[h1]Somewhere in space[/h1]

To human kind the early expression of freedom was the sea. Early man took to the high waters when they discovered to hew tree trunks into hallowed canoes. And from these canoes they began to expand on their creation, designing greater and greater boats, then ships. Soon the men of southern Europe had conquered the Mediterranean Sea forging vast empires. The Polynesians found no boundary to contain them as they conquered the Pacific, spreading their people and cultures to islands and atolls so small they hardly crested the waves to the great islands of New Zealand, Tonga, Easter, and the archipelagos of Hawaii.

In their own time, European kingdoms would become empires, taking to the sea and spreading their language, customs, and people to the New World; America, Africa, Asia. Trade flowed, wars fought. The sea was turned red and flowed with gold.

But the sea was not the permanent expression of freedom. Early flight developed through hot air balloons  that lifted a man high above the ground as he dreamed for millennium, and sailing on currents he could travel and see the land below. But while the hot air balloon was primitive and limiting, it was the first to break man's shackles to the ground.

It was on Caroline shores, in the United States the invention of motorized flight realized the next step in man's conquest of the air. And within the life-time of a man the airplane evolved with such speed and ferocity it was looking back at the old march of creation a spectacle in its own right. An airplane starting off being so small it could only host a single rider, or two; eventually dropping bombs.

The first forays into space were conducted in the 1960's, the early expeditionary force breaking man's shackles to Earth to conquer the Moon, Mars, and the Sol system. While stunted by catastrophic war, mankind broke free eventually, and so he entered the stars. A conquistador on the wings of science.
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A single lone spacecraft floated through the vast vacuum between worlds, foreign to the system it had entered. A single white dwarf anchoring an otherwise rocky and desolate solar system. Clouds of dust and debris floated thick in a slow orbit through the great expanse. Small asteroids, microscopic particles. Dimly illuminated in the faint white glow of the ancient star was a gas giant, close in size to the alien sun, perhaps three-quarter's its parent's size; beat red with orange and lemon yellow storm bands.

The alien space craft, long and without particular eloquence with a tapered chisel of a nose put the sun on its side as it flew at a slow distance from it. A multitude of lights along its hull carried a dull constant glow in the darkness of space. In the cloud of dust, the shadow it cast through empty space was a surreal and unreal sight, a hard edge that stretched unceasingly into the distant void as the rest of space around it shimmered with a pale white and blue light.

“System report.” a tall, physically fit officer shouted in the command bridge of the exploratory vessel. His white hair combed down the side of a tall angular head in sharp points, a pair of rounded ears peaking out.

“System looks largely void.” one of the petty officers on deck called back. He leaned over the terminal screens as he searched the area through a telescopic camera, “The gas giant looks like it might be promising. There are seven moons orbiting it.”

“Composition?” asked the captain.

“Ice. Hydrogen, methane, water, it's hard to tell. But they're mostly ice from what I can gather from the spectrographic information.” said another.

“Very well. You have permission to take us in further to get a look at them.” the captain ordered with a wave of his hand. His duty so far complete he sat back in his chair and leaned back, crossing his leg as he held up a hand on a resting elbow, the other falling in his lap. The sleeves of a long kimono-like uniform-type outfit falling from his wrist as he slackened his wrist and laid his temple on extended fingers.

The view on the screens that decorated the far wall from his seat changed as the orientation of the ship took a long sweeping turn, facing the dwarf star before pointing itself towards the orbiting gas giant. The call outs of typical bridge chatter filled the air.

“Thrusters powering up, 75%.”

“Energy input is clear. High, but clear.”

The change in the size of any of the objects in the screens was imperceptible. The gas giant itself on these screens was hardly visible in the glare of the ancient star. But both seemed to be growing. Slowly at first, then more speedily.

“Cruising speed met.” a petty officer declared.

At that, the power cut out. With a silent flash the lights cut out, the screens died, and an anxious chattering filled the bridge. The captain rose his head and leaned forward in his chair, “What just happened?” he boomed.

A palpable fear, humiliation, and anger filled the scene. Men scrambled – they were all men – to find out what happened. Dashing to other councils or mashing every button available to them to find something – anything – that worked. But they couldn't find anything.

After several seconds, a dull red light illuminated the bridge. The dark forms of stricken crewmen looked around. Then faint and full of static there came a voice from a isolated intercom by the captain's seat. “Sir!” the voice said, “Error in the reactor bay. Coolant intake to the main reactor chamber shut off. The system closed the reactor cycle.”

“What do you mean?” the captain snarled, planting a finger on the button. He desperately feared a meltdown.

“The system reacted as it should, the fuel has been disengaged from the main chamber.” the engineer reported, almost reading his mind, “We're looking into the problem now.”

“How long?” the captain asked. The ship was adrift in open space and they were blind.

“Fifteen minutes.”

The captain grimaced, biting the inside of his cheek as he swallowed the given estimate. “Do it in ten.” he ordered, hoping to buy them some time.

“Ten minutes, sir?” the engineer repeated, his confidence flagging.

“Yes, ten minutes!”

There was a tense silence. “Y-yes sir.” the engineer replied. “Signing off.”

The captain leaned back. He felt sweat beading at his hair line. His hand shook as he rose a finger to his chin, trying to maintain an air of composure in the dim light for the officers down below. Crossing a leg, he leaned back and waited for the emergency to pass.

Without power to the ship, shields were down; if there were any large orbital bodies they had failed to detect around the star then they'd be in certain danger. But he wasn't worried about that, they had not found anything on their appearance, journey through, and passing into the inner system. Without power, they easily had two-hundred hours of air, they wouldn't necessarily need to cycle it while they wanted, it would only be ten minutes.

But with no power came no fire-suppression, and in an oxygen enriched environment that could spell certain devastation. But he had suffered no incidents like that on his vessel, so he was confident this would never happen.

What he was most worried about though was passing into the star, or so close the ship would begin to take damage from it. It may have been a white dwarf, but passing so close to it would have dangerous repercussions. The other danger was that at their speed and bearing, he worried without end they might pass directly into the gas giant and be torn and pulverized in its storms and gravity.

His body rattled with anxiety, he felt hungry, and they were all blind. The conditions were not optimal. And all they had to do was wait. All he had to do was put on a practiced air of silent confidence.

So they waited. The bridge was silent. It was tense.

Then there came the pattering against the hull. Like rain against a tin roof something was colliding with them. He swallowed hard, but refused to change his posture, retaining composure or the air of it as they flew naked through some meteorite shower, with only the metal of their hull to save them. The bridge officers looked up at him for guidance, read his composure, and turned back to waiting.

But the ticking and the tacking and the pattering of stone, metal, and ice against their hull never stopped. It took on a constant and relentless shower, then a gale. And all at once there was a loud crash. An audible gasp of shock took the crew. The adrenaline kicked in, the hearts raced. They waited, trapped in their tin can.

There was another crash at the side of the hull.

The men were silent. The captain was silent. This ship of theirs was a divine wind, and it would sweep aside all threat.

Another bang.

Like the wind through autumn leaves, there will be nothing left on the branch.

A bang that crunched, echoed in the bridge. It had hit right over top of them. The ringing continued like a bell.

Like a wind through a winter's field, the snow will brush aside.

A catastrophic bang.

Like a wind, here came death.

There was a tremendous crashing that sucked all the wind. The ship rocked and everything went haywire. Something came lose, and gravity was lost. Everyone lifted from their seats, an audible squeal tore through the room. A crack had opened in the hull and through it rushed the air. Through it came the shower.

Dust, rock, and ice filled into the cabin. The cold asphyxiation of space tearing at their flesh, at their eyes, at their lungs. The captain made a feebled attempt to stay rooted to his seat but the escaping atmosphere pulled him away as fingers started slipping. His crew were already falling towards the crack. Soon enough bodies packed into it it had stopped, but not for long as another tremendous object smashed the space ship and widened the destruction. All the rest flew out as the metal of the hull peeled back into a gaping maw, inviting all into the empty embrace of space beyond. The captain's eyes widened, he smelled white hot metal, seared flesh. A welder's torch. His skin went cold as it boiled. His fingers froze up and he let go. He was tossed into the emptiness of space and in his dying eyes beheld the crumbling remains of his space ship.

A large mountainous rock was carrying it off. And alongside it, departing was the white glint. He recognized it as a man in a space suit. Someone had escaped, without his orders. The last thing he felt was rage.
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His heart raced, his head pound, and he felt a wetness at the groin of the suit. He waved his arms, trying to swim through nothing as he spun and reeled about as he flew through the vast void. Spinning at a high rate he would simultaneously catch glimpses of the alien star they were headed for and the star ship he was on being slowly shredded by a mountainous asteroid. It had batted them aside, with the casual indifference of swatting a fly. It had just happened, came out of nowhere. One moment he was designated to crawl into the reactor and chase the blockage that had stopped the flow of cold coolant water, and the next he was emptied out into space.

It was believed that perhaps something had broken, that water was leaking. Backup terminal reports had indicated that the flow from the reservoir tank had stopped and automatic valves and shut the flow. So something had happened in the ducts. A blockage, then pressure burst the pipes that ran the water passed space for a rapid cooling from the hot-water reserve tank. It seemed like a cut and dry case. He had been given seven minutes. It had taken two to put on his suit and enter the main pipe where the incident was believed to have occurred. Another minute and a half before the whole thing went to shit and he was cast out into the hostile world of space, like an aborted fetus with the water.

Now most of that covered him, and it had frozen fast. Every move he took seemed to shake off more ice and clouded him in a brilliantly shimmering cloud of snow. The light of the alien star reflected brilliantly from it, and what was worse was that he was in an amorphous cloud of the now frozen coolant water. With him too was a cloud of debris, pieces of metal that spun uncontrollably in his direction.

Before then, he couldn't have said to have ever known fear. Or true terror. But staring down nothing but stars and the dizzily fast streak of the white dwarf really punctuated true terror. He was lose without a chance of discovery or recovery at all. He was all alone to collect his life and wait for sweet death to come via asphyxiation. At least he could count on Carbon Dioxide poisoning to pass him into unconsciousness first he hazard, and then he would have honor to die. But he needed to wait some twelve hours first before anything happened.

It would be a long suicide.

Space didn't leave much to reflect on physically. At the thousandth passing of the alien sun in his vision he had stopped noticing it as it swung by. He had begun to turn inwardly, to think about his lover at home. And all his brothers. The visits to hot springs and meals by candlelight in the warm waters after a hard day of working at the space ports. Rice balls and space sake. He found though he didn't miss those so much, he had so many he'd have enough to dwell on after death. Nor his lover's smile, it was such a warm thing he'd see more of him he imagined, or so he told himself. No, it would have been the singing of his neighbor in the next floor down in the apartments. 

He always sang like trash, but it was funny. Between his work and whatever he did, the chance was never offered much. He'd sing incredibly old raunchy tunes in such a faux blues-man voice that between terrible translation and being so off-key he was a character for a comedy. Maybe not a good one, but not a bad one. One that was alright and had its moments, the sort that'd be taken from the film itself to enjoy on its own. He imagined the old neighbor sliding across a wooden floor in only socks and underwear. That's what made him tolerable and ironically enjoyable.

And now in dead silence, that is what he would have liked to hear the most. He hated the silence most of all. It was entirely absolute. His heart and breath the only thing to fill his ears.

This reflection though didn't last long, and he lapsed into denial of the situation all together and began to panic and cry. Eventually this ebbed and he remembered his suit had a emergency broadcaster. He doubted it would do anything. But when lost and alone anything was worth the show.

Trying to look down at the chest plate of the suit he scoured the buttons and knobs on it, trying to find the button to activate the emergency beacon. When facing the suit head on it wasn't too much trouble. But when in it, spinning a foot a minute it was very difficult to look for anything when one looks at one's own feet tumbling through nothing with no where to fall to. This sight alone induced a feeling of Vertigo, and he fell violently ill all of the sudden.

He struggled to suppress the urge, to hold down his stomach. But all at once he had to vomit. He plastered the inside of his helmet with the contents of his stomach, and winced as what didn't cling slid back or floated in towards his face. He groaned in disgusted exasperation. He was now blind.

Finally, his gauntlet-puffed hands found the beacon button, and he mashed it. Even through the vomit he could see the dull red glow of the emergency flasher. Now he had only wait, and relapse again into reflection.

He really wanted a hamburger.
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The cabin was surprisingly well decorated. For men often described as pirates, bums, drifters, and any other cruel invective to be used against them there was a certain eloquence in the whole that could only come from not having money, and having only the desire to be, have, and produce. Nearly half an alien forest had been cut down for the wood that decorated the floor and provided a far too posh wainscoting for space-bound hobos. Dark and rich, it was veined with waving lines of pearly white that shone with shimmers of pink and blue flecks in the ivory veins. Dressed in a rich finish, it only added more gloss to contrast with the dull fiberglass white of the rest of the room.

“So I was back in the Alpha Centuari system,” began a large brute looking of a man. Dressed in only a slack T-shirt and a pair of well worn jeans he looked more a delinquent gangster than anyone fit for the fine accommodations of the room he was in, but he sat at a large round table with eight other men who sat with forks in hand at bowls of fresh green salad, made of mixed Earthly and alien vegetables and greens, “And this fucking sinewy-ass motherfucker comes up to me. He's looking for trouble, I can see that in his eyes.”

As the man in the tee-shirt told the story his smile widened across his face, his otherwise rosacae tinged face glowing a brighter red as he recounted his adventures, “And he's looking for trouble. He watch him as he looks down at my belt and he asks me, 'so what the Hell are you Garthbarg the Satellite Guy' and I look up at him and I sort of study his prissy-ass face and his red eye implant and I say, putting my best Gathbarg impression on: 'Well yepperdoodle my fellow toddle!'

“And this fucker just sort of steps back with this face that's just saying, 'are you fucking retarded?' I laugh at him and he leans in and says, 'Listen bum, I don't like dirty space monkeys around here. I'll have you know this is a fine establishment.'”

There was a round of laughter at the table, clearly anticipating where this was going. The man in the T-shirt dug into his space salad and chewed on the leafy greens. A mix of sweet and lemony tastes filled his mouth. “So I just sort of roll my eyes at him and go back to my hotdog. Well the guy gets mad and he grabs my shoulder and pissed off I yell at him, 'What the fuck can't you let a man suck down wieners in peace!'

“Clearly this fucker had something going on because his face just goes blank and he blushes. But before I could say anything he decks me across the face. Well this wasn't at all polite, and he had given me the invitation so I decked him in the stomach and hammered his face into the counter.”

“Good god, who disturbs a man when he's eating.” commented one of his companions, “That's rude as hell.”

“You ain't joking. But after I launched him into the counter it was clear he wasn't moving anymore. So shit, I did what any normal man would do and paid my tab. I couldn't hang around, I didn't want to be there when he woke up.”

“Ay, neither would I.” said another, “Fucking animals.”

There was a general nod of approval. “Still,” the T-shirted man said, reaching for a glass, “a toast to whopped assholes and fine dogs.”

“Here here!” the others agreed, raising their glasses in toast.

The table slipped into amiable silence after with only the clinking of forks in glass bowls. The silence of the bowls was broken when the T-shirt man looked up and turned to the man on the other side of his neighbor. “So, Abe.” he began, “Just want to know, where'd you get the military coat?”

Abe looked up and over to him. He had a broad face and a heavy set jawline. His nose was large and stuck far from his face. Eyes shone with a blue passionate freedom from behind a pair of heavy rimmed glasses and below a wide brow with a close shaven hairline. His arm was missing, and he had a cybernetic arm in its place, and he wore an old Terran officer's coat.

“That's a fun story.” Abe – Abraham, really – began. “Won it in a poker game back on Earth some...” he thought for a second, “Thirty-five years ago.” Most everyone on board knew the story, but the man in the T-shirt was new. And while Abe sat as an equal among everyone at the table, he also commanded respect and admiration equal to that of a captain in any formal context. The coat was to the men of the commune vessel, a well earned decoration.

It had undergone changes since its transfer in ownership, as well as being worn down over the years. It had been patched, but many of the old ribbons had been cut off and replaced with Abe's own decorations. Trophies from alien worlds, trinkets sewn into the heavy fabric from alien tribes. He was adorned with an eclectic assortment of tribal totems, charms, and fetishes. A gallery of planets he visited, and communities to which he had become a god in the past twenty years.

“Aw man, that's got to be an excellent story.” laughed T-shirt man.

“Oh, it is alright.” one of the tablemates said, and forgetting restraint, “Especially his 'magic flush'.”

“Shut up, you're going to spoil it.” Abe said with a smile, looking up at him.

“Well shit. You gotta tell the man!” the other declared.

“I wi-” Abe began, he was cut off by a ringing sound from a terminal near by.

“Hey, what is it!?” Abe shouted, half-rising out of his seat.

“Abe, we picked up a transmission. From the other side of the system.” a female's voice said

Abe scrunched his face, perplexed. “We weren't alone?” he asked.

“I suppose not. It just came in.”

“Alright, wait for me. I want to check this out.” He shouted at the terminal. Rising from his seat he apologized to his comrades and stepped from the table. Passing a hat rack by the door he picked up his cap and crowned himself as he headed out into the hall.

As where he had been dining, the ornate trim and standard white fiber-glass walls with alien wood floor boards gilded the halls. It was a remarkable sort of wood that even oiled had a surreal glow to it under the halogen lights' warm glow.

The wood as it were was from an alien word, like many things. Though one they could not themselves visit, the gravity being so high. Instead, the ship had unleashed its drones  to scour and inspect the world, finding the alien trees and bringing back samples of the wood. On return of the samples, it was found the much lower pressure in the ship's hull allows the hard composite bark to break and 'breath', revealing something like tree rings elsewhere, but not marked by dark or faint circles, but a rich white like mother of pearl. And as analysis of it concluded, it pretty much was; as it turned out the soil of the planet was rich in calcium and the planet subject to sandstorms. The bark of these trees had thus become packed thick with calcium carbonate which crystallized as it mixed with the tree sap and the trees grew.

It was considered fascinating enough the commune crew had made a decision, by vote, to bring it on board to fashion, or deliver to Fairer stockpiles.

The wood proved difficult to work, but it was an alien stowaway they had adopted into the crew that managed to work it out. Grom, a toad-like alien was the one to figure out how to plane, carve, and furnish the wood in engine oil, wiped down in degreaser to finish it. However it had come about was beyond them.

Grom himself had snuck onto the ship one adventure, and discovered sometime later after they had left his home-world. He was amiable enough, who when realizing what had happened was struck with a mixture of joy and terror. He learned English quick, and insinuated himself with the crew and they adopted him as one of their own. He never wanted to go back home until he saw “all worlds”.

The command bridge of the commune ship stood at the nose of the long space-ship. To access, Abe had to climb a ladder through a duct. As he ascended, gravity gradually lessened until he pulled himself up and he began floating through a great central shaft. Much of the ship was on a centrifuge. He floated into the command bridge.

Here, great tinted windows looked out at space. Flickering monitors displays the craft's status, but so too did many others about the ship. All information was made common crew knowledge and any terminal could be used to bring up internal data on the functions of the wanderer. The bridge was shaped like a bullet, at far at the front was a communications terminals. Floating nearby, legless was the communications officer on board, or so called because she like to do it and had 'a voice for radio'.

She looked back at Abe as he entered and smiled. Her blonde hair was tied up behind her head and she turned towards him. “I was wondering where you were.” she asked.

“I was on my way.” he said.

Michele was her name. A woman of twenty-six, an accident when she was a teenager took her legs. She had since used prosthetic, but for whatever reason she disconnected them when weightless. Her excuse was they were cumbersome because she had not feeling in them. They were strapped to a far-wall alongside a fire-extinguisher.

Michele was otherwise a tall woman, muscular and well built. He face fair and rosy, she spent a lot of time in the tinted solitude of the command bridge, where with tint or no tint she was known to sometimes drift naked, sunbathing in alien sunlight. She was decidedly clothed then.

“I got a notification a new radio signal had been detected two minutes ago.” she said, “So I came on in to get details. It fired off at the edge of the system.” she said in a flat matter-of-business tone of voice. Outside the enormous presence of the gas giant dominated the window, half shadowing the parent star. Its gaseous clouds flickering and flashing with great bolts of lightning and its poles brightly illuminated by a permanent cap of aurora. In the distance behind it was a spectacular moon rise of one of its several ice moons which case a rainbow of color from a geyser-fueled atmosphere as it passed through the brilliance of the white dwarf.

Rotating along the command bridge's diameter was the main ship. Moving about its main centrifuge. Making gravity.

“Do we know by who?” Abe asked.

“Not Federation, that much is certain.” she said, “Here, listen.” reaching out she pressed a small button on the communications terminal, playing the signal. A loud pattern of beeps and a low hum played through the speaker. She hit the button again and it stopped.

“It's been doing that ever since.”

“What do you think it is?” Abe asked.

Michele shrugged. “Beats me.” she quipped, “One thing for sure though is it isn't natural.”

“You listen to a lot of radio signals. Take a guess, will you?” Abe asked.

She thought for a bit, chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe emergency. Or they know we're here and trying to call us out.”

Abe nodded, and shrugged. “I suppose if they want to kill us they could have tried it already. The ship isn't all that large in all honesty.”

“So check it out?” she asked.

“Do.”

She nodded, and went reached out to a handset on the terminal. Making a few button presses, she dialed into the ship itself and relayed the orders and coordinates. After a while, the entire ship began to move. Laboring at first as it fought the orbital cradle it had moved itself into and off into space and the nearby signal.

His job done, Abe turned and pushed off through the weightless chamber, holding onto and pushing off against terminals to control his movement as he went to the hatch and went to the far-side of the ship, to receiving. He would need to see whatever they brought in by drone.

Hour and a half later, the ship had pulled near to the abandoned Ziani in his wild an untamed orbit. The mass of the new ship drawing close helped to stabilize his voyage through nothing in its own gravity well. In effect, it had captured him. Shielding energy sparkled in the darkness as the tail end of the meteor cloud that had destroyed the Ziani vessel passed on by. A drone was deployed, an awkward sphere of a machine with several cameras and great reaching industrial arms. For as heavy as they were, they were gentle and they secured the lost man and brought him aboard. Docking itself, the drone placed the newcomer on the floor where he shook in the new artificial gravity. The airlock shut,  the vomit on the visor actually began to run down, if it was not frozen. Sound returned to him, and he picked up his head to look about. He had actually been saved, the impossible had happened, and he wondered aloud at these circumstances as internal hanger door opened and he was greeted. “I hope you can understand me.” a figure standing above him said, “But welcome to the Secret Service. Let's get you out of that suit.”