5. Location unknown

“Catch!” — Vincent shouted to his boy as he threw the baseball. It was easy, they were in no acceleration, no rotation, just enjoying the…

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

“Catch!” — Vincent shouted to his boy as he threw the baseball. It was easy, they were in no acceleration, no rotation, just enjoying the weightless life.
“Dad!” — slang the ball back.
“Yes, Eddy?”
“When do we come back to the Orion nebula?” — the ball went past the frozen Vincent, this is the first time his son asked something like this.
“Why? Do you want to come back?” — to this shithole of a colony, continued his thought without letting it through.
“Yes, I met with some friends”
“Oh, I get it, any of them were a girl?” — snarky smile of Vincent, knew this time will come around at one point, though still young of his son, few years and he can’t keep him back. Or they need to settle somewhere, as the small crew of his hauler did not hold much opportunity for his son to socialize.

The thoughts gave him the shiver, and a pair of arms locked around him, as he looked onto his wife, hugging him, knew she thought of the same. This topic of settling came up again and again between them, sometimes leading to arguing too. Nothing serious though Vincent had a growing nervousness, he was living his dream life being free among the stars, met Maria the same way when his junk of a ship broke down at a port.

“Cap, incoming message from Zodiak stations” — cracking sound through the public announcer by the second shipmate, he ran the ship while they were off-duty.
“Coming” — replied Vincent, kissed Maria in a quick moment and pushed himself out of the cargo hold they spent their time in.
“Status, Greg” — Vincent asked his second shipmate as he entered the bridge.
“Usual, we are at normal cruising speed, only running the Alcubierre drives, no ion, cycle operating normally, no debris on screens, corrected a point one percent drift to starboard around an hour ago.” — in his baritone Greg downloaded status to his captain. — “And Zodiak-12 on emergency channel, listen to their message, cap.”

Vincent in the meantime sat to the second chair and belted himself in, a safety precaution he always did, at this point unconsciously, and pulled up his touch screen, opened emergency messages.

“Another drift, does any of the rings at risk of failing?” — Vincent chatted while the message opened, these quantum entanglement devices can take a while to load up a concise message.
“No, they read nominal in all data, and we just had class A maintenance a month ago.”
“This is Zodiak-12, Saggitarius station to all ship en-route to Perseus Arm, keep an eye out there, we received emergency signals from the Giant of the Stars liner, we are determining the severity now, possible request to search-and-assist will be issued shortly.”

Pulled up the mentioned liner on the ship database, Vincent could see it is a massive ship with tens of thousands of souls on board. Though his first thoughts were about that ship may just took the wrong turn at the Pleiades, if it would be a large problem, they would have issued a mayday already.

In the meantime on Zodiak station, the astronomers and data crunchers of the military intelligence service were frantically compiling the data that was coming in, they could not locate the ship, nor they could figure out the nature of the emergency. While the station was part of the top-of-the-line defense perimeter around the Solar system, still operated by humans. At the time of the signals coming into Zodiak station, they were operating in night mode and the senior leadership were all sleeping in their quarters, the younger night shift was unsure if the situation warranted to wake them so he skipped and urged the crew to figure out more.

Twelve hour later, Vincent being on the bridge and holding the conn while Marie monitoring their progress, another incoming message on the emergency channel popped up:

“This is Zodiak-12, Saggitarius station to all ship en-route between Perseus and Saggitarius arm, can’t establish contact with Giants of the Stars liner and can’t locate at the moment. Last known position and the planned route is in attachment. We issue mayday on behalf of Giants of the Stars, nearest ships are ordered to change course and commence search. Report to Zodiak-12 immediately on contact.”

Vincent and Maria exchanged a worried look, and Marie confirmed, they are very close to the route, they now officially have to react to the emergency.

“Okey, ship log, we are rendering assistance to mayday from Zodiak-12 on behalf of Giants of the Stars, Maria, do we need to change course?” — he said hiding some of his excitement for the rare events in deep space, unknowing how severe the situation is on the stricken ship.
“.5 degrees on two axis, we should slow down and reorient” — Maria’s monotone voice was not showing any emotions, as she was usually in this mental state during work.
“Let’s do that, all stop, new direction as your calculations… Estimated time until contact?” — the slow hauler and the crew did their job, a routine maneuver and they were en route to contact.
“Based on their route, at this time they should be almost entering Perseus Arm, just around two days in front of us”

Two days is a very long time in a life and death situation, though all people in deep space knew the nature of it out here, the new age of vast distance and its challenges.