Travelling

by Pil Lee

Sometimes one has no choice but to give up. Nadia’s words seemed to reverberate around the airlock as her body hurtled away towards epihelion. Paul made to follow her when suddenly he smelt the whiff of freedom for the first time in four years.

“Well fuck that,” he said as he ripped off his helmet and raced back to the engine room. He knew there was no way they could reach Central Station with the damage they’d sustained, but for the first time he found himself wondering why they couldn’t choose another destination. Heady with the thought of making his own decisions, he overrode Nadia’s shutdown and reprogrammed their course.

Three months later he climbed out of deep sleep with a shocking headache and scanned the space station floating Point Two KKs away.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped out was the rank smell of too many people and not enough resources to waste on air scrubbers. The second thing was the three policemen waiting for him.

“Paul Tate, you are under arrest for the theft of this space yacht.” The leader waved his other men into the embarkation tube. “Check it out.”

Paul opened his mouth to protest just as he felt the judgement dart on his arm.

Two years later he woke from Comatec Detention with a shocking headache to find the same policeman waiting beside him. Paul pressed his thumb to the release tablet and the officer marched swiftly away. He tried to finish his protest that the yacht was his wife’s and he didn’t see how it could be called stealing when he realised, hey, the moment had passed, and he went to check out the employment board at the docks.

The list was short and consisted mostly of requests for cleaners and prostitutes.

“Well fuck that,” he said as he made his way down to Bay 4.

Nadia’s yacht was still impounded and Paul hummed a little tune as he keyed himself in, hit Emergency Detach and vented two year old sewage into the bay. He checked the old damage in the engine room, figured out a destination he thought he could make at slow speed and punched in the new course.

Six years later he shot out of deep sleep with a shocking headache, a burnt lung and an arm full of liquid shrapnel as the yacht veered too close to a binary sun. He worked feverishly on navigation, hoping to find a trajectory which would slingshot him round the star and back into the coldness of space.

He finally realised there was only enough ballast to fling off a small weight, about the size of his own body.

He was already suited up and in the airlock when he heard his wife’s voice echoing back to him. Sometimes one has no choice but to give up.

Paul bowed his head in acknowledgement. It had only taken him two hours – or was it nearly nine years?

He armed the cryogens and hit release.

The Trip Out

You know from experience that it’s not a good sign when you start talking about sex with a crewmate. Despite your best intentions, eventually you’re going to be upside down on the grav couch together. So I was a tad worried chewing the fat with Ramon on the trip out. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy, but the thing with the external bladder… Anyway, it came as a bit of a relief for once when the alarm sounded and we went to battle stations.

I was down in the lower gunnery as usual, strapped in with Pike and Regel. Pike snagged the Sarge on the way past.

“We’re still on the way out, Sir. Is it a drill?”

“Coming up on battle, Pike. Shut up and pull your head in.”

The three of us looked at each other, equally confused. There were supposed to be four weeks to go before we got to the Zone, four weeks to hang out, hit the chem and re-write our wills. Hey, even Ramon’s external bladder was starting to look good.

Regel was downloading the battle specs. He hissed between his teeth and pasted them on the glass so we could all see the layout.

“There’s a fucking million of them,” said Pike.

“Twenty nine enemy ships,” corrected Regel. “Plus a freighter – must be re-supply.”

“How could that many ships get through the barricade?” I said. “How could any?”

There was no answer so we just helmeted up and launched the software. I started to realign the gunnery and then, without warning, the schematics were gone. Regel was searching beside me but all his screens had cleared.

We sat in the dark in our helmets, eyes still on the glass in case something appeared. Battle I can handle, there’s not much a regen tank can’t fix, but sitting there in front of that blank glass was starting to freak me out.

Regel launched a Search and Report at Command. It bounced back straight away and then all our systems died. The lights faded away and there was a terrible hiss as the area depressurised.

Panicked, I tried a general channel. “Lower gunnery depressurised, please advise.”

There was no answer and I was starting to feel grim. “Regel, how long can we breathe in here?”

“We’ve got helmet air for one hour.”

We unstrapped and checked the door. Locked battle station solid, no way out without com commands. I went back to the glass again, trying to see some clue, but the void was featureless, not a ship in sight.

“Where did they all go?” said Pike. “They wouldn’t come all this way and then just leave.”

“No,” I said, realising. “They wouldn’t come all this way just to fight one ship either.
If they could make it through the barricade this far, why stop here? Why not keep going?”

“Keep going where?” said Pike.

Then she gasped as we all stared out the window. “Home,” said Regel.

Go For Gold

Tomley stood with the rest of the off-duty crew on the narrow walkway above the cargo bay. He shuffled to keep his balance as they all stared down into the massive space below.

He could tell from the babble around him that most of them knew what to expect, but he hadn’t a clue. He snagged Stephenson’s arm as she tried to shoulder past.

“What’s going on?” he yelled in her ear.

She gave him an incredulous stare. “What, have you been dead for the last week, Meat?”

He shook his head. “I know it’s the Olympics, whatever that means. And the Sarge and the Lieutenant are posted for duty. How come we’re not ALL operational?”

“It’s not duty, you grunt,” she yelled back. “It’s a competition.” She yanked her arm away and pushed to a better position along the edge.

Tomley looked down into the bay at the freshly painted square in the middle. At that moment Sergeant Gossen walked to the edge of the square and a huge cheer went up from the crowd above.

Still reeling from the idea of cheering the most feared man aboard, Tomley pulled Stephenson back beside him.

“What kind of competition? Why’s it called the Olympics?”

She gave him a disgusted look. “Where have you been, in cryovac with the cats? Don’t you remember the Millennial Tribute four years ago?”

Tomley thought back four years and felt his mind go cold. “I was at Nam-6 four years ago.”

“Oh,” said Stephenson. “Well, it’s this physical competition they used to have on Old Earth every four years for about 3000 years.”

“What, every four years!”

Stephenson nodded. “Apparently they never missed it. So the Big Boys decided to celebrate it on the Millennium changeover and now they’re going to do it every four years from now on.”

“But what happens?” he said. “Don’t tell me… don’t tell me the Sarge and the Lieutenant FIGHT.”

Stephenson laughed, pulling Tomley to the very edge where they could see the Lieutenant now standing opposite the monolithic figure of the Sarge.

“It’s a game of skill,” Stephenson said in his ear, her voice almost drowned out now by the roar of the crowd. “There used to be lots of different types but now we only know about one, the greatest one, and that’s what they’re going to compete in.”

The noise around him had grown to almost painful proportions and it seemed to Tomley that everyone on the ship was screaming like a madman except him.

He turned to ask Stephenson for the rules but the crowd had swept them apart.
He watched as the protagonists stepped to opposite sides of the makeshift arena below. The duty officer lifted his laser into the air and a small sun exploded in a moment of hushed silence.

A thousand eyes were glued to the Sergeant as he stepped into the square, sent his cap spinning into the shadows of the Cargo Bay and finally flourished his twirling satin ribbon.