Deep Space Read online

Deep Space

  An Environmentalism Space Opera

  Brett P. S.

  Copyright © 2015 Brett P. S.

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1 – INTO THE FRAY

  CHAPTER 2 – EFFECTING REPAIRS

  CHAPTER 3 – SCORCHED ROCK

  CHAPTER 4 – HASTY DEPARTURE

  EPILOGUE – JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY

  Chapter 1

  Into the Fray

  Glenn Fischer. Age, 38. Captain of the Albatross, an interstellar freighter designed for picking up cargo and dropping it off, sometimes from one sector of the galaxy to another. Glenn sat comfortably in his captain’s chair while he eyed the readout of his console through half-open eyes.

  The Albatross zoomed through space on a separate dimension otherwise known as FTL. Faster than light travel couldn’t happen in normal space, but go one or two dimensions below and the laws of physics became especially pliable. He hardly understood how it worked, though as long as the ship arrived in one piece, he didn’t care. The mathematics of quantum physics were better suited to federation scientists and theoretical physics graduates.

  “Glenn, we have a problem,” Kelly rang in through the intercom.

  Glenn’s expression perked up, and he sat more firmly in his chair. Kelly Schmidt. Kelly was the butter to his jam … or something like that. OSI could manage simple tasks and most diagnostics, but when it came effecting repairs and troubleshooting complex systems, Kelly was the renowned expert.

  “I swear I didn’t touch the AC,” Glenn said, pressing the communications switch on his console.

  He eyed the readout. Upon inspection, the Albatross had journeyed across Gamma Sector and halfway into the southeast quadrant of Delta. They were about one cycle from their destination, with cargo in tow. So far, no encounters, which was good. Some technology could pull a ship out of FTL, a strategy employed by marauders lurking on the outer rings of the Milky Way. Pirate groupings in Delta Sector were sparse at best, but it could happen.

  FTL didn’t render a ship invulnerable either, as it still somewhat interacted with most cosmological bodies. Fly too close to a star or a moon and that’d end the trip quickly. It was why the Albatross and other FTL enabled vessels came equipped with dropout scanners. Tiny devices attached to the hull interacted with gravitational fields. If the ship came too close to a solar body, it dropped out of FTL before it landed in the middle of a sun.

  “I’m sure OSI just changed the numbers on its own,” she said.

  Glenn detected a hint of sarcasm.

  “It could happen,” he replied, weakly.

  Glenn waited for an answer in the wake of silence. A cold chill ran up his back moments later, and he realized the temperature dropped by about seven degrees.

  “You know, this is my ship,” Glenn said.

  “What are you going to do? Fire me?”

  “I could.”

  “Sure,” Kelly said. There was a short pause before she continued. “Listen, that wasn’t my main concern.”

  Damn, she sidestepped like a boss. Glenn could learn a thing or two from the woman.

  “Well, what is it?” Glenn asked.

  “I had OSI run some diagnostics and the FTL drive has some abnormalities. I think it might be unstable.”

  OSI, otherwise spelled out as the Onboard Spacecraft Intelligence, was an artificial intelligence system built into the Albatross. OSI handled most of the major subroutines and life support, but it couldn’t manage the more complicated messes. For those, he needed a human element.

  Glenn tapped his console and brought up a copy of OSI’s report. Much of it, he failed to grasp, though he took notice of the red text, especially around the entry process. Firing up the FTL drive might not work in the future, which meant he needed to shell out credits.

  “I just had it fixed!” he said.

  “These things are delicate, Glenn. They can break for almost no reason. Maybe we hit some debris back in Gamma sector.”

  “There’s too much junk floating around,” he said. “Federation needs to clean up after themselves.”

  “Skirmishes will happen,” Kelly said. “The best we can do is keep up-to-date star maps.”

  Glenn shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. The federation did what it damned well-pleased and left small time runners like him to foot the bill. Where was the respect for entrepreneurs? Where was galactic environmentalism? He leaned back and closed his eyes in a near futile attempt to get some sleep.

  Seconds later, however, Glenn jerked forward as the space around him warped in a familiar exit pattern. The Albatross dropped out of FTL! Glenn sounded an alarm, as if Kelly hadn’t realized already and brought up both the short-range scanner readouts and a visual of the pilot view.

  “Pirates?” Kelly shouted over the intercom.

  Glenn lacked the time to answer as a massive asteroid, one of thousands in his viewport, hurdled toward him. He steered the ship clear of it, but only barely. The star maps were wrong again, but he’d never heard of falling into an asteroid field. Glenn haphazardly contemplated the situation while he careened the ship through a swarm of rocks that beat down across the hull and tore through his fresh paint job.

  “Careful!” Kelly said. “I felt that one!”

  A second rock slammed into the ship from the side. The starboard stern thruster glowed red on his HUD. If things continued as they were, the FTL drive wouldn’t last and that was not an option. Glenn glanced at his readout and the asteroid field continued for hundreds of miles in all directions, though he noted a massive bulk of rock a few miles below.

  “Hold on to something,” Glenn said. “I’m touching down.”