The Game of Life

Repairs

     The space between stars is not as empty as one may expect; the forces responsible for the creation of the galaxies are far from subtle, and the resulting star clusters are equally far from perfect. Debris is thrown clear of the gravitational pull of the stars on a regular basis, sending everything from microscopic meteorites to rogue planets hurtling into the boundless emptiness of space and directly into the path of any ship foolish enough to attempt the journey. The Seed Ship Columbus benefitted from well over two hundred years of cosmic exploration when its outer hull design was finalized, and all signs pointed to over a hundred years of service life until the hull would need replacing -- just enough time to reach the relative safety of their final destination.

     The hull was a series of layers designed to either collect or deflect space debris, depending on the size of the projectile, and was bombarded with millions of particles daily. The outermost layer was a gel compound that remained loose unless hit with sufficient force. The looseness of the gel allowed smaller meteorites -- which posed no threat to ship systems -- to move through the first layer and into a pocket of compressed gas which served as the second layer, with a small membrane between the two to keep them separate. The particles decelerated in the artificial atmosphere of the gas layer and were then pushed by currents into any number of collection vents in the main surface of Columbus, where they were refined and used for fuel or maintenance.

     In the event of a larger collision -- anything above the size of a small marble -- the gel, a non-newtonian fluid developed after a series of catastrophic events in the first flights outside of the Earth’s solar system, hardened. Smaller particles were deflected by the gel and traveled harmlessly over the ovular surface of Columbus, while larger chunks either became trapped in the outer gel or passed through into the atmospheric layer, then into the armor plates of the main ship housing. If this happened, the ship was rotated to move the damaged area out of the expected path of further debris, and the engineers onboard repaired the damaged armor from the inside -- the gel was self-healing and needed no assistance in the process. Repairs were a daily occurrence, and Max, Julian, and the other engineer candidates had been part of the roving maintenance teams since their sixteenth birthdays.

     Columbus was programmed to search for large objects and avoid them. Coupled with extensive electromagnetic shielding, these precautions meant that collisions with anything larger than a beach ball were all but impossible.

______________________________________

     “Put on your suits, boys, this one’s big.” Commander Higgs stood at the front of the engineering shuttle that housed the Fourth Emergency Response Team and motioned to the holographic display of Columbus to his left. “The sensors missed one, estimated 60 kilograms, hit the 43rd collection vent -- shattered the poor thing -- then plowed through the two outer shells and into the main bulkhead.” He tapped the air and the image of the egg-shaped ship expanded to show a tiny trail of damage, perhaps a hundred feet long and five feet wide. “It hit the aft portion on normal rotation, computers estimate a 20 degree angle of impact, so it coulda been worse. Sensors in the area are damaged, but we have video and it’s nasty. Once we go through the airlock, first priority is to isolate the damage to the bulkhead and re-establish an airtight environment, then we’ll split into repair and recovery.”

     Max looked over the summary in his lap and sighed. He and Ciph had only just decided which apartment they wanted -- a four-bedroom situated on the first three levels above the lake of the second envirosphere. Max knew about lakes -- he’d seen pictures -- but there was something special about seeing one with his own eyes and he absolutely insisted on that apartment. Since his was a family that was expected to grow larger than the average, it would require considerable renovations, but his request was granted nonetheless.