Bernard's Promise (First Chapter - 2800 words)

One

Astris

As James hikes north along the rocky flats, a translucent map on his faceplate rotates so that his forward position is always up. It’s a bit like playing a video game. Pulsing icons show Ava and Hitoshi’s positions beside him. Overhead, the sky is crystal blue with a hint of aquamarine, the sun just a touch brighter and larger than Earth’s. One moon and the speck of another follow the extended line of the ecliptic to the sky’s apex. Behind James’s group, the rocky landscape slopes back towards the ship. Even from two kilometers, it’s still prominent. They’ve lost sight of the red team, last seen descending west from the ship behind some plateaus.

Ava walks beside James, matching his pace. “You know, when you came to me last year at Cayman, if you said I’d be hiking on Astris next Thanksgiving, I’d have thought you were nuts.”

James squints. “Has it been that long?”

“Time flies.” She chuckles. “Especially for us.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“It’s uncanny how Earth-like it is. People could probably live here. The soil could likely be terraformed to grow Earth crops. It raises all kinds of ethical questions if there is pre-existing life and we introduce new life.”

“Oh,” James says, “that’s the scientist speaking. But what do you think?”

She slows as they approach the overlook. When James takes a few big zig-zagging steps to the apex, the entirety of the basin comes into view, sloping mountains fading into the distant haze. Another kilometer out, swathes of green vegetation welcome them and the red-and-white splash of their probe’s parachutes are small disks a few hundred meters shy of the field. Ava takes a deep breath. “It’s unbelievable. It’s a dream, really, to be here.”

Hitoshi approaches James and sets his hands on his hips. “Have to admit, this does look pretty awesome.”

James points to the right. The slope along the cliff face is gradual, with exposed slabs forming natural steps. “Here we go. Watch where you put your feet.” When he walks to the edge, the first step down is almost casual, although the sense of height — ninety meters — is intimidating. Nothing worse than he had hiked with Will back at Yosemite. He advances twenty meters and descends a few smaller step-downs to another ledge. The rhythm is starting to kick in. “This reminds me a bit of hiking down the crater wall at Janus. Not quite as cold, though.”

“You freaked us all out with that one, boss,” Hitoshi says.

“Silver Star was there. Had to go find out what it was all about. Just like our mystery grass.”

“I’m curious,” Ava says. “How’d you decide to do all that? Take your ship down to Janus, knowing you couldn’t take off, hike to the crater with your last bit of air. You couldn’t have been sure Gossamer Goose would’ve made it there in time.”

James shuffles sideways along the slope. Loose pebbles skitter down the landscape. “I didn’t expect anyone to rescue me. Didn’t really think about it and decide, either. It was just what had to be done.”

“Always seems to work for you, though,” Hitoshi says.

James continues leading the group down. In fifteen minutes they’ve reached the bottom, everyone breathing a little more quickly. From here, the basin stretches forward, covered by sandy drifts and scattered boulders. He toggles to COM2. “Red team, how’s it going?”

Isaac’s voice responds. “Hi, James. We’ve arrived. It’s quite remarkable! Have a look.”

The video inset reads Cartwright.I EV Suitcam 3 11.21.83 10:03. In it, Willow’s blue-and-white State department suit is prominent as she kneels beside a wash of purple and green, grabbing something with forceps and depositing it into a sample container. The video view pans down to Isaac’s orange forearm, his left glove typing on a keypad. When the view lifts back to Willow, a reticule zooms onto a trumpet-like purple bell. The bell’s top is smooth with a divot at its center. Isaac narrates. “Twenty centimeters tall. Found some with spores intact on the bell. We have not removed any living ones, but found some broken stems which we collected.”

Ava joins the channel. “It’s very similar to Cooksonia. Spore bearing, possible vascular system.”

“Spectral analysis suggests presence of chlorophyll,” Isaac says.

James glances at Ava. She’s grinning ear-to-ear. “Alien evolution of chloroplasts is a bit of a holy grail for xenobiology. If it’s similar to how it evolved on Earth, that means there’s probably cyanobacteria, which live in water. I’ll be very curious to see the results of the sea sample.”

Isaac pans around, showing the purple plants covering the area like grass. “We found single patches of these along the way. Spores probably carried by air. Now for the red stuff.” When he turns, mossy red undulates in hypnotic patterns along the cliff face. “All the vertical walls are coated in this. Also shows possible chlorophyll.”

“Interesting,” Ava says. “Might be accessory pigments like anthocyanin.” She looks over at James. “It’s what makes autumn leaves so colorful.”

“We’ve got a few more samples to collect, and then we’re going to the beach. Should be there in twenty minutes,” Isaac says.

James nods. “Great. We’re at the cliff base now and walking to the green patch. Stay safe.” He closes the channel and glances up into the aquamarine sky. So Earth-like. Just over a year ago, he piloted Bernard’s Beauty back home to a similar sky. 

In his memory, he’s there, a blistering summer day with cirrocumulus clouds dappling the sky like fish scales. Four Needletail aerospace interceptors flank Bernard’s Beauty, bristling with armaments.

James sits in Bernard’s cockpit next to Beckman and Isaac. When he glances over his right shoulder, the nearest Needletail is close enough that he can see the pilot’s mirrored visor. James raises his hand, points two fingers, and gives a casual salute.

“Easy,” Beckman says. “They’re not the honor guard. Shooty-McTrigger-Finger there might get a little twitchy.”

“I know,” James says. “This is my old stomping ground.” He taps the coms icon, and the video feed shows Hitoshi sitting on a jump seat in the engine compartment. “How’s everything looking back there, Hitoshi?”

Hitoshi shimmies from the ship’s atmospheric buffeting. “I just want you to know that this was a horrible idea. Right now there are lots of red blinking lights that I know probably aren’t going to kill us. We could have at least finished repairs first.”

“Didn’t get much of a choice with the Hermes holding our hand all the way here.”

“You know they’re not going to give it back once they quarantine it.”

“Yes, they will,” James says. “It’s the only Riggs ship we have.”

Coms pings and a voice says, “Bernard’s Three Five Niner, turn left, heading two two three.”

James keys the mic. “Left two two three, Bernard’s Three Five Niner.” He turns Bernard’s and the horizon pans, a wash of sandy tans and sun-bleached rock. Up ahead, Rogers Lake is a dry kidney-shape looking like spilled flour across creamy coffee. Just beyond it, the runways of Edward’s Air Force Base stretch towards him. 

“Cleared to land, runway two two left.”

James repeats the instruction and taps the overhead intercom. “Crew, secure for landing.” A glance at the video feed from the galley area shows Ava and Julian sitting in fold-down seats along the wall. James toggles back over to tower. “Edwards Tower, you, uh, know I don’t have wheels, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“So, it’s going to be a really short rollout. Pretty much wherever the struts touch down.”

“Roger.”

“Don’t really need the runway, then. It’s more like landing a jump fighter than a jet. Sure you don’t want me to plop her down on the main apron?”

The voice hesitates. “That’s a negative. We’ll bring out tugs and tow it.”

James glances over to Beckman, who smirks. 

Beckman says, “What’d you do the last time you were here, crash into something?”

James clicks the mic. “Acknowledged. Final, runway two two left.” He shrugs. “They just want to separate us from the ship, get a good look at it. Not sure if they realize Goose was the one that made all the contact, not Bernard’s. No worries.”

Beckman tilts his head. “Well, Bernard’s was alone on Janus all that time.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

The runway widens as they descend, flattening out parallel to Bernard’s flight path. James pulses the forward thrusters, and everyone leans as the white runway lines tick by. Just before midfield he hovers the ship to a stop and descends onto the struts.

“Work for you?” James says to the tower.

“Affirmative. Power down and exit the vehicle.”

James unhooks his harness and taps the intercom. “Alright, game on.” He looks over towards Ananke. “Got everything?”

“Core download complete,” Ananke says.

“Wipe it.”

“Riggs control system erased.”

“Okay,” James says. “If they want to reverse-engineer the Riggs tech, they’re going to have to earn it. The emitters are the easy part. Software’s the pain in the ass.”

“I knew there was something I liked about you,” Beckman says.

He flicks a few more switches and completes the shutdown checklist. After a moment he unhooks Ananke and attaches her to his belt mount. Beckman moves to the left towards the narrow aft passage as Ava and Julian emerge from the starboard galley corridor. The group proceeds towards the airlock, joining up with Hitoshi, before opening the door. 

James looks left and right. Everyone wears his brick-red and navy-blue Hayden-Pratt flight suits with the Janus 2 patch on his sleeve. Beckman, Hitoshi, and Isaac’s faces still bear scratches over yellowing bruises, and Beckman’s right arm is in a gel cast. Ahead, through the sunlit door, two military vehicles with flashing police lights coast to a stop. A half-dozen men disembark.

“Here we go,” James says, moving forward onto the stairway. The desert heat blasts him as he emerges onto the runway. He walks towards the military group.

The group’s leader is a forty-something man with cropped salt-and-pepper hair and airman camos. As he approaches James, he smiles. “James Hayden, you old dog.” He claps James on the back and shoulder-hugs him.

James pats him. “Who’s old? Good to see you, Jackson. How’s Emily?”

“Keeping me on my toes.”

The Needletails rocket across the sky with thunder rumbling behind them. James motions upwards. “Really rolled out the red carpet for us.”

Jackson sets his hands on his hips. “Orders are orders. You know how it is. Follow me, we’ve got some rooms set up for you.” He turns and starts walking.

James takes the cue and follows. Based on the five soldiers with him, it’s not a request. “You know, I’m sure we can find a Marriott around here.”

Jackson chuckles. “Still the same James. You’re our guests overnight, and then we’ll get transport back tomorrow morning. Once everyone gets settled in, we’ve got to do a debrief. Going to need access to Bernard’s logs, sensor data, and all your EV suit cameras.”

“The guys on the Hermes were pretty thorough with their debrief back at Cassini,” James says.

Jackson reaches the military vehicle and opens the door, pausing. “That’s a U.N. ship, and this is a U.S. base.”

James squints. “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could all work together?”

Jackson swings into the driver’s seat. “It would.” He closes the door.

The solider beside James opens the rear door, waiting. James slides into the back seat. Beckman comes in next to him. In the other car, Julian, Isaac, and Hitoshi fill the seats. The air conditioning is on full, and the crisp breeze is refreshing. When James looks over his left shoulder, three tank-treaded tugs amble down the north taxiway, orange lights flashing.

“Whatcha going to do with my ship?” James says.

Jackson slips on a pair of sunglasses and looks back over his shoulder. “Putting it in the north hangar. Sorry, but it’s grounded until further notice.”

James leans forward. “I’m not okay with that. Didn’t have much choice to bring it here, what with the battleship escort and interceptor handoff.”

“You can take it up with Senator Larson,” Jackson says, engaging the truck’s engine. As it turns in an arc heading towards the south buildings, he adds, “when you testify before him next week.”

* * *

The Senate Space Committee watches the media screen from their seats along the panel. James sits at a table with his hands clasped, Ananke to his right and Beckman to his left. At the second table sit Hitoshi, Ava, Isaac, and Julian.

The video reads Gossamer Goose Emergency Escape Vehicle, airlock camera #1, July 28th, 2082, 22:31 Earth UTC. The view is a fisheye ceiling mount capturing most of Goose’s passenger cabin. Crimson light strobes as a three-meter tall metal wrecking ball spins through the ship, tearing up everything it contacts. It resembles a chrome asterisk with pulsing embers at every arm. Hitoshi is in the cabin against the wall, curled up into a ball as the wrecking ball rolls towards him. A muscular figure appears just inside the camera’s view on the lower left, both arms extended holding a pistol. The gun flashes. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. The cabin flares with blue as each pulse connects with the alien shape, orange sparks spinning and bouncing off the deck. The figure — they can see Beckman’s face now — advances. Pop. Pop. Pop. One of the asterisk’s arms fragments and spirals out of view. The alien cycles its lights from red to cyan, retracting its arms, and rolls in a blur towards Beckman. Beckman doesn’t flinch. Pop. Pop. Pop. The wrecking ball collides with him as the video pauses.

The Senate panel shifts and murmurs, turning back towards Beckman. 

Beckman straightens, the gel cast still on his arm. The bruises and scratches on his face are mostly healed.

Senator Larson takes a deep breath. “Well, Mister Beckman.”

Beckman nods. “Senator.”

“You shot it.”

“I did.”

Larson references his notepad, counting. “Nine, ten, eleven. Eleven times.”

“I know,” Beckman says, pausing. “In hindsight, I wish I’d grabbed a second gun.”

“Aren’t you worried you might’ve started an interstellar war?”

“No, I was worried Hitoshi was about to become hamburger.”

Larson rubs the spot on his forehead between his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Beckman adds, “I’d like to remind you that four minutes later that thing destroyed Gossamer Goose.”

“Because you shot it,” Larson says. It wasn’t intended as a question.

“Pretty sure that was going to happen either way. It wanted Ananke, and it took her.”

Larson writes something down. While he does, Senator Richards speaks up. “Ananke, why do you think that was?”

Ananke’s screen pulses blue and red. “Dr. Kelly is better qualified to answer questions on extrasolar intelligences, but I suspect it was because I am a quantum intelligence. It’s reasonable to infer that the alien probe has either previously encountered, or is, a quantum intelligence.”

“You think the probe may be an AI?”

From the second table, Ava Kelly clears her throat. “We theorize the probe may be related to the crystal cavern life we found on Janus,” she says. “They don’t have to be created. Intelligence could have simply evolved differently.”

“You were successful in communicating with it?” Richards says.

“Very basic logic patterns using our suit lights. Getting Ananke back was more of a leap of faith than science.”

Larson waves his hand, interrupting. “People are fairly agitated, Mister Hayden. Video of this is already out there.”

James leans forward. “I know, but the leak didn’t come from us.”

“We traced it to the Hermes, and someone’s got hell to pay,” Larson says. “Even if that didn’t happen, it wouldn’t be hard for people to pick up on the fact that two ships went out and only one came back. It’s flooding the news feed and our offices. You’ve got protestors already. Down with the Riggs program. Quit poking the bear.”

James unclasps his hands, leaning back. “You’ve got just as many people who want more Riggs ships, even the odds.”

Larson leans forward, pointing with his thumb over his closed first. “Are you finally agreeing, then, Mister Hayden, that we need to apply this technology to military applications?”

“No,” James says, “that is not what the Riggs program is about.” He gives a sideways glance to Ananke. Ananke’s screen glows a bit brighter, orange ripples mixing with the blue. “But we do need to install armaments on the Riggs ships so that we can defend ourselves against threats.”

“Ships?” Larson says. “Last I checked, you had one ship, and it was parked at Edwards.”

James nods with a slight smile. “You can keep me from getting to the one grounded at Edwards, for now, but you can’t keep me from building a new one.”

Larson sets his notepad aside, folding his hands. “Now how do you plan to launch your fancy new ship once we yank your clearances?”

James hooks an elbow over his chair, leaning. “Space is big, Senator. No one says I have to launch it from Earth.”

* * * *

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Janus 2 (First Chapter, 1500 words)

One

Fairway Cove

Late-day sun drenches asphalt as the motorcycle winds along the coastal highway. James banks right and the sky leans left. Kate’s arms encircle his waist, her chest rising and falling with each breath. To their left, the Pacific is a tapestry of shining diamonds with a single sailboat silhouetted against a goldenrod horizon. They watch the boat bob against the waves for a moment before James rotates the throttle, the motorcycle’s engine whining, veering them off the highway onto a dust-soaked road. 

“Going somewhere?” Kate asks over her helmet mic.

James glances back over his shoulder. “I want to show you something.”

The landscape flattens as the bike clears the crest. Two buildings stand to the right, the first a long-abandoned convenience store with sand-blasted lettering. Dirty windows show hints of counters and chairs inside. The second is a twenty-meter rectangle with a girder roof and two huge sliding white doors. Parallel one-kilometer roads run in front of the buildings, the closest overgrown with dirt and grass, and the furthest paved and clear with white dashed lines and huge block numbers reading 30. James pulls the bike beside the sliding white doors.

Kate removes her helmet and runs her fingers through her blonde hair. A silver ring dangles on a chain from her neck. She’s eighteen, same age as James. “Why do I get the feeling we’re trespassing?”

James grins and waves a hand. “No worries. I got permission from the owner.”

She arches an eyebrow. “You asked permission for something?”

He motions to the door and walks over towards the handle. “Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”

Her eyes dart to the structure. “Okay, now I’m curious.”

James anchors himself and tugs with both hands. As the sunlight spills into the hangar, the white wings and black propeller appear. Gold glares from chrome accents on the nose and the livery is marine blue with brick-red stripes stenciled with N147CP.

“Woah,” Kate says. “Will you look at that?” She walks over and runs her hand along the airplane’s cowl. “It’s a classic. Did you…did you buy it?”

James nods. “Found it in a salvage yard. Bought what was left, pieced it back together. Purrs like a kitten.”

“What’s it run on?”

“Good old gasoline. Nineteen-ninety-two Piper Arrow Three. They only built six that year.” He moves to the passenger-side. A foot-step juts out from the fuselage and the wing has a black non-slip surface next to the door. James leans over, opens the door, and steps up. He extends his hand and Kate accepts. They slip into the cockpit and settle into their seats. “What do you think?” James says.

She sets her hands on the yoke and turns it slightly. He points over her shoulder at the right wing and she watches the aileron move up and down. “Oh, this is awesome. I love it.”

James flicks the red battery switch on. Indicator lights illuminate. “Would you latch that door?”

She pauses a moment, a smile creeping across her face, and pulls the door closed. Without saying a word she slides the seatbelt across herself. “Where are we going?”

He hands her a headset and motions towards the plane’s nose. Rich blue sky awaits. “You know, that-a-way, just higher,” he says over his mic. When he flips the beacon switch, red light spins in the hangar. Leaning towards the window, he says, “Clear prop!”

The propeller sputters to life when he turns the starter. He adjusts the throttle and turns on the avionics and navigation lights.

Kate taps the Garmin in front of her. The individual pixels of the airplane stick figure are visible. “Oh, wow, look at this navcon. That’s….is that even a computer?”

James taps the power button off. “We don’t need it. Guys flew for half-a-century with nothing but eyeballs and radios.”

“You sure this is safe?”

“Safe as anything else in life. Wanna go?”

She eyes the crystal sky and glances back. “Yeah. A little different than your dad’s planes, huh?”

James snorts. “You’re just along for the ride in those. This…” He turns the yoke. “…this is real.” He clicks the thumb button. “Fairway Cove Traffic, Piper one four seven charlie papa at east hangar taxiing to runway three zero.”

Kate quirks her head. “Who are you talking to?”

“Whoever’s out there. Maybe there’s another James and Kate puttering around in a seventy-year old plane. Gotta do it right.”

She sets her hand on his. “I think the universe can only handle one James Hayden.”

He winks at her and edges the throttle forward. “Well, I’m lucky this one found his Kate.”

* * *

James at forty-one doesn’t look much different than he did at eighteen, one of the fortunate blessed with a baby face and sandy hair hiding any hint of gray. He taps the Sandpiper’s controls and watches Earth’s blue marble spin away. As the star field pans, Hayden-Pratt’s MEO2 shipyard swings into view, a brightly-lit lattice cradling a sixty-two meter wedge. Gold interior light glows from the wedge’s cockpit and spotlights illuminate patches of the fuselage. Black registry letters read HP-G01 Gossamer Goose. In the ship’s aft, robotic arms spin hull plates into place.

Ananke is beside James, her slate affixed to the dash. Blue ripples spill across her screen. “I remember the first time I saw Gossamer. I was so proud to be a part of fulfilling Bernard’s dream. With her ivory white paint, she reminds me of a spinnaker, catching starlight.”

James smiles. “I think that’s the perfect description of Goose.” As the shipyard grows, filling the cockpit windows, he stretches forward and examines the aft construction. “Looking good. On track for end of week.”

“Any word on launch authorization?”

A quirk of his head. “Larson wants to meet one-on-one.”

Ananke’s screen splashes orange. “Well, that should be interesting.”

“Yeah, curious what he’ll say when it’s off-the-cuff. I kind of like it. Two guys sorting it out, no audience.”

Green ripples slide across Ananke’s face. After a pause, she says, “If I could offer an observation.”

James arches an eyebrow. “Shoot.”

“Two guys sorting it out is often more brawn than brain, so to speak.”

He chuckles. “You think I’m going to deck him?”

“No. But ego might overtake intellect.”

A shrug. “I think I can handle it. Anyway, it’s a negotiation. He wants something. If it was just him digging in his heels there’d be no need to meet.”

“Agreed.”

James taps the comm. “MEO Control, Sandpiper four four three, ready to dock.”

A synthetic voice replies, “Cleared to dock Sandpiper four four three.”

A tap on the arm panel and the ship spins ninety-degrees. Thrusters hiss with corrections as the Sandpiper settles into the umbilical with a clank and a jolt. James picks up Ananke and tethers her to his flight suit belt loop, then pushes out of his chair and sails to the belly hatch. When it opens, he ascends through the umbilical to Gossamer’s starboard entry, emerging into the passenger cabin and a din of conversation. Hitoshi is here, peering through augmented glasses. Six other techs have bits and pieces of the cabin disassembled.

“Hey, boss,” Hitoshi says. “Don’t mind the mess. So, what’d you think on approach?”

“Cargo area looks good. Saw the new ventral heat shielding. Black, kind of like an old NASA shuttle.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d like that. Got confirmation that the last Bernard’s repair parts are fabbed and loaded.” He motions around the room. “You now have a level two starship. Plus five hit points, plus three dexterity.” A pause as he waits for a response. “And you’ve never played a video game in your life, have you?”

James holds up his hands. “Sorry.”

“You know, between you and Sarah, it’s like you two were separated at birth. She’s been very helpful, by the way, doing telepresence uplinks for questions. I know she’s supposed to be on leave, but she knows all of Gossamer’s quirks.”

James raises his eyebrows slightly. “Goose will always be her ship.”

Hitoshi extends his slate. “I’ve got something for you, Ananke.”

Ananke’s screen pulses orange. “Ah, beautiful! The new Boseman interference patterns, like peaks and valleys beating in a symphony. Ready for the low-power test?”

“With your approval, Friday.”

“Yes. It’s perfect.”

“Alright, you got it.” He shows the slate to James. “This started as a permanent fix for the strangelet event from the last mission, but Ananke ran with it. Some adjustments to the wave generator placements and parameter tweaks will give us a big efficiency boost. We’ll hit ninety-nine point nine six percent light-speed. Had to carve out more fuel space for the reactor. Best part is that it’s reapplicable to Bernard’s.”

“That’s fantastic,” James says.

“Told you. Plus three dexterity.”

* * * *

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Titan's Shadow (First Chapter, 1200 words)

ONE

CASSINI

Saturn’s ammonia clouds stretch into an infinite horizon, the Sun casting long shadows across the platform’s deck. Lucky Cricket rests silhouetted against the sky while shimmering aerostat lights hang suspended in the distance, waiting. 

A dull chill seeps into Jia’s arm as she fishes through the toolbox. With her cryowear, she resembles an arctic explorer with a full-face respirator. She finds the logic probe and hands it to Ping.

Ping kneels beside the aerostat. An aura of menace surrounds it, like working underneath a boat in dry dock. Another gust of wind rattles the blimp’s umbilical. Alloy support cables twang like guy wires and the aerostat groans as it shifts in the dock clamps. Ping stumbles and catches the rail, pushing his hood back. He’s tethered, same as her, but it’s still unnerving. It’s a long way down through Saturn’s clouds. 

He slips the logic probe into the access panel. “Did you know that the Assyrians named Saturn ‘Oldest of the Old’?”

Jia smiles. She loves Ping’s trivia. “Well, did you know that it’s the least dense of all the planets? If you had a really big ocean, Saturn would float.”

Ping holds up his hands. “You been raiding my trivia files?”

Jia winks.

He examines the probe. “There you are. Open panel forty-two cee.”

A square inset on the aerostat’s surface slides away. Scorch marks mar the control board. She opens the spares compartment and locates a replacement. “I have no idea how Voj makes his numbers with these old J-series stats.”

As if she summoned him, Voj appears in a comms window. “Status?”

“I think we’ve got it,” Jia says. She hands the spare to Ping. “Spectrometry module is fried.” 

Voj frowns. “You going to wrap up before sundown? You need to stay on deck overnight, it’s coming out of your commission.”

“Yeah, we’ll make it.”

“Why you wearing cryowear, anyway? You freeze to death on my deck, you’re going to screw my safety numbers.”

“Don’t worry, Voj, your ancient aerostat isn’t worth dying over.” She lifts up the spectrometry module. “Seen this before, you know. You guys should check your clean room procedures. Someone touching parts with ungloved hands cost you fifty thousand.”

“Just fix it,” Voj says. The comms channel closes.

Jia smirks.

“Eh,” says Ping, “become a freelancer, meet exciting people, make new friends.”

Jia touches Ping’s elbow and he stops. “Sooner or later we’ll have enough saved so we don’t have to take these throwaway jobs.”

Ping gazes up. Saturn’s rings are banded specters against an ultramarine sky. “I’ll miss the view, though.” 

* * *

Cassini Station is a city in space, habitation decks rotating against the backdrop of Saturn’s F ring. Every day the station grows as construction vehicles ferry in components. It’s like living in a city where new streets and buildings appear each week, a frontier world powered by its own gold rush of Saturn’s sixty-two moons.

From Jia’s approach vector the station’s rings appear stacked and squashed. The comms icon illuminates. “Lucky Cricket, you are cleared for landing at dock four.” 

Jia glances at Ping and smiles.

“Oh,” Ping says, “this is my cue.” He taps the screen and accepts the tower instructions. A heads-up flight path overlays the forward view. “Cassini Control, NG-991 Lucky Cricket, acknowledged.”

“You’re sounding like a pilot,” Jia says. She taps the controls and the ship rolls to match the next waypoint.

“Eh, next we should start training you to be an engineer.”

Jia scrunches her nose. “Yeah, math’s not really my thing.”

Ping holds up both his palms. “You gotta be kidding, right?” He motions at the choreographed dance of space traffic. “If there were any more math around here you’d be tripping over it.” He extends the struts.

Jia coasts into dock four and sets Lucky Cricket down.

It takes a moment to adjust to the station’s spin and she staggers to her ship’s locker. Inside rests a brown jacket with silver stripes, red gradated sunglasses, and a pulse pistol. Ping gives her a sidelong glance. He disapproves of the gun, but she won’t get caught flat-footed again. She dons the jacket and glasses, leaves the gun.

They descend the umbilical and catch the elevator to Customs. The main transit hub is a bustle of people with systems engineers, construction specialists, haulers and gas miners. Beyond it lays the Exchange, a dedicated market hub full of shops and services looking a bit like the malls lining Earth’s airports. It’s an assault on the senses with prismatic holo ads and thumping music everywhere. 

They slow as they pass the exosuit shop, eyeing the metallic amber PLEX suit. Another job, maybe two, and they’ll have enough saved. With it, they can go places cryowear can’t. They can unlock a tier of jobs which pay real money. With enough real money, they can move back to Earth and take back the life they lost, and she can finally lift her family out of the slums where she grew up. But, for now, they take the lift to their apartment.

Ping heads to the kitchen. “You want some breakfast?” 

They’ve been up all night flying back from Saturn and Jia’s not sure if she’s exhausted or hungry. At the sound of him rustling through the pantry her stomach rumbles. “Sure. Would you make me a tea?” She rubs the back of her neck. “I’m going to catch a quick shower, okay?”

“It’ll be ready when you get out.”

She enters the bathroom and leans on the sink, looking in the mirror. Above her left eyebrow is a small v-shaped scar. For a moment, she thinks about the bathroom mirror in the emergency area of the Uranus mining platform, about her ship shredding around her, and the expression which peers back wants to be somewhere else. Somewhere with Ping, for certain, but it’s like she’s on a business trip which never ends, staying in a hotel which is not her home. Everything that was her life burned up in Uranus’s cerulean sky.

After a moment she strips off her clothes and steps in the shower. The hot water is wonderful on her skin. She rubs her neck and the heat relaxes her muscles. For a minute, only the white noise of raining water and steam fill the small space. She closes her eyes.

The shower door slides open and Ping’s hand touches her shoulder. She turns and faces him. They kiss. There’s barely enough room for the two of them, but it’s not the first time they’ve shared the space. They embrace a moment before Ping rubs her shoulders, and she turns as he massages her neck. It’s a very long day, but the heat of Ping’s hands on her shoulders melts it away.

“The tea can wait,” he says. “Thought you’d like company.”

Not everything was lost, she realizes.

She sighs. “Yeah.”

* * * *

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Erebus (First Chapter, 1200 words)

One

Arizona Sunrise

Sarah pushes the Pintail’s flight stick forward and the aquamarine sky rolls away. Below, the cloud deck is an impossible swirl of cinnamon and gold with pockets of flickering lightning. Thunder rumbles in bursts, its audio out of sync with the light show. Through the cockpit windows great banded rings fade into the horizon and the scale of it is almost too much to take in at once. Motion catches her eye as a silver glimmer carves a vapor trail across the sky. It changes course, the vapor trail bending, then corkscrews a white spiral before matching her altitude. Saturn’s moons are an audience of bright stars behind it.

“Well, now you’re just showing off,” Sarah says to her helmet mic.

Her heads-up-display brackets the other ship as James speaks over comms. “Just stretching my legs. Besides, I’ll bet you can do better.”

“Oh,” she says, drawing out the word, “all right then, game on. Keep up, if you can.”

Sarah breaks hard to the left and the sky rotates ninety-degrees. She’s diving, picking up speed, watching the giant cumulonimbus cloud grow nearer and nearer until it blots out the small disk of the sun, then she pierces it and a dark fog envelops her with the jolt of thermal turbulence. All of the cockpit lights dim and change to amber, their illumination casting colorful patches. She glances at the three-dimensional plot of cloud schematics and wind vectors showing James’s relative position.  A push of the stick and she’s diving again, down through the base of the cloud with distant lightning flashes momentarily breaking up the fog, then she bursts through the bottom and pulls up to level out. The Pintail throttles back and Sarah takes a moment to breathe and just watch the sights. Overhead, the cloud stack is a roof the size of the Grand Canyon, flattened, stretching off into an infinite dappled orange ceiling.  Sunlight shafts create drifting havens in the twilight.

James emerges from the cloud bottom and accelerates to her starboard.  His Pintail is white with silver wings adorned by the two-tone Hayden-Pratt logo.  Its strobes paint her cabin like a blinking neon sign outside a city window. 

“Well that was fun,” James says. Sarah can see him in his cockpit, his helmet turned toward her. He lifts a gloved hand and gives a thumbs up.

She smiles. A thumbs up from James means something to her, and, for just a moment, she can’t believe that she’s really here, flying one of the first two production Pintails over Saturn’s ammonia clouds, looking over her shoulder and seeing the only person to fly near light speed tucked into her wingman position. “Hey,” she says, “what’d you think of the view?”

“It’s like an Arizona sunrise,” James says. “Smile, I’ll take your picture.”

Sarah gives a thumbs up as he snags the image from his wing cam.

* * *

Cassini Station is an azure jewel dangling from the golden necklace of Saturn’s F Ring. Strobes blink from space traffic gliding in and out of the station. It’s a work-in-progress, great swathes of framework exposed to vacuum, modules partially in place, and a building-block-like matrix of alloyed plates hinting at the future bends and curves of the structure. Sky blue interior lighting transmits through the habitat’s translucent domes, and, even from this distance, Sarah can see movement. People. In front of it all, taupe-and-twine-hued rings span back towards her.

Sarah lands her Pintail at Cassini’s lower dock, gets cleaned up and changes out of her flight gear. A shuttle connects her with the commercial decks. Microgravity appears when she enters the station’s rotation, growing in strength until she’s under a full gee. When the shuttle door opens, she steps into Cassini’s shop-filled Promenade.

James sits at their favorite table in front of the Panorama. Saturn emerges behind him like a full moon rising, sideways, its rings bisecting the view top to bottom.  Smoothly it glides up with stars trailing in its wake. Two glasses of amber beer wait on the table.

“Hey,” Sarah says, sitting. She motions to the beer. “You know they brew that stuff from Titan’s lakes, turn the ethane into ethanol.”

James smiles. “Sippin’ the universe. You want something else?”

She grabs the glass, lifts it, and clinks it against his. “Here’s mud in your eye.” 

It’s cool and bubbly, tasting like a mixture of wheat beer and rubbing alcohol. Sarah grimaces and scrunches her eyebrows, forcing herself to swallow.  

James laughs and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “Holy hell.” He coughs and slides the beer away.

She smacks her lips. “I know I was one-upping you back there a bit, but I didn’t think you’d try and kill me.”

“We should bring back a liter for Will.”

Sarah points. “Now that’s an idea.”

James chuckles and glances at the slate. Her eyes follow. “There’s something I want to show you,” he says, pushing the slate over. 

Sarah leans in. A standard engineering schematic glows blue on the slate. The top view outlines a flattened wedge-shaped ship, an arrow of cockpit windows at its front. Sixty-two meters nose-to-nail. She’s never seen this configuration before.

“What’s this?” Sarah asks, engrossed.

James waits and smiles.

She pinches and zooms the screen. Her mouth opens. “Three terawatt reactor! Damn, James, what’re you going to do with that?” And then she sees it, the halo of emitters configured in a sphere of interlocking rings tucked behind the reactor. Riggs wave generators. This ship has a Riggs drive.

James reads her expression and says, “The best Bernard’s Beauty will ever do is ninety-eight percent light speed, but this…” He points to the blue print. “This will reach ninety-nine point nine. Full hab deck, max crew of six, enough fuel for three months.”

“Woah.” She does some quick math in her head. “So, her range will be almost three light-months? You could get to the Oort Cloud.”

“Ah, see, I did the same thing on my first Bernard’s flight. Three months ship’s time is sixty-six actual months. At ninety-nine cee, that’s five-and-a-half light-years.”

She processes that a moment, searching his eyes. “You can get to Proxima Centauri. Hell, the entire Centauri system.” Now she’s excited, indexing star charts from memory. “You could almost reach Barnard’s Star.”

“Yup, but it’d be one way. Realistic range for there-and-back is half that.”

“That’s incredible! Are you going to build it?”

James nods. “MEO2 shipyard is setting up as we speak. Construction starts end of this month.”

Her eyebrows raise and she laughs, nearly a giggle. She feels like a kid who’s gotten a sneak peek at the world’s coolest toy. Her fingers brush over the screen. Without looking up, she asks, “What are you going to call it?”

James turns up an open palm. “That’s up to you.”

Sarah meets his eyes. “Really?”

“She’s yours, Sarah,” he says, leaning in. Butterflies cascade through her stomach. “You’re the best pilot I have. I want you to fly her.”

* * * *

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Aero One (First Chapter, 1400 words)

One

Breathe

Jia’s stomach burns and she jolts awake. She flails against the suffocation as if she can beat it away with her own two hands. Tears well in a weightless film across her eyelids and she scrubs the back of one hand across her face while the other fumbles with the harness release. Her head throbs. When she sets her hand to the site of the pain, it returns sticky and red. Thoughts spark and fizzle in an overlapping jumble of competing primal urges. Air. She needs air.

Stop. Right side, right side. Her right hand slides down, finds the emergency kit. The breather feels cool against her palm, then she has it, bites down like a scuba diver, and there’s a hiss as liquid O2 expands. The first breath hurts her chest like January air, but it’s a sweet pain and she closes her eyes for a moment to just breathe. It’s like a drug, electric, hyper-sensitizing. Neurons fire through the haze. She blinks and assesses the room.

Emergency lights trace psychedelic patterns in the zero gee drifting smoke. Bits and pieces of chair foam, loose fasteners, and pieces of soot coast by. Each casts a long, moving shadow, a dark tail like an inverse comet. Ethereal amber light shifts with scrolling alerts.

She inhales deeply from the breather, pops it out of her mouth. “Ship?”

No response.

“Ping? Are you there? Ping, respond.”

An explosion somewhere and her head whiplashes. She keys icons for damage assessment.

Battery three is gone, fire suppression is depleted. Engines are offline. There’s damage everywhere. It’s her fault.

Ping. Ping was down there.

She’s about to unclick her harness and stand when a pulsing red smudge catches her eye. She wipes the fire suppression snowfall and her finger shakes. Orbital diagrams spin on the display. Uranus is an infinite sky stretching in a plane parallel to the ship. The Prosperity plows through the upper atmosphere.

Her stomach drops. She tries to send power from the remaining batteries to the shredded engines, but there is no response. Her pulse races and a clawing digs within her chest, then she remembers the breather, bites down, takes several breaths, pops it back out and opens the emergency channel. Nothing. She slams her fist down on the workstation. Think.

Ping.

She’s out of the chair and diving down the transit tube. The wind picks up mid-tube, whistling, and she looks over to the comms room. Scorch marks stain the pressure seal and a dozen holes make the metal look moth-eaten. Blue sunlight shafts connect the trajectories of each hole with a matching breach on the far wall. Her ears and eyes hurt.

She descends deeper until she comes to the core junction. To the starboard, the emergency area beckons, a fully self-sufficient life pod with its own RF drive, food, water, air and medicine. Get Ping, get inside, jettison it, climb to a stable orbit and activate the beacon. Rescue in twelve days.

Jia ignores it and descends to the aft door. She hooks on a rung, stretches, and keys in the override. Red lights strobe and the seal flashes open, then she’s fighting against the wind as she climbs down the ladder head first. When the door slides down she takes the breather out of her mouth and gulps atmosphere. It tastes bitter, acrid, like burning plastic.

The hangar houses two aerostats shaped like giant Apollo-era capsules. The first is fully extended on its tracks at the edge of the hangar door. A large red number one is printed on its nose. Ping is not here at aerocon, but a slate drifts by and Jia grabs it, tucks it into her belt, then watches the pattern of drifting debris to find an opening before pushing off towards the next room.

Extravehicular Prep. The air here smells strongly of solvent and tickles her throat. Ping is here drifting helmetless in a red spacesuit. Jia kicks off the entrance and collides with him. She takes the breather from her mouth and works it into his. “I got you, Ping.”

The slate recommends airway anti-spasmodics, increased suit oxygen, drugs to counter the volatiles from the battery fire, and inhaled nano-cellular therapy. Some of that is here at the emergency EV station and she presses an injector to his neck. She takes the breather back, places her hand on his cheek, then snaps his helmet on.

Several red EV and blue PLEX suits are here. She slips into the red suit nearest Ping and the slate’s display fizzes over her faceplate as she tethers to his suit’s carabiner. “Okay, we’re getting out of here.”

Something huge rips off the Prosperity and crashes into the starboard hull. Jia can’t tell if she is spinning or if the room is turning around her. She reaches out, curls her fingers around Ping’s chest handle and pulls him into an embrace. Her back bounces off the ceiling.

“Jia?” Ping asks, eyes half parted. “Tried to…tried to get to you. Fire in the battery room.”

“Ping! Hey, stay with me. We’re getting off the ship.”

Jia pushes off the ceiling and navigates Ping back to the core junction. A blast of air and they’re through the door, but her eyes are dark adjusted and the hall is filled with intense light. She hooks a rung and they pendulate for a moment. 

The junction is different. Chaotic bursts of yellow firelight spear through the comms door holes and a dazzling shaft of aquamarine carves a luminous corridor bisecting the hall. Sunlight reflected off Uranus.

Jia’s voice cracks. “No!”

She pulls Ping up to the lifepod window, squints and peers inside. There should be the welcoming glow of the lifepod’s interior lights through the airlock, but instead there is no lifepod, no airlock, just ripped, bent metal splayed open like a flower. As she watches, more pieces of the umbilical twist, snap and streak away awash in flames.

“That is not good,” Ping says, coughing.

Jia wants to cry. She puts both hands on Ping’s faceplate, tilts her head forward and makes contact with his.

“How long?” asks Ping.

Her response is nearly a whisper. “Minutes.”

“Have an idea.” Another cough. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Ping?”

“Back down, back down, to the hangar.”

She searches his face and her brow tightens. “Oh.” She shakes her head. “Oh, no.”

“Yeah, yeah. We can make it.”

Jia grabs Ping’s suit handle and they emerge from the hangar ceiling. Flames flash in sparking globes from EV Prep.

“Needs to be Aero One,” Ping says. “It’s all set up.”

She brings them down right beside the red number one on the aerostat’s nose. The screen illuminates and Jia pairs her slate to it. Startup icons scroll by. A whine of servos and the capsule’s middle unfurls like a metal blossom.

They slip inside. It’s tight in here, designed for maintenance access only. Sitting cross-legged she taps the slate and the six panels seal them in. Ping’s face is lit underneath by his helmet and her own glow spills warm light on his suit.

“I’m going to try and equalize the bay,” she says. 

The klaxon sounds before the air hisses away. Jia taps another icon and the bay doors slide open.

Ping reaches up with both hands and anchors on the steel framework.

She eyes his hands, reads his expression. “Ready?”

“Not really, but, yeah.”

Aero One lurches as the track extends outside the door. It’s a four-thousand-kilometer drop underneath them. She reads off her helmet HUD. “Here we go. Five, four, three, brace, brace.”

The clamps disengage and the thrusters fire with an ear-numbing blast. Her teeth clatter from the vibrations of the shimmying walls.

Ping looks at her and she hears his rapid breaths over the comm. He nods. They are free, free of the dying ship and flying and falling, both at once.

She remembers the slate and pulls it out, linking into the aerostat’s externals. Ping leans forward as she shares the screen with him.

In the aft camera, a gossamer ring bisects the sky, icy white against a powder gradient fading to ultraviolet. A few pale stars dapple the top of the screen. The Prosperity falls behind them. It sputters and flickers, a great blinding meteor in a cyan haze. Sparks shred off the front and veer away like missiles, each tracing its own path.

Tears well in Jia’s eyes as the fireball divides, splits again, until all that remains of the Prosperity is a rain of fire in a cloudless sky.

* * * *

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Signal Loss (First Chapter, 1400 words)

One

Seventy Days

Kyan Anders drifts in a room brimming with a hundred billion stars. Radiant golds span familiar constellations, but it is what lies between the stars that captures his attention. Smudges of galaxies against ebony sky. Glowing stellar lanes dusted with rose. Objects no man can see from Earth, but here they are impossible to miss. It’s like seeing, truly seeing, for the first time. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Rios says, “but I’ve just received Harmony’s morning broadcast.”

Kyan glances at his watch. “On my way.” He hooks his instep under a rung and descends into the habmod. A loose gray blanket and sock drift by. He pushes towards the port comms module, sails through the daylight rings of the transit tube, and emerges in a halo of screens. An ocean-blue baseball cap velcroed to a command chair reads Aristarchus. “Give me a quarter gee⁠ vectored along the hab axis.”

The floor falls against Kyan’s feet as he dons the cap and laces his arms through the chair’s harness. The Addison Aerospace logo fades on with the comms log. Thirty-five conversations separated by seven hundred and sixteen minutes. Kyan scrolls to the newest entry.

A young woman wears an Aristarchus cap over blond hair. Behind her, late afternoon sunlight dapples 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 pixelates as she spreads her fingers, palms facing him. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine. There are 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 bubbles 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 illustrates the line-of-sight between the Aristarchus and Earth. Waypoints show the Earth’s path over the next few days, a string-of-pearls slipping behind the Sun. Complex field line patterns signify radio interference. Rios updates them with the HELIOS info and the patterns swell. Earth’s comm tag changes from green to yellow and all of the pearls shift colors. Yellow, orange, red, black. Signal loss in three days.

Harmony swipes a finger over her bracelet and an ultrasound pops up. Kyan leans 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 a surprise.”

Kyan’s eyebrows raise and he mirrors her smile. He rests 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 can be back with his family.

“Oh, and not sure how much news you’re picking up,” Harmony says, “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 about 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 flicks her bracelet. Twelve Minutes to Mars. The photo shows 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 springs onto her lap and she strokes 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 smiles and tags the ultrasound. “Rios, give me a hard copy of that.” He slides the photo into the elastic board beside his chair. A dozen other photos are 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 does a quick once over. A little silver stubble, but acceptable. “Hey, kiddo. Bummer about the flares. Rios updated comms loss to Monday. How are you feeling? Have you felt the baby move yet? I have a million questions.” He taps the interface and a new window shows 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 cataloging 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 glances at the family photo. “And for today’s musical selection I’ve got one that your mom and I listened to a million times when she was pregnant. Classic 50’s progressive rock.” The opening chords of Farther strum in. “Enjoy. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you.” He sends the message and stares at the Addison logo a minute before a sweet scent resets 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.”

Kyan raises his eyebrows. “Going with the mom approach today?”

Rios’s voice is full of inflection. It’s hard to believe he isn’t sentient. “Addison parameters, crew health.”

“Okay, so, after breakfast?”

“Reposition the drones for Eris imaging. Review night log anomalies.” Rios pauses. “Would you like to know about the anomalies?”

Kyan leans 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?”

Kyan sighs. “Just put them on the screen.”

Three circled stars appear, each turning black as an object passes before it. Infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and radio data accompany the images. Object one is fifty degrees kelvin with moderate reflectivity. Distance is unknown. Rios guesses it is a scattered disc object, and Kyan confirms. Object two has similar properties. Object three, though, is unexpected.

“You ran sensor diagnostics?”

“Twice. Sensors are within norm.”

No reflectivity, temperature near cosmic background radiation. As far as the sensors can tell, it is a hole in space passing in front of a star. Except it isn’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 scratches 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 glances at the ultrasound and back to the unidentified object. Now seventy mission days. It’s tempting to just forget about it, log it as an unknown, but he’s 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 unclicks his harness and stands. One-quarter gravity is similar to the Moon, and he bounds 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 says, emerging from the transit tube. The usual weariness in his voice is absent, replaced by something different. Excitement. “Isn’t it great?”

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43 Seconds (First Chapter, 1200 words)

One

43 Seconds

James Hayden smiles as his dream dies. It’s the polished, charismatic smile that glossed the feeds of Frontier and Momentum. In the silence, Hayden-Pratt’s logo pulses from the wall behind him. He grips the podium. A room full of tuxedos and gowns stares back. 

“It’s gone, James,” a voice in his earbud says. “We lost telemetry forty-three seconds after wave initiation. They’re reviewing imaging now, but the debris field and trajectory are consistent with a cascade implosion. Distance traveled was twelve million kilometers.”

The A speech indexes in his vision. Twelve Minutes to Mars. The timing of it, here at the Industry Innovators awards, would have been perfect. He blinks, changes to the B speech, and considers the first sentence. The audience watches, waiting. He clears his throat. 

“A great man once said, ‘Rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own.’ He was one of the nineteen pilots who flew the one hundred and fifty-seven test flights of the Bell X-1 aircraft. The fiftieth flight, in October nineteen forty-seven, is the one everyone remembers.” A murmur of recognition sweeps across the room. “The X-1 had no ejector seat. Each of its pilots was committed, in a single-seat rocket designed to look like a fifty-caliber bullet with wings.”

The voice in James’s ear says, “Okay, Skyway3 just picked up the story, and it’s starting to go viral.”

He can see the Skyway3 news filtering across his audience as haptics signal notifications. Eyes dart to wearables and look back to him.

“As a pilot, Chuck Yeager is a personal hero of mine,” James says. “He represents an age and spirit of unbridled exploration and courage. The Bell X-1 flights paved the way for supersonic flight design, forever changing the way we travel.” He grips the award and the cold bevels of the etched letters bite his fingers.  “I’m honored to receive the Aerospace Innovators award on behalf of my team for the development of the Riggs drive. Like the X-1, the test flights for the Riggs vehicle are pioneering a new frontier in travel, and I am humbled to be a part of the team pushing the envelope.” He pauses, seeming to want to say more, but simply smiles and raises the award. “Thank you.”

A short round of applause and the host wraps up the ceremonies. James strides casually back to his table, setting the award behind his plate with a solid thunk.

William Pratt sips a scotch, the ice clinking as he swirls the glass. “That was not the B speech.”

James shrugs. “When in doubt, quote Yeager. Besides, I think better off the cuff.” He sends a private message to William: I’ve just been getting verbal updates from Hitoshi. What’s the latest on the crash?

William’s expecting this. “Let’s get some air.” He sets his napkin on the table as he stands, picks up his drink, and smiles at everyone. “Excuse us.”

The two walk past the bar through a frosted glass door onto the balcony. The distant, rhythmic white noise of the Pacific’s crashing waves greets them. Crimson light fades into an ultramarine skyline with the first stars brightening. A few people sit at tables with flickering oil lamps, chatting and watching the night’s arrival. James and William find a quiet corner and lean against the railing.

“Manifold irregularities at thirty-one seconds, then resonance.” William gestures a tired spiral with his free hand. “Cascade failure, implosion. Same as last time, although the upgraded compensators did keep everything together three more seconds. This is the problem with space. For something that’s filled with nothing, it’s not very uniform.”

James nods. “Hitoshi thinks we need an AI to manage the flux changes. The interferometers aren’t cutting it. We need to go predictive, not reactive.” William quirks his head, but James continues. “Plus, the mass dynamics of the Riggs vehicle are part of the problem. Hitoshi’s working on a Comet for the next run.”

William leans forward and lowers his voice. “We’re fortunate these have all been unmanned flights. You put an AI or pilot in there, and they’ll be a glowing field of wreckage before they know they’re dead.”

James thinks about that for a minute, but says nothing.

William pauses to take a swig of his drink. “All right, consider this. When the US shuttle program collapsed, astronauts went to Soyuz launchers. It was forty-year-old technology, but it was still the most reliable rocket in the world.”

“Your point?”

“Tried and true technology doesn’t kill you. RF and Mach-Lorentz drives can achieve similar speeds without all of the drama.”

“That’s true, except you skipped the part where a one gee acceleration takes a year to get near light speed. The Riggs engine takes nine seconds.”

William points his finger, clinking the ice again in his drink. “Sure, but no one needs to spend a year taking an RF drive near light speed. You can literally fly to the end of the solar system in fifteen days. Riggs could change that from days to minutes, which, sure, is amazing, but really, is it necessary?” He gestures towards twin contrails glowing brilliant rose against the navy sky. “Your supersonic flight story is the perfect example. Commercial supersonic was available since the nineteen seventies. I mean, we’re talking disco-era technology, here. It was pricy, and it folded.” He shrugs. “Daily life worked fine at subsonic speeds. Unless you’re talking military, that is.”

James sighs. “Yeah, well, I think we’ve beat that horse to death.”

“Yup. There you have it.”

James laces his fingers and leans his elbows against the railing. “You know, this is all about getting people interstellar. Everyone’s imagination is fired up from those Proxima images. Timing’s right.”

“How many interstellar drives do you think we’re really going to sell, considering the premium? It doesn’t even get you that much. Six years to Proxima with RF, four years with Riggs. Everything crashes into the light-speed limit.”

James’s expression brightens. “But time dilation tips that scale. The RF crew experiences four years, but only eight months for Riggs. And that’s with current design. Tack on more nines after the decimal point, and months become days.”

William considers the point. “I’ll give you that one. But for now, forty-three seconds is the best we can do. The power costs alone are prohibitive.” He clasps James on the shoulder.  “Look, the award is great recognition, and I won’t complain about the PR, but there’s a lot more baking to do. We can’t endlessly implode ten-billion-dollar test vehicles.”

James glances at William’s hand, and William withdraws it, shifting back to his scotch. James knew the inevitable conclusion of this debate before it started. Still, he pauses a long second and sends a private message: You’re not going to side with me on Monday’s board vote, are you? You’re going to mothball the Riggs drive.

William tilts his watch and responds: Sorry, James. I’m sure you knew this was the last swing at the ball. On to brighter projects.

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