The Maiden Voyage - Part 8
Life In The 31st Century - The Misadventures of Derek Dark, Intergalactic Courier.
Welcome to part eight. Would you like to be stranded in the cold void of space? Nope, didn’t think so, Derek didn’t want to either, let’s find out how he dealt with it.
This series is being serialised every Sci-Friday but if you’d rather skip ahead and get the entire story (and my deep gratitude) direct to your reading app of choice over at https://books2read.com/themaidenvoyage for as little as $2.99 / £1.99. UPDATE: The Maiden Voyage is now also available as an audiobook for those of you who like that kind of thing from the Google Play store.
Stranded
In a spaceship, there are a few things that it’s vital to get right. The first is oxygen. There’s not a lot out in space, so for any successful manned journey it’s vital you take enough or have some efficient manner of making more along the way. The second is water. As a species, humans are about two-thirds by mass water. Not keeping that level topped up has traditionally not gone too well. The last of the top three is heat. Space can be cold, very, very cold - especially out in the deep dark between the stars.
The bone numbing pain seeped into my joints, causing my hands and feet to cramp up as the last of the warmth in my blood was drawn back to my core. The sensation dragging me back into the realm of the conscious. Although, given the absolute darkness that assaulted my eyes, it was hard to tell if I was conscious or not.
“Angel… why… is… it… so… cold?” I sat shivering as I tried to articulate the words through parched lips welded shut by frost and thirst.
“Angel?”
The banging headache made thinking difficult.
“Angel? Why are the lights off? Angel? Where are you? Where am I? What’s going on?”
Slowly, too slowly, realisation dawned. Something was wrong, very, very wrong.
“Take a deep breath and relax, Derek.” My grandfather’s words echoed in my head. “Remember, if anything ever goes wrong, try not to panic. Panic is the biggest killer in space.”
He had drilled those words into me since I was a little boy. “It’s the quickest way to make a mistake and space is an unforgiving mistress, and not one prone to handing out second chances.”
Not for the first time I was glad to hear one of Gramps’s much used litanies of comfort. I clung on to those words as I tried to make sense of where I was and what mess I’d got myself into now.
I could deal with the pitch black dark. I guess the clue is in the name, but the sudden disappearance of everything else was what was scaring me.
“Hello?” I tried to stand. “Angel?” Careful this time. “Maiden?” I’d had enough of getting knocked about for one trip. “Can anyone hear me?” Stamping my feet, I threw my arms around me in an effort to keep the blood flowing and stay warm. It didn’t work.
The stomps echoed as hollow metallic thuds that rang through the darkness. Surprised by the sudden noise, I turned quickly and fell hard onto the floor.
“Ow, what the frack.”
I put my hands out to find out what it was I’d tripped over. A faint green glow illuminated the label on an emergency survival kit. I grabbed the heavy bag and pulled it towards me. The kit should contain everything I needed - light sticks, k-rations, water cubes and most importantly an insulated enviro-suit. I stored a couple of kits in the cargo deck locker and I always kept a spare in the lifeboat. I didn’t know where I was, but it sure as hell wasn’t the cargo deck or the lifeboat.
By convention, the light sticks were always the last thing packed, so they were at the top of the bag. Reaching inside, I breathed a sigh of relief as my hand closed around the thin plasteen tube. The presence of the sticks suggested that the rest of the kit was likely intact. Snapping the tube in half allowed the phosphorescent chemicals to mix. A quick shake and the tube was lit, throwing a pool of green light that fought back against the dark.
The inside of a standard Unizon cargo pod is two meters tall, three meters wide, and five meters long. When packed well, they can hold a surprising amount. I was using this pod to store returns from my previous run. It had been due to be swapped out when Maiden had arrived. Maybe Angel had a point about the automatic delivery system. My lacklustre efforts had left cases strewn everywhere, so there was not a lot of room to manoeuvre.
“Angel, can you hear me? Angel come in.”
Silence,
“Angel?”
If I was as actually alone as I seemed, then I was in a lot more trouble than I first thought. Comms could fail for multiple reasons, which made Gramp’s words even more significant. Maybe the ship was damaged or had lost power. That would explain the cold, but until I could get out of the cargo pod, there was no way to check.
A sudden chill ran down my spine.
I realised there was a simple reason I couldn’t communicate with Angel and that was because I was no longer on board the ship. That must mean the pod had been ejected.
“Shiz!”
I had no way of knowing if it was because of Angel actually triggering some kind of self destruct mechanism or was this all Maiden’s doing?
“Shiz!”
Regardless, it would appear I was now floating adrift in the asteroid field, in a small tin can with no way to get home. It was a death sentence. The only other craft in the vicinity had been Su’naks. Which meant my options were slowly freezing to death or being viciously tortured to death by a gang of bloodthirsty thugs.
“Shiz!”
Unizon standard cargo pods were pressure regulated and had a minimum level of insulation. This would explain why I was not already dead. It would be nice to think that the standards were there for emergencies like this, but in reality, it was to protect the cargo. No one in their right mind would use of these to ship livestock, at least not live livestock.
That was Unizon, always thinking of the customer.
I reached back into the bag for the enviro-suit before I froze solid. Fortunately, it was in its rightful place, neatly folded under the rest of the light sticks. If the rest of the kit was intact, I might at least last a couple of sols. Pulling on the bulky outfit, I connected one of the battery packs and activated the heating circuits.
The warm glow spread smoothly across the surface and my eyes rolled back as my mouth formed into a soft smile. The feeling gradually returned to my extremities as the heat did its job, helping to soothe my nerves.
Next on the list of priorities was air.
I could breathe, which meant the pressure seals were obviously holding. Which was a plus. However, the air in the pod was obviously limited, which meant eventually I’d drift off to sleep from lack of oxygen. Which seemed better than freezing to death. Unless…
It’s rarely silent in space. I mean, outside in the vacuum, obviously. But not on board ship. If nothing else, there was always the low level hum from the life support systems. You get so used to hearing the noise from the oxygen scrubbers that normally it just drifts into the background.
My heart was pounding and my ears were ringing, so it took me a moment to realise I could still hear the slow whine of a portable O2 scrubber unit.
Holding the light stick between my teeth, I scrambled to the back of the container and found the compact unit connected and running. I did a quick safety check on the filters. Everything looked fine. If I was careful and my luck held out, then at least I wouldn’t die from oxygen starvation.
As my initial panic faded and my heart rate returned to something resembling normal, my headache came back with a vengeance. A quick rummage in the kit bag produced a strip of paradmol tablets and a box of hydro gel water cubes.
I pushed a couple into the middle of a cube and watched them fizz. Sitting on the kit bag, I tried to focus on slow, shallow breathing and popped the cube into my mouth and tried to recall the recent events.
Maiden, it always came back to Maiden. I can understand her stunning me by accident the first time we met, but this time it felt deliberate. I’d bet my ship it had something to do with her casket. She’d been super tetchy about the damn thing. That whole story about her grandfather must have been a lie, and instead it obviously contained whatever she’d stolen from the TolMeks.
How could I have been so stupid and naïve?
I always thought I was a good judge of character and not one to fall for such an easy ruse, but she’d conned me claw, cable, and cargo, as Gramps would say. It must have been her plan to steal my ship all along, which meant Angel and my ship might still be intact.
Comforting as that thought might be, I still had bigger problems to solve. Foremost was to figure a way out of this pod.
The light was dimming as the chemical mix in the stick faded. Giving it another quick shake, I threw it across the container to give a bit more light. I broke open the next stick and considered my options.
Looking round, I could see two other survival kits, a backup O2 scrubber, spare filters and what looked like several packs of rations and water cubes. Maiden obviously hadn’t meant for me to starve or freeze to death immediately, but I wasn’t holding out much hope of seeing her or my ship ever again. There was something else as well. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it earlier, especially seeing as my discarded light stick was now sitting on top of it. Tucked in the far corner of the pod was Maiden’s casket. Or what was supposed to be her grandfather’s casket.
“Angel, what the frack is that doing here?”
It took me a tick to remember why the onboard AI didn’t respond. It sucks being alone.
I turned my attention back to the casket. Maybe Maiden had stashed us both in here for safekeeping and was planning on coming back when the heat died down. Alternatively, maybe she’d left it, and me for Su’nak to find as a distraction. Either way, I might as well see what all the fuss was about. My current options were a little limited.
Maiden had deactivated the locks, but the casket seals remained intact. She had doubtless intended for me to look inside. I’m sure Gramps would have approved of using a casket to smuggle contraband, but all I felt was disappointment as I lifted the lid and found the vials of purple liquid I’d seen earlier.
The vials appeared to be lit from within and cast an eerie purple glow. Picking one up, I turned it over in my hand. “Maiden, Maiden, Maiden,” I sighed, “what kind of trouble have you got us into?” I guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought, although to be fair, I didn’t really know her at all.
I noticed something else in the casket. In the corner was a standard message projector. The type used to record holo-messages. Carefully, I put the vial back in its place and picked up the projector.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
I turned the projector over in my hands. There only appeared to be one button, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get working. Positioning the projector on the corner of the casket, I grabbed a ration pack and the remains of the water cube and sat on one of the spare survival kits.
After a brief flicker, the holographic beams stabilised and a facsimile of Maiden stood in front of me. The image was about a metre tall and my first thought was that I’ve finally found someone that Louie could look in the eye.
“Derek, I hope you find this recording before it’s too late.”
I threw the remains of the water cube at her head and it sailed straight through, distorting the image for a few seconds. “Do you mean before I find the casket and realise that you’re just a lying drug dealing scumbag, or before I freeze to death and spend eternity in an asteroid field?”
“I know you’ll probably be mad at me.”
“Ha!” I threw the ration pack at the image. It caught the edge of the projector and I enjoyed a brief tick of satisfaction as Maiden’s image was now floating on its side in midair.
“Derek please.”
Sighing, I stood up and righted the projector as I fetched my supplies. I was still really thirsty and couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten anything.
“Let me explain.”
“Go on then, this should be good.” I said to the image.
“Let me start by once again saying how sorry I am. I had hoped you were the one who could get me back to Andor Six in time to rejoin my people.”
“The one who you could con into believing your lies, you mean.”
“I realise now I can’t outrun my destiny, but I have to try and make things right for you.”
“And I realise I was a gullible idiot.”
“I wasn’t lying when I told you my grandfather had made a deal with the Tolmeks. What I didn’t tell you were all the details.”
“You’ve done nothing but lie. Has anything you ever said been the truth?”
“The truth is, my people are dying. Our colony ship, our home for countless generations, is nearing the end of its journey and is failing. The council of elders finally accepted the inevitable and decreed that we should end our aeons of wandering the stars and try to find a permanent home world. We sent out several pleas for help, but the TolMeks were the only ones who answered our call. The elders sent my grandfather as an emissary to broker a deal for safe passage and aid.”
“So I’m not the only sucker in the galaxy.”
“The deal was the only chance my people had. The TolMek family controlled land that needed colonising. They would provide aid and long-term support for a guaranteed percentage of our yields.”
“And that didn’t make your elders suspicious?”
“Unfortunately, the negotiations broke down, and all hope appeared to be lost. Then suddenly Nori TolMek agreed to help, but only on the condition that my grandfather agree to give me to his eldest son Naka as a gift to seal the agreement.”
“What kind of scuzzbag would agree to a deal like that?”
“Grandfather was incensed and immediately refused. But we both knew that without the support of the TolMek family, our people would be doomed, so reluctantly I agreed to the union. Once the agreement was sealed, Nori arranged for my grandfather to have an untimely accident for daring to oppose him.”
“The treacherous scuzz. There’s a reason they say never trust a TolMek.”
“I found out the truth behind their treachery and the depths of their true intentions the night before my wedding. The casket contains a new experimental drug the TolMeks call Purple Haze. They intended to use it to enslave my people in their new home. I subsequently escaped along with their entire supply of the drug. Thus denying both Naka of his prize and his father the means of my people’s subjugation.”
“Well, I suppose that makes more sense why they wanted you back so badly.”
Maiden continued. “I vainly hoped I could find some way to use it as a means for my people’s salvation. Unfortunately, it would appear I have failed and, in failing, have condemned you to your fate.”
My mouth hung open. I was at a loss for words. What horrors was Maiden prepared to endure for the safety and future of her people? It was the kind of story you find in a cheesy vid-game sim. Except this time, no big hero was ready to swoop in and save the day.
“I beg your forgiveness and pray you don’t think too harshly of me.”
I was about to tell Maiden that I understood and would forgive her, then I remembered where I was and how I got here. It was going to take a lot more than a tear jerking holo-message to make up for being stunned - again, and dumped in deep space in a cargo pod.
If only I had a transponder unit, then at least I could send out a distress signal and hope that someone other than Su’nak picked it up.
“I hope the supplies I left for you are adequate.”
My ears pricked up. I thought Maiden’s message had finished.
“There is a transponder unit built into the casket. It’s set to auto transmit a repeating distress signal after two sols. Hopefully, that’ll give me enough time to lead Su’nak away. Please ensure the casket and its contents get into the hands of the right authorities.”
I just sat there, confused, as I tried to process everything I’d just heard.
“Derek, I truly am sorry for everything I’ve put you through.”
The holo-message ended, and I sat alone in the darkness once more.
A beeping noise snapped me out of my reverie, and I rushed forward. The control panel on the side of the casket lit up and a bank of lights were flashing on and off.
If this was the transponder, then how long had I been unconscious?
I grabbed the short wave comms unit from the kit bag. Trace elements in the asteroids would hamper their already limited range and limit any chances of success. But with the transponder beeping out a call for help, I needed to be ready in case anyone came knocking.
“I just hope whoever is out there is friendly, or at least not connected to Su’nak.” I said to myself as I activated the controls and set it to a revolving wide band frequency scan. It was doubtful that the odds would be in my favour, but right about now I didn’t think I had another option. I smiled as I remembered how Gramps always got tetchy when anyone ever told him what the odds of success were, and I was sure he’d have a better plan.
I could have a long wait ahead, so I set about arranging the remaining cargo and survival kits into a small fort. It was a game I used to play as a child, hiding out from my older brothers and the enclosed space would help to preserve what little heat I had. Once finished, I crawled inside my new home and tried to sleep.
A sudden crackle of white noise from the comms unit woke me with a start. I stared at the unit, too scared to acknowledge it in case Su’nak or something even worse had found me.
The unit squeaked, and I could hear a tinny voice.
“All units, all units, this is the GalCorp peace enforcement ship Cavalry. The area is secure, no sign of any hostile ships. Begin the retrieval process, stand by for attachment.”
The police, I was saved.
Never had I been so glad to feel the force of GalCorp oppression. The last time I checked, their reach didn’t extend this far into the Northengen region. I knew Su’nak was on GalCorp’s most wanted list, but I they must want him really badly if they were prepared to venture so far out of their jurisdiction to get him.
Picking up the comms unit, I flipped the broadcast switch. “GalCorp ship Cavalry, this is Captain Derek P. Darke of the Unizon associated delivery vessel Rust Bucket.” Using the ship’s registered name always made me cringe. I vowed once more to change it back as soon as possible, “I repeat, this is Captain Derek P…”
“We know who you are, Mr Darke, standby for automated retrieval. We have someone on board who would like a word with you.”
“Oh, err, okay then. I’ll, err, be waiting. Derek, out.”
I tried to comprehend this latest turn of events. This wasn’t what I expected. But at least it wasn’t Su’nak.
The comms unit went silent. A few ticks later, a loud clunk reverberated through the wall and a sudden jolt made my fort walls collapse. The magnetic tethering head obviously found its mark.
The pod rocked from side to side as the tether began to retract and drag me back to what I hoped would be safety and an end to this mess.
The retrieval process was complete in a matter of moments and I stood patiently by the cargo doors, ready to acknowledge my saviours.
As soon as the cargo pod cleared pressurisation, the automatic doors hissed and slowly opened. I was damn certain I wouldn’t need six point five cycles to get clear of this pod, but two burly GalCorp security guards in full riot gear blocked my path.
The first guard spoke. At least I think it was the first one. The voice came out with a robotic twang and it was hard to tell.
“Captain Derek P Darke, owner, and proprietor of the Unizon delivery vehicle,” there was a slight pause as if the guard was double checking his facts, “Rust Bucket.”
I nodded, eager to get the formalities over and done with so I could find and thank my rescuers.
“You are hear-by charged with smuggling alpha class restricted narcotics through GalCorp space in contravention of GalCorp logistics regulations 12a, 14g and 64k subsection gamma 1 as well as possession with intent to supply the aforementioned contraband under standard GalCorp non-compete clause 29 delta.”
“Wait, what? You’ve got the wrong person, it was …” before I could continue to protest my innocence, the guard on my left sank the end of his truncheon into my stomach. Reminding me in no uncertain terms that resistance would indeed be futile. Before I could even retch, his friend stepped forward and my last memory was of the electrical surge from the taser as I sank back on to the floor. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I don’t think the guard said sorry.
Thanks for reading, part 9 will be out next Friday. I’ve also updated the index page if you’ve missed parts 1-7. (Life In The 31st Century Index Page).
If you can’t wait to see what happens next then you can get immediate access to this ebook (and now also in Audio) from your favourite ebook retailer of choice over at https://books2read.com/themaidenvoyage for as little as $2.99 / £1.99. Alternatively please consider subscribing to my publication to get notified when each new episode drops.
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