20 years ago.

  It wasn’t that Phil Cardano was lacking in talent. He was certainly learning the ropes well enough, and seemed to be fitting in with the rest of the crew on the Marengo. It was the way he would get lost in himself, staring out a window like it was the first time he’d seen the stars. You wondered what went on in that head of his, but every time you asked he’d give you a polite but dismissive answer. “Space,” he said once. “I’m just thinking about space.”

  It was the sort of non-answer that really got under your skin. You’d think after a few weeks underway, he’d get over himself. Even if it was his first time going out to the Moon. He might have gotten along with most everyone else, but I simply didn’t like him that much. Not at first.

  Then one day I went and did something stupid. The reactor - that’s all the way at the front of the ship if you didn’t know - started giving off some weird readings, and we figured one of the rod actuators had become jammed. Electronic controls from back in the engineering room weren’t having any effect, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t volunteer to go up front and operate the manual controls. I wasn’t happy about it, but reactor problems on a 50-megawatt power plant have a nasty tendency of turning into reactor disasters if you don’t get them fixed real quick.

  See, the reactor on a ship like this puts out a lot of radiation, so there’s a heavy shield built right behind it. But that doesn’t block everything so the parts of the ship where the crew works is way far in the back. This creates a long empty space in the design - the perfect place for all the container racks, with the racks attaching to a central beam, basically the spine of the ship. Picture a tunnel drilling down the length of this spine. An awful poorly-lit claustrophobic spaceship tunnel like you see in the movies. Except it’s worse because it’s long, maybe 100 or 120 meters. Now picture me floating down this tunnel alone with my tools, and you’re up to speed.

  I should mention that I had a choice here. There were two ways into the control room. One is the tunnel, the other is an airlock leading to the top of the ship, i.e. outer space. Same distance either way, but the tunnel was at least pressurized. This was nice since I wasn’t wearing a suit.

  I got to the end of this tunnel and I was right behind the shield, maybe 20 feet away from an active reactor core. Radiation was at a sobering level, but I figured I was OK as long as I didn’t linger. That’s when I made my mistake. If you’ll allow me to get a little technical about it, I was supposed to Make It Better, and what I did instead was Make It Worse. But the end result was a blown coolant pipe, with a wall of ice blocking me off from the tunnel and a mass of ice sticking me to the wall. Oh and the radiation was ticking up.

  I radioed for help and the Marengo’s response team said they’re starting down the tunnel. I was starting to sweat a bit, not gonna lie, because I wasn’t sure how thick that ice was and the numbers on my radiation meter were looking less and less friendly. That’s when Cardano, of all people, spoke up over the radio.

  “Norge,” he said. “Norge I’m coming to get you. Is the airlock clear of ice?”

  I told him to wait, that there were people with actual training coming down the tunnel.

  He told me they wouldn’t get through soon enough.

  I told him I didn’t have a suit. He said it didn’t matter, that he had been outside the ship when my call came through, and he had gone back in and grabbed a spare. Imagine a complete greenhorn, climbing 120 meters along the outside of a container ship, an empty suit clipped onto his tether like a little kid at the fair with a goddamn balloon.

  Anyways, I won’t say I wasn’t relieved when Cardano’s face appeared on the other side of my airlock. He helped me get out of the ice and into my suit. We got a radio call from the rescue team, they’re starting to chip through which is nice. That’s when we remembered the nuclear reactor and that damn stuck actuator.

  Cardano and I tried to fix it, but it’d lost too much coolant and it was pretty clear where things were headed. We called the captain and gave him the update, and he said he was going to have to separate the reactor - i.e. the whole damn front of the ship. Separation involves explosive bolts, and it’s not a pretty prospect for anyone as close to the reactor as Cardano and I were. I asked for more time, he said he could give us three minutes.

  As it turned out the actuator wasn’t the only thing that was stuck. Cardano tried the airlock and it was jammed somehow. I put my back into it and couldn’t get it open either. He started searching for something, anything that would help get leverage on the handle, but I felt this sort of peaceful feeling all of a sudden. “Cardano,” I said. “You didn’t have to come up here to rescue me. Why’d you get yourself in this situation?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He turned to me and said, “Well Norge, I’ve only been doing this for a few weeks, so I’ve never been stuck in a radioactive death trap before. But if I were, I think I’d want somebody to help me out of it.”

  As if summoned by magic, as soon as those words left his mouth the rescue team broke through the ice. Imagine that! They should have been long gone by then, but there they were. They made quick work of the rescue and all of us started hauling ass down the tunnel. We got behind a blast door just in time to see the whole front of the ship pop off and start floating away.

  I started liking Cardano a lot more after that day. He proved himself to be a true Spacer, right to the core. He’d do anything for his crewmates, and I think we’d do just about anything for him.

  * * *

  Present day.

  If Captain Isabel Lenares was nervous about having an undertrained crew full of non-union contractors, she wasn’t going to show it. The twenty men and women were aboard, the ink on their contracts was dry, and she had a commission to get this ship to Mars. She was a professional, and would work with what she was given.

  She floated into the bridge, sipping her coffee. Passing by the pilot and the rest of the bridge crew, she looked out the large forward windows. The racks of the Strawberry Roan stretched out in front of her, looking strange without their containers. At the far end, just behind the reactor shield, the station crew had just finished mounting the lander to the central spine of the ship. This was the last step on the checklist. The propellant tanks were topped off, the supplies were secured, and the fresh fuel rods had been installed and certified.

  Soon. Soon they’d be underway.

  There was a buzz at the bridge entrance. Norge was there, the senior station manager, holding his clipboard with the discharge papers. He gave her a smile as he handed them over.

  “Everything’s checked out, Captain Lenares. You’ve got a tight ship here,” he said, patting a bulkhead. “The Roan’s gonna give you a beautiful ride.”

  “I know she will.”

  “You know she’s going to miss a couple of her annual maintenance jobs, going on a big trip like this. If you bring me back a Mars rock I’ll knock 25% off whatever needs fixing.”

  “Hmm, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  With Norge safely back on the station and the docking tunnel retracted, Isabel gave the order to undock from the transfer station. The pilot manipulated a square-knobbed controller, and vernier thrusters all along the length of the ship fired in unison. Short bursts of cold gas pushed the giant ship out of the docking bay with surprising grace.

  Once cleared, the order went down to the engineering deck to power up the reactor. The core itself was a silent thing, but the crew could hear the hum of distant coolant pumps spooling into action. As the reactor neared operating power the black blades of the radiator fins fanned out. Slowly they soaked up the heat of the reactor, turning from black to a dim red glow.

  “Throttle to 43% on main thrusters,” Isabel said.

  Now all that power was being put to use, running through the massive ion thrusters at the rear of the ship, accelerating xenon ions to 50,000 meters per second. A triple plume of ghostly blue plasma formed behind the three main engines, creating a gentle push that would slowly but surely carry the Strawberry Roan and her crew to Mars.

  The blue Earth spun below, and open space stretched out before them. Isabel smiled to herself. It was a good day to fly to Mars.

  * * *

  90 days later.

  The lander hatch opened with a puff of gas and twelve suited figures emerged. Clambering down the outside of the lander, they assembled on the spine of the Strawberry Roan.

  The black sky above them held the Earth and the Moon. At this distance you could raise your hand up and cover them both. You could cover two worlds, fifteen billion human lives with one hand. After a moment Phil remembered himself and lowered his arm, chuckling softly. The truth was he was just happy to be out of the lander. How many weeks had it been since Norge secretly sealed them in? But it was time to get moving now. Harold and the others were waiting.

  The crew traversed the spine, moving slowly and carefully along the 360 feet of the Roan’s back.

  Phil and Harold were the first into the airlock. They waited patiently while the pumps filled the chamber with atmosphere, but when they went to open the door somebody was already pulling it open from the other side.

  Deidre Maxwell allowed herself a rare grin. She led them up through the decks until they got to the bridge. Isabel Lenares turned around when Deidre cleared her throat, and gave Phil a nod.

  “Welcome aboard, Captain Cardano. The bridge is yours.”