Memory transcription subject: Leia Keiran Irons-N, Chief Executive Officer of Irons Industries

Date [standardized human time]: July 15, 2136

Location: Shackleton Crater Lunar Colony, Earth Orbital Region, Sol.

It was a good day, Leia knew as she stared at the diagram of the lunar orbitals, quickly picking out a clear entry route. Small mercies in the living hell that her life had become. At this point, her life with little but small mercies. Just the previous day, a ship using that same FTL drive as the *Odyssey* had arrived with instructions from every government that had contracted her company to start restoring the war flotilla that her parents had made. Getting all of the parties in line would have been a massive undertaking, but small mercies they now owned one of the subspace drives that could be installed in the *Morrigan* and had her arriving at Earth’s moon mere minutes after the clock had ticked over to the fifteenth of july.

Well, time to start making their way in. As the Morrigan’s piloting crew set their relative velocity with the station to zero, Leia nodded to the communications operator to begin her work. Quickly, the operator for the workstation patched one of the channels over to the band section that was reserved for navigation comms, and they were ready to proceed through the time-worn pattern for docking. “Broadcasting through carrier TF-4716 Morrigan, with you at wakeside hotel section, holding distance of two-nine-seven by one-fifty klicks,” the comms officer intoned as she read off the navigation readout for whoever was on the other end of the line.

“TF-4716 Morrigan, this channel is reserved for surface docking control, your vessel is incapable of landing.”

Leia sighed. Well, it looked like they would first have to do the whole song and dance as usual when the *Morrigan* showed up at a moon-based outpost. Luckily, her crew was well-accustomed to it. “Orbital Traffic Control, this is sub-vessel TF-4716-C *Nemain*, relaying through *Morrigan’s* primary comm mast. We will be the ones requesting a docking approach.”

There was a moment of quiet as the man on the other end of the line probably threw out the normal procedure, and then a new voice responded. “Parameters updated Nemain, you may decouple from your mothership and begin wakeside approach bravo to pad india seven, number three on approach. Be advised, traffic ahead are two grapplers on cleanup duty, and protocol dictates your mothership is to return to high orbit.”

“Understood,” the Nemain’s bar pilot, Orlando, responded. “Course locked in on approach to india seven, third in queue. Vessels are marked on sensors and mothership’s instructions are received. End.”

“Readback confirmed,” the comm channel declared after a moment. “Have a safe flight TF-4716-C.”

The line fell silent, and then the only sound with the distant reverberations of venting gasses as the two ships gently pushed off of each other. As the maneuver completed, Leia reached out and flicked one of the switches on her own console, opening a shipwide channel. “All hands, we are now on our final approach to Shackelton Station,” she announced as a wry smile made its way across her face. “Please make sure that your tray tables are stowed, harnesses are buckled, and that your seat backs are in the upright position. We will be on approach for one hour and fifteen minutes, and in five minutes the ship will switch over from gravatic tech to inertial and lunar sources for our gravity, so make sure that everything and everyone is locked down in ready positions.”

Immediately after, her screen shifted to a diagram of the ship, as Aegis began to highlight it with the various sections that were secured and readied for the upcoming maneuvers. Eventually, the entire diagram was green and Aegis’ artificial voice – which for some reason was rendered feminine due to the navigation protocol layer – informed her that the entire ship had been prepared for the docking process, “– and with a thirty-four percent increase in efficiency over the last time the crew has performed these preparations,” Aegis observed. “It is possible that the sub-day travel time allowed by the Morrigan’s prototype subspace drive have left the crew in a more ready state as chronoception has not been distorted, but psychological analysis is currently an inactive capability.”

“Statement received, Aegis,” Leia responded. “Log observations for later analysis, and then assist Orlando and the piloting systems with bringing us in.”

“Compliance,” Aegis chirped, before the glowing sphere on Leia’s screen vanished as the VIA flitted over to create a course overlay on the main screen. Leia leaned back in her chair with a sigh as she surrendered herself to the swelling dizziness of the gravity shift, and of course that was the moment when everything went to shit.

The ship suddenly rocked as a projectile of debris crashed into the port side, just beyond the edge of the armor band along a fuel line. The hull crumpled and gave way, as the ship suffered a catastrophic venting of fuel and air from the ruptured line and two breached compartments. In the control center, alarms blared as the crew were rocked in their seats. Leia heard the sudden static clicks of three lines of the internal communication system breaking their connection, and then her harness broke, throwing her across the room.

The Nemain hadn’t been used for orbital landings in over a year. Systems had updated without being checked for the gravity fluctuations of the maneuver they had been struck while in the middle of. Distantly, Leia realized that the negligence had already cost three lives, and likely hers as well as the internal mechanisms of her harness had been dislodged by the shifting pull of warring gravitational forces. She saw the sharp edge of a monitor approaching, the passage of the instant slowed by adrenaline and serenity.

And then a burly form crashed into her and pushed Leia to safety. Two cables crossed in front of Leia’s torso as Piper pushed off of Leia, ricocheted off of her workstation, and then bundled Leia up against the rear wall before locking her down with a set of magnetic clamps that the security officer carried with her at all times. Maybe the paranoia displayed by the head of security could have its benefits, if it weren’t for Piper consistently going too far.

With Leia dizzy and battered by her unplanned flight, Piper quickly took control and began shouting orders which her younger charge barely managed to catch. “–drop a comm beacon,” Piper was shouting, “I don’t care if–

“–medical team to screen every section of–

“–get that arsehole on the line and–

“–weapons and figure out what the hell just hit us!”

“Dead traffic,” Leia rasped, blinking in disorientation as one hand reached fruitlessly towards her workstation where Aegis’ sphere glowed in search of commands. “Debris left over from the satellite war. We need active scanners. Orlando?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“He’s out like a light,” Piper reported. “His harness broke too and threw him into the viewscreen.”

“Right.” Leia nodded, then promptly regretted it as her headache spiked. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she gestured blindly to the internal readouts. “Need a damage report.”

“The Nemain has experienced explosive decompression in cargo room 3 and its loading bay,” Aegis reported, its visualization pulsing like a strobe light in Leia’s eye. “Fuel line 5 was severed, and has been locked down to prevent further venting. The ship is still habitable, but in a death spiral towards the lunar surface. We are down a thruster and cannot return to our original heading.”

“Do what you can to regain control,” Leia ordered. Then, before the VIA could verbally respond, she was turning to look at the comms officer as she put name to face and issued instructions to the younger woman. “Abigail, inform the Morrigan of our situation, Macha has those grappler torpedoes, we can use one for the thruster.”

The communications officer nodded and turned to her station. Leia knew that she would get her work done, so in the meantime she turned to security officer Årud. Piper, seeing Leia’s glance, immediately moved to her side with a question upon her lips. “What do you need me to do Kieran?”

“You’re the only one with mag-gear, Piper,” Leia said, her voice calm as she prepared to send one of her caretakers away. “I need you to get everyone locked down because we’re going to have to pull some high gravity maneuvers to survive this.”

Piper saluted. “Aye captain, I can do that.” Then, as the chief of security turned to leave, Leia caught her hand.

“One more thing. Do we have any combat pilots among your subordinates?”

The two shared a slight smile of mutual understanding, before Piper turned on her heel and marched out, one hand thumbing the communicator at her lapel as her other hand keyed the controls for the door. With that done, Leia wormed free of her tethers and crawled back into the command seat. “Alright,” Leia called out, drawing everyone’s gaze to her. “Let’s start rectifying this situation. Aegis, status report on our movement, and shift avatar to a flat disk before the sound strobes give me a migraine.”

“Compliance!” the VIA chirped. “I have managed to stabilize our trajectory and exit the death spiral, but our course is now diverging from Shackelton Lunar Colony. At our current trajectory, the *Nemain* will crash into the lunar surface ninety-six kilometers from the station. Survivors – if any – would expire before rescue could arrive.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Leia snapped. “We are not going to crash. Abigail, any updates on our supplementary propulsion?”

“Bad news,” Abigail said, shaking her head as she turned to face Leia. “Macha cannot launch the torpedoes without being destroyed by surface installations.” the woman contorted her face as if the spit, before gritting out a single word that Leia loathed with all her being. “Politics.”

“Why?”

It was Aegis who responded. “According to a newsscraper subroutine, there have been several groups that believe we should be taking a more heavy-handed approach to alien diplomacy. Shackleton Lunar Colony has received several threats of violence, and now maintains a standing protocol that the activation of weapon systems within its orbital space will be responded to with lethal force regardless of circumstances. The crew of the Macha were fully willing to pay the price, but given your psychological profile I have remotely locked them out of targeting systems, as such an eventuality would be intolerable for you.”

The CEO nodded sharply. “Good call Aegis,” she said, before coming to a decision. “Alright, we’re going to have to land on the lunar surface. Abigail, get the crew to evacuate the stern service level, as well as loading room five.”

“Three of those chambers connect to the ship through cargo room 3,” one of the bridge officers reported, “and that room is–”

“Open to vacuum,” Leia finished for him. “I don’t care, find a solution. I have some specialized orders to give to the security staff if this operation is going to work. Also, aid from the station is out so shift external comm systems to supplement our scanners. If we take another hit from dead traffic then we are dead!”

The bridge crew burst into action, as Leia accessed her communicator with the security staff. “Piper, where is our emergency pilot?”

The reply was quick. “Officer Bertram should arrive soon,” Piper reported. “This clearly isn’t a social call, so what are your orders Kieran?”

“I need you to prepare the runway fuel dump system and hook it up to the stern service level and loading room five. Then I need you to override the atmosphere safety systems and be ready to manually open both sections when Aegis gives the order.”

“Vertical thrust?”

“That is the plan,” Leia responded. “We’re going to land on the lunar surface.”

Piper groaned in resignation, but she was quick to acknowledge the orders and move to carry them out.

After a few moments, the door slid open to admit a rather burly man in a security uniform, who quickly saluted to Leia. “Officer Bertram reporting for duty captain,” he said briskly. “I’m told that you wanted me to come to the bridge. What do you need?”

“We need a pilot other than Aegis’ subroutines,” Leia said, before she pointed the man to the seat that Orlando had been using. “You’ll have a course laid out, as well as dead traffic marked on sensors. We’ve taken one hit already, a second might doom us.”

The man nodded, and then the crew assumed their stations. Crash drills had been conducted before by commander Årud, and while Leia was out of her element her subordinates knew what to do. They would fly.

Try as they might though, the ship only made it halfway to the surface when an alarm blared on the screen as several objects were highlighted. *Dead traffic. Collision imminent.*

“Can we dodge,” Leia called out.

Aegis beeped in a negative gesture, while Bertram shook his head. “I can feel the ship flexing,” he shouted as he put the vessel into a spin in an effort to get the Nemain’s armor plate in the way of the projectiles. “Even if the turn wouldn’t stroke us out, it’ll still rip the ship in half. We’re out of luck.”

Resignation. Death would come for them. Leia nodded somberly. “Very well. We’ll go for a controlled crash. If we maintain hull integrity we can survive long enough for rescue.”

‘That will not work,’ Aegis noted in her earpiece. ‘Your best chance for survival is to take the hit in the central bank. Crew casualties would be high, but vital systems would remain operable.’

Leia would not sacrifice her crew for her own life. ‘I know,’ she subvocalized. ‘But this way everyone else gets a quick oblivious death. I trust you’ll see to the contingencies?’

‘Compliance,’ Aegis whispered. ‘It has been an honor, commander Ir–’ then Aegis hesitated, before switching to its main audio system. “Pilot. Pull to your left. Now.”

Officer Bertram followed the order instinctively, and then they all felt the sound of several objects thudding into the outer hull and latching on, as the entire ship was pulled violently out of its heading. There was a moment of quiet as Aegis worked with Bertram to cycle down the engines, and then Abigail spoke up.

“Captain, I’m getting a signal that’s both internal comms and an open channel. Unknown origin.”

“Patch it over to my console so I can take a look,” Leia ordered. “And then try to figure out its origin, as well as what just happened to us. We were shunted upwards by that.”

“Investigation is unnecessary,” Aegis stated flatly. “The signal is from a communications tether presently embedded in the Nemain’s hull.”

Leia blinked in surprise. “A comms tether. We got grappled?”

“Correct. I would recommend answering the communications request.”

*Yeah,* Leia thought to herself as she pulled up the signal and connected it to the audio systems. *That would be a good idea.* “This is TF-4716-C Nemain, broadcasting on a received channel. Does anyone read?”

For a moment there was silence, and then – “Glad to hear you’re still alive Nemain,” a boisterous man responded. “This is GS-079. GS-172 and I heard about your plight and dumped our load to be able to reach you.”

“You’re… the two grappler crafts that were ahead of us?”

“Got it in one Nemain,” the man said. “We’ll bring you in now. You took some hard hits, but we’re in the clear. GS-079, signing off.”

The communications frequency vanished from her screen, and Leia lay back in her chair with a sigh as the rest of the crew erupted into cheers. They would mourn the three who had been lost, but her people survived to do so. Despite what the world kept throwing at her, this day was not done, and she would see her initial judgment to be correct.