Tag: adventure

prompt: Write about a character whose job is to bring water to people.

available at Reedsy

Pre-jump checks were complete, all systems were green, and the crew of four were antsy to get going. The ship was barely more than a cockpit and engines attached to a giant cargo pod.

“Cloud-four, this is gate control. Verify your jump plan.”

As the copilot, it was Barn’s job to communicate with gate control. Just as well, as the pilot, Merilee, was as likely to chew their head off as give an answer.

“Gate, cloud-four. Verify jump to Tau Ceti at rate three-point-seven, immediate re-jump to Linden at rate four-point-zero.”

“Cloud-four, I am obligated to remind you that the Linden gate is in an active war zone.”

“Gate, cloud-four copy, Linden gate is in an active war zone.”

“Cloud-four, gate. Cargo check cleared, proceed to aperture three. Cleared for departure.”

“Gate, cloud-four, copy proceed to aperture three, departure aye.”

“Good luck and Godspeed, cloud-four.”

Barn clicked off the mic and watched as Merilee guided the ship to the shimmering aperture. She entered the commands to spool up the warp shield, then shot forward through the shimmer into the featureless grey of superluminal space.

“I am obligated to remind you,” she said in an exaggerated, nasal tone, “active war zone. Godspeed you stupid gits.”

Barn chuckled. Liv, the navigator, laughed out loud. “Cap, are you saying we’re stupid?”

“Of course,” Merilee said in her normal voice. “Who else could they find to do this?”

“You got it all wrong, Cap.” Kara turned her chair from the engineer station to face the others. “We ain’t stupid, but we sure ain’t all there. More like crazy.”

Barn leaned back. “I second crazy. Cap?”

Liv raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter, Barn? Feeling insecure being the only guy, have to get Cap’s approval?”

“Bite me, Liv.”

Kara giggled. “Mom! They’re fighting again!”

“Don’t make me pull this warp bubble over,” Merilee said with a false sternness.

“It’s cool,” Liv said, “that we’re all in a good mood, but we gotta make a plan for when we get there.”

“We’ll get the latest news TC has at the gate before we jump,” Merilee said. “After that, we’ll be winging it.”

“I hope that ain’t literal,” Liv said. “There’s no way we can go atmospheric with a load.”

“We can…sort of,” Kara said.

Merilee laughed. “I don’t know whether to be proud or afraid when you say things like that. We’re locked in warp for the next nine hours, I’ll take first watch, Barn. Why don’t you two come up with some contingency plans. It doesn’t matter how wild it sounds, we’ll consider it, and fly it if need be.”

Barn stood. “Coffee, Cap? Anybody else?” After getting affirmative responses from all three, he left the cockpit for the small galley and ordered three cups of coffee and a water from the drinks dispenser.

Merilee sipped at her coffee, headphones playing music and system updates. Liv and Kara pored over charts of the Linden system and the planet that held the disputed colony, drawing out possible paths from the gate, ways to offload without getting shot, and more.

Barn took a nap in one of the hammocks in the “crew quarters” that had been set up for just that. He woke a few hours later and relieved the captain. Resuming the music where she’d left off, he was surprised she’d been listening to Bach. It suited him just fine.

He looked at the plans the navigator and engineer had come up with. The captain had already organized them from most preferable and safest, to what could only be considered last-ditch efforts. Lowest on the list was to skim the upper atmosphere and dump the load there, hoping that at least some made its way to the colony.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and removed the headset. Liv handed him a cup of coffee. “Me and Kara are gonna take a nap. You’ll be okay by yourself for a while?”

“Sure, Liv. Thanks. Oh,” he said, raising a finger, “don’t wake the Cap, or I’ll hear about it all day.”

“I said we’re crazy, not suicidal.”

By the time they exited warp at Tau Ceti, the crew were all at their stations. Liv downloaded the latest information available about the situation at Linden while Kara did a once-over of the systems checks.

Barn clicked on his headset. “Gate control, cloud-four exiting aperture one, requesting immediate departure for Linden at rate four.”

“Cloud-four, gate. Negative on rate four to Linden. Military requires all vessels to clear the lane as quickly as possible, minimum rate six.”

“Gate, cloud-four, copy minimum rate six for Linden, hold for instructions.” He turned to Merilee. “Cap? Do we go at six?”

“Six with a full load is pushing it. Liv, estimate fuel reserves after a six to Linden.”

She was already in the process of doing just that. “Aye, Cap. Leaves us with nine percent main fuel, and reserves. Enough to maneuver, unload, and set down for refuel…just.”

Merilee turned on her headset. “Gate, cloud-four. Any fuel available here?”

“Cloud-four, gate. Nearest fuel arrives in twenty hours.”

Merilee growled. “Gate, cloud-four. Copy, no fuel.” She turned to look at the rest of the crew. “This is it. We either do this now or pack up and go home.”

“I’m in,” Kara said, and Barn nodded in agreement.

Liv took a deep breath. “Let’s do this!”

Barn turned his headset back on. “Gate, cloud-four requesting immediate clearance for Linden at rate six.”

“Cloud-four, gate. Proceed to aperture two, you are cleared for departure.”

“Gate, cloud-four. Copy proceed to aperture two, departure aye.”

As Merilee shot the ship forward through the aperture, the mangled hulk of a military ship emerged from one of the other apertures. They all had just the briefest glimpse of it, but it was disquieting all the same.

The ship rattled and the solid grey of superluminal space sparkled with stray hydrogen atoms demolishing themselves on the warp bubble. Kara kept a constant eye on fuel usage, warp shield level, and generator temperatures while Merilee leaned back and closed her eyes.

“Wake me up when we’re close to the Linden gate,” she said to Barn.

What they had planned as a seven-hour trip would take less than two, and Barn found himself nervous. He kept his attention on their course and the bubble, trying not to think too hard about what they’d find when they exited the gate.

At twenty minutes before the gate, Barn woke Merilee, and she set the flight system up such that she could assume manual control with a single keystroke. “Liv, I want all sensors online as soon as we de-bubble. We’re not stopping, and we’ll be heading on course Alpha-two. I just hope there’s nothing in the way.”

Liv asked, “Shouldn’t we wait until we—”

“No. You all saw that destroyer. It’s going to be dangerous no matter what, but I’m not sitting still just to be a target.”

They exited the gate at speed. The second the sensors came online, a collision warning blared. Merilee took manual control and did a hard-burn left lower quadrant turn. Barn kept his hands on the controls, assisting with extra muscle as the ship tried to fight back.

Despite the radical maneuver, the ship turned slowly, the inertia of its laden mass difficult to overcome. They missed colliding with the burned-out hulk of another freighter by meters, instead being pelted with bits of debris.

“Any of that get through the hull?”

“No, Cap. We’re still good,” Kara said.

“Talk to me Liv.”

“Fighters in low orbit, thirty minutes until they can lock on us. There’s a platform in geostationary orbit, south of the colony.”

“Colony’s not directly on the equator, but that orbit gives them eyes on it,” Barn said. “Any read on what it is?”

“Coming up now, Barn.” The sensors continued their noise as Merilee piloted the ship into a lower and lower orbit. “Got it. No weapons, eyes only.”

“Liv, any read on the shuttles?”

“No shuttles in orbit or atmo.”

“Kara, how sure are you about your idea?”

“Well, Cap, if you can fly it, it’ll work. The recovery chutes were refurbished last month, so at least we know they’re good.” She began calling up other systems on her console and muttered under her breath, “Just hope the thrusters are strong enough.”

“Liv, make it happen. Descending, geostationary orbit directly over the colony. At eighteen kilometers altitude we deploy the recovery chute. I’ll manually control the thrusters to set us down just outside the colony.”

Liv’s fingers flew over her console. “In position in ten seconds, Cap.”

Merilee turned off manual control. “Manual off, go when ready.”

“Three…two…one….” The ship’s computer took over navigation, putting them directly over the colony in a steadily slowing, steadily falling trajectory. The difference in speed between the ground below them and the high atmosphere buffeted the ship, the engines whining in their effort to maintain position while dropping like a rock from the sky.

Barn watched their remaining fuel empty out, then they started burning reserves. He ground his teeth in anticipation.

At eighteen kilometers, the engines grew silent, and for a few seconds they were in free-fall, until the chutes deployed fully, yanking on the ship and slowing its descent. Merilee once again took manual control, using her console to determine their location relative to the ground now that the chutes held them in a tail-down position.

As the parachutes strained against the weight of the fully loaded ship, Merilee used the thrusters to adjust their trajectory. “It’s gonna be a hard landing,” Liv said.

“She can handle it,” Kara said, “I’m pretty sure.”

Barn let the comments go past him. He was busy mirroring the captain’s movements, ready to provide extra muscle or take over completely in case of failure. He watched the altimeter wind down far too fast for a recovery landing.

“Cap! We got trouble!” Liv sent the sensor data to the captain’s heads-up display.

“Incoming fighters,” Merilee said. “We’re a big target.”

“How long until they’re in range?” Kara asked. The sound of bullets hitting the outer skin of the ship thumped and echoed. “Oh.”

“Twenty seconds to land,” Barn said. “Brace for impact.”

The engines cut out and the four of them held their breath, their harnesses pinning them in their seats, their backs to the ground. The impact was sudden and jarring.

“I it my ongue,” Kara said.

“Aside from Kara’s tongue, is everyone okay?” Merilee asked.

“Yeah, just as soon as my heart slows down,” Barn said.

“Well, ain’t that a sight?” Liv had already removed her harness and stood on the back of her chair. She pointed through the forward window above them to the fighters falling from the sky in flames.

As they watched, the chute, almost settled, filled with wind and pulled toward the bottom of the ship where the cargo hold contained most of the weight. “Liv, strap in!” Merilee clenched her fist as Liv scrambled to return to her seat.

She wasn’t fast enough, and the ship leaned, seemingly balanced on edge for a second, before slamming down to its normal position.

Liv was thrown to the floor, where she groaned. She sat up, touching her forehead where blood poured from a gash.

“Kara, grab the first aid kit and patch up her head. Barn, get on the radio. Let ’em know we’re two kilometers south of the colony.”

“Oh, they already know,” Barn said, pointing at the rescue vehicles barreling toward their location.

Merilee helped Liv down first, for the medics to treat, then Kara. “How’s your tongue?” she asked.

“It hurts, but I’ll live.”

“Have the medics check you out anyway. I see you trying to hide all the blood you’re swallowing. That’ll just make you sick. Quit trying to be a badass.”

“Aye, Cap.”

“Barn?”

“Shaken, but uninjured,” he said.

“I’d feel better if the medics check you out, too, anyway.”

Merilee followed him down and walked away from the ship to assess the damage. The cargo hold was dented, but not pierced. The upper hull, though, looked like Swiss cheese, thanks to the bullets of the fighters.

One of the colony’s military leaders pulled up next to her. “You’re lucky to be alive,” he said.

“Luck has nothing to do with it.” Merilee looked at the damage to the upper hull again. “Well, maybe it does. Anyway, we heard the xenos destroyed your reservoir and things were grim, so we came.”

“What’s your ship’s call sign, and what’s the cargo?”

“Cloud-four,” she said. “One through three didn’t make it through, so, we had to. Cargo is 590,000 cubic meters of water.”

“Thank whatever gods there are you got here.”

“This should hold you until we get patched up and bring another load. Hopefully to unload in orbit like a sane person next time.”

prompt: Start your story with a character struggling to remember the date, because every day is like the last one.…

available at Reedsy

Jora sat on the edge of the bed. His warm, deep-brown hand, calloused and strong, ruffled Raz’s auburn hair. When Raz didn’t move under the covers, he shook the larger man’s shoulder. “Raz, wake up.”

“I don’t want to.” Raz tried to roll away from the intrusion but was held firm. Jora’s slight frame hid enormous strength.

“You don’t want to; I don’t want to. I just want to go home. Shift starts in an hour,” Jora said. “Get up so we can have breakfast together, at least.”

“We’ve made it this long,” Raz said. “We can see this through to the end.”

“Yeah, yeah. Captain Durand won’t be happy with anything less than the five-year, 250 percent bonus. I just didn’t think five years could feel so long. I can only do the same thing every day for so long, you know.”

“Even if that thing is me?” Raz asked.

“I don’t get tired of you, no. Because every day you’re a slightly different type of asshole.”

“Ouch. At least we’re together.”

“Yeah. But if there’s a mechanical reason to turn back, I’m calling it. No second-guessing, no talking me out of it.”

Throwing the covers off, Raz sat up on the edge of the bed. He was easily twice as massive as Jora. Muscles rippled under his olive-tan skin as he stretched. “Wait, is it our anniversary yet?”

“No, that’s next week.” Jora kissed him between his shoulder-blades. “Or is it the week after next? I don’t know, it isn’t today. Get dressed, I’ll see you in the galley.”

Raz stood and stretched once more, pressing his hands against the low ceiling. “See you in ten.” He rapped his fist against the ceiling once, making the metal walls of their cabin ring.

Breakfast consisted of one potato and one green onion from the hydroponic garden with egg-flavored protein powder reconstituted and cooked into an approximation of scrambled eggs along with a mug of strong coffee. The second-shift crew was in for a nightcap of vodka made in the still in engineering.

Lada Bird, the chief navigator, picked at her breakfast. Close-cropped black hair topped a pale pink face, currently crestfallen. “Man, I wish more of the plants we started with had survived.”

“At least we still have the potatoes,” Raz said, pointing to the bottle of vodka sitting in the middle of the mess table.

Ayla Durand entered, filled her mug with coffee, and added a shot of vodka to it. She was tall, having to duck through the low doorways, and had close-cropped black hair, reddish-brown skin and bright brown eyes. “It’s going to be all-out today, so be ready.”

“What’s up, Cap?” asked Raz.

“We’ll be harvesting today,” she said. “Decent nebula where we can grab up some more organics along with a full resupply of hydrogen.”

“Oh good,” Raz said. “I thought you were going to say it’s my turn to clean the algae out of the CO2 scrubbers again.”

“Good idea, Bianchi. You can top off the food generator with that before we get to the nebula.”

Raz groaned. “Okay, okay. That’s what I get for being a scientist on a science ship.”

“It’s not a science ship, it’s my ship,” Ayla said, “I was just dumb enough to take this gig.”

“Ah, you love this shit, Cap.” Lada raised her own mug of coffee. “Who else would volunteer for a mission like this? They said support yourselves in space for five years, and you heard, ‘Get away from everyone for five years’ and signed right up!”

There was a smattering of laughter among the crew. Jora snorted once and Raz nearly choked on his coffee. “Lada’s got you there,” Raz choked out.

Ayla ignored it. “Bashir,” she said, gesturing at Jora with her mug, “how’s the work on the recyclers?”

“Recyclers are back online since yesterday at sixteen-hundred hours. I can start prepping the gas separators for harvest right away.”

“Good, we harvest in ten hours, all hands.” Without waiting for a response, she left the galley.

After tossing their trays in the recycler chutes, Jora and Raz parted ways to do their work. Jora logged on to the terminal in the maintenance bay and checked the date: Thursday, 495-10-14, day 1472 of the mission, and three weeks to his anniversary.

Jora logged the task he was doing and the commands to lock out the controls of the gas separators in the terminal. With the muscle memory that came from four years of doing the same thing every day, he grabbed his tool belt as he walked by the workbench without looking and fastened it around his hips.

Jora’s work for the day was simple but tedious; a thorough inspection of the gas separator, replace any worn parts, and log the results. The gas separator would pull in everything they harvested from the nebula, filtering out the large carbon molecules, the metallic elements, and then the gasses. The hydrogen would be further filtered to separate out the deuterium from the protium.

For every part he replaced, he printed another, making sure they had at least two spares of every part, down to the smallest nut and bolt. The only exceptions were the large pieces, like the mounting frame and the vacuum chamber. If those failed it would require hand-welding smaller pieces from the printer.

Once he finished with that, he checked the supplies for the printer. They were good for iron, copper, zinc, nickel, gold, titanium, aluminium, silicon, and several types of plastics. What they were lacking was lithium. Without that, the fusion reactor would not be able to generate tritium from the deuterium, in order to run the more powerful deuterium-tritium reactions the ship relied on.

“Raz, do we have metallics analysis on the nebula?” he asked over the intercom.

“Not much showing,” Raz said. “There may be some further in, but the outer envelope is pretty soupy; blocks the scanners. We won’t know more until we get in there.”

“We’re running low on lithium. If we don’t find some soon, we’ll have to go back.” Jora smiled. “Not that I’d complain about that. We get the four-year bonus anyway.”

“Then let’s hope we find some.” Ayla did not sound amused. “We’re getting that five-year bonus even if you all have to get out and push.”

They all gathered on the bridge as the ship dropped out of super-C. The nebula shone in front of them, hinting at the stars in its midst.

“Deploy the catch-net and set a course into the nebula.” Ayla stood by her seat; her eyes fixed on the spectacle in front of her.

“Never gets old, does it?” asked Lada.

“Never.”

Jora watched for as long as he could, up to the moment the charged net began to flicker. It was dragging in material, and he would need to stand by the gas separator. The next two hours were slow, the numbers on the separator slowly rising. He keyed the intercom. “Aside from hydrogen, everything is still in trace amounts. And it looks like we’re slowing down?”

“Entering a void,” Ayla said. There was a murmur of voices over the intercom.

“What’s going on?”

“Maintain orbit here. Get up here, Bashir. I need an engineer’s assessment.”

“On my way.”

Jora entered the bridge and looked out the viewport. A small, bright star sat at the middle of an empty expanse. “It’s a star.”

Raz tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the terminal monitor. In the view from the telescope a disk appeared around the star, with a few bands swept clear. “There’s everything there, up through transuranic elements. We’re in the remnants of a supernova, and the birth of new star system.”

“Nice. So, what did you need engineering for, Captain?”

“There’s a lot of everything we might need out there, but it’s not gas and molecular dust.” She leaned on the edge of her chair. “Do you think we can harvest from there?”

“I’ll have to do some calculation, see what we have on hand, and get back to you.” Jora read through the numbers on the monitor. “The net as is won’t hold up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

“You’re not telling me to pack it up and go home?”

“No. Like you said, everything we need is right there. I’m an engineer, and I haven’t had a good challenge in years.”

“You have twenty-four hours to come up with a plan, or a damn good explanation of why it can’t be done.”

“Yes, Captain.”

After poring over the numbers for four hours straight, Jora sighed. “This isn’t working.”

“Eat something,” Raz said, pushing a tray in front of him. “Might help clear your head.”

“Thanks.” Jora ate the bland soup.

“Maybe talk me through it? What’s the biggest problem?”

“The shields. Even if I rig something up that can handle the junk out there, the shields aren’t meant to take that kind of a beating.”

“Isn’t this ship rated for planetary take-off and re-entry? How do the shields—”

“Raz, you’re a genius!” Jora pulled up the images from the earlier scans. “These empty bands here… those are planets, or at least on their way to being planets. Captain, I think I have it!”

Ayla raised her head from where she had been resting on the mess table. “We land on one of the planets?”

“Not likely.” Jora began drawing diagrams on the terminal. “They’re probably still molten. What we need to look for is a narrow, partially cleared ring. There’ll be a large asteroid or planetoid starting to clear its neighborhood, but still small enough to not maintain the heat of the impacts. We hang on the back side of it, use it as a shield while we dig into from there.”

“Risks?”

“Something big hits it and it splashes us.”

“That’s easy enough,” Raz said. “We scan all the likely candidates and find the one with no large objects on an intercept course. For a couple hours, anyway.”

“Why only a couple hours?” Ayla asked.

“There are millions of objects out there, all colliding and interacting. It’s going to be chaotic for the next billion years or so.” Raz stood. “I’m heading to the lab to find our candidates and build an orbital probability model.”

Ayla turned to Jora. “Will a couple hours be long enough to get what we need?”

“Assuming the asteroid has it, sure.” Jora finished his soup and converted the rear cargo bay into a mining platform while Raz hunted for a suitable target.

With their target selected and course laid in, Lada maneuvered in behind the asteroid, matching its speed. While the ship turned its belly to the rock, Jora checked his vac suit and entered the airlock to the rear cargo bay. He had emptied it of everything except the loader arm on which he had attached a makeshift digger and evacuated all the air.

“I’m ready,” Jora said.

“Bird, bring our belly right up to that thing.”

“On it.”

Jora opened the rear loading door and watched the surface of the asteroid draw closer. He extended the arm to its maximum reach. “Five more meters.”

“Five meters, creeping in.”

“Easy, Lada.” Ayla’s voice was tense.

Jora watched the arm get closer to the surface. “Three meters.”

“Three meters.”

“One meter.” Jora retracted the arm before it impacted the surface. “Hold it here.”

“Holding.”

“Easy, Lada.”

“Digging now.” With slow, deliberate movements he began digging into the surface of the asteroid. As the scoop moved closer to the deck of the cargo bay, the artificial gravity overcame that of the asteroid, enabling him to dump the scoop and go for another.

The lights from the cargo bay reflected off the fresh scar, winking with what could be ice or metals. He pulled in the second scoop and dumped it when he heard popping noises over the radio in his helmet.

“How are we looking, Bashir?”

“Looking good, Captain. Raz, are you getting readings from the sensors in the cargo hold?”

“I’m getting it. Looks like —”

“Bashir, you need to hurry. We’re getting pelted out here.”

“Right. I’ll just keep digging until you pull us away.”

He pulled in the third scoop and felt the ship vibrate beneath him. The surface of the asteroid pulled away from the open door. “What’s happening?”

“We’re creating a gravity well, and everything loose on the surface is rolling in between us and the asteroid,” Raz said. 

“Quick guess on how much lithium we have?” Jora asked.

“You’ve pulled in eighteen kilos of material,” Raz said, “so my guess would be four or five hundred grams. It’s a motherlode.”

“We need at least twice that.”

“It looks like you found the sweet spot,” Ayla said. “We can keep going or try again later on another rock.”

“You’re right about the sweet spot.” Jora looked at the piles between himself and the open cargo door. “How much time can you give me?”

“We’ve tracked an incoming asteroid, off-plane, bigger than this one. Looks like a collision course. Forty minutes, max.”

“I can do it,” Jora said. “Get me back down there.”

The lights went red, and the impact alarm sounded over the radio. “Everyone in their vac suit. Bird, I’ll take the controls while you suit up.”

The asteroid approached the open door again, much faster than it had the first time. Jora winced, expecting an impact. Instead, the ship stopped closer than it had been before.

Moving as fast as he could, Jora pulled scoop after scoop out of the asteroid. As it was mostly just a collection of dust and rocks held together by gravity it was easy going.

“Five minutes to impact, collision course verified. Close it up, Bashir.”

Another vibration shook the ship. This time, Jora could hear it as a low thump; the sound waves carried up through his bones. He tried to pull in the scoop, but something in the asteroid had shifted, wedging it in place.

“Come on! Get back here!”

“You’re running out of time, Bashir. Close it up!”

“The arm is stuck.”

The ship pulled away from the asteroid, only to have the stuck loader arm jerk the two of them together. “We need to get out of here!”

“I’m going to dump the arm.” Jora stepped away from the controls and pulled the pins that held the front of the arm to the cargo bay floor. The rear pins were jammed, the mounting plate pulling hard against them. “I need you to give me a little slack. Ten centimeters, even.”

“I’m trying!” Lada’s voice was panicked. “We’re jammed on something underneath.”

“Lada, lift the nose, just a hair.”

“Uh, o– okay.”

As soon as the plate relaxed against the pins, Jora pulled them both and the ship began to separate from the asteroid, the loader arm falling into it, now a permanent part of it. “Go! We’re clear!” He closed the cargo bay door and collapsed.

“Get us out of here, Bird.” The relief in Ayla’s voice was obvious. “Bashir, I’m going to need some exterior work from you. We got dinged pretty hard there. Showing hull damage in section B-9.”

“Sure thing. Let me clean the dust off my suit and get my vac welder. We’ll have to leave the cargo bay in vacuum until we get the alkalis sorted and stored in oil. Don’t want to start a fire.”

 “We can worry about that after you get some sleep. We’re not leaving until we’ve all rested. But Bashir,” she asked, “did we lose my loader arm?”

“We did.”

“Can you build me a new one?”

“Maybe,” he said, “probably. But if we start running low on materials again, it’s someone else’s turn to do the mining. I don’t think my heart can take that again, and I want to be alive to collect that five-year bonus.”