The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

B2/Chapter 4/Impossible

Hours later, Dante was sitting up in his quarters. His robot Azimov had bought the usual beers, then left the room. By habit, Dante picked one up. He walked over to the window and poured it out. He went over to his desk and opened his holographic interface.

"Open Private file Kentro7" said Dante.

The 3D objects came to life, including the indication it had been last activated slightly more than a year ago. At first it had been a source of hope, then desperation, finally despair. He knew ever inch of this tragedy second by second.

The animation played from the launch at the spaceport. The first ship crowded with exiles hurrying from Earth after Bentham had issued general order 29 took off.  All non-earth born had been given seven days to leave earth or be interred. Lives had been upturned, plans ruined, hundred of thousands of people unrooted. Dante knew he should have been on the first ship with her, but the lift was too crowded. The ship, overfilled with cryopods, took off slowly rose into the sky over Atlanta, the first stage ran dry, stopped and returned to earth to be refuelled and launch the second and final refugee ship. 

"Show the trajectories of life pods from the time after impact with the ship BoatyMcBoatface."

A wireframe simulation of the path of the vessel was frozen as a  stealth missile from earth hit the ship. The yellow paths of the escape pods traces streaking out. He had studied this moment in such detail practically every path was known to him as a terrifying friend. Dante looked at the spaghetti of paths. He waved and the holographic 3D protection zoomed out. They had achieved near the exit velocity. Not enough to reach Mars, but enough for some pods to hit orbit

"Restrict to port side," said Dante.

The spaghetti of possible paths was reduced. Most went into deep space, back to Earth or towards the sun a few to the moon. He selected the one he thought most likely to be hers. It hit another pod and then lost so much speed it skimmed the upper atmosphere. It bounced once and forty-three minutes later burnt up. He traced the next one, this was one of the seventeen which impacted on the moon. He followed that one. It took a month orbiting then skimmed the moon finally crash landing. Five moon colliders survived and four people were rescued alive the rest were destroyed on impact. He followed the route it had could have landed, not gently, but largely intact. The area had been searched, nothing had been found.

A year ago Dante had a moment of inspiration. He scanned for news items about that area. A few months later, someone had reported that an old freighter had been stolen from its landing bay. The freighter had broke orbit, gone to mars. Then a few months ago in mars orbit, it had been hit by the planetary defence system. Well North Mars defenses. He looked at the technical descriptions of the explosions. Larger fragments burnt up in the atmosphere. If she was on it, she died again.

He went back to the exploding ship. The next twelve escape pods ended up being salvaged near L5. Three months in deep space. He added the trace of Kentro.  Kentro's last location had come from a space freighter port on the Moon. He was following up with leads or getting to his owner? Then nothing, Kentro was off the grid completely. Did Kentro take a space flight to look for her? Could she have woken up and taken the identity of another passenger? Dante continued. Could she have been hiding in L5. He checked no straight flights from L5 anymore. He checked, there were shuttles to Earth, but nothing civilian to Mars. He researched and rescanned of any news. Nothing. 

He continued for an hour and came back to the same conclusion he had done a year ago no no, there was no way she could survive. He looked down at the keyboard, there were water drops on it.  Whoever it was that day, it couldn't be her. She was dead. If she was alive possibly pretending to be someone else she wasn't on Mars. He looked at the beer bottle - oblivion was calling. That wasn't her. She's not here she's still dead. He looked at his hands, more water drops then he realised it was coming from his face, more specifically his eyes.

Dante stood up, eyes on fire. The potato eaters were fucking with him. They had found his weakness and were laughing manically while pushing a hot knife into his wound. Getting a girl to play her ghost. That was low even for them. ASS was planning revenge attacks, arrests, and detention for the attack on Dante. Dante usually denied them. This time he would keep quiet, The robots would follow military protocol and terrorise the population into submission. They thought they could us her against him. He would show them. 

He looked out over the city from the Terran compound.

"Don't fuck with my pain," said Dante grimly.

***

Yeah - OK it's not very funny. This is just a first sketch.