The Demise of the Night Flight

Nyx tried again to jettison the cargo, no response. She tried to operate the manual override, but it was jammed. “Shit. I’m stuck with this now.” She returned to the pilot’s chair and strapped in.

Nyx checked the straps of her harness and made sure her helmet was secured to the side of the pilot’s chair. There were more warning and error lights than systems showing normal. The artificial gravity was straining to overcome the effects of the ship’s diagonal end-over-end tumble.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. MV Night Flight, engines down, steering thrusters down, unstable attitude, moving approximately fourteen-thousand kilometers per hour, last known position Oort Cloud jump gate. When grav shuts down I’m not likely to retain consciousness.”

She set the message to repeat every ten seconds with a new time stamp each call. The stars streaked by, and she put her mind to determining the shape of her tumble. By mentally tracing the path of the sun when it showed in her view, she determined that the Night Flight was doing about one-and-a-half rolls for every two off-kilter end-over-end flips.

The radio crackled to life. “Merchant vessel Night Flight, this is Federation vessel Maria Odobwe. We have your mayday and are scanning for you now. Hang in there, we’re coming for you.”

Nyx stopped the automated transmission and responded. “FV Maria Odobwe, this is MV Night Flight. It’s good to hear your voice. I can’t tell whether the emergency beacon is working or not. Damn near every system is showing red across the board. A tanker entered the gate as I was exiting and my warp bubble stripped wrong, sent me ass over teakettle and fried my systems.”

She waited for the response…and waited…and waited. Twenty-six minutes later it came back. “Roger, MV Night Flight. We see your emergency beacon ping and are triangulating your location and speed now. We will be jumping soon. Expect to see you in ten minutes. Out.”

The artificial gravity cut out. The roll of the ship was like a demented carnival ride but not as severe as she’d feared. Okay, Nyx, she thought, you got this. Just ride this out for a few minutes until the cavalry gets here. As long as they don’t look too close, I may still be fine.

At this distance it was hard to tell, but Nyx was certain the sun was getting further away as she rolled and tumbled through space. If they didn’t get here soon enough, she was in danger of finding some random piece of debris or ice from the Oort Cloud the hard way.

She saw a flash of blue as she tumbled; the glow from a ship dropping from warp. “Odobwe, this is Night Flight, was that you I just saw dropping from warp?”

“MV Night Flight, FV Maria Odobwe, affirmative. My name’s Wen Banks, what’s yours?”

“Nyx Carlisle. Can you match rotation and pull me in?”

“Listen, Nyx. You’ve got a double rotation going along with your speed of 14,223 kilometers per hour. We’ve got to stop one of those rotational motions.”

“No engines, no steering thrusters, remember, Wen?”

“I remember, Nyx. Does that ship have a front or rear docking port? If we only have to match a roll that’s simple enough.”

“Negative. Sorry, Wen. The docking ports are starboard and port broadside. This ship isn’t designed for loading in vacuum. She’s a little rock hopper.”

“Roger. We’re working out a solution. Hang tight, Nyx. By the way, how’s the gravity holding up?”

“Went out before you got here. It’s not as bad as I expected, but I’m getting one hell of a headache.”

The minutes dragged by as Nyx watched the large military ship appear and disappear from her view. By watching the ship, she could get a mirror view of how her own was tumbling. Slowly, however, the tumbling turned into a wobble while she seemed to be spinning beside it.

“Nyx, we’ve been over your telemetry and ship specs, and we have a solution for you. Are you in a vac suit?”

“Affirmative, Wen. Helmet close to hand as well.”

“That’s good. I’m going to need you to put the helmet on and make sure of your levels before the next step.”

“Roger. Just a minute while I helmet and seal.” Nyx put on her helmet and verified the seal, then donned the gloves that hung from her wrists and checked the seals on those as well.

“I’m all buttoned up,” she said.

“We’re going to learn a pattern now.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Repeat after me: cabin four, three seconds, cabin six, nine seconds, cabin one, five seconds, bridge, one second, remaining cabins.”

“Cabin four, three seconds, cabin six, nine seconds, cabin one, five seconds, bridge, one second, remaining cabins.” Nyx took a deep breath. “Venting atmosphere via the fire suppression system?”

“Exactly. The order is critical, and the closer the timing the better we remove the roll and the yaw.”

“Okay, Wen, let me check that I can access fire control.” Nyx checked the fire suppression system and verified that it was operational. “I’d really like to practice this a time or twelve, but I’m worried that if I disconnect fire control, I won’t get it back. Sealing all bulkheads now.”

“You can do this, Nyx, and I’ll be right here with you every step of the way.”

“Hey, Wen. You keep track of the timing, and I’ll track the order. It takes a couple strokes at least to vent a section. Four, six, one, bridge, other cabins, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Ready to vent cabin four. On your mark.” Nyx held her gloved hand above the console.

“Vent.”

Nyx tapped the console and felt the ship’s rotation change while she keyed in the command to vent cabin six.

“…one, vent!”

She stabbed at the console. She’d missed the first part of the countdown, so she listened closely while Wen counted down from nine as she prepped to vent cabin one.

“…four, three, two, one, vent!”

Another tap on the console followed by a shift in the feel of the ship’s tumbling and the three taps it took to prepare to vent the bridge.

“…two, one, vent!”

Nyx tapped the console and put in the command to vent all the cabins as fast as her fingers allowed, but she was still nearly a second behind Wen’s call of “Vent!”

“Sorry, Wen,” she said, “that was the fastest I could do it.”

“It’s all good, Nyx. You’ve got less than two degrees yaw. We can dock. Look out your starboard.”

To her right, the large military ship slowly moved closer, wobbling only a slight bit. The stars in the view seemed to be moving consistent with a steady end-over-end tumble without the roll or off-axis tilt.

When the docking clamps locked on, the larger ship stopped the tumble and Nyx felt the weightlessness of free-fall. “I’m still here,” she said, “and ready for whatever maneuvers you have planned.”

“Negative, Nyx. You need to come aboard. We’ve got some high-gee maneuvers we have to make.”

“Roger that, Wen. On my way.” She released her straps and pushed off against the console to the starboard airlock. I just hope they don’t want to check the cargo, she thought.

As she made her way onto the Maria Odobwe, a guard led her down a corridor to a waiting room. From the uniform she knew this wasn’t a combat ship; it was a police ship. The sound of boots outside the room, heading toward the airlock was the only thing she could hear, then silence for several minutes.

The door opened and an officer entered. “Nyx Carlisle? I’m Lieutenant Colonel Graves, Fourteenth Police. Good news, and bad news.”

“Of course,” Nyx said. She looked at the stocky woman in her dress uniform standing just inside the door. She was waiting to hear that she was under arrest. It was the only logical thing that could happen now.

“Bad news: the docking clamps wouldn’t hold up to the maneuvers we needed to make to avoid splattering ourselves on something in the Oort Cloud, so we had to cut your ship loose. It’s a total loss.”

“And what’s the good news?”

“Sensors show that you were transporting explosives. Your license doesn’t allow that, and your flight plan doesn’t include any licensed dealers. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to break into your cargo hold and get the physical evidence, so it looks like you walk from this one…unless you want to turn yourself in.”

Nyx groaned and laid her head on the table. “All I’ll say about the cargo is it was a privately contracted job. I would’ve paid my ship off. Failure to deliver puts me in a bad position. Not only do I still owe credits on the ship, but that’s half a million credits of cargo gone…along with my entire life. That ship was my home.”

“You should be thanking whatever god you believe in that we got here when we did,” Graves said. “Any later, and you’d be dead, any earlier, and you’d likely be facing a long sentence. Now, at least, you’re alive and at most we’ll put you on a suspected smugglers list for a while. Show us you can keep your nose clean, and we’ll leave you alone soon enough.”

“I should be thanking god? For my wondrous luck? Hey, my life’s ruined, my home and livelihood are destroyed but I’m still alive to be hunted down by my last client! Sure. Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot.”