Grey Space

 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.