Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) (28 page)

Nolan sprinted as best he could in the low spin-induced gravity of the station to the anti-spinward exit. Another of the junior crew members shouted, “He’s not wearing a harness!” as Mancuso floated out onto the empty shuttle platform. Mars rolling beneath him, the giant hab ring spinning above as he held onto the railing of the shuttle dock. He seemed to be looking up into the stars above him.

Emma watched the screen in horror. What was he doing out there? No. No.

Pradeep was yelling after Nolan but the words didn’t register with her. Time slowed down for the second time in less than an hour as adrenaline pumped into her system.

She felt the room spin around her.

She grabbed the back of her seat and somehow managed to sit down in it. Her father… She looked up at the screen again. The brilliant flash that overwhelmed the optics on the Watchtower for a brief instant and then nothing.

She turned back to the screen showing the docking bay. Mancuso was gone.

Blurry lights. Tears.

Jerem was still out there.

“Jerem is still out there.”

She looked around. Nobody was at their stations. Except Ortega. Pradeep was standing near the door, apparently unable to follow Nolan out of the room. His headset still in his hand.

Emma got up and went over to him, wiping her cheeks.

“Sunil. We still have ships out there.” She touched his hand still holding the headset and he looked down at her. He was wide-eyed. In shock. They all were.

Through tears, Emma spoke up. “Everyone! We still have ships out there! We still need to get them home.” A couple of people stopped what they were doing and looked at her. Ortega turned in his seat and blinked. Where the hell had Nolan gone? She knew; she understood even though she was mad he left them here. Mancuso had held the station together himself for thirty years.

Later. She’d process this all later. Put it in a box. A calmness came over her, numbing her. Her scalp tingling.

Pradeep nodded. “Yes. You’re right.” He moved back to his station and plugged in his headset. He sat down.

“Ortega, let’s go over that footage in the boardroom. We need to see if there’s anything we can use in it.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She looked up. “Would someone put the nav board back on screen?”

The screen flashed and then the familiar black and red nav board replaced the looping video. Dashed lines for The Terror and Making Time now. Calypso ended in a dot. They’d lost contact with everybody?

Ortega grabbed his tablet and stood up.

Outside, Mars fell past the windows. The dark lowlands rolling below.

“I’ll join you in a second, Nelson. I have to call my mother first and…” Her voice cracked.

Emma got up and left the deck.

She trudged through the curving hall of the ring section past the mess hall. Lights fading to orange as the day came to an end. People running past her in both directions as she trod on.

What was she going to say? All she could think of was, Mom. I’m sorry. She held back more tears as she approached her room and opened the door. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

Waves of tears and wracking sobs washed over her. She knelt on the floor and stayed there for a long time.
 

076

Making Time.

A loud screech emanated from the cockpit’s speakers. Hal Wheeler killed the transmission and looked at his son.

Jerem’s face was scrunched up, his hands halfway to his head. “What was…”

He was cut off by a bright white light casting a second shadow in the close confines of the cockpit. The flare only lasted for a fraction of a second but left an impression floating on his retinas.

“… that?” He looked at his father whose expression cycled from annoyance to bewilderment to shock.

“I think that was Calypso.”

They both knew it was. The station’s attempts to bring them home hadn’t worked. But what had happened? Jerem looked at his tablet, dumbfounded.

Em. He couldn’t imagine what she was going through right now. What was happening on the station?

“Belt up, I’m starting the reactor.” Hal began making some adjustments to their course and without a countdown, started the engine. The ship hummed and vibrated through their seats as he adjusted the power.

“Wait. Shouldn’t we wait to hear what Control says? They might have some instructions for us. Or something.”

Hal turned the ship slightly before increasing the acceleration to Mars gravity, then doubled it. He was flying on stick, no autopilot. The acceleration continued mounting as he pushed the throttle forward. Earth gravity, then one and a half gees. A full two minutes before he said a word. The ship rattled as unsecured bits of equipment fell to the floor from the work benches.

“There’s nothing they can do for us now. We’re on our own.”

Jerem felt the increasing pressure wedge him further into his seat as the ship piled on the velocity.

“We filing plans at least?”

Hal didn’t answer, but continued checking his coordinates and adjusting their trim.

A light flashed on the console and Jerem struggled to look forward at the message on his screen.
All ships. Control advising removal of remote control systems from ships. Bypass all remote mechanisms.

Jerem sat there, pinned by the acceleration. He looked over at his father.

Hal killed the radios shutting down their telemetry link. There was nothing the station could do for them now. He turned the lights down in the cabin and let the acceleration push him back in his seat. He didn’t want his son to see him.
 

… to be continued in TRAJECTORY BOOK 2.
 

Acknowledgements

It’s not easy reading a book by someone you know. It’s weird and awkward. I get that.

I want to thank Ron for giving it a go even though he is “not a sci-fi kind of guy” despite his deep love of comics and graphic novels. He helped make the first fifty pages a little bit more tolerable.

A profound debt of thanks for my friend Chris P. who finished the second draft. Not just this book, but the unfinished pieces that make up all of Trajectory Volume 1. His suggestions and enthusiasm were extremely helpful.

Further thanks to Chris H. who read the second draft. You were my first “friend of a friend” reader.

Johnathan and Melissa who listened to me burble vaguely about space, the future and the never-ending onslaught of technological advance. Thank you for continuing to be my friend despite my struggle up the mountain.

And of course, my Mom and Dad who were really more supportive than they should have been. Thanks, folks.

And Dakota, who I miss constantly.

And Dexter.

But most of all, I want to thank Deb for kicking me in the ass to finish this and put it out. You read the earliest drafts and asked hard questions and listened to hare-brained answers. I really couldn’t have done this without you.

Also, I’d like to thank the Wikimedia Foundation and all of the volunteers who make Wikipedia such a wonderful shared global resource. I have a list of incredible reference pages which made writing this much, much easier.

And of course, thank you, dear reader.

<3
 

Connect with the Author

Blog:   
http://robcee.net/

Twitter: @robcee

Table of Contents

preface

001

002

003

004

005

006

007

008

009

010

011

012

013

014

015

016

017

018

019

020

021

022

023

024

025

026

027

028

029

030

031

032

033

034

035

036

037

038

039

040

041

042

043

044

045

046

047

048

049

050

051

052

053

054

055

056

057

058

059

060

061

062

063

064

065

066

067

068

069

070

071

072

073

074

075

076

Acknowledgements

Connect with the Author