Sci-fi shots all in one + bonus

Only a couple of inches of glass separated young man from cold deep space abyss. He almost stuck to the illuminator and was looking at blue globe of home planet. He was lucky to born here on one of terraformed planets, but not on some piece of rock with poisoned atmosphere. Carthage was “green” earth type planet, however it wasn’t good developed as similar ones. There were only a few cities and some green fields. Farming was the main business there.

And now he was leaving home planet. There were no trees, no grass, no wind, and even no ground around. And that was uncomfortable. Wires buzzed somewhere. Some machines made quite noise. Some vibration appeared –main engine was switched on. And suddenly starship’s frame started to howl, like it was alive. A very strange feeling.

–Hey, don’t be afraid, man. The ship wouldn’t blow up, – a man with short black beard opened the door. – Just beams are creaking. That’s usual.

–Wait, what are you doing here in my cabin and who are you?

–Frank. Looks like I’m your fellow traveler.

–Uhm, I’ve got agreement with captain. I must be alone here.

–So there are more special passengers than expected. As you see there are too many people on this ship. You are lucky to get this personal cabin but not public one. That’s not good to live near that scum. But I’m a good man, – Frank tried to make nice face.

–Scum? You are calling these people scum just because they live in colonies?

–Trust me, I know that. I was born in Outer world colony. But they are mostly from New-London. It was good colony when mines worked. Now it’s heaven for drug dealers, killers, robbers and bandits. It’s easier to find a virgin in brothel than an honest man there. Anyway, what’s your name?

–Jacques, – they shook hands.

–So, is it your first flight? You look nervous.

–I often fly to moon, but I’ve never been in another star system. Only in childhood. I think you have more experience.

–Yes, I’ve been always working in space as repair engineer. I visited almost every inhabited system. Maybe. You should not worry. I took part in replacing reactor here. This is good ship, not new but reliable.

–What has happened with old reactor? As I know, they can work for a long time.

–Looks like you have some knowledge about this stuff.

–Not much. “The Ark”, ship that delivered first colonists to Carthage was broken long time ago, but it’s reactor still working on the planet.

–Yes, that’s possible, but only the core can work so long. I’m sure other reactor systems were replaced many times. So about this ship. It’s owner lost his license and he had so set up weaker reactor.

–Oh, that law about long-range transporting is real headache. My family grows grain for colonies. Not much. So big ships are useless for as for transporting, we have to hire small ones. But this law causes so many problems… It’s very hard to find someone with license.

–This ship was transporting ore from Outer world. Now it’s some kind of space bus. Damn bureaucrats. Long hyperjumps are risky a bit. And reliable crew is important. But in fact this law protects large transportation corporations. In Outer worlds nobody cares about license, but there is no job for ore transporter if you are not going to haul it to the Inner ones, where license is needed.

–I know that Outer worlds buy food and sell ore. Something like that. There are mostly mining colonies and they almost don’t trade with each other.

–Oh you know nothing. There are not only mines, but many industrial worlds. They just don’t like strangers. And why they should? Federation banned all trade except ore and food. Have you heared about that? Anyway, why is it grain? It’s more profitable and easier to product biomass.

–There is good demand for normal natural food. Yes it’s harder to find customer and it’s harder to grow it. But there are some people in colonies who want to pay for real bread but not those synthetic nutritious bricks. So why not? And are you working on this ship?

–Indeed, natural food is so expensive. Almost all of it is made for rich, and colonies get nothing. So that’s a good deal to grow grain for colonies. However, it’s impossible to feed everyone only with natural food. It’s easier to make synthetic one. And it’s health anyway. Not expensive. But sometimes I really want to eat some real apple. “Green” world become so rich because colonies depend on their food supplies. And when they have some argues, greens just raise the price. Bastards… Oh no, I not working here. I had a rest on Carthage and now I’m going back to Helen colony. There are huge shipyards where I’m working now. To be honest, I’m tired of working on ships during flight. Do you imagine how dangerous is it to repair ship in deep space? If something breaks it breaks suddenly. And it causes additional damage as rule. For example power distributor burns down. Because of it reactor coolers break. Or hyperdrive becomes overloaded. Something like that. And you must repair as soon as possible. Your life depends on it. There was accident on liner. Food processor fired. Thing which makes those very tasty snot, which people call nutritious gel. So canteen burns. And ship AI doesn’t allow to depressurize bay to stop fire. And do you know why? It mixed up that snot with people. Organic sensors were calibrated poorly. And now think what will happen if reactor blow up?

–I think you will be dead anyway. So, are problems with AI take place often?

–In fact, you can survive even after explosion of reactor. There are so many protection systems that shoot it down in a moment in case of failure. So it almost can’t explode strongly. Yes there will be hard damage. The ship will stay in one piece. The only way to make real fireworks is to overload it and switch off all protection systems. No, there are almost no problems with AI. Usually it’s isolated from main system and it is used for navigation and so on. Hm, you should know something about mad AI, don’t you? That accident on “Carthage”.

 

 

–Yes that Ark called Carthage did hyperjump and something exploded heavily. All main crew died. And AI didn’t wake reserve crew. It started act by itself and continued travelling in order to find ideal planet for colonists. Also life support system was damaged. There was almost suitable planet nearby. But it wanted to find ideal one. So AI killed one half of people to save the others. 50 millions of lives. At the end it found this planet. But who knows what exactly happened here? It was so long time ago. Did you choose shipyards just because it’s safety there?

–I also had some problems with the law. I took part in both civil wars in some way on both sides. So sometimes someone remembers it. All in all it’s better to live in colony, than always travel in space. I’ve already seen this world. So I want to have some rest. Life on starship isn’t nice. Radiation. Awful food. Smell. Do you know how does they restore oxygen? Hydraponics can be set up only on a big ship. Biorector does it. Smart bacteria eat biowaste, carbon dioxide and heat, than produce oxygen and protein food. Oh that smell. You can feel it if air filters broke. And you can feel it even if they work properly. But if bioreactor breaks…

–So you were soldier. I didn’t think I can meet someone like you. That’s rare profession nowadays.

–No, no. I was a civil technician on military starship. And only twice I saw a battle. You know, now I hate battleships. Civil ones are so convenient, so much space. Half of bays on military ones doesn’t have air. You always must wear spacesuit. Corridors are so narrow. Almost no artificial gravity. Yes it is needed to survive in battle, but no one can make me fly on this thing anymore.

–Does it happen every time? I mean accidents. To be honest, I can’t understand how you can repair engine, for example. It’s so complicated for me.

–No. Time to time. Usually that’s some small failures, which are easy to fix. To be honest, that’s no so dangerous. There are so many protection systems, reserve systems and so on. Disasters are very rare nowadays. How do I repair reactor? With help of mounting and someone’s mother. He-he. Yes starship is very complicated. But it is designed to be repaired easily. Simple things break first. Wires can burn down. Or a tube leaks. I hope you understand the idea. By the way engine isn’t so complicated. But bioreactor does. I should say sometimes you must be afraid of people not the machines. There are mercenaries in cargo bay. Who knows what they can do. Stay out of them. Looks like you are tired of conversations. I’ll go and eat something.

 

Done