I looked at my digital watch. 20 minutes until the hyperspace transition.
There were only three of us in the space probe. Max Taylor (me), Blaine Collins (the ship's captain), and Randy Sims (the captain's assistant.) My job was basically "gofer", but if I did well on this trip, I was hoping the Captain would put in a good word for my career. (Mr. Sims didn't like me, for reasons I didn't know. But he was almost universally disliked by the mothership's crew, so it's quite possible he was just a fuckhead.)
Five hours and forty minutes ago, the Captain had used his reverse thrusters to bring the mothership to a halt at the preassigned point. The ship's computers had given their instructions to the probe, and the three of us had climbed aboard. Theoretically, the probe should slip across the junction and appear near the base outside of the 72 Herculis system. I was to join the base for a while, while the Captain and Mr. Sims were to return to the mothership.
"Are you sure this will go as planned?" I asked, trying not to sound too nervous.
"I've never had a failed hyperspace transition," the Captain replied. Mr. Sims merely glared at me.
I sat still and tried to calm myself. I closed my eyes and did an extended breathing routine. When I opened them, we were but a minute away.
We silently counted down the seconds. Suddenly the stars we were looking at blinked out, to be replaced by a new set.
Mr. Sims frowned as he looked at the sky. "Where are we?"
That didn't sound like a good thing. I looked over at the Captain. He seemed to have aged 30 years in the last 30 minutes.
The Captain took a long look at the sky. "I... don't know."
I took some food pills out of the probe's supply kit, and distributed them. We swallowed them down with water from the suits we wore, that processed our bodily wastes and our sweat, extracting the water, purifying it and discarding the other substances. I figured we may be stuck in the probe longer than we anticipated.
Having nothing better to do, the three of us went to sleep. When Mr. Sims and I awoke, the Captain did not. A quick check revealed he was no longer living. Natural causes - or just giving up. He was 63 years old and the failed transition had been too much of a shock. I'm sure he felt the responsibility very heavily.
Mr. Sims and I placed his body in the air lock, sealed the inner hatch and released the Captain to wander in space. Then we sealed the outer door again, opened the air lock, and looked at each other.
"Now what?" I asked.
"I don't know," Mr. Sims replied quietly. "We could be anywhere. And I mean anywhere. When a transition goes wrong, you can be transported to any portion of the universe."
The probe had a limited supply of food pills. I looked around and saw a star, that looked like it might be about a G class, off to the left.
"Think we should aim for that star?"
"Of course we should, you dummy. It's our only chance! Otherwise we'll die sitting in this hunk of metal!"
That was more like the Mr. Sims I knew. He was almost never quiet.
I stepped over to the control panel and started to fire the side rockets, to change the probe's attitude.
"Not like that, you moron!" Ah, that's the familiar Mr. Sims. I stepped aside and let him take over.
Three hours later, we were headed directly towards the star, at a decent pace. Once again, there was nothing to do. So Mr. Sims yelled at me some more, and I grunted responses.
Suddenly, a large spaceship zipped in front of us. I stared slack-jawed, as did Mr. Sims. When we recovered our senses, I turned to high five him. "We're saved!"
Even Mr. Sims couldn't argue that point. He high-fived me back. The spaceship, in the meantime, had slowed and then stopped, very close to our probe. What appeared to be a rope emerged from an opening in the side of the ship and lashed around the probe. Three more followed, and the probe was drawn towards the opening.
In less than a minute, we were securely on board the spaceship. The external panel closed. Presumably air was pumped back into the landing lock for a few minutes, because suddenly the door to our probe opened - or was wrenched off, rather - and we stepped out into a perfectly breathable atmosphere.
But who were our rescuers?
I looked around, as did Mr. Sims, but saw no one. We were in what we would call a hangar, perhaps 600 feet by 1,000 feet. Our probe and two equally small (less than 200 feet) ships occupied a good deal of the space.
There was a door on the inside wall. With little choice, we walked over to it. I reached for the handle, but before I could touch it, the door was pulled open.
"Come in," said a soft, feminine voice.