Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

One of the last floats in the parade was a stunner: a Bel Tra couple. They sat in the very front of first class, which provided only a brief glimpse of their tall, thin frames and colorful attire. They both wore traditional Bel Tra lace, the dozens of layers of different transparent colors piling up to create an opaque hue unique to each individual. Molly felt goose bumps ripple up her arms; she nudged Cole to make sure he was looking.

“Huh?”

Molly turned in her seat to start talking his ear off, only to find Cole’s head resting against the window.

“Are you asleep?” Molly asked.

Cole didn’t even open his eyes. “I was ,” he complained.

“Do you have any idea what you’re missing ?” She hissed.

Cole cracked one lid and gazed at Molly for a second. “My nap?”

“ Bel Tra !” Molly whispered.

“Seen ’em before.” His eyelid returned to its state of rest, sealing him off from the sights.

Molly couldn’t believe him. She thought they’d been watching the cultural display together. She leaned out and peered up and down the aisle, wondering if anyone would mind if she took some pictures with her reader.

Beside her, Cole emitted a strange snuffling sound. Molly turned back at the man of her dreams.

Just as he started snoring.

When the passenger ship reached Earth’s primary Lagrange point—the spot in space where the gravity of the planet and its moon cancel each another out—it began its countdown for the jump to Menkar.

Molly leaned across Cole’s sleeping form to gaze through the small porthole. Earlier, she’d been eager to wake him, but now she was glad he wasn’t witness to her nervousness. She hadn’t done this outside of a simulator since she and her father came to Earth. The thought of getting sick, or having her heart race uncontrollably like it often did, had Molly squirming in her seat.

She glanced up at the numbers ticking down by their reading lights. When the counter reached “2,” she looked back through the carboglass, tightening her stomach reflexively. The only visual cue anything had happened was each star shifting to a new place. It was indistinguishable from a simulator display.

But there was no nausea. The hyperdrive in this monster must punch a big enough hole in space to prevent the sensation , Molly thought. She settled back in her chair and slowly released her grip on the armrest. The blood returned to her knuckles, coloring them pink.

So far, the grand adventure was proving to be a dud. Molly hoped all that would change once she took possession of Parsona . As long as their chaperone didn’t get in the way, she’d have Cole to herself and be able to keep him so busy with navigational duties that he couldn’t sleep through the trip back.

The Navy had pulled some strings to make this flight non-stop to Palan, an oddity for a frontier planet, but a measure to reduce the number of things that could go wrong on this mission. As they passed through Canopus, Molly heard several first class travelers express their dismay. Their final destination was Canopus, but they were having to return here via the Palan system?

Once more, the Navy’s thoughtfulness irked Molly. She felt horrible that she was responsible for messing up flight schedules. Even the sole Palan couple in first class seemed upset at the itinerary. Molly couldn’t understand this, unless they, too, were eager for layovers on new and strange Orbital Stations.

What everyone got instead was a direct flight from Earth to Palan. It took almost a full day to make the trip, most of it in a dimly-lit gloom of people trying to sleep half as well as Molly’s companion. By the time they arrived at the Palan system, he must’ve had eighteen hours of uninterrupted rest. No bathroom breaks. No food. No flirting.

Molly couldn’t understand how he contained himself. Even from the last.

Stressing about it prevented her from getting any sleep, herself. It even made it difficult to read or watch a holovid. Then she started worrying he would be a ball of energy on the trip back, while she would be a zombie. And this anxious line of reasoning made any chance of a nap impossible.

Cole finally woke when the Palan shuttle airlocked itself to their giant passenger ship. Palan’s Orbital Station could handle a vessel this size, but with only a few travelers getting off here, a direct shuttle flight made more sense. Molly wondered if this wasn’t just more of Lucin’s protectiveness. What a wreck he would’ve been if she’d gone off to fight in the Navy.

The airlocks on the two ships pressed together, sending a faint vibration through the hull. Cole bolted upright, wide awake. “Where are we?” he asked, completely alert.

“Palan,” she said, as grumpy as everyone else on the ship, but for a different reason.

“Already? Man, that went by fast. Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You seemed pretty out of it. And when you started snoring really loud, I went and sat with some guys back in coach. They taught me this cool card game called Mossfoot. You start off with—”

“I don’t snore that loud,” Cole interrupted.

“Well, I just got back and people were complaining.”

“Hmmm. Record it next time. I don’t believe you.”

Molly stood in the aisle with a few other passengers and reached up to collect her bag. “You’re just jealous I had a great flight and all you did was sleep.” She yawned and stretched, feeling exhausted. She really needed a nap.

And a shower.

Only a dozen or so passengers boarded the shuttle to Palan’s surface. Molly and Cole were the only two humans, making them the aliens to gawk at. The young girl from earlier was just as shy the second time around, recoiling from Molly’s wave, but with a timid smile. A Palan steward came down the aisle, checking that everyone had their harness secure before rushing to join the pilot in the cockpit. Or had that been the pilot? Molly wondered. There didn’t seem to be many crew members on the shuttle.

Cole automatically sat to Molly’s left again, beside the window. Molly assumed it was more so he’d have a place to rest his head than any attempt to pull rank. He nudged Molly and she turned to see him pointing out the glass. There was nothing out there but stars.

“What am I looking at?” she asked.

“ That! ” he said, rubbing his finger on the glass with a squeaking sound.

Molly loosened her shoulder straps and leaned over Cole, focusing on his finger. There was a faint crack in the carboglass running the length of the window! Molly felt the airlocks decouple and the shuttle slide sideways in space, preparing for its descent.

“Should we tell somebody?” she asked, cinching her harness up tight.

Cole craned his neck to inspect the porthole one row back. “That one’s even worse,” he marveled. “There’s no way this ship passed inspections.”

Molly felt like they should warn somebody, but the shuttle was already accelerating, pinning her to her seat.

“Wow. That’s a few Gs,” Cole said. “Somebody’s in a hurry.”

If he was trying to lighten the mood, it wasn’t working. A few minutes later, the shuttle hit the atmosphere and started taking a beating. None of the passengers spoke, they just looked ahead or out to the steel wings, which seemed to be flapping up and down like a bird’s. The sounds of grinding metal and bending trusses groaned throughout the ship, reverberating over the roar of air knocking against the hull.