Crash Course On Heroism Ch. 03

The idea for this one comes from Moonwing.

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Chapter 3: Windless Wings

“Home Station, this is Explorer Three Five, status report following unexpected absence.”

I had to resist holding my breath. Even in ideal circumstances, it would be several minutes before any response could come. My voice was being converted to signal by my Computer, sent to my ship’s transmitters, shot at the nearest planetary array, and from there sent Home to do the process in reverse. Then whoever was there manning the receiver had to do the same thing. Which gave me time to appreciate some of the oddities of this particular call.

Even besides the call purpose. Check in after an unexpected absence? One that prevented me from communicating for a period of weeks? They may or may not have already marked me as deceased or AWOL. But all things considered, that was small potatoes compared to the rest. And man, I found myself actually missing potatoes after this long without them. But anyway. I was in a skinsuit that wasn’t of Home Station make, even if the pattern was… close. They didn’t need to know it was alive, telepathic, and fed on my cum. I was using a ship’s computer in a decidedly nonstandard configuration. As in, shaped like a four meter long naga, recording my words, then plugged into my ship via biological-seeming extension cords to use the tools. Oh, and ALSO independently alive, and sentient beyond what I had access to at the beginning of this adventure.

Meanwhile, the camera was recording me against a plain backdrop in my little spacecraft instead of my pilot’s seat because it was the largest stretch that didn’t need visible repairs with materials that were just a hair off color and a hair off texture from the original. Mostly because the materials were… I’ll call it analogous instead of matching. Mu One Seven had assured me that the thing was space worthy according to whatever repair units they had working on it, and certainly the electronics suite seemed to be functional, but there was still the thrill of terror in the back of my head. There is no “good enough” in space. Even in a vessel built with as many redundancies as this one, a single flaw in the wrong place would render their last couple of weeks of effort wasted and my “I’m alive” transmission a lie.

There was a crackle from the speakers, the result of a mostly-tuned receiver interpreting the “prepare to receive” signal of an inbound transmission. The screen showing on the chest-analogue area of Computer’s naga-like body snapped on, revealing a brown-haired woman in a fairly plain white uniform. Communications tech. “Explorer Three Five, this is Home Station. Authenticate for proof of life, sum of last three numbers of your identification.”

I had to think for a moment before I could remember which thing he was asking for. “Authenticate via identification number, roger. Sum is zero nine.” REALLY had to be careful to put the leading zero and the acknowledgment. Without them, they would assume I was alive but under duress. That would lead to unpleasantness when they came looking for me.

More time passed, but not as much as I thought was going to. Either they were eager to hear from me, or the upgrades they said they were going to do actually worked. “Confirmed check in and proof of life. Welcome back, James. Report?”

On this, I had to think much harder. There were some details that I had best leave out. “Incident on exploratory route after package delivery. Attempted rescue of a suspected wreck led to deep space collision with a meteor field while decelerating from transition to real space. Rescued by previously unknown people calling themselves The Hive. Injuries I sustained required extensive hospitalization, and damage to my spacecraft required extensive repair. Diplomatic complications: they are demanding non-monetary payment for healing and repair, presently estimated as eight to twelve weeks work for them as a rescue pilot. Time in service to begin upon confirmation from home.”

This time, the response was not likely to be a quick one. Diplomacy and detached duties were not exactly rapid actions. No telling what Home Station would demand in order to get this done. I gestured at the naga holding the camera, AKA Computer (and I really needed a better name for her, now), and she paused transmitting for the time being. “Do you need anything, sir?”

And another thing to get used to. Though “sir” was officially the right thing to call me, only the Computer ever did. Problem being that now that she had a body and individual consciousness, that started feeling weird. Pilots didn’t stand on that kind of formality when first names would do. Not unless absolutely necessary, or if you were in trouble. Which fell into category one. Oh, and that was the one thing I couldn’t quite convince her to stop doing. I shook my head. “Just let me know when the return transmission comes through, and if a standby is needed then respond with the last frame of me standing in front of the wall.”

“Yes, sir.”

I suppressed my involuntary twitch at that and started walking. My spacecraft was not exactly huge. Think of the internals like a cheap apartment. Tiny bedroom, small living room that had a kitchen awkwardly growing off of it, a small recreational space that did triple duty as my workout space and the pantry for the highly-compressed transportable foods needed to feed a lone pilot for three or four weeks at a time. More than enough to either finish a mission or get to a resupply point in any normal circumstance. Just as long as you, for a random example, didn’t hit meteors mid-space. It wasn’t exactly empty since I’d topped off supplies after my last delivery, but neither was it exactly full.

Only two things distinguished this apartment from the kind of flat you’d find in the middle of any metro area on Earth. The first of these was the door to the cockpit, which was able to seat up to three people working in tandem if they were VERY comfortable with each other. The other was a set of access hatches to be able to get to whatever random component of the thing needed tuning or repairs at any given time. If that thing happened to be on the outside, the airlock was at what would be the front door. Simple, efficient, and functional internals. Ones that made us pilots joke about how living in a dorm room during the academy was the most important part of the training.

All this to say, my routine check of how all the repairs had gone took remarkably little time. This, in turn, made it surprising when Computer called out. “Sir, response received.”

I was back at the narrow slice of clean wall in the living room in seconds, food inventory abandoned. Computer pulled up the response as soon as I was in position for her camera to come on. The person on screen was not the random communications tech who had taken my initial report. This man was in civilian attire, but business casual. His skin was darkly tanned, either from genetics or long hours in the sun or both, his black hair heavily sprinkled with white, his features looking too young to be that gray. The only thing about him that was unusual, besides a certain intimidating air about him, was a lapel pin of a scroll with a picture of Earth on it. “Explorer Three Five, I am Wright Helios, Ambassador to the Vast. Reiterate the demand.”

My heartrate skipped from sixty to about a thousand beats per minute. Most ambassadors were selected for specialized knowledge of their assignment and trusted with immense on-the-spot authority. Ambassadors to the Vast were the same, but the demands put upon them included all of the undiscovered peoples and little-known empires for which no Human specialists existed. In any given day, he wouldn’t know if his next appointment would even be bipedal, much less what their actual cultural or biological demands would be. On his word, I could literally be sacrificed if that’s what it took to make sure the Hive would not become a threat. I closed my eyes, took a deep and calming breath before replying. It was just as I said before. I’d crashed, gotten rescued, and they were demanding payment in service.

The next transmission back came much, much more quickly than the last. When this man was on the line, system priorities shifted to make sure his time wasn’t wasted. Even if that meant aiming planetary-grade communications arrays ninety degrees away from their usual targets. I didn’t even have time to get my heartrate fully under control before Ambassador Helios responded. “As far as payments go, that is more than fair. If you had to pay for it yourself, it would take five years of your salary at Home Station. Put one of their representatives on so that I can work this out properly with them.”

Figured that he’d say that. I would be more than happy to do so, too, except for one little problem. “Ambassador Helios, they anticipated that you would ask to do so and informed me that they would not comply with any request to appear on any interstellar transmission. Though they are alright with being spoken about, they do not wish to risk their voices or appearance being intercepted. Alpha Seven, their own ambassador equivalent, has authorized me to conduct this discussion on my own. If you attempt to check the location of the transmission, you will find that the trail goes cold at a deep space relay buoy. I’m told that it is within a light-hour of my real location, but have no way to verify this at the moment.”

Ambassador Helios’s eyes flicked to the side for the briefest of moments. “I see. For your information, if that is true then you are close to the route you had on your flight plans when you vanished. Do you have any other way to verify the accuracy of the information you are giving me? Especially the deal they have proposed.”

“Yes, sir. I am authorized to check in as often as desired by Home Station. My mission as they have told me is to do the same thing I’m trained for. That is, to use the spacecraft they repaired to conduct rescues in this area, following what they describe as a spike in deep-space incidents in the last few months. I am also authorized to show you one more thing.” I gestured for Computer to pan the camera over by a meter or so, showing a patch of wall that was very clearly not of its own original material. “This is how they repaired the vessel. The substance is, as far as I can tell, analogous to the original materials. It is, however, biological in origin. They grew it here. I don’t have the facilities to be able to analyze it, but following this conversation a small sample will be delivered by me to a nearby planet for courier transport home. That is in addition to what the cameras are picking up. Is this enough, Ambassador Helios?”

His eyes narrowed. There was no telling what was going through his head as he considered what I had just told him. If the Ambassador decided that wasn’t good enough, I was about to be in a very difficult situation for a large number of reasons. He eventually decided that I’d been “This is unusual even in my field, but given that we have knowledge of no sentient or sapient species in that area we cannot afford to refuse this opportunity. I accept this deal on behalf of Humanity. I will instruct several departments to send you forms that we will expect filled out weekly during this stay of yours. Get used to writing down everything. If at any point we find your answers insufficient or suspicious, you will be extracted dead or alive.”

My blood went cold just as I was starting to feel a shred of relief. There were no illusions to hide behind, not euphemisms or diplomatic niceties. If I screwed up, they would drag me out of this service over my literally dead body. “Yes, sir. I will relay the message to them and begin reporting as soon as I receive the formats and routing information.”

“See that you do. Out.” The feed cut.

Technically, since I was the one who initiated the call, I was the one who was supposed to end it. Also technically, the Ambassador could do whatever the heck he wanted in that respect because almost nobody was going to be willing to call him on it. Then again, it wasn’t like I really minded. I had other tasks to do. “Computer, you heard him. Transmit confirmation back to the Hive and bring the map they sent us up in the cockpit. I’ll get us on course to check the area and deliver the sample we talked about.”

“Yes, sir. We are still en route to the cluster, four hours out from the Hive, in Warp. Which area do you want to route to?” Computer nodded at me, a slightly wooden gesture since she was still getting used to having a body and how to emote with it effectively.

“One of them is nearby a planet, right? Celan?” At her nod, I continued. “Start there. If I remember correctly, we can hit that debris field, drop by the planetary stations, then jump to the next search zone. The Ambassador just gave me permission to keep doing what I’ve been doing, so keep the beacons and IFF as they were before the wreck.”

“Yes, sir. According to regulations, this is permitted. Barely, and only because you are the senior ranking Earth Forces officer on station.”

“Easy enough when I’m the only one.” In a few seconds, I was over in the cockpit and buckling into the pilot seat. Sometimes, having a small space was an advantage. Given our current speed and Warp layer, that meant that I’d be dropping down to Lightspeed in only a few minutes, then I’d start dipping into Realspace every couple of light seconds to poke around the area until I got to the station. Alpha Seven said there were a few returns on their long-range scanners that I’d need to check. I forebore to mention at the time that simply being able to perform active scans at the kinds of distance required to reach entirely separate star systems strained belief to begin with.

No skin off my nose if the Hive was wrong about this. They were feeding me anyway, and I was still getting paid. And my suit, Sigma Four, was getting better and better at extracting her meals.

Computer plugged into her ports where the copilot seat used to be. I rapidly pulled up the charts she sent over and tweaked our course by the barest touch. Autopilot could do a lot of things, but predicting a given pilot’s preference for how to conduct search patterns wasn’t one of them. Our course had us emerging near the center of the field, but given that the area was more than my onboard sensor range could cover I didn’t want that. Instead, I aimed for the side further from the planet, so that I could catch that section then skip towards my destination. Just had to aim for slightly more clear areas than my LAST time trying to use this search pattern, right?

Which reminded me of the one big difference between this time doing search and rescue and my previous career doing so. Mu One Seven had informed me before going on this trip that they would need me to bring anyone I found back to the Hive for evaluation and recovery, after which they could be brought to the planets they belonged. I was not to just drop them off at the nearest station and go on with my life. She also said she’d explain why once I managed to rescue someone. A beep shook me out of the reverie. Showtime. “Sigma Four, helmet.”

Of course!

From the slightly-thicker collar extruded something that certainly imitated the shape and function of the helmet I used to use. The main difference, as it sealed over my head, was that it was fully integrated in the suit. Almost nothing could tear it off, and there were no hasps that could come accidentally undone. I transitioned the ship down to Lightspeed ranges, checked my incoming target, and shifted back to Realspace as soon as my engines cycled enough to let me do so.

I’ll note that I did so at much lower velocity this time. No sense repeating the past QUITE this soon.

My ships’s sensors reached out, and found nothing. Not a sign of anything that might be artificially made within a light-second. After a couple of minutes there to confirm it, I shifted back up to repeat the process. Then again. And a few more times for good measure before I was in range of planetary station sensors and there was no more point to me doing so. I took a more smooth approach to dock there and get the courier canister sent, resupplied, refueled, and set back off. Adjust course to go to the side of my approach path, outside of where my first search pattern could easily see, get to Lightspeed, and drop back to Realspace just outside of station sensor range.

Two hops later, though, I got something I didn’t expect. A return, indicating a metallic mass within range to go check out without needing to micro-jump to it. Five minutes under standard drives would get me there. Good, life was much less hazardous that way. By the time I hit the point that I needed to start decelerating to get my intercept, the sensor image was clearing up. That was DEFINITELY a spacecraft, and though it wasn’t blasting any rescue frequencies it was seeping atmosphere. Good chance that this meant whatever wrecked it was recent, whoever was onboard would probably still be alive as long as they survived whatever took out the ship.

“Damaged ship, damaged ship, this is Explorer Three Five. I am four minutes from intercept with your spacecraft, please respond with identification and surviving crew.” Given that they weren’t transmitting anything at all right now, not even their normal beacon and emergency code, I wasn’t expecting a response. Still had to try, and if they could at least hear it then maybe it would reduce the chance of me getting shot if I had to force entry. It was a good thing I wasn’t expecting a response, then, because I didn’t get one.

Once I was close enough to actually see the ship with my own eyes? Yeah, their lack of action made sense. The ship had gotten into a fairly serious collision recently, and though it looked Human in make it the location its sensor arrays and broadcast antenna should have been was scraped clean… and the normal “wings” that even non-atmospheric craft liked to have to hold their fuel and extra sensors were missing. The fact that this happened and left the core of the craft intact enough to still be only slowly seeping atmosphere was incredible, either a testament to the engineers who designed it or to the sheer amount of dumb luck those inside possessed.

I pulled alongside it, matching vector. My tractor beams weren’t exactly the most powerful ones out there, but they were sufficient to gradually dampen the craft’s rotation. I had the more massive spacecraft by a small margin, the difference helped.Once we were synced up, that meant I could position myself to bridge the gap with a boarding tunnel to their external door. Nice and smooth, just like in training. Should have known that wasn’t going to last.

The door refused to open, and then refused again when I input the government override meant for just such an occasion. Either it was damaged, or else simply wasn’t in a state to recognize the authentication. There was a scraping sound from behind me, and Computer slithered up. Her chest area opened, revealing a hollow large enough for me to sit in. “Sir, it looks like the door will need to be breached. You can ride in my internal compartment to do so.” She sounded a bit more eager than before.

I shook my head. To be honest, I was not at all comfortable with doing so. She was… alive. Riding inside of her didn’t feel right. Especially if I would have significant control. “Not this time, Computer. I’ll use the standard equipment. If I come bursting in riding you like a war frame, they might take it as a threat. Hand me my gear bag, then seal the airlock behind me in case this doesn’t go well.”

She didn’t look particularly happy about that, but I could deal with that later. What mattered was that she did get my rescue bag, then backed off and sealed the airlock behind me. I knew the ship in front of me had atmosphere, but by the same token I knew it was LOSING atmosphere, so I didn’t know what the pressure was going to be. Autohacker did nothing on the keypad, step two was a significantly older piece of tech. A crowbar. That decided to work after a few minutes of effort, and the gentle puff of air moving towards the new opening told me a lot.

If anyone was still onboard and not in a safe location, they had a decent chance of being alive… for the next few minutes. The O2 levels would not sustain life for the long term. No time to waste. As soon as I could get through without too much difficulty, I did so. The panel on the inside of the ship was more responsive, so the door opened itself the rest of the way. The thing looked standard, which meant I knew where both the shelter and the crew quarters would be. The shelter turned out to be empty. The crew quarters held someone, alright, an unconscious woman in a flight suit. Her pale skin was starting to turn blue at the fingertips and under the eyes, so I applied an oxygen mask and carried her back to my vessel. Next trip was not as joyful, I found exactly one more person on the wreck. One man, deceased, probable cause of death was the blood-covered shard of metal that had sliced most of the way through his neck. His soul belonged to the stars, now.

Over the next few minutes, I rescued what I could of the supplies and personal effects onboard. Bagged the corpse next, the half-dried blood somehow refusing to stick to my new suit. After that, I activated their ship’s Surrender mode and let my own link up to it. There was a lot of valuable air, water, and repair gels remaining. No sense letting it waste, especially when this ship might not be fully rescuable. I couldn’t store the fuel they still had onboard, or I’d have gotten that too. Whoever got the wreckage would be able to claim it, and since I was about to tell the Hive where it was it would likely be the team I was playing for.

The rest of the route passed uneventfully compared to that. The woman proved to have blonde hair in a tight bun along with blue eyes once I got into Hyperspace and had time to do the actual health checks. The blue receded as oxygen got back into her system, which was good. It meant that her only injuries were going to be from minor oxygen deprivation and loss of pressure, both things humans have been surviving for eons. We dropped out of Hyper, into Realspace, and got back to the large meteor the Hive told me housed them, found the gate, and got into the hangar. As the Mu units and Alpha Seven got the info I had for them and evacuated the woman to the hospital, a thought occurred to me.

This meteor? It wasn’t NEARLY large enough to house what I’d seen, much less the rest of the space the facts implied had to exist. More was at play here that they hadn’t told me.