skonen_blades | Entries tagged with shuttle

“Cowardice. God damned cowardice!” yelled Commander Breheny.

She’d been in charge of this hunter-seeker for over two months and hadn’t even confirmed one kill yet. She’d trained her whole life for her own command. She’d slain over two hundred enemy Taal-ships, first as a cadet and then as a helmsperson and then as a lieutenant, sending countless Taals to Hell.

She was tall and strong. She couldn’t be called pretty but she definitely had an undeniable air of authority that partnered well with her angry streak. Hard but fair. That was Commander Breheny.

Until recently, that is. The lack of kills was causing her to unravel. A Taal-shuttle would appear in her quadrant but as soon as she pursued it, it would warp away to a safe distance. Still on the scanners but out of firing range. It would not engage and it would always remain one step ahead.

The Taal-shuttle was taunting her and it was working. She couldn’t figure out the angle.

Her bridge crew was starting to become afraid of her. It was the kind of fear that could become rebellion if left unchecked.

Her military overlords were staring to sigh when she reported back every day that she had yet to kill the one tiny shuttle she’d been assigned to terminate.

What she didn’t know was that this was the first test of her command. The Taal-shuttle was being piloted by a human who was interfacing with Commander Breheny’s onboard nav-computer, enabling the Taal-shuttle to always stay out of reach.

It was a snipe hunt. A wild goose chase designed to test the patience of new commanders. The military overlords would act more and more disappointed with the new commander’s performance and the Taal-shuttle would remain out of reach.

All of the new commanders broke. It was how they broke that interested the overlords. How a commander dealt with failure was the last lesson, the most important and final test of command. It was the hardest lesson they had to deal with.

Commander Breheny glowered in her chair, smoldering at the viewscreen. Her crew gave each other nervous sidelong glances.

tags

It was China that finally did it.

So little was known about explosive decompression of the human body in space. There had been assumptions and guesses but nothing had happened yet in terms of accidents to give the scientists any bodies to study.

China’s space program was also curious.

It also happened to have ten criminals that it had condemned to death and were in good enough physical condition to qualify as astronauts.

They were strapped into their roller coaster chairs and kept in the cargo bay of the shuttle. Funny how the government didn’t balk at the idea of how much ten bodies would cost them in terms of fuel but they felt it was okay to skimp on anesthetic.

China’s government wasn’t doing it completely independently. They had been caught early on in the planning. After some top-secret political wrangling, the other two major governments of Earth had given China the silent go-ahead with the proviso that they share their data. They’d condemn the action if it ever came to light but other than that, they wouldn’t interfere. The information would be valuable and no one except China had the balls to do something like this.

And since there were no civilians up in space at the moment, eyewitnesses would be scarce.

The chairs were fitted with restraints bolted to the floor of the cargo bay. At no point would the prisoners be released. They’d simple be exposed to the vacuum of space for ten minutes and then the cargo bay would close and the shuttle would head back down to Earth.

Simple. Easy. Effective.

Like all horrible plans.

First of all, two of the criminals were adept at escaping locks. Second of all, space agencies weren’t as good at designing criminal restraints as prisons were. Third of all, the plan was to do the mission in radio silence. And fourth, the shuttles these days were mostly automated except for landing.

Weng Pen got out first when the G’s stopped. Pei Sheng followed suit. They freed the others.

One of the crew needed to do a final check on the how many prisoners had survived lift off before the decompression. If only he’d checked the video feeds coming from the bay.

That open door was all the prisoners needed.

The prisoners surged forth, overwhelmimg the crew. They killed them or rendered them unconscious. The prisoners strapped the five crew members into the chairs.

The criminals gathered into the cockpit and watched the red numbers count down with smiles on their faces.

The doors opened. Ten minutes passed. The doors closed. The ship turned slowly on its pre-programmed course back to China.

The dead bodies of the crew were the first images that ground control saw when the ship was back within accepted broadcast range parameters.

The other thing they saw was the laughing faces of the prisoners in the cockpit as manual control was restored to them for the landing.

One hard right later, the entire shuttle port and ninety government officials were ionized gas in the crater of the shuttle’s impact.

That was six years ago.

The rest of the governments of Earth are still waiting for an accident to provide them with what happens upon an explosive decompression.

tags

Both of them were engineered for tactical combat and espionage. They met while on separate missions.

Zhora was ordered to destroy Senator Emerald Majesty. Roy had been sent on a mission to take out The Right Honorable Jimmy James. Emerald Majesty and Jimmy James were lovers.

Roy and Zhora met through the coincidence of booking rooms in hotels directly across from each other. They were on Kreeler’s Reach, the political house of senate commons asteroid. They constantly had scopes out the window to gathering data and tailed their targets outdoors. Like recognizes like. They steered clear of each other out of professional courtesy.

They were to be given ‘go words’ if a certain bill passed in the government. That bill was delayed. Time passed. The weeks turned into months.

When their paths crossed, Roy and Zhora gave imperceptible nods to each other at first, then smiles. Soon, they were having lunches. They recognized the covert nature of each other’s profession but never remarked on it. They flirted. They acted like real people. They had dinners. They had dates.

They were both given their go-words at the same time at the same dinner. They made their excuses and left.

And met again in the hotel room where Emerald Majesty and Jimmy James were celebrating.

Emerald had just dismounted Jimmy after a particularly energetic bout of lovemaking. Her long, dark body glistened in the light from the beside lamp. Jimmy ran his hands through this thinning hair. The bill had been passed. Their financial worries were over. They both thought about how lucky they were for about the hundredth time.

Jimmy reached over to stroke Emerald’s hair.

His hand disappeared above the wrist in a red haze. He screamed and the front of his throat disappeared as well. Jimmy gurgled and sunk into the pillows. Blood spread. Two new holes in the bedroom window cooled.

Emerald screamed. They’d been found out. She had no idea that her and Jimmy had been in the crosshairs for months. She got up to grab her clothes and flee.

Zhora exploded out from the wardrobe and grabbed Emerald around the neck. It was over in seconds with a dry snap.

With a quizzical look at the bed and the body of Jimmy, Zhora walked over to the window.

Roy snapped his head up from the scope with a smile. Impulsively, he fired up the plaser again and took aim on the wall behind Zhora.

“Hello. Xo. R.” he spelled out in scorch marks.

Zora looked up into his scope and smiled.

After that, they decided to go back to Earth and get the re-doctoring needed to live full lives.

They found a couple of friends in a rough bar. A heavy lifter named Leon, one of the prostitute models named Priscilla, a male prostitute model named Tarryn, and a shuttle pilot named Erilda.

Together, the six of them hijacked a shuttle and headed for Earth.

These things never work out. They killed the crew and passengers.

Leon fell in love with Zhora on the trip to Earth. He resented the hell out of Roy.

All of the boys slept with Pris every now and again. It’s what she was built for. Erilda and Pris were good friends. Tarryn and Erilda hooked up. Those two had a great time.

It was manageable until they made it to Earth. Tense but alright.

Once they hit Earth, however, their plans turned to shit.

Erilda got fried running through an electrical field. Tarryn left and never came back after that. Leon blew their cover by killing a police officer. Zhora ran away to hide in plain sight as her training dictated, figuring she’d do better on her own instead with a group of idiots.

Roy was never the same after that. He became consumed with finding a way to live longer and wrap it up as a gift for Zhora, a way to bring her back.

tags

There are three things I remember about that day.

1. I remember the hatch blowing
2. I remember my fingernails glowing with a bright blue light.
3. I remember talking to a child.

I’ve gone over and over that time with the shrinks here on the ground. It was a time-sensitive mission to repair satellite Oricus-11. We were on schedule and nothing was in the red. We were in the pipe, five by five and on target.

Jackie and Maria were locked in and reading the specs back as we arrowed in on the airlock. Reverse thrusters fired as Maria cushioned our lateral descent to the docking clamps. There was a light bump through the whole ship as we touched the edge of the collar.

Halfway there.

Maria raised a hand up to her hair and died that way. Her eyes just unfocused and the animal side in Jackie and I knew right away that she’s been turned off like a light switch.

I looked over at Jackie and that’s the last linear-time memory I have except for those three other things I mentioned up above.

The hatch blew. Vacuum scoured the entire cigar tube of our ship with a greedy inhalation of breath from god’s lungs. Papers, pens, experiments, everything that wasn’t tethered or taped went fast-forward panicking out the door into the cold embrace. The air turned to crystals.

I don’t know if this was some time later or in the next second but I remember looking forward at my outstretched hand. My fingernails were brightly glowing blue. Beyond my hand was a forest. The trees and leaves were mostly red and I still can’t tell if it was Earth in the autumn or if it was summer on a different planet.

The last thing I remember is talking to a child. The child was much smarter than me and it seemed like he was intentionally using simple language to communicate with me. A little boy about seven years old with eyes glowing exactly the same blue as my fingertips had been glowing in the previous memory. We were both dressed in white and sitting in a red room.

I don’t remember what we talked about but I’ve been a lot calmer ever since.

I was found in a swamp by a couple of Louisiana fishermen. I was looking at the rot-resistant bark of a cypress and tracing the lines on the trunk with my hands. Their greeting is the first thing I remember. Turning my head to see who made that noise and then realizing that I was ankle deep in a swamp.

I still had my uniform on. It was freshly washed and felt like it was still slightly warm from the dryer. I felt freshly showered as well.

It didn’t take long for me to get taken into the basements of NASA and questioned. I’ve been here for weeks now.

They tell me that they found Maria's body in the ship still attached to the satellite. Jackie is missing. I'm looking forward to catching up with her if she shows up somewhere on Earth like I did.

I’m not sure if they’ll give me a memwipe or just cut me loose. I am surprised to feel that I am now in possession of something that they’ll never be able to take from me. I’m different inside.

tags

I yelped when I burned myself on the soldering gun. Again. That was twice in an hour. I was inside the guts of the ship working on the guidance system.

We were at the co ordinates that had been specified and there was no pickup waiting for us. A diagnostic revealed that our guidance system was actually a little off.

‘A little off’ can be fatal when we’re talking about three dimensional vectors.

I had read the instruction manual about this model so the repairs were going well. A few years of experience in the army fleet was coming back to me. What I was doing wasn’t complicated. I was making it take longer than necessary. I was distracted and I kept accidentally burning my hand with the soldering gun.

We were in this little shuttle. Two of us. I knew that once we were picked up, we’d be gated back to the transport and then back to the coreship and then back to the fleet. There were billions of people in the fleet and thousands of ships. We were just one fleet of many.

I knew that once the repairs were completed that we would get the right co-ordinates running through our systems. We’d get picked up immediately.

And I’d never see Cindy again.

The last week had been idyllic. We were a recon mission sent to a Green planet to check it out for resources. The odds were against it being a viable power source but all the checkboxes lit up like birthday candles as soon we achieved a stable orbit. No searching was necessary.

The pickup wasn’t for a week and we had finished our recon almost as soon as we arrived. That left seven days to just hang out.

We went down the planet’s surface and had a picnic.

You have to understand that we had been paired already to others. The best genetic matches for us had been picked. When we got back, we’d be taken back to our posts, rotated randomly and prevented from communicating to each other.

The planet was lush. It was thrilling to be under a limitless sky that wasn’t a simulation.

We kissed. We made love. We broke the rules.

The warm wind at night washed over us cuddled together in the grass beside the shuttle.

We knew that as soon as we got back to the ship that our relationship would be over. We knew that this time would be all the time we had. I think that’s what made it so intense. I think that’s why we opened up so completely to each other. I think that’s why we fell in love so hard.

My training was fighting my emotions every second of that last day.

Cindy called down to me. “Everything okay down there?” she asked. I could hear recent tears in her voice. She had used my procrastination for more crying.

“Yup.” I replied. I fixed the last connection. I could hear the dashboard upstairs warble with new information. I also heard Cindy sigh.

I climbed back up in the cabin and looked out the front screen. Our transponder had re-aligned and taken us to the pick up point. The jump was almost instantaneous so I guess we weren’t that far off. The pincers and loops of the pick-up ship dragged towards us and wrapped us in an embrace. They charged up and the cabin filled with a violet light.

Soon we’d be home. It felt more to me like we were leaving home behind.

“I’m going to miss you, Cindy” I said. I turned to her for a last kiss. The hum of the jump vibrated the ship and our bodies as the dimensions folded us back to the transport ship. It was the best kiss I’ve ever had.

We broke apart as the lights on the airlock cycled green.

“I’m going to miss you too, Jessica,” replied Cindy back to me.

The airlock opened and the men came in to take back us back to separate quarantines. That was the last time I saw her.

That was years ago. I still think about that mission every day. It’s the jewel in my mind that keeps me happy and makes me sad all at the same time. It keeps my sanity focused and threatens to break it apart as well. I miss Cindy and our week in the green.

tags