John woke to the sound of his ringtone. He rolled over, working sleep out of his eyes, and reached for his uplink. “Yeah?”
“Would you join us on the bridge, John? We're about to drop out of FTL near the Galea Nebula. You might not want to miss this.” Captain Jeffries’ voice sounded small over the device’s speaker.
"Sure, I’ll be right there.”
John stepped onto the bridge and noticed Dr. Steiner, a geologist, and Dr. O’Connor, a meteorologist, were standing in front of the impressive viewports that occupied half the wall space at the front of the room. Mr. Carlin was also present; he was supposed to be some kind of professional survivalist they had picked up on their last stop at a planet John had never heard of before. Their xenobotanist, Dr. Ferland, was missing because she had been delayed but would be joining the team in a few days.
“Ahh, John, you’re just in time for the show,” Captain Jeffries said.
John hesitantly walked towards the black panorama. “So we’re already at the Galea Nebula? And it’s been what, fifteen days?”
“Yes, fifteen days and six hours.”
He glanced at the captain standing next to navigation at the center of the small bridge. “That’s almost 6k. A lot faster than even UED scouts are able to maintain.”
Dorian looked back at John with a wolfish grin. “So far as you know.”
John watched the viewports expectantly. He heard gasps when the obsidian expanse rippled with bright color as, beyond the transparent panels, space was filled with massive clouds of colorful gas, cradling thousands of lights.
Dr. O’Connor moved closer to the transparent wall. "It’s a stellar nursery.”
“Quite right. It’s also the location of one of the Institute’s many research facilities.” He turned to the woman seated in the center of the bridge at an array of panels. “Ms. Johnson, continue our final approach.”
“Aye, captain.”
Everyone watched the panoramic view flicker and warp between black and the vivid color as the Banshee ran a series of small, short-range FTL jumps.
The viewports blurred, then flickered to black again as the ship wheeled around and entered another FTL jump.
Captain Jeffires walked across the bridge towards John and the other team members. “Our destination is located in a difficult corner of the nebula. All this dust, gas, and debris makes travel in FTL very risky, so we’ve mapped a few safe corridors to our intended target, but they require a little navigational finesse to follow. Even though it's a bit fiddly, it isn’t long, so we should be arrive–“
They all watched as color and light again twisted into view, but this time a large circular shape hung in front of them, easily visible as a black stencil against the multi-hued backdrop of the nebula.
Dr. O’Connor mumbled something.
“What was that?” John asked as he turned around to examine Dr. O’Connor’s thoughtful expression.
The meteorologist glanced at John briefly, then back toward the dramatic scene beyond the viewports. “I’m just a little surprised that the institute would build an important research facility on a rouge planet.”
John moved closer to the transparent wall and leaned forward to try to see more of the nebula. The planet itself was undoubtedly their destination since it’d been steadily growing larger ever since that last FTL jump, but John couldn’t see any local star close enough to be the gravitational custodian of this particular planet.
Captain Jeffries conversed quietly with his navigation officer, then looked over to the gathered team. “We’ll be ground side in a dozen minutes. Everyone should be ready to disembark as the Banshee has other errands to look after.”
They touched down gracefully on the deck of a large hangar. A docking pilon extended from the floor and unfolded before attaching to the Banshee's own airlock. After a positive seal was confirmed, the four of them disembarked through the pressurized tunnel and entered a mag-lift. The lift took them down a short way, then John felt it transition to lateral travel for several seconds before rising again and eventually letting them out into some kind of large surface observatory or lounge. He hoisted his duffel higher up on his shoulder and looked back to see the Banshee’s sleek profile while it rose above the planet’s rocky surface from one of many subterranean landing bays. The ship suddenly wheeled around, then shot off, rapidly diminishing as it sped away at mind-bending speeds, clearing the building he was standing in by only a few hundred meters.
John smiled. “Show off,” he said under his breath.
The observation lounge was an oblong dome constructed from transparent walls with smooth, organic-looking supports spaced evenly around its expanse. The supports were probably unnecessary and likely only included as part of the aesthetic idea the designer wanted to convey. More than 100 meters across and 200 meters long, only half of the observation room employed transparent walls. The other half was carved into the smoothly sloping face of a rocky cliff. Gently lit circular depressions speckled the lofty ceiling across the opaque portion at the far end of the room. He stood for a while admiring the nebula before continuing towards the far end of the observation lounge. Visions of the Galea Nebula gave way to cool artificial lighting as John walked past sparsely arranged clusters of chairs and tables. The area was nearly vacant except for the occasional group of people chatting quietly. Most of this facility was actually underground, including the hangar bays and crew quarters. John surmised that research laboratories and testing facilities were probably somewhere under the planet's surface as well.
Approaching one small group standing near a large hexagonal column, John heard Dr. O’Connor raise his voice.
“I told you already! This is an egregious violation of my rights as a citizen of the UED. You should know this! How can you just stand there and sign away your liberty?"
Dr. Steiner crossed her arms. “I think you might be exaggerating a bit. This kind of document has been used by different corporations for as long as corporate entities have existed. At least they aren’t making us wear recording devices. When I worked for Enviro-Fab Inc. a few years ago, they had me and my whole team wear recording devices at all times. I also had to sign a consent form that allowed them to collect all data I generated—calls, messages, even passwords if I wasn’t careful. I’m not sure, but I suspect they collected everything physical we disposed of too. They were quite thorough.”
Cormac’s face started to turn red as he glared at Dr. Steiner in shocked silence for several seconds. “Why would you do that?!”
She calmly returned the man's gaze. “They paid very well, and I got to work with state-of-the-art equipment. Besides, my contract was only one standard earth year.”
The only other member of his new team, Josh Carlin, was leaning against the hexagonal pillar as he watched the heated exchange with what appeared to be amused disinterest.
“Josh, what do you think about the Institute's contract?” John asked.
The reserved survivalist shrugged his shoulders. “The pay is good.”
Cormac looked like he was going to launch into another tirade when John interjected, “Hey! If I get to fly a fast ship and explore some new planet, then I’m all in.”
Dr. O'Connor seemed taken aback by John's quick statement and said nothing. John hadn’t spoken much to any of his three team members during their time on the Banshee, so he wasn’t sure what they’d been told about him.
“Hello John. Now that everyone is here, we can begin a quick orientation.” A petite woman with a thick, rolling accent approached the group. She wore a slim white cloak with black slacks and flat white-soled black shoes.
John hadn’t seen where she came from, but a quick look past his group revealed a hexagonal column about two meters wide quietly receding into the floor ten meters away. Clever way to disguise a service lift, he thought.
“Welcome to Sigma Nine, one of the Institute's best research and development facilities. My name is Naomi, and I will be acting as your hostess while you stay as our guests. Before I show you to your rooms, you must consent to the terms of your current assignment.” She taped the tablet in her hands. “John, I've sent you a copy of our consent and waiver document. The others have already signed theirs.”
Dr. Steiner looked sharply at Dr. O’Connor.
Dr. O’Connor avoided the dark-haired woman's glare. “Just because I signed it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
John signed the surprisingly brief document, and Naomi led the team on a short tour of the well-appointed guest facilities, which included the impressive observation lounge. She guided them down a short corridor that connected the lounge with another circular room about half its size. This room had three floors, all visible from an open central area. The ceiling was domed and brightly lit, giving it the appearance of an open sky on most habitable planets. Green things were growing here and there, lending the whole space a more vibrant feel.
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Naomi pointed out their rooms, then led them to a relatively small hangar. John trailed behind the group because he already knew what he would see since every hangar in every space port looked the same. Naomi was already out of sight when John stepped through the heavy airlock into a tidy single ship hangar space. A newly painted T-11 was dramatically illuminated where it rested on the ground in the center of the bay. The ship was so new you could still smell the paint, and emblazoned in bold letters across its side was the designation T-11-987B. John froze, his heart thumped in his ears, and his sight narrowed until all he could see was that innocent-looking T-11 perched on the ground. Visions of spinning oceans and black impact craters filled his mind.
“John?”
He felt sudden pressure on his left arm, causing him to lurch to the right, nearly losing his balance in the process.
“Should I have medical have a look at you?”
John glanced left and looked at Naomi blankly for a moment, then shook his head. Recovering some composure, he managed a shaky reply. “No, I’m fine. Maybe it’s just the smell of fresh paint bringing back memories.”
She examined him with a critical glance for several seconds, then turned around and spoke to the rest of John’s team. “This is the orbital jumper you will use on your trip down to M1-S982F, a newly discovered class M planet.”
Dr. Steiner lightly jabbed Cormac in the ribs. “I called it.”
He rolled his eyes and grimaced. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“You owe me twenty credits.”
Cormac shot Jocelyn a baleful glare.
“We're just waiting for the long-haul freighter that will take you to system S982F. It should arrive within twenty-four hours. You have until then to go over your equipment and make any extra preparations you think necessary. Contact me if you need anything further," Naomi said before turning around and leaving the hangar.
John looked up at the gleaming T-11. "Well, I guess we better make sure those nerds didn’t miss anything."
He expected Cormac to protest, but all he heard were footfalls as all three team members followed him to the base of the boarding ramp.
John hesitated for a moment at the base of the ramp as he pushed back a sudden wave of panic. Get a hold of yourself, man. It’s not even airborne.
The ship's primary corridor was well packed with equipment fastened to the walls and ceiling using special webbing designed for this purpose. Smaller orbit-capable ships like this one didn’t have the room or power for fancy artificial gravity plating, so anything not tied down would turn into a missile once he started putting the T-11 through maneuvers in zero-g, even with the inertia dampeners turned all the way up.
He continued towards the end of the loading corridor and opened the passenger compartment door, then opened both of the much larger primary cargo hold doors on either side of the spacious corridor and locked them in that position before heading through the passenger compartment towards the cockpit. He could hear Cormac talking excitedly about something from the cargo hold behind him before the scientist’s voice faded into the background as John moved further into the ship’s passenger compartment. He walked past three rows of four seats before reaching the cockpit at the very front of the ship. Stepping through the door to the cockpit, he noted that everything was where it was most useful, and the space was satisfyingly utilitarian. It was designed with function in mind and not simply to amuse a would-be pilot’s sense of style. The hanger was visible through several generous transparent wall sections that wrapped around the entire compartment, nearly all the way back to the rear bulkhead of the cockpit. They also extended above and below, giving the pilot a huge amount of visible range from directly below his chair to right over his shoulder. John noticed that a data tablet had been left on the pilot's chair under a flight helmet, so he picked it up and scanned through the cargo manifest. Turning around, he headed back through the passenger compartment and into the starboard cargo hold. “I found something I think you guys will like.”
Cormac hurried over to him and quickly snatched the manifest out of John's hands. After a moment of intense reading, he hurried past John and out through the hold's door, heading for the portside cargo hold while mumbling under his breath.
“You’re welcome,” John said over his shoulder. Then he walked around the hold, making a few mental notes about its contents.
“What was that?” Jocelyn asked as she poked her head out from behind a huge pile of crates.
“It’s a cargo manifest. I already made a copy for myself. I’ll send one to both of you too.”
Jocelyn nodded. “Some of this stuff is just food and survival gear, but the geologic equipment is bleeding edge. I don’t even know what a lot of it does.”
“Sounds like everyone has a bit of homework to do.”
They both turned when they heard Cormac’s voice yelling excitedly. Jocelyn hurried past John to see what had gotten her colleague so enthused.
Later in the day, John sat in his quarters, staring at a data screen, trying to focus his thoughts enough to absorb the material he was reading. After going through the cargo manifest and doing a pre-flight power-up on the jumper, he had requested any data the Institute had for the T-11 jumper’s design and operation, including the requisite safety protocols that UED regulations required DuroTech and all other ship builders to make public. The data package they sent him was much larger than he was expecting, resulting in him having to spend the last three hours digging around in the file’s contents. Maybe he would have better luck with fresh eyes in the morning. Yawning, he got up and stretched, then walked over to his room’s only window. It overlooked a dimly lit circular courtyard. The artificial sky was showing a rather convincing display of stars, with a half moon just visible at the bottom edge of the vaulted dome. John couldn’t decide if the overall effect was calming or unnerving, seeing as they were underground.
The next morning, after a quick bite to eat, John made his way to the parked jumper then ascended the boarding ramp. He passed the passenger compartment, entered the cockpit, and slid into the pilot's chair.
“Did you find the mobile multi-spectrum radiation analyzer yet, Jocelyn?” Cormac yelled from the left cargo hold.
John heard him even from his location in the cockpit. It was their second and last day at Sigma Nine, so he was familiarizing himself with all the T-11’s systems. He flicked the display, scrolling through an extensive list of menus. No falling out of the sky this time. So far, he’d only found two sensors that needed slight adjustments, but nothing that would even tickle one of the primary safety alerts. Getting up, he went to an access panel at the back of the cockpit and pulled it off, examining the power distribution coupler that fed the large forward portside thrust-vectorable engine. Everything looks fine. Maybe I'm overreacting…
A notification sounded from the control console behind him, so he snapped the panel back in place and moved over to the pilot's chair. It was a contact event. The jumper's ITT transponder had flagged a new ship in orbit as an Ebisu-class freighter named Bjorn's Folly. Not much traffic moves through here since we're folded into a weird corner of a stellar nursery... So who’s this?
His uplink pinged with an urgent notification text message from Naomi that simply read. "Your ride has arrived. Please collect your things and gather in the guest docking bay." He'd already stowed his things on the jumper, so he closed down the diagnostic program, then walked towards the boarding ramp.
Naomi was waiting at the bottom while John descended the ramp. The rest of his team, namely Josh, Jocelyn, and Cormac, were just leaving the hanger. He waited at the base of the boarding ramp with Naomi for the others to gather their things and return. Once they did, Naomi turned to address the whole team. “The Bjorn’s Folly will transport you and your equipment all the way to our objective. At the freighter's modest speed, it will take about seven hundred and twenty standard hours to reach M1-S982F.” She looked at John specifically. “This should provide you with plenty of time to brush up on any subjects you think you might need." She consulted the tablet in her hands. "Dr. Ferland, your xenobotanist and final team member, is awaiting your arrival on Bjorn’s Folly. Good luck, and may fortune favor you.” With these words, she bowed, then left the hanger.
They all boarded, then John closed the access ramp and confirmed a positive airseal before going to the cockpit and strapping himself in. He ran his pre-flight checklist while the others strapped themselves into their seats.
John put his flight helmet on, his mixed reality HUD lit up with system diagnostics and flight telemetry. “Control, this is Jumper 987B requesting permission to depart.”
John heard a gravelly voice come from the comm system in his helmet. “Captain Varen, please standby.”
He switched channels so he could address his passengers. “This is your captain speaking. Please keep all appendages inside the craft at all times. Varen Airlines cannot be held liable for any sudden amputations, intended or otherwise.”
He heard Cormac swear. The passengers had holographic consoles they could use to access any visual feed the pilot activated, so John turned on all visual feeds. “For your entertainment, the in-flight movie tonight will be Space Nerds, a heartfelt tragedy exploring the hazards of space travel,” John said, trying not to laugh. He had his own visual feed from various compartments, so he saw Cormac make a rude gesture from his passenger chair towards where the man thought a camera was.
“T-11-987B, you're clear to dock with Bjorn’s Folly, do not deviate from the flight path.”
John powered up the jumper's systems. “Roger that control.” New information appeared on his HUD, indicating a simple flight path for a rendezvous with the orbiting freighter.
The lighting in the single-ship hangar switched to red, and John could hear a muted alarm sounding even from inside the jumper. The alarm faded to nothing as the small hangar's air was pumped away, then the bulky airlock doors above them split and retracted, revealing a large open hangar. They slowly rose until the deck below them became level with the rest of the hangar floor and locked in place. Then John feathered the throttle, lifting the ship gently into the cavernous space, and tilted the vectorable engines, causing the jumper to sail forward, out into the multi-hued void.
After a little while in zero-g, they approached Bjorn's Folly and touched down on the allotted docking space. Well, that was easy, John thought as he went through the process of powering down the ship.
He waited for the external air pressure to normalize. One of his video feeds showed the other three waiting at the boarding ramp already. Once there was breathable air outside the jumper, John lowered the ramp, then went through a few menus, setting the ship into standby mode and locking it.
Unbuckling his flight harness, he left the helmet on the chair and headed for the boarding ramp. Several people were at the base of the ramp, near the airlocks. One was a gray-haired, dark-skinned man, and the other was a woman with black hair cut to jaw length in a fashionable style. He recognized the man as Captain Jeffries, but the woman's back was turned to him.
“Welcome aboard the Folly,” Dorian said as he extended his hand.
John smiled and shook the man's hand. “This ship isn’t as pretty as the Banshee, but I hear her captain is a capable man.”
Dorian smiled, then gestured to the dark-haired woman. “Your largess is underwhelming. Dr. Ferland, here will be your final team member.”
John turned towards the woman and extended his hand, but froze halfway through the motion. She bled vibrancy in reverse, drawing color and focus from the rest of the room until she was the only real entity in a world built from shadows and ghosts. Her smoke-green eyes entranced him, not only because they were lovely but also because he knew those eyes. He'd only seen them twice, but never in waking thought. Her hair was different, but there could be no doubt. Before him stood Juno.