“Attention, all planets of the Solar Federation.” Ace lifted his finger off the transmit button.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sarah asked.
Ace chuckled. “Old song. I always wanted to do that.”
He keyed the mike again. “Veza Flight Control, this is Nautilus 7, sorry about that, system test. We are looking for clearance to dock.”
The reply was swift. “Nautilus 7, this is Veza Flight Control. Clearance given to dock at port Delta. Your financials are on file for dock charges.”
Financials. Dock charges. Ace was old enough to remember when the stations were starving for traffic and treated visiting crew like royalty. With the outer planets opening up, Earth-area traffic had exploded and stations were in high demand as stepping stones to Jupiter and beyond. Dock charges were just one way they were cashing in.
Ace sent a confirmation to Veza and turned to Sarah. “Take us in, kid. I’m hitting the head.” Stations charged for bathrooms now, too.
“I’m not a kid, and remember to turn the exhaust fan on this time.” Sarah turned to her set of controls and started keying in commands.
The Nautilus’ thrusters lit in a complex sequence as they swung the freighter around to point the ship’s tail at the station, then the pair of main engines lit briefly to slow the ship’s approach to Veza station. Sarah kept a watchful eye on the displays and occasionally made small adjustments as the ship approached Delta port.
Ace drifted back to his seat, grabbing handholds on the way. “Going in on manual? You know the ship can do the docking just fine.”
“I want to shake the rust off. It’s been too long since I’ve done any piloting.”
Ace nodded. It might sound like a rebuke but Ace knew that there had been little call for any piloting skills in the month-long approach to Earth. The occasional course change to avoid other ships or uncharted rocks was easily handled by the computer, and Ace as lead pilot was usually the one at the controls when anything more complex had to be done.
Sarah’s hands were busy as she cycled through displays, monitoring the steady approach to the station while watching the area around the Nautilus.
She paused on one display. “What.. is that?”
Ace looked over. “What do you mean?”
The display showed a field of stars. It seemed unremarkable to Ace until Sarah magnified the image. There was an oval shaped blur of stars, visibly growing in size.
Sarah tapped more controls. “Nothing on radar… comms channels are normal. Just to be safe…” She lit the main engines again to stop their approach to Veza Station.
Ace copied the display to his own side of the control panel and started adding overlays. “It’s growing at about 15% per minute.. centre is shifting to our right slightly… it’s like a… oh, CRAP.”
Ace keyed the comms. “Emergency, emergency, Veza Station, prepare for impact, repeat, prepare for impact.” His other hand flew over the controls, increasing thrust on the main engines.
The radio response was immediate. “This is Veza Flight Control, is this some kind of joke? There are serious…”
The rest of the response was drowned out by the scream of the collision alarm. Some of the screens flashed white briefly, then faded to show a field of debris. Moments later, the Nautilus shook repeatedly as hurtling debris struck her.
“I have damage control, take drives,” Ace shouted, “get us out of here!”
“Roger”, Sarah confirmed in a shaky voice. Her fingers flew over the console. “I have propulsion. Main drive 1 is offline, 2 is firing, increasing to emergency thrust.” Both pilots were pressed back into their seats by the acceleration.
“We have multiple breaches, air leakage 2% per minute, closing all hatches,” Ace reported. “Half our sensors are offline, comms are down, routing to backup.”
Moments later, a confused babble of shouts and screams blasted from the speakers.
“What the hell?”
“Let me through! We’re losing air!”
“Activate fire suppression!”
Ace stabbed a button and the voices cut out.
Sarah filled the silence. “Engine 1 coming back online, engine 2 is running hot, reducing to 80% thrust. Where are we going, besides ’away’? And what was that?”
