Ride The Lightning

everittdmickey (73)in #fiction • 7 years ago (edited)

Part 4: Die

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On Earth many islands, and populated shore lines had succumbed to the rising sea level. In a ridiculously short time almost all evidence of a high tech civilizations existence was hidden beneath the ocean.

Far, far out in space the the ship was slowly, slowly repairing itself. The problem remained that when it was repaired it’s speed was high enough that it would leave the system.

“Fooey “ Autumn thought “if it’s not one thing it’s another. How can I slow down and return home?”

She modeled and evaluated various scenarios. She discarded them just as quickly.

“Nope..can’t ram an asteroid or a comet. Going this fast I’d turn into an expanding globe of plasma. Not a good idea. What other options are there?” She thought.

“Wait a minute. Hold that thought. Expanding globe of plasma? hmmmm...perhaps I can do something with that idea” she mused.

All of the sensible options had been eliminated. None had panned out. All that remained were the stupid ones. She began to model and evaluate the stupids.

“If it’s stupid and it works it ain’t stupid” she thought to herself. “Let’s see if this is stupid.”

Autumn implemented a remodeling project. Molecular furnaces, fabricators, replicators, and 3D printers all over the ship were activated. Mobile units scurried hither and yon, moving things as need be...assembling manufactured parts as need be.

The ship morphed. Over time it’s exterior damage was repaired and, among other things, it was fitted with a huge magnetic ram scoop. Autumn manipulated her time sense during this period. She would slow herself down so that days passed by like seconds during times when nothing much was happening. If close supervision was required for a critical task she would increase her clock speed and seconds, to her, would creep by like days. She observes something previously unknown about the universe. Reality is different beyond the HelioSphere, unseen from inside of it. She gathered all the data that she could while the ship repairs continued. Eventually the repair and remodeling job was completed.

It was time to go hunting.

Comets.

The ship was far, far beyond the outermost limits of the solar system. There weren't any small asteroids but there were comets scattered wide. She was in the Oort cloud. Forward looking radar could identify a potential target far, far ahead. The ship had insufficient fuel for it’s now repaired ion drive but had plenty for it’s maneuvering thrusters. It could alter it’s headlong plunge into darkness...slightly.

The ship’s radar located a target that it could intercept. The maneuvering thrusters activated. The distance closed.

Beamers were slaved to the targeting computer. They fired on the comet. The comet was hit. Gas boiled off rapidly.

Too rapidly.

By the time the Icarus swept thru that space most of the gas had dissipated beyond the reach of its ram scoop. Much less ‘comet stuff’ was captured than Autumn had hoped for. She had harvested far less than anticipated.

Practice was needed. The learning curve was steep. Reaction mass for the nuclear powered Ion Engines was available now... some. She could maneuver more. She had a greater choice of targets. Each time she vaporized gas from a comet she harvested more. Autumn experimented. Eventually she became more skilled and collected MUCH more reaction mass.

It took a long time but eventually the ship was ready….to head home.

It began to decelerate. It took a lot of reaction mass to negate the velocity acquired by the “slingshot” around the sun. It barely had enough. She had used all of her fuel getting turned around and began the long fall back toward the sun, once again empty of reaction mass.

She had intended to find more comets to refuel again on the way down. She was moving much slower, much slower than the trip out. It would take a long long time to return to the inner system. She had intended to mine comets on the inward fall to increase her velocity. Unfortunately she wasn’t immortal. She’d lived long past the life expectancy of her species. Her cyborg brain been kept alive by automation. but it was very, very old.

Ancient.

She died peacefully in her sleep. Of old age. Not even the automatic systems could keep her alive any longer. With no one at the helm the ship continued it’s trajectory, on automatic pilot. She’d been mining the comets on manual. She’d not programmed the procedure into the system. The ship had the capacity to gather more reaction mass..but there was no one to tell it to do so.

Eventually after long years, the ship approached the inner solar system that it had left so quickly. Autumn would have been happy to see it. She would have been happy to arrive….if she had been alive.

She wasn’t.