Memories of the future. An eyewitness notes
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“Commander!”
All of a sudden, a hologram appeared in front of her.
“I’ve got a signal from one of our “Hanumans”. Looks like we are not alone here.”
Chapter 7
“You’d better spend your life, Johnny, on doing what you like, or else you’ll be receiving blows from fate”
(words from a country song)
“Have you finished orbit rimming, Piggy? Why can’t you stop that damned rotation, you know, it drives me mad! Check the oxygen! Turn it warmer, at least here, in the crew cabin. I need a full scan of this orbit, and right now!” hoarse, irritable cry was heard throughout the cabin.
Commander of “Tyrant”, a heavy shuttle of the Coalition’s outer space reconnaissance unit, Steven Hook was on duty on that day and therefore was out of sorts. The sure sign of his annoyance at the whole crew and outer space itself was his referring to the stuff by nicknames he himself invented, which, in his opinion, helped maintain discipline onboard.
Chief assistant commander, Edward Gray, round-shouldered, short man with constantly disheveled dark hair, was staring at the spacecraft’s operating indicators and the new orbit’s characteristics. At such moments, he would leave the captain’s words without reply, fully concentrated on maneuvering the heavy “Tyrant” and nervously biting his lip.
The crew cabin was wide open, and beside the door one could see a chair of the onboard engineer Hagan Lange, a tall, gangly young with dark-blue, badly cut tumbled hair and bright-green eyes. At the moment, he was focused on the data received from surveillance satellites.
Right from the very start, he had been unhappy with the choice of that orbit, which was known as the “trash belt” and stretched from the height of 160 to 750 kilometers. But he kept his opinion to himself for fear of the captain’s scathing retorts. What he disliked about that duty was the constantly annoyed voice of the “hysteric lady”, as he and Edward called the captain among themselves.
Hagan had long been expecting a transfer to ground service and therefore, tried not to get in the way so as to ensure that was his last watch in Outer Space, after which he would enjoy a calm job at the headquarters.
Meanwhile, “Tyrant” was being put on a new orbit and its flight position was being stabilized.
The silent Hagan was known for good intuition, which he trusted, and now there was something that made him worry, and he thoroughly studied the scanning results and report of the surveillance satellite.
The first thing he realized was that there were not enough satellites to create a full picture of the orbit and the space surrounding the spacecraft. And that uncertainty was fraught with threat.
One could never know for sure what was hiding among the piles of perished ships’ debris. There could be sleeping mines, surveillance satellites bedangled with weapons, and even a compact yet highly maneuverable powerful cruiser.
The height of 500 kilometer is the most trash-strewn” Hagan thought and, without waiting for the captain’s cry, shifted all data to the first mate’s monitor. “Maybe I should tell Hysteric that we are badly exposed here? A good target. He has so stupidly positioned the spacecraft. Right in the center of a vast area free of debris. I guess I’d rather keep silent. Or else he would be making fun of me. On the other hand, the scanner has not detected living beings. It’s not an easy task to hide a spacecraft even among big debris, so there is no reason to worry.” Hagan silently closed the door to the crew cabin, tipped back in his chair and began adjusting instruments for reconnaissance purposes.
Hagan had a passion for spacecraft engines. His brain fit out with nano-chips could easily model thermal processes and energy schemes of engines intended for flights to other planets. Sometimes, when he was carried away with his job, he would talk to his creatures, bringing his calculations to perfection. Creating ships for far-off space travel was his favorite job and the only passion. But was it possible to realize that dream while sitting in a tiny on-board engineer’s compartment?
At the moment, he was trying to push along current protocol of instruments operation so as to return to his favorite job and to plunge into his own world, the world of stunning powerful machines.
Meanwhile, the reconnaissance satellite “Hanuman-12” in close proximity of “Tyrant”, hastily adjusted the orbit, put weapons on alert and continued drifting amidst piles of debris, remaining unseen and unwinking.
In that way, by a twist of fate, “Ares” and “Tyrant” found themselves located at a mid-range distance between each other. “Ares” like a beast was watchfully observing its victim without giving itself away by means of dozens of scanners and surveillance satellites that “Tyrant” had unhappily come in sight of.
The "Ares" crew quickly made a decision to monitor the enemy and to keep it at gunpoint and then, while being unnoticed, take under control over all communication lines.
Chapter 8
“When having a controlled dream people can use their time for self-development.”
(A writer’s words at the forum of fantasy author. Early 21st century)
Upon Alex’s approach, the door of the medical compartment noiselessly opened and she underwent yet another decontamination procedure, which was compulsory before dipping into nano-gel.
A standard bio capsule was a silver spheroid installed in the center of a vast room illuminated with warm light from wall-mounted panels.
She came up to the unit, whose upper part softly lifted up, and nano-gel inside was glittering with bluish light.
All she had to do was just lie down in that bath and relax. A glass cupola smoothly closed above and Alex was wrapped around with soft, warm weightlessness of nano-gel. Unhurriedly, Alex got inside the capsule and instantly slipped into gravity-free state.
Gradually, slight sleepiness and detachment of consciousness got over her, and Alex, indulging in that state, started falling down somewhere. Some vague, elusive images and light spots were slowly sparkling before her eyes. Alex was well aware of the inconsistency of activities in controlled dreams and, having gone through a few preparatory stages, she mentally formed surrounding space and music.
Now that was splendid panoramic view of Outer Space. Numerous stars were slowly emerging and thickening out from light spots. And she set off drifting along the grandeur of Space, watching gaseous nebulae burst in blossom with wonderful colors, while the alluring light of stars and brightness of superstars engulfed everything around.