I was flying in my ship when I saw it. I was out on patrol.
We were supposed to be watching the main route between Holm and Therice, and I was. But I had just fixed and upgraded my sensors, so I tested them.
I watched the data stream in. I left T’angdo, my overqualified wingman, to monitor the route. The data was of better quality than I expected with less static. Then when the lidar data came back, it showed a huge object that wasn’t supposed to be there.
I flicked on my radio, “Uh, T’angdo. There might be a large unaccounted-for asteroid one light minute from us. Around two from Holmes?”
“I don’t remember any of that profile on the asteroid charts. Collect more data. And tell some astronomers about this,” he said.
I flew about and did more scans to discover its speed and position. I sent all the data to whatever astronomy department was left after Alyinta’s refocusing. I then did some basic analysis. Ideally, I would have landed first and done it on a proper computer, but I had a nagging thought that wouldn't leave my head which the preliminary analysis supported.
“T’angdo, I think it’s going to crash into Holme. And it’s big. Maybe 100 kilometers wide? It definitely wasn’t on the asteroid charts.”
We flew back to Holme, abandoning the patrol. T’angdo got to work with the astronomers designing possible plans to redirect the asteroid. I had to call the new anti-extinction minister. I only remember being nervous the entire call, I hadn’t spoken to Alyinta since university and the planet was in danger.
“Hello, this is Alyinta, anti-extinction minister. How can I help you?” she said.
“It’s Skalony. Me and T’ang– I saw an asteroid when out on patrol, and it’s extinction-class.”
“Send me the data. I’ll take a look.”
The call ended. I gathered all the data we had gathered and sent it to her office. After that, I didn’t know what to do. My missed potential never hurt so much as when I knew what was coming, but didn’t have the role to help. And so I went back into my ship to gain more data on the asteroid, even if we had enough already.
By the time I landed, Alyinta had announced the planetary evacuation plan. My job as a pilot of a small ship was to collect as many people from the remote areas of Halfin sector as possible.
I flew that ship back and forth from a small town to the world-ship to a house in the middle of a forest to the world-ship, cramming in as many people as physically fit.
We didn’t have enough ships for all the people scattered in remote areas, so I was assigned to more people than our five days gave me time for.
I’d only sleep in thirty minutes increments on the trip up to the world-ship, the autopilot covering for me. I couldn’t sleep for longer and condemn someone to death.
On the last day, I still had over fifty locations left to pick up. Most of these had less than five people at them, so I could travel to multiple places before the world-ship.
One hour before the world-ship was to leave, I had ten locations left. I managed to pick up from five of them and bring the people to the world-ship.
I then had fifteen minutes before take-off.
“All ships on Holme, take off and join the world-ship” repeated over and over on the radio.
I went back down. One more group of people. There was a campsite in my sector with five people there; I could grab them and then hopefully take off before the asteroid hits, and catch up with the world-ship. I had enough fuel.
I landed in the only clearing within a kilometer of their location, a rocky outcropping but clear of trees. I exited the ship and saw one person sitting by the fire.
“Get in!” I screamed
“Is something happening?”
“Asteroid. Planetary evacuation,” I said. “Where are the others?”
Two people come out of the tent.
“Pento and Olam went for a hike. They went down that trail,” one of them says.
“You get in the ship. I’ll get Pento and Olam,” I said.
I was a cross-country star back in University and we were already losing to time.
I ran down the path; I don’t know how fast– I threw out all thoughts of pacing.
I almost knocked into the two people walking the other way.
“Olam and Pento? Come with me. Asteroid. Planetary evacuation. Now!”
One of them was limping, so I carried them. I don’t know how I gathered the strength.
We reached the ship, and I shoved them in the back.
I took off before running through any safety procedures. Before I had strapped in, even.
I hadn’t turned off the radio, it was counting down. I assumed until impact.
We had four minutes.
We were barely out of the atmosphere and had just passed the first boundary that marked us into space at the time of the impact.
The shockwave messed up all my sensors and would have set off damage alarms if I hadn’t turned them off months ago.
I piloted with only the homing message of the world-ship to guide me. I put the engines on the highest setting I could.
At some point, the force of acceleration stopped. I didn’t have as much fuel as I thought.
I turned on my SOS beacon and scanned the radio to find the bands not used by the world-ship’s homing beacon.
“Patrol Ship, this is the Pleasure Cruiser we received your signal. We’ll get you to the world-ship,” someone said.
In a few minutes, the ship shook with the tug of meter-thick cables.
I went in back to check on the campers. They were all alive and seemed fine, so I fell asleep.
I awoke to the chaos of the temporary ship repair yard. I found my ship, which had two people working on it. They were crammed against another ship with barely enough room to squeeze between.
“How long until it’s fixed?” I asked.
“You the pilot?” one of the mechanics asked, poking her head out from underneath.
I nodded.
“Can you fix whatever is on the inside while the ship is in flight? Non-necessary systems.”
“Yeah. I frequently modify my ship,” I said.
“We noticed,” the second mechanic said. “In that case, it’ll be ready in five minutes. We’re trying to get ships out of here as fast as possible.”
I helped them in their final inspection and threw myself back to the helm. I tuned into the radio and found instructions for where in the formation I was supposed to position my ship. I tried to put it into autopilot, following the ship in front of me, but I needed to repair autopilot first.
I fixed autopilot while checking every minute to see if I needed to adjust the flight plan. Once I got the autopilot up, I let myself relax and list all the repairs needed.
Over the next months, I slowly chipped away at the repairs. Each one brought my ship more functionality and made me more confident I could help if we ran into trouble. I used my monthly leave to the world-ship mostly for repairs I couldn’t do from inside my ship.
A system soon started to allow pilots longer times than the five hour leave on the world-ship. We would trade our ship to a pilot on the world-ship for a month. Even though it had only been three months, almost everyone grasped at the chance to leave their little boxes for longer. There weren’t enough extra pilots to take all the ships, so most people except those with the best ships were left waiting.
After two months, it seemed every ship signing up to have some pilot take over got a response. And so I finally signed up. I checked the next day, and a teenager who had almost qualified for a pilot license had signed up. I looked over the info he sent, and it seemed fine for the keep-the-ship-in-formation flying we do.
I docked my ship and got out with a suitcase. The teen was there waiting. I gave him a tour of the ship and the modifications I had done.
He seemed nervous; he didn’t talk a lot.
“Well, she’s yours for the next month. Sorry you had to get such an odd ship for your first time flying, but if you have any questions, call for T’angdo. He knows almost everything I did to that ship, and he’s smart. Next time you’ll probably get a fancier ship.”
“It’ll be an honor to fly your ship, sir,” he said. “This is more than I ever dreamed I’d get when I heard I could fly one of the ships.”
I watched him take off and then went with his mother to take over his room.
“You're his hero, you know,” she said.
“Must have me confused with T’angdo,” I said. “He’s the one who made all the protocols for asteroid collisions.”
“You first noticed the asteroid and saved people up until the last moment. Do you not know you’re famous?”
I didn’t. But everyone else seemed to. I always seemed to be the last person to know anything. I didn’t learn of the elections for a governor of the settlement until a week after I was elected. At least I saw the asteroid early.