Collision

"You came here to see two very, very large objects smash into one another," Rhines said. "Stop me if I’m wrong."

Elise watched him. Her mouth twitched but she said nothing.

Rhines went on. "So why do you want to know about me?"

Elise tapped her notepad with a pencil. "This project has generated enormous interest back home. People want to know about what’s happening out here, about the collision, sure. They also want to know about the crew of the…"

"Mjolnir," Rhines supplied. "Mee-ol-near."

Elise scribbled something on the notepad. "Why don’t they have simple names for space stations?" she muttered to herself.

"Can I ask why you’re using that?" Rhines ceased his restless pacing, which he had adopted the moment Elise appeared at the door, and pointed to the notepad. "A little outdated, isn’t it?"

Elise reached across to the disc player and nudged it along the table. "This records everything you say." She eased back and lifted the notepad. "This is just something I use to note the little things - the human things that a machine can’t detect."

Rhines shrugged. "That’s fine. You’re the one doing the story." The control room in which they sat was snug, like the rest of the station, and sparsely furnished with the table, which was bolted to the floor, and an array of computer panels being the only fittings. Rhines had seemed to Elise like a caged animal, desperate to get out, since the moment she mentioned his personal life.

"Right." Elise tapped the notepad again, and Rhines took up his aimless wander across the deck. "Why don’t you tell me about yourself?"

Rhines turned his back on her and moved across to the window. He stood staring out at the blackness of space with his hands clasped behind his back. He was a solid man in his early forties, his dark hair worn in a crew cut, and clad in a sky blue jumpsuit, the ubiquitous uniform of the three crewmembers. Elise hadn’t seen them wear anything else.

"Elise, can we do that later? I’m a little anxious about letting the world know about that personal nitty-gritty." He looked back at her. "Just let me gather my thoughts on that one."

"Sure, Captain Rhines. I don’t mean to pry."

Rhines nodded. "Why don’t we start with the scientific side of things?"

"That sounds fine to me. How about telling me why you’re out here."

Rhines took a deep breath and returned his attention to the window. "Well, we’re here studying a star system that’s still in the process of forming. Amazing discovery, really. I don’t think too many scientists ever thought we’d be able to reach a newly forming system, but here we are. There are really huge ramifications for understanding our own origins."

"Would you like to just expand on that briefly, Captain? Nothing too specific. I’m trying to avoid jargon in my article."

"Well, what we have here, Elise, is a medium sized red star, called Loomis, surrounded by a protoplanetary disk. This is basically a disk of gas, dust and rock, which joins together to form planets. That’s why Mjolnir was built, so that we could study the forces that cause planets to form."

"I’m intrigued by this big planet that’s nearby. Can you tell me a bit about that?"

Rhines smiled. "Well, that’s not really a planet. Technically, it’s a brown dwarf star." He adjusted his stance so that he could observe the star, a softly glowing bronze sphere that dominated the stellar landscape outside Mjolnir. "It’s not very hot, not like a normal star, although it does shed a little heat and light. It’s around fifteen times the size of Jupiter."

"What’s its name?"

"The Chinese discovered it, actually. Instead of giving you another complicated name to remember, I’ll tell you the name we give it – the Brown Dwarf."

"Works for me," Elise smiled. Her pencil rapped on the notepad again. "What about this other planet?"

Rhines moved away from the window. "This would be the one that has caused the stir?" he said, grinning. "It’s called Rogue. It was only discovered after Mjolnir was built, since it has such an unusual orbit. Rogue’s orbit is twenty-nine years, by the way. It’s been on the other side of the solar system since we got here. We only started getting a decent look at it in the last few months."

"And you’re not going to get much of a look at it now, I suppose?"

"Well, no. There’s not going to be much of it left in forty-eight hours time." His eyes narrowed as he recalled past events. "One of our scientific officers, Hanna Richards, recently calculated its orbit and found that it would come under the influence of the Brown Dwarf’s gravity as it passed by. More than that, she found that Rogue was passing so close to the Brown Dwarf that it actually intercepts a very large moon in orbit around the star, called ‘Dryad’."

"What is the size of Rogue, and of Dryad, Captain?"

"Rogue is around the size of Mars, Dryad just a little smaller." Rhines seemed in his element now, discussing the nature of his work, and he seated himself companionably across the table, his uneasiness forgotten.

"Why hasn’t Rogue smashed into the Brown Dwarf on one of its previous orbits?"

"Well, we don’t know much about Rogue at this point. We suspect that it doesn’t belong to Loomis’ system, and that it actually came from somewhere else, and was only recently captured by Loomis’ gravity."

Elise smiled at Rhines’ enthusiasm. "You’re really looking forward to this, aren’t you, Captain?"

Rhines banged the table excitedly with his fist. "It’s going to be one hell of a show." The glimmer in his eyes softened, his smile faded, and he said, "Elise, you spent three weeks getting all the way out here. You came by yourself, at your company’s expense, of course."

Elise nodded. "Yes."

Rhines sighed. "I sure hope it’s worth it."

"Like I said, there’s enormous interest in this project, and in the event that’s about to take place. The trip will be worth it."

Rhines winked. "That’s a good attitude." He thumped the table again and stood suddenly. "I’ll let you get on to interviewing the other two crew members, then."

"Sure. Thanks for your time, Captain." Elise pressed stop on the disc player and picked it up, turning to leave.

"Elise, just a word of warning about Hobbs. He’s had a rough trot lately, and he might say some… well, some weird things. Being this far away from home for a long time does things to people."

Elise shrugged. "I’ll keep that in mind."

#

Mjolnir was a cramped little world of white plastic, protruding cables and metal panelling. Tight vertical ducts connected the three main compartments, and although the three decks had been fitted with artificial gravity, the ducts had not. Elise propelled herself down toward the central deck by tugging on a railing on one of the walls. She was still coming to grips with the technique of orientating herself when gravity returned, and hence developed the habit of crawling out onto the decks instead of walking out, right way up.

The central deck, the living quarters, were similar in appearance to the deck above, having few furnishings or features that one could call ‘visually stimulating’. Mjolnir was a place of science, of practicality, and not of homey warmth.

The remaining two crewmembers, Richards and Hobbs, sat at the table as Elise crawled in. Richards smiled as Elise clambered to her feet. Hobbs sat with his eyes narrowed, observing.

"Welcome back," Richards said. An attractive blonde of about thirty years, Richards had been the crewmember most forthcoming and friendly during Elise’s brief stay on the station. She wore her shoulder-length hair in a tail, and like the other crewmembers, her skin was pale from lack of sunlight over a prolonged period. She seemed to have a certain vigour for her work, and was rarely seen without a smile on her face.

Hobbs, in contrast, was his typical dour self. He was older than Richards, and his dark curls always seemed unkempt. There were dark circles under his eyes and he looked as though he could do with a good rest. Both wore their blue jumpsuits, and Elise was beginning to feel like the odd one out in her white tank and black slacks.

"Who are you interviewing now?" Richards said, indicating to a vacant seat at the table.

"Oh, anyone," Elise said. She caught sight of herself in a mirror hanging crookedly from an equipment rack and decided that her complexion was becoming more like the rest of the crew’s with every passing hour. Her long dark curls were beginning to look like an afro; like Richards, she was going to have to tie them back. Long hair and a space station made a poor combination.

"I have some tests to run, if you want to go first," Richards suggested to Hobbs.

"Sounds fine." Hobbs gave Elise a wolfish, synthetic smile.

"See you, then." She gave Elise a wave, and in moments had disappeared down the duct that led to the lower deck.

Hobbs leaned back casually in his chair and stifled a yawn. "Ask away, kiddo."

Elise placed the disc player on the table and readied her notepad. "Let’s start with your title, and what you do."

"My name is Hobbs. I’m the resident engineer, but out here, you’ve got to be a jack-of-all-trades. I’m also involved in making a lot of observations on accretion and how this whole planet formation thing occurs."

"How long have you been here, Hobbs?"

"Too long."

Elise tapped the notepad with her pencil. "Can you be more specific?"

"Seven months." He shifted forward and clasped his hands before him on the table. Elise doubted whether he’d shaved in the last week and a half. "I was only supposed to be out here for three months. I was a last minute replacement. The guy who was supposed to come out, well he got sick, right? And I, very smartly, offered to come out while they readied someone else. Just a short little trip, I’d be back before I knew it." His mouth twisted sourly. "Seven months later, and they tell me I still can’t be replaced. In fact, it might be another six months before I get out of here."

Elise frowned. "You almost make it sound like a prison sentence."

Hobbs looked at her directly. "I’ll level with you, Elise. I never had much interest in this. The wonder of it all, the great scientific achievement – none of that mattered to me. This was a sacrifice, coming out here. I knew that if I came out and did my time, I’d go back with a big promotion and a ticket to six months of talk show appearances. I knew this’d make me famous."

"You’ll still have that fame when you go back."

"If I go back. I’m stuck here, wasting away my life. There’s no fun here, no stimulation. You must have felt it already, draining the life out of you. It’s killing me here."

"Can’t you ask to go home?"

"I’ve asked. I’ve begged. I’ve pleaded, and even threatened. Do you think that matters to them?"

"Your crewmates seem fine. They must make the time pass a little quicker."

"They’re assholes," Hobbs spat. "One frigid bitch, and a pedantic wanker upstairs. What a team."

Hobbs seemed to become aware of his outburst then, and he smiled apologetically. "Sorry. Cabin fever. Seven months out here will do that to you."

"No, it’s ok. It must be hard." Her pencil danced across the notepad.

"You’re the first person I’ve connected with in seven months."

Elise looked up, startled. She had only known Hobbs for a day, barely time to make any sort of connection. She didn’t much like the way he was looking at her, either.

"Listen," he said conspiratorially, leaning forward. Elise caught a waft of body odour and an unpleasant stale smell. "The sleeping modules are pretty much soundproof, if you know what I mean."

Elise felt heat rising in her cheeks. "You got a snoring problem, Hobbs?" she said icily.

Hobbs grimaced. "I take that as a ‘no’."

"Very intuitive. Can we get on with it?"

Hobbs shrugged, and he leaned back. "Sure." He looked as though he were about to apologise, but bit back on whatever he was going to say.

"With the collision happening in less than forty-eight hours, there must be a lot to do. What do you think you’ll be concentrating on over the next twenty-four hours or so?"

From the way his eyes lingered on her, Elise almost expected him to say "The way that shirt clings to your breasts". She crossed her arms defensively across her chest, and, noticing this, Hobbs self-consciously looked away.

"Oh, I have some tests to run, just to make sure everything is working for the big moment." There was an apparent frostiness in the air now between them, and Hobbs seemed to be avoiding looking at her at all. Elise found it altogether uncomfortable and decided to get out of there.

"Well, thanks." She snatched up the notepad and made for the duct that led to the lower level. "Good luck with everything."

"That’s alright," Hobbs replied hesitantly. As she entered the opening Elise caught a glimpse of Hobbs craning his neck to get a better view of her as she left. She quickly hauled her body down the duct, and in moments she was crawling out on the lower deck. Richards looked up from her clipboard in surprise.

"That didn’t take long."

Elise got to her feet. "You got any of those blue jumpsuits spare?"

#

"He’s very lonely," Richards said, tapping away on the console. "Don’t let that bother you."

Elise stood staring out the narrow rectangular window at the Brown Dwarf, her body language still stiff and defensive.

"I expected people out here to act more professionally than that."

"Hard to believe, isn’t it? I got that kind of thing for a while, until he got tired of me telling him where to go." She checked something on her clipboard, then returned to the console. "He’s been this way for a while. He’s not well. He shouldn’t be here at all, really, but they’re having staffing issues back home. They keep telling us that someone will be sent to replace him in time, but it just hasn’t eventuated yet."

Elise sighed and tugged the zipper on her jumpsuit tighter around her neck. Mjolnir was at an elevated orbit around the Brown Dwarf, and for the first time since her arrival, Elise was struck by the beauty and majesty of it. The radiance of the star was like the dim glow of a Chinese lantern, around which shimmered a halo of dozens of tiny satellites. She felt small and insignificant before the wonder of that spectacle, and her troubles eased somewhat.

"It’s wonderful, isn’t it?" she said.

"The Brown Dwarf? It’s a jewel," Richards agreed. "I can sit and stare at it for hours at times. I often think of it as the glowing coal to Loomis’ raging bonfire."

Elise moved closer to the console. "What about you, Richards? Does the loneliness get to you too?"

Richards smiled. "Call me ‘Hanna’." Elise smiled back. "Sometimes it does. Unlike Hobbs, I enjoy my work. I know I’m incredibly lucky to be here, to be given this chance. I have the rest of my life to enjoy my friends and family. This is only a temporary thing, and I’m enjoying the challenges that I’m facing while I’m here."

"Was there someone you left behind?"

"A… friend." Richards paused, pensive. "I miss him. He was very understanding about it all. He knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I didn’t get to see him much for six months before I came out, due to the training regime. I don’t even know if he’ll be waiting for me." She began to tap on the console again. "But that’s something to think about when I get home."

Elise edged forward, peering down at the console. "What’s that?" she said, pointing to an image of shadowy disc that Richards had called up.

"That’s our friend Rogue. It’s between us and Loomis now, so we only see the dark side. You can’t make out much of the detail."

"Hard to believe there’s going to be nothing much of it left in a day or so."

Richards tapped the screen, and the hazy image faded away completely.

#

There was no night and day on Mjolnir, but the crew ran by a twenty-four hour clock to keep track of the days. It was routine for the crewmembers to assemble on the middle deck for the evening meal. Elise joined them, keeping her distance from Hobbs, who seemed equally happy to stay out of her way.

Elise continued her interviewing in an informal way, casually enquiring about day-to-day life on board the station and the training the crew went through back home. Hobbs excused him after a short time and disappeared inside his sleeping quarters, and in time Richards did the same.

"We have one mode of transport outside Mjolnir," Rhines was saying as he waved Richards off. "A small craft called the Intolerance. If necessary, it’s capable of interstellar travel, so we could get home on it in an emergency. Its normal operating mode is simply for gathering samples and for local trips, such as to the Brown Dwarf."

Elise could tell Rhines had things on his mind other than details about the station. He had been rambling for the last half an hour, treading water until he and Elise were alone. She waited patiently, and eventually he got around to what he really wanted to say.

"I’ll tell you this off the record," he said.

Elise placed her notepad on the table and switched off the disc player.

"I wish I could say everything was smooth sailing when I decided to come out here," Rhines began. "But I can’t. I had some disagreements, some heartache. My son is autistic, and while my wife and I love him dearly, it’s a strain to look after him. It takes a lot of time and patience. There’s a steep learning curve, but we were coping.

"When this opportunity came up, my wife was fine about it all. She said she’d try to manage. Then she found out I’d applied for the longest possible term here, twelve months. She accused me of trying to run away." Rhines looked earnestly across the table. "That isn’t the case."

"I know." Elise could see in his eyes that he spoke the truth.

"I love my family, and I hate being away from them. This opportunity, though, won’t ever come again. I know that. I want to make my mark out here, be remembered. Is that such a bad thing?"

Elise shook her head.

"Anyway, we haven’t really been in contact for months. I’m not sure what my wife’s thinking anymore. There’s still anger on my side, and probably hers too. I feel resentful that she would accuse me of that."

"You should let her know how you feel, Captain," Elise urged.

Rhines shrugged. "And if we got in another fight, what then? I don’t need those kinds of distractions out here. The isolation is bad enough as it is."

"I’d think about it some more."

Rhines got up, swilled the last of his drink from a white plastic cup. "I will. Sorry if I’ve been hesitant to speak of this stuff, but you can understand it’s not easy to talk about."

"No, of course. I understand. Thank you for confiding in me."

Rhines nodded. "There aren’t any shrinks up here, so I guess a visitor is the next best thing. Thanks for listening, anyway."

Elise waved. "Any time."

#

Elise found sleep difficult to come by that night. Her sleeping quarters were closet-sized. That, combined with the fact that she was strapped into her bunk, a safety measure in the event of the deck losing its artificial gravity, caused a certain amount of claustrophobia. Hence, the next morning she woke up feeling tired and unwell.

Nevertheless, there was a certain buzz that day as the crew anticipated the collision. Viewfinders were trained on the two objects, and recording equipment was tested. Elise attempted to document the tasks that were taking place without getting in the way. She also gravitated towards Richards for the most part.

That evening as Rhines and Elise sat talking on the middle deck, Richards came stumbling up from the lower duct. They turned as one to watch the commotion, and Elise noted that the pale face of the woman now contained a hint of grey.

"You won’t believe this," Richards said. She tapped on the nearest console, her eyes feverish.

"What is it?" Rhines said, alarmed. Hobbs, working silently on a sheet of metal nearby, seemed curious as well. Richards was quickly joined at the console by the other three.

"We’ve picked up a signal. Some weird signal."

"What? Where?" Rhines demanded.

An image of a shadowy disk winked onto the console. "On Rogue."

Rhines laughed involuntarily. "What? That’s impossible."

"Well it’s been recorded in the system. It’s right there in black and white. It could be a stranded ship, an alien craft. Heck, there could be indigenous life there for all we know."

"What kind of signal is it?" the captain said, alarmed.

Richards tapped away. "Unknown. It’s not a distress frequency, but there’s structure to it. It’s not radiation or a bounced signal, I’ve checked the parameters in the log. It’s coming from here, in Rogue’s southern hemisphere." She pointed to a darkened region on the image of Rogue.

"This is strange," Rhines said, shaking his head. "Rogue’s a rock, a frigid rock. There’s no life there."

"How much do we know about Rogue?" Hobbs chimed in. "Last time I checked, we know squat about it. We’ve never had a close look. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that there’s a low tech civilisation down there?"

Rhines was looking paler than usual as well. "Let’s hope not."

"Or a craft from Earth that we didn’t know about," Richards said. "It might have gone off course and crash landed, for all we know."

"This is crazy," Rhines said, still disbelieving.

"How long till impact?" Richards said, glancing between the two crewmembers.

Hobbs made some calculations in his head. "Thirteen hours."

"Hanna," Rhines began, "there’s nothing we can do. Whatever’s on that planet is doomed. There’s not enough time to save a civilisation."

"But there is time to save the crew of a spacecraft," Hobbs countered.

"We’ve got two spacecraft at our disposal," Richards said. "There’s the Intolerance, and there’s the Undertow, the ship Elise journeyed on. Now, if I’m right, the Undertow is an E-17 model, designed to withstand re-entry through a moderate atmosphere like Rogue’s, but it would sustain too much damage to break back out of its gravitational pull. The Intolerance, it could stand re-entry and probably make it back out again."

"Probably?" Rhines said, incredulous.

"But we’d have to leave now."

"Hanna," Rhines said calmly, "we don’t have the time or the resources to pull off a mission like the one you’re suggesting."

"The signal weakened, then disappeared," Richards said. "If we get close enough to the planet, we might pick it up again. We certainly can’t save anyone sitting here. Look, if we run out of time, we abort the mission. What harm can it do?"

Rhines pressed a hand to his forehead, squeezed his eyes shut. He paced around the room for a good two or three minutes in silence while the others watched on. After a time he looked up at them. "You’re right," Rhines said. "We have a duty to make an attempt, if nothing else. Hobbs, get yourself ready. You and me will go."

Hobbs swivelled and motioned helplessly at the metal panelling. "One of our dust shields has been damaged. If Rogue is bringing any dust in its wake we’ll be toast. I have to go EVA, right now, and fix it."

Rhines glanced across at Richards. "Then it’s you and me, Hanna."

#

Rhines watched as the murky planet expanded slowly through the fore window of the Intolerance, like a steadily inflating balloon. It had edged closer and closer since they left Mjolnir, but still revealed little of its surface. Rhines had developed the habit in the last hour of peering out the port window at the stark white Dryad, which was also looming just a little too close for comfort. The hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention every time he thought of the cataclysmic forces that would be unleashed when these two giants came together in a few hours time.

Time. Rhines swivelled in his chair.

"How long till these two meet?"

Richards glanced at her watch. "It was thirteen hours ago that I discovered the signal. We took an hour for pre-flight prep, and we’ve been travelling now for two hours. That leaves ten hours."

Rhines rubbed his chin, agitated. "And still an hour until we get there." He shook his head. "We’re cutting this so fine, Hanna."

Richards nodded. "You can say that again. The more time goes by, the more I doubt that it’s humanly possible to get down to the surface, conduct a rescue mission, and get out of there in time."

"Have you picked up the signal again?"

"Not a trace."

"Have you checked the coordinates from the last signal?"

"Almost done on that, Captain. I’m adjusting for rotation of the planet."

Rhines got up and hunched forward, his face almost pressed against the window. "What secrets are you hiding, my friend?" he whispered to Rogue.

"Captain," Richards said, exasperated, "this just doesn’t add up." Rhines strode over to the console. "The log from Mjolnir reports that the signal was reported from here." She tapped the screen. "But when I calculate the rotation of the planet, which we know is once every thirty hours, the coordinates at the time of the signal are on the far side of the planet."

"Impossible. That’s out of radio contact. There’s no way we could have received the signal if that were the case. Check it again."

"I’ve checked it three times," Richards said, pressing a hand to her forehead. "I have another idea." She began tapping on the console. "The Intolerance has its own receiver, right, and its own log? I can check the logs against each other. Maybe Mjolnir got its circuits crossed."

Rhines watched for a moment, but his eyes were drawn to the vista outside the craft once again. "What the hell is going on here?" he muttered.

#

Elise found working on her story impossible under the tension of the situation, and reverted to scribbling random thoughts in her notepad as she sat on Mjolnir’s middle deck. This quickly became a kind of catharsis, as she jotted down her emotions and misgivings of the moment, and after a time she began to relax.

Hobbs rattled around from time to time, and eventually hunkered down before a storage cabinet in one corner. Elise kept an eye on him, but he was strangely quiet. As long he kept out of her way, she wasn’t concerned.

"Do you ever stop writing on that thing?" he finally said.

"Nope."

He stood up and dusted his hands off. "I’m curious about you, you know. Don’t tell me there aren’t easier jobs around. I mean, you travelled three weeks out here by yourself. Sure, you slept the whole way, but it’s still a big deal."

Elise shot him an irritated glance. "Is this a new tactic for getting me into your sleeping quarters, Hobbs? Showing your reasonable side?"

"No."

Elise sighed. "Well, why not? I’ll tell you." She swung her legs around to face him. "I put my name in for this job never expecting to land it. There were others more qualified in line before me, but when the conditions were revealed in full, about the travel and the distance involved, a few people stepped aside.

"You’ve been away from home for a while, but I can tell you nothing has changed. It’s not easy to get a job, the way the economy is these days. I worked damn hard to get this job, and I’m not going to let it get away. I’ll take risks if I have to, and go where others won’t."

Hobbs nodded. "I admire that."

"And besides that, it’s the adventure of a life time."

"Sure." He narrowed his eyes, thinking. "How many ice boxes does the Undertow have?"

"Ice boxes?"

"Hyper-sleep chambers."

"Oh. Three. Why so interested in my trip?"

"I’m more interested in your ship."

Elise arched an eyebrow. "What about it?"

He picked up what looked to be a block of plastic and began fiddling with some connecting wires. "You’re not a navigator. That’s obvious. So I’m guessing the whole round trip was pre-programmed into the nav before you left."

"Yes. So?"

"Just doing a few mental calculations." He grinned without mirth, his eyes boring into her.

Elise looked away. "How’s the dust shield coming along?"

"It’s fine."

She glanced at him sharply. "That was quick."

Hobbs shrugged. "Easy to fix when there’s nothing wrong with it."

Their eyes met again. "What does that mean?"

Hobbs just smiled at her, a gloating, superior smile. It seemed Hobbs possessed a hundred different smiles, and none of them were genuine.

"What does that mean, Hobbs? And what is that stuff you’re messing with?"

"This? Explosives. We use explosives for geological experiments – ripping apart asteroids to discover their composition, that kind of thing. And for blowing things up," he added.

Elise got up and prepared to go somewhere Hobbs wasn’t.

"But this is only half of the explosives we had left on board. The Intolerance now has the rest."

Elise stopped dead, an icy chill rippling down her neck.

"They’re not coming back," Hobbs said simply.

Elise found breathing difficult, and she clutched at the wall for support. "What are you talking about, you dipshit?" The question was meant to convey disdain, to show Hobbs she wasn’t fazed by his intimidation, but her voice carried little conviction.

"There are going to be headlines back on Earth in a few weeks, but not the ones you’ve been scribbling in your notepad. Noble Captain Rhines. A Great Scientific Achievement. Hobbs Came Onto Me. No. I see something more captivating. Freak Asteroid Shower Destroys Space Station." He paused. "One Survivor Escapes In Reporter’s Ship."

"Are you insane?" Elise gasped.

"No, I’ve worked it all out, Elise." He began to advance, placing a handful of plastic blocks carelessly on the table. In a couple of hours the Intolerance becomes vapour. By that time, you and I have had our fun. I take a comfy ride in the Undertow and a little while later, Mjolnir is no more."

"Hobbs, if you think this is going to scare me into-"

"Shut up!" he barked, spraying spittle at her. "If you think Rhines, you, this station means a thing to me, you’re sadly mistaken. I’d trade all of it for my freedom in an instant. I will be a hero when I arrive back home, the only survivor. And no one will ever be the wiser."

Elise snatched a tin of ham from the table, the only weapon convenient to her, and held it up threateningly.

Hobbs laughed. "You’d have more chance of killing me with that by opening it and serving it up to me on a plate. Disgusting crud."

"Hobbs?" Rhines voice crackled over the intercom. "Are you there?" A pause. The Captain obviously could not hear what was happening aboard Mjolnir. "Hobbs, we’re onto you. You aren’t quite as clever as you think. There’s no record of the transmission onboard the Intolerance. You hacked into Mjolnir’s console and altered the log, didn’t you?" Another pause. Hobbs and Elise exchanged a glace. Hobbs seemed a little less cocky then before. "We’re on our way back, Hobbs."

Hobbs walked calmly over and switched the intercom off. He glanced at his watch. "Dammit. It was supposed to be an eight hour round trip. They’ll be back too soon." He gave Elise a look of regret. "Sorry baby, but we’re not going to have our fun after all. No time."

Elise hurled the tin and in one motion turned and headed for the nearby duct, but the crewman was too fast. His hand clamped around her ankle and she was yanked backward, banging her head against the door. Hobbs leered over her. The room was spinning. He raised his hand and swung.

#

Hobbs closed the airlock on the Undertow and moved swiftly to the console. He activated it with a tap of his finger, and quickly located the navigation menu. He selected the pre-calculated route back to Earth and was greeted by a flashing red warning.

He glanced at his watch, knowing before he did so that there wasn’t enough time. The Intolerance was not far away, and it might intercept him if he cut it too fine. With another tap he overrode the warning and headed for the nearest hyper-sleep chamber.

#

Elise found herself in a cramped, dark place, her hands bound, her mouth sealed with tape, and her head throbbing. She felt so constricted here that taking a breath was a trial, a task of such difficulty that each one felt like it would be her last.

She knew she had to get out of here.

Her hands were bound tight. Hobbs had done a good job there. But her feet were still free. She tried kicking out with all her strength, finding resistance in every direction. Bunching her shoulders together, she tried bashing from side to side. She made no impression on her prison. In almost no time at all she felt bruised and beaten. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, and she lay back, sweaty and sore.

Elise thought of Hobbs and his fake smile.

She wasn’t about to let him win.

She launched a frenzied attack on the walls around her, crying out in pain and frustration. She loosed an animal screech, bashing both of her legs to the right, and suddenly she was toppling, out into light and cool air. She thumped heavily down a short distance and lay panting.

As she ripped the tape from her lips she realised that she was still on the middle deck of Mjolnir. Hobbs had stashed her in a storage cupboard, but was now nowhere to be seen. On the table nearby was a plain grey plastic box.

Elise scrambled to her feet and peered inside. The explosives were there, attached to a timer, but the digits were scrambled. Elise had no idea how long was left.

She limped across to the intercom, but Hobbs had installed a new feature in this device – a hammer. The handle jutted from the ruined inner workings, and Elise wrenched it free. She knew that it was beyond repair.

Hanna and Rhines. Were they even still alive? Was Elise stuck out here by herself, waiting for the timer to run out?

"No," she hissed through clenched teeth. "It’s not going to end like this."

The garbage chute was located on this deck, and Elise had seen the crewmembers operate it a number of times. A lever operated the hatch, and a green button was used to activate the expulsion of the chute’s contents into space. Elise moved over and tried pulling the handle, but it would not budge.

She looped her bound hands over the top of the lever and dropped, exerting her full weight upon it. Still it would not budge. She was sure the crewmembers never had this kind of difficulty operating the chute.

Then she noticed a glinting piece of metal that had been broken off inside the mechanism. More of Hobbs’ handiwork. Elise drew back and kicked at the lever ferociously.

"No!" she screamed angrily. "No!" She kicked again. Overcome by a terrible rage, adrenaline coursing through her veins, Elise backed up and launched her body at the lever, heard a sickening crack as her ribs crashed down upon it. She cried out and tumbled to the floor, clutching at her side. She’d broken a rib, she was certain of that. She struggled into a sitting position. The pain was intense.

The lever was down. The chute was open.

Elise got to her feet, biting back tears of agony. She gripped the plastic box as best she could with her bound hands and waddled over to the chute. She slid the box through the opening, slammed home the covering on the chute. She pressed the green button.

There was a whooshing, sucking sound as the explosives were swept outward, into the vacuum of space.

#

When Rhines and Richards appeared through the duct a short time later, Elise thought she was dreaming. The room was still spinning, and she had been in and out of consciousness a number of times. Rhines bent down on one knee as he examined her.

"Are you alright, Elise? What happened?"

Elise reached out and gripped the blue jumpsuit. He was really there.

"Explosives," Elise murmured. "You found them?"

"What explosives?"

Elise came to as if a bucket of cold water had been tossed in her face. "Hobbs," she said, clutching at the jumpsuit again. "He said he planted explosives on the Intolerance."

Rhines blanched. "Launch the Intolerance," he barked, whipping round and stabbing a finger at Richards. Hanna’s fingers were already dancing over the console, and as she finished, a series of clanking sounds heralded the release of the ship. In seconds, the Intolerance could be seen slowly receding in the observation window. Not even a minute had passed when it shuddered and twisted horribly, disintegrating in a flash of bluish-white light.

#

Hobbs was dreaming. In his dream, the universe around him was red. There were no features in this void, no landmarks, just that single, unchanging hue. He often wondered what hell must be like. Maybe this was it.

"But I’m not dead yet," he said smugly. Hearing his own voice, he realised then that he wasn’t asleep, either.

With a start, he pushed the release button, sending the plexiglass covering of his sleep chamber whooshing aside. An alarm was sounding, an accompaniment to the red warning light. As Hobbs stepped out into the cabin, he fell awkwardly to the floor, the effects of hyper-sleep, even such a short stint, playing havoc with his coordination. In addition to this, the Undertow was bucking like a rodeo bull.

He knew what the alarm signified. It was a proximity alert.

"They’ve caught up to me," he gasped, but as he got to his feet he caught sight of something out the porthole that was not a ship. He stumbled across to the window, planted his hands on the wall and stared.

Something purple-blue, giant and sinister stared back at him.

Hobbs glared down at the console accusingly. The nav was taking him on a direct route to Earth, as it had been programmed to do, but when he overrode the re-calculation of the journey, he had prevented the nav from factoring in the location of the planet Rogue. Rogue, it seemed was directly in his path.

And he was already entering its atmosphere.

"Son of a bitch," Hobbs breathed.

#

Elise’s fingers still trembled, even though the danger had passed some time ago. Rhines dabbed the last of the blood from her face. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and winced, clutching at her side.

"You’re going to have to go easy on that for a while," he cautioned.

"Captain," Richards said, swivelling away from the console, "there’s a distress signal emanating from Rogue. This one isn’t a hoax."

Rhines did not turn around or acknowledge her. His eyes took on a faraway look, and his countenance became stony. Then he set about applying a bandage to Elise’s arm.

#

The viewfinders were trained on Dryad and Rogue, the onboard computers recording images from seven different sources. Rhines, Richards and Elise occupied a viewfinder each as the moment approached.

Elise had seen an eclipse once, back home. What she witnessed now was reminiscent of that moment, yet far stranger and more wondrous. Dryad was like a shimmering angel, bright and clear. Rogue held its secrets to the bitter end, its dark surface as enigmatic as the first day it was detected, millions of kilometres away. They came together slowly, Rogue edging across Dryad as if the moon was indeed part of a lunar eclipse. Over the next hour, cracks and fissures seemed to criss-cross Dryad, like the fracturing of a giant egg. Ever so slowly the two began to separate at vastly different angles from which they had come together, fragmenting at an ever-increasing rate. Elise thought she could see Rogue amongst the debris, still partly whole, but it soon became lost in the nebula of rock that had been created by the collision.

#

Weeks later, when Elise’s rescue party arrived in the form of a veritable fleet of government spacecraft, she was not sad to leave. Rhines and Richards had made fine companions, but she missed the comforts of home, and could find no solace in scientific pursuits, as the other two did. She said her goodbyes and made her way down to the airlock on the lower deck.

"Elise." Rhines appeared behind her, emerging from the duct with something clutched in his hand. "I wanted to apologise one last time for everything."

Elise smiled, lowering her bag of belongings to the floor. "I told you a hundred times there’s no need for that. It wasn’t your fault."

"We should have read the signs earlier." He frowned. "Just goes to show you can do a hundred pysch tests on someone during their training and still not be able to anticipate how they’ll behave out here." He looked down at his hand. "Anyway, I wanted to give you this." He held up a disc.

"What’s this?" Elise said, taking the glinting object from his grasp.

"I recorded it a few days ago. It’s a message for my family." He looked at her earnestly. "I have a lot of things to get off my chest. I’d like you give it to them."

Elise glanced down at the disc and grinned ruefully. "I don’t think so, Captain." She handed it back to the befuddled crewman. "You get yourself some time off. Go back and see them and tell them yourself."

Rhines made no effort to conceal his disappointment, but acceded. Without another word, Elise hitched her belongings on one shoulder, entered the airlock and turned to face him. The door slid shut, and through a small window he could still see her face. She waved briefly, and then slowly dropped out of view.

Bio: Mark lives in Brisbane, Australia and works in the computer industry. He loves of heavy music, Thai curries and rock climbing, often all at once. Inspirations include Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak, Dean Koontz, and Tool. His work has appeared in several on-line publications..

E-mail: mrh666@hotmail.com

URL:

Visit Aphelion's Lettercolumn and voice your opinion of this story.

Return to the Aphelion main page.