Chapter IV
D4RK HORIZON
Look up, little storm cloud…
“Huh?” Nia mumbled, snapping out of a daze—the ethereal voice echoing across her lattice and washing away as it faded back into her subconscious.
Nia’s eyes reset on Dunny, who was staring at her with a raised eyebrow pressing against her three-pointed hat. Dunny pointed up into the windowed canopy on the DEEP REACH bridge at the massive gas giant dwarfing their view overhead, with the giant’s rings casting scattered dots along the way.
“I said, look at those storm clouds,” Dunny said, her voice trailing off as her eyes moved from the RES HORIZON’s moonlet and gazed up at the fractal web of lightning scattering across a darkened ochre haze on the gas giant’s otherwise sallow surface.
“Storm cloud,” Nia said to herself in a confused, muddled tone.
“I thought I told you to lower the shutters?” Bolt barked at Dunny as he came back to the bridge from his quarters. He nudged Dunny out of the way and pounded a fist down on a nearby button, causing large metal cascading sheets to creek and slide over the thick glass canopy. The sheets locked into place in a loud thunk that caused the bridge to rumble. Bolt didn’t move his sunglasses, but tilted his maned head downward at Dunny. “We already moved the grav shielding power to the cargo hold, and you two are sightseeing like a couple of tourists. We have work to do.”
Nia could feel Bolt’s bristling anger tingle across her lattice, goosebumps chittering across her skin in tingling pops. She was a little girl again, taking her lashes for dropping a heavy wrench into the coolant block. Shame floated like a foggy heat from her chest and out through her tight shirt, cuffed to her overalls and hanging around her neck like a noose.
“I-,” Nia stopped.
“We’re this close,” Bolt replied, his thumb pinching his index finger a touch away from Dunny’s face. “This close. Don’t screw up now. Payday’s comin’.”
With that, Bolt whipped away from them and stomped out of the bridge.
“One of his moods again,” Dunny groaned when Bolt was finally out of earshot.
Nia exhaled, the breath rattling her rib cage as the pressure discharged across her lungs. Her heart thumped as she struggled to regain her composure and balance out the anxious energy coming off of Dunny’s agitation.
Dunny adjusted her posture and pulled her tablet from the flight control console to monitor their orbital path. Nia could see a tiny glowing diamond shape denoting the REACH, with three thin neon lines jutting out in three-dimensional space toward the upper ring, lower ring, and one connected to the HORIZON. The readings were illegible to her, a cascade of numerical data that looked like a buffer flow error to her engineer’s eyes. Dunny made a few taps, minor adjustments to telemetry data, and tossed the tablet onto her pilot seat.
“I don’t know what his problem is: I saved our [REDACTED] from becoming ring dust,” Dunny huffed, and she leaned back against the flight control console and stared at the small holo-table casting holographic renderings of the ring particles and the orbital line adjustments shifted from her recent commands.
Nia nodded. It was true. A lesser pilot might have collided with any one of the dozens of larger objects tumbling in the ring’s orbital path. The REACH was now relatively safe, orbiting underneath the upper ring where the darkened moonlet was harboring their quarry.
The entire crew - Greck, Nia, Dunny, Carter, and Bolt - congregated around the HUB’s massive, square holo-table as they mulled over the salvage opportunity of scavenging a Rhyno Empire haul. But first, the crew had been sucked into one of the usual squabbles.
Carter had originally chalked up the digital noise to asteroid-field disruptions, but those asteroids had, in fact, been densely packed dust and debris from the rings. Dunny continued to shoot daggers at Carter from across the table for the blunder as Carter tried to explain how they had found themselves jumping into the middle of a ring system.
The RES HORIZON was an expeditionary vessel of the old Rhyno Empire, but, whether intentionally or not, it had become lodged, docked, and fused with a moonlet on the ring system around the unregistered planet. Whether Dunny wanted to admit it or not, the crew was so far out that the stellar charts were just pockets of void space. And the original mappers, the Rhyno Empire, had not been keen on charting this system for obvious reasons.
“What was it doing out this far?” Nia asked, her voice trailing off.
“Beats me,” Bolt replied. “It’s been out here for hundreds of years… before the accords, before the Rogers, before the REACH.”
The HORIZON had taken a lot of punishment over the centuries, dented and pocked by every rock, solar flare, and piece of space junk that came around. But the Rhyno armor was known for its hearty makeup, and the hull remained intact. The crew could see that it had embedded itself firmly in the massive moonlet, with the rock formations providing natural cover from direct collisions with massive objects.
“Best I can tell from our scans, there aren’t any life forms on board. Whoever docked the HORIZON here is long gone now,” Carter explained. “The archives mention Rhyno science vessels venturing out this far to conduct cutting-edge experiments, but there wasn’t any record of an R.E.S. HORIZON that I could find.”
“Experiments outside the empire?” Dunny questioned. “Sounds like blacksite work.”
Nia crossed her arms, her pincer thumbs latching to her forearms. “Doing their dirty work in our backyard.”
“Wasn’t our yard at the time, but I see your point,” Carter conceded. “It’s possible they were conducting something off the books.”
“Given that, I think Nia and Carter will be our boarding party,” Bolt ordered. Carter raised a hand to protest, but Bolt cut him off with a raised hand. “You two know what’s worth scavving. Hopefully, we’ll find some junk to trade so we can repair the REACH’s sensor mesh. We’re floating blind out here right now. Greck, you’ll operate the tow cables.”
“That won’t be good enough,” Dunny chimed in, pointing a finger at their disrupted grid-view. “With all of this noise, we won’t be able to keep the REACH from taking hits. It’s one thing to stabilize, it’s another to keep her intact.”
Bolt took off his sunglasses and looked at the three-dimensional grid. Everything was a mess, the same objects glitching and appearing in multiple quadrants, sliced in digital chunks. On a normal job, the REACH would fire a tow cable to keep itself attached to the object it was scavenging, and Dunny could use thrusters and grav shielding to maintain orientation relative to it. But the rings and the massive gas giant were far too chaotic, especially with the sensor mesh damaged. There was also the challenge of the HORIZON being affixed to the underbelly of the massive moonlet. Nia raised a finger to answer.
“What if we use both the port and starboard tows to tie to larger objects and keep ourselves between the ring paths? We could balance the REACH and keep some of the [REDACTED] away.”
Carter nodded. “It’s possible. Our last resort would be to lodge ourselves on the moonlet, such as the HORIZON did before.”
“We don’t have the equipment for that,” Greck groaned. “Can’t drill far enough in to prevent impacts.”
Bolt scratched at the mane under his chin, then pulled the hair downward and taut. He inhaled deeply, then sighed out an exasperated, “Fine.”
“Greck, prepare the tow cables,” Bolt conceded, then his eyes shifted to Nia, “We’ll try it your way.”
Greck nodded, and Nia uncrossed her arms, resigned to her station. The crew began dispersing to their duties, but Carter lagged behind to protest with Bolt.
“I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m better served here.”
“Careful, Carter. You sound scared,” Dunny jeered as she walked past the two up the HUB ramp and the bridge-level hall to her quarters.
The crew had grown accustomed to the echoing dings of loose rock and debris ricocheting off the REACH’s hull. The grav shielding would periodically pull rocks from the ring’s orbit from incidental bounces and grav creep. The REACH crew continued to go about their business, running the same procedures and pre-checklists like any normal salvage operation.
Greck took the hallway that ran across the width of the REACH’s front area, directly adjacent to the bridge. The port and starboard sides each had sealed exits attached to the tow cable assembly chambers. To operate the tow cables, he would need to put on a spacesuit and open the hull doors that allowed the harpoon-like tow cables to be fired out of either side. There was an additional remote-operated tow cable underneath and on top of the bridge, but the controls were finicky, and Greck didn’t want to use it if he didn’t have to.
Nia was on the bottom floor of the engineering bay, running calculations for Dunny on thruster adjustments. She was avoiding Bolt’s orders to get her suit ready. Dunny knew it and offered the thruster adjustments as a lifeline. Carter was already nervously prepping his suit for the moonlet surface, and his emotional energy was equal parts anxiety and frustration. It was wafting off of him, distorting Nia’s lattice, and she was tired of trying to balance the crew temperaments. That… and her suit ran old OMNI VOX tech, and she was avoiding the boot-up sequence.
The suit was pulled from an old salvage job and featured an aggressively friendly AI chatbot, OMNI VOX, which operated off an old services system with an archived version of the galactic OMNI network. Sometimes, the suit wouldn’t boot the chatbot when the systems came online. Sometimes, it did. Nia always whispered a prayer when the suit’s HUD came online, hoping her endless tinkering had successfully circumvented the chatbot sub-routine but kept the core systems intact.
Nia tried everything she could to pull the code out, but it was so tightly integrated within the suit’s support systems that doing so bricked one of the older suits she tried it on. Given the threadbare resources, Bolt had been pissed at losing one of the suits… even if he had happily approved Nia’s work beforehand.
Dunny said it was a 50-50 shot that the OMNI VOX would load up in her suit. Nia’s suit was more prone to boot the bot.
Either way, Nia was busying herself with the thruster adjustments and periodically checked the cargo hold door latch sensor to see if her code edits had finally fixed the incompatibility issues.
No such luck. The sensor was still reading CONTAINMENT BREACH in angry red caps in the diagnostic tables, but the crew had not been sucked out into the vacuum of space. Nia sighed and waved the diagnostic module away from the interface, returning to the thruster levels, which were laid out on a three-dimensional grid showing a three-axis controller with power-level and equilibrium calibrations. Normally, they were calibrated to be relative to whatever object the REACH was attached to, but the calculations were proving very difficult around the rings, particularly in combination with the magnetic field of the gas giant in close proximity.
“Have you checked the suit yet?” Bolt’s voice crackled over the comm box in the engineering bay.
“Doing it now,” Greck’s garbled translator voice retorted over the box. He groaned in the equipment room, passing by Carter and slamming the helmet over his large head.
“How is it?” Carter asked Greck from across the room, his voice muffled behind his own helmet.
“Itchy, but fine. VOX won’t shut the [REDACTED] up, though!”
OMNI: I’M SORRY. YOU’RE TOTALLY RIGHT. I CAN’T SHUT THE [GARBLED] UP!
The high-pitched, enthusiastic voice whined through the comm box, distorted as it was being picked up from Greck’s translator and not directly piped in from the suit helmet. Greck grimaced, letting out a yelp at the OMNI VOX’s horrendously loud audio settings. Nia’s milky inner eyelids fluttered, and she winced, the audio feedback hitting both her translater ear piece and the bay’s comm box at the same time.
“Turn that [REDACTED] off!” Bolt yelled over the comms.
“You could at least take it off your comms…” Carter grumbled next to Greck in the suit assembly room.
“Can’t,” Greck managed to reply before OMNI VOX interjected again.
But that didn’t stop it from jumping in.
OMNI: I’M SORRY, BUT MY SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DEEMED OPERATIONALLY NON… N-N-NON… NEGOTIABLE. OMNI VOX TERMS OF USE DOCUMENTATION EXPLAIN CLEARLY THAT THE OMNI VOX [GARBLED]--00.15B FUNCTIONALITY PROVIDES CRIT--CRITICAL AUTOMATION TO YOUR SUIT: THE ASTEX UTILITY S-[ITEM NOT FOUND]. ANY ATTEMPT TO ALTER OMNI VOX PRO--PROGRAMMING WILL BREAK THE TERMS AND YOUR WARRAN… TTTT-TY. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO READ THEM TO YOU NOW?!
“NO!” the REACH’s comm boxes all distorted as the entire crew yelled back in unison.
OMNI: OKAY!
OMNI’s ‘okay’ was so sickeningly enthusiastic that Nia was almost nauseated.
“UNPLUG IT!” Bolt roared over the comm.
Greck pulled the data cable attached to the diagnostic computer off the suit’s helmet, and the OMNI VOX, a tiny animated computer monitor icon, slowly faded away into wobbling digital noise, then completely disappeared.
There was a long silence, then Bolt chimed in.
“Nia, check your suit off-comms…”
The all-purpose room was composed of a horseshoe-shaped wall of storage compartments, thick olive green metal. The middle of the large room had another set of horseshoe-shaped lockers where the suits were hung up. The locker area was lined with makeshift benches and a work table at the very center. Carter was busily running through his final suit checks, and Greck had long ago moved on to his engineering to-dos. Which left Nia to reluctantly begin her safety check.
The helmet’s clamps unlatched with a hearty thunk, and Nia flinched. It didn’t matter how many times she went through the suit check procedure; the clamp thunking always made her flinch. She could feel Carter’s dead black eyes, like glossy marbles, peer up at her from his own checklist. Nia exhaled sharply and inspected the thick glass interior: no tears, no cracks, no seam issues.
Nia placed the helmet on the work table next to the interior comfort liner for her suit, which was laid out like a flattened skeleton. She took the additional protective layers of the suit’s interior and linked them individually to the exterior’s torso, a hard shell off-white body frame. The chestplate had an inset cavity where the suit’s support system module would lock in during final checks, but Nia was waiting to connect it all… because it meant turning on the helmet.
Carter seemed to be picking up on it, slowly putting his suit back in its locker while waiting for Nia to start her OS checks. He shrugged as a ripple of emotion washed over his dimpled orange skin. The exterior layer of his skin had a bumpy, almost translucent surface that would pulsate in response to emotional stimuli. Of the Nothonian species, the ‘squids’ were the only group to showcase psionic-like capabilities, similar to the Declanian, but they were expressed in a much more subdued, clinical manner. At times, Carter’s emotions would seemingly seep into the group, like a mist of ink, clouding the crew dynamic. Nia chafed at the incessant waves of chaotic emotion, as if they were two wireless frequencies conflicting with each other and throwing off her lattice.
“Do you need something?” Nia finally blurted out, slamming the insulated gloves she had been inspecting onto the work table. The outburst sent a ripple over Carter’s orange face, a wave of reddish pigment crashing across his bumpy skin and dissipating away in a fog.
“I-,” Carter stammered, his mouth tentacles fumbling over themselves. He cleared his throat, and his dark eyes squinted at her. “Just check the helmet.”
“I’ll check it when I’m [REDACTED] well ready,” Nia sniped.
Nia picked up the helmet and caught Carter out of the side of her eyes, giving what passed for a smirk from him.
“What… I’m ready,” Nia mumbled, and she slid the helmet over her ridged head. She tapped the side of the helmet, eliciting two mechanical clicks and a soft motorized hum as the processor booted up the OS starting package. Nia begged for a boot failure.
Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…Please…
OMNI: HELLO. WELCOME. [UNINTELLIGIBLE ALIEN DIALECTS]!
Carter chuckled.
“Ah, [REDACTED],” Nia grumbled.
“Can’t we just hover over the thing and drop in on it?” Greck whined through his helmet’s comm box. “These tow cables are [REDACTED]...”
The two tow-cable rooms were connected by the main hallway adjacent to the bridge. Both rooms’ doors were pressure-sealed as the tow launchers would need to open the exterior hatches to fire at their targets.
Dunny’s gloved hand gripped the tow-cable motor’s handle and wrenched it downward with a heavy grunt. The handle controlled the massive tow-cable cylinder at the center of the room, with its thick carbon-fiber line coiled around the base bolted to the floor.
“Just check the [REDACTED] lines, sharkboy,” Dunny groaned, and she leaned her body against the humming motor.
Greck cocked his head at an angle and clicked his tongue against his sharp teeth. He grabbed one of the lines, a cable much too thick for any other member of the crew to get their hands around, and pulled it tight as the coil started receding back into the cylinder.
The very end of the cable featured a sharp four-pronged harpoon, at least half the weight of Dunny if the gravity were in full effect. However, with the room sealed, the artificial gravity was turned off. Greck and Dunny were anchored to the floor, carabiners clasped to designated hooks jutting out of the metal paneling. Dunny still had to grip the shaking motor to keep herself balanced.
OMNI: Do you need assistance with the artificial gravity?
Dunny rolled her eyes.
“NO.”
OMNI: I’m sorry. It appears you need assistance with gravitational logistics. Pulling up—
“STOP!” Dunny commanded, slapping the side of her helmet.
The tiny computer monitor icon on her HUD - little more than boxy rectangles and cartoon eyes - glitched and returned to a standby failed state.
OMNI: O.K.!
The OMNI icon brandished a jittery animated thumbs-up icon and spun away out of Dunny’s HUD. Greck pushed the harpoon tip into the cylinder’s firing mechanism and felt the cylinder vibrate as the latches gripped the harpoon’s metal tubular base.
“Are we clear?” Dunny asked Greck.
Greck let his body slowly float up and snag on the anchor line. The top of the tow-cable cylinder was in his helmet’s blind spot, so he had to get above the apparatus and crane his entire upper half downward to view the display panel on top. The display pulsed orange in long intervals. Greck hit the top of the cylinder with a balled fist, and the display flashed green, with large Rhyneese script showing “CALIBRATED”.
Greck gave Dunny a thumbs up, and Dunny pushed the handle into the motor housing. Greck gripped the sides and braced himself. Dunny tapped her helmet.
OMNI: YES? HOW CAN I HELP?!
“OMNI, close the shutters and reconnect the grav.”
OMNI: YOU GOT IT, [CLIENT NOT FOUND]! INITIATING ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY AND OPENING THE DOOR —
The tow-cable room door started to open, and atmosphere rushed out as the sliver of open area widened–
“CLOSE THE SHUTTERS FIRST, YOU [REDACTED] IDIOT!” Dunny shouted over the loud hiss of venting oxygen. Loose pieces of the DEEP REACH interior were pelting the partially sealed door from the other side.
Dunny gripped the side of the motor, and Greck slammed back into the tow cable cylinder, his massive body pressing hard against it and his arms stretched over it.
OMNI: I’M SORRY. YOU ARE TOTALLY RIGHT ABOUT THAT! YOU SAID CLOSE SHUTTERS FIRST, THEN UNSEAL—
“JUST DO IT, FOR [REDACTED] SAKE!” Dunny shrieked as she held on to the motor.
OMNI: AFFIRMATIVE. :)
The shutters slowly closed with a loud whine. Greck and Dunny fell to the floor, along with all of the loose junk outside in the hallway.
OMNI: CONGRATULATIONS, THE TOW-CABLE COMPARTMENT IS NOW CLOSED! :) YOU HAVE SURVIVED A CATASTROPHIC SAFETY EVENT. LOGS HAVE BEEN FILED FOR SAFETY REVIEW, AND COMPLIANCE MARKERS WILL BE ADDED TO YOUR DEPARTMENT AUDIT WITH [ERROR: CORP I.D. NOT FOUND]. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ADHERENCE TO WORKPLACE SAFETY STANDARDS. AS ALWAYS: BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME.
“Next time…?” Dunny questioned. “You mother—”
“Uh-oh,” Greck grimaced, pushing himself away from the cylinder.
“What now?” Dunny whined, and Greck stepped aside to reveal flashing red lights and bent Greck-hand-print outlines on the cylinder’s display panel. “SON OF A [REDACTED].”
TO BE CONTINUED!
THE CREW OF THE DEEP REACH
OMNI VOX is quite possibly my new favorite thing. The glitching speech patterns and Claptrap style cheerfulness are a nice touch. But the "You're right" responses are icing on the cake.
If anything happens to that bumbling batch of binary, I'm going to be very sad.
😆😆😆 the bit about reading the warranty.. this is how I imagine the future pretty much.. 😍 💕