Ion Trail 5: Complacency

The next steps were not great. I don’t know how people just… do this, as their actual job, all the time; just making life-and-death decisions for other people. I’d been on the job for barely twenty-four hours, and I was ready to resign my commission. Except I didn’t have a commission to resign; I just had a ship to fly, and people on that ship who needed to get off of it alive and reasonably healthy. I wasn’t going to turn over my ship to anyone else no matter how stressed all of this was making me, which meant that I was making the decisions.

Didn’t mean I had to like it, though.

Unsurprisingly, sleeping arrangements were the first problem I had to figure out. I had four small cabins and fifteen people to accommodate. Two could share a cabin if they liked each other a whole lot, and maybe you could get a third person on the floor, but it’d be cramped as hell; if you were going to sleep on the floor anyway, you might as well sleep in the cargo bay where you’d have room to spread out. Even after I pointed this out, several people seemed to have very good reasons why they deserved to be one of the ones who got to sleep in a cabin, which led to protests from everyone else who didn’t think they rated special treatment. My own cabin had become the de facto med bay, since the ship didn’t have one, which only left three cabins; anyone who thought I was going to give up my right to claim one of the other cabins for myself was suffering from a tragic case of space dementia. Without some place I could go and lock the door, I tended to get kind of paranoid and crotchety, so then there were two.

I listened to arguments and explanations until I was sure I’d heard every possible angle at least twice. I still couldn’t figure out an equitable way to split two tiny cabins between 13 people. Even if I were willing to share my cabin and we slept in shifts, that still wouldn’t be enough for everyone; it’d require us to sleep two to a bunk and aside from the newlywed couple (the two people Diaz had been talking to at the beginning of our first meeting) no one was really sanguine about that, least of all me.

Finally I’d heard enough and I put my foot down. My former cabin would remain the med bay. What little medical supplies we had would remain there, and Ms. Brennan would remain there as well. Harper, the medic, would get a cabin of her own. Aside from myself, she was the only person on the ship who was truly indispensable; almost everyone had minor contusions and scrapes that she had to keep an eye on lest they become something more serious, so there wasn’t much argument there. I did have to give her the stink-eye when she tried to refuse, though. I gave the last cabin to Diaz, as my ‘First Mate’, he deserved some sort of perks. There was some grumbling there, but Diaz was a good-looking, likeable sort who’d taken his new responsibilities very seriously and he’d made friends with most of the passengers already, so no one protested too much.

Once that was settled, the next matter was our food supply, or lack thereof. I asked Diaz who he thought might be useful in helping figure out the food situation, and he came back with June Hamilton-Gonzalez, one of the newlyweds, and Melva Estrada. Both women had experience with making food stretch, so I pulled them into the galley and laid out the situation to them. The expressions on their faces as I showed them the food confirmed what I already knew; we didn’t have enough food to feed this many people.

“Ai, you were not kidding when you said that no one would have full bellies,” said the younger woman. “I’ve half a dozen ranch hands that I need to keep fed, but this…” she trailed off, her hands speaking more eloquently than words. The older woman smiled slightly as she looked at the meager shelves.

“This would be a time for Jesus to multiply the fish and loaves,” she said quietly. June nodded in agreement, but Diaz looked as baffled as I felt. Seeing our expressions, Melva smiled again with some real warmth to it. “It’s a story from the earliest days of my faith, but I see that you two are not faithful. Perhaps another time I can tell it to you, if you’re interested.” I nodded skeptically, but said nothing more.

“Well, it is what we have,” June said brightly. “It will have to do. I think Sister…?” she paused, looking at Melva shrewdly, who nodded with a smile. June nodded back in satisfaction as she continued. “Sister Estrada and I can probably make this stretch a little bit, especially if water is plentiful.” She looked at me as she said this last, and I took a moment to respond, still trying to puzzle out the unspoken exchange between the two women.

“Uh, yeah, water should be good,” I said. “Everything but black water gets recycled back into the cistern, fresh as when it was filled.”

“Good,” she said. “I thought as much. We use a similar system on the ranch.” She turned back to the older woman.

“You’re thinking stews and soups?” Melva asked. June nodded.

“Lots of soups and stews,” she confirmed. It still won’t be enough food, but the water will at least make everyone feel as though they’re getting more. And it’s only a week.” The two women started sorting through the packages in the pantry, talking between themselves. I seemed to have been forgotten for the moment, so I nodded to Diaz, and turned to go.

“Make sure they have whatever they need,” I said in parting. “I’ll be in the cockpit for a while.” The two women seemed to have this situation well in hand, and I was just as happy to offload this particular bit of responsibility. I knew enough about cooking to turn the stuff in the boxes into something that would keep my motor running, but that was about it.

On my way back to the cockpit, I impulsively stopped at the med bay, opening the door and sticking my head in. Harper had her back turned, with the small med kit laid open on the desk in front of her. She turned as she heard the door open, and she smiled in welcome when she saw me.

“How’s she doing?” I inquired quietly. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

“She’s in a lot of pain, but the bruising appears to have stopped spreading,” she replied, turning to look over her patient as she spoke. “I can’t do a whole lot, but I think she may live so long as we can get to proper medical care soon enough.” She shook her head and looked at me. “How likely do you think that is?” Her question, while simple enough, was given added meaning by the frank look in her eyes. She already knew we were a bit less than a week out of Proxima Tau, so she was asking for more than that.

“I really don’t know. Proxima Tau is another posh tourist station, orbiting a large terraformed ice moon which is popular for skiing and such.” I shrugged. “It should have all of the facilities you’d expect, much like Kestrel Station. But I just don’t know. The ship that attacked Kestrel was a completely unknown quantity. It could be a rogue, or part of something bigger. Proxima Tau has the same kind of security force you’d expect, but no proper TU presence, either.”

“I had similar concerns,” she admitted. “I guess it’s time to bone up on combat surgery, then, and check the galley to see what you might have that I could improvise.” I blanched at the casual way she said it, and envisioning my cutlery used in that fashion didn’t help. “May I borrow your datapad? I’d rather not do serious research on my commlink,” she asked, cutting through my gruesome imaginings.

“Of course,” I agreed readily. “Anything you need, just let me or Diaz know, and we’ll do the best we can.” I spared another glance at the injured girl, deeply asleep, but with her brow still furrowed in pain, and shivered. I didn’t want the girl to die, but I wasn’t sure how much of a chance she really had. Harper had a quiet confidence and seemed like she’d seen some shit in her day, but a ship’s med kit and some cookware didn’t make for an ideal surgical situation. I just hoped Proxima Tau worked out like I kept assuring everyone else that it would.

=+=

The next couple of days were full of interesting little challenges, but with the bigger things settled, albeit to no one’s especial level of satisfaction, we were able to settle into something resembling a routine. Melva and June enlisted aid at their own discretion from the other passengers, and they managed to get everyone fed, to some extent. No one was happy about it, but there was surprisingly little grumbling. I learned with some discreet inquiries that the helpers also served the secondary purpose of quietly making sure everyone knew how strained our resources were; It seemed to make everyone feel responsible for their piece of the problem. I wasn’t sure which of the women, the rancher or the priestess, were to credit for it but I made a mental note to keep that little trick in mind.

After all of that, it turned out that the biggest problem we had left to deal with on this trip between the stars was boredom. Most of my passengers were working-class people, and long stretches of idleness were unfamiliar to them. The GS-1592s were a highly modular series of ships, and this particular one had been fitted to allow for almost complete autonomy with only a single pilot over short hauls. Longer haul freighters and independent ships tended to have small crews to deal with the various problems that I, as a contracted pilot with a company-owned ship, didn’t need to worry about.

I learned that Mr. Hamilton-Gonzalez, June’s husband, had been a flight attendant, and it didn’t take long for him to attach himself back to his wife’s hip, helping in all the dozens of little ways he was used to aboard interstellar passenger liners. Unfortunately we didn’t have a big supply of peanuts or cocktails to placate restless passengers, but he made do, and I saw a marked difference in attitudes once he’d found his niche again. I found him an interesting contrast from his wife; Alan was worldly, well-traveled, and very civilized in the sense that we used to mock back on the can colonies, whereas June had only been away from her ranch a handful of times, and was practical, blunt and earthy, and not in the least bit afraid to get her hands dirty. All the same, they seemed to complement each other in a way that stretched beyond their newlywed status.

A couple of younger guys who seemed to know each other very well had asked for permission to take a look at the engine room; I had my reservations, but they’d promised not to touch; One was a salvage operator and the other a parts merchant, so they were both interested in the newer high-efficiency model of drive core that GS had fielded. I gave them leave, but with a very stern warning; I was getting better at those, especially where my ship was concerned.

For the rest, the librarian was my saving grace. She’d dug deep into the datasphere and found a wealth of historical documents and vids and had decided to start sharing her findings in the form of interactive presentations. Her genuine enthusiasm for her subjects, no doubt aided by the enforced closeness and inactivity actually made the presentations quite popular, and I even found myself spending more time in the cargo bay, listening in with everyone else. She’d created a video chat room so that anyone could listen in regardless of their location on the ship, but people tended to congregate there when they didn’t have anything else to do, which was most of the time.

Aside from the never quite satisfied pangs of hunger, it wasn’t honestly going that badly. Having to mediate small personal disputes wasn’t my idea of a good time, but after three days I began to think that maybe we’d all survive this. I knew life wouldn’t ever be the same for any of us, not after what we’d experienced and what that likely meant for the galaxy at large, but getting to Proxima Tau and everyone getting on with living their own, individual lives again didn’t seem so unrealistic. Even Shanna Brennan, my injured passenger, seemed like she was doing okay despite the severity of her injuries. She’d been spending more time awake over the last twenty-four hours, participating in Carla’s presentation on the Transhumanist Rejection via her datapad. I was standing in the doorway to the cargo bay myself, listening with focused interest, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Shit!” I jumped, and spun around, seeing Clinton recoil in surprise so quickly that he bumped into Kyle, behind him. “Don’t do that!” I snapped, trying to keep my voice down and avoid disturbing Carla’s presentation. Clinton and Kyle had been the two who’d wanted to look at the engine room.

“Sorry,” said Clinton, putting his calloused hands up in a conciliatory fashion. “Didn’t realize you were so jumpy.” He paused and looked back at the taller man, who nodded. “Listen, uh, we need to talk.” He paused, looking at the people clustered in the cargo bay, and then back at me, making a point to meet my eyes. “Privately.” I nodded, picking up on the air of seriousness from the two men, who were usually a lot more relaxed and tended toward jokes and laughter. I followed them as they turned and led the way back to the engine room.

“So, you know how we were wanting to look at the drive,” Clinton began, as we reached the engine room. “Kyle had been telling me about some of the refinements they’d added to the new models, and how certain parts were going to be more in demand once these were more widely fielded.” I nodded; as a salvage worker and a parts retailer, that sort of information could be worth a lot of money to both of them. “So we were looking at it and comparing it to spec-sheets we’d pulled down from the Grey Dwarf database, just doin’ our thing, you know?”

“Clinton’s honestly a bit of a geek for stuff like this,” Kyle interjected, his tone taking on some of his normal jocularity. Clinton snorted and shot him a dirty look, but he was smiling too. It was obvious that these men were very close, rather than just business partners. Kyle picked up the story where Clinton had left off. “We noticed that the resonance frequency for the drive was off-spec.” I frowned. That was unusual, and rarely a good sign. Kyle smiled as he saw my recognition of the potential problem. “We didn’t want to say anything until we’d verified it; False readings happen sometimes, and we didn’t want to worry you when it might be nothing.” I inclined my head, and he continued.

“Turns out, it was a false reading, but not for the normal reasons you’d expect, miscalibrated sensors, stuff like that,” Clinton continued. “See, we were picking up a second signal, and that was throwing off our initial resonance reading.” He paused, waiting for me to think that through.

A second reading? That shouldn’t be possible, I thought. At least, it shouldn’t be possible without special coordination. The TU Navy used a technique to send squadrons of fighters on short jumps by syncing them up so they’d enter the same hyperspace envelope, but there was no way that should have happened when we were escaping Kestrel Station. “If you’ve got more, you’d best just tell it to me straight,” I said after a moment. There was no longer any hint of a smile on either of their faces.

“We do. We checked diagnostics best we could without touching anything on the drive, just like we promised. The second signal seems to be coming from…” Clinton paused, trying to formulate his words. Kyle jumped back in at that point.

“It seems to be coming from your own ship, somewhere near the bow. We can’t pin-point its location, which is strange, so we figured it was time to bring you in on this.”

“A second signal, coming from my own ship,” I said, thinking hard. There was no way it was another hyperdrive. Even if it were possible that there was a second drive on this ship, activating it would have destabilized the envelope and most likely destroyed the ship in the process. The only other possibility… “No,” I whispered, feeling a dawning sense of horror. “Oh, no, no, no…” The only other possibility is that they’d somehow managed to get a hyperspace transponder onto my ship.

They’d know exactly where we were going.

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.

Ion Trail 3: The Captain

“Ow!” I groaned, throwing one arm up to cover my eyes. I knew better than that, and Mr. Dudek, my flight instructor, would have stripped my hide raw for such a rookie mistake. I shaded my eyes and squinted down at the control console, trying to locate the right button. When I did, I mashed my thumb down on it harder than necessary, and the forward screen went black, leaving me to blink stupidly until my eyes had adjusted to the sudden darkness.

Only once I could see again and I’d made a couple habitual status checks did it finally dawn on me that we were alive. I hadn’t been so certain we would be, only a few minutes earlier. I keyed the intercom, and fought to keep the nerves out of my voice as I announced to the passengers that we were in hyperspace, en route to Proxima Tau.

“Diaz,” I added, “Come on up to the cockpit. We need to talk.”

When he arrived, I was busy double-checking things I knew were fine. My first long trip, bringing the ship here from the shipyard, had been leisurely, but with what had just happened, and knowing I had a dozen people hanging out in my cargo bay, I simply couldn’t relax. It was almost a relief when I heard Diaz push the door open, until he spoke.

“Rick’,” he began, “I’m he-“

“Don’t call me that!” I rounded on him with a snarl. “My name is Rickard, not Rick. Hell, since we’re going to be on this ship together for a while, you can even call me by my first name, but do not call me Rick. You got it?” He’d backed up to the wall, hands raised defensively at my tirade.

“Okay, okay, Sue it is,” he said placatingly.

“Su-san,” I said flatly, with a strong emphasis on the second syllable. “Not Sue, not Rick; Susan. Rickard. That’s it.”

“Susan,” he agreed, hands raised again. “Got it, Susan.” When he realized I wasn’t going to bite him, he stepped forward a bit, rubbing the back of his neck. I almost felt bad for biting his head off; It’s not like anyone was having the easiest day, but I didn’t bother to apologize. I might grind my teeth at the stupid nicknames when we were going to see each other for a couple hours at most, but if we were going to be on the ship together, I had to nip that in the bud. “So…” He trailed off.

“Yeah,” I said, not really knowing where to begin. I was trained as a pilot, and I’d done well in my certifications, but now I had to make decisions that would affect the lives of a dozen strangers, and that was not something I was prepared for. “Um, the red-head?” I said awkwardly.

“Oh, she’s fine,” he replied, then winced. “No, she’s not fine, she’s bad. I’ve got her in one of the cabins, and one of the others was a medic. She’s in there with her now.” I sighed, not having expected much else. She’d hit the ramp hard, and the only thing you could say is that it was better than having missed it entirely. Unbidden, the distorted faces of the people I’d seen while undocking came to mind, and I felt my stomach give a little heave. I looked up to see Diaz watching me quietly. “So, uh,” he paused, then swallowed hard before continuing. “So, what happened? Was it…?”

“The station was under attack,” I said, confirming what he’d been unable to ask. “I don’t know who. I’ve never seen anything like it in my studies.” His eyes grew larger, the soft brown color vibrant in the cabin lights.

“Do you think it was-“ he began.

“I told you I don’t-“ I started to cut him off.

“-Aliens??” he finished, and I stopped dead, just staring at him. Aliens. Jesus. Did I think it was Aliens? I mulled the thought for a half second before the absurdity of it overwhelmed me. Fucking Aliens.

“Don’t be stupid,” I replied. “I don’t know who it was, but humanity has been in the stars for over two-hundred years. If there were alien life- sentient alien life- we would have discovered it well before now.” I sighed, and pressed the bridge of my nose between my knuckle and thumb, feeling the makings of a monstrous headache looming. I looked up again, noting the slightly hurt expression on his face before I spoke again. “Look, whoever it was, we only barely escaped, okay? I didn’t say anything, but we were seconds, maybe less, away from becoming stardust all over again. I don’t know if anyone needs to know that,” I said quickly, seeing the look of horror on his face, “I don’t know that you needed to know that either, but for now, let’s just keep that bit of fun trivia to ourselves.” He nodded quickly. “We need to figure out some sort of longer-term accommodations for these people, see to any additional injuries, and figure out food. I wasn’t prepared for a trip with a dozen other people, and we’ve got a week until we’re due in Proxima Tau.”

“What are we going to do?” he said, the horror from before fading into something more like dread. I realized that my instinct to talk to Diaz wasn’t really a good one. He was a good guy, only a few years younger than me, but his years as a stevedore hadn’t made him especially smart or resourceful. I guess it’s good that you’ve got your looks, I thought to myself. Another sigh and I pulled myself to my feet, with one more glance at the instrument panel. We were in hyperspace, so there wasn’t a lot to do right now. It’d keep.

“Take me to see the injured girl,” I said. I didn’t know what we were going to do either, but some part of me realized that the last thing I wanted to do was show it. While all I’d wanted to do was pilot a ship through the lonely emptiness of space, it seemed that I would have to be the captain for these people, at least until we got to Proxima Tau. Diaz led me through the ship to the small cluster of passenger cabins, and stopped right in front of my door. Oh, damn it, I thought. He tapped quietly at the door, and then pushed in.

The small cabin was more crowded than I expected. Once Diaz and I entered, there were five of us. The injured girl lay on my bed, unconscious, with her shipsuit zipped down in the front, revealing her modest chest in a cute lacy bra, and a considerably less attractive mass of bruising from her ribcage down to the low-slung line of her matching underwear. My first thought was less than charitable. The only woman I wanted in my bed right now was me. But the point was moot now. She was there, and I wasn’t going to make her move simply out of selfishness. Near the bed sat an older woman in an unmarked shipsuit, with a heavy first aid kit laid open on her lap. She looked up when I walked in, and her light blue eyes betrayed worry for just a second before it disappeared behind a mask of professionalism. Behind her stood another man with his arms crossed tightly in front of him. He was maybe my age, and every line of his body radiated the worry that the medic hid so well.

“Hey,” I started. Uh oh, here comes Captain Confidence again, I thought. I tried again. “How is she?”

“I’ve given her a mild sedative,” said the medic, closing the medkit and setting it on the foot of the bed before rising to greet me. “But she’s not doing well. At least a couple fractured ribs, likely some internal damage too.” She smiled wryly. “If I’d have known, when I left the clinic, that we’d be dealing with a station-wide emergency and unexpected departure, I’d have grabbed my other bag, but I can’t diagnose her properly with your ship’s kit.” I must have looked mildly offended because her hands came up in a deprecating fashion, and she said, “It’s a perfectly adequate kit for dealing with a variety of wounds, but diagnosis of internal damage is beyond its scope.”

“Understood,” I replied with a nod. When in doubt, terseness can be substituted for confidence. “Were there any other injuries?”

“Minor contusions and a broken arm,” she replied. “I set the arm, and one of the other passengers is looking at the minor scrapes and bruises. What we’ve got here is more than adequate for those.” She looked down at the auburn-haired woman again, and a ghost of concern passed across her face. “Ms. Brennan is another case, however.” Learning the young woman’s name made me remember my courtesies, and I reached out a hand.

“I’m Susan Rickard. I’m the Captain,” I said, but that felt wrong. “The pilot. Er, the, yeah.” I stammered and finally stopped talking, before I made it worse. So much for confidence. The medic smiled, and took my proffered hand.

“Lorna Harper,” she replied. “Medic. Captain seems accurate, under the circumstances. I have a feeling that all of us owe you our lives.” I blanched; because of course what she said was true. Had I followed my initial instincts, I would be responsible for all of these people’s deaths, but being responsible for their lives wasn’t much better. I glanced over at the other man, who’d been observing this exchange quietly. When he saw me look at him, he took a step forward, his arms coming uncrossed, and I immediately panicked.

“Very good,” I heard myself say, like a complete tool. I nodded abruptly, and spun on my heel, nearly running into Diaz in my urgent need to get out of that room. Damnit, that was my room! I stepped through the door, and he followed, barely getting through before I closed it on him. I rounded on him, ready to yell at him for putting her in my room, after I’d specifically said not to, but when I saw him flinch, the anger melted away, and I sighed again. I had a feeling I’d be doing a lot of that over the next week. “Do me a favor?” He nodded quickly. “When you get a chance, move my clothes out of there into another room.” I turned away from the door, toward the cockpit, and I heard him shuffling his feet. Then I turned back.

“Julio, isn’t it?” I said, feeling the need to say some things I didn’t really want to say. He nodded again, and I kept talking. “Listen, I didn’t ask for any of this. None of us did, I guess. But I made a choice, and I’ve got to live with it, and so do you.” I gestured, somehow indicating the closed door and the cargo bay all at once. “I don’t know any of these people. We’re damned lucky we have a medic, and one who knows what she’s doing, but I don’t know her, either. I know you better than anyone else here, so I’m going to have to trust you. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” he said haltingly. I doubted he did, but I wasn’t really sure I was so certain of what I was asking him either.

“I need someone I can count on. If I’m going to have to be the Captain, I’m going to need a, uh, a First Mate. Someone who can make sure things happen. Right now, that’s you. You with me?” Instead of nodding right away he paused, considering. My estimation of him went up a notch. It was a big responsibility, and if I had stepped into mine without thinking, it was best that he at least considered it first. I didn’t have a lot of options, anyway, but when he finally met my eyes and nodded again, much more seriously, I felt a wave of relief wash through me. “Good to hear it,” I said. “I need you to figure out what to do with the rest of the passengers. Try not to bust into the cargo, but if there’s something we need in there, just do it. I hope Mr. Dion-“ I grimaced, realizing that the amiable merchant was likely dead, “Er, his associates, will forgive us under the circumstances.”

“Got it,” he said, giving me the ghost of a smile as he turned to go back to the cargo bay. I waited until he was nearly to the door before I called him back.

“Hey, Diaz?” I called, hiding the small smile I felt. He paused, turning back to look at me with a quizzical look on his face.

“No more talk of Aliens, okay?”

Ion Trail 2: Exodus

No, I thought numbly. I stumbled forward a few steps, which turned quickly into a jog. “No!” I shouted, kicking the jog into a run toward the closing blast doors. I knew I had to get to my ship. No matter what was happening, I did not want to be stuck on this station when it did. Peripherally aware that my sudden movement had spurred several other people to move in the same direction, I pelted through the blast doors, not slowing for a second as I leaned into the turn, down the elevated pier toward where my ship was docked. I felt the rumble a split second before another shockwave nearly threw me from my feet. I caromed off the waist-high wall separating the pier from the star dock floor below, unconsciously reached out to stabilize a young woman who’d also lost her balance, and then picked up my run again.

I watched the numbers counting up as I passed them, each denoting one of the berths assigned to the mid-sized freighters and yachts that used this dock. All around me, people stood still, staring around in shock or else futilely tapping at commlinks and datapads. Some were moving, like me, but there was no rhyme or reason to their movements.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight,” I counted in gasping breaths, finally slowing as I neared the stairs down to my berth. “Twenty-nine!” I said, relief surging through me as I took the stairs two at a time, stumbling as I reached the bottom. “Diaz!” I shouted, waving the sheaf of plas at him, once he turned his head. “If it’s ready, get it on board, but otherwise, I’m leaving, now.”

“What’s happening?” he asked, his otherwise handsome face bearing an ugly look of fear and confusion. I snatched the datapad from his hand, muttering, and used the NFC function to activate the already laden loader.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said, “but it’s not good.” Another concussion rocked the station, and I cursed the loader’s sedate pace. I thrust the datapad back at Diaz, and moved to the docking override controls. Somehow, I didn’t think I was going to have time for proper debarkation procedures. “Just get it loaded, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll load yourself, too.” I keyed in my authorization code, and signaled to have the outer doors opened. The machine thought for a moment, then I saw the particle field shimmer into place as the locks began to cycle on the massive bay doors.

“What about them?” Diaz asked as I turned back, already moving to remove the docking boots from my ship’s landing gear. I paused and looked at him quizzically, and he gestured toward the stairs, where I saw a small cluster of people milling around. I recognized one of the younger women, a pretty girl with auburn hair and a strong jaw, from the hallway outside the blast doors. They must have followed me here.

“What about them?” I echoed. “It’s a cargo ship, not a passenger liner, and not a big one at that. You’re lucky I’m offering you a ride.” I turned away, shaking my head and trying to ignore the twinge of guilt I felt. Those people looked terrified, and I couldn’t blame them. “Grab the other docking boots. As soon as I’m done with this one, I’m heading to the helm to get her started.” Normally, I’d just reach out through the datasphere and initiate a manual start, but that wasn’t an option now. The sirens, steady and insistent, almost seemed to be getting louder, as though they were panicking too. Another impact rocked the station, and I knew time was running out. I glanced at the stars, visible through the faintly humming field that separated us from the emptiness of space, but saw nothing that clarified the source of the problems. I hurried around the cargo ramp and into the interior, studiously avoiding looking at the group of people clustered behind the ship.

“Rick’,” I heard Diaz call as I slipped through the already secured cargo, “The docking boots are clear, but I’m not getting clearance from Dock Authority.”

“Stop calling me Rick’,” I growled, as I continued to the front. Of course we weren’t getting clearance. The datasphere was gone, and they were probably in just as much disarray as everyone else. I wasn’t planning on waiting around for clearance. I slid into my chair, keyed the starting sequence, and then rapidly tapped the override for the Pre-launch checklist. I was pretty sure we didn’t have time for all of that. The impacts, or whatever they were, were coming more frequently and seemed to be getting closer. When I heard the hum of the engines cycling up, I slipped out of my seat and headed back to check the last bit of cargo, and seal the doors. When I got there, Diaz was already securing the last load, so I moved toward the door controls. The group of people had drifted closer, but was staring uncertainly up the cargo ramp at me, fear and hope in their expressions. I paused with my hand on the control dongle.

“We can’t just leave them,” Diaz said, coming up beside me. “What will happen to them?” I tensed my thumb, ready to push the button with a retort on my lips. It wasn’t my responsibility, but I still didn’t push the button. Before I could decide one way or the other, another much stronger boom rang out, and the whole dock pitched, and the lights flickered and went dark, except for the whirling emergency beacons. A noise that would have reminded me of a sneeze had it been about a thousand times quieter ripped through the bay, and the ship jerked forward. I clung to the door controls as my feet went out from under me, and Diaz tumbled down the ramp. Several of the people, nearer the edges of the cluster, almost seemed to vanish as though an invisible and unstoppable hand had snatched them up and tore them past the sides of my ship. The young woman with the auburn hair was almost one of them, but she smashed into the edge of the ramp, and clung there.

I regained my balance and realized the roaring noise was the rest of the air in the star dock trying to escape out of the few open bay doors, like mine. Without thinking, I stumbled down and grabbed the hand of the young woman, hauling her bodily onto the ramp, as Diaz regained his footing. The air ripped all around us, and I stared at the remaining people, fighting to keep from joining their unfortunate companions in the blackness of space, and made my choice.

“Come on!” I shouted, completely inaudible over the furor, and waved one hand, the other still wrapped around the young woman on the ramp. Diaz snatched one man whose steps took him too far to the side, and nearly joined him in his headlong flight before pulling him into the lea formed by my ship. A few others were not so lucky, but a quick glance told me that maybe a dozen people had made it aboard. I pulled the injured red-head into the cargo bay and shouted again to clear the door before I mashed the button and watched the ramp rise into position. The screaming of the wind increased in pitch as the door closed until finally it cut off, nearly silent in comparison, and I felt my ears pop painfully.

I took a moment to catch my breath, looking around at the people who’d so unceremoniously and unexpectedly booked passage. Their faces were a study in trauma, written with fear, shock, pain and relief. I felt the familiar anxiety at being in the middle of a crowd of people, and I laughed suddenly. Of all the things to feel right now, this seemed almost comfortable. Faces turned at my sudden outburst, and the anxiety ticked up a few notches, but there was no time to explain. Another explosion shook the docks, and I felt the ship slide sideways. It was time to go.

“Diaz,” I said, waiting a second until he looked up at me before continuing. “Get them situated as best you can. Anyone injured, get them into one of the rooms. We only have a couple, so try to get the worst injuries first, if necessary.” He nodded, and I extricated myself from the auburn-haired woman and staggered to my feet. “Everyone else, have them brace themselves in here. It’s likely to be a rough ride.” When he nodded again, I nodded as well, and made my way out of the cargo bay and into the front of the ship.

I shoved the door closed as I entered the cockpit, though it didn’t latch, and dropped into my seat with a groan. Fortunately, the screens showed that the engines were idling and ready, and everything showed nominal. GS-15926535 wasn’t a new ship, but it had been recently refitted before being assigned to me. I’d flown it on a few test sorties before the longer jump of bringing it here, so I was fairly familiar with its quirks. I slapped the manual override button; There would be no V-tug beams to push me out of the dock, so it was all on me to get the ship, and its unexpected complement of passengers, out into space, and away from the station safely; I’d only ever executed a manual take-off in the simulator, so I was glad the bay doors were designed to accommodate larger transports than mine.

“Prepare for take-off,” I announced over the intercom, and reached up to take the manual control yoke. I pulled back gently and felt the ship lift from the deck, almost immediately setting of the proximity sensors; we’d slid further to the right than I’d expected. I corrected a bit before pushing the yoke forward, aiming for the center of the now wide-open bay door. I held my breath as the ship smoothly slid forward, and only released it once I was sure we were through the door. Once outside, I finally took in the scattering of debris from the star dock. There were crates of sealed cargo, one of the loaders, bits and pieces of detritus that had been swept out into the black.

And there were people. I winced as I tried to navigate the mess, and got close enough to see the results of vacuum on one man’s face. Despite the damage, the surprise and terror were still easy to discern, and I felt the bile rising in the back of my through, and had to swallow hard to keep it down. Luckily it was impossible to say if he had been one of the people I’d initially refused to allow aboard, but I was still sure his face would haunt my nightmares for a long time. Also fortunate, if one could see it that way, was that I had little time to dwell on that. Now that I was clear of the docks, my sensors were giving me a reading of the area, and I leaned forward to get eyes on the one I’d been looking for. Directly above the station’s central core hung an object, nearly impossible to see with the naked eye because of its matte, nearly perfect black coloring. Small lights, and the debris around it, along with the periodic flashes of fusion lances that arced from it toward the station below traced the outline of some sort of massive ship, like nothing I’d ever seen, or heard of.

TU Naval ships were usually white, like other most other ships and stations, to help deflect solar radiation and assist in cooling. It was sensible, and between the emptiness of space and the quality of your typical sensory suite, visual camouflage was impractical. Looking up at the ship above me, knowing this, seeing its sensor reading as plain as day on my display, did nothing to prevent the shiver of atavistic terror that washed down my spine. Whoever this was, they didn’t seem to care about what was considered sensible, and they were methodically taking the station apart. So far as I know, they’d never even hailed the station to make demands or threats.

Just then, radar picked up a signal of something coming directly for me, and moving fast. There was no recognized signature, but heuristics had identified it as a possible conventional weapon; A missile.

“Fuck me,” I muttered, and thrust the throttle forward, feeling the ship jerk as the thrust abruptly increased. This was just a freighter, with no weapons to speak of, and engines built for efficiency rather than speed, and evasive maneuvers weren’t likely to be practical. We’d been moving steadily before, while I’d sat gawking at the black ship, but it was going to be really close as to whether or not we could make it out from the station’s interdiction radius before the missile reached us. I reached over to initiate a jump, hoping we’d be out of range in time, which the sensors estimated at 30 seconds. I decided not to warn the passengers. If we didn’t make it, what was the point of them spending the next half a minute in fear?

Proximity sensors suddenly screamed. I froze, thinking the missile had come a lot faster than I’d estimated, and waited for the explosion that would kill us all. Instead, there was a dull thud that echoed through the hull and caused me to jerk the controls. I blinked, taking several seconds to recognize that not only were we still alive, but a damage assessment was flashing on the screen before me. Something had smashed into our comms disc, beneath the hull, and it was now reading as Unresponsive. Confused, my eyes jumped back to the other screen, and saw the missile still approaching fast, estimating 15 seconds to impact. I must have hit some piece of debris while I was focused on other things, I realized.

I shook myself, and adjusted the course again to the closest edge of the interdiction radius. We didn’t have time to worry about anything else, but I kept my eyes forward now, making sure we’d avoid any further debris, of which there was more than you’d normally expect. I keyed the point-defense lasers on, and then divided my attention between the missile, and the interdiction field.

Ten seconds. “Come on,” I whispered, “Come on, baby, you can do it.” Navdata has already been entered, before we’d left the station. Jump Status read as ‘Ready’, but Interdiction still read ‘Not Clear.’

Five seconds. “Come on, come on.” I stared at the Interdiction indicator, waiting for the reading to change to ‘Clear’. I forced myself to avoid looking back at the missile reading, but could think of nothing else, feeling my shoulders tense more and more, my teeth gritting, as I hunched over the yoke.

Suddenly, green flashed. The Interdiction indicator read ‘Clear’. I stared for a stupid half a second before I screamed, and slapped the Jump button, hard enough to hurt my hand. I kept screaming as the black, pinpricked vastness of space outside simply disappeared in a flash of blinding light.

Ion Trail 1: Ochlophobia

The crowd was densely packed, a flowing, chaotic crush of humanity, eyes unfocused or intent on something up ahead, no one meeting anyone else’s eyes. There was the occasional small cluster or pairing of people who were engaged, talking and laughing, obviously out for some social purpose in this busy, bustling locale, but the majority seemed focused on some other destination than here. I was one of that latter majority, my gaze raised just above the level of people’s heads, but not focused on any one thing, instead darting from one sign to the next or dropping briefly to confirm a momentary opening that I could slip through. I bumped people, and felt hips and elbows jostle me in return, but it didn’t even seem to register with the distracted citizens. When humans were this congested, you got used to it.

Well, most people did. I was just trying to ignore the rising panic I felt. I’d never been able to get used to large groups, despite having been born on a can colony even more overpopulated than this. In comparison life here on Kestrel station was luxurious, with many young people having tiny closet apartments all to themselves, or sharing slightly larger accommodations with one or two roommates; at most. But while I’d learned young how to wear the mask of indifference, I never felt anything other than skin-prickling, barely-restrained terror when I found myself in the midst of such a mass of people.

My childhood hadn’t been pleasant.

There was a word for what I was, one of those quaint Greek root words that were so popular among the various medical and psychological sciences during the last couple of centuries that humanity was bound to its home world, Earth. I guess being able to put a name to these things made people feel comfortable, but it never did help me. The only thing that would make me feel better would be to get the hell out of this crowd.

Finally I saw it, the place I was looking for. Dion’s Imports was a modest mercantile operation with interests in a handful of star systems, and they were my first client. Technically, they were a client of Grey Dwarf Shipping, but as a newly fledged freighter pilot contracted to Grey Dwarf, I was responsible for getting the load to Proxima Tau IV intact and on-time. Of course there was a problem; the shipment of tchotchkes and “ethnic” décor that was Dion’s primary trade had been half-loaded, when the digital manifest had been corrupted. Apparently only Dion himself had the backup files. Rather than sticking to the generally more working-class districts around the star docks, Dion liked to keep his shop and primary office in the middle of the affluent, popular Inner Loop Mall. Instead of relying on the questionable intelligence of his cargo factor, here I was pushing through the masses to talk to the man myself after several calls went unanswered.

I nearly stepped on a diminutive woman, garbed in the latest fashions out of Neo-Seoul, as I forced myself out of the press to the old-fashioned plate-glass front of the upscale shop. I quickly hauled open the door and stepped within, letting its clear, heavy glass close me off from the busy streets as I took a beat to close my eyes and just breathe. While the shop did a brisk business, the mere dozen patrons browsing its aisles was blessed solitude compared to outside. Expensive products from a dozen planets crowded the shelves, displaying a dizzying fusion of traditional crafts and the latest edge of human artistry. Dion kept his office upstairs, so I wasted no time looking around. I could hardly afford Dion’s wares, and had little use for them in any case.

“Dion!” I called as I jogged up the last few steps, raising my hand to knock on the door. “Dion, we’ve got a problem!” A muffled reply came through the door, and unlike the ostentatious manual door downstairs, this one slid aside smoothly to let me enter.

“Rickard,” said the comfortably stout man behind the desk, half-rising to greet me. I snorted at the courtesy, but appreciated it anyway. Dion wasn’t wealthy, but he was well above my meager station, and owed me no such niceties. “What is this problem? I didn’t expect to see you in person.”

“I tried to call,” I said quickly, then rushed on, before implying that he was wasting my time. “Manifest crapped out.” I winced at my choice of words. First day on the job, and here I was talking like a cannie to one of Grey Dwarf’s most reliable customers. “I mean, the datapad was corrupted. Diaz said you kept the only backups.” His brow furrowed, and he turned to pick up his personal datapad from his desk.

“Yes, that’s true,” he agreed affably, tapping at the pad. “With competition being so fierce, I don’t like copies of the manifest being available on the datasphere. Hmm.” The furrow in his brow deepened, and the smile lines around his mouth disappeared into a puzzled frown. I waited for him to continue, and after a few moments of tapping on the datapad, he looked up at me. “The datasphere appears to be unavailable.”

“What?” I asked stupidly. Datasphere access was almost universal, even on an overpopulated can colony. It was nearly impossible that access would be anything but stable and strong on such a well-heeled station as this. I raised my wrist to check my commlink, noticing for the first time that the signal icon was a dull red, instead of the normal pale green. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Indeed,” he replied, then hitched his shoulder in a shrug. “But I suppose that’s not your concern; my cargo is.” He reached over to tap a device on the side table, and a faint light flickered on before it unfolded to reveal a slot about 30 centimeters across. A few brief taps on his datapad, and the device started to hum, and smoothly extrude several sheets of plas. “Please be careful with this, and ensure that it’s properly wiped before you recycle them. Preferably once you’re already on your way out of system.” He folded the sheets into an opaque sheaf of plas, then handed it to me. I tucked them firmly under my arm before nodding.

“Of course, sir,” I assured him. “Won’t let it out of my hands until I’m safely away.” He smiled and sat back down to tap at his datapad again, effectively dismissing me. I turned and quickly hurried down the stairs, hearing his office door whoosh quietly closed behind me. The datasphere being down was really strange, but Dion was right; it wasn’t my concern. I already had my updated navdata and my ship’s local datasphere had synced up this morning. With the hardcopy manifest, we’d be able to ensure the shipment was complete and properly loaded, and I’d be out of here anyway. I steeled myself to push out into the crowds one more time.

This job was perfect for someone like me. Training had gotten me out of the can colony before my sanity had completely eroded and it had generally involved classes of no more than 50 other pilots, all of it paid for by Grey Dwarf Shipping. I owed them about five years of work to repay the cost of the training, but if I was thrifty, I should be able to buy my own ship by then, and I could renegotiate my contract or go looking for other opportunities. Five years of nearly indentured servitude was a heavy price, but I’d pay it again; the empty space between stars and the quiet of a ship with no one aboard, that I didn’t specifically invite, was everything I’d ever dreamed of.

The press of bodies began to thin as I left the Inner Rim behind, and I could see the tell-tale shift of character in the station that let me know I was moving into the more practical outer nodes. I was able to go faster now; it wasn’t empty by any means, but I could walk without constantly brushing past other people. My anxiety had faded from nearly overwhelming screams to a comfortable yammering in the back of my head. But as I was approaching the blast doors into the B-Sector star docks, a nervous edge to the constant buzz of voices finally broke into my preoccupation. Something was off.

I slowed down, looking around and making a conscious effort to notice people. There was no high-fashion or expensive coiffure here; shipsuits and coveralls dominated, worn by the working class that kept the station spinning and stocked with all of the goodies that made the Inner Rim so successful. But instead of the stolid expressions and business-like movements I expected, I saw people drifting into clusters, murmuring nervously, and I felt my anxiety spike up again. I moved closer to one of the groups of people, and noticed that they were all tapping fretfully at their commlinks and datapads, and the reason finally became clear; the datasphere. I tried to relax as I identified the problem, but somehow knowing didn’t make me feel any better. Even with my mind elsewhere, the sheer impossibility of it struck me again. Humanity had grown used to constant, readily available information flow. Except for a few planets here and there populated by back-to-nature communes and various types of technophobe, which limited datasphere access only to spaceports or government complexes, on-demand information was as natural as breathing.

I clutched the sheaf of plas sheets and quickened my pace again. I needed to get my cargo loaded and get out of here. Once I was away, I should be able to access my ship’s datasphere; when on-station, it synced once per rotation, and otherwise shutdown; there was no need to have it on when the station’s datasphere was already sufficient. A good, updated sync made sure I’d have everything I needed for the long, quiet spaces between stars When I got to my Proxima Tau, everything should be back to normal.

Abruptly, the entire station lurched, and a nearly sub-sonic rumble swept down the corridor, causing me to stumble to retain my feet, and succeeding in knocking down several other people nearby. The clean white lights suddenly dimmed to be replaced by stark yellow floodlights and whirling red and yellow crisis beacons. An ominous, deafeningly loud claxon filled the corridors.

The blast doors in front of me began to grind closed.

Beginner's Guide to Wurm Unlimited (WIP!)

So lately my obsession has been Wurm Unlimited (Hereafter WU).

I wanted to take some time and write my own newbie guide, as someone who's maybe getting out of being a complete newb, but definitely hasn't left it all behind yet. Some of this is covered elsewhere, but either in insufficient depth, or they bury the lede, and you often miss the important parts.

(Hey! So apparently this is still getting a good amount of traffic, so I should probably try to update and finish it! Look for some changes in the next week or two!)

MOVEMENT

Wurm Unlimited is a purely first-person game, so we'll mention that first; There are client mods1 that get around this, but without modding, you're stuck in first person.

Movement is set up as your typical WASD setup, but mouselook is accomplished with the left mouse button; Otherwise, the mouse controls the cursor. There's a toggle you can set under keybinds, if you like.

There's also no jumping, nor can you sprint; Speed is governed purely by your carry weight and the surface you're walking on, whether it be paved, smooth, sloped, etc. Additionally, if you're low on stamina (or "Hurting"; see injury below) your speed can be further reduced.

Climbing is a thing. You can move up slopes up to about 25 "dirts" (more on that later), after which point, you'll need to turn on climbing via the icon on the quickbar. Climbing reduces your movement drastically, prevents stamina regen, and will probably break once stamina reaches zero. Climbing allows you to move up or down nearly(?) vertical slopes, and as long as you're not moving, you do not use up stamina. If climbing breaks while you're up a slope, you will fall, and take varying degrees of damage based on how far you fall, and how steep the slope is. Remember to turn climbing off whenever you don't need it.

Swimming is also a thing. You swim purely on the surface of the water; The tiles under the water can be "reached" if you're within horizontal distance of them, but being underwater limits what can be done. You do not regain stamina while swimming, but stamina loss is generally rather slow; Once you reach zero stamina, you will begin taking drowning injury to the torso if you continue moving. Like with climbing, you can stay still indefinitely with no adverse affects (though you might starve, eventually) If your injury reaches 100 (through any means; Swimming long distances while injured is a bad idea), then you die. The drowning injuries fade fairly quickly once you reach shore and begin regaining stamina.

If you are swimming near a steep slope that does not allow you to exit the water, you have an ability that will allow you to climb for 2 minutes, even with zero stamina, called the "Last Gasp". Open your character screen (C)2 and right click the silhouette icon in the lower left corner to activate this ability. Use this to get out of the water and onto level ground, then turn off climbing so you can recover; There will be a delay before you can use this ability again.

BASIC COMBAT

Normally I'd cover this a bit later, but considering the first thing I did in the game was get in over my head by attacking something I shouldn't have, I'll start with the basics now. Don't initiate combat with anything until you've gotten your bearings. Most things you encounter will kick your ass. First thing to do is to manage your equipment.

You're probably already wearing a full leather kit, but your sword and shield may not be equipped. Open your character menu (C) to see what you've got equipped along the outer edges of the window (minor bug: Worn equipment may not show on the paperdoll or your actual avatar immediately after starting; I'm not sure this matters for stats, but removing the equipment and replacing it will fix this). If you don't see your sword and shield, open your Inventory (I) and expand the menu. Locate your sword and shield, right click > equip (or drag to the paperdoll on your character menu)

If you must get your fight on, Don't go for anything more intimidating than a wolf; Dogs, pigs, and some wolves may be an approximately even fight, but boars, bears, giant spiders, and any group larger than one enemy should be avoided. You will get hurt, and injury takes more than a little time to recover, but as a newbie, you should be okay so long as you survive the fight3.

Running away should always be considered an option. Watch your stamina, and be aware that injuries to your legs (as well as the "Hurting" status effect, which lasts 30 seconds) can slow you down. Aside from being overburdened, injured or out of stamina, you can likely outrun almost anything you encounter, and many creatures will not follow you into the water; some will (like bears), so never assume you're safe until you've completely left behind the threat.

Once you've engaged combat, you can let it auto-attack, but there are more advanced considerations; I'll cover those a bit later. Injuries will heal on their own so long as they're light or very light; As a newbie, you will also heal from medium wounds too, if you even take any. First aid will also be covered in more depth a bit further down.

SELECTING TILES AND OBJECTS

For the purposes of this guide, it's important to realize that there are two types of things you can interact with in the world; Objects, and tiles. Objects include actual objects, like tools and vegetables, but it also includes walls and animals. Specifically, when I say object, I mean anything in the world that you can select by clicking on that is not a tile. Tiles are part of the actual world, and mostly includes the ground, but it also includes many plants and trees. So when you want to select a tree or a bush, you don't click on the visible plant, as though it were an object; You click on the tile that it inhabits. When you click on a tree tile, you're also selecting the dirt, grass, sand or whatever the tile is made of, so you can forage/botanize, clip grass, pick flowers, etc. as well as interact with the tree itself. To select an Object you click directly on the visible object itself, and you're interacting only with the object.

Containers are a special type of object, and can either be actual containers such as barrels, chest and crates, but it also  mean stacks of objects, like wood piles, or the open crate graphic that indicates multiple types of objects are piled in the same tile. You'll know a container if there is an Open option either on the Selected Window, or in the right-click menu. Most of the time, your interactions with a container will be with the container itself, but if it's a pile and you select Take, it will attempt to take all (or as many as you can carry) of the items inside, whereas Take with any other kind of container will attempt to pick up the entire Container, with all objects inside.

Finally, I want to address the Selected Window. This is the Window that shows what object or tile you've most recently selected, and gives you several buttons to interact with it (up to 8) based on the type of object/tile, proximity, and whatever tool you've selected. Some options may not always be displayed, so it's important to realize that the right-click menu will give you a full listing of potential interactions, but this window will allow you to speed up a lot of common tasks; It's a lot quicker to click a button 2-3 times than to navigate through the Right-Click window repeatedly. Note that occasionally the buttons will not update when you've moved into range, so clicking off the desired object/tile then clicking back will update the buttons.

GATHERING MATERIALS

You will need to gather a lot of materials throughout the game for basically everything. I'm going to break this down into types of gathering, and discuss the materials you can get from each. The basic thing you'll need to know is that you'll need to activate a tool to do most of these (and many other actions in the game, for that matter). Activating a tool consists of double-clicking it. You'll know it worked if the name turns green, and the name of the activated item will show up at the bottom of the inventory window. If you're activating something that's part of a stack, you'll need to expand the stack to see which one of them has been activated.

Foraging/Botanizing/Rummaging: These are three different actions, but they all work essentially identically, so I'm going to cover them together. Foraging is the act of seeking items like vegetables, cotton, etc; Larger plant-matter. Botanizing is the action of seeking herbs and such. At lower skill levels you'll only be able to do these on grass tiles (or tree tiles that are in grass), and they can both be done on the same tile. A tile may need some hours to recharge before you can do either, so it's a good idea to forage and botanize as you're moving around, to gather food and materials you'll need later. Rummaging is exactly the same as foraging and botanizing, except that it's done on stone tiles, and typically returns iron rocks and occasionally other minerals. Iron rocks will be your earliest, easiest source of iron, and they're typically low quality.

Woodcutting: Activate your hatchet (or other bladed tool; I've seen advice telling you to use your sword for this, to get an early sword skill boost; I use my hatchet, though) and select a tree tile. As a rule, you'll want to stick to older trees, unless you're actively trying to clear space. Double-clicking, or right-click > examine will tell you the tree's age. Then use the right-click menu or Selected Window to choose Chop Down. It will likely take 2-5 tries, then the tree will change to a falling tree. You can then select the fallen tree and chop it into logs; Some activities later will actually use the whole tree, like boat building; For the most part, logs will be what you want. Some trees (fruit trees, commonly) do not have enough wood to become a fallen tree, and will simply leave a log. Logs will be a maximum of 24 kg, usually with a smaller remnant once the fallen tree is depleted.

Digging: Digging is useful for shaping the land, but also getting resources. Activate your shovel to dig; With the shovel activated, you can also mouse-over the tile borders to see the slope of each, which can be useful for planning when trying to shape the land to your needs. Unless you're leveling or flattening a tile, digging will always happen at the nearest corner to where you're standing, so if you're trying to shape the land, keep that in mind. Digging dirt or sand will reshape the land, and destroy nearby grass and other tile types. If you're digging up tar or clay, you will not reshape the land unless the nearest corner is either dirt or sand, in which case you will get these instead of the desired resource. A dirt or sand pile is 20 kg, so you'll normally max out at 5-6 piles before your inventory cannot hold anymore. You can dump dirt and sand on the ground to free up inventory space, but be aware that dropping on the ground (as opposed to a pile) will raise the land at the nearest corner. Drop it as a pile to leave an accessible resource, and not reshape the land. Keep in mind that you will not be able to dig on much of a slope at all until you've gained more skill in digging, so keep to more level ground, and use dirt piles to help level out larger slopes (by dropping at the bottom of the slope) until your skill is sufficient to do as you need.

Butchering: Butchering is what it sounds like; You get meat and materials (furs/pelts etc) from dead animals (or even humanoids; I've eaten goblin, don't judge me). You can use almost any bladed instrument, but seriously use a carving knife (or butcher knife, once you can make one), as you'll get more resources. A higher skill will also help get more resources. This one is may be a complicated one to raise, since it involves combat and injury a lot of the time, but fishing is also a good way to get meat without getting bit by anything. Filleting, once you have a butcher knife, is also a handy way to raise your butchering skill, and gain you more (smaller) pieces of meat to help raise your cooking skills as well. Finally, with a few exceptions (where the corpse can be cooked on a spit) you'll want to use your shovel to bury the corpse, once you're done butchering, as this keeps the place nice and tidy, and can discourage predators from taking an interest.

MINING

Although this is technically a gathering task, I'm breaking it out into its own heading because it is one of the more complex gathering jobs. Mining has a variety of possible rewards, including iron, silver, gold, salt gemstones, or different types of stone. You will activate a pickaxe to do mining or prospecting. Once you've got your pickaxe activated, you need to get to a stone tile. If you're lucky you can find some at ground level, but there's a good chance you're going to need to climb for it. Be careful, as moving, prospecting and mining all use up your stamina, so falling is a risk if you're not careful. If you begin mining into the rock half-way up a steep slope, you can stay there and continue mining without risk of falling so long as you do not move, but once your stamina is depleted, it will take considerably longer for each mining action.

Prospecting: I'm going to talk about this a little bit before getting into mining proper, because unless all you're looking for is stone shards, you're going to need to know how to find materials. Once you've found a stone tile, select the prospecting option from the context menu or selected window. Once done, it'll tell you if there is anything aside from rock nearby. "Nearby" means within 3 tiles in any direction; so a 7-tile square, centered on the one where you are. If you don't have surface rock tiles all around you, the materials you want may be obscured under some layers of dirt. This makes prospecting more difficult, as you need bare rock tiles to prospect on. Mining will also more difficult as you'd need to dig the dirt away first, which may not even be possible depending on the slope and your digging skill. If you have sufficient rock, moving around and prospecting can help pinpoint where the deposit of iron (or whatever; but seriously, you need iron) may be. Once you find a surface tile that mentions nearby resources that you need, you can either try to pinpoint the tile, or just start mining; An advanced usage of the prospecting skill, Analysing, can help you find the minerals once you're through the surface.

Tunneling: Once you've decided where to dig (either because it's the only way you're going to be able to regain stamina without falling down the mountain first, or because you actually found something) you have two options: Tunneling and mining. Mining on the surface is similar to digging, as it is useful for shaping rock surfaces, (or preparing the area for your future mine) but all adjacent surfaces must also be rock, and like digging, you may not have sufficient skill to dig on steeper slopes. For now, we're going to ignore surface mining, and just talk about tunneling. When you begin tunneling, you'll do a bunch of nothing at first ("you chip away at the stone") but eventually you'll start generating stone shards; These are useful resources for stone work or paving, but in this case, they also mean that you're starting to make progress. Eventually you'll open a tunnel into the mountain where you can rest your weary legs (if you happened to have been hanging off the side of a cliff) and get to work doing some more serious mining. You'll want to mine walls rather than the floor or ceiling; Doing either of these will not create a tunnel, but will raise/lower the ceiling/floor height, which can be useful if you want to build underground, but otherwise isn't especially helpful. You can mine, mine up, or mine down; All of these options will generate stone shards and make progress toward mining into the tile, but one will create a basically level tunnel, and the others will raise or lower your elevation. Elevation is completely irrelevant when seeking resources underground, but can be useful for other reasons (creating a tunnel, reaching the water table) so most of the time, just the Mine option will be sufficient. Additionally, only the option selected for the last mining action matters; If you Mine up 20 times, but the last action that breaks the stone is mine down, then you'll have a downward slope. The number of times you mine a tile before it breaks is essentially random, though it will start to warn you in the Event tab when you're getting close to breaking through. Finally, tunnels cannot go above or below another tunnel, nor can they break through to dirt; If you start getting error messages, you may need to choose a different direction, or do some work elsewhere to continue (like clearing dirt from a surface tile).

Mineral Veins: Aside from the rock shards (and random gemstones) you get from normal mining, you're going to be looking for veins of iron and other resources. Surface prospecting can get you close, but aside from that, you'll need to dig until you find something, or use Analysing (below) to find resources once you're underground; Prospecting underground will only tell you some details about the rock (or vein) you're prospecting, rather than tell you about nearby resources. Mineral veins come in a spectrum of qualities, which prospecting will reveal; Low quality is generally ideal until your Mining skill gets above 20, and you should try to conserve higher quality resources (especially "Utmost") until your mining is considerably higher. Veins give a lot more resources than you'll get out of a typical stone tile, but until your prospecting gets higher, you'll never know the exact quality or quantity of the vein. (Note also that QL is somewhat random, and based on your mining skill; the vein's quality only acts as an upper boundary)

Analysing: As mentioned above, surface prospecting will get you into the vicinity of resources, but Analysing will help you get right to it. Unfortunately, Analysing doesn't open up as an option until your Prospecting is at least 20, so you're going to need to practice a bit before getting there. Analysing requires some mineral resource be in your inventory; Most commonly you'll be using stone shards, but anything you get from mining (iron, sandstone, salt, etc.) should work. When you analyse, it will tell you about traces or faint traces, and give you a cardinal direction. Traces are 1-tile away from where you mined the resource from,  faint traces are two tiles away. At higher skill levels, you'll be able to detect traces at further distances, but we'll just stick with these for now. I would recommend you mine one tile in the direction, then prospect again; East of North, for example, just pick either East or North. As mentioned above, elevation does not matter at all when finding underground resources, so just turn so that your compass indicates the desired direction, and mine that wall.

FOOD AND WATER

Like with injury, food isn't an urgent concern for a newbie, but it's better to get on top of food before your newbie benefits run out.

Water is pretty basic; You have a blue bar (up there immediately beneath your stamina/health bar) which depletes over time. As it depletes, your stamina regeneration slows down, so it's best to keep it above the 75% mark. If it ever reaches zero, your stamina will stop regenerating entirely. Refilling the bar is very easy; Select any water source (a well, fountain, jug of water, or tile partially or fully submerged in water), and select drink. If you're in deep water, aim your camera down and select one of the tiles directly beneath you. Without mods, all water is equal, and will fill your bar.

Food is really not simple, but it starts to make sense after you get the hang of it. Food is represented by 5 bars, also clustered with your stamina/health and water bars; The only one we're going to worry about now is the Food bar, located right next to the water bar, which represents how full you are of food. The color of the bar represents how nutritious the food you've eaten is; Mousing over the bars will bring up the exact values of all of the bars, and will show your actual nutrition value. Many foods can be eaten without any preparation, but this is generally a very bad idea (if still sometimes necessary), as most of the time you will get a very small boost to your food bar, and spike your nutrition down. Nutrition above 50% gives small bonuses to skill gain, and the overall level helps to determine how quickly your food bar drops. You can select Taste from the right-click menu of any edible item, and it will tell you how nutritious the food is (as well as if it provides any temporary bonuses), and the weight of the food is the primary factor in how much it will fill your food bar. The other 4 bars (Calories, Carbs, Fat, Proteins) all have different effects which you can read more about elsewhere, later, as they're not important to someone just starting out.

Preparing food seems really opaque at first, but at its most basic, it's actually fairly simple. You need a heat source (cooker, in game terms) a container, and some sort of food. It's likely you started with a ceramic bowl, which will be plenty to get you started. Cooking a single piece of meat or a vegetable is a good start, as it gives good food/nutrition gains, and isn't overly difficult. Adding other ingredients will create better meals, but will also increase the difficulty of the meal; You will always succeed in preparing a meal (assuming the ingredients/container even make any recipe) even if the difficulty is too high, but your skill gains will be minimal, and the QL of the meal will suffer.

So let's start with the cooker; The basic cooker is a campfire, but ovens can be found in most settlements (you can also use a forge or a kiln, but don't) Campfires will add a little difficulty, so if an oven is available, use that. To get a campfire, first get a source of wood that's at least 1.5 kg, and activate your carving knife, then right-click > create > kindling. Once you have kindling, you can activate your flint and steel, then select the kindling to right-click create > furnaces > campfire. If you have a oven (or even a forge; but don't use a forge to cook) you can use the flint and steel on the oven (so long as you have kindling in your inventory) to light it instead.

Open the lit cooker, and place your ceramic bowl inside. Then drag the meat, or other foods, into the bowl. Right click the bowl and select Lore; It will tell you if you have a complete recipe, if you need to add something, or if it doesn't make anything at all, as well as the difficulty. You want to keep the difficulty within 10 points of your Hot Food Cooking skill level in order to efficiently level up your cooking, though this may be hard to manage in the beginning. Each additional ingredient adds to the difficulty, so stick to simpler meals for a while. Meat or a veggie in a bowl will eventually become "Breakfast", which is a fairly efficient beginner's meal. Eat it while it's Hot (mouse-over the food for a tooltip with the temperature) for additional nutrition. If it's cooled down, you can place prepared food into a lit cooker, and it will eventually heat up again; Food will never burn, but given enough time, food will begin to decay, so don't try to stock up for too long, at least not at first. To see and search existing, known recipes, use the Cooking Recipes button on your quickbar (same bar as climbing). Many simpler items will not be in there, but experimentation and liberal use of the Lore option will help you discover new recipes.

Crafting and Building (new!)

So I covered cooking above, but I missed probably the most important part of the game: Crafting. Seriously, if Crafting isn't your thing, I'm not sure Wurm Unlimited is for you. Or maybe it is, I dunno. But crafting is a very central aspect of the game, nonetheless. For ease of explanation, I'm going to break this section down into two categories; Crafting and Building. First, however, I want to discuss the Crafting Window. Last, we'll talk about how to figure out what to build, and what's required to build it.

Crafting Window: This provides a GUI alternative to using the right-click Create menu, and can be used with objects that aren't selected by dragging them into the appropriate slots. Many things you'll build require a tool to be in one of the two slots, but some require two different objects or components, instead. Once two objects are in place, the right-hand menu will populate with potential things those two objects can be used to build. Make sure you select the correct one; I cannot count how many times I've created a Yoke instead of a Plank, because I was in a hurry and forgot to select the desired result. The right-hand menu will also display percentage chances of success; Tool quality, material quality and skill level can all contribute to the success chance. Once you've got everything set, click the Create button; You'll likely see 3 available bubbles above the Create button, which represent how many actions you can queue up at once. Higher Mind Logic(?) will eventually add more bubbles to the queue, but if you're going to fail a lot, or you need to make multiple copies, clicking Create repeatedly will fill the bubbles up (the left/right buttons below will allow you to customize how many actions a single click will queue) Be careful not to waste time or materials by making more than what you need, though. For more complex objects that require multiple components, the right-hand menu will display needed components. Keep in mind that some of these components are themselves complex objects with sub-components that will need to be built before they can be added to the main object.

Crafting: Here, I'm referring to Crafting as the process of creating Objects (see Selecting Tiles and Objects, above) that are not necessarily permanently planted. A lot of the time, Objects will be created in your inventory, at least initially; For larger Objects, such as carts and boats, an unfinished version of the object will drop to the ground, and you'll have the option to add it to the crafting window, either in the Selected Window, or the right-click menu. Mostly, the object, tools or materials will need to be in your inventory to be worked with. In this case, you work on these objects by dragging the item to the crafting window.

Building: Building refers to creating walls, floors, pavement, etc. that are permanent installations, associated with the tiles and borders you build them on. There are different systems, depending on what you want to build.


Foot notes:

1. link to 3rd Person Mod
2. keybinds mentioned during this guide will be defaults. Keep this in mind if you've played with any keybinds.
3. New players have a healing bonus, food consumption bonus, enemy hostility range reduction, and magical light for 24 hours of gameplay. Note that these may not appear immediately on first login. Look for the icons in the upper left corner of the screen to check.