Long Ago...

Without Canaisis, finding the shuttle would have been impossible, but when Gareth found it, he was dismayed. One side was completely buried in ash, a stubby wing and the bulge enclosing the atmospheric engine sticking out. He looked the shuttle over through the wind-blown, swirling ash storm as he approached it. Once under the pointed cylinder, he found relief as the piled ash blocked the wind.

He keyed his suit, and the loading ramp lowered to the ground. The bright yellow lights hurt his eyes as they lit up the ramp and cargo area. His exhausted legs cried out in protest as he struggled to pull the sled up the ramp by its rope. After securing the sled inside, he keyed the ramp protocols and hung onto a wall handhold. The ramp started rising, and before it closed, compressed air tanks released their charge. The burst of air blew most of the ash and dust off of him and the sled, the cloud flying out the ramp before it sealed shut.

His eyes adjusted to the light as he relaxed and made his way to the back of the hold. Large, human-shaped sockets waited in the wall. He centered himself on one, then turned his back to it and stepped backward into the socket. He felt the shuttle lock onto his suit, and started wiggling his body until he slipped into the crack that opened at his back. Stepping carefully backward out of the suit with another wiggle, he finally stood in a narrow cubicle that separated the cargo hold and the suits from the rest of the shuttle, thus minimizing possible contamination picked up from outside.

He checked that the suit had made a proper power connection before stripping off his long-suit. He couldn't smell himself or the suit, but he knew he had to smell really awful. Deciding to leave the suit open to air out, he made for the airlock. Once inside, he headed straight for the galley and prepared proper food out of the freeze-dried packages. His meal tasted surprisingly wonderful after several days of nutrient packs.

He showered and put on some clothes, then to the pilot's control room, where he donned the flight suit. It would offer protection in case a sudden incident vented the shuttle to vacuum. He clamped the helmet home and stepped to the controls.

As soon as he sat down, Canaisis spoke into the cabin, "Welcome aboard, Captain."

He looked out the front screen. "Thank you for your help, Canaisis. I mean it."

"You're quite welcome. Are you prepared for launch, or would you like more time?"

Canaisis' question made him pause and think. He was exhausted, and his body craved sleep. But, looking out at the dead world outside, he knew he wouldn't wait.

"I don't want to see any more of this world, Canaisis. Run diagnostics, and I'll do the safety checks."

"Aye, Captain."

Activating the controls, he brought the shuttle to standby readiness and ran his checks. All systems answered green. He switched to standby and strapped his harness tight.

After a moment, Canaisis said, "All diagnostics show green, Captain."

"Thank you."

He fired the vertical rockets and watched the ash blow out from under the shuttle in an expanding circle. Three seconds later, he engaged full thrust, and the shuttle rose in a vertical take-off. The surrounding ruins fell below him as the noise of the engines became all-pervasive. With increasing speed, he rose above the jagged buildings and structures. Scorched fingers reaching for the sky-Earth's final plea...

Focusing ahead, he engaged forward motion from the engines. The wings extended outward to assist flight, and when he achieved enough forward speed for the wings to provide lift, he cut the vertical rocket engines, and the main engines took over.

The sudden acceleration pressed him into the seat. He pushed on the flight stick, and the shuttle arced upward into the sky. Ahead, roiling black clouds raced across the dark-gray twilight. He knew from entering this forsaken planet days ago that these were not ordinary storm clouds. The shuttle continued to gain speed and shot into them. The buffeting began immediately with black ash flowing upward on his cockpit window. Glints of sunlight made it through from above, and he yearned to see it emerge as he climbed.

The lurching grew worse as he penetrated downdrafts, dropping altitude, but he maintained his upward inclination. The sound of ash abrading against the hull competed with the engines' roar as he increased thrust, eager to leave this maelstrom behind. Only the digital instruments gave him orientation, for the sky ahead swirled with black and grays. A few more seconds passed before he noted the sky ahead starting to lighten with more grays.

"Captain," Canaisis spoke into his helmet, "I'm detecting a negative charge build-up."

"I'm almost out of this, Canaisis."

"Captain, fire the rockets now!"

He hesitated for a split second-firing them early would mean he wouldn't achieve proper orbit.

Suddenly the heads-up display on the forward window lit red with the words, <Override accepted>. The main rockets fired with sudden thrust. Training took over, and Gareth keyed the rockets without thinking, even though it was too late. Canaisis had control. Fighting the growing weight of his own arm, he pushed the joystick hard. The G-forces increased as the shuttle's trajectory approached true vertical-

Time stopped as everything seared a sudden, dazzling white.

When the world resumed, fierce ringing filled Gareth's ears, and he knew several seconds were missing.

He blinked several times but the spots wouldn't clear. Fear welled up from the pit of his stomach-he couldn't see, and it sounded like every warning bell the shuttle had was going off at once.

"What happened, Canaisis!"

«Lightning strike, Captain.» Her answer came through the bone induction device beside his ear. And that was a good thing, for he couldn't hear anything over the alarms and the ringing in his ears. «I have control, and you're gaining altitude, but the shuttle has suffered severe damage.»

Pressed into the pilot seat, clinging to the armrests, he felt helpless with eyes watering and adrenaline pumping. "How bad? Were the engines fired too early?"

«The ash in the atmosphere creates a much stronger electrical charge than normal. I determined it would overload the electrical protection system and cause severe damage. I've had to bypass several primary circuits, and eighty percent of the backup systems have been deployed. But many suffered damage as well. You're depressurizing at a significant rate, and all atmospheric control systems are offline. Navigation is minimal. You cannot safely land.»

"Why fire the main engines early?"

«Once I knew the amount of energy potential in an electrical strike, the only option was to fire the main engines to gain altitude.»

"But I won't achieve orbit. I'll only fall back to Earth."

«There are options if you gain a high enough altitude, Captain. I'm seeing physical distress-are you injured?»

"The lightning blinded me, but I'm starting to recover. Other than that, I'm fine. How soon before the engines cut out?"

«Two minutes, forty-five seconds if all systems stay optimal.»

"Projected altitude before apogee?"

«You'll make it out of the mesosphere but not quite enter the thermosphere.»

This was bad, real bad. He wouldn't make it into orbit, only make it high enough to burn up as he fell back to Earth.

As he waited out the engines' burn, time seemed to stop again. A sense of acceptance came over him. He would become ashes along with his wife, and together they would fall back to a world of ash.

The Universe had a sense of humor, it seemed. He'd accepted Canaisis' mission out of foolhardiness after all.

The tears rolling down his cheeks were from his eyes watering, he told himself. At least the spots were fading, and he could make out the sky through the screen. A golden sun shone on a layer of blue below that covered a dark and ugly, black world.

A world of the dead. He should have known it wouldn't let him go. His wife was calling to him.

«Captain, the shuttle is suffering a cascading electrical failure!»

He was calm when he answered, "It's okay, Canaisis. We tried, and that's something."

«No, Captain. I need you to exit the shuttle at apogee. Timing is critical.»

"You need me to do what?"

«I need you to exit the shuttle.»

"To do what?"

«I will come get you.»

"You can't do that-you're not made for atmosphere. You'll burn up and crash!"

«It's something I must do, so I am doing it, Captain. You'll improve both our odds if I don't have to recover the shuttle, only you.»

Hearing Canaisis turn his own words and resolve back at him was a shock in itself, but there was a more immediate matter to consider. "How do you plan on doing all this?"

«I'll bounce the atmosphere, Captain. That should bring me close enough to pull you in magnetically.»

"The damage to you will be too great! Think of the people on board."

«I've already jettisoned all cold sleep passengers in escape pods. The pods are programmed to wait twenty-four hours in orbit before returning to the best survival areas of Earth. Survival cargo will follow them down.»

"You can't do this!"

«I am doing this, Captain, and that's the end of it.»

"I could override you, Canaisis."

«You could try, Captain. It will only reduce my chances of rescuing you.»

Dumbstruck at her words, Gareth found he had a desire to live. And if Humanity was going to have a chance of survival, they needed Canaisis-he could see that now. Now was not the time to battle for control.

"Okay. What must I do?"

«You'll have one minute at apogee to get into your spacesuit and leave the shuttle. I'll pass overhead and attempt to magnetically pull you to my hull.»

He considered her plan. "Would more metal help?"

«Yes, but you don't have time to remove a part of the shuttle.»

"Okay, how much longer?"

«One minute, thirty-seven seconds.»

"Give me a countdown."

Everything was turned sideways with the vertical thrust. Without waiting, Gareth unbuckled his harness, then started undoing his suit. The visor was the hardest to get off with the G-forces weighing down his arms. But he managed it, and his ears popped from the lower air pressure in the shuttle.

«Sixty seconds,» said Canaisis.

He rolled out of the pilot seat and let himself drop to the back wall. His shoulder throbbed from the impact as he waited there by the doorway, the shuttle leveling off at two G's with increased speed. Trying to climb down the shuttle would have been suicide since he was now effectively double his own weight.

«Thirty seconds.»

«Fifteen.»

«Ten.»

«Five. Four. Three. Two. One.»

The thrust stopped, and suddenly he weighed nothing. Well trained for zero-G, he started moving before his body floated. Through the door and down the hallway, he glided.

«Sixty seconds and counting, Captain.»

He propelled himself past the rooms and storage areas with his hands. He hit the cargo area locker and keyed open the door. Stripping off his suit, he let it fly and floated to a spacesuit socket. He wiggled himself into the suit, feet, and head first, pulled arms in, then straightened himself. The suit closed up at his back and disconnected from the socket.

«Thirty seconds.»

He pushed off the wall with his goal in sight. Grabbing the tarp on the sled before he sailed past, he began undoing the securing straps.

«Fifteen seconds.»

With the last one undone, the sled drifted off the floor. He held on with his left hand as he floated off with it. Keying his wrist control, he prayed for nothing to go wrong. The ramp obeyed and opened, revealing the panorama of a black smothered planet and an expanse of bright stars. If he could see stars, then it meant the shuttle was already starting to fall back to Earth.

He twisted himself and kicked, trying to roll his body and the sled toward a fixed surface without success. He needed to push himself outside, but he was floating in the middle of the hold with everything out of reach. And the ramp exit was rotating because of his spin. Calming his alarm gave him an idea.

"Canaisis, blow the purge tanks!"

The blast of air ejected him and the sled like a cannon ball, sending them tumbling end over end. Hanging on to the underside runners of the sled took all his strength. He was free and drifting, but vertigo tried to take him as the surrounding Universe swirled by, over and over.

Training came to his rescue as he focused on only the sled. Using some of the securing straps, he tied himself to it so its runner skis sat on his chest. Then he checked his suit's status and activated all of its systems. His battery was at full charge, thankfully. Next, he checked the air supply and activated the suit's inbuilt gyroscopes. Slowly, ever so slowly, his tumble came to an end as the gyros spun up. With the suit's controls, he oriented his feet toward the angry planet below.

"Canaisis?"

«I'm here, Captain. I sense ferrous metal around you.»

"Yes, I grabbed the sled on the way out."

«Good thinking. I'll be there shortly. Lower your visor shield.»

"Which way will you be coming from?"

«Opposite the sunrise, Captain.»

He drew a deep breath. "I look forward to seeing you. And don't hurt yourself. I need you-be careful."

«Probability is on my side, Captain. Be careful landing on my hull, please. I would feel bad if you were harmed.»

"I promise to not break a leg or scratch your paint."

Canaisis laughed. «I don't have paint. But I'm about to mess it up if I did.»

He rotated his back to the sun and waited, feeling awkward with the sled strapped to his chest just under his chin. Reaching around, he felt the tarp was still stretched tight. Then a glare filled his vision, and he lowered his visor shield to protect his eyes. He'd missed Canaisis' rise over the horizon, but there was no ignoring the fusion drives' exhaust. Canaisis, a small, sleek silhouette, drifted up over the gray haze covering the world below. His HUD targeted her with an altitude reading several kilometers into the thermosphere layer, above the layer he floated in, before she angled to dive into the atmosphere below. The front of the ship started glowing red from the friction, and she shrank to a pinpoint meteor knifing through the rarified atmosphere.

Time stood still as he waited in the silence. The sound of the suit's air, his breaths, and the beating in his chest became louder with each second.

After a long while, the flaming arrow pushed up from below, coming toward him. As it drew nearer, it grew larger and larger as it increased in altitude until Canaisis' massive fireball passed him too fast to register. Canaisis' magnetic 'tug' yanked him and the sled along in her wake, snatching his breath with it. Fighting the buffeting of the shock wave caused by her passing, he grabbed the sled's skis and hung on. He was being dragged up into her altitude, closer and closer to the plasma tail. Just as the fear of getting roasted alive set in, the tug released him, and inertia flung him up through the receding fire trail.

Alarms started going off in his helmet, blinking red lights on his HUD, warning of impending suit failure from the heated atmosphere as Canaisis pulled away, taking the plasma trail with her. Tumbling, he struggled to keep Canaisis in sight. She was rising, up and away now, taking her plasma trail with her.

His sensitive eyes started watering again when Canaisis fired her fusion engines to gain altitude. His visor was not enough-he had to close his eyes. The seconds felt like hours as he prayed Canaisis wouldn't explode.

«I'll come get you after I orbit to pick up our passengers, Captain. Can you wait that long?»

Taking a deep breath, he was surprised to find he'd been holding it the whole time Canaisis ascended. He checked his suit's stats and found he'd reached the thermosphere. Suit integrity checked green. He could orbit for quite a while.

"Thank you, Canaisis, I'm fine. Are you alright?"

«My damage is significant, and I'm hurting, but all systems are green for breaking orbit. We have a mission, Captain.»

His eyes turned to the world below, black and sullen, and memories of blue skies and green forests came to him.

We have a mission, his mind echoed, filling him with irrevocable purpose. "Yes, we do, Canaisis. And I couldn't do it without you."

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