It was magnificent. It was all one color of black, but the blackness warped every ray of light that touched it. It didn’t absorb the light and hoard it from the world as a black hole would. Instead, it shot the rays of light out in every single direction, tweaking them in the small beautiful way that only the paint on this ship could.
“Is it fast?” I asked. The thing had captured my fascination, and I couldn’t stop staring at it out of the station’s small porthole.
Ethan scoffed under his breath and didn’t waste oxygen on the reply.
Three minutes later, we were seated in the machine. The seats had six different buckles to keep us in place, and Ethan had given me a special environment suit for the trip. My typical suit wasn’t going to cut it. This new one had three lines connected to it. One for oxygen, one for the juice to keep me awake in high G maneuvers, and another for… well, I’ll spare you the details, but Ethan assured me I should use it if I didn’t want a wet spot on pants when we were done.
A small part of the black wall lit up, and it acted as a window to show us the outside world. The station looked huge, but I knew it would shrink in time. In a half-hour, less time than I expected, the station and the tiny moon it orbited disappeared into the vast blackness of space. We were on a slow cruise towards the belt.
“How fast are we going?” I asked. It didn’t feel that fast. The Gs were more than local gravity but not enough to require the juice.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ethan replied. “We’re in empty space. There’s no point in opening her up out here. There’s nothing close for reference, so your sorry ass wouldn’t be able to appreciate the speed.”
My sorry ass wasn’t going to appreciate it anyway. But I appreciated Ethan more than he ever knew. He trusted me and funded all my research when no one else would. Despite the nasty things the media said about him being a spoiled heir to a conglomerate, he was an honest to gods patron to me.
“What have you been up to lately?” He asked as we cruised towards our destination.
“Little bit of this little bit of that,” I answered. I wasn’t sure how much business Ethan wanted to get into, especially while we were on a trip that was supposed to be fun, at least for him.
“Come on,” he said, opening his arms to encourage me to go into details, “you’ve got to give me more than that.”
“Well, I’ve been messing around with the landing motors for some prototype ships. These are smaller, stronger, and lighter, which will make them more agile. It would also speed up the landing process and save the station hours of logistic work.”
“That’s badass,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. I noticed the small streak that was the belt on the monitor in front of us.
“Is it profitable?” He asked.
That was always the question. But I learned long ago that the answer didn’t matter to him. “No, it won’t make us a single credit,” I replied.
“Well, bet on the jockey.” It was an old saying. He explained what a jockey was at one point, but I never understood. “Why not?” he asked.
“Too expensive right now,” I explained flatly. “The engines we are currently installing work well enough. The new engines are nearly as expensive as some ships. Plus the training and updates we would have to run would cost most stations more than they can afford. Not to mention the smaller motor would-” He cut me off.
“Keep working. You’ll find something sooner or later.” A devilish grin showed up on his face as he looked out the small screen that showed where we were headed.
I hadn’t noticed it, but that streak of tiny brown rocks had grown to become mountain-sized asteroids that took up our whole field of vision. Ethan hit some buttons on the terminal in front of him and the monitor on the wall updated. I quickly found out that all of the walls could become a screen as he projected the asteroids that surrounded us.
My lunch tried to crawl up my throat, but it fought it back. The cradle of a spaceship dissolved around me, and it appeared to me I was floating in space. I had never experienced anything like it. Usually, I’d be connected to a tether. All I had now was a chair that appeared to be floating. My ancient lizard brain couldn’t reconcile the situation.
“You ready?” He asked, but didn’t give me time to respond.
My body became heavy, and the feeling weighed down on my mind. The blood in my veins couldn’t pump right. My head throbbed but also felt light.
Then the juice kicked in. I was alert again. I still couldn’t move, but I could start to think straight. Unfortunately, the best I could come up with was, Elder’s light, I’m going to die!
The ship was weaving in and out of asteroids like a pinball in an old arcade. But this pinball didn’t touch anything. If it did, we would be obliterated.
“Are you doing this?” I asked. The weight of our movement slowed the words. Then we pulled a fast turn. The Gs disappeared and my body became light.
“Not yet,” he replied in a quick and confident tone.
For ten minutes, we switched between one force or another. Sometimes we were as light as a feather, but those quickly turned into the sensation of an elephant stepping on us. The autopilot safely guided us on a roller coaster through the asteroid field.
Ethan smiled and laughed the whole time. I was freaked out but had to admit the sensation was still incredible.
Then Ethan said the words I dreaded to hear but had known were coming from the moment I agreed to get in this beast. “Okay, I’m taking over now.”
That’s when I was grateful to have the third tube.
He did a good job. Not nearly as good as the autopilot, but he assured me there were safeties in place so that he couldn’t do too much damage. He was having a blast. There was a massive smile on his face, the one he had when we were kids. I could tell he was focused because he’d positioned his eyebrows into their signature wrinkle.
On the other hand, I was terrified by the numerous close calls with those floating mountains. The only thing coming out of my mouth while Ethan drove were a few blurred curses.
“Want me to take the safeties off?” He asked. The words dragged out by the crushing Gs.
I felt the cold juice pump into my veins. I used the chemicals to say the first intelligible words that I had spoken since Ethan took over. “Hell No!”
“That was ten years ago today,” I said to the crowd of thirty scientists and explorers in front of me. “As you all know, Ethan Lister died in an accident on the same ship two years later. It happened to be the same month I perfected the design of the engine we are using on the ship outside.” I gestured to the window at the massive ship that waited for us to board it. It wasn’t as sleek as Ethan’s beloved speeder, but it was far faster.
I was glad everyone turned their attention to the window because it gave me a chance to massage my throat. I had practiced the speech a dozen times, but I still felt the back of my throat tighten. I couldn’t cry here in front of them. It wasn’t the beginning Ethan would want for this adventure. “To be blatantly honest, Ethan would have been pissed that he didn’t get to ride the fastest ship ever built. But he would be proud that his funding was finally able to design something useful. It’s not profitable, as the media has mentioned many times. It has used all of Ethan’s assets to build.
“It’s always hard to put a price tag on something like this that pushes the edge of what humanity is capable of doing. Ethan understood that and supported us doing projects that mattered but didn’t always make sense. Thanks to this philosophy, we will be the first people to go fast enough to get to Alpha Centauri in a single lifetime. And it wouldn’t have been possible without Ethan Lister.”
The crowd applauded. They were as excited as me to start this new adventure.
It only took us ten minutes after boarding the ship to lose sight of the space station. The sun itself faded into the vastness of space a few days later. We’re in deep space now, and there is still a long journey ahead of us.
Photo Credit: Leonard J Matthews, Zason Smith Photography, quinn.anya, NASA Goddard Photo and Video, Stig Nygaard, European Southern Observatory
In memory of Elliot, thank you for always encouraging me!
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