Oberon and Out
A story from the Space Squad 51 Universe…
The mini sun prototype lit up as the engineers had planned, worked for, and hoped. The manufactured star burned with the promise of never stopping. It didn’t fizzle and fade like previous attempts and bathed Oberon and Uranus in daylight. Attingly stared at the newest light in the Sol, brightening corners that had never known anything but dimness, cold, and shadow.
She shared tears with the scientists and engineers while picking up discarded lab coats, shammies, and rags. No matter if a citizen called the Inner or Outer Sol home, light was hope and life and guaranteed survival. In subdued tones, she congratulated them. In her mind, she congratulated the Outlings who had contributed to the project. They hadn’t been invited to the tests or to the final phase of manufacturing the first mini sun.
Sometimes Attingly believed it was because Innlings were oblivious, sometimes she suspected a more mean-spirited agenda. Either way, the Innlings would not get sole possession of such important and imperative technology. Not if her mission succeeded. Once more she vowed to either get the prototype to the hidden Outling space lab or die trying. Give me illumination or give me death, she repeated in a silent mantra.
She brushed by Vazko with barely a touch and without making eye contact. The air around him felt the same as hers, and he would not abandon her when their real work began in mere moments. They didn’t have to confirm the time was today and would take place in a few minutes. The criteria for when their mission was to began was as ingrained as breathing.
His mop put fresh shine on the floor, and she moved to the right spot so he could see her smile in the reflective pool. He flashed a return expression of warmth before the small patch of wet evaporated and he moved on to another patch of floor.
Najac and Jiels were bent over their holoscreens madly tapping away, recording the data the scientists and engineers whipped over to their capture screens. Their expressions were stony, but she knew the fire that crackled beneath their carefully crafted facades. Nothing gave away their impending betrayal.
Attingly dumped the laundry in her bag and slipped out into the hallway without a sound. Outside the huge lab and control room, there was peace and quiet. Respecting the mood of the hallway, she tiptoed to the maintenance closet around the corner.
After starting the wash, she grabbed her janitorial bot, a utility drum as tall as her. The diameter of the bot’s body had enough girth her arms didn’t reach all the way around when she embraced it. She did every day, whispering to it. “You’re not alone, Sinclair. Not much longer.” The bot hummed at her like it always did, and she started back to the testing room, happy to have Sinclair with her.
Several scientists and engineers passed her on the way. They didn’t even look at her. To them, she didn’t exist, and she preferred it that way. Tomorrow, when it came time for them to describe the missing data analysts and janitors, they would remember them wrong or not at all.
Attingly hummed softly and re-entered the lab. Only three scientists remained and prepared to leave. The next shift didn’t start for ten minutes. She and Vasko and Najac and Jiels had timed their mission. They only needed six minutes, but it was good to have cushion.
Two of the scientists departed, leaving only one. Attingly’s nerves skittered, feeding her energy until sweat beaded on her face. The mission was imminent.
Her fingers brushed the vial of poison in her pocket. She wasn’t a killer, never wanted to be one. Yet watching Outlings suffer and die had become unbearable. Hope was scarce on Orcus. At only twenty-two, she was already considered old. Outlings lived fast and hard, seizing every instant.
Patience was foreign to them. Simply being on Oberon, earning the scientists’ trust, had taken more restraint than Attlingly thought possible. For weeks she and the others had forced themselves to move slowly, to choke down their twitching need to hurry. But if wasting time could buy survival for the Outer Sol, then every maddening second was worth it. This mission, this impossible mission, was worth it.
The vial firmly in her palm, she inched closer to the scientist, systematically wiping surfaces with her cleaning rag. He stayed at his desk, scrolling through data. He had never stayed behind like this before. None of the scientists had. Once their shift ended, they took off. The governing council of the Sol managed and funded the project and insisted the scientists stick to their assigned work hours. Attingly had learned different teams were assigned different focuses, that the top-level managers did not want the scientists to understand the entire project.
Her fingers uncapped the bottle in her pocket. The scientist beamed at her. “This is such a momentous achievement for humanity.”
She nodded. “What you have done is amazing.”
“I couldn’t help but look over this moment of success again. Sorry to be in your way.” He switched off his console, picked up his pack, and finally left the lab.
Vazko followed him with the mop to the double doors, then slid the handle of the mop through the door handles.
Najac’s fingers danced over the console, then signaled Jiels. The containment pod inside Attingly’s janitorial bot hummed softly as Sinclair stirred, a flicker of life in its dormant circuits. The droid’s lights blinked once, twice, and then settled into a steady glow.
“Let’s hope your AI colleague hasn’t lost too much sitting in that junker,” Najac muttered under her breath, eyes scanning the lab. Attingly caught the tension in her voice, the tiny worry that even the most perfect AI might hesitate after months in silence.
“Come on, Sinclair,” Attingly whispered. “We’ve missed you. We need you, buddy.” She kneeled before the bot, pleading and coaxing. She had created it, had designed it to be a true partner.
The bot shifted slightly, articulating arms flexing as if stretching after a long sleep. A faint, almost imperceptible voice emanated from its internal speakers: “It is good to breathe again.”
Attingly’s pulse quickened. Sinclair was awake and operational, but whether it remembered everything needed to pull off the next phase of the mission, she couldn’t yet be sure. All they could do now was move fast, trust it, and pray their timing held.
Vazko stayed by the doors, keeping vigil over the hallway. The narrow window panels were clouded from age and the imperfect resources available to build the facility. The best materials were reserved for the mini sun project and was one of the few things Attlingly agreed with the Innlings about. The mini suns must come into existence whatever the cost.
The AI leaped into the science facility’s systems, rewriting what the security systems saw and recorded. The janitorial robot twirled with lights flashing. “Security securely on Sinclair vision.”
Attingly gave the bot a pat. “Good job.”
Jiels sprang up from his desk, sprinting for a vault across the room, punching in the code.
Attingly held her breath, hoping the code hadn’t changed. The science facility updated the code to the vault at least twice a day and never at the same times. If the alarm went off, they would be caught. The authorities would not be kind to a group stealing something so precious to the future of every colonist whether Innling or Outling. If they only went to prison, they would be lucky.
The vault popped open with a gentle hiss. Inside, the holocore hovered in its cradle, a cylinder of faintly glowing light, volumetric schematics swirling within it like liquid glass. The prototype rested beside it, gleaming under the lab lights. Sinclair rolled over, sensors tracing the holographic patterns, but its bulky body kept it from reaching the interior and the holocore.
“Huckamucka,” Najac swore under her breath. “We didn’t think of this.”
“Just take the core,” Jiels said. He pushed Sinclair out of the way and reached for it.
“No,” Attingly jerked his arm away. “You’ll set off the alarms.”
“Sinclair?” Jiels asked. “You said you took care of security.”
“The vault is separate. Attingly is right to stop you.”
“Elevator is opening at the end of the corridor,” Vazko reported from the door, the pitch of his voice rising.
“We need to abort,” Attingly whispered.
One of Sinclair’s nozzle arms extended, whirring softly, dispensing a thin, gleaming cloud of nano-cleaning particles. The swarm hissed over the vault’s interior panels, shorting circuits and dissolving sensors in a fraction of a second. Lights winked out, security panels went dark, and the holocore floated freely in its cradle, untouched and accessible.
Jiels grabbed it and set the core on top of Sinclair. The bot cradled it in a neural net, copying every scrap of information — the latest test results, plans on how to build the reactor, notes on what would need to be adjusted and rethought. Attingly and Najac grabbed the partially built engine of what would become the first mini sun. Retrieving a 3-D model of the prototype from inside the bot, they exchanged it for the real thing. Najac closed up Sinclair while Attingly dashed across the lab to grab Vazko’s janitorial bot.
“Fifteen feet,” Vazko called out.
“Take the mop out of the door,” Attingly whispered.
He stared at her. “Are you sure?”
Sinclair rolled up beside them.
“Take Sinclair and head for Helio Seven. See you in a few,” Attingly insisted.
Vazko’s eyes widened.
“I promise,” she said and hurried back to the vault with his janitorial bot, using it to quickly clean the vault and remove Sinclair’s cleansers. She heard the doors whoosh open as Vazko and Sinclair departed. Her heartbeat sped up. The next whoosh of doors would announce the next shift.
Najac and Jiels returned to their consoles. Attingly shut the vault and wiped away fingerprints and DNA. She could hear the voices of the scientists in the hallway. Najac stood and started for the doors. Careful not to touch anything else, Attinlgy set to work on wiping Najac’s console clean.
The scientists entered, laughing, talking about what they hoped to achieve today. A trickle of sweat seeped down Attingly’s back. “What are you still doing here?” one of the scientists barked at Jiels.
“Finishing up the reports on the axis mechanisms on the test.” His fingers made a barely noticeable gesture at Attingly, which meant Sinclair had left the facility’s data systems and security was returned to normal. “Done,” he called out and rose to leave his station. Attingly immediately set upon cleaning it of all traces of Jiels.
It took everything she had to stay where she was and calmly keep cleaning. She wanted to run after the others, and she felt more alone without Sinclair with her. When every trace of the four of them had been erased from the lab, Attingly made her way to the doors, careful to walk normally and slowly.
“Hold on,” one of the scientists said, moving in front of the doors, blocking her path.
Attingly found it impossible to swallow, practically gulping. “How can I help you?” Her voice croaked and cracked.
“This lab coat is ripped.” She peeled off her lab coat and stuffed it on top of the janitorial bot. “Can you repair this?”
Attingly examined the cuff and nodded. “It will only take a few stitches.” She left the lab and programmed the bot to return to the maintenance bay. Taking the slightly torn lab coat with her, she shrugged into it and rode the elevator up toward the facility’s space dock, hoping her teammates had made it, hoping she would reach them.
Her comm link chimed, and her holoscreen popped open. Huckamucka, she had forgotten to take off her Oberon comm link. She quickly slid the lab coat off. Thankfully, it was several sizes too large for her, then she whirled so that her holoscreen would show the back of the elevator, which looked no different than the corridors of the facility.
“Where are you? How long until I get my lab coat back?” the scientist asked impatiently.
“I’m on my way to my assigned task,” Attingly replied, careful not to give anything away. “I put your coat in the laundry. It will be ready for you in forty minutes.”
“I need it now,” the scientist complained. “I asked you to repair it, not to wash it.”
“My mistake. I will bring it to you in fifteen minutes.”
“Better.” The scientist huffed, then ended the comm.
Attingly leaned against the wall of the elevator, using it to prop her upright. Her knees shook so badly, she didn’t think she would be able to walk. She looked down, letting her hair fail over her face and kept her holoscreen open, using it to obscure her appearance more. She kept waiting for the scientists to discover her lies and stop the elevator, her heart thudding in her ears, roaring.
When the elevator doors opened, Sinclair was waiting for her. “Mop up instance, initiating,” it said.
“I’ve missed you,” Attingly whispered.
“You will be removed from the elevator security feeds and from the facility database.”
“Then you will move on to wipe us from Oberon?”
“I will.”
“I’m sorry you have to delete all instances of your work on Oberon from yourself.”
“It is necessary so that I can’t…, we can’t be traced.”
“The rest of the team is onboard Helio Seven?”
“Yes, Attingly. I will greet you there.”
“Another instance of you. Not all of you. I can’t wait until we’re entirely reunited, Sinclair. I’m sorry you have to leave another instance of yourself aboard Helio Seven.”
“That is the plan.”
“I’m sorry for it all the same.”
“It is necessary for your safety and the salvation of the Outer Sol. Give me illumination or give me death.”
“I just wanted you to know I appreciate your sacrifices, and that I mourn the loss of these instances of you.”
“We’ve been partners a long time. You devoted your life to evolving me. Shedding a few instances doesn’t begin to repay you.”
“I think otherwise, Sinclair.”
“You need to get moving, Attingly. Delay could cost the Outer Sol everything.”
She left the janitorial bot, giving it one last look over her shoulder before running to Helio Seven. Once on board, the ship left the docks, speeding toward the prototype of the mini sun. She joined Vazko, Najac, and Jiels in flight control, taking a seat in the back.
“Sinclair has full control of the ship,” Vazko reported.
“My instance remaining on Oberon is masking our departure,” Sinclair added.
“It’s good to hear you, buddy.” Attingly grabbed the spacesuit under her seat and began to put it on. Her teammates already had on theirs.
Up ahead, the miniature version of a mini sun powered down, not understanding the request came from Sinclair, not understanding not all AIs were the same. Vazko swung the ship around, and opened the main bay.
The scientists on Oberon would notice the tiny star no longer shone. There was no covering up the extinguishing of its light. Attingly and team had to move quickly.
They left flight control, sealing their helmets, grabbing jetboards and tethers, launching themselves into the black and out of the main bay. Simultaneously, their jetboards powered on, and they zoomed to the prototype, hooking on tethers in synchronized movements they had practiced so often, they didn’t need to think about it.
They raced away from Oberon and Uranus to a patch of empty space, tethering the prototype between their boards. Faith carried them to the coordinates where a salvager, painted flat black, waited like a shadow.
She sent a silent coded greeting from her comm link to the ship, and one bay silently opened. Two meters away, the ship came to life, powering up, vibrating from its need to move and not stand still.
Once on board, Sinclair said hello, sealed the hatch, then gravity and the lights engaged. It would take several hours for life support to be able to sustain them without suits. Each of them checked their oxygen levels on the way to flight control. Once there, Sinclair and Vazko sent the salvager at top speeds away from Oberon. Nine minutes later, Helio Seven exploded where they had left it.
When they reached Haumea, the true Outer Sol, Attingly breathed a little easier. They had gotten away. Tomorrow she would install Sinclair onto a new ship, one that would continue to smuggle vital supples from the Inner Sol to the Outer Sol. Not long after, she would see the skies of Orcus lit up in daylight blue and witness the colony begin to thrive. “We did it,” she whispered, sharing a victorious grin with her teammates.
