Which Way is Up? - another Oasis of Taurus short

[Kwizard]

(latest from the Oasis of Taurus project:
http://www.gefkthow.com/stories.html)

'Which Way is Up?'


Steven nudged the shuttle’s throttle slightly, causing the aft rockets to fire in one continuous, rushing hum. He activated the radio channel. “Okay,” he said to the control room back on the ship, “shuttle number fifteen is on its way.” After a moment a grainy voice answered him, “Copy that Mr. Travers, and we’ll see you in thirty-five minutes.”

He released himself from the straps of the pilot’s seat and pushed his way over to a drawer on the cockpit wall. Unwrapping and taking a bite out of a candy bar, he turned back toward the instrument panel. All readings were normal – aside from the fact that they were in a nebula, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d flown inside one. All the hydrogen outside made the high-gain ion engines worthless, so he shut those off and decided to go check in on his passenger.

Steven propelled himself down the short hallway filled with yellowish light. The shuttle pilot politely tapped on a compartment door. “Hey Amy,” he said as if calling on an old friend, “you doing okay in there?” “I’m fine,” the seven-year-old replied without coming to the door. Letting out an involuntary chuckle, Steven allowed himself in.

“So, where are you and your parents headed to next?” he inquired as he stepped into the compartment and updated the shuttle’s log using a wall interface. Her parents were on board the Matriarch, the exploration ship where Amy was to meet up with her parents. She drew back her mousy brown hair and averted her eyes from the faint stars outside. “Oh, mommy was saying something about the outpost on Pacifica… five or something.” Steve listened while he wrote a simple log entry. “Pacifica five? I’ve flown this shuttle there.” The young girl’s face seemed to light up. “Really? Is it a nice place?” He nodded, finishing up with the craft’s log, “It’s a small planet – not many green plants there, but the people make it nice.”

Just as he was about to bid Amy goodbye she asked, “Steve, mommy and dad haven’t left the ship yet, have they?” Even the gentile old shuttle pilot was caught off guard, not expecting a seven-year-old to carry such a serious tone. “Oh no,” he laughed it off, “and we’ll be right on time.” “Promise?” she asked, her eyes still rather fixed. “I promise,” Steve assured her.

Halfway out of the compartment door, he stopped. “And I’ll be up in the cockpit if you need me.” “Okay,” Amy chimed, folding her hands in her lap and going back to squinting at the stars.

The pilot smiled as he pushed his way back up to the control seat. “Alright,” Steve breathed to himself, settling back into the comfortable chair. He ran a quick check of the shuttle’s systems, marveling at the power of the floodlights. It was standard exploration protocol to have those powerful floodlights turned on when flying through a nebula, and one of them alone lit up kilometers of hydrogen gas in every direction around them. The glaring light was cast out in order to alert the pilot of any oncoming debris, although visually seeing your destination point – in this case the Matriarch – was made impossible by the haze. But not to worry: a holographic radar display in front of him alerted Steve to exactly where he was headed. That flashing yellow dot representing the Matriarch was perfectly in-line with the shuttle’s course. “Dead on,” Steve muttered as he leaned back.

The pilot yawned and rolled his neck in circles, trying to work out the tension he’d built up over the past few days. Stealing a momentary look over at his candy bar drawer, he even wondered if a second treat would be in order.

Suddenly a loud banging thump sounded from the starboard side as Steve’s body lurched forward, testing the straps in the pilot’s seat. Something of respectable size had hit the shuttle. The insistent buzzing of the master alarm was set off and Steve reached across the console to turn it off, swearing under his breath. The chunk of debris must have hit them right as Steve was leaning back earlier. Well, Murphy’s Law does apply even where gravity doesn’t.

The overhead lights in the cockpit flickered and died. What the hell was going on? Steven swiveled his pilot’s seat around as he heard a compartment door slide open. From the darkened hallway Amy came drifting toward him. “What happened, Steve?” she asked. “Well… right now I’m… not so sure,” he answered, doing his best to smooth the fear out of his voice. All the instruments had died, which left the pilot to stare out of the cockpit glass into surrounding space. But he couldn’t see much; the floodlights had not only failed him, they were now making for a haze of illuminated hydrogen that couldn’t be seen through.

“Listen, Amy,” he said over his shoulder, “if something bad is happening, you’ll be safer in the compartment.” Steven had trouble with people being in his cockpit during flights anyway, and having just had the instruments die was not helping. Amy looked at him skeptically, managing an “Okay” before the compartment door slid open and shut again.

There was a way out of this, he just had to find it. Jumping on a thought, Steven’s hand darted toward the navigation display. He groaned miserably a split second later. Why would the display be working? That chunk of debris probably hit the main generator, he guessed. Gazing out at the vast cloud of gas, Steven tried in vain to spot the Matriarch’s docking lights through the haze. It was impossible.

Two options remained – the pilot reached for one of them. Picking up the radio handset he called back to the ship. “Shuttle fifteen to Pathfinder, do you copy?” He looked out at the menacing haze, and he couldn’t help but let his despair grow. There was no answer. Cursing aloud, he slammed the handset back into its slot.

Steven ran his fingertips through the wrinkles in his forehead. He closed his eyes and thought back to what he knew about the shuttle. Obviously the main generator and communication array both had been blown out, but the extra generator powering the floodlights was unharmed. …No, he couldn’t risk doing that.

Shutting down the generator for the floodlights would be crazy. There wasn’t even a guarantee he could start the cheap hunk of shuttle equipment back up again, and what if turning off the floodlights didn’t yield anything? “Got to keep them on…” Steve uttered to himself, too frightened to turn off his only hope.

For a time he sat there, more terrified than he had been in a long while. Steven thought he heard noises from Amy’s compartment, but kept scanning the glowing gas cloud around them. It was helpless – not a thing could be seen through the hellish glow and the craft was surely drifting off course. Steven ran his fingers through his hair.

A shuttle pilot wasn’t supposed to let this happen. He was sitting in a dark cockpit with no ship contact and didn’t know which way was up. Getting to the Matriarch was of the essence – he had given his word to a little kid. Drawing in a shaky breath, he reluctantly peeked over at the secondary generator’s switch. I can’t start them back up, he reminded himself.

Steven placed his hand on the switch, holding the floodlights by the throat. Without looking down from the glass he forced himself to yank the switch. Without a sound, the lights faded away as their power sourced died. Several seconds passed. The haze had disappeared quite a bit, but a stubborn glow still blinded him. Then it drained away, forcing the pilot to blink dumbly as his eyes adjusted.

Hearing the sound of his breathing but not listening to it, Steven desperately scanned the nebula. He only saw dim stars shining through. Just on the verge of panic, he spotted a foggy string of lights in the upper left corner of his view. They were docking bay lights, hardly a doubt about it.

He stared at the Matriarch’s faint outline, soothed by its presence. Steven lifted his right hand from the generator shut-off switch and folded both of them in his lap. How simple it all was now, yet how stupid he had been to keep the floodlights on. Now sure of where he was going, the pilot corrected his craft’s course while keeping the distant lights in view. Only several hundred kilometers of nebula separated them from the destination.

Just as some of the side thrusters fired with a soft rushing purr, Amy cautiously emerged out of her compartment. “Steve,” she almost whispered, “is it okay now?” He looked over his shoulder before swiveling the pilot’s chair around to face her. Steven nodded, “It’s alright now. We got hit by something earlier, but I’ve fixed the problem… you should be seeing your parents very soon.” The girl looked relieved, if a bit confused. “How’d you fix it?” she asked, pulling closer to Steven.

He smiled as he kept eyeing the far-off ship. “Oh, I just… ah, just had to put out a few lights, that’s all.