Into the Black Hole

Chapter 5: Gold Is King

After putting on our navy spacesuits and helmets, Timour and I climb into a dropship connected to Plato. The inside isn't as big as it looks on the outside. Touchscreens, electric gadgets, and compartments dispensing food and water line the metal walls. I search for a coffee maker and am disappointed when none is found. Varicolored lights come from all directions, some a faint shade, others piercing as they blink. We walk to the front of the ship and strap ourselves into the twin seats. In front of us is an array of touchscreens for life support, piloting controls, and navigation, among other ship functions.

"Want to take it for a spin?" Timour asks, gesturing to the pilot control screen.

"If you enjoy crashing," I reply.

A grin spreads across his face. "I would've thought our friendly neighborhood techie would be into this kind of stuff."

I laugh, "The last time I modified any type of user interface was over a year ago. Besides, I mainly work on Plato, which is why it has cool holographic screens instead of touchscreens."

"So basically you're saying that this tech is too old?" he questions in disbelief, continuing to fiddle with the screens.

"It's ancient, but that isn't the point. I never needed to know how to use one of these, and I don't practice on these dropships daily like you and the other Starships do."

Just because I know how to hack into portals and train machines to be more persuasive than one's choice of panderer doesn't exonerate me from ignorance.

I implored my father to teach me how to fly several years ago, and I became pretty adept with our hovercrafts and automobiles back on Earth. However, everyone in the IF wants to be a pilot, and someone around here needs to make sure our software is top notch. I fill in that role, which means I don't have a lot of time to fool around with the dropships.

"Maybe Admiral Chambers should assign you to these ships," Timour suggests. "Make it 'high tech.'"

"Maybe," I pretend to agree, even though I know why my father doesn't for two reasons. One, the dropships' current design is closer to that of the hovercrafts' back on Earth, which makes it easier for new Starship recruits to learn how to operate. Two, I specialize in machine learning and artificial intelligence—much more important concentrations, in my biased opinion, to focus my time on than user interface. After all, would you rather your ship learn how to best dodge missiles or have slightly more aesthetically pleasing text bubbles?

"Honestly, it's not that hard to use," Timour states. "Kind of like playing a video game. When we get back,"—If we get back—"I can teach you."

I'm down. "Then we better make it out alive."

"We will." He sets up the autopilot and navigation, then states, "Once we detach from Plato, we'll be decelerating at 2 G and quickly ramping up to 4 G."

I nod and hastily tie my waist-length hair up into a high ponytail. The hair, increased g-force, and lack of caffeine are definitely going to give me a headache. This'll be fun.

"This is Starship Commander Orlov," Timour says, low and steady into the speaker allowing us to communicate with the command center. "Technical Sergeant Chambers and I are strapped in and ready to go. Permission to undock?"

A couple seconds later, my father answers, "Permission granted."

* * *

Under an hour later, we land on the surface of Mars next to our three other dropships. I'm still put out that we went around Solarity instead of over it, even though the rational part of my brain says it's for the better.