September 8th, 2202
Ship standard time 2030
Extravehicular Mobility Unit Power 99%
Extravehicular Mobility Unit Oxygen Supply 99%
She never realized how much the real thing is rarely like training.
Ling’s feet momentarily were suspended on the edge of the abyss. She took the first hesitant step onto the outside of the ship and immediately her boots magnetized to the hull. She breathed a sigh of relief as it became apparent she wouldn’t be thrown clear of the ship. Using voice-activated controls, she initiated her heads-up display and pinpointed to her target to set a marker. The HUD also read out the various status of her life support and personalized propellent system. Since the ship was accelerating, despite being damaged, she would have to rely on her boots and walk to the damaged generator to assess the damage and try to repair it.
In her left hand she carried a case that contained various tools that may be required to access and repair the offline system, its sleek black exterior reflected the pure blue energy emitting from the exhaust of the fusion engines below. An arc welder was carried in her right which had a carbon mesh hose that led to two tanks of fuel on her back.
“Check in, Lieutenant,” the captain’s voice rang out in her com system. “Can you hear me? Status report.”
“I can hear you loud and clear,” Ling took several more strides, ensuring that she was constantly connected to the ship, lest she be left behind. “All systems green. Walking to the generator now, two point four kilometers away. Suit’s power and oxygen is at ninety nine percent.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant Ling,” the captain said as she looked over her right shoulder to where the bridge was located. She turned back towards her destination barely more than a blip on her screen.
* * *
September 7th, 2202
Ship standard time 0358
Ling stared at the American flag that hung above her station, it hung limply over the bridge’s viewport.
“I don’t think America exists anymore,” she pressed a plastic button that brought up the solar panel input display.
All the delicate sensors registered a cool hue of blue. This far from the nearest star, the power gathered from solar power was miniscule, but even a miniscule amount could be sufficient for a minor puff of gas and a minor course change. Anything to prevent the diversion of power from the generation ship’s powerful fusion core was preferrable. In this sea of nothingness, the ship’s reliance on the lack of resistance kept them afloat and their course leveled at their ultimate destination, hopefully.
“Good riddance to garbage is what I say.” The ship’s navigator, DeAndre leaned back in his well-worn chair. “They don’t have anyone else to blame but themselves. But, on the other hand, they kind of did us a favor.”
“What’s that?” Ling turned to face him; her words echoed in the expansive room. During the standard daytime hours, the bridge would be filled with the heads of the departments but two hours before the morning team took over the place was empty enough for her words to echo off the graphite–epoxy composite walls.
“From what I’ve been told. Considering my blackness, I wouldn’t have had the chance to be sitting in this chair if it wasn’t for their foolishness, being a part of the most technologically advanced piece of engineering our species have ever conceived. Also, I wouldn’t be sitting up here with you.”
“That’s one way of thinking of it,” Ling conceded. “But do you ever wonder what it was like?”
“I heard it was paradise, and they pissed it all away,” DeAndre flipped a couple switches to display their current velocity. “Don’t you remember any of it?”
“I was three when we left,” Ling said. “I think I remember my first time on the ship, maybe the trip on the rocket that transported us to it. But I don’t know. It could just be my mind filling in the information from what my mother has told me. Someone told me once you don’t remember anything when you’re that young.”
“How is she? Your mother that is,” DeAndre asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Not good,” Ling said. “I’m going to see her after our shift though, she’s the only one who’s awake at this time of day. Mark doesn’t start until eight in the morning at the greenhouse, and I don’t want to risk waking him or Lily up, so I’ve got time to kill,” Ling finished just as the pneumatic hiss signaled the door to the bridge opening.
“Good morning, Captain Zeiss,” both Ling and DeAndre saluted their captain and they stood.
A tall man with closely shaven hair, Captain Zeiss had brought a limp and a wife with him when they had departed Earth. The wife was gone now, her withered body was the first one released to the stars, the limp remained. Back then, he had considerably more pepper than salt in his hair and his face was not as jigsaw lined with wrinkles as he was now. Despite his lengthy post as captain of the Shahrat and the considerable distance they had put between themselves and Earth, he still expected the formality of the old Space Force and exuded it himself. Rarely did any of his charge see him without a spotless and crease-free uniform.
“At ease, time for the oh-four-hundred status report,” Zeiss stood with his hands behind his back and took a survey of the room, the same he always did.
“Fusion collectors are at ninety-seven percent capacity. We expect the RamScoop to have collected sufficient excess energy to power an acceleration event in approximately nine hours,” Ling stood as she provided her update while her captain nodded as he took in the information. “Solar panels are charging at a rate of point one percent per day. We will have reached battery capacity in four months, give or take about a week.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Zhang. It will be good to be able to accelerate and give the Bussard Ramjet engines some use. It has been too long since we’ve fired them up,” Zeiss tapped the notes into his tablet. “Lieutenant Wilson, report.”
“Since our last report, we have travelled approximately two hundred million kilometers. There is no change to our current course. At our current velocity of five-point nine percent the speed of light, we should enter the Aguaterium system in approximately twenty-one years and six months. There were no alarms or abnormalities to report, all systems are online.”
Zeiss nodded curtly once again. “Thank you, Lieutenants. See you tomorrow, same time.”
* * *
September 8th, 2202
Ship standard time 2015
This ship was her world.
The generation ship the Shahrat was laid out like a giant wagon wheel. If a wheel which stretched over three kilometers in circumference and was in constant rotating motion to maintain the artificial gravity that produced a similar experience to Earth. Four long spokes led to the axis of the ship where the engine and power core were situated. Spreading out before the engine was the massive RamScoop; essentially a magnetic field that acted as a funnel and collected hydrogen atoms. The collected and compressed ionized hydrogen would be stored in tanks where, when near full could be compressed and utilized in the fusion engine to accelerate the ship. The scoop was nearly the circumference of the ship itself, made of an ultra-thin carbon fiber with Teflon and diamond coating. Contained within the physical sphere were several spheres that projected a much wider magnetic field, drawing the surplus hydrogen atoms to the scoop which overcame the drag the entire system generated.
There was a time in the years that followed their exodus from Earth, back when they were still receiving transmissions, before everything on their home planet went silent, that these acceleration activities were a cause for celebration and an event. All of the department heads from engineering and navigation to agriculture and medical would take part. But, as those events concluded and decades remained the jubilation turned sour and eventually, attendance seemed pointless.
Throughout the years, there was one sole person whose attendance was guaranteed to oversee the operation, even though it was almost entirely automated by the ship’s computer. “Welcome, Lieutenant Zhang,” Captain Zeiss sat in his command chair as she entered.
DeAndre was the sole other occupant of the room and had already begun his calculations based upon their current vectors and velocity. Per standard procedure, Ling ran through a litany of pre maneuver checks, as well. She commenced a diagnostic of the powerful fusion engine which confirmed its expected performance. With the high surplus of hydrogen atoms collected from the magnetic and physical scoop, she would not have to divert any energy from the functional systems of the Shahrat.
After both had completed their procedures and reported this to the captain, he seemed satisfied with and ordered the initiation of the burn that would propel the ship forward at an increased rate.
“Initialize the engines, Lieutenant,” Captain Zeiss ordered.
Ling pressed a series of buttons which unlocked the engine burn protocol. She toggled the lever that controlled the fusion drive flow and slowly pressed the acceleration stick. The camera on the rear of the ship which displayed the exhaust from the fusion drives showed a long blue-white streak of energy across the screen.
Soon after the start of the burn though, a red warning symbol appeared on Ling’s screen that showed the status of the hydrogen ion scoop. It showed a defect detected on the surface and a high-pitched alarm diverted their attention.
“Report, Lieutenant Zhang, what is that alarm?” Zeiss’s look of concern broke through his normally stoic façade.
Ling swiped through several displays and brought in an overview of the scoop, which included a live image. Using a selection of powerful cameras, she scanned the region which displayed the alert, zooming in on the surface to check for imperfections. Just as she was about to declare it a false alarm, a round hole in the side of the magnetic funnel generator was visible on her monitor.
“The magnetic field is down. It appears the generator at ninety degrees has been damaged.” Ling shook her head as she responded. “How could this have happened?”
“It’s rare,” DeAndre answered. “But with the magnetic field attracting all the hydrogen and other elements, it’s possible that it attracted a micrometeoroid or dust that struck with significant enough force to cause the damage.”
“Is it serious?” a concerned Zeiss asked Ling.
“Yes. Without the magnetic field the friction from the constant bombardment of ionized atoms and other space debris will decelerate us. As it is, it will also cause us to list off course and increase our drag. Eventually, even if it is brought back online, if we slow too much, we will not be able to collect enough energy to overcome the inherent drag the Shahrat creates,” Ling responded.
“Options, Lieutenant?” Zeiss asked.
“It needs to be repaired immediately.” Ling said. “Someone will have to go out and repair it. I volunteer to go myself. There is no one that has more intimate knowledge of the scoop system then me.”
“Are you sure, Ling? Surely there is someone else that is qualified,” Zeiss said.
“Captain, we need to address this issue immediately. There is no time to lose,” Ling stated.
“Very well,” Zeiss brought the display of the funnel on the main screen. “Lieutenant Wilson help prepare Lieutenant Zhang for the space walk, and I will monitor from here. Good luck, Lieutenant.”
August 3rd, 2202
Ship standard time 0614
“Is it that difficult to see me like this that you have to bury your face in that thing?” Ling’s mother said to her daughter.
“No, mother,” Ling rested her tablet on her lap. “But if I am training to be lead engineer, I need to take every opportunity to study them. When Doctor Izike retires next year, I will be on my own. Since I can’t study at home because of Lily, this is my time.”
Ling’s mother sighed and rearranged her bed sheets. The steady hum of the infusion pumps, delivering her pain medication, chemotherapy agents and targeted therapies supplied the white noise between the two. She was the lone occupant of the small room, barely sufficient in size to hold the patient and her daughter. Beside the bed and pole, where her medical equipment was working furiously, a small bedside table held a couple pictures of herself, Ling and Ling’s father. All the pictures were from Earth, not necessarily happier times, but happier moments.
Her mother ran an ashen hand through her receding hairline and parsed her lips, a tell that she was about to speak. “Back on Earth,” she started with her usual prefix. “People considered it rude to look at a screen while you were talking.”
Ling paused as she looked from her device to her mother’s face. “Back in your time, people knowingly and intentionally pumped noxious fumes into an already superheated atmosphere, launched nuclear weapons at innocents, destroyed an abundant ecosystem and who knows what else all so you could give more power to the wealthy. Please don’t lecture me on what people did back in your time. That’s why we are here in the first place.”
“You sound as if you’ve prepared that,” her mother took a drink of water from a metal cup. “You don’t know what it was like though. While there was famine causing massive migration and fires burning out of control there was still a significant portion of the population that refused to believe that it was actually happening, or that they had anything to do with it. Then, there were the wars and all everyone, politicians, and workers alike, ever talked about was defending the country. We tried raising the alarm long ago, but no one was listening. They were all too worried about where their next meal was coming from or what bathrooms people could use, it was insanity or better yet, stupidity. When you have hundreds of millions of people, one person can’t make a difference.”
“So that was your solution? Give up and run away? Was that what father wanted?” Ling asked her.
“No one wanted this, Ling. But your father realized that there was no other option, and he was right. The last communication we had from Earth was nearly two decades now. Life, as we knew it, ended. We had the option to try again somewhere else and that is what we chose. Luckily, your father had an opportunity since he was the CTO of Beyond and managed the design and construction of the Shahrat.”
“All the good it did him,” Ling said. “Getting sick like he did and not being able to join.”
Ling’s mother paused and her hand went to her hair again. She sighed before speaking again, “Ling, I have something to tell you. I don’t know if he would have wanted me to tell you or not. But your father wasn’t sick. The company only allotted two spaces per family. He chose to stay behind. It was his idea to tell you, when you were old enough to know, that he was terminal, and the company wouldn’t let him take the voyage with us because of resources. Ironic, isn’t it? Now, I lay here in the identical situation that he dreamed up.”
“What?” Ling surprised herself with how loudly she spat the word, it reverberated of the sterile walls. “Why would he do that?”
“He wanted you and I to go, thinking that I would be able to raise a child better than he. It was his wish. Not everyone can change people’s minds, some of us can raise a good person though,” a tear rolled down the cheek of her mother. “I think that I’ve done a decent job.”
September 8th, 2202
Ship standard time 2052
Extravehicular Mobility Unit Power 87%
Extravehicular Mobility Unit Oxygen Supply 84%
After about twenty minutes of travel, Ling closed the distance by about a kilometer. By then, she had reached the edge of the physical funnel and still had to circumnavigate around the rim. Here, the view of the ship was obstructed by the scoop that gathered the necessary fuel, but also produced drag that would eventually bring their momentum to a stop. Far to one side of her, in the center of the base, the condenser glowed with the ambient energy expelled from the engines that burned hotter than the surface the star so distantly departed.
“I’m on the surface of the scoop, Captain,” Ling took one tentative step forward to ensure that her powered boots would adhere to the new surface material before proceeding. “The generator is in sight, just over a kilometer away. Systems are still green; power is near ninety percent and oxygen as well. I should arrive in about thirty minutes. How is the acceleration going?”
“We are almost done with the burn, Lieutenant,” Wilson had substituted into her seat to monitor the engines. “Another five minutes before it is complete, and the fuel is down to ten percent capacity.”
She passed the first generator, a dodecahedron perched on a squat base, on her way around the rim of the funnel. The status light on the top of it blinked a bright green. She zoomed in on her target and despite not being able to identify the damage from this distance, the red light that indicated the status was visible. Ling increased her pace as she grew confident in her footing and direction. Part way through her trek, the engines cut off and the glow that had illuminated her path relented. She paused to activate the lights on her suit and then resumed her journey. Finally, just as she noted that she was drawing close it was upon her and she touched the smooth surface, her lights reflected off the sides, creating a shiny glare.
“Good work, Ling, we’ll transmit the schematics of the generator directly to your suit,” no sooner had DeAndre finished his sentence than an indicator lit up in her display.
Meanwhile, Ling popped the tabs holding the casing of the generator to the ship. As she did, a brown powder, from whatever small micrometeor that had collided with it formed a cloud in front of her that quickly dissipated. She strapped the casing to her belt and looked down at the inner workings of the instrumentation just as the schematics were brought up. Moving to the other side of the base which the generator was connected to, she saw the damaged section.
“It looks like the actuator is damaged,” Ling gently pushed aside wiring to bring the instrument into view. “The motor must have been struck, it’s been completely shattered.”
“We’ll need to replace it,” Ling could hear Captain Zeiss in her headset. “Come back in and we’ll send you back out with replacement parts.”
She looked at the Sharat and the now quiet engines before she responded, “Captain, it will take me at least an hour to return here with the replacement part. We’ve expended all the ship’s excess energy on our burn. Without the magnetic scoop, we will start to decelerate faster than we can harvest the energy needed. The ship may eventually become stranded.”
“What are you saying, Ling?” Zeiss’s strained voice crackled.
“Doesn’t my suit’s oxygen pump have an actuator? Can we use that one?” Ling replaced the schematic of the generator with one of her oxygen systems.
Wilson spoke up first, “Without the actuator, the suit won’t be able to pump oxygen from the tanks to your helmet. You’ll suffocate.”
Ling looked at the spinning section of the Shahrat, the section which contained the living quarters where for an instant she thought she saw where her own was. A tiny speck of light showed where her daughter and husband may have left the light on for her.
“If I don’t, everyone aboard may be stranded here and we’ll never arrive,” Ling pulled a drill from the tool case and started to undo her suit’s control panel.
She popped open the panel and found the wires leading to the actuator which recycled the air, including the oxygen, to her headset. After she unscrewed the arms holding it in, she cut the wires. This set off a series of alarms within her display which she quickly silenced and turned off. She removed the actuator from the generator, the lack of oxygen being pumped into her helmet changed the readout of available oxygen to under five minutes. She reconnected her suit’s actuator into the wires of the solenoid generator and started to work on the casing.
September 8th, 2202
Ship standard time 1930
Lily bounced on her bed in an apparent attempt to show that her seemingly endless supply of energy was still full.
“See mommy, I’m not even tired,” Lily landed plopped on her bed with a pout. “How about one more chapter before I have to go to bed?”
“Maybe daddy can read one more chapter, I have to go to work, we are doing an acceleration today,” Ling said more to Robert, her sandy-haired husband, than to her daughter. Ling nudged him and he sputtered awake, having dozed off in the slim armchair, the lone furniture besides their beds in the shared space.
“So, we’ll get to our new home sooner?” her daughter’s face lit up.
“Correct, you remember,” Ling encouraged her.
“Let’s read that last chapter,” Robert sat up and took the tablet from Ling. Lily sat on her father’s knee. Her straight black hair was tied back in a single red ribbon, as always. Robert tapped a button on the tablet and started to read the closing chapter in a book about a mysterious dragon that had gotten lost in a mystical fairy kingdom. Ling kissed her daughter on the forehead and smiled as her husband, who still smelled like the artificial soil he cultivated in the ship’s greenhouse all day while she was asleep. She tried to burn the image of the two of them like this before she left their living quarters on her way to work.
September 8th, 2202
Ship standard time 2103
Extravehicular Mobility Unit Power 76%
Extravehicular Mobility Unit Oxygen Supply 3%
“Restarting the generator,” Wilson said.
With the casing back in place she watched with nervous anticipation as the scoop generation field was restarted. First all the field generators’ lights turned from green to red then one by one each changed again to green, except for the one she had just repaired. As she was about to give up hope, the red light turned off and with a slight blip on her display the generator came back online, and the light turned green.
“One minute to oxygen depletion,” the suit’s mechanical voice warned her.
She toggled the warning signs off and sent one last request to Captain Zeiss.
“Mommy?” her daughter’s gentle voice flowed into her headset.
“Yes, it’s me, Lily,” she responded as she pushed herself clear of the funnel and disengaged her boot’s magnetism. “Always remember to be good and that Mommy loves you.”
She watched as the Shahrat floated away; her daughter’s little voice was carried with it until she could hear no more. Finally, before she lost consciousness, the Shahrat faded into another point of light in the endless horizon.
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