Ford Mountain Publishing, LLC
Book : Echoes of Tomorrow
“The industrial zone never sleeps” prompt
New Ramadi – more officially known by its interstellar registry, ARK729c – blinked into existence beyond the transteel canopy, filling the void with its dull grey color like a balloon inflated at the speed of light. Well outside orbital approach PNR, the freighter, a heavily modified Doshi-Hellmen P700 Voidcruiser, immediately fired breaking thrusters after its Q-Drive bubble collapsed the leviathan craft back to subluminal speed; drive pylons retracted into its kilometer long hull between cargo containers, while cone-shaped ion housings flared to life, blazing blue-white fire in the darkness – all automated processes, choreographed with mathematical precision via the vessels onboard navigation A.I. in tandem with New Ramadi’s Orbital Traffic Control.
To the uninitiated, the void beyond appeared wholly devoid of anything – it was a void, after all. Deep-space drivers knew better, of course; any driver worth his protein-packets would. Space was anything but – especially on orbital approach or departure. Rookies would fret over something obvious like micro-roids or uncharted debris fields; as far as Winston-117 was concerned, it was the other drivers you really had to watch for.
Locked into his command throne – which was just a chair, the padding eaten away in places by decades of use and mistreatment, thanks to prior owners – 117 took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Neural-linked to the freighter’s sensors, his ice-blue eyes slowly scanned the heavens above the grey-white planet, cataloging every blip of traffic as the ship’s systems synced with uploaded data; everywhere he looked, the seemingly “empty” void filled with Ident markers – velocity and bearing, mass, corporate and government tags.
The sheer number of contacts forced a groan from deep in 117’s chest. Gonna be stuck here for at least a month, he grumbled silently, double checking his flight itinerary – scheduled months ago, relative-track, before his departure from Oman-Prime – 60 odd parsecs away. Sure enough, he was right where and when he was supposed to be, smack dab in the height of tourist season. Why would anyone want to visit a planet wracked with ion storms and week-long solar storms, 117 shook his head.
The QER crackled to life suddenly with a blurt of static wash, courtesy of the systems intense stellar winds. “Inbound P700 designation Tango-Lima-Victor-Four-Niner-Fife, this is OTC how copy?”
117 cleared his throat before he keyed the mic. “Control, this is Four-Niner-Fife, good copy, requesting an approach vector.”
Cut thrust and wait, 117 guessed bitterly.
“Inbound Four-Niner-Fife, all lanes are full – post retro-burn cut thrust to station keeping only and hold at two-zero-zero kilo.”
Yeah, that figures.
117 managed to keep from sighing across the ‘net, even as he complied with control’s instructions; there was nothing else he could do – other than cause an interstellar pile-up or drop ninety-million tons worth of cargo – both of which would get him fired, to say the least. “Control, Four-Niner-Fife – post RB to station keeping, hold at two-double-oh,” he replied quickly. “Wait estimate?”
“Inbound Four-Niner-Fife, uh…two to three weeks, minimum. Control, out.”
Winston-117 leaned his head back with another groan, while the myriad display screens clustered around the command deck flickered to life; each one crackled with news-feed uploads, entertainment options, weather data, and of course, a never-ending deluge of commercial advertisement. 117 watched the news reel, which seemed focused on Ramadi’s atrociously over-populated, over-taxed industrial infrastructure; the scene glitched with static interference but clearly showed a wide-angle view of one of dozens of massive shipping/receiving towers – its bulk disappeared into the red-golden-grey smog high above. A bot – all chrome and jerky movements – stood amidst a flurry of automated transporters, heavy lifters and bulk elevators.
“…And as the Local 999 Dock Worker Union strike continues, New Ramadi’s skies are literally choked with freight transports forced to sit idle for weeks on end. With the influx of tourists on the rise with Ion Season fast approaching its zenith, government officials are growing increasingly concerned with basic amenities approaching critically low levels; even with every port operating at capacity like here at Liberty Spike behind me, there seems to be no end to the backlog of freight. The dockmaster here, Mr. Abdul Raansti, had this to say:”
The scene cut to a series of panoramic shots from low-orbit, the camera angle panning along the hulls of several different deep-space haulers. “The situation is beyond absurd at this point; if Parliament won’t allocate the necessary funds needed to support logistical infrastructure that our population needed decades ago, our children will suffer the consequences and our economy will implode. And look up! Can you not see the hundreds of ships stuck in orbit? One can only imagine these poor drivers stuck out there! We had a guy sit for almost two months, he was running out of protein-packs,” a male voice during the imagery.
“And here is Representative Alicia Docline, senior chairwoman for Parliament’s Interior and Trade oversight committee, responding to the situation during a press conference this morning,” the bot announced, before the image cut to the identified woman.
117 snorted as he reclined, wondering what kind of nonsense the politician would spew.
“We are aware of the logistical problems we face and have several options mid-negotiation at this time, next question.” The spokeswoman, Docline, answered from behind a row of hovering microphones and monitors; her vat grown skin seemed overtight, stretched across a skull covered in an intricate wrap of braided silver hair. Like most politicians, she seemed an absurd caricature of humanity – an empty puppet dressed in finery – speaking for someone else, as someone else, without a modicum of empathy or understanding of what those beneath her socio-economic status suffered.
The feed imagery changed back to the bot, outside the dock; the camera angle changed to pan around the perimeter of the facility – protected by high fencing and industrial barricades, a vast crowd had gathered. “These are the union workers on strike, some have marched and stood for days, others for weeks when the strikes first began. For the first time in human history, these workers have ceased all non-autonomous operations -demanding higher wages and better healthcare – an act some Parliamentary members have been rumored to call ‘seditious’ and even ‘treason’. Time will tell how it all plays out. Back to you, Bob.”
Winston-117 turned the channel to Auto-Trader Extravaganza, a game show about millennia-old machines from Old Earth that he had no interest in watching; he turned slightly to the vid-corder built into the Q-Net console to his right instead, which activated with a flick of a switch. “Hey boss man, this is 117 out here at Ramadi. You might want to send a replacement or a supply skiff, because I’m looking at an idle time of at least a couple weeks before unloading and have no idea when I’m going to get a load out of here. Sucks, I know, but hey – I’m just a clone, and you sent me out here in this tug with the bare minimums. Let me know, good buddy.”
That’ll rattle his cage, 117 smirked, and fired the vid off into the digital ether.
It wasn’t his problem if he died out here, wasn’t his problem if the cargo sat in low orbit for the rest of recorded human history either. As a clone, 117 didn’t have much in the way of rights or choices; he was legally bound to the dictates of his Prime – who happened to be just another greedy, immoral human, like most of them – so 117 really didn’t care one iota which way things played out.
With nothing better to do than wait, 117 reclined in his throne, hands folded behind his head and kicked his feet up on the console. The local star, a blue giant of insanely bright intensity, was due to breach the night terminus any minute – already turning the dense grey atmosphere of New Ramadi into a haze of blue-white fire. Satellites, ship hulls, ion trails, even speckles of loader-lifters twinkled at extreme distances like motes of dust in sunlight; each played a tiny part in an eternal dance of physics to feed and sustain a population on the brink of economic collapse.
117 shrugged to himself.
Nothing lasts forever; I guess.
BY DUME
