Breaking Point

Chapter 4: So it begins...

Zaid woke up to rapid deceleration.  The space capsule was firing its deceleration rockets and maneuvering thrusters.  He stretched his legs as best he could, given that the cabin was only designed for someone two thirds his height.  Instructions were printed on the command console.  The capsule was not going to make a safe landing; he was instructed to eject at the end of a countdown and use his own landing equipment.  Figures, thought Zaid.

This was not the first time he had to eject near an asteroid, just the first time he had been instructed to do so.  The first time was on 21 Lutecia, when a Cryogalvanate had sapped the heat from the landing rockets.  Unable to decelerate, the lander bounced off the surface in nearly zero gravity, requiring Zaid to eject and use his harpoon to attach to the surface blindly through thick regolith -- thick floating clouds of dust in the low gravity -- fortunate for it to strike somewhere shallow as he learned that Lutecia has areas where the regolith can be kilometers deep.  Hygiea was a lot bigger than Lutecia, big enough to look like an actual planet rather than a chunk of rock, but not enough for gravity to be significant -- barely a hundredth of the gravity on Earth.

There was a re-breather apparatus built into Zaid's helmet, which he bit down on the mouthpiece and snugged it over his nose before pulling the helmet's pressure-sealing visor down.  He counted down aloud with the timer on the console.  "Five... Four... Three..."  His hand felt the ejector handle and pulled it.  The capsule roof burst open and Zaid was thrust into the emptiness of space, hurtling toward a deep-looking crater on the asteroid's surface.  With no atmosphere to scatter the light, Zaid's natural eye struggled with the sharp contrast of the shadows over the lighted surface and eventually just closed that eye.

As he approached the surface he readied a harpoon on his left arm and transformed his right arm to a pick.  Landing was going to hurt.  Bouncing wouldn't put him back into orbit but he'd land far from where he intended.  His synthetic eye could distinguish a structure that looked like an opening and he was going to land close to it.

The silence was unsettling when he fired the harpoon.  It wasn't the first time he had been in the vacuum of space, but having fired it hundreds if not thousands of times he had come to expect the noise.  Feeling the vibration as the cord reeled back into his gauntlet.  Feeling the thunk of his body against the hard rock hidden beneath the meter of regolith, the thunk echoing a bit in his helmet but not from the outside.  Strange to feel the hard rock below his body but not hear as he clambered about on it, slowly and carefully so as not to launch himself from the surface by accident.

He had landed within a few meters of his target, the entrance visible over the blanket of dust surrounding it.  He gripped the outer handle and began turning the locking wheel.  The entrance hissed as it depressurized, sending perturbations through the dark colored rock fog.  Zaid climbed in, pulled the door shut behind him and locked it again before opening a second door, again hissing as the air pressure balanced.  It was breathable inside.  Good.  Don't need this anymore, he thought as he peeled back the helmet and tucked its components into compartments in his armor.  It was still too dark for him to see with his natural eye.

Maybe I don't have to do anything.  Maybe I could just live here.  Serve out my punishment here in this abandoned place for all eternity.  Maybe Draygon would be pissed and this could be some ultimate act of revenge, something he'd never see coming.  Or maybe he just wanted me off the planet with no way of getting back so he could do some other dastardly thing without me killing him again.  No.  There are no good options.  If he actually wanted me gone he could have just ejected me into cold dead space.  But this could all have a hundred purposes and I'd never be able to do anything about any of it because I'm just a pawn in his game.

Just a pawn.

And that's my first move.  Get in contact with a King.  I may not be able to really play the game, but Jesim can.

Goal number one:  Find a way to communicate.