Chapter 16
The Privateer Ship Andromeda
Deep Space
JAC-83-45891 System
With a silent flash, a ripple in the quantum foam, and a pulse of x-ray radiation, the Andromeda winked into existence one hundred and forty million kilometers from a red dwarf star known only as JAC-83-45891. It would take her a hundred and ninety-nine hours on the planned trajectory to swing across the system to the next transit point. Such was the unglamorous reality of interstellar travel—countless hours with little do while the ship coasted through one empty system after another. This system had no planets or asteroids, or anything of note. It was simply one stop of many on the Andromeda’s long journey.
Down in the crew compartment, Marcus Winchester’s head was spinning. He fumbled for his space sickness bag, feeling severely nauseated, but couldn’t muster the necessary fine motor function to grasp it. It mocked him, tumbling lazily in the air a few centimeters out of his reach. Every time he reached for it, it simply glided out of the way, spinning and dancing merrily in freefall.
“Fuck you, bag!” Marcus growled. At least, that’s what he intended to say. What actually came out of his mouth sounded more like “F-f-f-fuuuuu—yoooo . . .” accompanied by a spray of spittle. The droplets of Marcus’ saliva joined the vomit bag in its zero-gravity dance, orbiting it and shimmering in the light like so many tiny stars. The lights in Marcus’ berth flickered unevenly, and his display screens remained dark as the system struggled to reboot.
What Marcus was experiencing was formally known as the Vestal-Black Effect, named for the two physicists who first postulated it. In over a millennium of effort, no truly effective counter to the effect, known colloquially as “transit shock,” had ever been devised. It affected the human mind and electronic devices alike, and was thought to be the byproduct of these complex systems being shunted from one star to another, effectively leaving the physical universe for an infinitesimally short amount of time. That kind of space-time displacement had side effects, and the side effects were unpleasant.
It had been years since Marcus had experienced transit, and he was all the worse for wear because of it. With a grunt and a lunge, he managed to snag the wayward vomit bag just as his acceleration restraints locked. With both hands he brought the bag to his mouth and threw up. Acrid fluids burned his nose and mouth, and made his eyes water. He desperately held it to his mouth, dry heaving several times, before sealing it and releasing the bag of puke to float around his berth.
I forgot how much I hate this. His head was mushy, his eyes were still half focused, and his thought processes were slow. It was like waking up after going on the worst bender ever. His motor skills were coming back, though; he successfully retrieved his water bottle on the second try. His berth stunk of sweat and vomit, and was growing uncomfortably warm. The environmental systems hadn’t turned over yet. And she wants to be a spacer, she says. His daughter had been in cold sleep when they made the long journey from Hayden to New Austin. She’d never experienced the misery of transit shock.
Until now. Through the throbbing of his head, Marcus remembered that his daughter was on the ship with him. Why is she here? What’s her name again? He clenched his eyes shut, trying to concentrate through the pounding in his skull, as he struggled to remember his daughter’s name. Starts with an “a” . . . Anna. Ann. Annie. “Fuck,” he said aloud, before having another drink of water.
TAP TAP TAP.
Marcus froze. It sounded like someone had just tapped on the hatch of his berth. Did I imagine that? He strained to listen, but heard nothing but the air circulation system and other ambient ship noises as the Andromeda’s systems slowly came back online.
TAP TAP TAP. He definitely heard it that time. Somebody was rapping on the hatch. Marcus strained to sit up enough to see past his feet to where the hatch was. He was still restrained in his acceleration couch (which was also his bed), and didn’t know if he had the dexterity to get the restraints unfastened. He tapped the panel on the wall that was supposed to open the shutter, revealing the small window in the hatch. After four tries, the system finally responded and the shutters opened.
Black eyes studied Marcus from behind blood-matted hair. A stained, tattered purple scarf hung from the girl’s neck, her face was shrouded in shadow and confusion, but Marcus immediately knew who she was. He covered his face with his hands and tried not to scream. His heart raced, his head spun, and a pit of cold fear formed in his chest. TAP TAP TAP. TAP TAP TAP.
“Go away!” Marcus shouted, his eyes still clenched shut. He opened them in horror when he realized the hatch was being unsealed. Blinding white light poured in as the door slid open. “Leave me alone!” he cried.
A reassuring woman’s voice answered. “You’re okay! Hey! Look at me!”
Marcus’ eyes slowly came into focus, and so did the haggard-looking young woman drifting just outside of his berth. Her hair was tied in a tight bun, and what looked like vomit stained part of her sage green flight suit. She had a medical bag in her hands.
“My name is Felicity,” she said. “I’m a medic. You’re experiencing severe transit shock.”
“No shit,” Marcus managed.
“What did you see? I think you were hallucinating.”
Marcus was quiet for a moment. “Nothing,” he lied. “It was nothing.” The dead girl from Mildenhall would never let him go.
“All of you groundhogs are having bad reactions,” Felicity continued. “Here,” she said, producing an auto-injector. “This will level you off.”
“I don’t need—gah!” Marcus wasn’t able to finish his sentence before Felicity jabbed the needle into this thigh.
“The hell you don’t,” she mused. “I don’t want to get puked on again, if it’s all the same to you.”
Marcus’ heart rate slowed as the chemical concoction made its way through his veins. The overwhelming sense of anxiety faded away, and his head stopped spinning. “Is my daughter okay?”
“The kid?” Felicity asked. “Don’t worry, I checked on her first. She’s doing okay, better than the rest of you. Is this your first time translating or something? Did we just pop your quantum cherry?”
“Believe it or not, no,” Marcus said. “It’s just been a long time. Ugh.” He shook his head. “So, which one of us puked on you? Rest assured, I won’t let him live it down.”
* * *
Fastened into her seat on the command deck, Catherine idly sipped nutrient- and electrolyte-infused water while she waited for the dizziness to reside. Even experienced spacers were not immune to transit shock. Neither, for that matter, were the Andromeda’s systems. Catherine’s own displays were mostly offline, leaving her to look through a few blank transparent screens. One screen was solid blue, with a standard fatal system error message in white text.
The more complex the system, the more susceptible it was to the ravages of transit shock. Usually systems would come back online after a few minutes, but not always. As a safety measure, most ships, especially those operating alone, had as many redundancies and manual backups installed into their systems as possible. Fully automated ships were rarely trusted for anything more than in-system duty, or routine transits between star systems (and unmanned ships were generally prohibited from transporting human cargo).
There was only so much one could do with manual or analog backups, however, especially regarding something as complex as an interstellar-capable ship. Catherine waited patiently, relaxing in her chair and trying to get her bearings, as three separate computers ran test problems over and over again. When all three agreed on the answer, systems would automatically be brought back online, and the Andromeda would be underway again.
“Status report,” Catherine ordered.
Luis Azevedo rubbed his eyes, then looked groggily away from his myriad of displays. “Captain, life-support is one hundred percent. Engineering reports the reactor is in the green. The transit motivator will be fully cycled in approximately four hours. Medical reports no injuries, though our guests downstairs are still having a hard time with transit shock. Med Tech Lowlander got vomited on, and one of the mercenaries admitted that she saw a ghost.”
Spacers’ tales, going back more than a thousand years, often mentioned sightings of ghosts or apparitions on board a ship after completing a transit. The superstitious liked to say that when a ship translates between systems, it leaves the universe completely. When it returns, the tales went, it carries with it the souls of the restless dead who follow the ship to its next port.
Catherine didn’t put much stock in any of the old stories. Transit shock was hard on the human mind. People hallucinated, especially if they were not used to it, and that’s all there was to it. At least, that’s what Catherine told herself, even though she’d seen some strange and unsettling things in her career. Shaking off her wandering thoughts, she focused on the task at hand. “Sensors?”
Nattaya Tantirangsi turned from her screens full of error messages and looked at her Captain apologetically. “Still not up and running, Skipper,” she said. “Radar, infrared, and passive sensors are all being difficult. Optical tracking is online now, so we can eyeball it if we have to. We may have to pull some components on the main sensor suite though.”
“I see. How long?”
“It’ll take me about an hour, Skipper. I apologize. We should’ve done it after our last transit.”
“It’s quite alright, Nuchy,” Catherine said, addressing the junior officer by her nickname. “These things are unpredictable. Get started on that. We’ll navigate by the stars if we have to.” She tapped a control that gave her voice communication with the ship’s pilot. “Flight Deck, how are we doing?”
Colin sounded tired, but coherent, when he responded. “Five by five, Skipper. Aside from my scopes being down, all controls are responding. The autopilot crashed when I tried to reboot it, so I left it off for now. I’ve already laid in the course sent up from Astrogation. We can begin our boost anytime you like, ma’am.”
Catherine smiled. “Flying by the seat of our pants, under manual control, while navigating by the stars. This is real spaceflight, ladies and gentlemen. Run final checks and prepare for acceleration. Let our guests know that they’ll have gravity for a while. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”
* * *
Half an hour after transiting from the Lone Star system, Annabelle Winchester was hurriedly getting ready to report to the cargo deck for more OJT. She’d spent the entire flight from New Austin to the transit point getting a crash course on the day-to-day operations of the Andromeda, and the First Officer von Spandau had been right: it was hard. The ship’s schedule was confusing at first, and she’d been working twelve hour shifts every day. There were texts she had to study, emergency procedures she had to memorize, and much she had to learn.
Cargomaster Kimball, her immediate supervisor, had explained to her that on a small ship like the Andromeda, every crewman must be able to do multiple jobs. Everyone had an assigned job, of course, but cross-training was highly encouraged, and the more skills and certifications a crewman had, the more useful he could potentially be. Kimball, for example, was the cargomaster. He was also the ship’s extravehicular activity procedures expert, held a certification for a basic emergency medical technician, and had extensive training in damage control, emergency repair, and spaceflight firefighting.
Even being a cargomaster was more involved than Annie had assumed. Kimball was required to account for every gram of mass the ship was carrying. Not just the cargo, but consumables and reaction mass alike. It all had to be stowed and secured correctly, and the ship’s cargo mass had to be symmetrically balanced around the axis of thrust. As supplies were consumed or cargo offloaded, everything had to be reshuffled to maintain that mass balance. Yet for all that, they had assigned Annie to Kimball because his area of responsibility was one of the less technical ones on the ship. Annie didn’t know anything about engineering, software writing, electrical systems, plumbing, astrogation, or thermonuclear propulsion above what she’d learned in her primary school education. She was told she didn’t need a lot of specialized training to move containers around and help clean the ship.
As she was leaving her berth, a klaxon sounded and the pilot announced that the ship would be getting underway. With a dull roar, the Andromeda’s engines ignited. Annie felt a sense of weight returning to her body as the ship hit one gravity of acceleration and held there. The pilot announced that the burn would last for ninety minutes, and Annie was grateful for it. She wasn’t used to freefall and had been on a strict liquid diet as her body adjusted. Being dropsick was a miserable experience that had left Annie wondering what she’d gotten herself into.
A few minutes later she was greeted by Systems Tech Daye, one of the crewmen who seemed to have many jobs. Annie had worked with Daye a lot since leaving New Austin and thought he was nice. He was a pale, skinny young man with long, dark hair that he kept tied up in a bun while on duty. “How are you doing, groundhog?” he asked, politely letting her go down the ladder first.
“Transit shock wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Annie said, climbing down to the cargo deck. “I guess my dad and his team all got sick.”
“I saw that,” Daye said. “Did you not get sick as well?”
“I did,” Annie admitted as she reached the deck below, “but at least I didn’t throw up on the medic like that guy Markgraf did.”
“I may have laughed at her when that happened,” Daye said. “Felicity didn’t think it was as funny as I did. I’m glad you’re holding up, though, kid,” he said, joining her on the cargo deck. “That was our first translation. We’re in orbit around JAC-83-45891.”
“I know that one,” Annie said.
“Did you study the flight plan?”
“All four thousand hours of it! But I knew that star from before. It’s a class-M red dwarf, five-point-three light years from Lone Star. You can see it from where I live on New Austin for most of the winter.”
“Okay, but like I said, that’s our first translation. We have a lot more of those ahead of us before we get to Zanzibar.”
Annie’s stomach churned at the thought. “Does it get better?”
“Indeed it does, Crewman-Apprentice,” Cargomaster Kimball said, approaching his two subordinates. “With time and frequency, the effects of transit shock aren’t as bad. You get used to it, as they say.”
“Good morning, sir,” Annie said respectfully, though she towered over Kimball.
“Good morning to you, young miss,” Kimball replied. “You as well, Tech Daye. Shall we begin another day of bringing the Crewman-Apprentice up to speed?”
Daye patted Annie on the shoulder. “She’s a fast learner, Mr. Kimball.”
“I agree,” Kimball said, looking up to study Annie. “She took to freefall maneuvering rather quickly, didn’t she?”
“Today was her first translation, and she’s holding up a lot better than those big tough mercenaries upstairs.”
“Ah,” Kimball said, smiling up at Annie. “A quantum deflowering, as the crude joke goes. Well done, young miss. I can think of no better way to celebrate than by introducing you to the basics of shipboard firefighting. Have you ever been in a spacesuit before?”
“No, sir,” Annie said.
“I thought as much. Both of you, this way,” he said, heading toward a row of storage lockers. “We’ll get one adjusted for you so you can begin your training. The firefighting suits differ from regular suits only in their improved resistance to heat and flame. A shipboard fire is one of the most dangerous situations a spacer can face. Fire in freefall moves and flows like a vapor. If contained it will quickly consume the oxygen in a compartment and extinguish itself. If not contained, it can rapidly spread, especially in an oxygen-rich environment, or if there is, say, a hydrogen leak. Many of the materials used in standard ship construction, such as titanium, magnesium, and aluminum, are extremely flammable and burn very hot. There are oxidizers on board as well. Shipboard fires have killed plenty of spacers over the centuries, and must not be taken lightly.”
“Aren’t there automatic fire-suppression systems?” Annie asked.
“There are, young miss, but those systems will not help a shipmate who has succumbed to smoke inhalation or has lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. If the ship is damaged in combat or in an accident, those systems may not be working correctly. Catastrophic shipboard fires are very rare, but we always train for the worst-case scenario as if we expect it at any time. To do otherwise is to court complacency, and complacency is the enemy of the spacer. Complacency kills.”
“I understand, sir,” Annie said.
“Good girl,” Kimball said with a smile. “Let’s get you suited up.”