Space: Deja Terra – part 7
The air was definitely sulphuric. It left a burning in your lungs, made breathing painful, you had no respite from the pain. Galvin Sylveste had screwed up. This planet was alien, naturally assuming that the weather patterns would follow the simulated, experimental patterns was a flawed idea. A lone volcano on the other side of the world had suddenly erupted, spewing forth clouds of noxious gas. Their world and anything living on it was dying. The Frontier had been fully converted into an orbital platform and there was no way to convert it back. It didn’t matter anyways, the toxic air would disable all of the ferry shuttles and there was no way anyone was going to get off the planet unless they discovered the secret of self-flight within the next few days. He stood at the edge of a cliff, staring out at the grey skies spread before him. Taking a deep breath, he jumped.
“Please honey, let’s go off to this new planet, I’m bored of Earth,” pleaded his wife.
Praxton couldn’t believe his ears. His entire philosophy of being anti-colonist was falling apart around him and even worse, he was falling with it too. His wife, his supervisor, the damn contract were all too persuasive. He shifted his gaze from his wife’s face to the contract lying on the table.
His wife’s voice interrupted him, “If you don’t sign the contract I will.” She went on to add, “Come on dear, think about the kids, would you rather they grow up on this urbanized cement-city or out in the open where there are grass and trees?”
“But…”
“You always said you missed open spaces anyways. Plus, it’ll be more relaxing for all of us.”
He was racked with indecision, would this offer be worth the abandonment of the ideals and values he had carried with him for the past ten years? Would it be alright to throw it all away for a chance at pure happiness? He recalled the saying of a famous Ancient, Leo Tolstoy. “To support the existence of true happiness, there first must be a family happiness.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the quote, word-for-word, but the main idea was there.
Turning to his wife, he said with much hesitation, “Alright, I’ll take the job offer.” His wife threw him a big hug, smiled and went back to cooking the evening’s dinner.
And so with that, Praxton was set on a course towards Deja Terra, new opportunities, a new life. He now understood the allure of new planets and the reason behind the success of the propaganda commercials. He had become a colonist.
—
The pirate captain Peter Obstrowski rubbed his temples, then opened his eyes to gaze at the problem that lay before him. The Pinta lay wallowing in its own debris field, fuel and engine coolant leaking structural damage to its engines, air hissing from stress fractures in its hull. It listed and spun slowly, uncontrolled by its useless thrusters. Men from the Santa Maria as well as the Pinta worked in extravehicular-activity suits in a vain attempt to repair the damage.
They had taken refuge in the Corolas system, a pit stop for shipping and military convoys between the deep space planets and inner rim worlds. Being badly damaged, they had been forced to hide in the system’s asteroid belt, which provided visual cover and radar clutter from the star system’s base, a fuel depot, run by the UN Space Command. If they had tried to seek help there, the base commandant would probably have been suspicious, asked too many questions, and the pirates would have been doomed. The asteroid belt was not much safer; micrometeorites and smaller rocks littered this area, and if they weren’t careful, these could easily punch holes in the hulls of the Caravel-class pirate ships.
He turned to his Ops chief, “Repeat the damage reports from the Pinta to me again. Any improvements?”
Hoyani shook his head. “They’ve lost propulsion completely sir, and life support is on the point of collapse. Ship systems are on the verge of complete cascade failure. To put it lightly, the ship is a wreck.”
“Does Captain Kitchner think he can patch it up enough to limp it to one of the colonies?” asked Obstrowski with faint hope.
Ukama gave him a sullen look. “Says he doesn’t think so. He’s put all his crew into EVA suits in the meantime and everyone capable of repairing the ship has been put to task.”
Obstrowski touched his mustache, looking at the empty seat where Drake usually sat at the conn. The officer was one of the people helping with EVA recovery at the Pinta. He straightened, having made up his mind. “Inform the Pinta we will abandon the ship. Tell him we will take as many men as we can, the rest will have to use the lifepods and wait for us to return,” he said with an air of despair.
“Sir, sensors detect a large vessel coming up on our location,” said Hoyani.
“From where? Identify.”
A momentary pause, punctuated only the bleeps of the computer as Hoyani ran his fingers over his console. “Its an Independence-class Battleship, sir.”
A deathly pall seemed to fall over the crew on the bridge. “Evasive maneuvers!” shouted Obstrowski out of reflex, then realized Drake was not at the navigation controls. He quickly took the helm and pulled the vessel to port, heading deeper into the asteroid belt.
Granger watched as the first shot obliterated the damaged Caravel where it drifted, turning it into molten slag with one shot. Without any sign of remorse, he turned to the officer besides him. “Follow the other vessel into the belt. Destroy it.”
The other man saluted, and scurried off to relay the command to the ship’s navigation control. Granger turned and headed down to the mess hall. It was obvious these had been pirates. This ship and its crew could easily kill the others without his help.
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