Jasper

The world was a dark and lively place. Crickets and frogs communed among the distant buzz of cicadas, nearly drowning out the rustle of cloth against the corn stalks. The air was unnaturally still and he could smell each sodden step.

 

Jasper had been walking for over an hour when the first rays of sunlight began to touch the rim of the sea that walled the first 25 vertical meters of the bio dome, bathing the land in a murky green light. He was near enough to the perimeter that he thought he could just make out a school of orca whales swimming above the oaks, amusing themselves in reflection of the high tensile glass. He quickened his pace.

 

Jasper was a young man; wiry and tall. The kind of person who would have been considered for a track team, but never for the ever-popular jujitsu trials because of his high center of gravity. He wore a tight fitted, dark material that, when examined for too long, gave one the impression that their eyes were recovering from staring directly at the sun.

 

He walked half an hour more. The rim of green light grew brighter diffusing all around the bio dome, though only about 10 miles in either direction were visible before it dropped below the horizon. Finally, he emerged, viridescent against the stalks. Pausing for a moment, he peered at a small gated outpost with a complex of 5 warehouses, all of which were dwarfed by an aging but stately ship, silhouetted against the watery glow. 

 

Just then, the bio dome’s environmental turbines engaged, producing a slight, low hum. Jasper allowed himself to sway with the field as the artificial wind rippled through it. His first and second finger twitched unconsciously each time he counted a guard. Three human, one sentry. Two of the guards seemed distracted, and the third stared into a console visible from the glass of the gate shack. The sentry, a bipedal machine, twice the size of a man with no arms and twin turrets set into its head, was still, but a bead of red light waxed and waned slowly near its optical sensor array. 

 

Jasper ducked back behind the first few rows of corn and walked lightly along the perimeter of the field until he was in position. Then he took a long breath during which he double checked the positions of each guard, and, upon release, sprinted to the side of the outpost.

 

The fence was not really the problem. The problem was what the fence represented: a stable K field, invisible to the naked eye, but quite impossible to breach for anything that wanted to keep its skin intact. This was evident, Jasper noted, by piles of halved insect husks and some headless birds which lined the fence. He had come prepared this time though. He slowed as his feet crunched on the dead insects and from his canvas pack he produced a small, white orb which he placed on the ground and kicked towards the fence. The orb rolled away half a meter and suddenly jerked to a halt, quivering slightly in place.

 

A skin colored wristband projected a small interface onto his forearm and with a few taps and a clockwise twisting motion the K field modulator began to emit a small, expanding blue sphere, indicating the safe zone. It was only about two feet wide, so he had to crawl through the sphere in prone position. About halfway through he encountered the fence, for which he produced modified monkey wrench with a high-powered laser emitter embedded into the top teeth and a tiny, flexible focusing mirror in the bottom. After a moment of fiddling with the flange, he swiped an arc into the gate, and a thick semi-circle of metal whumped down onto the ground. 

 

Once he was through, a small handle produced itself from the orb and he snatched it through. This had the unintended effect of disturbing the K field, which ruffled briefly with a faint blue glow. Only one guard was visible from here, but he hadn’t seemed to notice the anomaly against the green morning light. A tell-tale whir from around the corner of the warehouse indicated that the sentry had spun its head a complete rotation. Jasper listened for steps. Nothing. So far so good.

 

He stuck to the shadows, sprinting to the next building in the complex and hid behind some piping. From there he could see the ship clearly. Just behind the cockpit, “Cevtek PLSR” was written in smoothly curved, crimson letters. An antique like this wouldn’t have DNA screening security unless someone had somehow retrofitted it. That was unlikely though. Cevtek ships were rare and notoriously tricky to tamper with. A few had taken out whole airfields or docking bays when their finicky internal systems had detected a breach. He chewed his lip and waited.

 

By half past 8 the sun was finally peeking above the sea and for a few minutes the world was split toned by contrasting shades of emerald and orange. A ramp extended from the ship and a woman emerged, sipping a thermos of coffee. She wore a fitted black suit with embroidered accents along the collar bone, signifying the rank of general. She paused for a moment before setting foot on the grass, and when she did it was a light, timid gesture. Through the branch-work of pipes, he could just make out a station officer greeting her. They walked to the far building and disappeared through one of its cavernous doors.

 

It was nearly midday before she returned to the ship, but he was ready. He had decided to take the low-tech approach, as duplicating an entry signal may have alerted the crew that the same person had entered the ship twice. Positioned under the ramp now, he listened to the procession of supplies being loaded by courier machines and then, finally, the dull clang of the woman’s footsteps as she trod overhead. He heard the double doors swish apart and the ramp began to retract. With some grace and a little luck, he grabbed the receding end and curled his feet over his head until he was atop it. Mercifully the retracting ramp pushed him through the threshold before the door closed. The woman was already through the length of the entry corridor. As she neared the far wall, a cylindrical door unfolded to reveal a lift. After the briefest pause, she stepped in and turned just as he rounded corner of the nearest bulkhead. He heard the swish of the lift door closing again and exhaled for what felt like the first time in hours.

 

The cargo bay was on the entry level and picking the lock was much less risky than it would have been gaining access to the ship. Various trunks were battened to the floor and walls. It was all very orderly. Everything sealed tight and ready for lift off. A series of quick jabs at his wrist screen revealed a manifest. He flung it out into the room, and the list neatly reordered itself above the crates. Question marks bobbed complacently above a few of the crates. He dismissed them- not what he was looking for. “Locate item: Gamma Epsilon 325,” he said in a hushed voice. A storage locker across the room glowed with a soft yellow highlight and an item in the list above it doubled in size.

 

 

Jasper was halfway across the room when a sudden crescendo from the engine room caught his attention. He quickly referenced his interface. This ship wasn’t scheduled for take-off for another 6 days.

His eyes quickly swept the room for anything resembling a flight seat. He would die if he couldn’t find a way to secure himself during the primary burn. Begrudgingly, he settled upon a net which held together several wooden crates. He jogged towards it, but ship lurched once as he neared it and he lost his footing, chin smashing into the smooth bevel of the floor. 

 

Warm blood flooded his mouth which he swallowed instead of spitting out. He scrambled towards the net again, but the floor was beginning to pitch, and he was sliding the opposite way. His feet struck one of the battened trunks and he sprung off of it and towards the netted crates, barely catching a strap with one hand. His body listed sideways over the floor as the ship came about for the primary burn out of the atmosphere. 

 

With all of his might he pulled himself up and enmeshed his body in the net, being sure to secure his forehead against the crate. Then there was nothing but the deafening roar of the primary thrusters. He felt the blood leaving his head as gravity doubled, then tripled then, he was unconscious. 

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