Notice: There is sex but it plays second fiddle to the story. I hope you will enjoy both.
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"We use lids on this ship," I told the Professor a little too sharply, who apparently had the tea maker figured out. It was unlikely to happen on a space station but if the artificial gravity should die, I didn't want badly contained tea shorting out my circuits. Client or not, the lid rule was strictly enforced.
I came to lean over Lisa's shoulder. "How are we looking?" She pointed at the holographic screens.
"We've got power. Lots of it, too. This thing uses up more than our boat when she's idling."
Nodding, I leafed through the data. "My ship is a 'he', thankyou," I mumbled. Lisa looked unimpressed.
Thomas came to join us, lid and all. He too saw that everything seemed to be in order, except that we couldn't test the array inside the hangar because of its strongly magnetic effect. Most things here were made from polymers but the area of effect was large enough to potentially disrupt electric currents nearby.
It only occurred to me now that once I had activated the sensor, radio contact would be out of the question. With the interference from both the entity and this new artificial satellite, the only contact we would have was visual.
"Oh," went the Professor when he saw me write the issue down for next meeting. "Is that going to be a problem?"
"We've had worse," I told him smugly. "Most cargo isn't made to do the haulers a favor. If it were an easy job, we would quickly be out of work. Speaking of which, we're ready to test this thing now. That was due tomorrow, right?"
He gave a nod and sipped his tea. "Indeed."
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I pointed at the kitchen. "So if a fire starts right there, it would basically cut the station in half and if the fuel storage goes, that will send it into a spin, making it impossible to perform emergency docking." I popped out my knife and began cutting a jackfruit into my meal. Whatever they tried with the proteins to make them more appetizing, nothing beat actual food to break the cardboard flavor.
Lisa looked in the direction of my gestures, but otherwise seemed quite disinterested. That was alright, I was about to explain why this was important. "You see..."
I was cut off by someone joining the table sans invitation. A young looking fellow, with generous blonde locks and piercing blue eyes. "Please excuse me. Captain Lisa? I hope I'm not interrupting?"
I blinked and looked across the table at Lisa, but she didn't miss a beat. "Not at all. This is James, my public relations manager. You just missed Raph the demolitions expert." I wiped my hand on my shirt and held it out to him.
He shook it hesitatingly. "...Adam. Pleasure to meet you. I was contacted by the crew aboard the station, telling me about a job on your ship? From what I hear, a few others are being considered, but I thought I'd come and talk to you personally. You see, I would really like to help."
-"Really, Adam? Why is that?" Lisa did the talking while turned to my food.
-"Actually, I'm just really excited to do a real spacewalk. I've done plenty of simulations and I've become very good at it, my captain says. But I've never done it for real, so I was hoping to join your crew for this mission. It's supposed to be a pretty routine job, right?" The kid stared wide-eyed and hopeful at both of us. The poor bastard was all kinds of misinformed.
-"Sure, why not." Lisa kicked me under the table when I interrupted. "What? Don't you remember your first walk, Lisa? We all had to learn sometime, right? Now's a good a time as any for young Adam here." I added, "Captain."
I was in charge, so ultimately it was my decision and Lisa knew that all too well so she didn't protest further.
In truth, I had picked up on the kid's Martian accent he was trying to hide, and figured he had it hard enough already. I got lucky and got to accumulate experience early on, but it wasn't so easy for him, coming from a planet where the political system, in essence a twisted sociological experiment, had failed. He could use the boost.
-"Tomorrow twenty-one hundred is when our side of the station turns towards the sun so that's when we'll be in the hangar bay. And Adam?"
I could tell he could hardly contain his excitement, but managed to stay calm. A good sign. "...Yes?"
-"If you're on time, you're late."
-"O- of course."
He left us to our breakfast, and an animated discussion about allowing newbies into our crew.
-----
There are many ways to pilot a spaceship. Several of them efficient, most of them suicidal, and they weren't mutually exclusive. Every job asks for a different approach, sometimes using maneuvering thrusters to position yourself into place, sometimes to angle your main engines toward the danger and full throttle out of there.
Pushing larger objects is an especially difficult endeavor: The trick is to find its center of mass; If you miss it, you might push the load into a spin, making it impossible to approach the object without denting it, yourself, or both. Latching onto things that are spinning is every pilot's last thing to learn.
It was often said that the cosmos' new currency was speed, but who ever came up with that, was no pilot. The real hero was acceleration. Any leaf blower could reach the speed of light given enough time, say, a million years; but only a decent Hauling class like mine could make it economically acceptable. Especially with a full cargo bay, inertia was your biggest enemy.
Most colleagues like to fly with full dampening, so that they don't get jostled around in their seats when maneuvering tight corners. I on the other hand, prefer to use all my senses, including balance so that I can feel the slightest acceleration and the hum of the engines under my ass. It did tend to make passengers motion sick, though.
I had my hands on the stick when I heard the hatch open and recognized Lisa long before she made it to the Bridge. She paused a moment when she saw me in my seat with the ship fully powered down. "Mental preparation?" I nodded.
"I spoke to the board," she said as she installed herself on my lap without needing an invitation. "I'll be in radio contact with you when you fly out. And there will be a shuttle on stand-by in case I need to come get you myself."
It was a comforting thought to have my guardian angel nearby on this mission, without having to worry about her own safety while tinkering with a universe-wise anomaly. In a sense, it was like someone speaking for you at the gates of heaven, especially since good intentions don't always bring good results.
I hugged her close, I couldn't find any other way to tell her all this. And that's when Adam came in. I heard him climb into the ship, but didn't care much.
"Oh," he stammered. "I'm sorry Captain, I didn't know you were..."
-"Don't worry about it," Lisa said, and stood. "Get suited up, we're taking off."
Simulations or no, I could tell he wasn't used to space suits. He kept trying to turn his head, which wasn't possible with this model, so every time he bumped his face into the glass comically. "Turn your head shoulders and all," I reminded him, but he would forget instantly.
These suits were the most expensive thing on the ship, but no model is much more than a glorified one-man spaceship. They are clunky and can feel like you're wrapped up in a mattress. "If you feel claustrophobic, make a fist and punch something." He didn't believe it until he tried it.
-"We're approaching mission point," Lisa confirmed the screens.
-"Ready for decompression and zero-g when you are."
-"Decompressing."
A light came on and we heard the outside noises dull until only each other's voices on the intercom remained. I bumped Adam. "Hey. Kid."
He turned towards me, in slow motion as if he was supposed to do that. I nearly laughed.
"In this crew, we look out for each other, understand?"
-"Yes, Sir."
-"This is not a relay we're about to install. We're taking a sensor array out for a test spin, before taking it to scan that anomaly out there. The scientists didn't feel like you needed to know that, but I do. You alright with that?"
He nodded awkwardly inside his helmet. "I figured as much."
-"Bright kid. Well then, if you're ready, I'm killing gravity."
We latched our safety lines and a flick of a switch later, we were floating freely. In absolute quiet, the door began to open.
If you are afraid of heights you might be familiar with the feeling of being drawn towards a depth, as if part of you wants to fall in. It's actually a panic reaction, your mind playing tricks on you, so you would back off to a safe distance. Evolution at work.
Now imagine that depth all around you, open and gaping, with your own brain feeding you the illusion that you are being sucked in.
The net result is usually a rollercoaster ride between blind panic and extreme euphoria. It takes practice to even that out, but agoraphobia is always there, creeping up on you as soon as you let the void draw your attention. Dreamers, like me, are usually the first to feel the effects.
Adam was a first-timer and it showed. He was holding up, but he had that technique of latching on with one hook, advancing over the side of the ship, latching on with the second, and then going back to retrieve the first. Experienced space walkers have one hook in each hand, clawing their way over the surface.
