Ion Trail 4: Incommunicado

I managed to catch a solid hour to myself before I had to deal with anyone else. After checking the log to make sure that nothing unexpected had happened while I was checking on things, I went about reactivating the ship’s local datasphere.

A local datasphere is essentially a digest version of the TU’s online catalog of sites and databases. It doesn’t keep literally everything, but it’s usually got enough of the most heavily accessed information that you can do research, read books or articles, watch holos or listen to music for the duration of a good jump without ever needing to reach out. More esoteric stuff, or anything updated since you last synced up, may require you to do a hyperWAN query, which can get expensive if you’re doing them very often. Technically, all stations and even planets used essentially the same technology as my ship, just on a much larger scale; Always-on interstellar connections were basically unheard of, even among the insanely wealthy, but with data storage and access having grown exponentially larger, faster and more efficient, you could keep an equivalent to pre-space Earth’s entire internet in a single datapad. Most spacers are more than willing to wait until their next port of call to sync up, rather than pay the expense for anything less than completely vital. Grey Dwarf typically shelled out a bit more for an upgraded datasphere package, in order to keep their pilots happy and prepared for contingencies, which was nice, but they didn’t cover any hyperWAN queries, so those would all come out of my pocket.

Once the datasphere’s status display read ‘Active’, I decided to go ahead and disable hyperWAN routing; with so many people aboard, the bill for queries would be exorbitant, especially given what had happened. We all likely wanted to know what was happening back at Kestrel Station. I decided it’d be worth the creds to do a quick query of my own for news. Just a quick scan of the headlines should be enough to get an idea of what happened, which I could then relay to everyone else. I selected my query parameters and sent it off, but was surprised to get a non-response dialog popped up immediately. Only when I glanced at the status icon did I remember the debris impact right before the jump that had knocked out the comms disc. Well, that was another problem that would have to wait until we got to Proxima Tau.

I spent a little time doing a systems check, and double-checking the oxygenation systems, as this ship wasn’t rated for passenger transport; One or two people was fine, but over a dozen was likely to push things, but the system still read within acceptable levels. When I caught myself wiping dust off of individual keys on the navconsole, I admitted to myself that I was stalling; a pilot didn’t even need to be in the cockpit most of the time during a hyperspace jump, and here I was acting like it was a full-time job. I pushed myself to my feet, squared my shoulders, and walked out of the cockpit.

I made it as far as the passenger cabins before my nerve failed me. I stopped in the hallway outside my own cabin, remembering that it had been turned into a sickbay, and turned the other direction instead, opening the door across the hall to peek in. It was empty, fortunately, so I slipped in before anyone could see me hiding from my responsibilities. I just wanted to freshen up a bit before I addressed my passengers, that’s all. I turned to the mirror and splashed a bit of water across my face, then took a good long look at my reflection. I tried a stern, no-nonsense expression, but failed to convince even myself, so I just looked, taking slow breaths, and studied the face that I saw.

The woman in the mirror wasn’t anything special to look at. Dark brown hair with some highlights courtesy of the week I spent on Xanadu’s sunny beaches after graduating from flight school. I wore it how I typically did, with it pulled back into a queue, but as usually several strays had escaped to be constantly brushed out of my eyes. My face was an oval with a strong jaw, pronounced cheekbones and skin the color of creamed coffee, with a bare sprinkling of freckles across my nose; another souvenir of the beach and my mixed heritage. With deep brown, almond-shaped eyes to complete my look, I got my share of second looks, but no one had ever tried to tell me that I could be a model; a hand model, maybe. What I realized most was just how tired that woman looked, nearly as tired as I felt. I guess it was understandable, given the day I was having.

“You can do this,” I said. My reflection didn’t look convinced, but hearing the words out loud made me feel a little better, all the same. I nodded firmly, and turned to the door, opening it and stepping out with a small, fragile feeling of resolve. I turned around to ensure the door closed quietly, as I wasn’t trying to disturb the passengers who’d taken over my cabin, but when I turned around to stare directly into a broad chest inches from my face, all though of silence vanished and I screamed in surprise, and I backed up to the wall. My cheeks burned with embarrassment as I followed the chest upward to the face of the man who’d been in my cabin with the medic and the injured woman. He was a lot bigger than he’d looked before, all hunched over with worry, and my gaze had to go up and up to finally reach his face, a full head higher than my own.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and I felt an absurd comfort in noticing that his voice was deep enough to seem natural for his size. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Captain.” He gestured back toward the door behind him. “Ms. Harper dozed off and I didn’t want to wake her.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. “I was just on my way to talk to the rest of the passengers.” I gestured vaguely toward the cargo bay, my heart still hammering in my chest. At least my voice wasn’t shaking.

“I’ll go with you,” he said. I waved for him to go ahead and fell in behind him, trying to calm myself before I had to face the rest of them. I wasn’t sure how long I’d survive as Captain if this was how I handled just bumping into someone, however literally.

He preceded me into the back, where I saw that most of the cargo had been unstrapped and pushed back against the walls, making more room in the center of the bay. I made a mental note to ensure that Diaz got it strapped back down again; it was unlikely that anything would happen that could overcome the inertial dampers, but you didn’t take chances you didn’t have to. I saw Diaz talking to a couple of people who looked to be mid-twenties, and I did a quick count of the rest of the people clustered in my cargo bay. Twelve people, if you counted Diaz and the big man who’d walked back with me. Add in the medic, the injured woman and myself, that made fifteen. Several people looked up when I walked in, and it didn’t take long before everyone had turned to look at me. Diaz murmured something to the couple, and walked over to stand next to me. I gave him a quick smile and opened my mouth to speak.

The good news is, we’re alive, was what I started to say, but the words died on my tongue. We were alive, but many others weren’t, including some of the people who’d arrived at my berth with these people, and very likely the whole station. I doubted anyone would consider that good news. I closed my mouth, swallowed and tried again.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” I began, then paused. Oh, great. That’s how all the most trustworthy people start their speeches. This is going to be fantastic. “I’m not going to lie,” I said again, almost defiantly, “we’re in a shit situation. No one expected to be here. I wasn’t prepared, and I doubt any of you were, either.” A few murmurs, but no one really said anything that I could hear; at least they weren’t heckling me. “Kestrel Station is… Probably gone. Or close enough to gone as to make no difference.” This got a reaction at least. Several people gasped, and one man sat down, hard. “I couldn’t tell you what was attacking the station except that it was a ship of a sort I’ve neither seen nor heard of before. We also didn’t escape completely unscathed. We have no communications, and no way of knowing what is going on out there,” I gestured as I spoke, indicating everything, not just Kestrel Station. “If you heard my earlier announcement, then you know we’re on our way to Proxima Tau.”

“But that’s days away!” said the man I saw Diaz talking to earlier. “Why wouldn’t we go to Bekter’s Rim? It’s much closer, and has a strong TU presence.”

“That may be true,” I agreed, bridling at the questioning of my decision. “You might have noticed that we didn’t have a whole lot of breathing room, so I just used the navdata I had already.” He blinked at the harshness in my tone, but his expression indicated understanding. I dropped the other shoe, anyway. “Unfortunately, we’ve got a week, not just a few days to Proxima Tau. This ship isn’t as fast as what you’re probably used to.”

“A week?” This exclamation signaled a new batch of protests, most of which were just variations on the same theme. I let them talk, not saying a word. Honestly, with that kind of uproar I didn’t think I could have; it was all I could do to stand my ground instead of retreating to the cockpit. I glanced at Diaz; seeing the worry in his face steeled my resolve a bit, and I turned back to wait it out. Eventually they settled down until only a few voices remained and I raised my hand to regain their attention.

“Listen, it’s not ideal. I know it’s a long time to be stuck aboard this ship, but if you know anything about space travel, you understand that it’s very dangerous to drop out of hyperspace in the middle of a jump.” A few people nodded their agreement, including the man who had originally protested, which seemed to mollify the rest. “If it were a longer jump, I might risk it simply because we wouldn’t have the supplies, but with the food I have on board I think we might be okay.” I didn’t mention that the food I had was enough for one person, not fifteen. “It won’t be a comfortable trip, and no one is going to have a full belly when we get there, but the important thing is that we will get there.”

I stayed a while longer, answering their questions, including some that I’d already covered; yes, I was sure that we had to go to Proxima Tau and no I didn’t think it would be a good idea to try to reroute. These questions came from a very attractive Station Concierge, who seemed like she was very good at getting what she wanted. Unfortunately no, there weren’t enough cabins to accommodate everyone. Yes, there was a datasphere, but no, there wasn’t hyperWAN access. Everyone was welcome to use anything they wanted to on the local datasphere, but I wasn’t responsible for what they found there. It was a standard mid-tier LD package, and no, it doesn’t have Decency Filtration. If you don’t want to see it, you should probably just avoid looking for it. So it went from there.

In time the questions ceased, and Diaz stood up, giving me a look that seemed to suggest that it was time for my escape. When he stepped forward to grab people’s attention, I flashed him a grateful grin. As I turned to go, he was marshaling the passengers into pushing the cargo around to create some level of discrete space for individuals and small groups. I quietly fled the cargo bay, back to the sanctuary of my cockpit.