Elder Glennan was teaching astronomy to his fresh-faced
class of eager young students. They hastily scribbled their notes onto their
digital slates, making drawings of the various star clusters. One of the
students pointed at a dimly lit area on the stellar chart floating in front of
them. "Elder, what is in that grey area? It looks deliberately
obscured."
"That is because it is," the Elder answered.
"It is a place that no one dares to go to. The few that have gone have
never returned. The last transmission sent from there was a distress call from
a ship that no one ever heard from again. Too many rescue ships have been lost
there that we no longer bother to send any."
"No one goes there then?" a ginger-haired
squeaky-voiced male student sitting in the back of the classroom asked.
"No one with any sense goes there, Young Dragan. Just
the foolhardy who think that maybe they will be the ones to survive," the
Elder replied.
Determined
to know more about the Grey Space on the stellar maps, Dragan Aeris spent
his spare time researching the ships and crews lost in the Grey Space. Most of
what he found were unverified reports that seemed little more than rumors. The
only verifiable report was a final log transmission referencing a port of call
just outside the Grey Space.
***
Carpathia, a small mining colony, had established itself as
a trading outpost as well as a shipping port for its unrefined aluminum ore.
Dragan found passage there on a freighter transporting food and supplies to the
colony. To earn his keep, he took a job as a mechanic repairing the mining
drones. It paid well enough for him to rent a small apartment close to the port
and covered his daily meals.
He spent his time off work exploring Carpathia and learning
as much as he could about Bauxite Industries. The owner of Bauxite, who traced
his family back to the Carpathian Mountain region on Earth, established the
settlement. The company remained privately owned despite offers from other
mining companies. Newcomers who were willing to work were always welcome at
Carpathia. Tourists, less so.
Dragan slowly earned enough trust from the old-timers to ask
questions about the missing ships and their crews. Few were willing to waste
their time answering his questions. One of the old men asked him to come take a
close look at a star chart. Pointing to the Grey Space on the chart, he said,
"Here there be monsters." Dragan could hear muffled laughter coming
from the others in the room.
"What kind of monsters?" Dragan dared to ask.
"The kind that will eat you alive if you go
there." His foreman replied. "You are too valuable as a drone
mechanic for me to even allow you to entertain such a thought." Dragan
hadn't noticed the man enter the room, but he took Stalker's words to heart.
Dragan wouldn't go there, but his curiosity drove him to look for other ways to
get the answers he wanted.
***
Jawn Stalker was responsible for maintenance of the mining
drones that would drill for and gather the ore in the nearby asteroid field. He
thought he knew everyone that worked for him better than they knew themselves.
When the message came down that an engineer from Aeris would be modifying one
of the mining drones to explore beyond the known asteroid field for potential
sources of ore, his jaw dropped. The engineer in question was Dragan Aeris.
It had taken considerable
time and money to build the long-range probe drone that Dragan would send into
the Grey Space. Bauxite was interested in that area of space as well and saw to
it that whatever parts Dragan needed, he received. He would have to arrange
time on one of the remote-control units for the mining drones, but there was a
lull coming up due to meeting ore quotas early. He would have to modify the
unit to increase its range. It would need more fuel than the standard mining
drone for its journey.
Dragan settled into the
chair of the remote station and flicked the power switch. The remote connected
immediately to the drone. The drone floated momentarily in the bay after the
hatch had opened. Dragan fired the drone's primary drive launching it out of
the bay toward the mining asteroids. A few minutes later, he made a course
correction and sent the drone catapulting toward Grey Space.
Several hours later, the
drone sent a ping back to the remote station to mark its distance from the
border of Grey Space. Dragan began recording the drone's progress as it neared
the mid-point of its journey. It took longer for the images to resolve as the
drone flew farther from Carpathia.
***
Seemingly abandoning his project, Dragan hitched a ride out
of Carpathia on a freighter carrying ore to a refinery in his home system. From
there, he travelled on a shuttle that ran between the refinery and the
settlement of Sylvan. From Sylvan, he found passage on a produce transport
headed for the Aeris Shipworks. He spent the lengthy voyage studying the data
from the mining probe.
Loaded inside the images the probe had sent back was data
regarding mineral and ore content of the various large bodies that the probe
had passed. Dragan filtered that information out to clean up the images
recorded by the probe. The visual data revealed unexpected shifts in the
stellar field ahead of the probe, but it had served its purpose by revealing
the absence of a clear threat. Or so he hoped.
Dragan spent some time visiting with his friends and family
before moving on to Phase 2 of his plan to explore the Grey Space. His
engineering and mechanical skill had all been part of his training to succeed
his father as head of the largest shipbuilding corporation in the mapped
universe, Aeris Ironworks, Inc. Part of his internship at Aeris involved
designing and building a concept vehicle.
Dragan named his concept the Aeris Stellar Explorer Drake.
He had equipped the small ship with a modified P2P drive. Unlike the
Point-to-point drive units used primarily by the military, his P2P drive took
seconds to initiate transport instead of minutes. His Navigational Computer
rivaled the military NavComs in computational accuracy. The Drake had two seats
at the forward control deck and two passenger seats just behind them. Using P2P
drive negated the need for sleeping quarters, but he included a small galley
and a mess table in his design.
Tanner Aeris was eager to show off her final project to her
brother. She was leaning against the hull of the small interceptor when he
arrived in the Aeris family's private docking bay. Dragan was surprised by her
short hair and lack of freckles. There wasn't much opportunity for sun-bathing
at the Astronautical Engineering Academy. It explained why he had missed her at
dinner the evening before.
Tanner stood up and ran to greet Dragan, throwing her arms
around his neck and giving him a tight hug. "I've been waiting since
forever," she complained. "What took you so long?" Dragan
grabbed her shoulders and held her at arm's length. She was as tall as he was
and had the same ginger hair and freckles that he did. "I see that you've
redecorated," he joked, nodding toward the small ship parked beside the
Drake. She grinned back at him. "That is the Aeris Bolt Fighter. Dad says
that the military is interested in it, unlike your little toy over there."
"Don't underestimate my 'little toy'. I'm taking the Drake
out. If you ask nicely, I'll let you ride shotgun." He pressed his palm
against the side of the ship and a hatch suddenly appeared. Tanner's eyes
widened. Her curiosity now piqued, she smiled sweetly. "Dear brother
Dragan," she implored, "May I please come along with you on your
joyride?"
Tanner followed Dragan through the hatch and sat in what she
presumed was the pilot seat. Dragan smiled as he sat next to her and placed his
hand on the glass console. He slipped a short metal rod into a slot located
below the console. A few minutes later a partial map of Grey Space
appeared. “Is that where we are going?” Tanner asked.
“Check the star field,”
Dragan replied. “We are already there.”
“How? You didn’t even open
the bay door.”
“Didn’t need to. That the
nice thing about P2P drive. One minute you are here the next minute you are
somewhere else.”
“Speaking of here, where
are we?”
“Grey Space. Using
navigation data from a probe sent there weeks ago. Don’t worry, we’re safe. No
monsters detected.” Still, Dragan kept the shields raised and the AI on alert
for unusual movement in the area.
