Waking up from cryosleep is surprisingly hot. I mean, it’s called “cryosleep,” you’re basically frozen, so you would think you would wake up feeling freezing cold.
Well, you aren’t really frozen–your body doesn’t handle ice crystals in your cells very well–but cold enough that you won’t go rancid like a piece of chicken left out on the kitchen counter. And cold enough that you aren’t much more active either. It saves on having to carry life support for everyone between planets. And who wants to be awake for weeks of boredom anyway.
But they have to warm your entire body up at once, so they basically microwave you while dumping heated transfusions back into your body. So you wake up feeling drenched in sweat, even though it is really the condensation on your recently too-cold body.
They had warned us about it in orientation, but there is nothing like that first wakeup to bring that bit of info home. I thrashed for a moment, then the pod realized that I was awake and split open, the form-fitting gel that I had been encased in pulling away. I struggled to sit up and only managed to push myself into the air, realizing too late that we were still in microgravity.
I pulled the mask off my face, then used the hoses and wires connecting it to the pod to pull myself back down. I looked around.
There were dozens of pods in the sleep chamber. I could see maybe a third of them before the sweep of the gravity ring carried it out of view. Most of them were still showing green “sleep” lights, but two were in red “awakening” mode, and one, besides mine, was displaying a blue “standby” status.
I was wondering who it was when I saw Tio kicking her way back down the corridor. She quickly grabbed a handhold and waved.
“Hey Mikel, you’re awake!” She rotated herself so that we were both upright relative to each other. “What the hell is going on?”
I glanced around. “Um… We’re there? You know, Mars? They’re waking us up?”
She shook her head in annoyance. “You haven’t checked the net yet?”
“I just woke up!” I said, a bit louder than I had planned. Partially to cover my embarrassment. They had told us to check-in immediately after waking up. To be fair, it hadn’t been that long.
I pushed myself over to the console and logged in. The Sorrow‘s system almost immediately responded.
Indenture Halder. Please collect your kit and report to briefing. Ring two, room seven. This is a priority request.
I looked back to Tio and realized she was wearing nothing but her skinsuit. As was I, as I remembered a second later when I felt myself reacting to her. I felt my face flush red.
I had met Tio in orientation and was glad when we were sent to training together. We had “dated” briefly, in that we had gone to dinner a few times and slept together a few times. Then she met someone else, and that ended. I knew better. I really did. But…
She apparently didn’t notice or at least pretended not to. “I’ve looked. Apparently, they’re just waking up our group. Me, you, Dylan, Gabriella, Mako, and Samson.”
The six of us had all been in the same training class and had all been assigned to the C5T-5RW, the “Constant Sorrow” together. The Indenture lottery had thrown us together, and now all of us were on a COG cruiser somewhere between Earth and Mars.
“Some kind of final test then?” I said, looking around to find my locker. I was mainly trying to not look at her.
“I guess. Why else wake us up mid-transit?”
“Mid?”
She sighed. “You didn’t check the date? We’re only three weeks out from The Moon. Transit to Mars takes almost two months. Something is up.”
I was still focusing on my locker as I dug out my jumpsuit and started pulling it on. “So… a final test?” I repeated.
“Yeah, probably. Look, I’m going to check on Dylan and Gabriella. Mako and Samson are over there. You should be there when they wake up. Then all of us need to get to this briefing.”
I looked over in time to see her kick away back down the ring. I watched until she was out of sight, then sighed.
Tio wasn’t the first woman I had been with, not by a long shot, but she had hit a part of my brain that I didn’t know existed. And a part that I was kinda upset with. She was just another person, but by God, I was infatuated with her.
I shook my head. I was 21, not 12. I shouldn’t be infatuated with her like that, but… here I was.
The fact that Dylan was the guy she had wound up with after me didn’t help.
I finished shrugging into my jumpsuit, something that microgravity should have made easier but didn’t, then somehow got back to my locker. Tio might have no trouble maneuvering in microgravity, but I had never gotten the hang of it.
My instructors had kept telling me, “pretend that you are swimming!” I was from New Miami, so you would think I would know how to swim. But New Makomi is a climate relocation town about a hundred kilometers from the current coastline. My family never had the money to go to a pool. So “swimming” was as unnatural to me as floating in microgravity.
At least I wasn’t feeling sick constantly anymore.
I got back to my locker and found my utility vest. After managing to get it on, I got back and grabbed my nexus and stuffed it into a pocket, then grabbed the rest of my tools and equipment.
That done, I looked around. One of the two pods that had been in “awakening” mode was now in blue “standby,” but I didn’t see anyone around.
I kicked myself off in an awkward leap to a handhold opposite the now-opened pod. Once I had a firm grip, I turned to see who it was.
It was Mako. She had removed her mask but had her hands over her face and wasn’t moving.
“Good morning!” I said with an excitement that I didn’t feel. “You OK?”
She gasped, and dropped her hands, and opened her eyes. “Oh? Wait… Oh, hi Mikel. Are we there?”
I shook my head. “No, we’re only a few weeks out of Luna Station. I’m guessing it’s some final test.”
She groaned and put her hands over her eyes again but didn’t say anything.
After a good half-minute, she still hadn’t moved. I was about to say something else when the final pod opened, and Samson launched himself out of it, only to snag at the end of the cable to his mask as I had. He ripped it off.
“Huh? What? Gaah, it’s hot!” He floated up and brought himself to a stop at the upper bulkhead. “Oh, Mikel! Good to see you, my friend. We are at Mars, yes?”
I shook my head. “No, we aren’t. Some kind of final test, I think.”
“More tests. Always more tests. Ah well.” He pushed back to his pod and started pulling his kit out of his locker.
I shook my head. Nothing phased him.
“Samson” wasn’t his real name; that was “Dimitri.” But someone, it might have been Mako, called him “Samson” once after seeing him bench 500 kilos.
Yeah, we were on The Moon at the time, so it’s less impressive than it sounds, but the name stuck. He didn’t seem to mind. Like I said, nothing phased him.
Tio came back around the curve of the deck, Dylan and Gabriella following. “Oh good, everyone is up.”
I glanced back to see that Mako was now sitting up, at least. She was still staring at the far bulkhead.
“So, does anyone have any idea as to what they are wasting our time on out here? We aren’t under thrust, so we’re just wasting time.” Dylan was complaining, as usual.
I wasn’t sure why Dylan was even here. We were all Indentures. We had signed ourselves over to one of the Megacorps for a chance to get off of what was left of Earth and at least have an opportunity to create a life of our own. Someday. But Dylan? He looked like a holonet celebrity. And he had dropped enough hints and script during training that it was evident that he came from a family with money. Probably Megacorp himself. So why was he slumming with us Indentures?
To take advantage of women like Tio. was my immediate response to myself, and I responded in turn by telling my 12-year-old self to shut up.
“Not being under thrust doesn’t mean anything,” Gabriella had been saying while I was admonishing myself. “The Sorrow doesn’t carry enough fuel to burn all the way to Mars. No, we’ve entered our transfer orbit and are coasting until we get there.”
Gabriella stood out in our group by being at least twice the age of the rest of us. She had once been happily married on Earth until her husband left her. And left her nothing. She could have gotten by on her required stipend, but she apparently thought that would be boring and signed up for the Indenture Lottery. Even more than Dylan, she was the happiest of us at being here.
“But why?” That was Mako again. She was the opposite of Gabriella. She didn’t want to be here at all. But her family had kicked her out as soon as she hit 18, and she didn’t have many options as to where to go or what to do. She had signed up for a 20-year Indenture because that was the shortest they had. And now, she was annoyed that the shorter Indentures tended to be the least desirable ones.
—-
As for me, I had grown up in New Makomi. My parents told me that I had actually been born in Old Makomi and that we had been relocated after the Ross Collapse caused it to flood. Still, the timing didn’t seem correct to me. I might have been “conceived” in Old Makomi, but I certainly wasn’t born there.
New Makomi is actually in Georgia since that was far enough sea level that they were willing to put people there. They’re still waiting on the Greenland collapse. But we were OK.
Unfortunately, the only people who got relocated there were those who couldn’t afford to relocate themselves. Which my parents certainly weren’t.
There was no way that I could ever find something there. I had my primary education, but I would never get to college on what my parents made. Or on what I could possibly make without… well, we won’t go there. And “public” colleges hadn’t been a thing even since before Makomi flooded. There wasn’t anything in New Makomi that I could possibly do.
So I signed up for the Indenture Lottery. And got selected.
Earth is dead. The governments there are still trying to take care of their populations. Well, most of them, if only because they are trying to avoid yet another revolution, but they have nothing to take care of them with. Any resources are long gone, and there is no reason to do manufacturing at the bottom of a gravity well. So, they auctioned off the Solar System, giving the megacorps exclusive access to the planets and moons in exchange for a percentage of what they got. And the auctions were based on what percentage they were willing to give.
Then the Megacorps discovered the Cypher gates. And gained access to the entire galaxy.
The Megacorps still pay their percentages from the Solar System, but they have moved everything they can elsewhere. The only opportunities are out-system.
And the Megacorps own entirely those.
There are some opportunities still on Earth. Most of them with the various governments. But the best way to create the best life for yourself was off-world.
Hence the Indenture Lotteries. You send an application to the Megacorps, and they decide if you meet their qualifications. Actually, no. They take a select number of applicants and determine if they are valid candidates.
I had entered the Lottery. And I “won.”
I wound up on The Moon, where I went through a months-long evaluation training. I still wasn’t guaranteed an Indenture.
An “Indenture.” That was what the megacorps had come up with. You sign up for some time. Twenty, thirty, forty, or even more years. You agree to work for some corp for that long, only getting paid in company script that you could only spend in the company stores, and agreeing to follow their orders until the end of your contract.
After that, you could do whatever you wanted. Start your own business, find a homestead that you could claim for your own, anything.
Enough people on Earth were desperate enough that they would agree to that deal. And I had been one of them.
What I didn’t expect was to be picked up by the Corporate Oversight Group.
The COG was the closest thing to a “government” the Megacorps had. They had realized early on that they needed some way of coordinating with each other. So they created the COG, made up of representatives of all of the off-Earth Megacorps. As newer corps came into existence, they joined the COG.
The COG quickly became the de-facto government, military, exploration arm, and police force of the myriad Cypher worlds. And they needed people to do their dirty work for them. Thus they took Indentures of their own.
Looked down on by the people we worked for and hated by the people we worked with for being the representatives of their overlords. we were just called “cogs.”
I almost wished I had taken my chances back in New Makomi.
—-
Tio was annoyed. “Look, I don’t want us to look bad. We need to get our biowaste together and get to this briefing! We need to look good! Otherwise, we’re going to be stuck with the crap assignments.”
Tio was the one that, despite sleeping with her, I knew the least about. We had hooked up the first few weeks in training after wound up on The Moon, but she quickly decided that she needed to take advantage of her status there. I think she had spent time with Mako and Samson before settling on Dylan.
OK, to be fair, I had spent time with Mako and Samson, too, until I got tired of soggy shoulders and a complete lack of any actual conversation or shared activities. So here I was.
Anyway, Tio was from somewhere in the EU. I think. She had been one of their climate refugees like me, which first brought us together, But she wouldn’t say anything else about where she came from. When I had asked her why she had signed up for the Indenture Lottery, she only replied with, “I lost the first lottery and so had to go to the second.” I have no idea what she meant, and she refused to explain further.
But she was the one who had apparently bought the most into the COG mindset. Even more than Dylan. She seemed to think that being a COG was the best assignment we could have gotten. “We’ll be going to multiple planets! Multiple systems! We’ll be going everywhere! Isn’t that great?”
“Yeah,” I had said. “And fixing everyone’s problems by doing what none of them want to do for themselves. And everyone will hate us for doing it.”
“Who cares what everyone else thinks! We’ll be going everywhere!
And doing everyone, in your case I thought. I angrily pushed that thought aside.
I didn’t have to ask; I knew I was the asshole here.
—-
No one had said anything while I had been dealing with my inner thoughts, so I spoke up. “Yeah, she’s right. I have no idea what they want this time, but we need to go where they want us to go. We worked hard enough to get these slots; I certainly don’t want to get sent back to the Earth with nothing but a payoff penalty.”
Mako groaned but pulled herself along her pod to her locker and started putting on her jumpsuit and gear. Tio was already at hers, and Samson had just finished, shrugging the enormous pack he always carried over his shoulders.
“We go see what they want now, yes?”
I nodded, looking at Mako. She pulled her utility vest on, equipment already attached, and looked at me. She was already crying.
It was going to be a long day.
—-
We made our way through the ship to the conference room. It was quiet; apparently, most of the crew was still in cryosleep. I had no idea what was going on. Was this a drill just for us? But I kept my thoughts to myself, and we quickly arrived at ring two, room seven.
Inside we found Sava Parimala, the Sorrow‘s Captain, Cassandra Ottenbrighten, our COG representative, and Proteus, one of the ship’s synths. All ships have a synth on-board, partially so that something will be awake during orbital transfers, but mainly because only synths can be conscious during Cypher-gate transit.
“Glad you could make it,” Captain Parimala said as we entered. “I was about to wake up the next team.”
“We got here as fast as we could,” replied Tio. “What do you need.”
Proteus spoke up. “Two weeks into the transfer, we received a distress signal. Per protocol, I altered our course to intercept the vessel in distress then awakened Captain Parimala and Manager Ottenbrighten. She approved our intercept then determined that we should awaken your team.”
“I still think this is a waste of time!” Ottenbrighten said immediately. “We have a time schedule to meet at Phobos Station, and the Garrison’s Pride isn’t a COG vessel.”
“We’re obligated to respond to all distress calls,” Captain Parimala said quietly. “And the distress call is actually coming from a shuttle belonging to Terraform Industrial,” which is a COG member. We have no choice.”
Ottenbrighten shook her head. “It’s still a waste of time. Who cares what happens to an independent ice surveyor?”
“Captain Parimala is correct,” said Proeus. “We are obligated to answer all distress calls, no matter the source.”
She frowned. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just do whatever we need to do and get back on course. I don’t want to have to explain why we’re days, or even weeks, late to Phobos station.”
“You won’t have to!” said Captain Parimala with barely restrained anger. “We are following standard orders.” She turned to us. “And I’m glad to finally meet all of you. I think I may have welcomed you on board, but you went into cryosleep almost as soon as you got here. We’re apparently going to be working together for some time, so I hope we’ll have some time to get to know each other better.”
“When we get to Mars!” Ottenbrighten interjected. “We’ll get to know each other then. For now, let’s just get this over with.”
Parimala grimaced but nodded to Proteus. “Tell them what we know.”
Proteus immediately started speaking in an emotionless voice, unperturbed by the discussion around it. “While on our transit orbit to Mars, we detected a distress signal from a shuttle belonging to Terraform Incorporated, a licensed Sol System corporation. Per protocol, we altered course to intercept as we were the vessel most able to match their orbit.
“Upon rendezvous, we determined that the shuttle was not drifting on its own. Instead, it was docked with the Garrison’s Pride, an independent ice miner. The Garrison’s Pride is currently in a six-axis tumble with the shuttle attached to one of their docking ports. The Garrison’s Pride does not have an active fusion plant and is currently on emergency power. One of their remoras is missing, and life signs are indeterminate. We need to have a team go on-board to investigate.”
“You said the distress call is coming from the shuttle?” I asked. “Not the Garrison’s Price?”
“Pride,” Proteus corrected. “And no. the only signal is coming from the shuttle. In fact, the Garrison’s Pride has even shut off its transponder.”
“Which is a violation of protocol in and of itself!” said Ottenbrighten. “Which means they were probably smuggling or something. More reason we should just notify the authorities and get back on our own course!”
“We can’t do that!” Parimala sighed. “We are obligated to help anyone in distress. That’s part of the basic franchise obligations.”
“Fine!” She immediately pulled out her nexus and started paging through it, ignoring the rest of us.
Captain Parimala turned to us. “We’ve powered up one of our OTVs. All of you will suit up, transfer to the Garrison’s Pride, and determine the situation on-board. If you can provide assistance, then do so. If you can stabilize their tumble, then so much the better; we can dock, which will make rescue operations that much easier.”
“Otherwise, get a full situation report from there and bring it back. We’ll decide what our next steps will be after that.”
Mako was shaking her head. “Why us? We’re… we just got here! We don’t know how to deal with these things?”
“Which means we’re the most expendable, right?” Samson laughed. “Yes! We will go into the danger!”
I wasn’t thrilled to go to a random ship in distress, but I wanted to go back to Earth even less. “OK, fine. What do we know about Garrison’s Pride?”
Proteus spoke up. “Standard twin-ring ship. Single spine with a bridge forward and engines aft. Two rings, one for habitation and one for docking; individually enabled for rotation. In the case of the Garrison’s Pride, nine remoras were intended for cargo. One is missing, and one has its exterior doors open.”
“That’s comforting,” I said, then realized that everyone had turned to look at me. “Um… are there any life signs over there at all?”
Proteus continued. “Multiple. Infrared scans show five individuals moving around; three in the main spine and two in engineering.”
“In the main spine?” asked TIo? “Doing… what?”
“Moving from one end of the ship to the other,” stated Proteus. “Assumption is that they are on patrol, though there is no evidence to support that.”
I turned to Captain Parimala. “Is that all we have?”
She grimaced. “Something is going on in the command module and engineering that we can’t quite identify. And something in the Terraform Industries shuttle as well. It looks like static, whatever it is. Random patterns in infrared.”
“The scans there do not match any known pattern,” Proteus interjected. “They are either spurious or irrelevant.”
“I’m trying to give the investigation team all the information we have!” Parimala said in annoyance. She turned back to us. “Yeah, it’s a mess, but we’re obligated to investigate. So… that’s all we know. It’s up to all of you to determine what is going on over there.”
Dylan had been getting increasingly agitated as the briefing had been continuing, and he finally exploded. “Really? We’re investigating a ‘mysterious ship?’ That’s the best you can do?”
Captain Parimala frowned. “Best we can do? What?”
He scoffed. “Listen, we all know this is just another test. Look, just say we passed, and let us go back to sleep until Mars. OK?”
The Captain paused a moment before continuing. “This is not a test, Mr. Stilver. Nor is it a request. We have intercepted a ship in distress, and we are rendering assistance. As required. And you are going to follow my orders and board that ship to render said assistance. As required by your contract. Is that clear?
“Look. We all know that this isn’t normal.”
“Welcome to the COG, Mr. Stilver. ‘Normal’ is the exception here. Now, you and the rest of your team can go down to the airlock and suit up, or they can go, and we can return you to cryo. Where you will stay until we return to Earth. Is that clear?”
I was watching Dylan. He had been playing his status for all it was worth during training, and even many of our instructors had let his outbursts slide. This was the first time I had seen anyone not just refuse him but actually push back. From his expression, this may have been the first time he hadn’t had his way. Ever.
He was fighting to keep his composure. “Listen, you know who I am, right? Look it up if you don’t. I’m…”
“One of the newest Indentures on this ship,” interrupted the Captain. “Which means you get the crap assignments. Yes, that’s how it works. I started there too. Now it’s your turn.”
“Welcome to the Group,” said Ottenbrighten. “As the senior representative on-board, don’t make me write you up on your first assignment. I object to this stop as well, but you are part of Captain Parimala’s crew and you will obey her orders. Is that understood, Indenture?”
I had never seen Dylan speechless. He was flushed red and was visibly struggling to not say something. Tio put her hand on his arm.
“Hey, it’s OK. Let’s just get this done, then we can get back to sleep. OK?”
He tensed, then somehow brought himself under control. “Yeah, sure, baby. Let’s go.” He turned and, taking her arm, headed for the exit. “The rest of y’all try to keep up, OK?”
The Captain was still staring in his direction. “We are prepping an OTV; it should be outside the airlock when you exit. Use it to get to the Garrison’s Pride and to evacuate any survivors and any equipment or documentation they request. Within reason, of course”
I nodded and headed for the exit myself. Dylan was saying something under his breath to Tio, and I could see how tight of a grip he was maintaining on her arm. He was agitated.
To be honest, I wasn’t pleased about going on board what may be a derelict ship either. I had seen a few too many holovids, I suppose.
And, while in training, we had heard… stories. About ships being found with… “things” on board. Yeah, they were all in the outer system. or in a Cypher System, but still… I was nervous.
Plus, I had only had minimal microgravity training. Our last few weeks had been at Luna Station, so we had done vacuum work, but that was under controlled conditions with an instructor. This would be my first time out for “real.”
—-
We didn’t really say anything as we pulled ourselves down the corridor to the central airlock. Those were in a ring, extended out from the spine of the ship. There were actually three airlocks on the docking ring, but one of them had our shuttle attached to it. Which left two others for regular access or for other shuttles to dock.
I had opened my assigned locker and dragged out my suit when Dylan finally let out his anger.
“That rutting bitch!” he yelled. “We all know this is a rutting training exercise, but she couldn’t stand the fact that I figured it out. This is a complete and total waste of everyone’s time. Why are we doing this?”
“Because is our job, yes?” asked Samson. He laughed and clapped Dylan’s shoulder. “We do what they want, do a good job, then go to Mars. They want us to visit other ship, we visit other ship. Is fine.”
“And besides,” Gabriella was saying as she was pulling off her jumpsuit. “What if it really is a ship in distress? Or if not, we’ll probably run into one at some point. That’s one of the COGs’ functions. At least one they publicize a lot. We may as well get used to it.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled himself to the nearest handhold. “Fine. All of you go then. Tio and I will just stay here and… entertain ourselves.”
He reached out for her where she was hovering near her locker, but she twisted herself out of his way and grabbed her vacc suit. “We’ll spend time later,” she said, with what I hoped was a faint touch of annoyance in her voice. “But I’m not going to risk failing the last test if that is what this is.”
“Fine!” He shoved himself away from the handhold with enough force that he missed his own locker. I tried not to laugh as he drifted helplessly to the far bulkhead, then reoriented himself and kicked back to the locker.
I busied myself with pulling on my own vacc suit. This wasn’t the bulky pressure suit you have probably seen; this one was custom-tailored to me, which is why we had to strip down to our skinsuits to wear them. They weren’t so much suits that kept pressure around us but reinforced, elastic fabric that held our skin and organs in place against a lack of external pressure. They were far easier to use than regular pressure suits but also left you feeling very exposed. And they left nothing to the imagination.
They do come with a facemask, so your eyeballs don’t try to leave, and you wear what is called the “diaper” which covers your genitals–which have too many openings that need to be sealed–but otherwise, they provide for total freedom of movement. Much more than a regular pressure suit would allow.
Suit on, I pulled my utility vest back on over it, then pulled on the rebreather and plugged it into my facemask. I could now breathe my own recycled air for at least 12 hours. More if we found a place to recharge our oxygen.
I waited until everyone else had their suits on. Despite his complaints, Dylan had rapidly put his own and was ready ahead of a few others. Mako was last. She hadn’t really said anything during the briefing or later discussion. Still, it was evident that she really didn’t want to be here.
When everyone was done, we filed into the airlock. It was large, designed to be able to shift cargo and personnel, so we fit easily.
Dylan had placed himself by the controls and started cycling the inner door as soon as the last of us cleared it. Almost immediately, the pressure started dropping, and I felt the now-familiar squeeze as my suit tightened up. It was briefly cold before my skinsuit was able to detect the change and compensate, then I felt “normal.”
Well, as normal as I could when the outer door opened, revealing nothing but black flecked with stars. I tensed up. All of the training I had been through had been at Luna Station, where the Earth and the Moon were clearly visible. Here, there was nothing.
Dylan had pulled a maneuvering unit from the rack and a teacher. Leaning out the hatch, he seemed to see what he was looking for and pulled himself outside.
“Samson,” I heard him say over the comms. “I’m heading to the OTV. You secure your end of the tether and get everyone across. Then we’ll pull you over. Sound good?”
“Is good, friend,” replied Samson. He turned to me. “Mikel! You go next.”
“Why me?”
“You are best at this, yes? You do not need my help.”
“Tell Tio that,” I said, pointing at the hatch through which she had just disappeared.
“Hey!” he shouted. “We go in order, yes?”
“And what order is that?” asked Gabriella. She pulled herself over the edge of the hatch and disappeared as well.
I could see Samson saying something, but he had his comms off. He then switched back on. “Tio and Gabriella are on their way. Who do you want next?”
I didn’t need to see Dylan to know his expression. “OK… Send Mikel next. I suspect you’ll have to help Mako.”
I looked around to find Mako. She had the handhold beside the inner hatch in a death grip and was staring directly at the nearest bulkhead.
“Mako?” I asked. I saw her shake her head.
I kept looking at her until Samson braked himself against me.
“I will take care of her, my friend,” he said in a soft voice. “You go on ahead.”
I bumped his shoulder with my fist. “Thanks.” I had no idea how to get through to Mako, so I pushed myself off towards the exterior hatch, grabbed a handhold, and then looked outside.
I immediately had to fight the urge to throw up in my facemask but managed to get myself under control. There was literally nothing there except the Orbital Transfer Vehicle, the OTV, hanging a dozen or so meters away, connected to us only by the single teacher.
The Sorrow spine stretched off to my left and right, with the command module to my left and the engine pods to the right. I could see both the habitat and operations rings to my left, halfway in shadow from the Sun, which must be “behind” me from the angles. I couldn’t see the ship we were supposed to be rendezvousing with, and I wondered if this might actually be a drill.
The OTV was nothing but an open framework with an engine at one end, a command console at the other, and a bunch of acceleration couches bolted onto it seemingly at random. Dylan was already in the couch in front of the console, of course, and Tio was strapping herself into the nearest couch. Gabriella had just reached the OTV and was climbing onto the frame.
I looked at the tether. The safest thing would be to pull myself along it to the OTV, but… no.
This was going to be my life for the next 20 years. I learned in New Makomi before I entered the Lottery that you had to establish a name for yourself. If I was ever going to be someone in the Group, I would have to make sure people knew me.
Otherwise, I had just traded one set of problems for another. And besides, if this was a test, I couldn’t let Dylan get all the points.
I gauged the distance and angle and, positioning myself, kicked away from the Sorrow. Pretend you are swimming I told myself. My stomach had different ideas, but I forced it down again.
I landed against the OTV about two rows behind the command console. I was able to grab a strut and used that to pull myself forward to the second front couch. I nodded to Tio beside me as I started to strap myself in.
“Hey, Mikel! Living dangerously, are we?” yelled Gabriella from behind me. “And I was heading to that seat!”
“Too slow!” I yelled back, looking over my shoulder. She waved in mock defeat and then pulled herself into the couch behind me.
“You need to teach me that trick!” she said. “I never worked up the nerve to try it back at Luna Station.”
“Neither did I,” I said, laughing as the adrenaline surge finally made itself known. “But hey, I may as well get used to it sooner rather than later.”
“Well, when we finally get to Phobos Station, you willing to practice with me?”
“It’s a date!” I said a bit too quickly. “Well, not a ‘date’ date, but you know what I mean…”
She laughed. “Yeah, I get it. Trust me, I’ve been around the orbit far more times than you have.”
I flushed red at that. Fortunately, no one could see me at the moment.
Samson interrupted us. “Friends, our friend Ms. Takamura is afraid to leave the ship. Can someone help me encourage her?”
I was about to say something when Proteus came on the comms. “Ms. Takamura. What is your situation?”
There was silence.
Captain Parimala came on the circuit. “Indenture Takamura. Mako. Are you all right?”
More silence.
“Do you need medical assistance?”
“No…” came a weak voice. “I can’t… I just can’t do this.”
“You can, my friend,” I heard Samson say. “I saw you in training at Luna Station. You know how to do this. Come with me; I will help you.”
“I can’t!”
“You can!” l heard myself say. I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but I continued. “We need you to help us. We need all of us. Just pull yourself along the tether. And then we’ll help the people on the Pride. But we need you. They need you.”
That was unlike me. What was I saying? I guess I was still on the adrenaline surge from my leap, and it was coming out in an unnatural optimism.
There was a long silence, then “You’ll help me?”
“Of course, my friend,” said Samson. “Come with me. We will cross together.”
A few seconds later, I saw both of them exit the hatch. Samson helped her onto the tether, then stayed behind her as she made her way to the OTV. He hovered over her until she was strapped into one of the couches. He quickly strapped into one next to her.
“We are ready!” he announced.
Dylan sighed. “We’re still tethered to the Sorrow.”
“Then release it!”
“And what will we do when we get to the Pride? We’ll need to tether to them.”
“I’ll get it!” I heard myself saying. What was I doing? I unstrapped myself and lined up with the Sorrow, then jumped.
I wound up going through the middle of the hatch, completely missing any handholds. But I caught myself on the far bulkhead and was able to get back. I unclipped the tether, clipped it to my utility vest, then lept back towards the OTV.
“Fine!” said Dylan as I grabbed an aft strut and pulled myself into the vehicle. “Let’s get this over with.” He immediately applied thrust, and I was barely able to swing myself into a couch.
“Hey, I wasn’t back to my seat yet!”
“You were the one who left. And besides, we’re all going to the same place. Hang on!”
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