Chapter 03: Necessary Hardships

The remaining days of October were a blur to me. My team and I awoke at dawn, took brief meals during the course of our twelve to fourteen hour long work days, fell asleep, and began again the next morning. We assembled components into the ship and relentlessly tested them; we had to make it perfect for there would be no second attempt if the first were to fail.

Our lives became reduced to robotic functionality, and all social interaction ceased as the days rolled by. Unless it related to the work, we didn't speak at all by the end of the month. We were haggard and sleep deprived; most of the men had neglected shaving, causing them to grow full beards and sideburns. None of it mattered to us anymore. We were on schedule with production, and our launch day was drawing near. If our ship was successful, our efforts would be well rewarded.

The morning of November fourth greeted me as all the days before it had done. I opened my eyes to the darkness of the storage room where we'd established temporary housing for project members. The high ceiling of bare metal gleamed even in the dark, reflecting the miniscule amount of light from the outer corridor.

I rolled over, groaning softly with the movement of my tired muscles. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself up. Rubbing my closed eyes gently with my palms, I tried to keep from falling asleep while standing. Releasing a silent yawn, I shuffled to the end of my small bunk and collected my clothes for the day. Stepping carefully between the closely arranged beds of my crew, I left the storage room and headed down the hall to change.

Blinding illumination stabbed painfully at my eyes, inducing a wince and forcing me to turn my head away slightly, as the bathroom light came on automatically when I entered. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. When I refocused, I saw my half-dead reflection in the wall mirror in front of me. Dark circles had taken up residence under my eyes, and my black beard made me look like someone who hadn't seen civilization in years. I could hardly believe it had been less than a month.

Placing my folded uniform on the spacious counter next to the sink, I leaned heavily against the smooth material, considering taking a nap. Stifling another yawn, I set about getting dressed. I exchanged the dull gray jumpsuit I'd been wearing for my more professional uniform. The cleaning staff had been doing excellent work during these past few weeks, collecting everyone's uniforms at the end of the day and having them cleaned and readied for the next. I made a mental note to give them a raise if our budget was ever restored.

As leader of the exploration and colonization project, my official uniform was in the reflective silver of command. I pulled the off center zipper on the right side of my chest all the way up to my high collar. I donned a pair of matching silver boots to complete the uniform. Looking slightly more presentable, but not by much, I left the bathroom with my jumpsuit sleepwear rolled into a tight bundle under my arm.

I put the jumpsuit on my bunk for the cleaning staff and headed for the mess hall. Resting my right hand against the wall, I battled back yet another yawn. My eyelids felt weighted, and it was a chore to keep them open. Leaning occasionally on the wall for support, I continued toward the mess hall.

The double doors hissed softly as they slid apart for me. The mess hall was large enough for my entire staff and several dozen visitors to sit down at the brightly shining metal tables for a meal together. The steel chairs positioned under the tables were all equipped with small tabs under their legs to help them glide silently across the polished floor.

Approaching the serving line at the far end of the room, I took a plate and looked over the selection of food supplements available. Completely the same in nutritional value and bland taste, they'd been prepared in different formats to facilitate the various textures of the foods replicated by the flavor sprays. The sprays were kept in cylindrical canisters of aluminum, supported in a wire rack at the end of the serving line. I took a helping of a loose, granulated food supplement and applied a spray to make it taste like a sugared breakfast cereal. A secondary dose of a spray into a procured water glass created the illusion of milk.

I picked a spot in the corner and sat down to eat my breakfast. Several members of my team began filing into the mess hall, sleep still dragging them down. I knew we couldn't keep up the pace we'd been pushing, but I also knew we wouldn't have to much longer. A few more days of installation and testing, and they could all take their work a little easier when the ship got underway.

After breakfast ended, we began our daily duties. I walked down the corridor from the mess hall to the stairwell. Up a flight of stairs to the second floor, I took the first right followed by the third left to enter the access concourse. Stretching from the primary building to the hull of our spacecraft, the concourse was the only available access to the ship interior after the remaining hull plating had been installed last week. Even though the concourse joined the side of the ship, the hull was significant enough in size to let me see it through the round windows lining the corridor every six feet.

Perfectly spherical in design, the ship rested in a donut shaped launching platform. Fuel lines, electrical cables, and life support conduits clustered in bundles of tubes and piping from the launch platform to various places on the exterior hull. Until ready for lift off, the ship still required significant levels of assistance from the ground based facilities. The sun rising in the east glinted off the gray metal hull plating, and I couldn't help thinking how much the ship reminded me of a small moon.

The hatch at the end of the concourse opened, followed immediately by the foot thick doors of the hull. Despite having been inside on multiple occasions, I never got tired of seeing the vessel. It was both a scientific marvel and a work of art. The interior passageways were rounded with arched supports every four feet. The extreme level of reinforcement allowed the ship to endure hull breaches and severe impact shocks without compromising the integrity of the craft as a whole.

Bright lights were mounted on the ceiling and in strips along the floor near the walls, providing abundant illumination for the computer consoles and control terminals wedged between the support structure of the walls. My boots echoed hollowly through the passages of the ship, making it feel as if I were completely alone.

Walking quickly to the heart of the vessel took nearly fifteen minutes and involved riding a lift up twenty-four levels. Non-gravity chutes were available in flight because all lifts would be shut down and secured once entrance into the asteroid belt was made. It would be simply too dangerous for the lifts to be in operation during asteroid impacts.

The round lock on the circular hatch rotated to the left as I approached the final doors leading to my destination. The lock indented slightly with a thump as the latches disengaged. The thick doors pulled apart, retreating into the walls, and I was allowed to march into the next room. The central hologram chamber was the only space on the ship without a backup. Every system controlled and monitored from this location could also be managed from another. Only the holographics for more easily keeping track of current ship status would be lost if the chamber were to be compromised.

The hologram chamber was completely round, but elevated work stations were positioned on angled platforms to compensate for the shape of the room. Located in the middle, a ten foot wide holographic projection of the ship rotated slowly in soft blue light. Beams from overhead and floor mounted projectors combined at eye level to create the image, and it was constantly updated with sensor information to keep those in command up to date about the ship's condition.

I placed a hand on the circular console forming a ring around the rotating hologram, and the panel lit up as my handprint was recognized. The computer came alive with dials, gauges, and information displayed in icy blue lines of transparent light hovering slightly above the console. Backups in the form of physical readouts were available in the event of a power failure or circuit malfunction, but for now, I used the more advanced hologram controls. I typed a few of the keys floating in the air, and the system monitoring my movements isolated which keys I had intended to press, and responded accordingly by activating the proper functions.

"Simulation nine seven two delta commencing in five minutes," the computer reported in a synthesized voice.

"Do you wish me to handle the controls?" asked a male voice from behind my shoulder.

I jumped at the unexpected inquiry. Spinning around, I relaxed instantly when I saw the man waiting calmly beside me. He stood of equal height to me at just over six feet, but he had the royal blue uniform of engineering rather than the silver command suit I wore. His hair was parted on the left side of his head, but the hair to the left of the part looked like copper threads while the remainder was a mousy brown. The man's eyes were the silver metallic rings of artificial optics. His right arm was mechanical, but his left was flesh and blood. Philip was his designation, and it stood for Programmed Humanoid Interactive Logistical Interfacing Pilot.

The machines who had come before Philip were a disaster. They had been built as fully robotic, but they'd developed trouble relating to humans as they had no knowledge of what it meant to be human. By grafting artificially grown human tissue onto the robotic structure, the synthetic organisms, or synths, became closer to being human, and it seemed to have solved the problem. Philip was the first synth to successfully complete the testing phase.

I'd originally opposed being saddled with a synth prototype simply because the project was too important to jeopardize by the use of an unproven technology. It didn't matter to me if Philip could pass tests in a lab. I needed someone I could rely on in a crisis. My opinion of Philip changed two weeks ago when an improperly sealed coolant line ruptured. Philip had raced into the engine compartment and rescued the workers before they could freeze to death. No human or cyborg could have done better, and I knew he had to go along on our voyage.

"No, thank you," I declined his offer of piloting assistance. "Everyone needs to have practical experience with different ship systems. We have multiple redundancies for everything onboard except the crew. If something should happen to one of us, we still need to be able to fly and land the ship."

"Understood, sir," Philip acknowledged. He nodded his head in acceptance and stepped back, clasping his hands behind his back and preparing to observe the test sequence.

The round doors of the hologram chamber opened for the entrance of the remaining support staff. They took their positions quickly and efficiently. The primary staff officers in the chain of command were not present, with the exception of myself and Philip. They were spread throughout the ship in different locations to prevent a catastrophic loss of leadership should the vessel take a critical hit.

"Test phase commencing," the computer's voice pleasantly announced.

The hologram representation of the ship, slowly rotating in the center of the room, shrank in size. Previously large enough for me to stand in the middle of it without touching any of the hull, the ship reduced to the size of my fist. Red icons representing asteroids began appearing around our projected flight path.

I did my best navigating the asteroid field, but the massive chunks of rock moved too swiftly for my reaction time. An asteroid previously not on course with the ship was suddenly redirected by a collision with another, and it left me with no time to evade. A tremendous impact landed against the forward hull, punching a huge hole in the ship.

"Sever power conduits and fuel lines in sections seven through twelve on decks one through fifteen," I ordered as the damage report scrolled across the console. "Engage secondary systems."

"Understood," came the response of my engineer through the console speaker. "Shutdown in process; switching to backups."

As the ship continued its simulated flight through the asteroid field, more impacts continued to batter the hull. I winced as increasing amounts of the damage display turned red with critical damage. I transferred what systems and controls I could, desperate to stay ahead of the next impact and system failure. My heart pumped adrenaline in my veins, driving away any lingering exhaustion.

When the ship exited the asteroid belt, the simulation ended. The miniature depiction of the holographic ship returned to its previous size, red patches splattered across the hull where damage had been sustained.

"Status report," I instructed the computer.

"Damage to primary and secondary systems on decks one through thirty irreparable," the computer reported without emotion. "Tertiary systems sustained forty percent damage. Engines one, nine, fifteen, and twenty-seven destroyed. Fifty-three percent chance of reaching Jupiter orbit."

"Yes!" I shouted, clapping my hands together once in exultation.

The rest of the crew working the stations around the holographic chamber cheered and applauded. After so many days and weeks of hard effort, victory was in our grasp. We wouldn't let it slip away now.