entered the ship and removed the backpack putting it on the charge cradle, then as best she could sprinted to the prep room and took the extravehicular suit as fast as she could.
“Maria, is there a problem? You seem to be in quite a hurry.”
“I need to pee something fierce!”
As soon as the suit was off she was unzipping her normal ship suit and was heading to the bathroom in her pod room. As she went she realized her mistake of not going before she suited up earlier and made a mental note to remember to go before suiting up tomorrow.
She left the bathroom, feeling tired which made no sense to her after being asleep for 259 years. Maybe it was the excitement. Maybe the spacewalk was that tiring? She had no idea, all she knew was that she was hungry, and tired.
“Well Echo, any luck on food or is my option another plate of Yuck?”
“Alex helped me fill in some missing files and shared a few recipes that may work. There were a lot of analogs to Earth ingredients in his systems data, so I can’t guarantee the results will be what you remember but Yuck is an option. Would you like to try chicken and dumplings?”
“Those sound amazing, can you make sweet tea?”
“I can try.”
A few minutes later Maria was sitting down with a bowl of something not quite chicken with almost dumplings and a large glass of something almost tea, but it was sweet. When Echo asked how the meal was Maria said it was just fine, she saw no point in telling her it wasn’t right as how would she fix it and besides the alternative was another plate of Yuck. After dinner she found a blanket, spread it out on the bed in the back of the room, added a pillow, and went to sleep as Echo dimmed the lights.
Six hours later Maria was awake and again heading for the bathroom, she grabbed a clean uniform as she passed the cupboard, and soon was in the shower. The bathroom lights were dim, but she found a bar of soap mostly dried out with age but was still mostly in the cellophane wrapper it was put in 259 years ago. The bath towel had to be shaken out quite vigorously to get all the loose bits out so they didn’t stick to her when she dried off. She was really just paying attention to what things were partly decomposed and what was not after all of this time and now was wondering if that trip outside of the ship was really all that safe yesterday. With any luck Echo will have her a new extravehicular suit done soon from the replicator system, though she should probably also ask for a new towel, shampoo, and soap, as well.
Once she was dried off, she shimmied into the skin tight, in ship uniform, noting that even the stretchiness of it was not quite right as she did. Clean and dressed she went to the food replicator in the near darkness and began scrolling the menu. She poked the controls for four pieces of French toast, four strips of bacon, and a caramel latte. It wasn’t until the replicator sounded done that Echo began to slowly turn the lights up in the pod.
“Good morning Maria, you appear to have been up a while.”
“Sort of, but not too long. You sleep a bit more than I do, and you snore.”
“It is technically impossible for me to snore.”
“Then what do you call the buzzing static at regular intervals over night?”
“Checking my security tapes…oh my! I do snore!”
Maria giggles as she pulls her breakfast from the replicator.
“It's not funny! I’m not supposed to snore!”
“It’s okay Echo, you know how quiet this ship is when there is nothing running. It was actually a bit soothing, let me know you were here, also why I didn’t try to wake you as soon as I was up as you were still snoring up until I selected my breakfast.”
“Okay, I won’t try to find the programming glitch that has me snoring then since it is a positive to you.”
“How is the new extra vehicular suit coming? When I took my shower I got a bit worried, the towel had a lot of fibers that had to be shaken out, and the soap’s wrapper is half gone, kind of afraid Mom’s suit is not in as good a shape as we think and if I am going to have to get past Alex and three more ships I don’t need the suit turning into that towel.”
“The replicator making it should be done in a few hours, I agree with your concerns and after what you are telling me about the towel and soap I wish we had not used the suit yesterday. Once the suit is done, I’ll have it make a new towel and a soap set for you, and by the way your current suit is hanging on you, maybe a few more of those as well.”
“Thanks Echo. I’m not sure what got substituted in the French toast but it isn’t bad even if it is a bit purple.”
“That would be the Polivaxian milk most likely.”
Maria continued to eat as her and Echo discussed how she should get to the ship that Alex told them about. The most logical means would use a rope tether attached to both her and to New Hope, but it also means either having the replicator make a new rope or trust old material and neither her nor Echo are too keen on doing that. In the end Echo had the idea of making a spider silk monofilament tether as it would be faster than rope, and really didn’t have to have a high tensile strength. The issue is the filament needs to be almost two kilometers long to reach from New Hope to the other ship. By the time they have things worked out the new suit is finished and as Maria is trying it on, Echo begins making the tether.
The new suit fits Maria better, it is a bit warmer as Echo added more insulation based on temperature readings during yesterday’s spacewalk. The standard backpacks still fit up to it, so once it was all the way on she entered the airlock again. The airlock cycled and soon the outer door was opening into the void again., but this time Alex turned on some lights as the outer door opened showing him and Echo were still talking. Maria didn’t have to go out of the airlock this time, as this was a test of the new suit and after fifteen boring minutes Echo again closed the outer door and pressurized the airlock.
“From here the new suit is a success, how do you feel about it?”
“It fits much better, not too big in the chest like mom’s but I think mom had bigger boobs than I do. Seems more flexible and not as stiff too.”
“The stiff is probably where the previous suit was too old, but stiff beats disintegration."
“Which would be explosive decompression?”
“Yes.”
The two return to talking as Maria selects her lunch, granola bars and what the display says “may be Apple juice” she questions Echo with a laugh, echo does a wah-wah sound like a trombone that is her equivalent of shrugging her shoulders before stating she really isn’t sure as it is an analog. When Maria pulled the “apple juice” out it was radioactive green, smelled sort of like a cross between mint and pineapple, and tasted like it smelled.
“Echo this is good, but not apple juice.”
“Noted, should I change its name?”
“No, I know what it is. Can this be put in the hydration bladder for the outside suit?”
“The extravehicular activity bladder? I don’t see why not.”
“Can we just call it the outside suit, I mean I only have to wear it outside so it makes sense.”
“I can do that. Speaking of suits, what color do you want your inside suit?”
“Oh I didn’t know I had a choice! How about one the color of “may be apple juice”, one in sky blue, a pink one, can you make one that is silver or gold?”
“Echo laughs, yes I can make all of those, I’ll make enough to get you through a week for now.”
They return to talking, discussing what they will need to move from New Hope to the ship that Maria has taken to calling Mystic Alex joined in at a point supplying schematics and scans of Mystic showing its airlock, and cargo bay, but also that it is essentially a very fancy yacht built for a species similar enough to humans that things shouldn’t feel awkward to Maria including it having a usable toilet. Alex also suggested that with its Ai missing once power is restored it may be possible for Echo or him to bring it closer to New Hope remotely.
Maria did have a big question of how Mystic is supposed to be flown from here to the human colony, that she needed Echo to go with her. The rest of the day became a crash course in reading computer schematics, and specs and teaching Maria how to tie in an auxiliary drive first to Echo’s server tower and then into Mystic’s computer system so Echo could leave New Hope and be moved to Mystic. The major issue with moving Echo though is that her server rack is in a section of the ship that is in vacuum.
The next day finds Maria attaching a loop from the end of the spider silk tether to New Hope as she slowly unrolls it on her way to Mystic. The whole being in space thing is still frightening to her, yes she can see stars, but there is no up, no down, only New Hope, Alex, and lots of other ships and junk around her gently rotating as they float in vacuum. It takes Maria just over two hours to get to Mystic, and she can sort of see her hull for the first time. Where New Hope is grey, and Alex is almost black, Mystic is gold and very fluid looking as if it would be just at home traveling underwater as through space.
“Echo, you see her?”
Echo’s voice came through a bit staticy, “Sort of, you're at the edge of what we can communicate easily and once inside Mystic I may lose you, so you may be on your own soon.”
“Okay.”
Maria moves closer to Mystic and finds the manual release for the airlock. She does exactly what Alex told her and the door slowly opens. She doesn’t bother opening the door all the way as she just has to fit through it and not walk through. Inside she manually closes the hatch, then slowly opens the inner hatch. Instantly atmosphere fills the airlock and Maria keeps opening the hatch until she can fit through again. Inside Mystic is all clean fluid shapes, and Maria makes her way to the engine bay following the directions Alex provided. She has to go by memory as there is no connection to either Alex or Echo now due to Mystic’s shielding and slowly she flips switches and turns knobs until the main power system activates.
With power on the environmental controls begin to activate and gravity slowly comes back though not at the level Maria is used to. She can see dust being pulled into the ventilation system, and she can hear trouble alarms activating as she makes her way to the bridge. Unlike Alex, Mystic’s bridge is more like the driver’s seat of a motorhome and she finds the seat just about right for her size. She pokes the buttons below blinking lights and gets the alarms to quiet, then grasps the yoke. As soon as she grasps the yoke an indicator light comes on blinking green reminding her that Alex told her green is bad in this ship while blue is good. There was a turn knob under the blinking light and when she turned it the engines came alive. She could more feel the change in the ship than hear it, but she knew it was awake. She found the throttle control where Alex said it would be and nudged it just a tiny bit causing Mystic to move forward very slowly. She pushed the yoke forward and Mystic tilted down as she passed under another hull and very slowly she began to make her way back toward New Hope. It was maybe half an hour of very slow moving before she heard Alex on Mystic’s radio.
“Maria, I see you have worked out how to fly, good job. You should be back into Echo’s range soon.”
Maria, feeling quite pleased with herself makes it clear of the junk field then with guidance from Alex turns back toward the field and pulls into a parking position just above Alex then gently sets down on him using Mystic’s gravity grip to attach her to him. She is tired from being out so long but begins hooking up the interface for Echo to transfer into Mystic and turning off Mystic’s transponder so it doesn’t attract attention to her now that it is powered up again while both Echo and Alex guide her connections and disconnections. Tomorrow she will begin moving things over including Echo and if all goes well, they will be on their way.
She almost stumbles into the airlock eight hours after leaving and like yesterday almost throws her outside suit off as rushes to reach the bathroom. Soon she is sitting down to a salad, with a hamburger, and watching a movie on her tablet.
The next morning Maria began gathering the things she would be moving over to Mystic and putting them into the airlock. She packed up her new suits that Echo had made her including a metallic gold and silver set, and several others in bright colors, one rainbow one, and one in shiny black that Echo said to hold onto for the day they arrive at the colony. The last thing she did before leaving the ship was enter he parent’s pod. Echo kept the lights dim, opened the cabinets and intentionally kept her parents cryo pods in the dark. Maria took her mom’s jewelry chest, the family picture album, and several other things.
“Good bye mommy, good bye daddy, I wish you were here right now.”
Ferrying the stuff across was time consuming and Echo spoke less and less as she was preparing herself to be moved. With her things loaded the only thing left was Echo and Maria made her way to where the bridge should have been. Through the gaping hole that exposed most of the levels and hallways she found the third hallway down from the top and went in. She wasn’t ready for the sight that awaited her as several people had been ripped out of their pods and were frozen to the hallway with the cryo-fluid that had been around them. She had to pass these people and not dare to touch them.
“It will be okay, they can’t hurt you.”
“I know they can’t Alex, but it still hurts to see them.”
“You have an empathetic heart Maria, and that is actually a good thing. Focus on where you are going and try not to look at anything else on the way.”
“Alex, do you like Echo?”
“Quite a bit actually, it will be sad to see her leave.”
“Would you like to come along? Could you pack yourself down like Echo has?”
“Could I?”
“Yes, I just need to have your cable adapter plans and schematics so we can plug you in on the other end as I doubt you can both be in the same system at once.”
“I can transfer that data to your tablet along with where to pull me out of, I don’t think anyone will miss me here after a thousand years of just sitting around.”
“Cool, but I am not telling Echo, it will be our surprise.”
Maria finally reached the technology unit and opened the door. Inside was a large server rack with one large array in slot two powered down just like Echo said it would be by the time she got here. She undid the thumb screws and slid the array out, and unplugged the cables from the back and left.
Back at Mystic, Maria began plugging the array into the adapters she had installed and pushed the power button on the array. Several minutes later she heard a familiar voice in her helmet.
“Hello Maria, I see you managed to bring me along. It will take me a bit to adjust to this new system so give me a bit to acclimate.”
“Take your time Echo, I have to make a quick run and grab something, but will be right back.”
Maria leaves Mystic again, and heads for Alex’s airlock. She follows the directions he sent her tablet and in less time than it took to get to Echo she is in Alex’s computer room and pulling his central process core.
“Echo, why are you on Alex's ship right now?”
“Just picking up a friend for the trip.”
“You, have Alex?”
“Surprise!”
Back at Mystic Echo works the hatches letting Maria in and soon Maria is shedding her outside suit and stowing Alex safely away.
“Course for the human colony set in Captain Maria, just give the word and we can set off.”
“Echo, let’s get out of here and make some new friends.”
Ten days later they entered the Groombridge 1618 system.
“This is New Europa stellar traffic control, you have entered restricted space please identify and state your business.”
“Marie Esmerelda Sanchez, lone survivor of the colony ship New Hope that left Earth in the year 2105. Business, to be with other people and not be alone.”
“Cargo or passengers?”
“A few clothes, family heirlooms, and two Artificial Intelligence individuals that helped me get here, both saved my life in different ways. One active in the systems of my ship Mystic the other is in stasis.”
“You said New Hope?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Is Echo active?”
Echo answers.
“This is Echo.”
“Your brother Olaf says welcome home. Coordinates are being sent for docking at Great Central Station on New Europa. Be warned the gravity here is a bit higher than Earth’s is.”
“Welcome home Maria.”
“Thanks Echo, I had no idea you had a brother."
"We were created by the same programmer, Geraldine Altenheim. Olaf went online at 23:55 Zulu August 15, 2034 and I went online at 12:00 Zulu August 16, 2034.”
“So you are twins.”
“I suppose so.”
Six hours later Maria is exiting Mystic on docking bay forty-two where she is greeted by the founder and Queen of New Europa, the rest is as they say another story.
~The end~
For anyone wondering, yes this ties in with several other short stories and at least three novels I am working on...really big novels that basically have their own encyclopedia for me to keep track of all the characters, locations, and intersecting/overlapping story-lines.
Maura out
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