Crash Landing: Chapter One

“You know what they say,” Eric said to Maryam. “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.”
His older sister gave him a look that said, quite clearly, you’re an idiot. Winchester’s World was newly terraformed, the atmosphere still unsettled after dozens of water-ice asteroids had been aimed at the planet and followed by a multitude of bioengineered packages designed to turn the barren rocky planet into a world humans could settle without extensive life support infrastructure and underground complexes that kept the natives from ever seeing the stars. The weather was a nightmare, the turbulence rough enough to pose a threat even to a full-sized colonist-carrier…and Max Jones, of course, was a great deal smaller. The landing had been rough enough to make Eric think twice about the wisdom of accepting the charter, no matter how much they’d been offered for hasty delivery. They wouldn’t be able to accept their pay if a violent gust of wind slammed the ship to the ground or a lightning strike took out the antigravity blisters, dooming them to certain death. Max Jones was about as aerodynamic as a flying brick. If she lost antigravs, there would be no way to save her or to bail out before she hit the ground.
He ran through the final post-landing checks, then shrugged. “We made it, didn’t we? And getting back up will be much easier.”
“Hah.” Maryam’s expression didn’t change. “Remind me why I agreed to come with you again?”
“You’ll be able to write your own ticket, when you apply for a post on a bigger starship,” Eric pointed out. Maryam had plenty of opportunity, over the last six months, to boost her resume and claim interstellar status. “And also because you didn’t trust us on our own.”
His sister snorted. “Was I right, or was I right?”
Eric shrugged again, refusing to rise to the bait. Their voyages had definitely had their ups and downs, from saving a ship stranded in interstellar space to nearly being conned out of one shipment and losing another because they hadn’t made it to their destination before time ran out. Almost being hijacked seemed relatively minor, if only because it hadn’t been their mistake. And they’d made it clear…he wondered, idly, what had happened to the treacherous butler, before deciding it wasn’t his problem. His allies had probably discarded the butler as soon as they realised he was no longer of any use to them.
Eric unbuckled himself and stood, stretching. They had to hand their cargo over to the receiving agent, once they met him, and then they would be at loose ends until they found another charter. He had no idea what could be found on Winchester’s World, but it was a corporate outpost…surely, there would be something, if the corporation needed freight delivered quickly and didn’t have a ship of their own in the sector. It wasn’t impossible. The bigger corporations tended to frown on smaller cargo ships like Max Jones until they needed them. Eric had no idea why.
When I take over the family corporation, he told himself, things are going to be different.
He put the thought out of his head as he made his way to the engineering compartment and peered inside. “All ok?”
John, his younger brother, looked up from his work. “The compensators got a little stressed,” he said, “but we had enough redundancy built into the system to keep them from failing completely.”
Eric grinned. “Maryam got a little stressed too.”
“I dare you to say that in front of her,” John teased back. His voice tightened. “And compensator failure is nothing to laugh at.”
“Yeah.” Eric let out a breath. “At least it would have been in the atmosphere.”
John looked unimpressed. Eric understood. Max Jones travelled at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light, when she was in deep space, and without the compensators they’d be smashed into paste…if they were lucky. In the atmosphere…it wouldn’t be so bad, perhaps, but the turbulence would be a great deal worse and they’d have real problems controlling the ship long enough to set down. Most people didn’t understand how dangerous it could be to land a small starship on a planetary surface, rather than docking at an entry station and transferring one’s cargo to aerospace shuttles. Most people didn’t fly starships at all.
“You finish up down here, then we’ll see what Winchester’s World has to offer,” Eric said. “I have to find the agent and hand over the datastore.”
“See you on the flip side,” John said. “Get a list of supply shops for me.”
Eric raised his eyebrows. “Are we running short of anything?”
“Not yet, but you know the risks,” John said, dryly. “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
“True.” Eric had learnt the importance of multiple redundancies and backups the hard way. Skimping on maintenance was perfectly fine, until it wasn’t, and if you ran short in interstellar space you’d be lucky if you made it back home before it was too late. “Let me know if there’s anything in particular you need.”
He turned away and made his way to the airlock, making sure to check the exterior readings before opening the inner hatch. Winchester’s World had a breathable atmosphere, at least on paper, but he knew better than to take anything for granted. Some worlds had atmospheres so thin the settlers needed specific genemods to survive, others had gravity fields so heavy that the locals had very real problems surviving on other more human-compatible worlds. The readouts were clear, letting him step into the airlock and begin the cycle. The other hatch cycled open a moment later. A gust of ice-cold wind slapped him in the face.
Eric took a long breath. Winchester’s World was cold, so cold he had to activate the heating elements in his shipsuit. The air smelled faintly of something he couldn’t quite place, an indistinct scent that nagged at his mind…not uncommon, he reflected, for a terraformed world. He’d spent enough time in interstellar space, travelling from planet to planet, to know that each world had its own smell, from the subtle and easily-missed to the disgusting. They’d get used to it, he reminded himself, as he looked around. The landing pads were surprisingly clear, only a handful of aerospace shuttles visible; the hangars, open for inspection, were empty. The buildings in the distance looked like fortresses, legacies of a time when Winchester’s World was far less welcoming to human life. He sucked in his breath as he saw the towering windmills at the edge of the spaceport, distributing more bioengineered packages into the planet’s atmosphere, then lifted his eyes to see the distant mountains. They were covered in snow.
Just like home, he thought, recalling a school trip to the mountains of Switzerland. It was staggering, somehow, to realise just how much they’d had, how much they’d never truly appreciated until they’d left it all behind. Most children were nowhere near so lucky. If we have time, perhaps we can go skiing.
He pushed the thought aside as he started to walk towards the spaceport terminal. The air seemed to grow colder with every passing step, his breath hanging in front of him like mist. He kept a wary eye on the ground, watching for patches of ice. The spaceport was supposed to be kept clear of everything that could pose a danger to passing spacers, but there was no way to be sure the groundpounders were keeping the pads and connecting pathways swept clean. They rarely grasped the dangers of letting things slide, when they weren’t an immediate problem. Spacers knew better.
The terminal yawned open in front of him, revealing an oddly deserted customs and exercise chamber. There was no sign of life… He felt a chill run down his spine as he walked past the deserted desks and rows and peered into the next chamber. Spaceports were technically not part of the planet’s territory, and spacers didn’t need visas as long as they stayed inside the wire, but it was still odd not to pass through some kind of checkpoint. The police preferred to know just who was landing on their world, before it was too late. Eric didn’t blame them. He’d met too many spacers who preferred to stay on the wrong side of the law.
Because operating a starship is expensive, he reminded himself. They’d been fortunate to have enough money to purchase Max Jones outright, rather than take a major loan from one of the banking consortiums, and outfit the ship with everything she needed to keep flying. Other spacers weren’t so lucky. Their careers consisted of looking for charter after charter, trying to stay ahead of the banks, and if they fell behind on their payments…he shook his head sourly. When I come into my inheritance, I’m going to do something about that.
He allowed himself a moment to contemplate an assortment of interest-free loans for spacers as he stepped into the next chamber, spotting an official at the far end. The tired-looking man waved him over, holding up a portable terminal in one hand. His eyes widened, just for a second, as he realised how young Eric truly was. Eric sighed to himself as he pressed his shipmaster’s ID against the scanner. It was rare for spacers from Earth to be so young, but the rules were different hundreds of light-years from home. He’d run into quite a number of other spacers even younger than himself.
“Welcome to Winchester’s World,” the official said. “You picked a poor time to visit.”
“So it seems,” Eric agreed. “Why are there so few ships on the pads?”
“This is winter season,” the official said, dryly. “There’ll be a storm tonight, mark my words, and another tomorrow. And the day after. You’d better make sure your ship is properly battened down before the storm hits, my lad, or you won’t have a ship left.”
Eric hoped he was joking. It was difficult to imagine a storm powerful enough to pick up a small freighter and dash her to the ground, but…who knew? He tapped his terminal, sending a quick message to John, then waited for the official to finish checking his ID. There was no reason for any delay, as far as he knew, but it was impossible to be sure. If there was something wrong…
“You’re cleared to enter the spaceport district, and the surrounding city,” the official said, returning his ID. “There are no limits on how long you can remain in the spaceport, young man, but you cannot stay outside the district for more than thirty days. If you require a renewal, contact the desk in the spaceport or make a request online. Be advised the rules are quite strict on such matters. The law hasn’t quite caught up with the terraforming progress.”
“Understood.” Eric had seen a multitude of sealed colonies, all dependent on life support systems that could be easily overloaded by too many people, and understood the reasoning behind the rules. There was a great deal of redundancy built into the system, of course, but there were limits. Too many people in a closed environment could push the life support to its breaking point. “We won’t linger.”
“Better not,” the official advised. “If a big storm rolls along, you’ll be grounded here until it’s gone.”
Eric nodded, then hurried through the security gate into the concourse. The spaceport should have been buzzing with life, but instead it was a ghost town. The shops and stalls were closed, save for a self-service general store and an automated capsule hotel. Eric winced inwardly as he walked through the complex, his footsteps echoing eerily in the air, and made his way to the corporate office. He had to wait for the occupant to open the door. Clearly, the corporation hadn’t expected them to arrive so quickly.
If they expected us to arrive at all, he reminded himself. There was no way to send a message faster than light, unless it was carried on a starship. It was quite possible the first notification of their mission the officials on Winchester’s World had was upon their arrival. The charter had been arranged at quite short notice. We’re lucky there’s someone on duty at all.
The door hissed open, revealing a warm and comfortable office. Eric felt an odd little pang, recalling the first time he’d seen his father’s office…right before his parents had boarded their private ship and never come home. His heart twisted as he saw the corporate sigil against the far wall, a reminder of his family’s crest…he told himself not to be silly, there was no connection between the two corporations, but it still made him blink hard a few times to rid himself of the unwanted tears. If his parents hadn’t boarded their ship, their three children wouldn’t be orphans…
“Can I help you?”
Eric gathered himself. A middle-aged woman sat behind a desk, her face oddly pinched in a manner that suggested she’d had some form of body-sculpting to make her look older and sharper than she actually was. The nametag on her breast read YOUNGHUSBAND. Her brown hair was slightly off, her eyes darker than he’d expected…he forced himself to meet her eyes with his own, reminding himself that he was both a starship captain and the heir to a vast corporation. That wasn’t common knowledge, outside their social circle back on Earth. It wasn’t as if their name was uncommon, even here.
“We have a contract to bring a datastore to the Winchester Development Corporation.” Eric held out the manifest. “If you’re cleared to sign for it, we can hand it over and collect our fee.”
Younghusband raised a single eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little old for practical jokes?”
Eric scowled. He knew he looked young, barely entering his teens, but still…
“If you’ll check the manifest, you’ll see it’s genuine,” he said, tartly. They’d received half their fee up front, with the rest in escrow, but it would be a headache if the local office refused to accept delivery—the sort of headache that made a great deal of money for lawyers, and hardly anyone else. The recriminations would be long and loud and…who knew where it would end? 
“I’m quite happy to ditch the datastore”—that was a barefaced lie—“but we do need to be paid.”
“I see.” Younghusband took the manifest and pressed it against her terminal scanner, her eyes going wide, just for a second, as she realised it was real. “Aren’t you a little young to be a starship’s boy?”
“I’m her captain,” Eric said. He held up his Shipmaster’s ID, daring her to check it. “And you are…?”
“I see.” Younghusband scowled as she returned her gaze to her terminal. “It all appears to be in order.”
“One would hope so,” Eric said, with heavy sarcasm. He knew there was nothing to be gained from irritating her, but his patience was already being tested. “Do you have the other half of the security key, or do I need to find someone a little higher up the chain?”
Younghusband reddened. “I have the key,” she said, crossly. “Do you have your escrow card?”
“Here.” Eric held it out. “Certify it, then we can be done.”
“You’re far too young to be on a starship,” Younghusband said. “My son’s five years older than you and he’s not going on a starship.”
“I’m not your son,” Eric pointed out, resisting the urge to tell Younghusband he felt sorry for her son. It was unlikely his parents would have consented for their three children to buy a starship and set off on their own, without any kind of adult supervision, but… Younghusband’s poor son was clearly trapped under his mother’s thumb. She had to be fairly high up the corporate ladder if she had access to the security keys, which meant it was unlikely her son could get out from under her shadow without one hell of a fight. “My parents are gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Younghusband said. 
Eric couldn’t tell if she was being sincere. 
“Here.” She passed him the unlocked escrow chip. Eric checked it carefully—busybodies couldn’t be trusted not to put their common sense first, when they got up on their high horses in a blaze of self-righteousness—and let out a breath when he realised she wasn’t playing games. It was never easy to be sure, not with high-level officials. The average spacer rarely had the connections he needed to deal with someone intent on abusing their power, out of self-righteousness or arrogance or a simple belief they somehow needed to put their victim in his place. Eric’s lips twisted at the thought. If Younghusband played games with them, she’d regret it. 
“Thank you,” he said. He took the datastore out of his pocket and held it out to her. “Sign on the manifest, then take it.”
Younghusband nodded, curtly. “Thank you,” she said. She pressed her thumb against the terminal, the biochip buried under her skin confirming her ID. “I’ll ensure it reaches the right people.”
She paused. “Why didn’t you stay in school?”
Eric had to bite his lip to keep from telling Younghusband it was none of her business. Several answers crossed his mind, few of them polite. School had been boring, no matter if they attended the campus in person or took their classes online.
“The trouble with my schooling was that it didn’t prepare me for the real world,” he said, finally. There was the official reality, where everything was neat and tidy, and the real reality… which was anything but. The universe was a messy place, something he hadn’t quite realised until he’d left Earth. “I dare say your son will discover it for himself, when he leaves his class and enters the real world.”
And with that parting shot, he walked out of the door.