Red lights flash in the dimly lit cockpit. "Anomaly detected. Anomaly detected," the computer said, an alarm sounding between repeats.
Shamus looked over the radar screen for the anomaly. "Well that can't be right," he said, scratching his head. "Sally, reboot the systems real quick, pretty sure you're getting a false reading."
Sally rebooted the radar systems instantly. "Anomaly still detected, Captain" Sally responded.
"Well that just don't make no sense!" Shamus said.
"That's why it's an anomaly" Sally replied.
"I don't need none of your 'lectronic lip, Sally. Can we get a visual?"
"Displaying visual."
The screen showed a black field, speckled with stars, save for a long, ominous band of pure black.
"Overlay the radar readings in white." Shamus commanded.
Sally did so, coloring in a long tube where the stars had been blotted out. Something about the image gave Shamus the creeps.
"How far away is it, Sally?"
"Approximately 1,548 kilometers." Sally said.
"Well if it's that far away" Shamus furrowed his brow, "and it still looks that big, and it has no albedo. Sally, there's no record of any asteroids like this, are there."
"There are records of large, low albedo asteroids that are comparable in size, however never so close to a gas giant. Also, none of them move like this." Sally said.
"Wait, move like what?"
Sally played the overlaid radar in real time, shading it red and blue to differentiate distances. Shamus once more furrowed his brow.
"Is that? Naw, couldn't be. But it is. But that can't be. Is that thing, is that thing swimming? Though space?"
"It appears to be the case, Captain." Sally said.
"Uh Sally? Does blue mean it's moving towards or away from us?"
"Towards, of course."
"That ain't good. How fast is it moving towards us?"
"Approximately 400 kilometers per minute."
The moving image had turned from a rippling tube into a circle that stretched out into an oval then back into a circle as it swam towards the ship.
"Sally get us out of here now!" Shamus yelled, terror filling his eyes.
The engines could be heard revving up as the ship picked up momentum; the colossal mass moving towards them turned to follow them, speeding up to try and catch them.
"IT'S GAINING ON US, SALLY!" Shamus griped his seat, knuckles turning white.
"We are still accelerating."
"Well accelerate faster if you can, please!"
The creature was now only a hundred or so kilometers from the ship, its mass blocking out any star light from the cameras pointing in its general direction.
"Sweet Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and God in heaven, please save us from this terror." Shamus said solemnly, making the sign of the cross as he did so.
The black mass split open revealing row upon row of teeth, some reaching twenty meters in length, lighting up with bioluminescent blue speckles along the inside of its maw
.
"Engaging evasive maneuvers." Sally said, tightening Shamus' harness. The ship made tight turns, trying to escape the creature. Shamus held on for dear life, barely able to maintain consciousness. Doing his best to control his breath Shamus tightened his core to force more oxygenated blood to his brain to avoid passing out, thankful that the ship could fly itself, not needing his inputs. Maintaining the erratic movements Sally took the ship towards Iapetus, the neatest Saturnian moon. Shamus, unable to handle the sustained g-forces for so long finally succumbed to the forces and passed out.
"Ah bien, está recuperando la conciencia." A woman's voice.
"Señor, señor. ¿Sé habla español?" A man's voice.
Shamus opened his eyes, his head hurt something fierce.
"What? Huh?" Shamus muttered.
"Sé habla español o uh do you speak English?" The man asked in a heavy Colombian accent.
"English." Shamus replied.
"You fly- flew here. Automátic pilot says something chase you. Yes?"
"Yeah. Wait that had to. Oh ow! My head! I thought that was a dream?" Shamus grabbed at his forehead.
"Señor, what was that thing?"
"I- I don't even know. Dang thing was massive! Dwarfed my ship. Must of had fifty foot long teeth! It was black as space but when it opened its mouth it was full of blue lights like ya see on those critters from the Marinara's Trench back on Earth. Ol' Sally got us out of there in one piece I guess. Must've g-locked when she got crazy with the maneuvers," Shamus began shaking, fighting back the tears as he realized how easily he could have died without anyone ever knowing what happened. "Oh thank ya Lord Jesus for savin' my skin! Thank ya for not lettin' me go that way!" Shamus had dropped to his knees, praying out loud while signing the cross. The crew thought it for the best to wait until Shamus calmed down before telling him how his ship had fared.
Warning lights and sirens blare.
Flash
BWAP!
“WARNING! SYSTEMS CRITICAL!”
Flash
BWAP!
“WARNING! SYSTEMS CRITICAL!”
Johansen scrambled out of the sleeping harness and quickly floated over to the control panel.
“What’s wrong Elmira?”
The lights continued to flash red but the alarm muted.
“We appear to have been struck by an uncharted debris field. Oxygen reserves are depleting. Fuel depleted. Punctures in hull in the cargo bay,” the computer responded.
“How much air do we have in reserve?” Johansen wriggled into his EVA suit and made his way into the cargo bay.
“At current rate of loss, two hours and four minutes worth of air are in reserve.”
Johansen turned on the bay lights. The hull was peppered with small holes letting out small streams of air.
“No. No, no! No. No! No! NO! This can’t, no. This can’t be happening! Oh God, don’t let me die on this ship like this!” He sobbed as he pulled out the duct tape and began to frantically patch up the holes with strips of tape. The suit was cumbersome, slowing down his efforts.
“Rate of air loss has been cut in half. Forty minutes of air remain at current rate of loss.” Elmira chimed after some time.
“Okay,” he huffed as he tried to keep up the pace as fatigue began to take its toll. “Has anyone responded to our distress signal?”
“A mining ship has responded and is headed our way. Estimated time of arrival: one hour and twenty seven minutes.” Elmira said.
Johansen continued.
Pull
Rip
Stick
Pull
Rip
Stick
He was tired but the rhythm he had found helped him push through the pain.
“Rate of air loss has been again cut in half. Twenty minutes of air remain at current rate of loss. Estimated time of arrival of HMM Yorkshire is fifty two minutes.”
Pull
Rip
Stick
Pull
Rip
Stick
Pull
Stick
Empty
Johansen scrambled to find a new roll. “How much air left?”
“Five minutes.”
“My suit?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“And the ETA?”
“Forty five minutes.”
After three agonizing minutes Johansen found another roll of duct tape.
Pull
Rip
Stick
Pull
Rip
Stick
Pull
Rip
Stick
“Ship air depleted. EVA air supply is safe for twenty five minutes at current work rate. HMM Yorkshire expected in forty minutes.”
Johansen stopped what he was doing. “How long do I have if I just float here?”
“Approximately thirty three minutes.”
“I guess it’s worth a shot.”
Johansen relaxed and let himself float through the cargo bay, allowing himself to rest as he worked to slow his breathing as much as possible.
“Nk God he’s alive! Sir! Sir! Are you with us?”
Johansen felt woozy but with each breath his head cleared more and more. “Where? Where am I?”
“Good! Good! Sir, you’re onboard the HMM Yorkshire.” A woman held open Johansen’s eyes one at a time, shining a bright light in each. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Hey Paul, you know I love you, right?” She cooed.
“Course I do, babe. An’ I love ya too.” Paul said, pushing a strand of floating hair behind Vanessa’s ear. Vanessa pulled him close and gave him a kiss.
“I’m so glad we were able to afford this trip to Ceres. I never thought I would ever make a trip out to the Belt, let alone on such a wonderful starliner.” Vanessa said as they floated in their bunk, bodies entwined to keep from separating in the low gravity environment.
“Only the best for my sweet Nessa!”
She blushed and gave him a peck on the nose.
A horn over the PA system woke the couple a few hours later.
“This is the captain speaking. We will be leaving Mars orbit in one hour, at which point the acceleration will restore gravity. Please make sure all belongings are properly stowed to avoid damage. Ten minutes before acceleration we will ask you to be seated and buckled in or laying down and zippered into bed. Once we reach cruising acceleration you may resume movement about the ship. Thank you!” The horn sounded again and the piped music resumed over the speakers.
“Ey, Nessa. Let’s go take one las’ look at Mars up close b’fore this ship takes off?” Paul said as he moved around their cabin, tucking stuff back into the suitcases or into the foam lined drawers of the desk.
Vanessa yawned and stretched. “That sounds lovely, let’s go do that,” she said, a sleepy smile spread across her face.
Vanessa held onto Paul as he pulled them through the hallways to the bottom viewing deck, the handholds after every door allowing him to propel them along with little effort. After a few minutes they reached the deck, a large dome gave them a stunning view of the red planet. Large blotches of green and blue dotted the planet where the major settlements were.
Vanessa sighed, “it’s so beautiful.”
“Innit?” Paul agreed. “And Ceres is gonna be just as stunning in its own way,” he said pulling her close and kissing her cheek as they gazed at the planet below.
The belt is a busy place. Ships of all sizes can be found, harvesting asteroids, hauling ores and refined materials, patronizing the various station clusters, and Lord knows what else.
The largest and most well known cluster is centered around Ceres, fifteen other large clusters can be found along the belt spaced about a half AU apart. Many smaller clusters are found throughout, most of which only contain a few resupply stations and rarely more than one refinery for the harvested ores.
Ceres was quickly called off limits when the belt got its first groups of asteroid miners, the dwarf planet was deemed a protected body, preventing it from being mined out. Ceres is host to a number of hotels and tours of the dwarf planet. A visitor’s center detailing the dwarf planets of the belt and a history of the start of space mining is one of the key attractions. Off planet there is a bustling cluster with the largest mining depot in the belt along with many space stations catering to tourists.
The Ceres cluster covers a sphere of space around the dwarf planet roughly fifty thousand kilometers in diameter. This space is divided into regions for the mining industry and shipping, tourism, and general commercial use. The cluster’s permanent population is about one billion people making it the fifth most populous planetary system after Earth, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. Though if the population of the entire belt is taken as a whole, the belt would be placed third, before Mars.
“*TSHT*CK OFF, YOU RAT BASTARD!” Responded an irate man’s voice.
“Do I need to blow a hole in your vessel, lad or are you going to cooperate?” Shoestring said coolly.
“What do you want.” The man said with a huff.
“Oh you know exactly what I want. Now we can do this one of three ways. One, I blast a hole in your ship and you die, but it sounds like you might be skipping that one. Two, you hop in your escape pod and eject out while I take your ship. Or three, I board your vessel, you don’t eject, and instead resist, I kill you and then eject your corpse in the escape pod.” Shoestring paused. “So which would you prefer?
“So there’s, there’s no other option where I can keep my ship and neither of us dies, is there?”
“So you want to barter? What have you got to offer that beats me taking your ship?” Shoestring said. He knew the rules of the guild very well. You don’t have to offer bartering as an option but if your target wants to, it’s considered wise to give them a chance.
“Uh… I’ll give you my payload,”
“I’ll be getting that either way, so that’s moot.”
“Right, right. Um. Ah. I- I’ll give you a cut of my earnings from future hauls.”
“How much of a cut?” Though the target couldn’t see it, a smile crept across Shoestring’s face.
“Uh t-ten percent?” The target said hopefully.
“Mmm.” Shoestring didn’t like it.
“Okay, okay, twenty. Twenty percent!” The target was sounding desperate. “I just- there’s only so much I can give and still be able to run this ship. I’m scraping by as it is!”
“Well! Good news kid. It’s your lucky day. You’ll still have to prepare to be docked. Got a bit of paperwork to do.” Shoestring chuckled.
“Pape- paperwork?”
“You don’t expect me to just take you at your word that you’ll pay me, do you? There’s a contract and I’ll need to set you up with a way to pay and for the guild to audit you to ensure you’re paying your agreed upon dues.” Shoestring said matter-of-factly.
The airlock opened and Shoestring, Bacon, and Luke entered the ship, respirators hanging around their necks, and large knives in hand. Shoestring spotted the target sitting nervously at a small table with a second seat. Gliding over to the table, Shoestring stuck his feet into the footholds at sat at the table.
“I uh, I didn’t realize you would were bringing some friends with you,” the target said nervously.
“An abundance of caution. Anyway, let’s get down to business.” Shoestring said, pulling out a tablet with a fill-in contract form already pulled up on the screen. “I’ll just need you to fill out these forms. Name, contact information, ship name, banking institution, account and routing number, cargo size rating, etc.”
The target began filling in the information, line by line. “This seems really thorough for pirates. No offense.”
“It’s a guild thing. I don’t actually keep the banking info, the guild auditors will use that info and do yearly audits to make sure you’re paying your contracted share. So long as you are your ship will remain in the system as a client and you will be free from further harassment from guild members. If you stop paying you’ll be taken off the list and if I come across you you’ll learn how I came to be known as Shoestring.” He said with a toothy grin.
Gerald waited as the ship inched closer to the small asteroid. Eight metal legs stretched out from the sides and sunk their hooks into the solid surface of the asteroid, latching on and drawing the ship down to the surface.
“Ship successfully docked to asteroid,” Anders said as the ship came to a rest.
“Deploy drones.”
“Drones deployed.”
With that, dozens of four foot long robots poured out from the back of the ship and began cutting into the surface of the asteroid. Each would break off a section and take it into the processing hold where the ore would be crushed, the rubble sorted according to its major component and stored accordingly.
After 6 hours the last remnants of the 1000 ton boulder were carried onto the ship. Gerald fired up the thrusters and set course for Ceres.
Ceres itself is a protected body, a tourist haven in the belt. But once you get out past the hotel stations, casinos and other touristy places you found what look like lines of giant Ferris wheels all spinning at different speeds. There were ore depots, refineries, ship stops, garages, storage facilities (both pressurized and shielded, and not,) saloons, brothels, gambling joints, clubs, and of course at the center of it all, the shipping yard.
Gerald cruised over to his regular ore depot to offload his cargo. He pulled up next to a dock on the massive rotating structure, matching its velocity to pair up. Here Anders took over to make the connection between the cargo bay and the dock. Gerald could feel the constant velocity pulling him down to the floor of the ship, simulating the effects of gravity, more than the Moon's but less than Mars'.
“Docking complete,” Anders chimed out. “You may now move about the cabin.” He said in a mocking voice.
Gerald rolled his eyes as he got up and walked over to the cargo bay control panel. Pressing a few buttons he ensured the seal was made and confirmed his cargo configuration then opened the bay doors and allowed the ores to be pulled down into the receiving bays. Once the dust had settled the station's system analyzed the masses of the various ores and credited Gerald's account accordingly. An invoice flashed on the control panel's screen showing him the breakdown and the deposit amount: $P400.
Gerald patched through to the station.
“Four hundred platinum, Derek!? Really? It should have been six fifty, easy!” Gerald shouted into the mic.
“Sorry Ger, iron's down thirty cents.” A light, flamboyant voice responded. “Aztech Aero found a cluster of low ‘bido iron. Brought in half a million tons of pure iron.”
Gerald's mouth hung open a second. “Okay, four hundred then. Let’s go, Anders.”
______________________________________________________
“So Gerald, where too? The Solar Well?” Anders said sarcastically.
“Yeah, how about no. That place is too overrated. I’m thinking Electric Goat.” Gerald said.
“Plotting course.”
“Dude, it’s five-k away. I just. You- don’t need to say that stuff every time.” Gerald stammered shaking his head. “Whatever, set course.”
A minute later Anders was docking to the Electric Goat bar and grille. It was an eclectic restaurant, signs and memorabilia plastered all over the place, electronic house and trance music playing just soft enough for conversation to be had. Gerald dropped into the restaurant and made his way over to his favorite section and sat at the bar. A small screen attached to the counter displayed the menu in front of him allowing him to select his order- water, a bottle of root beer, a lamb gyro and onion rings.
“Sup loser!”
It was Lynda, a fellow independent prospector and friend of Gerald.
“Hey! What’s cookin’ girl?” Gerald shot back.
“Oh you know, same ol’ same ol’.” Lynda said, taking a seat next to Gerald. “You hear about Aztech’s haul?”
“Yeah. Lost out and one fifty because of it.” He said with a sigh. “But! Still got four hundred. So it’s not all bad.”
“Lucky. I had a load of pure iron. Brought it in just an hour after the price change.”
Gerald gave her a comforting pat on the back as he shoved a fresh, hot, onion ring into his mouth from the plate that had just arrived. “Hrmph herf herry.”
Lynda glared at him as crumbs fell from his mouth.
“I was saying ‘that’s rough buddy.’”
She shook her head. “You and your old shows and games.”
He shrugged sheepishly but he didn’t care, he loved his early 21st century media, even if it was old and outdated. “Did you catch the latest ep of Dagger?”
“I sit in a ship for hours on end doing nothing. Of course I did. What did you think when Sven and Claudia finally kissed? Man it was cheesy, but I’ve been shipping them since season two and it’s about time!” Lynda said enthusiastically.
“Heh, yeah that was cute. I was thinking of the part where Miles took out Viktor. That part was so tense. I got worried the writers were actually gonna do Miles in for real.” They continued on for another hour as they ate.
“Oh! Come back to my ship, I’ve got something to show you. I know you’ll just love it.” Lynda said as they were getting up to leave. Gerald followed, curious as to what it could be that she had.
