Breaking Orbit Excerpt

Breaking OrbitExcerpt from vol1 of the Titan Run Trilogy

What follows is an excerpt from the opening chapters of my upcoming Sci Fi Novel, "Breaking Orbit, vol1 of the Titan Run Trilogy"

Now available at Amazon.com!

OneShe gasped for oxygen but drew only hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide into her lungs, the cold and toxic mixture preserving her flesh while taking her life. She could not hear her team leader shouting at her over the alert channel."Hit your Panic Button! Marcie, your Panic Button!" Hugh sucked down his own precious oxygen as he yelled and stumbled over the uneven Martian mountainside, desperate to reach Marcie before it was too late. He fumbled with the flap on the pocket that held his repair kit for the roll of tape that might save her life, fighting back the voice in his head that told him it did not matter how fast he moved; he was already too late.


Marcie took a few clumsy steps in Hugh's direction, but ultimately stumbled and collapsed to her knees. Her body spasmed reflexively, diaphragm pumping, lungs sucking at the atmosphere for oxygen that was not there in defiance of what millions of years of evolution had come to expect. She dropped to all fours, chest still heaving, slowly grateful that the intense cold had taken away her ability to taste the air as the darkness closed in around her.Hugh pulled a length of patch tape and tore it roughly from the spool. Half the piece became hopelessly coated with red dust as it dragged across the ground. Now useless, Hugh tried to shake it from his gloved hand only to find it stuck there. He managed to tear another piece free from his spool and turned to face Marcie. She had finally stopped sucking at the air and instead lay slumped on the ground with her helmet's faceplate against the regolith.He to her and slapped the dangling length of tape over the hole in her suit, mumbling about how she would be okay, she just had to hold on."Hang in there Marcie, I have the patch right here; we'll get you back to the dome and the docs will have you fixed up in no time," but when he rolled her over and looked into her face plate he noticed that her chest was not moving at all. Nothing that was Marcie was moving.Behind the dusty plastic of the face plate her skin was purple and blue, her eyes horribly frosted over already; the heating element in her suit had been unable to withstanding the onslaught of Martian cold from both sides. Then her eyes moved and locked with Hugh's. She reached up and grabbed his arm and stared at him accusingly with her impossibly cold eyes and purple skin. She shouted at him, and he slowly realized it was his own name:"Hugh! Hugh!""Hugh!" Rose shouted as she shook his shoulder with increased urgency. Hugh Saracen blinked and looked around him. He was not out on Tharsis at all. He was in his lab, safe and warm. He was staring at the results of the survey that had cost them all dearly; Marcie had been a great researcher and a better friend. Her notes from that day were up on his tablet, superimposed over the data. The notes ended at a time stamp that Hugh knew was only moments before she had fallen. The last words she spoke on the official record were to do with the growth rates of the Areophilic bacterium they studied. When he had first realized this days ago, Hugh knew that Marcie would have liked that her last words were to do with science."Oh no," Hugh said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, hoping Rose had not heard him."It happened again, didn't it," Rose asked; she had heard Hugh mumbling to himself and she had recognized the reverie for what it was."Yeah, but ... I'm okay, Rose, I promise. I just need to finish checking Marcie ... Marcie's ... I need to finish checking these field notes against the survey data and then I promise I will go home. I told Dalton I would cook for us tonight, anyway."Rose sighed and offered Hugh a sympathetic look. She had lost people before to field accidents — everyone had — but Marcie and Hugh had become close in their years of working together at the research lab. "Why don't you go ahead and take off now?"In fact," Rose continued, "I want you to take a few days. I know you didn't take the time off you had coming after the accident. Take it now.""But I'm fine, I swear.""You are not fine. I've had to recheck your results twice already this week and I can't have you jeopardizing our grant funding," she hated having to use tough love. "Look, I know it's rough. We've all lost someone out in the field. The surface of Mars is...""...is more dangerous that being in space," Hugh recited. "I remember the safety training.""You damn well should," Rose replied. "Why do you think it was nothing but robots for seventy five years before any humans arrived to explore this place? It's not because no one wanted to come."Go get some rest. In fact, get some rest and call Dr. Jimenez; make an appointment if you need to see him in person. The work will be here when you're up to it. Mars won't be terraformed in a week."Hugh sighed. "I guess you're right," he conceded. "Thanks Rose — I'm sorry about the screw up with the results; Marcie and I used to check each other's numbers before submitting the reports.""I know; it's one of the things that made you two a great team. Now go on before you get me worked up, Saracen. I have a lab to run and I'm now down two of my best researchers. By no one's fault," Rose added when she saw the look forming on Hugh's face."Thanks; look, I'll try to make it in tomorrow. I'll take the night to think things through and clear my head..."Rose held up a finger and shook it at him and then pointed that finger firmly at the door. "You'll take as much time as Dr. Jimenez says you should take, and I'll be calling him to make sure you've spoken with him. You have the time, Hugh — take it — because I can't have you working here if you don't."Hugh nodded, knowing that the conversation was over. He gathered some of his personal effects from his desk and with a nod to Rose he left the lab. The flashback about the accident and then the conversation with Rose had drained him emotionally, leaving him exhausted and even more sad at the loss of his friend than he remembered being right after it had happened. He decided that some fresh air would do him good and so he walked the hour home rather than suffer the already packed trams that would have had him home in fifteen minutes.Away from the lab and down on the streets where buildings and trees blocked most of his view of the Red Wilderness, Hugh's mind mercifully drifted away from thoughts of Marcie and by the time he was home he was planning the night's dinner menu. He would call Dr. Jimenez in the morning.TwoBuilt in to the human psyche is the need to meander, and the newly-minted Captain Dalton Simmons of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Explorers felt a deep-seated need to do just that. Plus, he thought as he walked along the boulevards while briefly considering the evolutionary logic of the purposeless meander, I need some more time to figure out how I'm going to share all this news with Hugh. It's going to be a lot for him to take in at once.The streets and boulevards of most Martian domes were laid out in a logical grid that made meandering more of a challenge than what evolution had prepared him for, but in the fashion of a man worth his new rank he solved that problem and turned a five minute walk into a thirty minute stroll in the general direction of home. He only crossed his own path once. Quite the navigational feat, Captain, he thought. He smiled inside and out, but for so many more reasons than just his clever walking skill. This day was special. He had earned his promotion years before he thought possible, and more! But how to tell Hugh?His long had settled him down somewhat, but Dalton had still failed in his secondary objective, which had been to determine the best way to deliver his bounty of good news to his husband, who himself was suffering the loss of a dear friend; in truth they both were. Marcie had been Dalton's fired as much as she had been Hugh's, and the memory of her death was in sharp contrast to the fresh news of his own promotion. Dalton stopped for a moment at the top of the stairs that led into their apartment building, and turned at what he remembered — ever since Hugh had shown him — to be the perfect spot. He could see a strip of the Red Wilderness from between some elm trees. We miss you, Marcie, he thought. She would have been ecstatic for Dalton over his promotion, and she would have been a great comfort to Hugh for the rest. But she was gone, and Captains did not shy away from their duty. Not to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Explorers, not to their friends, and certainly not to their families.#As he walked down the hallway, Dalton's smile slowly faded as he approached the apartment door and his hand hovered over the entrance pad. Hugh knew that this planet-side assignment had been temporary. They had been apart before, ironically most of their time together had been apart as Dalton served for months or years at a time on BPOE vessels. But Dalton also knew that sometimes Hugh chose to ignore the facts in evidence when they did not match his favored viewpoint. This thought made Dalton chuckle darkly, because he knew damn well that Hugh was adamant about getting the facts right in the lab. No matter what his initial hypothesis had been. Dalton had even chided Hugh more than once about having used up all his objectivity on the soil samples in the lab, leaving none for his own husband. Yet too many loud nights over too much wine and Marcie's take on Martian mushroom casserole had passed between them, Hugh and Marcie hashing out results for hours while Dalton enjoyed their company and their peculiar microbiological theater, seeking the truth in the facts they had pulled from the regolith. Marcie's face would have been a welcome presence, but that was not to be.Still standing outside the door to the apartment, Dalton fixed a small supportive smile on his face and decided that the direct approach was the best.#Meanwhile Hugh fidgeted at the table, nudging the flatware and making minor adjustments to the placement of the glasses. He had already made three circuits around the apartment, straightening things that had not been moved in years and generally trying to be productive with all his restless energy. He checked the time again. Dalton should have been home a half hour ago, which meant that either he was working late (he would have called) or he too had decided to walk at least part of the way home. Hugh went back into the kitchen nook and made adjustments to the various cook settings so that dinner would still be palatable for them when Dalton finally did get home, damn him for not calling! Why was it so hard for him to offer a little common courtesy?Hugh shook his head and put down the towel he had been wringing. He took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, slumping against the sink. He knew it was nothing to do with Dalton, in fact, Hugh had every reason to be happy; content even. They had built a good home together (late getting home), and they had finally been able to see each other every day for the last Martian year thanks to Lieutenant Commander Simmons' latest assignment, stationed planet-side to oversee the design of a new class of ship. Then there was Hugh's work; exciting, meaningful work, but then part of that excitement was due to the danger of working outside the dome. And there was the rub. The danger that had jumped up from nowhere and stolen a close friend and an even closer collaborator. Hugh took another deep breath and this time held it for a moment before letting it go slowly. He made another mental note to call Dr. Jimenez, just s he had promised Rose he would. He had every intention of calling the therapist, but after Dalton was home and they had a chance to talk.Dalton, who for so many years of their time together had been stationed on one ship or another on patrol cataloguing the flotsam and jetsam of the Solar System. His letters were always about the exciting rescues or dangerous pirate interdictions (that had almost always already been shown on the news before the letters would arrive), but Hugh knew about the long stretches of routine and boredom aboard a BPOE patrol vessel. Forgetting about the documentaries and the articles and the conversations that Hugh had shared with BPOE veterans and active-service spouses alike when they would compare notes, he could see it in Dalton's eyes whenever he would come home. For all the millions of objects in strange orbits that the BPOE kept an active record of, space, even interplanetary space, was unbelievably empty.So when Dalton would be planet-side and home, Hugh made an effort to stretch his culinary muscles, ensuring that he did his part for the Order; however, when Lieutenant Commander Simmons was deployed on a mission, Hugh normally just chose to eat one of a few pre-programmed favorites from the protein synthesizer. The irony of this entire arrangement was not at all lost on Hugh as it was Dalton who had come to their relationship with the gourmet skill. Dalton spent their first year together cooking increasingly extravagant meals for Hugh, until Hugh one night told him they had to talk."Oh no," Dalton had said. "You hate my cooking."Hugh realized too late that this was what he had intimated to Dalton, and decided that he needed to say what was on his mind quickly before his simple request grew out of control. "D, No! It's not like that. I ... I mean, I love that you put so much effort into cooking for me, but,""But you don't see us going anywhere? Is it that I put in for space duty? We talked about this --""Lieutenant Simmons!" Hugh had interrupted, knowing that addressing him by his rank was the one sure way to get Dalton's attention and quiet him down."D," he continued, "I love that you put so much effort into cooking for me, but I don't need or expect it! I am plenty happy eating from the synth most nights! It's you I want to spend time with, not your cooking!""Oh," said Dalton, not sure whether to be happy that Hugh was not in fact rejecting him, or sad that he was being asked to dial back his culinary adventures a few notches. He chose to be happy, and smiling he said "Well then, I guess I'll just have to donate the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner.""I give, what were you going to make tomorrow?""Crab cakes with quinoa salad."This was Hugh's favorite dish from Dalton's culinary arsenal."Well," Hugh replied, "let's not be too hasty about this. You do have a fairly established pattern of behavior here and I don't want you to have to just quit over night and find yourself without an outlet for your creativity. How about you make that meal, and then we can discuss what we will do with all our free time on synth nights?"Dalton laughed as Hugh tried hard to keep a straight face.Thinking back on that memory lightened Hugh's heart, and he snapped back to the present as he heard the door to their apartment. Moments later Dalton stepped into the kitchen, just a bit too casually."So when do you leave?" Hugh asked, feeling his light mood fade a bit in light of what long experience had told him was coming. Dalton had walked into the kitchen like that more than once in their time together."You know me too well, Hugh," Dalton said. "It's not tonight, or tomorrow," he continued, "it's still a few weeks out, actually, but, Hugh -- AHHHH!" Unable to contain his excitement any longer, Dalton clapped his hands together and grinned broadly before grabbing Hugh into a big hug, in the midst of which Hugh finally noticed the shiny new rank insignia on Dalton's collar. That emblem caught the light like only a captain's rank could."D! Is that what I think it is?! You got your promotion! That's great! We should go out and celebrate!""But you went to all this trouble," Dalton said as he indicated the well laid table complete with opened wine bottle with a sweep of his free arm. The other still held on to Hugh. "And I don't want to share this moment with anyone but you, because I didn't just get promoted, Hugh...""What?" Hugh pulled back to arm's length, wondering what other news his husband had yet to deliver, though he had a bad feeling. "The Order doesn't promote all of their officers to captain; especially when just this morning they were Lieutenant Commanders," Hugh observed, "what other honor have they laid across the shoulders of their newest captain?""A ship.""Well of course a captain ought to have a ship, D.""Not just any ship, Hugh -- they gave me the Phoenix!""The who?""And you always swear you're paying attention," Dalton teased, "The Phoenix is the project I've been overseeing for the last half of my planet-side assignment. She's the newest multi-purpose platform! She scans, rescues, and is armed to handle the worst that the Trojan pirates can deal out, and baby she's mine!""Which Trojans?" Hugh asked, unable to resist the urge to tease Dalton with the most irrelevant question he could think of."The Jovian Trojans, of course.""They are the worst," Hugh said, nodding in solemn agreement for a moment before his face cracked into its own huge smile and he grabbed Dalton and kissed him. "My captain," he said with his own arm sweep of the table, "dinner is prepared.""There's more, Hugh."Hugh pulled away and fixed Dalton with a questioning look."Damn, D," he said, "What have you been up to for the Order to heap all this on you?""No, this is about the ship. We need — I need a ship's biologist on my crew. I'm going to be in space for at least a year on this shakedown cruise, Hugh; and I want you to come with me. This cruise isn't another old Soviet-era bolt count in solar orbit, this is going to be as much about science as it is about proving what my ship can do. Plus, it would be nice to have someone on my side in the staff meetings.""Other than Gonzo," Hugh said, "I can't imagine you'd accept your first command without that pirate masquerading as an engineer on your crew.""You know me too well, Hugh, but reputation aside, Gonzo is just one man. Join us!"For a moment Hugh thought it sounded great, but he then felt it would be running away from his problems rather than facing them, so he said "You can take perfectly good care of yourself, Captain Simmons, especially with Gonzo there to keep you from falling out of the sky. Also, not to blow holes in your eloquent speech, dear, but I'm not BPOE. I'm a civilian biologist with a pile of surveys and six teams who couldn't find a core sample with two hands and an auger without my guiding them waiting for me back at the lab. A lab that is currently located on the surface of Mars. "Plus, I'd be the captain's man, and that's just weird," Hugh said with a smirk."But Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto!" Dalton countered."Will be nowhere near your sphere of action," Hugh finished."I know the Order well enough to know that. No, D; I love you and the thought of serving on a BPOE ship — especially with you — does have a certain romantic appeal, but I need to keep my feet firmly planted on Martian soil.""You always said you wanted to work off-world," Dalton said."Right, after all the challenges on Mars had been met, and it's still a big red ball of puzzles out there," Hugh countered."Now let's eat!" Hugh said, closing the matter."Speaking of the challenges of Mars," Dalton said, "How was work today?""Not great," Hugh confessed."Not another flashback?" Dalton asked, concerned."I wish I could tell you that it was just a broken core sample, but yeah; it was another flashback," Hugh said. He walked over to his place at the table and sat down hard. He poured them both a glass of wine and then took a long draught from his own. Then he refilled it."Oh Hugh, are you okay? Did you call Dr. Jimenez?""I have not yet called the therapist yet, but I'm under orders of my own to do so before Rose will let me back in the lab." Hugh said.Dalton pulled their dinner from the protein synthesizer and placed it on the table, spooning out portions for both of them as he joined Hugh in sitting down."The Phoenix doesn't leave orbit for a few weeks, Hugh. I can take a few days if you need me here with you," Dalton offered."No, Dalton," Hugh said as he looked up from his plate, "I know you're here for me, but you have your orders and this is something I have to work through with Dr. Jimenez."I wish Marcie were here," Hugh continued as he pushed his food around his plate. "She'd have been thrilled with your news.""I know, she'd be more excited that either of us," Dalton agreed."Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you?" He asked."No; seriously, I promise. I'll be fine," Hugh said. He then patted Dalton on the hand and said, "Hey, dinner's getting cold, let's eat."Three"Ann, come here please," Susan Bell called from her room at the far end of the apartment she shared with her daughter."Coming mother," Ann replied as she finished the page she had been reading. She then put down her reader and walked down the hallway to her mother's room. The one with the view of the park."What's up, mom?" Ann asked as she walked into the room. She automatically glanced at the medical readout, it showing that her mother was in as good of health as could be hoped for a terminally ill person.Susan looked at Ann with an expression that had never before resulted in good things for Ann, and then she spoke."I'm bored, Ann, and when I'm bored it hurts more," Susan complained.Ann fought back both the urge to grace and the urge to finally tell her mother what she really thought. Instead, she fixed a concerned look on her face and said "Mother, you have access to every MarsVid channel as well as 600 years of human literature from three worlds to read. How are you bored?".She clipped the last word a little harsher than she had meant to, and ground her teeth together, knowing what her mother would say next. Just as Ann predicted, Susan's expression changed to one of curiosity. "How are you doing, dear?" Susan said. "I know this can't be easy for you; the other girls settling into their careers and families, building, publishing, nurturing the future of Mars while you're stuck here tending to your poor old mother."Susan had found something — make that someone — to play with after all."No mom, it's okay," Ann lied. "I want to be here, and I'm glad I can help.""Oh Ann, I'm glad to hear that," Susan said convincingly. "I'm not just bored, it's the pain. I can't stop thinking about it, even when I do have something to occupy myself with."I try not to turn the pain dampener up too far, but sometimes I do and then I just fall asleep. I don't want to spend my last days sleeping, dear. Did Rachikov ever release that novel? I promised it I would review it for him.""He's still at it, mom," Ann lied. The novel had come out two months prior, about the same time they had moved her mother home for good to begin the wait. Had Susan been well enough to publish one of her too-honest reviews, old Rachikov might not be enjoying his first commercial success in twenty years."Damn him. I need something to take my mind off this damned aching. Everything hurts, Annie. The only parts that don't hurt are my fingernails and eyelashes. It's too much sometimes...I...I..." Susan thumbed the control that increased power to the pain dampener she wore like a tiara.Or a crown of thorns Ann thought, and then immediately felt guilty.Either way, Susan Bell the literary critic finally crowned; a lifetime of modest notoriety brought to a slow end by an unfixable genetic anomaly. "I think maybe I'll rest for a few minutes, Ann dear.""Of course, Mother," Ann said as she turned to leave her mother's room."If your father were still with us, he'd take care of me so you didn't have to," Susan pointed out.Ann smiled at her mother as the pain dampener worked its magic and the older woman fell into a medicated sleep, but as soon as she saw her mother's body relax the smile on Ann's face likewise relaxed. Her father's care had been a roof, a bank account, and periodic visits when he was on shore leave from his BPOE patrols in the Asteroid Belt. Petty Officer Chester Bell had been by all accounts a decent man and 'one Hell of a non-com,' but never what she would have called a father.Ann returned to her chair at the far end of the apartment and picked up her reader. She failed to get lost in the story she had been reading as she had been earlier. Her mother's complaints about the pain were becoming more ... real. Susan Bell had always been a complainer — it is what made her a natural as a professional critic — but there was more to it this time. Maybe it was the tone she used, the nostalgia for her husband who had joined the asteroids a dozen years back; or maybe it was her willingness to use the dampener so liberally, no matter what she told Ann. Better Living Through Direct Brain Stimulation was the joke they had all made in the certification course that all home caregivers had to complete before the Martian government would allow them to be used outside of a professional care environment.Ann's thoughts, still unable to focus on the fiction in her hands, wandered back to that course."There are any number of ways someone could abuse a PD," the instructor had begun as she then enumerated the increasingly clever ways people had employed a pain dampener before and after the government stepped in. There were the thrill-seekers, the torturers, and the suicides. There had been others, but Ann could only recall those examples."And all of these are dangerous and stupid because one minute you think you're having the time of your life and the next you've fried your brain," the instructor had said."Unless that was your goal all along, in which case mission accomplished, I suppose," she had finished with a shrug and a thoughtful frown.#Two months turned to four and Susan Bell kept an increasingly heavy thumb on her pain dampener. She slept more often and longer, and she crashed between anger and sorrow when she was awake. She would beg Ann to show her how to overload the dampener, to end it all like the people from Ann's cautionary tales. She would turn nasty when Ann refused, no matter how gentle or tear-filled the refusal. Susan had convinced herself that the instructor had been offering a hidden tutorial in ending a loved one's suffering."Damn you, Ann Genevieve Bell," Susan would yell, "I raised you to be too damn stubborn. Stop this obstinate shit and show me how it's done. Never mind! I can find out how to do it my damn self on the Net, you ungrateful little bitch. I'll just do it myself like I've always done, no help from you or your absent asshole of a father. Glorious death in service to Humanity my ass!"Aaahhrrrrrr..." and then at the end of another tirade that had stung Ann with just a pinch too much of truth, Susan would writhe in pain until her thumb found the control. She would give in once more to the effects of the device and sleep. In some people the dampener caused strange dreams — electric sheep, they were called — but not Susan. Each time Susan turned up he dampener it was as if she were rehearsing for her death. It was as though she thought her final act would be subject to criticism as she herself had criticized so many in her life. At least that was how Ann saw it.#By the middle of the fifth month, Susan's anger was spent and she no longer writhed in agony or yelled in anger. She had accepted her fate, even as her life lingered on. On a day much like that day three months past she called out to her daughter. There were tears on Susan's face. In all of her fits of rage and sorrow to date she had never shed tears."I know it's coming — it's inevitable, Annie. I'm going to die.""Oh, mom, no," Ann said reflexively."I am, Annie. You'd have to be stupid not to think that and I didn't raise you to be stupid. But I think I'm ready for it. Yes, I'm definitely ready for it. The pain — I thought I'd get used to it, like a hangnail or a broken arm — but this, Annie, it never stops as long as I am awake. If I'm only away from the pain when I sleep, then please, please help me sleep? I'm so tired, Annie. So tired. Please help me sleep?" Fresh tears rolled down her face as she quietly begged her daughter to help her one last time.It was the same request she had made many time before, but it had always been with anger and accusation. This time Susan was asking her daughter with a sincerity that not even she could fake. This was no expression of frustration with her lot, no clinging to life.Uncomfortable with her mother's plea, Ann glanced habitually at the dampener's display unit and noted the level of the PD; it was at its maximum setting. The device could not do any more for her mother -- not in its regulated and unmodified form. Susan's sincere and tear-filled plea had finally broken through Ann's hardened heart. Ann remembered from the training class the quickest way to hack the dampener, just as they had been told not to do. All she would need as a screwdriver. Gently touching her mother's forehead Ann said, "I'll be right back, mom."Now crying herself, Ann rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer to find the tool she needed and turned it over in her hands as she returned to her mother's side.Susan's pleas for relief had turned into pre-emptive thanks as she realized what her daughter was about to do for her.Ann gently worked the case of the control module open, careful not to mark the plastic housing. She found the calibration screws and she turned all three of them with the same screwdriver until they too were at their maximum setting. After snapping the halves of the plastic shell back together Ann handed the modified controller back to her mother, who thumbed it again automatically. Susan's relief was instant and obvious. And deadly. Before too long Susan would slip into a coma and their final shared ordeal would come to its end."I love you, mom," Ann said as she kissed her mother on the forehead and cheek. She took the controller from her mother's hand, pressed the button, and held it as tears rolled down her cheeks."I love you too, Annie," she said. "And Annie? Thank you," were Susan Bell's last words before losing consciousness. Her breath slowed and finally stopped. Alarm bells called out from the monitoring equipment and a computerized voice reassuring Ann that the medics were en route.When she was certain her mother had passed, Ann pried open the controller's case again and reset the modifications she had made. She returned the controller to her mother's still warm hand and the screwdriver to its drawer, and finally returned to her mother's side. Ann wept openly. What felt to Ann like only moments later the medics used their universal lock override and burst into Ann's apartment. They rushed down the hall and into Susan's room where they confirmed that Susan Bell was indeed dead. The rest of the day passed in a blur for Ann as the medics made sure she would be okay, took custody of her mother's body, and made arrangements for the dome's Medical Center to retrieve the room full of now superfluous medical equipment. You have to be careful with these pain dampeners, one of the medics had told her.That night Ann drank herself to sleep and dreamt of her mother floating before her. In this all-too-real nightmare Susan blamed Ann for cutting short her life. #In the days that followed Ann only found herself alone when using the bathroom or sleeping. Cousins, friends, acquaintances, admirers of her mother; they all stopped by Ann's apartment with kind words and food, with several variations of Martian Mushroom casserole and every kind of dessert.People Ann had not seen since she graduated from secondary school came and expressed their condolences. To everyone — family, friends, her mother's colleagues — she said the same thing, "Thank you; I think in the end it was for the best. She had suffered so much for so long. It was a blessing she went in her sleep."And then the people consoling her would smile their best compassionate smile and pat her on the back of the hand; often they would pull her into a hug. They would mistake the guilt in her eyes for grief and ask if there was anything they could do for her before making their excuses and returning to their lives, duty to the grieving discharged. No sooner would one set of people leave when another would appear at her door, ready with compassion and a casserole dish for the woman suffering from her guilt.Eventually Ann stopped accepting visitors. The well-wishers and admirers were thanked by her automated assistant and any food those same people brought was in turn donated to the dome's orphanage. She spent her time alone thinking over what had happened — what she had done — to her mother. The strange dreams came back and in them her mother would shift from damning Ann for killing her to thanking her for releasing her from her pain. Ann found that the dreams did not come if she drank herself to sleep and so she ended each day with a bottle, usually of something strong and brown.#Everything in the apartment reminded Ann of her mother. She soon thought about moving, but the stipend she had been paid to be Susan's caregiver was not enough to pay for a move. Having become her mother's caregiver so soon after graduating college Ann had never taken the internship she had needed to start her career. Now she would have to wait another year before applying and so she was stuck, living with the ghost of her mother and her own guilt.The combined stress of joblessness, guilt, and the ever-growing amounts of alcohol she consumed nightly drove Ann to fits of paranoia. She was increasingly worried that the regulators would examine her mother's dampener and readily discover her clumsy modifications. They would determine that she had in fact killed her mother in the very manner she had sworn not to do. They would charge her with a license violation, abetting seeking behavior, and worst of all: murder. Ann could not have trusted her mother to hold the button long enough to administer the fatal dose, so she had held the button herself and she knew — she knew — that the regulators would find out. Stray DNA found inside the controller that could only have got in there via tampering ... something. They would find her out and her punishment would be to join her father in the asteroids, but mining the very rocks her father had become a permanent part of. She would thus serve her sentence and then undergo re-education. The more she thought about it she realized that leaving Mars altogether was her only option. She would, however, do it on her own terms.#After another week of paranoia and liquor Ann sobered up enough to access the job boards to begin her search for off-planet work. She thought of signing up with the BPOE, but knew that when her crimes were discovered they would locker up in the brig of whatever ship she found herself on until her sentence was carried out. She needed something more remote. Something away from the rest of humanity. Then she found it: a hydrocarbon miner would be leaving in a week to make the Titan run and they were looking for hands. The most important part of the posting: No Experience Necessary.Ann waved her hands and spoke at the terminal to send off her application as quickly as possible and rewarded her own effort with a stiff drink. Twelve hours later she received a request for an interview. She promptly accepted the offer and booked herself passage on the morning train to Socketton.For the rest of what she hoped would be her last night in that apartment she stuffed some sensible clothes and a few personal items — like her reader that was loaded with the small library of books she had meant to read and also with family photos, should she want to see them — into a monogrammed duffel her father had given her three months after she had turned eleven. He had missed her birthday while on patrol but had brought her the gift on his next leave. In addition to his chronic absence, he had also been maddeningly practical.The next morning Ann locked the door to her apartment. She left behind most of her things and a lot of memories. The guilt had packed itself between her shoulders weeks before. She refused to look back as she walked down the tree-lined street of her neighborhood to the tram station. There could be no looking back and certainly no going back; only upward and outward. Now all she had to do was get to Socketton and figure out what she would tell her interviewer. The truth would not do.FourGus Swenson, Chief Engineer of the mining ship Krakkensat in the office of the Zhong Hydrocarbon Mining Company. As ninety-nine percent of the ZHMC was done several hundred million kilometers away from Mars, the office was located in one of the several less glamorous sections of Socketton, not that Swenson cared much one way or the other. His true home was on the other side of the growing Martian atmosphere. This did not, of course, mean that he failed to appreciate gravity when he was on Mars to experience it. While waiting for the rest of the Krakken's senior crew to arrive at the office Swenson repeatedly dropped a stylus onto the table that also served as the CEO's desk and conference table for their small company. At times it also did duty as a foot rest.Swenson continued his little game even as he heard someone enter the building and approach the office's wood-grained plastic door. John Zhong, First Mate of theKrakken promptly walked through the door and took in the familiar scene before him."Gus," he said to the engineer."John," Swenson replied in greeting."Don't you ever get tired of playing with gravity?" Zhong said."Do you ever get tired of the gravity my engines simulate for you when we're in deep space?" Swenson replied."Where's the captain?" Zhong asked, changing the subject."Isn't she with you?" Swenson asked."Do you see her with me?" Zhong retorted."She could be hiding behind you," Swenson observed.