Present day

Superluminal range: nominal up to 150 light-years longitudinal, 35 light-years transverse. Measured in laboratory conditions; actual specifications may vary. Be sure to follow the recommendations as displayed by your ship.

DANGER: Failure to obey recommendations may result in ship destruction, property damage, and/or death.

– Xon Wasp instructional guide, pg. 315, section “Jump Drive”

Ten years after the emissary and her crew had disappeared, the last remaining assets of Xon Aerospace had finally been auctioned off. For a short time after the disappearance, they had struggled to remain in operation; but it soon became clear to Xon’s leadership that their ships were no longer being chosen by the elite classes that had, until then, been keeping them afloat. And despite the desperate attempts at moving downmarket, to reducing the manufacturing costs of their ships, to closing down all of their shipyards; Xon found itself insolvent just four years after the accident.

The accident. An emissary for the Interstellar Union, Karina Nilsson, had departed for a routine trip towards the rim system Gliese 382c, with sixteen crew and staff aboard the Liberator. While the Gliese 382 star system was well beyond the transverse jump range of most ships, the Xon Wasp was able to do it without an issue. Its jump drive was tuned more precisely than the competition; its magnetic resonance capacitors more aligned. When jumping transverse (towards or away from the center of the Milky Way), it was able to jump 35 light-years; competing ships struggled to reach 20 light-years. For the trip to Gliese 382c, it was the clear champion. Or at least, it should have been.

Welcome to Sanctuary Port! The best engineers on this side of Sol. We hope you enjoy your stay at the edge of the world.

Please note: any ships that are not vacated from the pad are subject to overstay fees and may be removed by spaceport management. Refer to section 10.100 of the Interstellar Astronautical Association’s Standards and Guidelines for Spaceport Operations for more information.

Additional landing fees are due from any ship flying under the Arcturus Interstellar Corporation flag.

– Sanctuary Port’s greeting message as it appeared on 3255-3-16, Earth standard time.

The Liberator had never shown up on the sensors at Sanctuary Port. As one of the most advanced cities on the rim of the human-inhabited “bubble”, Sanctuary Port had one of the most precise sensor networks in the galaxy. The array of sensors spread out all through the system were able to detect the signature ripple of an incoming ship several hours ahead of the transition to normal space.

They had been informed of the emissary’s arrival two hours before the jump with a superluminal message from the Interstellar Union, picked up by the sensor network surrounding the planet. Soon after, Sanctuary Port defense fighters were launched in preparation for the emissary’s arrival. The message had called for a direct atmospheric entry and landing after dropping out from the Jump, and the defense fighters were waiting for the signal from Sanctuary Port that the ship had been detected.

Four hours after the scheduled arrival, the defense fighters were recalled and Sanctuary Port sent word back to the Union that the emissary’s ship hadn’t landed or even been detected by the sensor network. There had been incidents like this before, but in every case, the jump drive failure and the ensuing cloud of radioactive debris lit up the sensors for days. This was the first time in history that a jumpship had gone missing without even a ripple on the sensor networks.

The “Hyperspatial Interstellar Translation Engine”, or the “jump drive” as it has come to be known, was discovered in 3083 by a team of researchers working for Arcturus Interstellar Corporation. Its basic method of operation is to translate the ship in the W-coordinate, shortening the relative distance in XYZ space and allowing the primary engines on the ship to perform the trip faster and with far less fuel than an equivalent subluminal ship.

While the mathematics behind the jump drive are well-known, all attempts to accurately validate the mathematics involved have been inconclusive. This is due to the unpredictable instability incurred by the engine during the inter-dimensional translation. Many key factors of the instability have been identified, such as the presence of high-mass and high-velocity objects; however, many of the lesser factors remain undiscovered to this day.

Since the jump drive operates on a limited supply of energy, excess instability can overwhelm the jump drive’s energy pool and power-limit the ship or, in the most extreme cases of instability, cause it to forcefully terminate the jump mid-way. A mis-jump typically results in the jump drive coils fused and unable to operate, leaving the ship at very high subluminal velocities. The resulting radiation poisoning typically proves lethal to the crew before a rescue attempt can be made.

Early experiments at charting the instability encountered during a jump resulted in several well-publicized failures of the jump drive. Soon afterwards, the Interstellar Astronautical Association drafted and approved a recommendation to ship designers to enforce speed ceilings in relative space while the jump drive is engaged. This regulation remains in effect today, and has limited or wholly prevented thousands of deadly accidents.

– An Abridged History of the Translation Engine, by Dr. Horatio Einhorn. Published 3194.

“Martinez! You got that corner secured?” comes Matta’s voice over the radio. I hear the faint echo of his voice through the blocky cargo pallet we’re manhandling into place. This was the last pallet we were loading onto the Liberator, and good riddance, too. The Liberator was atmo-capable, which meant the cargo pallets all had to be manually guided into the enclosed cargo deck instead of being bolted straight to the exoskeleton of a proper spaceship. Our suits weren’t designed to be used inside a ship, when the hull blocked the waste heat radiated from our suits and reflected it back at us. This meant it was hot as fuck inside.

“Affirm!” I shout back, pulling the clamp into place and feeling for the inset steel locking pin through the palm of my glove. The locking pin extends from the clamp’s backside and holds the clamp shut during flight. Like most atmo ships, Xon couldn’t afford the mass penalty of lights, so we had to use our headlamps to secure the pallets. This made it even harder to work in the close confines of the cargo deck. I’d already bumped my head a half-dozen times. On the cargo decks of vacuum ships, we’d only need to lock two or three clamps; but on atmo-capable ships, which would often fly sideways during entry, we were required to lock all eight clamps on the pallet.

“Martinez? Your side all locked?” shouts Hager. Hager, our chief loadmaster, is watching us from the cargo door. Unofficially, he’s there to rescue us if anything goes wrong. Officially, he’s there so nothing does.

“Clamped and locked,” I call, pulling myself upright and wishing I could mop my brow through my helmet. “This the last one, ey?”

“Job’s done!” he shouts back. “Let’s debark and give the signal.”

The air in my spacesuit had the sharp metallic tang of stainless steel exposed to hard vacuum, and I was happy to get out of it. Matta and I make our way through the maze of pallets to the cargo door; a beacon of light compared to the gritty darkness of the cargo bay. We gratefully switched our headlamps off as we stepped through the airlock onto the elevated cargo platform within the climate-controlled cargo elevator. Far above us, visible through the skylight in the carriage, laid the tangled mess of air ducts and power cables that kept the station running.

“Matta – Martinez!” Hager claps us on the back as we pull our helmets off and clip ourselves to the cargo elevator railing. “Fastest I’ve ever seen those atmo ships loaded up. Like to say faster than most crews could do a vacship!” Martinez punches the “Down” button on the cargo elevator, and it begins to pull back from the ship, accompanied by the pop–pop–pop sound of the magnetic stabilizer clamps releasing the ship.

As the cargo elevator returns to the station, I glance up at the crew access arm that’s even now sliding out from the station to meet the ship’s airlock. Crew’s in a hurry to get off the station, seems like.

The Liberator was docked at the Angel’s Rest orbital station in the (???) system. While this system was not among the lawless wilderness of the independent systems beyond the Bubble, there was a feeling here of tension, of unpredictability, that the core systems didn’t have. The Interstellar Union provided the supplies, expertise, and military to keep these systems at the edge of the human-inhabited Bubble running smoothly and with minimum fuss. It was an arrangement that benefited both the Union, which could more easily control access to the core systems; and the rim systems, which no longer needed to maintain their own defense fleets.

The public areas of the Angel’s Rest station weren’t bad, but they weren’t that impressive, either. The hallways were cramped and the air had the metallic taste of cheap CO2 scrubbers. The docking bay only had enough ports for six ships the size of the Liberator, and only one for the large cargo freighters that kept the station running. I didn’t want to stay for a minute longer than I had to, but I needed to keep up my reputation until the very end. The Interstellar Union was watching and waiting, and so was Sanctuary Port.

My pilot and I were sitting at one of the simulated outdoor areas, waiting for the cargo handlers to finish loading the Liberator. There were plants here, engineered to survive the low gravity and synthetic light. The greenery around the table wasn’t as impressive as some planetside ports I’d been to as an emissary for the Interstellar Union, but it was perfectly serviceable for a quick chat with my pilot.

“Do you know who’s got the data?” he asks me.

My pilot’s sitting across the table from me, arms crossed. We’re sipping the flavored protein creams that are synonymous with living in low-G environments. It’s a nasty concoction with the consistency of glue, but when combined with regular exercise, it’s the simplest and cheapest way to keep muscle and bone mass up in low-G.

“No, not at the moment,” I reply, glancing up momentarily at the glint of the security camera in the corner, nestled between the conduits and piping. “I have my suspicions, but now’s not the time or place.”

My motives were my own and my evidence was fabricated, of course. But he still believed in it, and he only had to do so for a few more days. He dips his head in a quick nod. “Thought so, but it’s good to know all, avoid being caught flat-footed. The Interstellar Union doesn’t like those smugglers. It’d be insane to try and sneak schematics out under their noses — especially given that they’re working for you, the Emissary.”

I agree silently. It would be insane, if it were true. The rim planets had a long and storied reputation of smuggling schematics, ship designs, and even manufacturing plans out of the Interstellar Union. The Interstellar Union had an equally long history of severely punishing both the thief and those who helped them, knowingly or not. It was easy for me to take advantage of this precedent for my own ends.

My pilot glances at his eyeset for a moment, his eyes unfocused while he checks up on the status of the Liberator. “So we’re leaving immediately after cargo load, then?”

“Yes,” I say. “The sooner we get off-station, the better. I’ve sent an encrypted message to the Interstellar Union, and they’re already going to be sending investigators here. The investigators will start questioning the crew immediately after they touch station. We don’t want to give the thief any opportunity to sabotage the Liberator.“

My eyeset taps me, and I glance at the notification panel in the corner of my eye. “Looks like it’s loaded up and we’re good to go,” I tell my pilot. He nods and pulls his empty cup off the table and swings it towards one of the recleaning bins, the faceted exterior catching the light as it tumbled. It slowly traces a graceful arc over the railing and glides straight into the slot.

He’s a good pilot, one of the best I’ve met. I’ve heard he piloted a cargo ship for Arcturus Interstellar, back during the expansion. That puts him squarely on the opposite side of the line from me. I really do wish I had a chance to save him from the cold death of the airlock, but I can’t take the chance of him stopping me. I can fly the ship myself, and I will do whatever it takes to see my plan succeed.

When we get to the hangar, the Liberator is already prepared for launch. All of the supplies I’d ordered have been brought into the cargo hold and locked down. Inside, there were enough supplies to keep me alive for several months. The propellant tanks within the Liberator were loaded up to the brim with enough propellant for 150 light-years of travel, more than enough for me to get there and back.

We step through the station’s airlock doors to the pressurized crew access arm, my pilot leading the way. The arm’s structure is a long, spindly affair, with cross-bracing and a complex wire suspension rig to reduce mass. Surrounding us is a translucent tube, with steel rings every few feet along the outside to contain the pressure. The wire mesh grating on the floor clatters as we walk across it towards the passenger airlock of the Liberator. I run my hand over the metallic railing, worn by tens of thousands of spacebound travelers. Glancing down towards the hangar deck dozens of meters below, I see a window on a maintenance corridor, leading from the hangar to the main longitudal corridors. There’s a person there, backlit by the harsh blue maintenance lights, holding a spacesuit helmet under their arm. They’re watching the spotlights run over the smooth hull of the Liberator. It’s the last time I’ll be surrounded by this kind of civilization for the next few months. I want to commit it to memory before I leave, in case I never see it again.

My pilot taps his gloved hand against the side of the ship, urging me on. I reluctantly step forward, crossing the remaining few meters to the Liberator’s. I step over the threshold into the airlock to join my pilot, standing at the airlock control panel. “Clear,” I tell him, and he punches the button to close the door and cycle the airlock. Even though the crew access arm is pressurized, we still isolate the interior atmosphere to reduce the risk of biological contamination. That means a full airlock cycle every time we enter or exit.

The thick door of the airlock slowly slides down into place, a series of metallic clicks echoing in the airlock as the locking hooks secure the door. The crew access arm slowly slides back, accompanied by the hum of a winch and the creak of a metal-on-metal joint, long overdue for lubrication. “Continue,” I say to my pilot as part of the airlock sequence, and he pulls the lever to begin the air cycle. Air tanks onboard the Liberator open their valves, and the vents scattered around the ceiling begin to flood the airlock with fresh air, forcing the station-side atmosphere out of the floor vents.

The green lights surrounding the interior door flicker for a fraction of a second, then stay illuminated. “Air equalized,” states my pilot. “Continue,” I reply.

He pulls the lever on the interior door, and it swings open, the moving air prickling against my face and hair. I step forward onto the white polymer floor of the airlock “lobby”, as it’s called. He steps ahead of me and pulls himself up the ladder leading to the passenger decks. The gravity here is so low that he can pull himself up hand-over-hand without using his legs. After he steps out of view, I look back to confirm that the airlock is closed and locked, then follow him up towards the bridge.

Stepping into the bridge is always a bit of a rush. I’m surrounded by a panoramic view of the outside, the lightfield display wrapping around the walls and ceiling to cover the entire hemisphere. There are two flight seats in the bridge; one each to my left and right. A complex set of sensors and electromechanical pistons in the base of each seat keeps the occupant upright, even during atmospheric entry.

I pull myself up with the handrail around the hatch in the floor and make my way to the right-hand seat. My pilot’s already in the left-hand seat, flicking his thumb along switches on his armrest to power on the ship’s systems. All around me, the display blinks to life. The inside of the hangar suddenly flashes into view, the powerful spotlights shining at our ship temporarily blinding me. There aren’t any windows, of course; they went out of style centuries ago. They are far too heavy to include on most spacecraft, and that’s not even considering their integrity compared to solid titanium or even steel. Plus, when fusing data from the myriad cameras and sensors onboard the ship, the pilot could switch the spectrum with a touch of a finger. I’d like to see your slab of alon do that.

My pilot pulls his seatbelt tight around him and latches it in place. I do the same. “Ready?” he asks, and I hear his voice in my headset.

“Affirmative,” I say, then flick a switch to enable the voice recorder so my motives are on record. “This is Karina Nilsson, Emissary to the Interstellar Union. We are departing Angel’s Rest twelve hours ahead of schedule to avoid the threat of sabotage. We will jump to an undisclosed location and return to the station within 96 hours. At that time, the Interstellar Union team will have cleared the station of the threat, allowing us to return safely.

I turn to my pilot and nod, and he begins the launch checklists. We’re in the station hangar, our nose pointing “up” towards the axis of rotation. We need to maneuver ourselves up into the arrival/departure space, then travel out the end of the station before we can engage the jump drive. The reactor needed to be switched to maximum-power mode first, or there wouldn’t be enough power to run the drive. Max-power mode was unique to interstellar spacecraft. In max-power mode, the reactor switched from closed-cycle to open-cycle cooling, dumping hydrogen overboard to keep the reactor from melting, maximizing power output while keeping the reactor housing below its melting point. Max-power mode couldn’t be used when in close proximity to a station or spacecraft. If we ran the primary engines inside the station, the station would “cease to contain a breathable atmosphere” and “lose its core structural integrity”, and also “produce large amounts of radiation in close proximity to the structure and its occupants, rendering the environment incompatible with human life.”

Normally, the departure would be automated and mediated by the station traffic controllers. But with our unorthodox departure, we’d need human intervention. “This is Liberator, requesting expedited launch trajectory,” my pilot says over the radio, then manually deletes the departure filing he’d submitted yesterday.

“Liberator, depart station via the standard trajectory,” comes the reply from the station traffic controllers. “You are cleared for launch from pad B3.”

“Launching from B3, Liberator,” confirms my pilot. He starts the undocking sequence that releases the Liberator from the station, and I feel the faint thump-clicking as the clamps disengage and pull back into the body of the ship. The ship slowly starts to move up, faint hammering sounds reverberating through the seat and my back as the thrusters fire to keep the ship stable.

Thankfully, the departures are automated. It’s always difficult to perform fine maneuvers on a spaceship in a station, especially when the stations have been expanded beyond reasonable levels and clearances between ships are measured in single-digit meters. That kind of hangar overutilization was surprisingly common in the core systems, where stations were expected to double or triple their cargo throughput without any major structural additions. It made for some stressful launches and landings, that’s for sure.

The Liberator slowly slots itself through the gap between the faint silhouettes of two hulking cargo ships still docked to the hangar. We’re making our way towards the exit at a blisteringly fast three meters per second. The slower you go, the safer it is for both your ship and the station. After all, the only kind of good energy in a collision is energy you didn’t convert into velocity.

Our ship slides through the station’s exit, the anti-collision strobe lights flashing their sharp shadows on the bridge every few seconds. Ahead of us, the dusty brown planet looms large, casting an eerie orange glow in the bridge and drowning out the strobe lights. We’re close enough to make out small canyons and mountains. My pilot takes control of the ship as it clears the exit, and I can feel the thruster patterns shifting as the Liberator transitions from automated to manual flight.

“This is Liberator, reporting clear of the station exit. Proceeding to hold point Bravo and awaiting further instructions.”

“Liberator, you are clear for standard departure Alpha Four via hold Bravo. Enjoy your flight.”

The navcom switches off as my pilot brings our ship beyond the station-controlled space and aligns us with the initial departure trajectory. The dusty red planet swings out of view, replaced with the inky blackness of space. My pilot re-engages autopilot, and the ship’s thrusters hammer in sequence to align us with the departure trajectory. Our predicted trajectory is overlaid on the view outside as a series of square outlines. An arrow at the end of the trajectory points perpendicular to the station, where we could safely engage max-power mode and really get on our way.

Our rear-firing thrusters were now firing continuously, producing almost a full G of acceleration. We were rapidly approaching our departure point. I felt the faint vibration of the coolant pumps spinning up, beginning to cycle molten salt through the fluid loops. The power used by firing even a few of the reaction thrusters would quickly overheat the reactor if the primary radiators weren’t active. There were two radiators, on the left and right sides of the Liberator. The radiators covered almost the whole surface of the ship, coolant loops running through them just under the surface. When activated, their dull black sandpapery sheen gave way to the glowing tint of white-hot metal.

“Ready?” asks my pilot, hand over the throttle. “Affirmative,” I say. He pushes the throttle lever to the limit, engaging max power mode and the jump drive, then flicks on the autopilot. I feel more than hear the hammering staccato of the thrusters, aligning us precisely with the jump vector. Beneath me, the coolant pumps are spinning up, cycling molten salt through the radiator panels; then, the sound of the hydrogen valves opening at the aft end of the ship. With a loud whoosh that reverberates through the ship, the hydrogen is ignited, producing thrust and taking with it waste heat from the reactor. The primary engine is producing about 3Gs of acceleration, pushing us back into our seats.

The hairs on my neck prickle as the jump drive capacitors charge, preparing to warp space around us. The primary engine ramps up to full throttle, the uneven thrust compensated for with quick bursts of the thrusters, shaking us around in our seats. The gigawatts of energy produced by the reactor feed straight into the capacitors. I hear the faint sound of static, growing louder by the second. On the display, bars begin to fill up as the capacitors top off their energy. The bridge is shaking hard enough to blur the display, and I’m holding my arms in place to keep from jerking around too hard.

Then, the bars are full and the capacitors charged. The primary engine throttles down to idle, and the shaking abruptly stops. The bridge falls into silence, and a status indicator blinks green on the screen.

“Jump ready,” intones the ship into our headsets.

“Engage,” I reply, and the primary engine instantly throttles to maximum thrust, slamming me back into my seat. The sharp crackling sound of electrical discharge surrounds us as the jump drive switches on, dumping all its stored power into the ship, sharply pulling us away from normal space. I watch the display as the visuals of the station and the planet below blinks away, replaced with a 3D map of the system and a small velocity indicator, showing us our velocity relative to normal space. Within seconds, we’re traveling at 500 meters per second, then a thousand. The crackling electrical discharge has faded but it’s still there, a constant reminder of the jump drive that’s forcing the ship deeper in the W-coordinate, shrinking normal space around us. I watch the small velocity indicator on the display. It’s already passed 50km/s, ticking up relentlessly as the ship shakes around us.

Our destination system is about six light-years away, a medium-sized hop for the Liberator. Before the invention of the jump drive, this trip would have taken centuries. With it, we can get there in about six hours. Our velocity relative to local space will only be a few kilometers per second, but our peak velocity relative to normal space will be over 2,500 times the speed of light.

8 years ago

! Power critical. Reactor overdrive engaged.

! Jump drive capacitors: 83MWh remaining.
  Remaining time: 15 seconds.
  Best time to zero energy: 1 minute.
  Prepare for jump drive failure.

! Reactor temperature critical.
! Primary engines powering off.

! Gravity magnitude exceeds maximum hyperspace delta threshold.
  Hyperspace delta: 6500x.
  Hyperspace gravity magnitude: 35G
  Local velocity: > 0.5c

! Jump drive shutting down.
  Prepare for emergency hyperspace exit.
  Estimated exit velocity: 1600m/s relative to nearest body.

! Reactor radiators fused. Cooling performance degraded beyond repair.
! Reactor safety critical.
  Emergency shutdown of reactor.

Primary computer: shutting down at [3238-8-30 11:03:22.498]

– Log files recovered from the remains of Hipparchus, a medium-sized interstellar freighter.

The cracked edges of the gaping hole in the alon dome glitter brightly in the pale light of the distant star. The dome finally failed a decade after the mining outpost was abandoned, falling victim to the vicious thermal cycles of the airless moon.

A rutile deposit had been discovered here, twenty years ago, and the settlers of a nearby star system had set up a rudimentary mining outpost. For a decade, they had mined the precious mineral, shipping hundreds of thousands of tons back home aboard massive cargo ships. But then the rutile had been depleted, and the two dozen miners had been taken back to their home planet, leaving the outpost behind, the sole structure in the entire system. It wasn’t economically viable to recover the structure or the equipment inside, so it was left behind. The only part they brought with them was the nuclear reactor; those were worth far too much to just abandon willy-nilly. They left behind the backup solar-thermal plant; it produced only a fraction of the power, and wasn’t worth recovering. The cameras of the outpost watched as the last ship lifted off, the star’s light glinting off the hull, then disappearing as the ship switched to hyperspace.

The outpost’s cameras were still intact, but the power grid had been taken offline after the departure of the last ship, and the cameras weren’t recording. If they were, they would have seen the white dot appear in the sky above, flaring out into the wide blue plume of a hydrogen engine burning hard.

Somehow, the Hipparchus had survived the drop into normal space. In a massive stroke of luck, it was traveling slow enough to drop into normal space with G-forces low enough to be survivable. The hull had been compressed by almost a foot, and the crew compartment bulkhead was warped out of shape. But the structure held, and the Hipparchus was still spaceworthy, if only for a few more minutes.

The captain of the Hipparchus regained consciousness first. Of the entire crew, the captain was the most used to high G-forces, having flown high-performance racing ships as a child. The first thing he felt was the engine burn that pushed him into his seat. He pulled up the engine performance screen and was greeted with pages of flashing alarms. With the reactor offline, the engines were running directly off the jump drive capacitor bank. They only had enough energy stored for a few more minutes of this hard burn. Once the capacitors ran dry, the ship wouldn’t have any thrust remaining and would continue on its current trajectory forever.

The captain flipped to the targeting screen to identify the destination that the ship was targeting with its burn. It had located an abandoned mining outpost nearby, and more importantly, it was in the right direction. The ship’s computer had automatically targeted the outpost landing pad and started the emergency landing burn. There would be enough energy in the capacitors to burn for a landing at the outpost, but the remaining energy wouldn’t last very long running the life support and distress beacon. Once the capacitors ran out, there was no chance of rescue or survival, especially if the rest of the system was abandoned.