BY RHETT C. BRUNO
“Gav!” Sybil hollered, snapping her fingers in front of Gavin Flynn’s face. She didn’t have to reach very far. Even though its crew only consisted of two people, the cockpit of the Columbus was cramped. “Gav, wake up.”
“Huh?” Gavin blinked open his eyes to see the speckled, black canvas of space stretching infinitely before him. Staring out through the ship’s viewport had apparently caused him to doze of.
How long was I out? He swept his gaze down to the ship’s control console positioned between him and Sybil. His finger tapped the screen and he sifted through data until he pulled up their coordinates. His heart sank when he discovered the answer. They’d passed the Yerkhov Band barely five minutes earlier.
“Yup, you missed it,” Sybil said. “I tried to wake you, but I guess you really needed the rest. Top-of-the-line, Trion Corp sleep-pods and you haven’t spent more than a day in one since we set off from Luna.” She gestured behind them to the two glassy slots set on either side the passageway which attached to the rest of the Columbus.
Gavin rubbed his eyes and sat up straight. “Would you mind if we looped around and crossed it again?” he asked. At first he thought he was making a joke, but upon further consideration he realized he wouldn’t mind.
The Yerkhov Band represented the furthest distance outward from Earth that a manned ship had ever knowingly ventured. In 2024 AD, famed Soviet explorer Dimitri Yerkhov reached the point while on a bold expedition to Saturn, but allegedly had to turn back due to a life-support malfunction. Afterward his nation claimed that Yerkhov retired into shameful solitude on the red planet, but Gavin was part of the small party which knew that was a lie. In truth, the ship never got a chance to turn around. An unexplained catastrophe caused its engines to overload, boiling Yerkhov and his small crew alive.
That occurred only a year and a half before Gavin and Sybil set off on their current mission, but even a year in the seemingly interminable space race between the United States and the USSR could seem like an eternity. When the States placed their first mining station on the Moon in 2008, Mars was a distant dream. Now, the Soviets were busy constructing the first domed city on its ruddy surface.
“Trust me, you didn’t miss anything,” Sybil said. “Just blackness all around us like everywhere else.” She placed her hand gently upon Gavin’s shoulder. He didn’t look over, but felt a few strands of her curly blonde hair rub against his neck. They were soft as silk. “You really shouldn’t spend so much time up here, Gav,” she added, her lips twisted with concern.
“You don’t ever like to stare out and wonder what could possibly be around all those stars?”
“When you know every single constellation by heart, and remember exactly where you were the first time you saw each one, you try not to think of them much. It can be exhausting.”
“Right,” Gavin chuckled. “I forgot about your memory.” He sighed. “I don’t know, maybe you’re right. I just can’t help it.”
“I’m always right,” she said. “What was it your dad said? ‘Staring out into space for too long will drive a man mad’?”
“Bah, he was just bitter! I swear, before the damn Soviets planted their red flag on the red planet, he found it just as spectacular as I do.”
“Well wouldn’t he be delighted then, now that we’re officially farther from Earth than any human before us.”
As usual, she was right. Yerkhov was Gavin’s father’s chief rival in space, and surpassing his mark should’ve been a prize in itself. Gavin, however, had a hard time being proud of crossing what had become a constant reminder of exactly how perilous the unknown could be. He instead found himself more relieved. There was a prevalent belief amongst the people who knew about Yerkhov’s fate that there existed some manner of fatal, cosmic anomaly along the Yerkhov Band. Gavin had little doubt it was just superstition, but a small part of him wanted to be ready for anything just in case. He felt foolish that by pushing himself to his limits he napped straight through it.
“It’s about time,” Gavin declared, deciding to force a smile for Sybil’s sake as he did. “Now we’ll mark a new line when we finally reach Psyche.”
Sybil rolled her eyes. “You really are his son. Can’t you just enjoy the moment for once?”
“Sorry… Maybe those Soviet bastards will finally stop patting themselves on the back for beating us to Mars!” He hollered triumphantly. “That better?”
“Much!” She let her hand slide down his arm and come to rest on top of his. It was all he could manage not to blush as he angled his head in her direction. She was staring straight into his eyes. “It really is beautiful though, Gav. I hope you know how proud he is.”
“I know. It’s hard for him after losing out on Mars, but I know he never truly lost his love for being out here. It’s in our blood.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin noticed the picture of his father, Charles Flynn, pinned to edge of the Columbus’ viewport. It was an old Polaroid which his mother took before one of his earlier missions. His spacesuit had an American flag sewn to the chest that was so dated it only had fifty stars, but what Gavin always focused on was the fact he was smiling.
His father had dedicated his life to planning the first manned mission to Mars, until the Soviets beat him to it. He was never the same after that lone failure, despite being one of the finest astronaut the United States had known since the first moon landing. It caused him to give up on what he loved, but for Gavin, who lived to make him proud, the Space Race chugged on. The USA had the moon, the Soviets got Mars, and now Gavin was after the next holy grail of inter-solar exploration. The Columbus, his own life’s work, was being sent to intercept the most metal-rich asteroid in the main belt—Psyche—and send it hurtling back to Earth using the mobile, Plasmatic Pulse Drives he’d invented.
“Well, when we get back I’ll make sure not to tell him you slept through the moment we surpassed the man who stole Mars,” Sybil said. “Some great astronaut you are!” She nudged Gavin in the side, but before he could retaliate she’d already yanked herself up from her seat and fled the cockpit.
Gavin couldn’t help but smirk. He and Sybil had worked together for so long that they were like siblings. Even if deep down he knew he didn’t want just that, she was the closest friend he had within the ever-growing extent of human civilization.
“Yeah, if I don’t space you by then!” Gavin shouted as he undid his restraints and pulled away from the stars in order to follow her. He pushed off the back of his seat and drifted into the galley where he found Sybil hovering next to the food bin. She was holding a Trion-Corp Ration Bar in either hand, and a goofy grin on like she’d just discovered the wheel.
“A special dinner is in order,” she announced, as if presenting to a crowd. “What’ll it be, Mac and cheese flavor, or wait, chicken soup.”
“Hmm, they’re both classics,” Gavin chuckled. “Hell, the food is half the reason I signed up for this.”
“I vote for chicken soup, if you don’t mind.”
Gavin shrugged. “Works for me.”
She handed over one of the bars and motioned for him to join her at their makeshift table. It was little more than the lid of a storage bin strapped on top of some other empty crates, but the overhang was enough to keep their bodies pinned down in zero-g. The Columbus wasn’t built for comfort. Most of its load consisted of hauling three Plasmatic Pulse Drives on the underside.
Sybil raised her Trion-Bar. “To going further than anyone before.”
“And hoping that the Soviets never get a chance to see what we’re about to see,” Gavin added.
“I can toast to that.”
They each took a bite. Sybil wore a face of revulsion as she chewed, like she always did while she ate a Trion-Bar. Gavin quickly swallowed his so he could take another bite. After naturally sleeping for so long he was starving, and he honestly didn’t mind them. They were packed with all the nutrients the body needed, and as far as he was concerned, some of the flavors actually did taste a bit like their counterparts. Sometimes he’d close his eyes and pretend he was eating the real thing, although the yeasty texture often made it difficult to maintain the illusion.
“How many generations of Flynn’s do you think will wind up eating this garbage every day?” Sybil asked after she was finally able to force the first bite down her throat.
“At this point, who knows? Unless I find someone to have children sometime soon, I’m the last able-bodied one left…” Gavin wished he could take back the words as soon as they left his lips.
Sybil very nearly choked on her second, reluctant mouthful of her Trion-Bar. She glared up at him for a moment, her brow furrowed, before deciding to leave it alone and focus on her meal. Gavin was content to do the same. So they sat in silence, eating the first meal for any human on the other side of where Dimitri Yerkhov was blown to bits.
Before either of them could finish, a continuous beeping sounded throughout the galley. It wasn’t the emergency alarm, but it was enough to make Gavin’s eyes go wide. He shoved off from the counter and used the ceiling bars to heave himself back into the cockpit.
“What is that?” Sybil asked. She followed close behind.
“Proximity alert for Psyche,” Gavin answered.
“That doesn’t make any sense. We’re still days out of its orbit trajectory according to what the scanners said last week.”
“I know.”
Gavin slid his weightless body into his seat and strapped in. He didn’t think there was anything hazardous to worry about, but it’d become a manner of habit. He swiped his hand across the control console and saw the alert was correct. Since passing by Mars’ orbit there’d been nothing but the green blip of the Columbus floating in the center of the three-dimensional navigation array, with countless coordinate lines tracing across the blackness. Now there was another mark, and according to the data their scanners had gathered it was definitely Psyche. The size and mass were a perfect match, as well as the readout of its basic, metallic composition.
“That’s definitely it,” Gavin said. “I’m trying to see why the scanners didn’t pick anything up until now, but there seems to be interference from Psyche’s magnetic field or something.” His heart was beginning to race in excitement. Again and again he read through all of the data popping up on the screen to make sure he wasn’t missing something.
Sybil strapped in beside him. “Did we miscalculate our speed?”
“Nope, holding steady at 16.0 kilometers per second. Another asteroid must’ve collided with it and altered its orbit.” He laughed and looked at Sybil, beaming. “Are you ready?”
She didn’t appear anywhere near as pleased as she took over at the control console and scrolled through the data to try and get a clearer picture. “I… it just doesn’t make any sense. Sure a collision is technically possible, but I don’t think it’d be so drastic.”
“A lot can happen in a week at these speeds. It could’ve been scraps drifting out from the construction efforts on Mars as well. We’ll figure that out later, for now we’ve got a rock to catch. Ready thrusters.”
Sybil exhaled slowly before she reached up and flipped a few of the switches above her head. Red lights strung along the edges of the viewport flashed on and the straps on their chests tightened. Then the gelatinous surface of their seats loosened and began forming around the cambers of their backs.
“Thrusters ready,” Sybil replied. Gavin could tell she was nervous, but he had her complete trust after working together for so long. It was why he’d never choose anyone else to serve as his partner.
“Psyche is approaching from our portside at 17.5 kilometers per second,” Gavin said. “Just a brief, max-burn to match velocity. Do you think you’ll be able to make the turn on such short notice without killing us?”
Even with the seat forming a snug shell around the back of her head she managed to put on the most self-assured sneer Gavin had ever seen. “No problem. You just leave the piloting to me.”
“Works for me. You have the intercept course down?”
She pored over the information on the control console for a few seconds before nodding. “On your mark, captain.”
“Engaged.”
Gavin punched the ignition key then clutched the arms of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white. The Columbus’ main rocket-thrusters flared on, propelling the ship so fast the countless conduits threading its interior corridors rattled against the walls. Tremendous pressure built up around his chest. The force radiated across his entire body until it felt like he was being crushed between two faces of a massive vice. Without the malleable seat bracing him it would’ve been enough to snap his back in two.
The stress building behind his eyes made it impossible open them, but he didn’t have to. Sybil was the best pilot in the States and because of her eidetic memory she’d already memorized the path they needed to take before they went on their burn. There was no time to have bothered programming it into the computer if they wanted to keep pace with Psyche. He could hear the tips of her nails confidently tracing the Columbus’ path across her seat’s control panel.
“Were coming up to 17.5 now,” Sybil groaned through her clenched teeth. “Altering course in three, two, one…”
Here we go Dad. One small step.
All of a sudden he felt his insides slam into the left side of his rib cage. The ship banked hard to the right, on an arc so tight that he thought he was going to vomit. It didn’t last long, and when they straightened out everything inside him seemed to fall right back into their proper places. The weight on his chest vanished as swiftly as it arrived, leaving his body as achy as it would’ve been had he just run a marathon. The straps over his chest loosened and the gelatinous surface of the seat returned to its static position.
He opened his eyes. Sybil was already gawking through the viewport at the bulbous gray figure of Psyche now above them. It and the ship’s speeds were synchronized and it almost appeared like they weren’t moving at all. The stars, however, edged by ever so sluggishly to remind Gavin they were.
“Whew! We’re in position,” she stuttered, clearly forgetting to breathe before she started speaking.
They turned to each other and locked gazes. Both had tears welling in the corners of their eyes. Gavin grabbed her by the arm and shook it excitedly. He always had reservations when it came to touching her, but his own insecurities seemed trivial in the face of Psyche. Its craterous exterior harbored more valuable metals then Earth had wielded even before humans carved up its surface.
“We’re here,” Gavin said. “Look at it Sybil. I wonder if the president will think the billions were worth it now.”
“We’ll ask him as soon as we get this rock back.” She leaned forward in her seat and perched over the piloting controls like a hawk searching for prey. “Shall we begin?”
“Whenever you’re ready. Get us close enough to the far side and we’ll begin planting the Pulse Drives in their assigned coordinates.”
“Simple enough. One problem though. The drives were programmed for where Psyche was supposed to be.”
“Right… Leave that to me.” Gavin began rifling through data on the control console.
Sybil may have been the pilot, but this was his area of expertise. He created the Plasmatic Pulse Drives after all. They utilized supercritical fusion pulses for propulsion so they were still too volatile to be used on occupied ships, but an asteroid was different. After they were activated, Psyche was supposed to reach Earth’s orbit in less than a month. The three drives were to be set at equal intervals along one hemisphere of the asteroid, and once it was close enough they were programmed to spin the asteroid 180 degrees. They’d fire back in the other direction, slowing Psyche down enough so that it gently impacted the moon’s surface without causing any real damage and could be trapped. That was the plan, as long as Gavin hadn’t miscalculated anything.
“I’m recalibrating based on the new orbit,” he said. “It shouldn’t take too long. We’re only a few million kilometers off the mark.”
“That’s all?” Sybil quipped.
Gavin grinned and continued his work. The Columbus began to rise gradually toward the asteroid as he did. The forward viewport wrapped up over their heads, so Psyche was visible even as they got closer.
“Hey Gav, what’s that?” Sybil asked.
“What’s what?” He didn’t bother to look up.
“There’s something clinging to the asteroid.”
Gavin’s finger slipped off the screen. He glared up and followed the line of her pointing finger toward what she was talking about. The shell of what looked like a ship floated alongside the far side of Psyche beside a cluster of scrap-metal. Some more of it stuck to the surface, bunched around a charred patch of rock contrasting with the asteroid’s mostly gray coloration. There was a string of red streaks along the hull, and on one of them it looked like…
“Is that a Soviet Flag?” Gavin mouthed. He immediately assumed the worst. That like his father before him, the Soviets had stolen his research, and beat him to his mark.
“I’m going to try to get closer,” Sybil said. “We’re going to need a little juice, hold on.”
The straps on Gavin’s chest stiffened and his seat began to shape to his body again before they shot forward. The rate of acceleration was low enough for him to keep his eyes open this time, so he squinted to try and get a better idea of what they were seeing. It was a Soviet Flag all right, even though half of the hammer and sickle emblem was burned. Beneath it sat a patch of Russian text. He couldn’t read it, but he’d seen it in thousands of photographs.
“Sybil…That’s Yerkhov’s ship—”
A blinding flash painted the region in front of the viewport white. It made his eyes sting, and as soon as he averted his gaze whatever had produced it tore into the hull of the Columbus. The ship was hewed in half, as easily as a child snapping a cheap plastic toy. A powerful rush of air promptly followed, pulling at Gavin’s cheeks and pinning him to his seat. The deafening howl was squelched by space in an instant. The only thing that saved him and Sybil from being yanked out by the rapid change in pressure as well was that they were restrained.
Countless emergency protocol sessions and seminars allowed Gavin to keep his wits about him while the Columbus tumbled through space and the looser parts of the cockpit zipped by his head. Survival instincts kicked in. He did the first thing that came to mind and held his breath. The life support systems in the cockpit were draining fast and once they were exhausted just opening his mouth to breathe could cause his lungs to collapse. He then snatched two helmets out of the storage cabinet at his side. Its doors had already been ripped off, but luckily they were strapped down.
He placed one over Sybil’s head first. She was either in shock or had passed out because she didn’t move. Once she was secured he lifted the other and snapped it into place on the collar of his own space-suit. Again, Gavin was relieved that he tried to always stick to protocol. The Academy recommended for the crew of any spacefaring vessel to be in their space-worthy suits whenever they weren’t in sleep pods.
An airtight seal formed around his neck with a soft hiss, allowing fresh air to flow in through the reserves woven into his suit. He gratefully guzzled down a mouthful. There was at least three hours worth of oxygen available if he was careful.
Once Gavin was able to focus he heard Sybil panting uncontrollably through the two-way com-link built into their helmets. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you breathe?”
He reached out, clutched her gloved hand with his and squeezed. Seeing her in that state had his heart thumping against his chest so fast that it hurt. Stay calm. Focus.
“What the fuck was that?” she gasped.
Gavin’s response got lost in his throat. There was little doubt who it was. The solar system wasn’t yet filled with space pirates the likes of which filled the science fiction stories he’d grown up reading. Yerkhov’s death was just another lie. He and the Soviets had beaten them to Psyche and shot down the Columbus to keep the secret. The flash which preceded the blast ruled out it being any ordinary shred of debris.
Gavin turned his attention away from Sybil for a moment and studied the ship’s control console. The air pressure in the cockpit—or lack of it—had regulated by then, allowing him to lean forward and check the damage report. Somehow the majority of the cockpit and the bundle of Pulse Drives attached to its undercarriage were left intact. That was the least of his concerns, however. The blast had sent him, Sybil, and what remained of the Columbus bowling toward the rocky surface of the asteroid with no means of braking.
He glanced up at the viewport. They were spinning so fast that it made him dizzy to look for more than a few seconds. Upon every rotation he could see the silvered remnants of the rear portion of the Columbus fraying into the blackness, the great vacuum squelching any flames like fingers squeezing a lit candle.
When he was finally able to respond, he yelled: “The Soviets have gone too far this time!”
“How could they know we were headed here?” Sybil questioned.
Gavin’s fingers began to go numb from her squeezing them. It was a welcome distraction from how nauseous the spinning was making him. He felt like he was back at the first day of training in the academy.
“Someone planted in NASA, maybe,” he said. “I don’t know… But there’ll be actual fighting over this.” The bitter rivalry between Earth’s only superpowers had remained without direct altercation ever since Gavin was a child, but an attack on a billion-dollar vessel carrying billion-dollar prototype Plasmatic Pulse Drives was likely to change that. The greater solar-system was ripe with plenty of desirable resources that both factions craved passionately.
“Tell them we’re unarmed then and to stand down!” Sybil yelled.
“I’d love to, but they’re the least of our problems right now.” Gavin looked back up and saw the unforgiving surface of Psyche growing steadily nearer before the Columbus flipped around once more and gave him a view of the stars. “These seats might survive the crash, but I doubt we will.”
Sybil examined the ship’s control console for herself. Gavin couldn’t see her face through the side of her helmet, but he could hear the heartbreak in her tone as she said, “We’ve lost both engines and the bow thrusters won’t respond.”
“I know. Just breathe,” Gavin whispered calmly to her before taking his own advice. He had to remain the poised one, for her sake. If he could convince the government that a mission to literally grab an asteroid was necessary, then he could manage to stop his fragmented ship before they were squashed like insects. Solving problems was the only thing he was good at.
No engines. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see their impending doom and allowed his mind to race back through countless hours of training and research. Unexpectedly, he found his answer in one of his first lessons. He remembered one night with his dad, on their farm out in Wisconsin, where the stars shone bright. They were shooting at bottles, and he was hardly big enough to hold the rifle. The first time he fired the gun the recoil sent him flying back onto his rear. He could still hear the hearty laughter of his dad as well as the words he’d said right after. For every action. That was it.
“You see those controls?” Gavin gestured excitedly to a series of dials located on the console above Sybil’s head. “When I say, turn them. They each release a Pulse Drive. Wait until they’re facing the asteroid, then we’ll fire them off to soften our impact. At this angle we should bounce off cleanly…. Relatively. Can you do that?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Sybil, I can’t see your head,” Gavin said. “No nodding, alright?”
“Right, sorry,” she said. “Don’t we risk losing them if they aren’t set down properly?”
That part of the equation hadn’t entered Gavin’s mind. If he was alone he probably would’ve stopped right then and there and set them to overload instead. It would no doubt kill him, but at least the Soviets would never get a hand on his prototype. Only he wasn’t alone. He could see the pale reflection of Sybil’s terrified face in the viewport, her lips quivering and her cheeks stained with tears. Beyond it, Psyche was so close that every time the Columbus spun, the rockbound landscape filled the entire view.
Time was running out.
“We’ll figure that out after,” Gavin decided. “Just do it!”
“O… Okay.”
“Remember, there are three so you’re going to have to be quick. I’m going to start counting down from five now.” Gavin paused to get a better idea of their rotation speed, and then waited until just the right moment to start his countdown.
“Five… four… three… two… one... Now!”
Sybil’s hands fluttered across the dials. The Columbus lurched three times successively, and right after the last jump the top of it banged into the surface of the asteroid. Gavin and Sybil’s weightless bodies were thrown back, but their seats caught them. A thin crack zigzagged across the outer layer of the viewport’s glass, but not deep enough to break it.
Gavin released the mouthful of air he hadn’t even realized he was holding. The gravity of the asteroid was weak enough to allow the Columbus to bounce back a short distance before it wound up caught in its orbit. He unstrapped himself so he could peer back over his shoulder and finally get a visual of the damage they’d sustained.
All that remained of the galley were the jagged ends of broken structure framing the blackness of space. He watched with a heavy heart as the three Plasmatic Pulse Drives also knocked into the asteroid and rebounded to follow them in orbit. The claw-like, landing gear at the base of their metal-plated, cylindrical casings snapped off like twigs.
For a moment, Gavin forgot everything else. They were his most significant gift to humanity, with the possibility of one day allowing realistic inter-solar travel, and now they were floating aimlessly for anyone to grab.
“Mayday, mayday!” He heard Sybil shout through their com-link, freeing him from his stupor. “This is the research vessel, Columbus, of the United States of the Americas. We are unarmed!”
Gavin turned to see her leaning over the ship’s central console. She was trying to sync the Columbus’ systems to her helmet’s radio so she could send out a broad transmission on all known frequencies.
“Mayday, mayday!” she yelled, louder this time. “I repeat, this is a research vessel carrying prototype engines and we are unarmed!” There were a few seconds of silence, and then she slammed the console with her fist. “Damn, Nothing!”
“Let me look.” Gavin propped himself up and brushed her aside. The console’s screen flickered, and the ghosts of outlandish characters had begun popping up in place of the English text. They didn’t appear Russian. “Something’s jamming us,” he said. “If this is Soviet, it’s new tech. The computer isn’t down, but all transmissions are bouncing right back to us as if we’re stuck in a cocoon.”
“Can you fix it?”
His fingers danced across the screen, but the further into the system he delved, the more alien the programming he’d designed became. “I don’t know,” he grumbled. “I’ll need time to crack it. I just don’t know how much.”
“Well they haven’t fired again, yet,” Sybil said. “That must mean something.”
“Maybe they think we’re dead.” He placed one of his hands upon her shoulder, and even through her suit he could feel her whole body trembling. “They won’t get away with this, Syb. Whatever happens, someone will find out what they’ve done and they’ll pay.”
Before Gavin could answer, the ship jolted upwards. He braced himself for another blast, but none came.
“Did you do that?” Sybil asked.
“I don’t think so,” Gavin said. The screen of the control console went completely black for a moment before being replaced by green static. He tapped it a few times, but it didn’t change.
“Gavin?”
He lifted off of his seat and crawled along the cockpit’s ceiling, which at some point had become his floor. He kept going until he reached the end of what was left of the corridor, exited the cockpit, and pulled himself up to peer around the frazzled edge.
“What the…” he mouthed. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. They were approaching a gigantic, purplish blur in space. It had a bulbous shape, and a palpable stream of energy radiated outward from it which distorted the stars beyond.
“Gavin, what is it?” Sybil asked.
He poked his body out further to get a better look. The blur was getting closer and closer, and only when he looked down did he realize they were actually getting further away from Psyche and slowly drawn towards whatever it was. That was when he also realized the side of the asteroid the Columbus was now facing had four giant rings of reddish lights along the wrinkled surface which definitely weren’t natural.
“I have no idea,” Gavin said.
Sybil appeared next to him and took a look as well. Through her visor he saw her mouth drop open. Before he knew what was happening she was clutching him, closer than she’d ever been to him before. Any other time he would’ve reveled in the moment, but all he could think about was he wished he’d left her behind. Whatever they’d stumbled upon, there was a feeling growing in the depths of his mind that it had nothing to do with Yerkhov or the Soviets.
“I don’t think that’s Soviet,” Sybil pronounced, as if reading Gavin’s mind.
“I don’t think that’s… human,” he whispered.
Gavin couldn’t believe what he’d just said. It was ridiculous. Yet the further they rose, the more he was sure he’d never seen anything similar. The blur was like an illusion. If he switched his angle of vision it became a distorted blob of stars, as if it were mirroring them in an attempt to camouflage.
Suddenly, a portion of space folded inwards, revealing a chamber flooded with dim, crimson light. The architecture inside was unrecognizable. Thick, sweeping metallic arches held up an undulating ceiling so it looked like they were entering into the rib cage of a gargantuan beast.
“That’s insane,” Sybil snapped. She backed off of him and stumbled against the wall of the ruptured corridor. “No, this is impossible.”
Gavin opened his mouth to respond, but he was speechless. Even with all of Earth’s remarkable telescopes and far-reaching probes, neither his people nor the Soviets had ever detected any genuine signs of life, especially running amuck in their own solar system. And then he remembered how Dimitri Yerkhov died with no explanation, and the murmurs of anomalies which came with it. In his heart he knew, he was staring at that anomaly. Yerkhov’s engines didn’t malfunction. They were blasted by something as interested in the asteroid belt as humans were.
“What do we do?” Sybil asked. “They shot the Columbus down without as much as a warning. If that is, whatever you think it is, which it isn’t, then they clearly have no desire to negotiate. If it’s not, then whatever faction is behind this will be trying to keep it quiet.”
There was no question she was right. Friendly neighbors don’t fire across the street just to say hello. Of all the possible issues Gavin had considered while he was planning the Psyche mission, this was one that never came up. The explorer in him was overwrought with questions about what the discovery meant, but the loving friend in him knew if they didn’t find a way off the Columbus they were going to join Yerkhov in infamy and nobody would ever find out the truth. Every second they wasted, the strange, hellish room was getting closer, like a blooming red rose upon a sheet of black silk. Gavin racked his brain for answers, but there were none.
“Look!” Sybil was leaning far out through the severed end of the Columbus and pointing beneath them. “The drives are rising too.”
Gavin looked. The trio of Plasmatic Pulse Drives were beneath them, twisting around each other as they climbed the stars. Two of them were heavily damaged, but the last one to smack into Psyche appeared intact. With the landing gear broken off, they appeared little more than unassuming metal tubes with long exhaust vents running along the shafts and fins on either end. Within those tubes, however, the fastest engines known to man were cradled.
Thanks to Sybil, the beginnings of a plan began hatching in Gavin’s mind. He’d always known he built the Plasmatic Pulse Drives for a reason. Until then, he’d just assumed they were for the wrong one.
“Sybil, which way are we facing?” he asked.
“Facing?” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“In Sol! I know you’ve memorized the stars, so which one of them is actually Mars. Whatever we’re heading towards, we shouldn’t be around to face it.”
Sybil immediately began naming off star constellations under her breathe. “There!” she shouted after a few seconds and gestured to one of the stars which was even bright through the distortion field.
“Don’t lose it,” Gavin said.
“Why? What’re you up to, Gavin, we don’t have much time!”
“We’re going to hitch a ride in one of the Pulse Drives straight to the red planet.”
“You’re going to give your work to the Soviets?” she countered, completely in shock.
“I’m not giving them anything. Something’s out here and we need to tell someone. Soviet or American, Mars is the only settled place close enough to reach without suffocating first.”
Gavin pulled himself back down the corridor and stopped at the portion of the wall where Sybil’s sleep-pod was built in, right outside the cockpit proper. It was only a few meters away from where the Columbus snapped, but somehow it hadn’t been comprised. He popped opened the lid and turned back to her.
“Get in,” he ordered. “With the computers corrupted we won’t be able to signal the Pulse Drives from here, but I can activate them on manually. I’ll drag you down to one, fire it up, and hop in with you. We’ll hitch a ride straight to Mars.”
“We’ll have better luck inside of whatever that thing is!” Sybil countered. “You said it yourself; they aren’t ready for ship-use yet. The radiation will be too much. I’d rather be probed than microwaved.”
“The fusion reactions are focused externally, but the pod’s small enough to fit inside the casing. Trion builds these things dense enough to withstand extreme conditions, and it’s got enough oxygen stores built-in to last the trip. You’ll make it”
He watched as Sybil gaped up into the maw of the unknown, then back at him. Judging by her pained expression he knew that for the first time she didn’t have complete faith in his plan. He wasn’t entirely confident in it either, but it was the only way. In a few moments they were going to be entirely inside an alien chamber large enough to fit one hundred Columbus’ in a straight line.
Sybil took a deep breath before she gave in and started to climb into the pod. She hesitated once she was halfway in. “Gavin, this is crazy,” she said. “This can’t be what you’re thinking. It just can’t be. It’s the Soviets playing a trick on us so they can steal your work.”
Gavin knew it wasn’t above them to craft an elaborate scheme like this just to get away with stealing valuable technology, but he doubted it. “If it is, we’ll use it to blow a hole in New Moscow when we get there for what they’ve done,” he began. “If it’s not, then we’ll have made the single greatest discovery in history. I can live with either option. Now get in, strap yourself down and turn on the air just for a few seconds. After I reopen the lid switch it off immediately. We can’t waste any oxygen.”
Gavin quickly rushed up to the front of the cockpit as she followed his instructions. His father’s picture was folded over, but somehow the tape holding it against the viewport hadn’t been peeled off entirely. He took it and tucked it into the belt of his suit. By the time he returned to the sleep-pod, the Columbus was fully inside of the nightmarish chamber. A darkness more abysmal than space closed in around him, like he was trapped in eternal twilight.
“Air’s flowing,” Sybil announced.
Gavin keyed the lid of the sleep-pod to open. The rush of air escaping from it caused the entire thing to shoot out from its slot in the wall. It slammed into his side, undoubtedly cracking a rib or two. He held back a roar and ignored the pain as he grappled onto the side of the pod and helped guide it out of the Columbus. Once he emerged, he pushed off of the hull of the ship, propelling them down through the opening in the alien chamber’s floor and toward the ascending Pulse Drives. The distortion field pulled at the soles of his feet, but it wasn’t strong enough to slow him completely.
Sybil’s pod glanced harmlessly off of the first Pulse Drive they passed, giving him a chance to kick off again and gather more speed. He was heading for the furthest one which remained in the best shape, but also in hopes to buy as much time as possible.
“Brace yourself, Sybil,” he warned once they were closing in. “This is going to be rough.”
Her pod smacked into the center of the enormous Pulse Drive’s casing. He grabbed onto the service hatch as quickly as he could before they recoiled away. A sharp pain shot up the entire right side of his body, but he gritted his teeth and held on.
There was a keypad on the side of the tube. He knew the code by heart. It was Sybil’s birthday.
He typed it in and the hatch popped open silently, revealing the inactive core of the drive’s reactor. It was the size of a small trailer, but there was plenty of room around it so it could breath. Enough to easily fit one tiny pod. After it was activated, the fusion pulses would be funneled out of one end in order to gain propulsion. Gavin bet Sybil’s life on the notion that the Trion Corp constructed sleep-pod would be able to endure the extreme temperatures and radiation leaking around it.
Before climbing in, he glanced up at the area of distorted space. The uppermost Pulse Drive was already being swallowed by the breach, which meant there was no time to waste second guessing.
Weightlessness made it easy to maneuver the sleep-pod so that he could shove the narrow end through the hatch. He positioned it, and then pulled himself toward the top. Sybil was staring anxiously at him through the translucency. Freckles dotted her rosy cheeks, the stars of her own little universe. As he gazed into her watery blue eyes, he knew he was doing what he had to. The stars were impressive, but she was the most beautiful thing in the universe.
“C’mon!” she shouted.
Gavin put on a smile. He reached down and locked the sleep-pod from the outside. They could squeeze in together, but with two of them the air would never last to Mars. He’d figured that out as soon as the plan entered his mind. His Pulse Drives were fast, but they weren’t that fast.
“Gav, what are you doing?” Sybil asked.
Gavin breathed in the sight of her for a second or two more. For him it seemed like an eternity. When he was done he shoved the pod down into the open space around the reactor core.
“Gavin, don’t!”
He could hear her fists pounding against the inside of the pod through their com-link as she continued to holler his name. He tried to ignore it. There was a manual override control console attached to the reactor. He tugged his way down along a string of thick conduits until he reached it. He wasn’t nearly as good a navigator as she was, but he worked through the calculations necessary to set the drive to run for the approximate distance necessary to reach Mars.
“I’m sorry, Sybil,” he whispered. “This is one trip we won’t be able to make together.”
“Gavin, please.” She sobbed uncontrollably. “There’s room. I’ll breathe as slowly as possible, I promise.”
“Remember to use up all the oxygen in your suit before you activate the pod.”
“Gav…”
“One of us has to make it. If we really aren’t alone, somebody needs to know. When you see them, tell the Soviets the race is over.”
“Gavin!”
It took all of his courage, but Gavin struck the ignition key. Flashing lights began dancing all throughout the inside of the drive. He hauled his weightless body up toward the Pulse Drive’s open hatch, right past Sybil’s pod. He paused at it. The core was beginning to heat up so fast that he could feel it through his suit.
“Tell my dad I wish he could’ve been out here with us,” Gavin said as he grabbed onto the rim of the drive’s service hatch, hauled himself out, then sealed it behind him. “Tell him, that it’s because of him that we survived what Yerkhov couldn’t.”
Gavin turned his head to locate Mars again, and then pushed off of the Pulse Drive’s casing with his feet hard enough to tilt it so the nose faced the Soviet-run planet. Once he was away, he was instantly caught in the distortion field. It made his body tingle. He hovered their quietly, trying not to listen as Sybil cried. He watched a bright, cobalt luminance begin to gather on one end of the drive.
“Please… don’t… do… this,” Sybil whimpered. With the Pulse Drive powering on their feed began to grow more and more muddled.
“All the time we wasted out here together, Sybil, it was never enough,” Gavin said. “I’ve loved you since the day we met at the academy. I hope you know that”
“Gavin, I’m begging you to come –” By the time those last words came out her voice was reduced to little more than static.
The area around the Plasmatic Pulse Drive grew as bright and blinding as the sun, and then it bolted forward through the alien distortion field. It raced across the blackness like a comet, a trail of blues sparkling in its wake. Gavin had only ever seen it operate in test environments. It was majestic, and as it merged with the rest of the stars the bottom of the hellish chamber closed beneath him.
He found himself lying on a strange floor, surrounded by an oppressive, dusk-like darkness on all sides. Before anything else, he noticed that for the first time in months weight was returning to his body. His limbs were so weak that he could barely lift them and when he tried to get up the pain in his side was too unbearable. He fell back down, groaning in agony into his helmet where nobody in the universe could hear him.
Once the pain subsided enough for him to open his eyes he squinted ahead to see the cloven remnant of the Columbus sitting nearby, with the two other Pulse Drives on either side. His stomach turned over when he noticed a silhouette lurking about inside of the ship. It was tall; taller than any human he’d ever seen. There was a mess of hair falling from its head like clumped dreadlocks. Or maybe they were tentacles.
He thought about taking his helmet off to yell out, but he had no idea what the composition of the surrounding air was. He was in such a state of shock that he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to get the right words out. Everything he said and did from that point on would have to be carefully considered. If what he was looking at wasn’t hostile then he could have a chance, a real chance, at changing everything. Yes, it’d shot the Columbus down, but wouldn’t his own people have done the same if an unidentified ship carrying what could be misconstrued as weapons passed by?
He swallowed hard and began to slide backwards on the floor cautiously. He didn’t make it more than an inch before the head of the silhouette snapped around. Eyes with pupils that gleamed like polished amethysts glared in his direction.
That was when he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that none of what had happened was some elaborate plan concocted by the Soviets. In fact, the very notion of their rivalry just seemed foolish.
He looked into the face of the answer to the question which had plagued humanity since the dawn of rational thought. The space race was over and both sides had lost. It was over since before it even started.
Humanity wasn’t alone.