Nate had decided to follow an old expression: If you cannot beat them, join them. As he could not change anything about the new hadron Collider surrounding the luxury ship, he had decided to help his mentor with his experiments.
He hoped that he could find a new particle or solve a complicated quantum equation, which would get him some money to send to his family when he would be in prison for company theft and breach of contract.
“No, no change in results.” Dr Gestalter announced.
“That’s not possible.”
“Well, the numbers are there. You are right though. I think our measuring tools are trying to observe something beyond their interpretative programming.”
“Which means they are giving us bad results because the underlying theory is wrong?”
“Exactly. We’ll have to do the math ourselves to spot where the problem lies.”
“Oh no.” Nate was far from happy by that news. “Can’t we try sending hydrogen in regular bursts, see if that changes anything?”
“Results are already well beyond our measuring capabilities, why would augment the reaction help us?”
“Would be easier to get a clear picture.”
Dr. Gestalter stroke his recently grown beard. He had not shaven in weeks. “True, we’ll still need quite some luck, but doesn’t cost anything to try.”
He pushed some keys on his computer and relaunched the acceleration process.
A thud began echoing in the room, and Nate imagined the thousands of superconductors turning on and beginning their immense pressurization of the collider’s inside.
From the outside, there was noting notably different about the metal ring.
He focused on the two screens on Dr. Gestalter’s computer. It was now sitting on a decent work desk. He had insisted not use the folding table anymore.
“Ah, impact. No photo though.” Said Dr. Gestalter. “Here’s the second. Nothing either.”
Nate checked the measures; they were still absurd.
“Third impact, just like the first. I will increase the frequency. We will need a lot of impacts in a row to have any hope to get a picture.
Nate nodded. He knew very well that obtaining a frame of the event was almost impossible with their makeshift equipment. If they managed to do it though, it would mean that quantum experiments did not have to be led by giant governmental organizations anymore, and that they were feasible at a much smaller scale.
“Weird.” The young physicist pointed towards the measures on the left screen. “It’s like the numbers are stabilizing, they are even starting to make some sen…”
He was interrupted by an absurd sound of metal as if a truck had crashed directly in one of the hangar walls.
The computer showed an error message, and the Hadron collider stopped immediately.
“What’s going on?” Dr. Gestalter asked.
Nay rose his shoulders. “It came from the other side of the ship; I’ll go and see.”
The young man began to trot, following the curve of the scientific tool. It did not take him much time to find the sound’s origin, nor understand why the computer had sent an error signal.
“Doctor?” Nate shouted, not understanding what he was seeing. “We’ve got a problem!”
He kneeled in front of the collider.
Where the two atoms of hydrogen were meeting, where the thickest part of the Hadron collider should have been, was a hole the size of a basketball. The measuring system and the slow-motion camera had crashed just under the void. The tungsten, micro diamonds, and magnets making most of the internal tube of the accelerator were scrunched up inwards towards the hole, and while the external part had a normal colour, the same could not be said about the inside. What he could see of the remaining impact chamber was of a reddish-orange colour, indicating more than high temperatures.
“Shiiiiiiiiiit.” He swore out loud.
Present 2095
“More to the right captain.” Sam checked the screen of her tablet, equipped on the arm of her spacesuit.
“Is that good?” Tess asked.
“Yes.”
“Will someone tell me what is going on?” Shiina’s voice blared in the captain’s ears.
“Yes. But not now, I need to concentrate on the burn. We will have time to talk once we are launched. Do not move around so much and calm down. Is everyone tied to each other?”
“Yes captain.” Oliver answered the question for the third time.
“In a line then, Climber at the front, followed by Sam, Honey, Shiina.”
It only took a few seconds for everyone to be in position.
“Four minutes of burn in that direction should be good captain. We have two hours of air, one in Honey’s case. Oliver will slow us down in thirty-five minutes, so we have time to spare. But captain, about the Leisurer…”
“Not now Sam. Is everyone ready?”
Tess Foncet only heard three voices answer her in her helmet.
“Shiina.”
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Good. Starting my mobile suit.”
Tess focused on her commands. She had no visibility of where she was going, but even with a clear sight, she would have needed her helmet’s zoom to see the ship. Right now, it was only a black dot above the greatness of Jupiter.
“We’ve got a little vertical deviation.” Sam informed her.
“Rectifying.” She confirmed.
Minutes passed, with her propulsion system as only music, then, after one last push of gas, nothing.
Tess checked the screen in her helmet. She had two percent of fuel left.
“Sam?”
“I…I think we’re good.”
“Check again, then confirm to me again.”
“Understood.”
“No one moves, no pushing. We stay exactly like that for half an hour, then everyone turns the other way.”
“We’re not stupid.” Shiina was more than annoyed, under her grasp, Tess could feel the young girl’s shoulders tense up under anger.
The captain sighed.
It was Oliver who spoke first. “Sorry Chi, it was my idea. All this smelled and I knew that if we decided to abandon the others to their death you would have…”
“I would have what!? I am not fifteen anymore, I am aware that sometimes things are going to crap! I could have helped, but instead, the Saviour is in pieces and we will all be dead in two hours! Who here knows how to recognize a railgun? If I had been in the loop, we could have reacted faster!”
No one tried to contradict the young woman, not even Tess. Instead, she even apologized to her.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Sorry Shiina, you are absolutely right. Even one second was enough to avoid the shell. You could have given us that second. But it was not Oliver who took the decision to put you on the side, it was me.”
“…Fuck!” Shiina shouted in the same way Honey did.
Despite her swearing, Tess felt Shiina grow calmer.
The captain changed subjects: “But we’re not going to die. We’ve got a ship in perfect condition waiting for us.”
“What is telling us it’ll wait for us? It could be going right now! Why abandon the Saviour, we could have fled…” Honey asked in a weak voice.
“My guts. I think it is empty. There has not been one message sent from the Leisurer to the mining ship or the opposite. And I do not think we could have fled. Dodging a shell while lighting up the main engine is possible but without hydrogen…they would have caught up to us shortly after.”
“Weren’t they out?”
“I decided that it was a lie.”
Shiina spoke just after, this time with a posed voice.
“They shot at us with a railgun. You need fuel to do that. At least to counteract the knockback. I don’t know what they told you, but they definitely didn’t have fuel problems.”
Comms went silent for a while.
“How long did it take you to make that decision?” Finally asked Honey to his captain.
“Three seconds.” Oliver answered in her stead.
“Three fucking seconds…”
Tess did not let herself be bothered by the incredulous tone in her old friend's voice.
“I hope it wasn’t three seconds too late.” She said instead.
Thirty-five minutes later.
“I’m slowing us down.” Oliver announced.
Tess could only watch the infinite darkness in front of her, then she felt the body of Shiina on her back, stopping her little by little.
Minutes passed in heavy anxiety.
Everyone knew what would happen if they missed their target, or worse, found their target without slowing down enough. A simple failure in the first mate’s manoeuvring system, and instead of saving her crew, Tess would have sent them to the worst kind of death.
She had seen the effects of space on a human body once in her life.
In her opinion, that was already once too many.
After four minutes, her helmet picked up Oliver’s voice once again.
“Sam?”
“…Yes?” The medic responded.
“You’re the greatest.”
Tess turned around, and came face to face with the Leisurer. The ship was bigger than the Saviour, even without counting the weird modification at the front of the spaceship. It was far from competing with the mining vessel though. Well, before the latter had been reduced in a cloud of flying debris orbiting a few miles above their heads.
The tourist ship was beautiful, with curves and many windows, in a style reminiscent of the houses of the post-crisis thirties: sober and clean. A surprising thing was that it had gotten no paint job, they were gazing on the golden thermoresistant surface. Even though the Leisurer seemed intact, thing they would only be able to verify for sure once inside, there was a large rectangular sheet of metal slowly turning around the ship.
“What’s that?” She asked.
It was Shiina who answered her. “A…a hangar wall? I think. Those things created by builder-robots are all the same.”
“What’s it doing around Jupiter?” Oliver questioned out loud.
No one answered him.
“Oliver, find me the entrance.”
“Understood. On this ship model, there should be two…I got it. Hold on to me, we’ll go slowly.”
“Wait.” Sam interrupted them.
Tess looked at her crew’s medical officer.
“Go on, but quickly.”
“…yes…I…my measurements tell me that the ship isn’t…erm…”
“Sam! To the point, Honey needs your attention ASAP.”
“I know that!” The doctor raised her voice. “My scanners indicate that the ship…well there is no easy way to say that…it has the same temperature as our sun, with many more zeroes at the end of that. We can’t enter and survive.”
Tess felt fear start to grip her mind. If it was true, what was she supposed to do? But the cloud of despair was blown away by Shiina, who had already decided to ignore it all.
“Oliver, throw me. I’ll go there and scout.”
“Shiina!?” Her mother shouted in horror.
“Mom, you know that’s impossible. We would be dead; Jupiter would be on fire and we’d need a lot more sunscreen on earth if it was true. Your scanners are wrong.”
“Yes, but that means that there is something inside scrambling with all my tools! That can’t be good to…”
“If we do not get inside this ship and find oxygen in twenty minutes, uncle is dead, and one hour later, we are. We do not have a choice. Oliver, throw me.”
The first mate turned to look at his commander. “Captain?”
“She’s right. Do it.”
“Captain!?” Screamed Sam.
But Tess did not let herself be taken aback. “Yes? Do you have another solution in mind?”
“…Not Shiina. I’ll go myself I…”
“You’re the least experimented with spacewalks. Shiina is the best. I do not trust anyone other than her to leave without a jetpack. And we cannot sacrifice one of our manoeuvring systems or use up the fuel just to check. I have got two percent left, five in Oliver’s case. Any other remarks?”
She saw the medic close her eyes in chagrin. Sam knew that they were right but agreeing to send her daughter away to her potential demise was impossible for her.
“Shiina, I…”
“Don’t worry mom, everything is going to be fine.”
Finally, the doctor conceded, nodding weakly.
The group repositioned itself to give free rein to Oliver and Shiina. She put her feet in his hands, and her eyes fixed themselves on the ship’s fuselage.
“Three…two…one…” Shiina pushed hard and flew straight towards the Leisurer's airlock. Olivier went to the opposite side, but with a very slight impulsion of his jetpack, he was back on the same level as the three other crewmates.
“Shiina?”
“No change in my suit’s temperature. All of it is bullshit I told you.”
Straight as an arrow, the young woman was flying further and further away from them.
“Fifteen meters. Ten meters. Five meters… That’s weird it’s as if there was a…Aouch!” Tess heard a thud in her helmet.
“SHIINA!?” Sam screamed at the top of her lungs.
“AAAAH FOR FUCK’S SAKE MOM MY EARS.” Shouted the young woman even louder.
Tess smiled and she heard Oliver laugh. But Honey did not react.
“I got shocked by static electricity. And it made me fuck up my landing, I will have a bruise, piece of shit. In other news, miracle! I’m not in flames…Airlock is working.”
Tess looked towards Honey. “Honey? Honey!”
He did not react.
“Sam!” She commanded. But the medic was already examining her brother.
“What’s with uncle?” Shiina asked anxiously.
“…unconscious. He has ten percent of oxygen left.”
“Understood.” The captain began. “No time to lose then. Shiina? We’re coming to your position.”
“I’m already going inside to check for atmosphere and setting up a perimeter.”
“Good, but don’t take any inconsiderate risks, and don’t go exploring around without us, ok?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Tess cut off her mic and sighed.
A few minutes later, the whole crew had entered the Leisurer.
Directly outside the airlock was their youngest comrade, waiting for them. She was floating in the most massive room Tess had ever seen inside a spaceship. The high ceiling had a crystal chandelier and tens of long coloured banners going around as they pleased. There were decorative plants and even an aquarium forming half a circle in the middle of the room, despite lacking any fishes. A gigantic support pillar was going through the aquarium and the centre of the ship from bottom to top, and even though it was nothing akin to the rest of the ship, architecturally, it seemed to have been placed there on purpose. Double stairs, looking like marble, were rising towards what were the apartments, and going downwards on the other side towards a pool and a restaurant, if Tess was reading the direction panels on the ground correctly. The ship was plentifully lit up, but the lights were quite subtly hidden in the corners of the walls to give out the impression of grandeur and natural light.
“Shiina?” The captain observed the young woman, wearing no spacesuit, in front of her. The youngest of their group was holding a handgun in her right hand, while the other was passing through her long dark hair to try and comb them.
“Still alive. And there is air. Though I heard a scream coming from the command centre. This way is the command centre, right?” She looked at Oliver and pointed at the ship’s bow, which in their current orientation was beyond the top of the stairs.
“Correct. It’s hot in here.”
“Why do you think I undressed?”
Tess looked at Sam taking care of Honey.
“Oliver, stay with them. I will go with Shiina to the main bridge. Permanent radio contact.” She turned towards Sam. “What does he need?”
The medic gave her a desperate look.
“Gravity…If we can turn on the reactor, at least enough to simulate Mars, I will be able to stop the bleeding…Otherwise he’ll need liters of blood to hold on.”
“Considering this place’s architecture, the ship should be able to create artificial gravity for at least some time.” Oliver noted as he pointed at the stairs.
Tess nodded. “Good thinking.” She removed her own spacesuit as fast as possible, only keeping her headset, and left with Shiina towards the top of the ship. They used the banners as holds to pull themselves upwards.
They reached a long corridor, spinning around to avoid the gigantic pillar in the middle of the ship. As they moved forwards, they crossed past magnificent rooms, albeit half-empty of any furniture, and a large room closed by an automatic metal door. It opened on its own when they went past it, giving them a perfect view of a bar and a giant glass window that was currently giving them a perfect view towards the god-like Jupiter.
“Holy shit.” Swore Shiina. “How much does all of this cost?”
“Way too much for it to be governmental. I don’t understand…” Tess held her doubts to herself. She did not want to worry her subordinate even more.
The young woman already had anxiety gripping her traits because of her passed-out uncle.
After going around the central pillar, they saw one set of stairs at the end of the corridor going to the next floor. A line on the floor, as well as a difference in carpet, forbid the passengers access: ‘Crew Only: Main Bridge.’ was written on the ground.
The two women floated towards the stairwell. It was turning sharply in a one-eighty-degree fashion a bit further ahead. They stopped at the turn.
“Captain, grab my ankles, I’ll peek. If someone shoots, pull me back.”
Tess nodded. She was not going to contradict her subordinate. She had been trained as officer and pilot, not as a soldier, which was not the case of the younger woman.
As soon as the head and shoulders of the youngest in the Clarke family crossed the angle, she aimed her gun towards the command centre.
“…path is clear.” She finally said.
The captain let go of her and went to the other side.
“I was certain I heard someone.” The young woman added.
Tess did not comment. A sliding glass door opened in front of them when they flew over the end of the stairs.
The main bridge was beautiful. Clearly designed for a crew of small size, but it also had luxurious tables and armchairs on the sides, as if to accommodate the clients who should not have been allowed up there. At the middle of the room were three elevated chairs, designed for zero-g, connected to screens and keyboards. On one of them, the captain’s, was sitting a man, his back turned towards them.
“Don’t move!” Shiina shouted as she pushed herself towards the stranger.
Tess spoke in her mic. “We’ve got someone on the main bridge.”
“One?” Oliver answered immediately.
Not stopping pointing her gun at him one second, Shiina stopped herself with her legs, grasping the chair just behind where the man was sitting.
“Turn around! Slowly.”
The man obeyed.
Tess could not hide her surprise. It was a young adult, barely older than Shiina. His face was full of tears, and despite his Caucasian traits, his eyes were very slightly slanted. His dark hair was terribly unruly, and he was wearing a stereotyped long white shirt, that every scientist in a movie would be wearing.
“You killed Doctor Gestalter…” Said Nate with hatred.