The Harrowing of James Cortez

[tarnok]

Or In the Shadow of Jupiter
[science fiction]

This is the first bit of creative writing I have actually finished since high school with the exception of a few very short pieces which were meant to be humorous and were posted mainly in the Community forum about the time I first began posting on the DII boards.

I can actually stand to read it which would mean a lot if it were written by someone else. Since I wrote it however, it may just mean that I can stand my own writing a bit better than that of others.

If I am blind to its flaws then I am that much more in need of critical opinions of my work. So have at it.

Since I have seen that many people start their threads with a sort of introductory post and then place their story in a reply I have done likewise. I don't recall seeing this practice in the rules, but "when in Rome..."

Edit: Also more than a bit of profanity. You'll have to use your imagination I'm afraid.

[tarnok]

James Cortez, captain of the sifter Bounty out of Beacon Station, spaceman in good standing of the Beacon Station Local Fleet and pilot-third-class lobbed another empty beverage pouch over his shoulder. The crumpled foil and plastic pouch spun lazily end-over-end for several yards and then dropped to the floor.

James didn’t notice this unexpected behavior because he was facing the other direction. Or perhaps it was more because he himself also accelerated unexpectedly downward. A brief and, by human expectations of gravity, very gentle pressure, but also sudden and completely unanticipated. It was still more than sufficient to set the middle aged and slightly over-weight ice man swearing.

“****************…” he chanted, adding to the cacophony of alarms and claxons as he fumbled to fasten his restraints. Finally disentangling the straps and fitting everything together he finished with a swift tug to tighten the belts and then turned his attention to the console, still swearing but with more variation now.

“Damn son of a *****, piece of **** machine!” Sweat broke out on his brow. He was on the other side of Jupiter from Beacon Station. With no relay satellites he was entirely out of communication with the station. Without a break in his cursing he hoped and prayed that it wasn’t serious. He finally managed to turn off the audio alarms and pulled up his trajectory data. If there had been gravity to pull it all the blood would have drained from his face.

What had it been? An asteroid or a large block of ice? Why hadn’t the proximity alarm gone off? A ruptured tank? Fuel or air, either one would be a death sentence now for the new trajectory plot merged with the Jovian atmosphere mere minutes after he would emerge from Jupiter’s radio shadow.

“Gotta be an asteroid.” He swallowed and examined his fuel gauges. It seemed to take an eternity for his eyes to swivel and reach the lcd readout. Fuel was heavy. Heavy meant expensive here. Hard to get into space, worth more than gold if you can find it anywhere other than a large gravity well. Expensive meant you didn’t waste it. There was little room for error figured in when the sifters went out. Even if it wasn’t a ruptured fuel tank he still might not have enough to rectify his trajectory. Still, the best case scenario was that an asteroid had glanced off the hull. He breathed out. The gauges still read full. It felt as though a hand had released a death grip on his vitals. As his heart began to beat again and he started recalculating his firing vector James froze.

The cursing had tapered off by this point and now it returned suddenly, but quietly as James listened to a thousand, thousand soft high-pitched pings. He had drifted into the rings. If he didn’t get out soon his ship could be torn apart. He may not have lost any fuel yet but all it would take was one tiny bit of metal or stone or more ice than his hull could withstand and he would be venting fuel or, God forbid, atmosphere.

Without waiting to figure fuel costs or examine the impact on his orbit James’ fingers flew over the console, inputting a vector to take the Bounty out of the rings. A fraction of a second that stretched out like an eternity as the computer calculated the timing and direction of the burn and then the tug of acceleration shifted the debris in the cabin again. The pinging subsided.

It was a very brief burn. He was still slightly over the minimum required fuel for the originally planned trip. Slightly. Without giving himself time to think about it James’ eyes flicked up to the gas readouts. Oxygen was still there, nitrogen too. He breathed a little easier, both literally and figuratively. Without realizing it James had been taking shallower breaths since the idea of a gas leak had first occurred to him.

James hesitated for a moment, rubbing his first finger with his thumb. Very slowly (for the situation at least) and deliberately he worked out a series of three burns to return him to his previous course and complete his rotation with as much ice as he could gather.

Not enough fuel. Working a little more quickly James calculated a set of two burns that would take him through several patches that were still relatively dense before returning to the station. Still not enough fuel.

Relief and apprehension battled in James’ mind. He had to at least calculate those two trajectories. If he scrubbed a mission without even a token effort to bring back something he would not be a captain for long, certainly wouldn’t be in good standing when he returned, and might find himself demoted to desk-jockey-eighth-class. After all, he had used up the fuel. If he brought back nothing to show for it then he was merely draining the station’s resources. On the other hand, if he showed that he had made every effort to salvage the mission then though the upper management might grumble they would at least have to admitted that he gone by the book.

And yet… There hadn’t been enough fuel for the correction burns. That was expected. He was badly off course. But there also hadn’t been enough fuel for the bare-bones ice grab. Would there be enough to bring him back even if he ignored the rings entirely?

Every second only made it worse. Taking a deep breath James punched in the desired trajectory and maximum allowable deviation and set the computer to determine the path of least fuel expense. In the absence of gravity James merely went limp rather than sagging with relief as a suitable trajectory was negotiated for which there was just enough fuel remaining. James reached out to touch the label on the screen that would dump the trajectory and burn information into the steering computer and then paused. The trajectory still skirted the Jovian atmosphere. If whatever had caused his course change in the first place had opened the hull then even a brush could be fatal. In a flash an image of hot plasma gushing through the Bounty stabbed through James’ mind. Before he could think about it anymore he jabbed at the button and then pulled himself back into the pilot’s couch, tightening his restraints.

It didn’t matter now. If he took the trajectory he might die, but if he waited he was dead for sure. Not much of a choice really. He felt the press of acceleration again and watched as the star field turned in his screens, finally coming the rest on the monstrous, bloated orange body of Jupiter.

My God, he thought. Did I ever think that was beautiful? Beautiful like a tiger, or a snake maybe. Only a fool looked at it and thought it was cute. James had seen it’s teeth now though, and the sight of the Great Storm roiling miles below him made his stomach flip.

A rumbling announced the firing of the engines and, after a few moments of seeming gravity pushing him into his seat, the burn was over. I should get some sleep now. James thought. It had been near the end of his cycle when the Bounty first yawed and there was really nothing more he could do for the time. It’ll be hours before I catch up to the station.

James stared at the screen. Sleep came eventually, but not for a long while.

********

James awoke to an insistent beeping. He rubbed at his eyes and looked around in mild confusion. A red display caught his eye and snapped him wide awake. He didn’t even spare the effort to curse this time. It had been a gas leak after all. The maneuvering thrusters. They were nearly empty now. Damn stupid engineers! Why didn’t they put that gauge by the other fuel gauges?! Even in his mind the cursing was half-hearted. They had made it that way because the main engine fuel was a combustible and the compressed nitrogen for the maneuvering thrusters wasn’t. That was just the way they though. Damn stupid engineers. He examined the trajectory and burn data. He was still about an hour from the next burn. That was good. The next burn would require the maneuvering thrusters. That was bad.

He considered his options. He needed a new source of gas for the thrusters. He could switch the thrusters to draw from one of the atmosphere tanks instead of their nitrogen tanks, but that would upset his air mixture. It couldn’t be the oxygen, too valuable. It would have to be the nitrogen. The air would get a little thin, but he’d have to live with it. No, the part he was dreading, the thing that had him dragging his feet was the fact that the hook-up was exposed to vacuum. He’d have to leave the ship.

James stared at the screen, sweat breaking out on his brow again. He could almost feel the great orange beast pulling at him. He looked back at the clock and started. Only fifty minutes now. He had wasted ten just watching Jupiter watch him. With an effort he disengaged his restraints and pulled himself along the wall with shaking arms.

********

James’ breath was coming faster now. He was hyperventilating. He knew it. He also knew that it was going to start causing him trouble very soon. The CO2 levels in his blood would start to drop and the vessels would constrict, cutting short the oxygen to his brain.

Damn it James, get a hold of yourself. He had a death grip on the hand hold by the outer air-lock at least. He floated there, anchored to the ship and staring wide-eyed at the gas giant scant thousands of kilometers away. My God it’s huge. I should have stayed on Earth. This thing’s going to burn me to ash in less than an hour, or crush me like a beer can if it can’t cook me.

A beeping in his headset jarred him into action. He didn’t have long at all now. Only forty minutes or so to switch the hoses and get back inside the Bounty. He shuddered at that thought. Oh, he’d better be back inside when the engines fired. He pried a hand from the hand hold and unhooked one of the magnetic grapples from his harness. With that one clamped down it still took a supreme effort of will to pull his other hand from the hand hold and retrieve the second grapple. His breathing still ragged he began making his way slowly down the hull to the access panel.

He could still feel Jupiter behind him when he turned. Like being in a small room with a rabid dog and turning your back on it. The micro-fiber contact suit was already soaked with sweat and his breath came even faster, though he’d not have thought it possible. It was all James could manage not to turn around and make sure Jupiter was still where it should be, to make sure it wasn’t coming closer.

Stop it! You’ll get psych evaluated out of the damn corps at this rate. It just a ****ing planet. It’s been doing nothing but orbiting the sun for billions of years. It’s not going to jump up and eat you now.

Of course not. I’ll just fall into it. It’s just a matter of perspective, right?

Stop that ****. You saw the damn trajectory. You aren’t going to just drop momentum and fall into the damn planet.

The realization that he was talking to himself did nothing to comfort pilot-third-class James Cortez as he anchored himself by the access panel. Psych evaluated out. No doubt. He tugged at the release with shaking hands.

********

As the airlock door cycled open James hastily unclipped his helmet and broke the seal. He gulped down deep breaths. The air in the Bounty still smelled of grease and old rations, but it had never seemed sweeter. If there had been gravity James would have collapsed to the floor. As it was he merely shook like a leaf as he pulled himself to the pilot’s couch and strapped in. Only five minutes till the next burn. Hopefully the fault had been in the tank and not one of the nozzles. He hadn’t had time to check. If it was the tank, then everything would be alright. If it was one of the nozzles, then he would lose the gas in the atmospheric nitrogen tank as well and it would have to be down to the oxygen for maneuvering to dock. And it would mean another EVA. He snagged a floating rag and sopped sweat from his face. James wasn’t sure he had another one in him.

He looked back at Jupiter in the screen now. It calmed him a bit. Viewed through the filter of a camera and a computer display the giant didn’t look as frightening. It was close now though. Dangerously close. This burn would have to keep him from slipping into the atmosphere. He felt the gentle nudge of acceleration as the thrusters fired to position the main engine for the next burn.

Jupiter was behind him now. He leaned forward, almost hesitantly and tapped a few keys replacing the forward looking display with the rear view. The view of Jupiter. The engines kicked in and the camera flared for a moment before the computer adjusted for the increased illumination. As the engines strained against the Bounty’s fall the weight of the giant settled on him. He took deeper breaths now, struggling as weight forgotten from Earth again compressed his lungs, and then straining as weight greater than he had ever known on Earth pulled at him. How many G’s now? He shifted, trying to see the accelerometer but couldn’t lift his head to the proper angle. So instead he looked at Jupiter.

He saw the bands slipping by, moving at dizzying speeds, but seeming to crawl at this distance. He saw a tiny storm, in all likelihood larger than a continent. As the breath crushed from his lungs, his eyes pounded into his head and the hull temperature began to rise from friction with the edges of the Jovian atmosphere, James realized that it was beautiful.

Here, billions of miles from his home, from the very cradle of his race, was what mankind has been looking for since the beginning. The unknown. The amazing. A thing no one has ever seen before and no one may ever see again. Let others have their Grand Canyons, their Tranquility Bays. James had seen the very face of Jupiter and flown among his moons. Even if I die here, it’s not bad for a life’s work. I may not have reached the stars, but I came further than all but a handful. Stars exploded before his eyes.

********

James awoke to a crackle of static and an insistent voice.
“Sifter Bounty, please respond. This is Beacon Station to sifter Bounty. Please apprise us of your situation. He’s not-”
The last was muted and clipped as though the speaker had turned to address someone else as he switched off the com link. James put a hand to his head, confused for a moment. Had he been drinking on the job? He certainly had the headache for it. It all came back to him in a rush then. Shaking his head gently to clear it he reached forward and thumbed the com switch.
“This is captain Cortez of the sifter Bounty. I experienced an unplanned course alteration non-com of Jupiter. I was forced to abandon the sifting run and to cannibalize the main atmospheric nitrogen tank to power the maneuvering thrusters. I blacked out during the last burn, give me a minute to evaluate my situation, over.”
A crackle of static. “Roger that captain Cortez, this is Dockmaster Simmons. Rescue and salvage ships are standing by. We make your first pass to be in an hour and a half and your orbit unstable. Evaluate your situation quickly, we need to get this on the first pass. It’s good to hear from you, sir. Over.”
James smiled. “It’s damn good to be heard Simmons. I’ll have that sit rep asap. Out.”
James Cortez, captain of the sifter Bounty out of Beacon Station, spaceman in good standing of the Beacon Station Local Fleet and pilot-third-class considered Jupiter with a wistful grin for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t too late to reach the stars.

[Snowglare]

Since I have seen that many people start their threads with a sort of introductory post and then place their story in a reply I have done likewise. I don't recall seeing this practice in the rules, but "when in Rome..."

I see it as an advertisement for the story. If it does nothing to interest people in reading the story, or even detracts somehow, like by spoiling the plot, then it's bad. If it gives people a reason to read a story they otherwise wouldn't have, then good job. And it's entirely optional.

Solid sci-fi story you have here. Something about the subject matter and the writing style kept me from really enjoying it, but I wouldn't call it bad. I'm big on characterisation, dialogue, and other things that weren't the focus of this story. It was more about how one man dealt with a single dramatic event. Certainly some characterisation there, don't get me wrong, but I felt that Jupiter was the main attraction. Or rather, James Cortez vs. Jupiter, winner take epilogue. The science half of the sci-fi was all believable enough. Only I don't care about that stuff. It could all be dead-on accurate, or it could be a mishmash of theorems and pseudo-science, and I wouldn't know or mind. I'd say the biggest problem with our author-reader relationship is that I'm not your target audience. *shrug*

There are many different ways to write, more than a few of which are good for telling stories. I can't say with confidence that yours isn't one of them. All I know to do is point out a few parts I didn't care for, and remind you that experimentation leads to growth ;).

"Even if I die here, it's not bad for a life's work. I may not have reached the stars, but I came further than all but a handful. Stars exploded before his eyes."

Don't care for the repetition of "stars" here. Detracts from the impact of the second sentence. I actually like the third sentence, just not the passage as a whole.

"You'll get psych evaluated out of the damn corps at this rate."

"I'll have that sit rep asap."

In the first sentence, you abbreviate psychiatric/psychological, but not evaluation/evaluated. In the second sentence, you abbreviated both situation and report. I prefer the latter. Half and half feels awkward. "Psych evaled" doesn't sound as natural as "sit rep," but... yeah. Just a thought.

Plenty of good stuff, too, like this paragraph: "He saw the bands slipping by, moving at dizzying speeds, but seeming to crawl at this distance. He saw a tiny storm, in all likelihood larger than a continent. As the breath crushed from his lungs, his eyes pounded into his head and the hull temperature began to rise from friction with the edges of the Jovian atmosphere, James realized that it was beautiful."

Very nice. The style in general isn't my thing, but I can't hate it. Not many technical errors, but any is too many.

"He had a death grip on the hand hold by the outer air-lock at least."

Maybe I'm daft. Webster says handhold isn't a word, yet it looks so much better than "hand hold". Eh. Also, "air-lock" changes to "airlock" later in the story. Webster says two words, hyphen optional, but I say one word, no hyphen. Your choice, but stick with it.

"James had seen it's teeth now though, and the sight of the Great Storm roiling miles below him made his stomach flip."

It's is always a contraction. I just said it is is always a contraction. Or it was is, or something else equally nonsensical. When making "it" possessive, you want to simply add an s, creating "its". Pronouns never use apostrophes to denote possession. Hers, his, theirs, its.

"That was just the way they though."

Typo. Should be thought.

Think there were a few more, but I don't see them now. You should write more.

[tarnok]

Thanks for reading.

Solid sci-fi story you have here. Something about the subject matter and the writing style kept me from really enjoying it, but I wouldn't call it bad. ...[snipped for space]... I'd say the biggest problem with our author-reader relationship is that I'm not your target audience. *shrug*


Quite understandable. I appreciate your reading through it in spite of that.

"Even if I die here, it's not bad for a life's work. I may not have reached the stars, but I came further than all but a handful. Stars exploded before his eyes."

Don't care for the repetition of "stars" here. Detracts from the impact of the second sentence. I actually like the third sentence, just not the passage as a whole.


I quite agree on this point. The last bit was something of a last second replacement for another line that I didn't think meshed well. It's something that needs tweaking other than late at night just as I'm posting the story.


In the first sentence, you abbreviate psychiatric/psychological, but not evaluation/evaluated. In the second sentence, you abbreviated both situation and report. I prefer the latter. Half and half feels awkward. "Psych evaled" doesn't sound as natural as "sit rep," but... yeah. Just a thought.


Believe it or not "sit rep" is an abbreviation I've heard before in at least two different places, so in that case I was using an existing mangling of the language. In the "psych evaluated" case I was winging it and I couldn't think of anything for "evaluated" that rolled off the tounge as I thought a good abbreviation should. Perhaps adding a hyphen and pronouncing it as one word would make it sound a bit better?


Regarding the technical errors, those always annoy me because as many times as I read over it I should have caught them. Believe it or not though, the ability to spell correctly is fairly new to me, and I struggled with "its" and "it's" right through to the end of this story. The errors you pointed out have been corrected in my back up of the file.

Thanks again for your help.

[0xDEADCAFE]

I liked it. The technical content was tasty and reasonable, and the characterizations of the pilot's emotions were vivid. I second the motion that you should write more. The story read easily and I felt a twinge of disappointment at the end when it became clear that it was a short story rather than a first chapter; that should tell you something.

But I did have a couple of problems with the premise:

- Normally you think of pilots as cool to the Nth degree: people who remain calm and collected right up to the point where the plane crashes into the ground. While there are plenty of sci-fi characters who defy this cliche, it seems a bit far-fetched that anyone quite this shaky could really survive in such a dangerous profession.

- It is hard to imagine that they would not provide for a larger margin of error, even given the payload-cost argument. Especially if the ship refuels at the orbiting station. There's no payload cost for adding more fuel if both tanks are orbiting together, and any unused fuel could always be used for the next mission. True, more fuel onboard would mean more mass, which would mean more fuel burned, but it just seems like they cut it way too close. The accident seemed to be rather minor, and yet the pilot was placed in a near-fatal predicament.

Nitpicky, I know, but sci-fi depends on believability to some extent I think. These nits did not stop me from enjoying the story however.

[tarnok]

Thanks for the input 0xDEADCAFE.

Regarding your first point, I see James as a different breed than the astronauts or even airplane pilots of today. First, the commercial spacecraft he pilots are run mostly by computer. Everything is pre-planned, and any alterations are figured by the on board computer. The controls have been greatly simplified. As a result, the rigorous training that is required today and the strong discipline that went hand in hand with it is largely a thing of the past in James' time. James is more like a truck driver or a garbage man. The "captain" and other various titles are more of a conceit than a meaningful measure of James' achievments. To be sure he has had to learn a lot more than your average truck driver, but he no more expects to face death in the course of his job than that average truck driver does.

The second point is a bit harder. I conceed that, if you consider it carefully, it may seem silly that fuel was a problem in this situation. Since extra fuel would completely remove the tension in the story though, I'm confident that I can come up with, at least, a believable reason for it. The two chief ones I'd say are that the company James works for is as cheap as it can get away with and that, minor as the effects James saw were, the cumulative effect on his course was about as serious as any disaster the company might have predicted that could be repaired by a course change.

I'm working on another story. Hopefully I'll be able to avoid the mistakes I made here in favor of all new mistakes. I don't have any plans for another story about James or Beacon Station right now. I'm somewhat strongly of the opinion that many good things are ruined by not knowing when to end. And yet, one of my favorite books (Ender's Game) started out as a short story in one of those sci-fi/fantasy magazines.