Story Summary: Current sub-plots in the story: Kallae has been released from suicide watch, but is restricted to the Bridge Deck. Cirres has left on a mission to save an alien ship in the path of the Morning Star.

Cargo Bay 2 Colorful wires hung from open panels, the ceiling, and even from under the decking. Everything was wrong. The clues had all been there, but they’d never put it together, because they’d never gone inside the actual Crane Ships to look around. They’d only gone inside the Flight Simulators, and trained on the wrong ships… well, he had anyway. Kallae had trained on the right ship. Cirres stared at the missing co-pilot and navigator’s chair, or maybe it was the op’s station, he had no idea, the ship he’d trained on only had one seat, anyway, he knew where the seats were, he’d passed them stacked against the door on his way into the ship, along with boxes containing all the upgrade parts that had never been installed. How could they have made such a terrible mistake? This was a disaster. It had only taken a moment for Cirres to understand what had gone wrong. Kallae had trained in Simulator #1, and he had trained in Simulator #2, but he’d never even looked inside Kallae’s simulator. If he had, he’d known the mistake they were making. They weren’t Simulator #1 and #2, they were Simulator Model 1, and Simulator Model 2. The Crane ships were in the process of being upgraded to a Model 2, and the Model 2 Simulator must have been installed so the pilots could start training in preparation for the soon to be upgraded model. But, at some point the project was postponed, and they’d never come back to finish the upgrades. This ship would never fly, too much had been taken apart. The escape hatch was open in the ceiling, and the fastest way out. He jumped up in the zero-g environment and out of the ship, then pushed off and sailed towards the next ship. A quick look from the outside through the flight deck windows showed the next three ships also in a state of being pulled apart. He found the fourth ship intact. By the time he’d crawled down and got to the flight deck, he only had 17 minutes left. Chief Gillian’s voice came over the radio inside his helmet, wanting to know why he hadn’t launched yet, but if he told the Senior Chief about the horrible mistake, he’d call off the mission. “It takes a minute to warm up the engines, I’m getting ready to launch now,” replied Cirres. “You’re running out of time,” warned Chief Gillian. “I’m calling this at three minutes before impact.” “I know, I know, I’m hurrying.” It occurred to Cirres that if the Senior Chief didn’t know about the abandoned upgrade project, the project must have been abandoned at least a hundred years ago. He jumped into the pilot’s seat and… where the heck was the engine start button? On his simulator, everything had been within reach of the pilot. He jumped out of the pilot’s seat and found it on the co-pilot’s side, but when he pushed it, nothing happened; there must be a start-up sequence. The Op’s Station… ohhhh… not the Op’s station, it was an Engineers Station, but there were so many buttons. So, he pushed them all. A horrible grinding sound came from somewhere on the ship, something was not happy about being started out of sequence. The ship would just have to deal with it. He jumped back into the pilot’s seat, then remembered the start button was on the co-pilot’s side. A beeping in his helmet signaled an incoming encrypted transmission; it was Kallae. “Cirres, you left without me.” “You shouldn’t have been late for your shift,” replied Cirres as he moved over to the co-pilot seat. “I already got a lecture from Chief Gillian, I don’t need one from you.” “I’m in a lot of trouble here, we made a mistake.” “What’s happening?” “Simulator #2 is the ship model, not the number of simulators, but they didn’t finish upgrading the ships, so, I’m trying to launch the version you trained on.” “What’s the difference?” asked Kallae. “My version only has one seat on the flight deck, it’s an automated version, but yours is manual with three seats and a billion buttons.” “Now I know why you won all our war games, you were cheating. All you had to do was sit there while I had to jump all over the place to fly that monster.” “Are you going to help or not?” “Turn your holo-transmitters on.” “Oh gross, I hate doing that.” “You didn’t mind when dad did it.” Cirres tapped the control on his armor to activate the holo-transmitters. “That’s because dad offset his projection behind me and it was like he had his arms wrapped around me when he was teaching me to fix something. And anyway, you’re not dad and…” The ghostly projection of Kallae superimposed itself over Cirres body. “Oh gross, this is just wrong.” “Stop being a baby. Okay, I’m synched up. I see you’re in the pilot’s seat, you need to go back to the Engineers station.” “I already turned everything on.” “I know, I can see the pilot’s controls in front of you, but you’ve got the engine stabilizers on. You have to turn them off. Those are only for when you need the ship to stay in one spot to use the crane. We’re not going to use the crane, we’re going to use the snake cables.” Cirres pushed himself up and backwards, doing a double flip in the air and landing neatly in front of the Engineers station. Kallae didn’t have as much time space walking in zero-g and the sudden movement made him dizzy. The holo of Kallae fell out of synch and landed on the ground before snapping back into place. “That wasn’t funny, Chief is on to us now, hold on… okay, never mind, he says two heads are better than one, but he’s making me stand away from the navigator’s station so I don’t accidently push a button and launch all the nukes.” “Yeah, whatever, what now?” Kallae’s arm separated from Cirres arm and pointed. “Flip those four switches off.” Cirres reached out, rejoining his arm with the ghost arm, and flipped the four switches. “Do we have to be synched, can’t you offset like dad used to do?” “Dad had a lot of practice, I don’t. I need to have my eyes lined up with yours so I can properly see what you’re seeing. Now get back in the pilot’s seat, you fly from there.” Cirres started for the pilot’s seat. “No, the pilot is on the right, the seat on the left is the Commander’s seat.” Cirres rolled his eyes. “You could’ve just said the co-pilot’s seat.” “Chief is opening the cargo bay door for you, strap in and fire the thrusters, but stay locked to the rail, you don’t want to leave the ship yet.” “I know, it’s the same on the version I trained on. We’re too close to the Sun Shield up here in the bow and would run into it with our borrowed velocity from the Morning Star. We need enough thrust built up so when we unlock, we’ll clear the edge of the Sun Shield.” Kallae’s ghost arm reached out and with his right hand pushed the launch button, then moved to the breaking lever and gripped it. Cirres followed Kallae’s movements; that was the purpose of being holo-linked, the ghost person was showing you what to do. Next, Kallae’s left hand went to the maneuvering thrusters and set them to spin the ship to the correct launch angle. Cirres repeated his movements, then checked the thrust build-up; the vibrations through the ship from the powerful engines felt like they were going to rip the ship apart. “Umm… we’ve passed 7 million pounds of thrust build-up,” warned Cirres. “We’re going to 9 million pounds of build-up, I’ve done it with dad before,” replied Kallae. “Dad never flew a Crane ship.” “We took a Heavy Maintenance Pod to fix one of the armor plates on the bow that came lose. He said if you want to make sure you don’t hit the Sun Shield, you need 20% more thrust than what the procedure calls for.” “I don’t remember going to fix a bow plate with dad.” “You were in the EVA Course and I was learning to fly.” “Dad meant that for a Heavy Maintenance Pod, not a Crane ship. Do you know how powerful these engines are?” “Yes, eight of them can tow the Morning Star.” “How do you know?” “Chief is playing the videos so I can see the Crane Ships in action. He says the 20% over-thrust is correct when launching forward of Cargo Bay 4 in order to reach the safe recommended distance from the Sun Shield.” Cirres reached out and pushed the launch button. “I don’t want to go out to the safe recommended distance away from the Sun Shield, I want to…” The engines ignited and filled the cargo bay with flames as Cirres was slammed back into the pilot’s chair with such force that blackness clouded around the edges of his vision. The simulator couldn’t reproduce the incredible thrust the crane ship’s powerful engines were capable. Kallae was shouting something at him, but Cirres couldn’t hear it over the engines. His eyes flicked down at a movement that caught his eye, Kallae’s left ghost leg was slamming down on the rudder. Cirres glanced up. The edge of the Sun Shield was looming ahead of him. Kallae wanted him to adjust the yaw to put some distance between the crane ship and the Sun Shield. Cirres narrowed his eyes and stared at the massive burning fusion shield that protected the Morning Star. It would be a close pass, but he was certain there was enough clearance. Kallae was the best at flying, but Cirres had a knack for spatial relationships; he had to, he often had to make an untethered EVA jump on the outside of the hull. Even one mistake during an untethered jump and he would tumble off into space. He approached the Sun Shield at an unbelievable velocity, the Morning Star just a blur next to him. If he hit the Sun Shield, or even just clipped it, he would never know, the ship would disintegrate. Time slowed as if someone had hit a pause button on the Universe. He twisted his head to watch the left wing of the ship as it passed the edge of the Sun Shield by only a few inches; the tip of the wing turned black from the heat as a flame burst into existence. And then time returned to normal and the ship left the trail of flame behind to burn out in the vacuum of space. He held his arms out and shook them a few times, the superimposed holo-image of Kallae was gone. The holo-signal was probably blocked by the Sun Shield. He switched to the standard radio in his helmet, but still couldn’t get through to the Morning Star; probably out of range for that too. He tried the ship’s radio and… oops… the ship’s radio would never work again – he’d forgotten to lower the antennas before passing so close to the Sun Shield. There was nothing he could do about the radio now. He checked the rear cameras, the Morning Star was falling away behind him, but not fast enough. It might look like a long way back to the Morning Star, but if he were to come to a complete stop right now, the big ship would run him over in less than a fraction of a second. He’d have to do another thrust burn, only this time with all eight of the engines. The acceleration would be brutal. He checked his watch; 9 minutes left, and 4 minutes of that would be used getting to the alien ship, which meant he’d only have 2 minutes to get the alien ship out of the way. And, it would all have to be automated. He leaned forward and started by programming the Crane ship to pass the alien ship with a margin of a scant 20 feet. The calculations had to be perfect. He didn’t use a calculator, or a computer, the Darians had never invented a calculator, or even conceived of the idea of inventing one. All calculations were done in one’s head. The very thought of a calculator would have been an insult to a Darian. Once he had the burn programmed, which would begin in 30 seconds, he jumped out of the pilot’s seat and back to the Engineers station where he quickly programmed the six spools of cable in the cargo-hold to fire at the correct time. The cables were each made of 10 million fibers that would unwind once fired from the Crane ship and form a net, as you would do to catch a stray cargo pod that had floated away in orbit. The ship shuddered as the engines fired for the thrust maneuver. The safe room was across from the Engineer’s station. He hurried into it as the thrust began to build. The artificial zero-g bubble that would protect him was already active, and a good thing too, the thrust acceleration was building fast. He settled into the acceleration couch and waited. The thrust gauge rose until even within the zero-g bubble he began to feel it. At 17 g’s it felt like someone was standing on his chest, and then 20 g’s that person standing on his chest was also holding enough bricks to build a house. There was a jerking motion as if the ship had run over a speed bump, followed rapidly by another, and then the weight lessened slightly on his chest. His eyes burned as he glanced at the thrust gauge; the ship had lost 3 g’s of thrust – the net had the alien ship and was momentarily being slowed by the added mass. He smelled burning and another jerk, followed by another, and another. The ship was letting the cables slip, break, and slip out again, like a fisherman trying to reel in a fish too big. A moment of nauseating force from all sides brought whatever was still in his stomach from dinner up in a gut wrenching flow. Thankfully, the ship turned a suction fan on and pulled the contents into a tube made for such things. But still, he never got space sick, what had just happened? And then as suddenly as it began, it was over. The weight lifted from his chest and he gasped for air. A quick check of the recorded acceleration thrust showed he had endured 11 g’s for 75 seconds, but that was impossible, nobody could take that many g’s. The mystery wouldn’t be solved for another sixty years when research discovered the Darians physiology had changed and adapted after 400 years living in space. Being in space hadn’t weakened them as it was feared, but instead had made them stronger. The Darians would make it into the galactic medical books as the most adaptable species to extreme and varied environments. A crunching sound of metal alarmed him. He slipped out of the safe room, and was startled to find the small ring ship against the side of the Crane ship – it should be in a tow position several hundred miles behind the Crane. Cirres depressurized the flight deck, then jumped up to the escape hatch and opened it. He crawled out onto the hull to survey the damage. “Oh, this is bad.” The cables had never been intended to grab an object at such velocity. Somehow, they had become tangled and wrapped the two ships together. The alien ship’s fuselage was bent nearly in half and missing a portion of the stern, the contents of which were now spilling out into space. The ring itself was terribly warped, and two of the coupling spokes were completely sheered away from the fuselage. The only thing holding the alien ship together were the cables wrapped around it. He walked to the edge of the Crane ship and looked down. The alien ring ship was smashed up against the main hatch of the Crane ship. He went back inside to check the location of the Morning Star. It had already passed and was moving quickly to the point he would be out of range of ever getting back. His choices were to cut the aliens lose, or keep the ship tied to him and take a chance it would hold together during another powerful thrust maneuver back to the Morning Star. But, he knew it wouldn’t hold together, it was already coming apart. He closed his eyes, thinking. He couldn’t cut the aliens lose, they’d die, and he couldn’t take their ship with him, they’d still die when their ship fell apart. His eyes snapped open as the solution came to him. If he couldn’t take their ship with him, he could take them with him. He pushed the button to pressurize the entire ship, then hurried down to the cargo hold. He stopped at a tool locker and retrieved a plasma torch, then went to the main hatch and slapped the control panel to open the big door. The hatch slid up with a scraping sound, exposing the alien hull pressed against the other side. It was surprising how easily the plasma torch cut through the hull of the alien ship. In a matter of minutes, Cirres had cut a large opening and pushed the cut piece into the alien ship. He stopped for a moment before entering the ship. They could be hostile, which would make it prudent to keep his armor on, but then again, it might frighten them. He tapped his breast plate to retract his armor, it might be better not to go in looking like an armed intruder. He fluffed his wings as he stepped into the alien ship, it felt so good to have them free from their armor casing. His first thought once he was inside was that it was the ugliest ship he’d ever seen. The walls were horribly sterile white with no decorations of any kind. The lights came on automatically, and made it worse by washing everything in light so bright it hurt his eyes. He moved along the ring, inspecting the slow-sleep pods as he passed. It only took a moment to understand how they worked, the technology was so simplistic he had to wonder how they had even achieved space flight. And everything was right-angles, and squares, and rectangles. Did this species have something against curves and arches… and imagination, and building something aesthetically pleasing to live in? There was a moment he almost considered leaving them here. They were so primitive that being on the Morning Star might terrify them to violence. And Goddess knows what horribly barbaric customs they might have. “That’s not who you are, son.” Cirres spun around at the sound of his father’s voice, but nobody was there… the voice had been so real. His chest was heaving and he felt himself gasping for air. Something was wrong. He tapped his breast plate to re-deploy his armor. A sweet blast of fresh air entered his lungs. He checked the oxygen levels in the ring; the air was thin. Okay, lesson learned, check oxygen levels before taking my helmet off in an alien ship. He continued his survey of the ship and found no Bridge, or Control Rooms. There were simplistic control panels in several of the alcoves, but nothing that actually controlled the ship. He was nearly back to the hull breech he’d made when he found a power relay box. He opened it and studied the layout, it too was very simple, a first year maintenance intern could have built a better relay box – this ship was just a poorly made automated transport ship. It wasn’t a wonder they had wandered carelessly into the path of the Morning Star, nobody was monitoring the ship; they were blindly crossing the galaxy without a thought to what was around them. There was a line of twelve red switches on one side of the relay box. Cirres shrugged. It made sense. The slow-sleep pods were grouped in sections of twenty-five each. This way if there was a power overload, the switches would flip one at a time until the overload was corrected. It would ensure that not too many passengers were woken at one time and exceed their oxygen generator’s ability to provide life-support. But, Cirres needed them to all wake up at the same time. He ran his hand down the line of switches to shut them all off. He hurried back to the hull breech into his ship. It should be safe, there was enough oxygen flowing out from his ship that he wouldn’t get light-headed again. He tapped his breast plate and retracted his armor; he still didn’t want them to be frightened, then jumped up to hover high enough they’d all be able to see him. He spread his wings in a friendly welcoming gesture and waited.