Heartstrong

Heartstrong

The shrill whine of the metal detector woke Dasha up better than her cup of coffee did. She glared at the security guard waving the detector wand over her chest.

“Good lord, you can stop now. It beeped once, you know there’s metal. Just save everyone’s ears.” she snorted.

The security guard raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to have to ask you to step out of line.”

Dasha stifled a moan. “You’re new – a transfer, I’m assuming”

“Barbados,” he said as he guided her to a full-body scanner.

“Right. All the other guards here know me – we don’t have to jump through any hoops if you let me -” Dasha was cut off.

“Sticking to procedure,” he said. Dasha didn’t blame him, but couldn’t keep herself from succumbing to the frustration. She stepped into the gunmetal-and-glass scanner and raised her arms above her head. “Raise your arms above–”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she snapped. The scanner hummed as a ring of sensors rocked around her. Dasha tapped her boot, its metal heel clacking against the plasteel flooring. The security guard looked at the scanner readout, a quizzical expression spread across his face.

“You can come out now,” he said. Dasha walked out of the scanner, arms folded. The guard pulled out a tablet and pointed the body scan image at her. A stark white lump in the center of her chest cast a heavy contrast against her ribcage. Metal and polymer were wrapped into a heart-shaped instrument. Fine wires extended out like spiderwebs, anchoring the implant to the surrounding tissue. “You’re augmented,” he said, “you failed to mention that.” Dasha flashed a card at him. Printed on the plastic were the words ‘medical-grade cardiac implant: pre-approved clearance.’

“I tried to,” she said, barely masking her annoyance.

The guard projected a thin and toothless smile. “My apologies, Captain. Please step on through.” On the opposite side of the security station, Dasha’s copilot was failing to stifle his laughter.

Dasha punched him in the shoulder. “What did you shove me into that line for?”

Marty grinned. “Consider it payback for when you put gum in my hair.”

“I cannot be held accountable if a wad of gum drifts into your matty hair during a maneuver.” Dasha snarked.

“Debateable.” he said with a shrug. “What isn’t is spitting out your gum right before one.” Marty said.

“Oh give me a break. I’ve seen you eat in null-g – you’ve left a whole sandwich in the air from lunch to dinner.”

“I still ate that sandwich. You didn’t seem to want your gum back.” he said.

“That’s because it was out of flavor! And full of your hair!” she said.

“I’m insulted that you don’t find my hair to be flavorful,” he laughed.

“You want me to punch you in the face instead of your shoulder?” Dasha asked.

Dasha took a break from her pre-flight checklist to briefly observe the people swarming over the Acropolis. A handful of workers walked over her two-tone black-and-white wings, combing through the hulking ship’s ceramic tiles with carefully tuned instruments. Drooping from the ceiling of the hanger, an immense grapple-clamp lowered onto the spaceplane. A worker guided the clamp into slots on the back of the Acropolis before kneeling down and inspecting the mate.

The worker shielded her radio’s receiver with a hand. “Mate looks OK. Schedule a service before the next flight. The Acropolis’s clamp slots are nicked up something awful.” the radio squaked.

“Roger.” Dasha said. The worker nodded in reply. Noting the time, Dasha toggled the hanger’s announcement system. “T-minus 30 minutes to takeoff, wrap up what you’re doing.” Dasha rubbed her eyes before meandering to the dressing room.

Marty was already half suited up when Dasha entered the fluorescent-lit locker room. Their suits were purely utilitarian; built to keep the pilot stationary, equipped, and alive. As a consequence they were far from beautiful looking. Hardpoints littered the tough kevlar fabric, and compression rings clenched every joint of the suit.

“Zip me up, I’ll ping ground control for warmup while you get suited.” Marty said. Dasha plugged a thick braided cable into the back of the orange suit, and handed him a battery-briefcase. Red LEDs on the suit’s shoulders blinked to signal an established power connection. “Meet you in the cockpit,” Marty said as he pulled on a vacuum helmet.

Apart from the red color, Dasha’s suit was nearly identical to Marty’s. Pulling the suit on became progressively more difficult under the suit’s intense mass. The load on Dasha’s shoulders lifted as her battery pack was connected; the suit’s exoskeleton carrying the weight for her.

Out in the hangar bay, ice collected on the body of the Acropolis. Liquid oxygen and hydrogen filling her tanks. The plane seemed to breathe as the cryogenic fuel forced the ship’s metal to contract. In these moments the craft felt alive. Dasha could feel her pulling at its leash as the anticipation of launch charged the air.

Marty was seated in the cockpit, eight rounded triangular windows constituting their view of the outside. “The Acropolis has cleared warmup, ready when you are,” Marty relayed.

Dasha strapped herself into the cockpit and inspected the instrument readouts. “Mission Control, the Acropolis is green for launch.” she said into her suit’s headset. Vacuum pumps droned as air was pulled from the inside of the ship.

“Roger, hold for mass driver mount.” MC replied. The Acropolis swayed gently as the grapple clamp lifted it off the floor. Marty stowed the landing gear while the hanger door opened, revealing the tropical scenery of Panama.

The mass-driver was a ten mile long strip of sloped concrete, adorned only with a slot down its center. Its cement was bleached white by Panama’s oppressive sun. A metal gantry slid along the groove, stopping just outside the Acropolis’s hanger bay. Dasha carefully guided the belly of the spacecraft onto the concave gantry surface. The grapple clamp released the Acropolis with a crunch. Dasha made a mental note to expedite the refurbishment of the clamp slots.

“Launch in T minus ten seconds.” Panama control relayed through the radio.

“Here we go!” Marty hollered. Dasha’s console counted down the seconds. As zero struck, Dasha was immediately shoved into her chair. The mass driver’s gantry accelerated a violent 8-g’s down the concrete strip, pulling the spaceplane along with it. The Acropolis groaned with steel whalesong in protest. Dasha bit down on her helmet’s mouthguard, doing her best to channel her fear into the stiff piece of rubber. The numbers on her console were barely legible amidst the violent shuddering. Squinting through the vibration, the miles left on the mass driver quickly counted down to zero.

A jolt reverberated through the body of the Acropolis as she met the end of the track. The acceleration required to hurtle a 200 ton wedge of ceramics and cold-rolled steel to Mach 12 was plenty to knock out the average joe. Years of training hardened Dasha’s resolve, but did little to combat her motion sickness. She forced down a tithe of vomit burning the back of her throat. The numbers on the altimeter were a blur. Before long the kinetic energy of the mass driver was expended. Dasha leaned forward on the joysticks to level out the flight. Now stable, the altimeter read 150 kilometers. Though the ship’s velocity was slightly below 12 sounds, a quick burst of the ship’s liquid hydrogen rockets shoved the plane into skyhook velocity.

“CA Tether control, this is the Acropolis requesting tether acquisition.” Marty said into the radio.

“Acknowledged.” The radio fell silent for a moment. “Skyhook acquired, stand by for code transmission.” The Acropolis’s console flashed with a seven-thousand digit security code, displaying the make and model of the tether assigned to them.

Marty frowned at his console. “A Bluejay-Finch? I swear those old models were de-orbited last year.”

“The hash-key says it’s been refurbished.” she said.

Marty gave his best impression of a shrug in the bulky spacesuit. “I just heard something about how their clamps were sticky.”

“Sticky?” asked Dasha.

“They didn’t want to let go. Apparently a good bit of these older generations had issues with joint lock-up.” Marty said. A thought began to form in Dasha’s head, but was dispelled by an excited hoot from Marty. “There it is! Adjust heading to 1.7 degrees west-southwest.”

At their altitude the familiar pale blue sky was smeared up beyond the horizon like brush strokes of the divine painter. A navy abyss speckled with faint stars dominated the rest of the sky. Through the windows of the Acropolis, a tiny white dot descended from above. Suspended on a barely visible cord disappearing into the near-black void, the dot traced an immense arc. The relative velocity between the dot and the Acropolis shrunk as they grew closer to the tip of the thousand kilometer long tether. Soon the speck swelled in their vision to become an oblong plasma-scorched skiff.

“Entering grapple window. 90 seconds.” Marty said. A bead of sweat dripped down Dasha’s temple. She palmed the dual joysticks, applying nothing more than a suggestion of pressure, and nudged the Acropolis closer. The rear of the skiff cracked open. Emerging from it a small hypersonic drone. The sleek device reeled out on a thick cable, and Dasha tilted the Acropolis to alter its trajectory underneath the drone. As the tethercraft passed beyond the view of the windows, it clamped to the back of the Acropolis with a shudder.

“Grapple successful, with 26 seconds to spare. Well done!” Marty said, patting Dasha’s shoulder.

Dasha released the breath she was holding. “That never gets any less nerve-wracking.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the helmet’s interior cloth.

“You haven’t let us down yet,” Marty adjusted his position in his chair. “Now the fun part.” A warning light flashed, and the tether yanked up on the spaceplane. The weight of Dasha’s body pressed onto itself as a centrifugal boulder rolled onto her chest. Skyhooks worked by exchanging angular momentum for velocity. A brief but intense 6-g’s of artificial gravity was the price of admission for intrastellar travel. Dasha’s jaw reintroduced itself to the tooth-shaped grooves cut into her mouthguard. Pressed down into her seat, the seconds until the release window stretched into an eternity.

The declamp window arrived and Dasha greedily pulled the release trigger. A shiver echoed through the body of the Acropolis, but the weight refused to lift. Dasha pulled the trigger again. Nothing. She tried once more. Still nothing. The skyhook hadn’t let go of them.

“Oh no.” Dasha said between heavy gasps of breath.

“Oh no.” Marty agreed. He began to unbuckle himself from his seat, his arms clumsy as he fought against the force. “Need to –“ he gasped, “- manually release.” He grunted, trying to sit up.

“Stay here. pick safe time to--” she forced herself to inhale “--release.” Every word felt like chewing concrete.

“Nearly – there!” Condensation dripped down the inside of his visor.

“That’s - an - order!” Dasha groaned. Marty slumped back into his seat, motionless.

Words only wasted oxygen. Dasha unbuckled her seat and planted a boot on the floor. Even with the help of her exosuit, the weight pressing down on every square inch of her was immense and unyielding. She wanted to shout, to do anything to wake Marty up, but it took all her strength to keep breathing.

The inside of her chest felt warm. She gasped and tried to clutch herself, but the weight of her arms made the reaction more of a spasm. Dasha stood over Marty. He was deathly pale. His heart wasn’t strong enough to pump blood to his brain under a sustained 6g’s. Her chest grew warmer as if in response. Her implant was working overtime to push six times heavier blood through her six times heavier body. And it was heating up. Her cybernetic heart kept her alive - for now.

Each step toward the cargo bay was agony. Her ankles begged for a lighter load. Legs fought against gravity with every muscle fiber available. The power cord connected to the cockpit yanked on her back and Dasha stumbled. She slapped the release button at her waist and continued marching forward. A warning light came on in her helmet: her suit was running on the battery-briefcase’s power. With the amount of work the suit had to put in just to keep itself from collapsing, the battery was already at 73%. Dasha soldiered onward, certain that she’d be unable to move without the suit’s help. The battery pack dragged along the metal floor, providing more unwelcome resistance. She wasn’t sure if she could afford to pause and lift it up.

55% charge.

The cargo bay was filled with huge metal shipping containers. Around a corner the manual clamp release lever sat undisturbed by the intense g forces. It was to one of the sides of the door to the cargo bay – Dasha couldn’t recall exactly if it was left or right. Her chest grew uncomfortably hot.

38% charge.

She tried turning to her left, the battery cord pulled at her suit from an oblique angle and Dasha lost her footing. The ground rushed at her, the weight of her body like a mountain. Instinctively she moved her arm to arrest her fall. It buckled. Hot lightning stabbed through her wrist as the rest of her collapsed on top of it. She could hear the bone in her skull thud as her helmet hit the floor. Her visor cracked. A warning LED flooded her helmet with red light and squealing claxons. Dasha bit into her mouthguard and shrieked with pain. Her ragged gasps for air grew softer while the floor seemed to grow more comfortable. Darkness crept in from the corners of her vision.

19% charge.

“Not,” Dasha forced her able hand beneath her, “like,” she pushed herself to her knees. “THIS!” Forcing the words out made her actions feel real, feel possible. Dasha’s ego melted away. Her chest was searing hot. Her every inhale felt like spitting fire. Above her the manual detach lever sat tantalizingly close. Peering through the spiderweb fractures of her helmet she slowly reached up and grabbed the red latch. Her fingers screamed under the load, it took all her remaining will to hold on. Dasha hoped the weight of her arm was enough. Suddenly the latch swiveled. Her heart searing hot, Dasha fell to the floor once again.

2% charge.

The spaceplane shuddered as the clamp slots on its back were ejected. Along with them the space tether forcing Dasha under its crushing spin. With the weight lifted Dasha breathed deeply, restoring oxygen to her aching muscles and cooling the flesh around her heart. With any luck her insides would be medium-rare and not well-done.

The immediate danger averted, Dasha turned to address her suit’s warning siren. Cracks in her helmet hissed as its air was pulled into the vacuum in the spaceplane. She kicked off an adjacent shipping container and drifted towards the cockpit. Compared to the intensity of a sticky space tether, a suit decompression felt small-fry. Dasha tried to slow her speed by running her left hand along the wall. A sharp bolt of pain in her wrist demanded addressing too.

At the pilot’s console she hit the big red button labeled ‘cabin emergency pressurize.’ Nozzles in the corners of the cockpit sprayed quickly evaporating liquid O2 from the fuel tanks. They wouldn’t be needing the oxidizer anymore. With the pressure of the cockpit now a comfortable level, Dasha began to de-suit. The sweat from her face stuck her skin and hair to the inside of the helmet. Hot orbs of sweat rolled off her face and steamed in the chilly air. Gingerly, she took off her gauntlet to her injured hand. Red and swollen, its appearance made her dizzy. It was equally likely the returning cranial blood flow made her dizzy. Dasha fetched a first aid kit and splinted her hand. She swallowed a few painkillers dry for her throbbing headache.

Marty had yet to wake up. “Now your turn.” she said. His face was bloodless. Dasha pulled off his helmet and opened a life support window on his console. The suit’s built-in EKG meter read a flatline. “This’ll be a rude awakening for you.” Dasha mused. She input a revival command into the life support window and pulled a couple sticks of gum from her personal effects cabinet.

Marty’s suit hardpoints flashed white and red. Sounding a brief but ear-piercing wail before his chest jumped up a foot. His suit beeped as it administered a cocktail of drugs sure to give Marty the world’s worst headache. The suit flashed a warning again before sending another couple dozen volts of electricity through his heart. Marty’s face flushed pink as he jerked into a fetal position, vomiting. Immediately the air was tainted with the pungent smell of bile.

“Oh man.” Marty said weakly. Dasha offered him a stick of strawberry-flavored gum, helping herself to one. He didn’t hesitate. “What happened? I only remember unbuckling my seat.”

“My implant kept me awake long enough to eject the clamps. Your weak little human heart couldn’t keep up,” Dasha teased. “Oh and go to a doctor as soon as you can. I died once after a severe heart attack and let me tell you, putting it off is not fun.”

“Is that why you’ve got the implant?” Marty asked as he wiped the sweat from his face.

“Yeah, something about genetics made me predisposed to heart attacks. Opted for cyberware. No more heart, no more attacks.” she said, “was that your first time dying?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?” he said.

“Because I unclamped us without knowing where we’d be thrown. You might have to prepare to die again.” Dasha replied. Her console chimed to notify her of its finished orbital calculations. “Speak of the devil.” She drifted forward to get a better angle of the screen.

“I’ve never had deep-dish pizza before.” Marty said, eyeing their impact trajectory: Lake Michigan, 20 miles east of Chicago.

“Want to try some?” Dasha asked.

“Sure, why not. We can drop by the hospital later.” Marty snarked. The computer read ten minutes before hitting the thick of the atmosphere. Dasha spent that time trying to one-hand tie her sweaty hair into a ponytail. Marty helped himself to some painkillers.

Dash fished her headset out of her broken helmet and slipped it on. The speakers crackled as she requested a connection to Chicago mission control. “Chicago this is The Acropolis out of Panama City. Notifying you of an emergency splashdown 20 miles east into Lake Michigan. Transferring coordinates now.”

“Roger Acropolis, dispatching Coast Guard to your projected landing zone.” Mission Control relayed.

Dasha took a deep swig from a water bottle. “OK this is a team effort Martin. I’m doing this one-handed, and you need your head examined before being allowed to operate heavy equipment,” she said. The Acropolis creaked as its belly began to brush against the atmosphere.

“Here goes nothing.” Martin said as an orange glow began to form on the nose of the spaceplane. Martin’s gobs of cold vomit sunk to the floor as gravity gradually returned. Fiery plasma grew as they descended, licking the wings of the Acropolis with yellow tendrils. The spaceplane shook. Dasha leaned into her injured wrist, trying to support it with her side.

Not daring to look away from her instruments, a splatter and a fresher smell of stomach acid told Dasha that Marty was dealing with the least pleasant side-effects of revival drugs. A deep blue replaced the abyssal star-speckled sky. The joysticks shuddered, each tiny twitch triggering sparks of fire in Dasha’s wrist. The Acropolis narrowly missed high altitude clouds, their puffy white masses rushing by in moments.

The sky continued to lighten, and Dasha squinted as the sun crept into her vision. As they plunged deeper into the atmosphere the joysticks shook with more violence. “I need your help Mart!” Dasha said between gritted teeth, pulling up on the joystick as much as her wrist would let her.

“Doing my best!” He shouted back. “Our angle is too steep, we’re stalling!”

Dasha swallowed her gum and pushed down on the controls, the plane dipped forward into a dive. Buckets of water doused their windshield as they plunged into a cloud layer. The violence of a thousand thunderstorms shook the Acropolis, thundering bangs reverberating through the cockpit.

“Pull up on my mark!” Her sweaty palms nearly lost grip on the joysticks as the roiling water of Lake Michigan split through the clouds. Each second passed in malignant indifference while Dasha bit her cheek in lieu of a mouthguard.

“Now!” Dasha hollered, yanking up on the joysticks. The Acropolis’s wings whined, she could feel the ship’s metal stretch through her seat better than she could hear it. Marty leaned back, his arms shaking under the weight of the joysticks. Dasha’s spine compressed as the spaceplane pulled out from its dive. Her wrist cried out for relief. She gripped the joysticks with white knuckles. The waves were close enough to make out white caps of foam.

Muffled splashes kicked against the belly of the craft. Then suddenly the Acropolis was heaved to a halt. Its belly skimming across the surface of the lake, huge volumes of water were thrown up in the air. The duo were fiercely yanked forward, losing grip on the controls. Dasha’s chin dug into her suit’s cold metal, unable to fight back against the violent deceleration. As her vision began to fade, Dasha felt her heart burn hot once more.

A dull pounding rang through Dasha’s head. The throbbing was so heavy she could practically hear it. Dasha pried open her eyes. The cockpit was dark save for the red emergency lights. The Acropolis rocked back and forth, heaving of water echoing through the cabin. Her head continued to pound, only this time the pain was certainly audible. Suddenly the room was flooded with white light.

“Anyone alive in there?”