Humanity in the Deep
Part 1, Chapter 9

“Good evening, gentlemen and ladies,” Captain Patel said smartly on almost every screen onboard the Erikson.

Roger started to sweat in his flight suit and did yet another quick check of all the systems. Well the virtual systems on the Alice. The Alice looked ready to go, with nothing out of place or out of order.

Their trip was almost over. They were just out system of Iota and would do the final burn soon. There was time for one last hurrah before the hard work started.

His flight suit clung to every inch of his body, and would sometimes squeeze his legs. He could never forget he had it on. He thought it was silly to wear a flight suit in a sim, but that was how Commander Nodel wanted it. He insisted that every sim be as realistic as possible.

Flying...felt right, he just did it, and if he failed, he failed. It was like painting; as long as he kept going forward, kept at it, he could make it work.

“The final pilot simulation will begin shortly. As normal, the winner will gain his choice of piloting assignment. All the five pilots who made it this far deserve accolades for dedication and skill, but special recognition should be given to Katerina Loke and Roger Powell. Both are newly trained and have dedicated themselves to the task of piloting.”

The captain motioned with his hand to someone else in the C&C. The lower third of the image changed to look like part of a spinning wheel. Half of the wheel showed locations, the other half scenarios.

“In the final simulation, every pilot is on their own. There are no co-pilots. Damage to other ships is permitted. The quantum computer will assign repair times and handicaps as needed. The scenario and location are randomly chosen.” As he finished talking, the text slowed down.

Kat appeared on Roger’s comm panel and said, “Good luck,” from the cockpit of another boat.

“And may neither of us come in last,” Roger replied.

“Have some faith, I play to win.” She looked off-screen and then said, “Meet you at the party later,” kissed her fingers, then placed them on the camera, and turned it off.

The last two years had been the most exciting time of Roger’s life. He had never really had a friend like Kyle before. At least, not since he was fifteen and had the last panic attack the school let him have before being kicked him out of school.

Then there was Kat. She was different from anyone he had ever met, not that he really knew many people. He was starting to think he loved her.

The text on the screen stopped spinning and drew him out of his thoughts.

EGG HUNT | MULTI-RING SYSTEM 8

Captain Patel then said, “Pilots have five minutes to prepare.” The Captain’s face was replaced with A diagram of a gas giant with several moons. Like the rest of the sims, the system would be virginal. As he looked, he saw that the two largest moons and the gas giant had rings.

“The pilots will start approximately here.” The image’s viewpoint changed, going inward to the large outermost moon (labeled as Artemis) and into its rings.

Roger gulped as he looked at the rings. They were so dense; it would be very difficult to navigate through.

“An egg hunt means that there are beacons spread throughout the game area. In this case, that means the rings of both Apollo and Artemis. The pilot with the most beacons to pass through the halo wins. If two pilots pass through with the same number of beacons, the one who does so first will win. Each pilot may claim up to five blue, three orange, and one red beacon. A beacon is claimed by grabbing it with a tow cable and pulling it on board.”

He flashed back to his training with the tow cable, and he shuddered. He was not good at the kind of programming the cable launch needed for a moving grapple course. He loved having to match velocities, to make random changes. He hated having to do the math, then do that.

Captain Patel stopped to take a breath when the image changed again to show the number of beacons on the field; twenty-four blue, fourteen orange, and four red. Roger doubted the importance of the numbers were lost on anyone. Patel then instructed, “When the alarm sounds, the sim will start.”

The clock expanded to fill the entire screen, then it cut out. The pilots were not allowed to watch the feed during the race.

Roger had other things to do anyway. He looked at his starting point on the map and began to compute the optimal search pattern.

The clock counted down, then hit zero, and the instruments came alive.

There were stars everywhere. It felt almost odd to see them. There were few places on the Erikson the stars could be seen. Engineers were not fans of windows.

Roger looked at the instruments. Everything looked in order except for the reaction mass, which was low. They must have decided to cut everyone’s mass.

Less than ideal, but he guessed everyone was in the same boat.

The other ships were accelerating away, most at a low pace as they started to search for beacons. The rocks and ice passed in a blur as Roger let the computer handle the fine maneuvering. He adjusted the course, trying to avoid areas he could tell had were already combed through. It was amazing to watch. Most of the time, sim’s were made with basic optical computer rendering. For the final one, the quantum computer was used. Were it not for the fact he could feel no acceleration, he might think that it was real.

Roger accelerated at point one G’s on a parabolic course, which the computer said was optimal. Soon, he saw an orange beacon. He turned end over end and decelerated.

“Alice, show the track from current vector to end at three miles per second at the selected beacon.” A glowing path appeared, showing the projected path and vector changes needed. Some pilots could do the math in their heads, but Roger had to rely on the computer.

When he was close, he turned the ship and rode the ship jets manually so the belly would face the beacon for as long as possible. “Computer launch tow cable on automatic, targeting orange beacon.” The tow cable launched from the belly and attached itself to the beacon. Roger stopped his plasma drive, and let the cable be reeled in safely.

The only information the pilots were allowed to have, besides what their instruments would provide, was the number of beacons the other four pilots had claimed. Roger saw that Commander Nodel had just claimed his third beacon, and that everyone had at least one.

Roger claimed two more beacons, an orange and a blue, using the same procedure as before. He poured on the speed between them as much as he could.

He was down to half his reaction mass. At the rate he was going, he would not be able to get to the halo.

The ring sped by. Rocks and ice the size of his boat or larger were typical. He saw the radio signal of a red beacon, one of only four on the field. Another ship was on its way to it.

He had to slow down too much to pick up the beacons and speeding up too much between them.

Might as well just try and grab it on a fast pass, at least I won’t have to program the damn cable.

Roger burned his plasma drive hotter and aimed at the beacon, swerving around bits of rock and ice in the way.

His radio turned on, and Roger heard an angry Alexi, a pilot he did not know well. She yelled, “Are you insane? You can’t do that! You’re going to splatter my poor boat. Break off now, for god’s sake.”

Roger hardly heard her. He had one eye on the trajectories map and the other on his cable, which he had launched early and on manual.

“Alice, disengage all automatic piloting and tow cable adjustments.” Roger started to control the entire ship manually, even the small adjustments most pilots normally left to the computer.

The entire cable was spooled out. He had to constantly adjust both the Alice and the head of the cable to stop it from knotting. While doing this Roger accelerated to try and beat Alexi to the beacon.

Roger was getting close and concentrated on the tow cable head. He let the head pass the beacon, then reeled it in and magnetized the head as it passed the beacon again.

It snagged the beacon and then carefully reeled it in while dodging rocks and ice.

---

Roger let the computer handle the jets while he looked for blue and orange beacons. He had had to pass several of each so far because of lousy positioning or velocity.

He just needed two more beacons, and he could head out to the halo and finish. Everyone else was doing ultra-efficient and conservative courses then pushing their computers to their limit. He didn’t think he could do that fast enough, so he decided to just try to do it by feel instead.

The radio picked up an orange beacon that looked accessible without too much delta-V. His fingers flew over the controls, and he headed in that direction before going fully manual again.

He was weaving between rocks and sweating like he was running a race when he got close enough to see it. He was lucky it was in a relatively open area, so he wouldn’t have to shed much velocity to be able to grab it with a fast pass.

Turning end over end, he gave a brief burn, then turned his belly to the beacon, and grabbed the beacon with little trouble.

After grabbing it, the radio picked up a blue beacon, although but it was too off course for him to get.

Having a bad feeling, he checked the map. His feeling was right. He was heading out of the ring system, and not in a useful direction either. He would somehow have to change his direction without using much reaction mass.

He had an idea and looked for a large, solid asteroid.

Once he found one, and he made some minor course changes then before turning his belly to it he launched the grapple.

It hit solidly, and he started to reel it in. He rode the controls for the cable by hand as they approached. The winch started to overheat but he pushed on anyway. The cable had to be taut when he made his point of closest approach.

When he was almost on top of it, he made sure his course was correct. He then quickly overrode all the grapple safeties and locked the winch.

The Alice spun around the asteroid, wrapping the cable around it. When the boat rotated about ninety degrees, he released the grapple. He was shooting off in the correct direction with little reaction mass used.

He saw several incoming requests for radio contact but ignored them; he could not spare the attention to talk.

Roger was on course, or close enough anyway.

---

Reeling the last beacon on board, he looked for an asteroid in the right place with the right velocity.

Some of the rocks were going to hit him. He did not have the reaction mass to dodge everything anymore.

He finally saw a rock that looked correct. Using his jets sparingly, he grappled it, then started to reel it in. He needed to speed up as well as change direction.

After two revolutions, then he cut the cable, he was sent speeding off to the halo.

---

Roger took a deep breath just before entering the cluster of asteroids. It was going to be tight. He was going to have to let the Alice take a beating.

He had used all but a few seconds of thrust from his plasma drive to slow down when he got to the cluster.

As soon as he entered, half a dozen rocks of various sizes slammed into him. They were doing damage, but he could make sure most of it was done to the drive he couldn’t use anyway.

Even so, he was barely able to scrape and bang his way to the middle of the cluster.

The halo was hanging in space. A circle glowing that always looked front on. It was the only thing in the sim that actually appeared fake.

He flipped the switches that dilated the jet’s valves. Rather than a long steady burst fit for fine maneuvering he would have a quarter second of significant thrust. His finger hovered over the button that would activate it and would turn his busted spaceship into a hunk of metal.

His current course was going to pass within a kilometer of the halo. He had to use the last of his thrust to push latterly into it.

The seconds passed, although they felt like hours as even more damage was done to the Alice while he waited. Roger could not afford to use up his last thrust, so he let Alice take it. Then he saw his window, a gap that he could put her through and then through the halo. He hit the button and was on course.

Roger slumped in his chair. He had no drives left and was fully ballistic.

He made it through, and the lights came back on, and the screens flickered.