S.I.L.M. Sea King

It had been three-hundred years since the discovery of Pepsesca, ninety years since its colonization from the Solarian universe, and two and a half years since the Solarian Interplanetary Low-PV Modicruiser ‘Sea King’ escaped the earth’s orbit.

It had been nineteen months since the ship rounded her namesake, Neptune, and slingshotted into deep space, and eighteen months since she passed up her first ghost, a S.I.L.M. like her that must have failed to gain proper speed.

These dead bugs littering the trail, fireflies blinking their yellow emergency distress beacons long after their life support systems ran dry, were present all along the journey, reminding the Sea King’s travelers both what a perilous course of opportunity they took, and what amazing progress they were making compared to others failures. As they sped closer to their fixed green star heading, a new faintly flickering yellow bug would chip off of it’s great light as frequently as the last would be disappearing behind them.

It had been only eight weeks since they passed their last firefly, drifting so slowly that it seemed to be shooting backwards. It had been three days since they reached communication with Pepsesca’s lunar carousel, a large spinning structure designed to absorb the energy of an incoming ship and store the converted rotational energy for the needs of outgoing ships. It had been thirty-four hours since Sargent Emery welcomed the Sea King to latch on to the carousel and exchange it’s velocity for a safe decent to the Pepsescan atmosphere, and it had been a dizzying nine hours since they’d been released from the carousel by a 250,000 mile U-turn towards the edge of the green planet.

Now, nearly everyone on board was allowed into the crew’s observation deck to witness the rise of beautiful emerald Pepsesca before the ship’s planetary descent. After such a long journey, there was nothing left unsaid, nothing of importance they could say now at the sight of their new home. So they marveled in silence.

The captain put his back to the overwhelming sight of the fast-growing planet and checked with one of his navigators for the ship’s velocity.

"This is relative to the Pepsesca surface?" The captain tapped the corner of a display screen. "That can’t be accurate. If we catch the tether at that speed we're all headed for the ceiling."

"And why were we thrown at it facing backwards?” asked a technician. “This is going to take a lot of coordination on their part to direct us into something we can’t see.”

"I found a signal ahead of us,” said the communications officer. “Marked S.A.C.S. R-10, but I can't tell how far. It's moving too fast."

"What have they said?"

"Nothing yet." The old man slid away one ear of the radio headset. "Should we be worried?"

The captain gave the engine room orders to slow Neptune down, to exhaust whatever the batteries had left in firing straight ahead. At full power, the negative effect against their momentum was as noticeable as a fart in a wind tunnel.

Through the windows, the curve of the great emerald ball began to flatten away, and the spinning horizon of firm, luscious, living ground cutting straight through the black void hypnotized the room. It was now impossible to tell whether that spinning balance of everything promised spun was waxing or waning, growing or shrinking.

"They won't return the call." The communications officer unplugged his headset and directed the empty static to a handheld speaker.

Someone pointed up through the glass. "I see it!"

The captain shouldered his way through the crowd and watched the end of the tether fly through the sky above, and soon below. They were nowhere close to docking distance.

The static on the handheld cut to a calm voice. "This is Sub-Atmospheric Centrifuge Station R-10. Please identify yourself.”

The faces pressed to the observation glass crowded the captain away from view of the tether docks. He returned to the communications station and plucked the handheld from the seated officer.

"Mayday," he shouted as calmly as he could withhold himself. "Mayday. Mayday."

"Who is this?" asked the Pepsescan on the receiver.

"This is S.I.L.M. Sea King requesting immediate rescue. We were passed off by Sargent Emery at the lunar carousel but he's missed the mark."

"What's happened? Did you dock our carousel?"

"No! We are well past the carousel! Our relative speed is showing one-point-nine-six anps in our direction of origin. Please send help."

"It's alright folks. You're heading home now. Please tell any Solaricks you meet on the way that we're nice and full down here. Kay?"

"This is a mistake! Listen to me, please. We are just innocent travelers. This cruiser's full of good people, women and children too." The captain looked around at the worried passengers. His mind raced past the boundary of denial and straight into bargaining. "And I don't mean to imply our women are only mothers of children. We have many single women up here." He saw fear and disgust of his words on the surrounding faces. "Many young and beautiful women."

The Pepsescan laughed. "Maybe by your standards."

"Please!" begged the captain. "There are so many of us! We have great thinkers and hard workers, talented craftsmen and navigators. We're here to offer ourselves up. Please! Just take us down and talk about--"

"Yeah, how about you and all your great, talented, hard working S'lairk buddies go fix up your own home instead of invading ours?"

The signal died, replaced by the indifferent static of radiation.

The captain let the receiver slip from his hands.

Minutes ago, the swirling ball of green light in the observation deck's window couldn't fit within view. Now it fit cleanly inside the middle pane of the three.

The vibrating hum from the walls of the engine room died away. In thirty hours or so, unaccounting for any possible damage from the lunar carousel to the Low-PV sails, they might be lucky enough to hear the hum return.

The crew and passengers silently watched as the green ball shrank down to a melon, an apple, then a grape. By the time the captain finally lit the S.I.L.M. Sea King's yellow distress beacon, the green light was just a pea rolling along a deep black nothing.