Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

Walter shared none of Molly and Cole’s uneasiness with the suits. He was absolutely ecstatic to have one of his own. When he found out they had no way of embroidering a patch with his name on it, he just printed it with a black marker, as neatly as he could. He took to wearing the thing all the time, even as Molly kept reminding him it was only useful when they were accelerating.

The helmets that locked into these flightsuits were looser than the Navy variety, but Molly and Cole were both growing out their hair, which should eventually pad the space. For Walter’s close-cropped pate, there was nothing to be done, but he didn’t seem to mind. He would shake his head vigorously and fill the helmet with muffled laughter as it continued to bobble around.

Overall, the condition of their safety gear was in far better shape than it deserved to be. If the Orbital Station didn’t have any atmosphere—which they fully expected after hundreds of years of disuse—they would be able to carry their own in with them.

As the plan solidified in Molly’s mind, she started forming various lists of the things she wanted to salvage, ranked by likelihood. A long-range communicator was on top on her Implausible List. Even without entangled particles, it would be nice to grab one. An operating fusion coil full of fuel headed up her Dream List, along with a functioning manual pump to move the precious stuff to Parsona . On her Necessities List was all the food and spares they could get their flight gloves on. Even if they didn’t need the stuff, they could sell or barter it down the road. Salvage laws applied to Navy property after fifty years of abandonment. If nothing else, grabbing as much as they could would keep Walter occupied; they had enough room in the cargo bunkers to keep him out of their hair for the rest of their passage to Earth.

As she compiled these lists and contemplated the wealth of supplies that likely awaited them, Molly became more and more confident with the plan. Almost as much as Walter, who had gone bonkers when he learned what they were preparing for. He ran around the cargo bay in tight circles, hissing excitedly. “ Loot a GU Orbital Station?! ” He practically tackled Molly, throwing his arms around her and thanking her endlessly.

They’d eventually settled him down and explained the mission, how they needed to go about this very quietly. Not a hiss. Walter nodded violently while his helmet, visor open, stood perfectly still. “I undersstand,” he said. “An eassy ‘in and out’ job.”

He got half of it right.

Parsona winked out of hyperspace in the middle of an L2, the Lagrange point on the other side of Glemot’s largest moon. “Largest” being a relative term; the rock was small enough to keep its odd shape rather than crush into a rough sphere with the force of its own gravity. Still, a few hundred kilometers wide, it was more than enough to conceal their arrival. It wasn’t like a primitive race was going to be scanning the sky with telescopes, but Naval training was strong in two thirds of the crew. And the remaining third consisted of a born and bred sneaky bastard .

They swept the far side of the potato-shaped moon with SADAR, revealing the Orbital Station just beyond. Everything was still out of sight as they crept up behind their lumpy, cratered shield. Cole scanned for any electrical or mechanical activity from the station, but they were on the extreme edge of their sensor’s range for those functions. Meanwhile, the Glemot planet dominated the SADAR display with its quiet bulk.

“All clear?” Molly thumbed through the post-jump systems checks. Seeing the hyperdrive down to twelve percent made her stomach knot up.

“All clear,” Cole confirmed.

Molly checked the cargo cam. Four crew chairs with life-support hookups were arranged across the bulkhead outside the cockpit. They faced backwards, two to either side. Walter had been strapped into one of them after much cajoling and a bit of force, unable to contain his anticipation of the heist ahead. His head was bent forward as he toyed with something in his lap, probably working on the game he’d begun programming into his computer. He’d been trying to show it to her for the past two days, but Molly never really had the time.

Satisfied that they were prepared for pretty much anything, Molly pushed Parsona’s nose around the small moon. The first glimpse of the Glemot planet rose over its dark surface like a green sun. It was a spectacular contrast to the sight of the last planet they’d left. Where Palan was almost entirely blue, with just a single high continent of eroded brown rock, Glemot was the vibrant hue of photosynthesizing life, a verdant color that triggered something emotional in the primitive parts of Molly’s and Cole’s brains.

They both gasped at the sight of the large planet as it rose into view, almost as if their lungs could suck in all that oxygen from across the vacuum of space. No clouds obscured the land, an oddity neither of them noticed at first. Instead of vast oceans: thousands, possibly millions of tiny lakes dotted the orb. It was one thing to read the dry Naval reports during the planning of this operation—something else entirely to see it with their own eyes.

This was why at least one poet should be assigned to every survey vessel , Molly thought, just to do images like this justice.

“So pretty,” she said aloud.

“Stay focused,” Cole told her, but it sounded like it could’ve been a reminder to himself. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the green world, either, or the thin halo of pale-blue atmosphere clinging to it.

A red indicator popped up on one of Cole’s readouts, breaking the spell.

“Mechanical activity on the Orbital Station. Looks like thruster signatures.”

Molly pulled it up as well.

“It’s just maintaining its orbit. That’s not a good Lagrange point. Moon’s too small, so it’s gonna have to boost itself periodically.”

“After all these years?” he shook his head. “Something’s not right. I’ve never known the Navy to build anything that didn’t need a weekly greasing. Wait. Thruster’s off now. Okay, maybe you’re right. That orbit can’t be stable, anyway. Too much mass in the OS and not enough in the moon. And yet, all these years later it’s orbiting the planet in lockstep—”

“And at a lower orbit,” Molly added.

“You think this is good news or bad news, Cap?”

“I’d say good. There’s no ship activity in the area. The thing’s probably just functioning on its own. That means we have a good chance of fueling up the hyperdrive.” Molly looked over at Cole and noted his furrowed brow. “You thinking we should pull back?”

“No. You’re probably right. But can you get us around the moonlet and behind the station? That planet is so pretty I might ask you to take us down for a look.”

“Absolutely,” Molly said, gripping the flight controls and nudging them forward.

But she wasn’t the only one trying to control the ship.

The first sign of trouble was the flickering of the nav screen. Cole rapped the top of the dash with his fist in the primitive problem-solving reflex common to males. The screen returned to normal.

“Better,” he said.

Molly rolled her eyes at the unfortunate result this would have at strengthening a silly habit. She didn’t think any more of the glitch as they approached the station.

When they closed to within a thousand meters, Molly prepped for docking maneuvers. The universal coupling on the outside of Parsona’s hull needed to be lined up with the one on the Orbital Station’s maintenance bay. The airlock on the GN-290 was high up the starboard side to prevent the wings from getting in the way, so Molly rolled Parsona over and began her approach. Hopefully, they’d be able to open the hangar doors manually from inside the station to make loading salvaged goods even easier.