My ship had approached the jump zone slowly, cautiously. The ship has never been much to look at. It would be best described as a Caravel class vessel. The original Caravels were designed to haul small loads of cargo with a crew of five. However, mine has been damaged and rebuilt a few times and its origins are fairly unrecognizable. Her name doesn’t instill much confidence either, the Space Sloth. A former girlfriend had bestowed the name on her. I’d arrived late for a date, again, and she had been…displeased. In a fit of drunken rage she had gone into the hanger and spray painted the name on the ship. To be fair, I had been over two weeks late. That had been the last straw for her. After I packed her drunken ass into a shuttle I had sat drinking a beer and staring at the name scrawled in large black letters on the hull. Rather than take the time to clean it off or repaint it I decided to just leave it and have another beer. The next day I changed the ship’s name in the Terran Space Authority registry.

It’s true, the Space Sloth sounds like it’s one of the slowest pieces of junk in the Belt. That’s never bothered me though. When the other pilots in the bar make jokes I just smile and nod. See the thing is, the Space Sloth isn’t actually slow. A fact everyone seems to ignore. Sometimes a preconception can work in your favor.

Moving toward a jump point is always a tricky proposition. Increasing radiation and gravimetric shock waves can easily overwhelm a crew or ship. If the ship is well maintained and the A.I. isn’t too glitchy those factors can be overcome. Regardless of what it looks like the Sloth is solidly constructed and meticulously maintained. The A.I. system, well that’s always been another matter. The original onboard computer systems were too old to handle any of the modern software updates. Forced to rely on older open sources programs I’ve had to make a lot of tweaks. If I’m honest with myself the tweaking has probably never been the issue. Without the time, or patience, to run test simulations on the changes I’ve employed on-the-job testing heavily. That’s why I like to stay close to the manual overrides at all times. Just in case.

In this particular case there was the added complication of the Navy blockade around the jump zone. Interplanetary law specifies that wormholes and their associated jump zones are common space not subject to any claims of sovereignty. However, when the Coalition started funneling in support for their cause from other systems the Earth government decided to amend their understanding of the law. They placed blockades around each of the system’s wormholes intended to interdict any supplies and resources bound for the Coalition. When it became clear how much the blockages cost and that they wouldn’t be short-term fixes the new Blockade Tax was instituted. The reasoning back on Earth was that it would help turn the rest of the system against the Coalition. They should have known better. The desk jockeys planetside overlooked the fact that the rest of us out in the system didn’t care one way or the other about the Coalition or Earth.

Still, the blockade had opened up certain business opportunities. A tidy sum of money could be made by running a blockade with cargo. There were risks of course. Getting blown up by the Navy ships. Getting blown up by the Coalition ships. Panicking during wormhole entry and getting the vectors wrong. Back then the jury was still out on that one though. While some thought you would be disintegrated into elementary particles during transit others had believed you got dumped out at some random point in the universe with no way home. Neither had ever been on my bucket list so I always did my best not to panic. Of course the most likely outcome of running the blockade was a one-way ticket to a distant system or jail when you returned. The Navy didn’t actually have to stop you from going in. They just had to watch for you when you came back. I thought I had found a way around that though. Probably.

The Coalition had been trying to break the blockade for two years at that point. They would assemble a motley collection of heavily armored ships and throw them toward one of the jump zones. There would be a brief firefight. Particle weapons would sparkle and slugs would fly off rail guns. After taking some damage the Coalition forces would break off and retreat until they were ready to try again. Neither side had gone as far as unleashing heavy nukes. No one was sure what might happen if the nukes exploded too close to the wormhole.

Jump points are just the event horizon of a small wormhole. Wormhole science and the creation of new jump points is a delicate matter. Honestly, the human species has never been smart enough to actually do it. We got lucky and discovered something we didn’t understand, couldn’t explain, but nonetheless thought we could control. It takes a huge amount of energy to form even a small wormhole. More energy than mankind has ever come close to mastering. Paradoxically it turns out if you already have a singularity lying around you can position it close to a star and use it to siphon huge quantities of energy directly from the star. Suck up enough and you can use it to create a new wormhole. What’s the problem with this? You need the first singularity to start the process.

Some believers say God provides. Well, whether God exists or not he certainly provided in this case. Imagine everyone’s surprise when out of the darkness of space a wandering singularity came sailing into the Earth system. Physicists had long proposed the existence of black holes of all sizes and even ones that travelled through space independently of other systems. Still they nearly shit themselves when they realized not only that one actually existed but it was already within the boundary of Earth’s solar system before they noticed it. Once the “we’re all going to die” fear response subsided the typical human “let’s do something really stupid” response kicked in. Hey, it’s a black hole, a singularity, a rip in the very fabric of the universe. Let’s try to catch it! What could happen?

If you are lucky, really really lucky, it turned out not so much. True, the cost of the original expeditions to capture it nearly bankrupted several nations. And two of the expedition crews lost their lives when they miscalculated and got too close to it. But all in all, no harm no foul. The sun didn’t explode and the human species didn’t come to an end. After nearly a decade of study, however, scientists finally realized there was something wrong with this black hole. As expected it seemed to suck up mass and energy like a cosmic vacuum cleaner but it appeared to be growing. Eventually they discovered it seemed to be building a second singularity. The scientists had no idea how it was happening and not even the philosophers had an idea why it was happening. So naturally they decided to move it closer to the sun so they could watch it happen faster. When the new wormhole was finally created they discovered it was different. It seemed to go somewhere and had an endpoint, a destination. With a little knowledge, an insane amount of luck, and what could only be described as divine intervention they figured out how to direct the destination. Voila. Interstellar space was opened to humanity.

Which had brought mankind and me to that point in history. Hiding just outside a jump zone to the Itasca system in a ship held together by duct tape and wire. Really good duct tape though. Waiting to sneak past two groups of ships who would destroy me without a thought. All because one group of people didn’t like another group of people. The end goal being I would make enough money to buy food and alcohol. Not necessarily in that order. Yep, we’ve come a long way as a species.

I sat watching my screens. Waiting. The Sloth was running dark, completely in passive mode. The hope was no one would notice me floating out there until the party had started. It had taken several months but I had finally built up a personal relationship with a mid-level coordinator in the Coalition. Actually it had also taken quite a bit of alcohol and several zero-g hangovers. Have you ever seen someone vomit in zero-g? Really, it’s not good. It was all going to be worth it though if the information from the coordinator was solid. He had provided the approximate time of the next Coalition attack on a jump zone. The one I was waiting at in fact. With a little luck and a lot of speed, the plan was to slip through the fighting ships to the jump point without being noticed. If I wasn’t noticed going in I reasoned no one would be looking for me when I came back.

The Sloth’s hold held several containers for delivery to the Itasca Three colony. No one said what was in the containers only that if I got caught there would be a long jail sentence. However, if I didn’t get caught the contact on Itasca Three would fill the hold with the most precious alloys the colony had to offer. All mine to sell when I got back. Pure untraceable profit. Enough profit to update the computer system on the Sloth and rent a spot on a better berthing asteroid in the Belt. If the ship got through. If not, well the containers were positioned next to the cargo doors ready to be jettisoned. Normally the Navy would just retrieve cargo that was jettisoned but if I aimed carefully and was close enough the cargo could be dumped in such a way that it got sucked down into the jump point. I still might go to jail but only for tax evasion I reasoned. Or at least that’s what I thought. A positive success and a positive failure both relied on the speed of the Sloth to get near the jump point before things went to hell.

On my screen a halo of dots slowly circled the jump zone. The Navy frigates were on routine patrol routes. After studying them so intently I probably knew when a ship was out of position before its captain did. Of course I was drinking a beer, slowly sucking it through a straw when a new grouping of targets appeared on the screen. From their velocity and approach vector they had to be Coalition ships on an attack run. The Navy ships immediately started to reform themselves to defend against the attack. Studying the various trajectories displayed the decision was made. With several waypoints punched in I instructed the A.I. to plot a high-speed course through the ships and fired up the engines.

The fusion reactors were designed to ramp up quickly but there was always some unease as the ship popped and creaked around me, metal expanding to adjust to the energy and heat being released so fast. To avoid detection the active sensors were kept off-line as long as possible. I just hoped I didn’t accidentally move in front of a rail gun slug I couldn’t see. The engine readiness light changed from yellow to green, indicating full power was available, but the A.I. indicator had still been yellow. There was a query from the A.I. on one of the screens.

>;>;>; Are you sure about this?

I must have stared at the question for several seconds before I started yelling profanities. It had been months since my last steady girlfriend and casual friends were hard to come by out in the Belt. After a particularly long, lonely, beer infused depression I had downloaded a new personality interface app for the A.I. system. The hope was it would help take the place of person-to-person contact and keep me a little saner. Yeah I know, it was kind of a silly idea but it did work out…in the end. I’m ashamed to admit I had trained the neural net to respond to me while I was drunk and it never really worked right. Cursing I switched the interface to voice command.

“Yes. Engage engines.”

>;>;>; You sound upset. Are you mad at me?

“God damn it!” I yelled.

>;>;>; You’re mad. I can tell.

Looked like it was going to be a manual approach after all. Hitting the override I pulled up the pilot’s display. Quickly reviewing the status of the battle I adjusted the Sloth’s orientation slightly and activated the fusion-ion engines. The thrust pressed me back into the acceleration couch and I could feel the skin pull back from my eyeballs. I never got used to that part. After several seconds I throttled back and took a deep breath. The trick was to build up speed but not so much that maneuvering wouldn’t be possible if needed.

The ship approached the battle and there were flashes of particle weapons being activated. That was good. When combatants are close enough to each other to use particle beams there generally aren’t too many rail gun slugs flying around. The collision alarm came as a surprise. A Coalition vessel was bearing down on me. It was taking damage from Navy rail guns and was trying to maneuver out of the way. Hitting the port thrusters the Sloth slid away barely missing the Coalition vessel. A single pulse of the active sensors showed a glimpse of the slugs flying around the ship. By avoiding the first vessel I’d flown right into a swarm of them. Hitting the main engines I tried to accelerate past the high velocity metal projectiles.

The Sloth shuddered. Impact alarms sounded and warning lights lit up on the control panel. Murphy’s Law had bit me in the butt again. One of the slugs must have clipped the starboard side. Hull integrity was still alright and there weren’t any atmosphere leaks though. The meteor shields probably absorbed the impact. Still, it was obvious things weren’t going to work on manual. Reluctantly I reached down and flipped the A.I. switch back to active.

“Don’t talk. Just fly,” I instructed.

>;>;>; Ok.

It was probably my imagination but even back then there were times I swore the A.I. was being pouty. The acceleration pressed me first into one side of the acceleration couch and then into the other. The Sloth started a complicated series of turns to avoid the remaining slugs and steer clear of the ongoing battle. Most of the Navy ships were positioned on one side of the jump zone to confront the Coalition ships. If we could just get around them we’d have a clear shot into the wormhole.

>;>;>; May I say something?

Talking to the A.I. was like talking to some of my previous girlfriends. As conversation went it was a toss-up. At least the A.I. could fly the ship. More or less.

“What is it?”

>;>;>; A container in the hold is loose.

Must have broken the restraints when the slug hit I assumed.

“Ignore it.” The containers didn’t weigh that much and it couldn’t have moved far. The slight imbalance in mass would just have to be dealt with until we made it through the jump point. On queue the ship had suddenly decelerated to avoid something then accelerated again.

>;>;>; But…it’s being bad.

That was about the time I started wondering what I was like to be around when I was drunk. The A.I. had definitely been trained with a unique personality.

“What do you mean?”

>;>;>; It’s emitting radiation.

I don’t remember how long it took me to process that little bit of information. “What kind of radiation?” I asked.

>;>;>; I don’t remember the name. I just fly.

Had that actually been sarcasm I wondered? Or had the A.I. in that moment actually forgotten the word? That was probably the point when I started considering apologizing to several of my ex-girlfriends.

“Alpha? Beta? Gamma?” I asked.

>;>;>; No. No. And no.

“Neutron?”

>;>;>; Got it in four!

“Piece of crap open source software,” I grumbled.

>;>;>; Sticks and stones.

What I would have given for a stick at that moment. Glancing at the screens it was obvious the battle was behind us now. We weren’t under thrust and had a clear path to the jump point.

“How long till we reach the jump point?”

>;>;>; Four minutes fifty-three seconds.

It would be enough time I decided. Hitting the release on the couch straps I grabbed the support run above me. Giving a pull I floated toward the back of the cabin. I took a deep calming breath and spun the bolt on the airlock to the hold. Flight suits are designed to offer some additional protection from radiation. If I was quick I could investigate the container without picking up too high a radiation dose. I hoped.

Floating down the length of the hold I saw the first two containers securely strapped into their cradles. They were standard fiber composite shipping boxes about eight feet on a side. The third one was tilted forward out of its cradle. The straps had snapped. Its door had been damaged when it smashed into a strut and it hung part way open.

You don’t buy insurance when you’re running a blockade and I hoped the cargo wasn’t something like breakable pottery for the colony. Well, breakable radioactive pottery. Using a nearby strut I pulled on the container door, prying it open wider. With a wrist light I peeked around the corner, trying to keep my exposure to whatever it was emitting short. And froze.

Son of a bitch, I thought.

The thermonuclear device inside the container wasn’t a top of the line model but it appeared to be cleanly constructed. I’d never served in the Navy, or the Coalition, but I recognized a nuclear device when I saw one. But let’s just cut through the crap. It was a bomb. It was a big, vaporize your eyeballs inside their sockets, bomb. And since it was leaking neutrons it was a damaged bomb.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 (updated)