Since men started shoveling coal into steam plants, silence on a ship is a quick indicator that something is wrong. Even when a ship is all stop there are still plenty of machines at work – pumps cooling the engine, electricity humming in the bulkheads, or the whirring of fresh air spilling out of the vents. These are all healthy indicators of a ship capable of life. In the void, it is no different…a silent ship is a dead one. Even when all hands are in their bunks and the captain is asleep in his cabin, recycled oxygen circulates throughout the modules, the internal bulkheads gently hum with the reactor, and hundreds of support systems beep and buzz. A silent voidcraft among the stars will experience entropy. Silence is dangerous. A silent voidcraft that hasn’t quite escaped Earth’s gravity and is gliding 40 kilometers above the Central Pacific Ocean. Well…that’s a different problem entirely.

It was supposed to be simple, at least that’s what I told myself as four successive shudders were felt on the stick. The Eagle’s display screens flickered as the auxiliary power failed to start. The stick remained unresponsive.

Lyla Jericho was to my right in the co-pilot’s chair. She asked, “are you seeing this?” As if I wouldn’t notice the entire craft losing power as we entered the stratosphere.

“Switch to spectrum,” I replied as I activated my HUD. At the time, I was only linked up to level one as the Reclaimer Program rejected candidates with cybernetic links higher than one. My personal cybernetics were nothing fancy, they were a gift from my dad when I turned 18. The best part about it was that I had my own personal HUD that required no additional wearables. It gave me geo-coordinates, my altitude on earth, and my personal biometrics such as my heart rate. My HUD also allowed me to interact with my prototype Reclaimer All-Terrain Multi-Environment Pressure Suits. We just referred to these as “tempsuits.”

“Hammer!” yelled Drex Hammond. He was sitting in the weapons officer pod, also known as the WSR (pronounced whizzer) beneath the main cabin. His 270-degree portholes gave him the best view in the house. Since it was a training exercise, there was no need for weapons, so his control console was mostly de-activated.

“Yes?”

“Why are we moving back towards the clouds?” Drex stated nonchalant.

A slight tug of gravity pitched the craft forward and down.

“Umm…Standby,” I replied. I always liked Drex. The system wasn’t doing its complete reboot as planned.

“Hammer, I have errors I’ve never seen before,” said Ken Taka sitting at the flight engineer console. Ken had considerable experience with DFD, direct fusion drives, so the statement caught me off guard.

I quickly tried to toggle some controls and got no response from the Eagle.

“Crosswind this is Red Gamma, we have a catastrophic loss of power, over.”

Silence. I tried again. “Crosswind this is Red Gamma, over.”

I caught a glimpse of the horizon – a thin line of yellow fire peeked over the bluish haze.

“Hammer, what’s going on,” Tyler Costello’s voice came over the comms. He was the navigator for the mission and was plotting our trip to Luna-2. We were practicing to fly with no auto-guidance or autopilot.

Our descent accelerated. Six lives onboard, I told myself. The control screens stopped flickering and finally turned on.

The altimeter started to decrease gradually, then suddenly. “Alex, the engines have shut off…” Lyla’s voice sounded panicked. I noticed that the reactor diagram on the console displayed that both Alpha and Bravo Engine had completely shut off.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” I said.

Ahmed Saar, the Reclaimer Program’s liaison training officer, was sitting behind Tyler at the engineering console. “Cycle a reboot immediately.”

I reached under the console and moved the small red switch. Nothing happened. I flipped it again. Nothing.

I told Ahmed that the reboot was ineffective.

“Release the emergency braking chutes,” he replied.

I broke the glass and prepared to press the PARACHUTE BRAKE button.

“Press it.”

With a tactile click, I pressed the button. I pressed it again. An error buzzer started sounding.

“That’s impossible…they are analog…” said Ahmed.

“Parachutes are not released!” yelled Tyler nervously.

“…That’s not supposed to happen,” Ahmed sounded confused.

The Eagle OBS was just a prototype, yet something seemed oddly wrong. Cascading, unrelated failures throughout the system were as Ahmed said…not supposed to happen.

40 kilometers.

“Alex, what are we going to do?” Lyla asked.

I needed to get us down. I knew the Eagle was engineered for many different types of collisions, such as impacts with asteroids or ice. The voidcraft’s hull would probably be fine yet no amount of nano-engineering could prevent us from dripping off the bulkheads after impact.

36 kilometers.

I started to feel as if I was being choked by gravity.

30 kilometers.

“Drex, open all the weapons doors.” We needed to create drag.

Two large mechanical clicking sounds could be heard. Thank God those controls were analog.

The craft slightly bounced as it caught the air. “Doors open.” Drex sounded slightly winded.

“Crosswind, this is Red Gamma, over,” I managed to say as the increasing strain of G-forces could be felt on my lungs

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind,” Deputy Program Director April Lee came over the net. “Why are you returning to the launch site?”

“Crosswind, Red Gamma. We have a catastrophic loss of power. Request Goalkeeper immediately over.” Goalkeeper was a hypersonic Low Earth Orbit (LEO) retrieval platform originally designed for intercepting hazardous satellites or illicit craft as they re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. Goalkeeper utilized an advanced sensor network to identify craft in launch or descent. We needed Goalkeeper to match our descent speed. Once Goalkeeper attained our course and speed, it would be able to latch onto the Eagle and gently slow the Eagle’s speed.

The radio was silent for a few moments, “Copy, we see the issue up here. Standby.”

29 kilometers. Tyler started screaming in his seat.

“Goalkeeper away.”

Lyla let out a sigh of relief.

28 kilometers. I acknowledged the overheat warning on the weapons module and ordered Drex to shut the blast covers.

I released the craft’s retracted aft delta wings. The stick shuddered.

“I’ve regained some control.” I started to roll the craft.

Gravity and fear had temporarily silenced my crewmates…except Tyler.

25 kilometers.

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind. We copied your distress call. Goalkeeper unable to meet you at your current velocity. If possible, pitch your craft up towards the stars to slow descent with keel.”

“Copy.” I replied.

“Hammer!” exclaimed Ken Taka. “System reboot in 1 minute.”

“Increasing roll 5 degrees,” said Lyla as she re-assumed some control of the craft’s co-pilot stick.

22 kilometers.

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind. If you don’t bleed more speed in less than 30 seconds, you’ll hit the deck with zero assistance from Goalkeeper.”

“Red Gamma, copies all.”

18 kilometers. All that we could see outside our windows was a thick orange haze as the atmosphere attempted to dissolve us.

13 kilometers. The craft wouldn’t pitch up any further and we were falling more like a 20th century space capsule instead of the somewhat controlled descent we were attempting.

“Alex, the depth in these waters…even if we do survive…” said Ahmed.

I told him we needed to prevent implosion before worrying about drowning.

At that moment, drowning was a secondary concern. However, depending on how we impacted the ocean, the Eagle’s sleek body almost assured us of a quick sprint toward the seafloor. However, the tactical yet thin and comfortable tempsuits we were wearing would hypothetically prevent us from drowning. Tempsuits could sustain all human life support needs for a minimum of six hours in some of Solis’ harshest environments such as Venetian mountain peaks or icy caverns on Europa. Surely, that included Earth’s own oceans.

10 kilometers.

Then we heard the comforting jingle of the system being rebooted. For a brief few seconds, it seemed like everything would be alright.

Lyla passed the bad news, “Alex, the engines aren’t igniting. Fusion restart failed.” She flipped two switches. “Thrusters activated.”

“That’s impossible!” I didn’t have time to acknowledge Ahmed.

Auxiliary power could only control the midships and bow thrusters. In the event of an emergency during docking procedures, the Eagle’s thrusters would still enable the craft to dock safely.

“Ken, transfer all non-critical auxiliary power to the mid-thrusters.” The cabin went dark as the touchpad controls dimmed. A rumble was felt as the thrusters fought to stabilize the descent speed. It wasn’t enough.

8 kilometers.

I pressed the parachute button again. Nothing.

The crew slightly panicked as Tyler started to scream violently and writhing in his seat. Drex kept speaking gently over the net trying to calm Tyler down.

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind. I need you to immediately bring your pitch to match Goalkeeper. Inbound in 15 seconds.”

A yellow-black display box appeared on the corner of my main console. It was the Goalkeeper attempting to communicate with the Eagle. I tried to concentrate over Tyler’s screaming.

Lyla and I de-activated the forward thrusters. The lack of resistance immediately tossed the Eagle into a downward angle. It felt as if our descent speed doubled. The floor for Goalkeeper was an altitude of 1 km, it had to slow us down before we got there.

4 kilometers.

We were cutting it close. A green warning light flashed on my HUD.

I let out a sigh of relief as the main control console indicated there was an unidentified object within 30 meters of the Eagle – it was Goalkeeper. Lyla announced the Goalkeeper’s approach. Maybe we were going to make it. The craft began to hum as Goalkeeper’s magnetic coupling commenced.

3 kilometers.

The hum turned into a vibration. Lyla and I were intensely focused on manually controlling the mid-thrusters to keep the craft as stable as possible as Goalkeeper transitioned to the physical coupling process. Tyler’s screaming continued as Ken attempted to calm him down.

“Oh, God,” said Lyla as she turned around in her seat. That was the last thing I remembered aboard the Eagle.

Despite being masters of unmanned vehicles and synthetic intelligence, humanity had always preferred (despite the cost and advanced sciences required) a human in the seat. Cruising through the void was no different from a Wright brother gliding at Kitty Hawk, Neil Armstrong safely touching down the Apollo lander safely in the Sea of Tranquility, or E. Bruce Walker navigating The Belt to land on Ceres. We loved to be in the seat regardless of the lifeless robotics that were available. Not much had changed since the 20th century. Though, these adventures required us to have the ability to punch out, to eject. Today, a medium-sized voidcraft would usually have one small escape pod capable of bringing a lucky few to safe haven. However, almost all modern OBS, such as the Eagle, allow the entire crew a chance to escape.

The Eagle was programmed to de-activate the ejection system while running on auxiliary power. These safety locks gave the pilot and co-pilot control of the voidcraft and prevented the crew from inadvertently taking catastrophic actions in-flight – the pilot would choose when it was safe to abandon ship. Some of the other safety locks included the de-activation of manual operation of air locks and automating the cabin oxygen levels. As the Eagle cycled back power from Alpha Engine, the safety mechanism de-activated and control of the craft safety system shifted back to each individual crew member.

As Goalkeeper closed within 2 meters of us, the Eagle began to tremble violently.

Once he felt these new vibrations, Tyler must have thought the Eagle was about to rip apart. In a fit of panic, he stopped screaming and clamored for the ejection buckle.

The speed of the Eagle broke Tyler’s neck immediately as his head breached the overhead opening. Though, Tyler’s ejection wasn’t what doomed the Eagle. At a speed of nearly 100 miles per hour, Tyler’s lifeless mass sprung into Goalkeeper and caused our rescue vehicle to become unstable. The Goalkeeper’s onboard guidance system attempted to slow the wobble caused by Tyler’s impact, but the wobble increased until friction ripped apart, then the Goalkeeper imploded.

1 kilometer.

Goalkeeper’s implosion fractured its stainless-steel hull like a giant fragmentary grenade that spewed shrapnel into Tyler’s now-open ejection portal. Ken had his face ripped off and Ahmed’s body was punctured by shrapnel ping-ponging inside the command cabin. The blast itself caused the Eagle to roll over and barrel down towards the glass-like ocean.

2 meters below the sea.

I gasped for air as I came to. My tempsuit wasn’t torn and I could still breathe oxygen. My HUD reported my Med ID was inaccessible, so I didn’t know if anything was broken. The navigator’s cabin was already burbling with salt water and Lyla’s chair was empty. The ejection hatch above her seat remained closed so I assumed she escaped through one of the airlocks. I reached down for my ejector cable and felt it via the gloves’ haptics. As I tensed to pull the cable, a thought went through my head: if I blew open this hatch the cabin would finish flooding immediately and anybody left inside would drown.

3 meters below the sea.

The craft wasn’t sinking as fast as we anticipated. The main console displayed that all of the storage compartments and reactor room were sealed, likely providing just enough buoyancy to keep the Eagle from racing towards the bottom. The Eagle wasn’t designed to be a transmedium craft so it couldn’t propel itself out of the ocean even if the engine was working.

5 meters below the sea.

I detached from my seat. “Lyla, Drex, anybody copy?”

“Alex, you’ve gotta help me.” It was Drex. He said he was trapped in the WSR.

I swam into the main cabin. Unlike the navigation cabin, it was almost completely flooded because Tyler’s escape hatch was blown open. The sea was battling the remaining air pressure as it attempted to flood the craft. The Eagle’s onboard synthetic intelligence was probably trying to re-gain equilibrium in air pressure and injecting breathable gases into the main cabin. All the lights in the main cabin were still on so the water appeared a brilliant turquoise color. There was no sign of anybody else. Where was Lyla? The craft shifted slightly; I grabbed hold of a handlebar on the bulkhead. The craft was sinking.

12 meters below the sea.

It felt as if somebody was pinching my ear canal as the tempsuit wasn’t optimized for hydro-static squeeze. They were built for the open void; they weren’t meant for the increasing atmospheric pressure caused by rapid descent towards the ocean floor.

“Drex, I’m coming.” I swung around the ladderwell that led down to the WSR. Drex was still in his seat.

“Alex, I can’t get out. Can you cut me loose?” His three-strap belt was clamped down tightly on his tempsuit. He attempted to eject, but the system didn’t work. His hatch only de-pressurized and his seat still thought it was about to eject thus tightening his belt in place to prevent him from moving. Because of his location at the bottom of the craft, ejecting Drex would shoot him towards the seafloor.

18 meters.

Drex let out an inaudible grumble and grabbed at his helmet. The atmosphere at this depth wouldn’t kill us but the pain was distracting. He was clearly feeling it his nasal cavity and ear canal too. I needed to get us out of there. I grabbed the ladderwell and swung myself back up to the main cabin to grab the small axe mounted on the bulkhead. I was back in the WSR within 30 seconds.

20 meters.

With a gentle carve, the axe’s blade parted the strap around Drex’s waist. I repeated this with the strap securing his right shoulder. After the second strap fell away, I gently tugged him out of seat and he floated up.

“I owe you a bottle of mash,” he said with a whimper. Despite the pain ringing through our heads, we exchanged smiles.

“We need to get out of here. Now.”

My heartbeat was elevated to 140 bpm.

24 meters.

I thought the first time I would float in an Eagle would be above the atmosphere in zero gravity. Now, I was literally floating in ocean water inside the Eagle’s main cabin. The craft continued to sink. It was a bit harder to move through the cabin as there was drag on our suits and the water was pushing back on us. We used hand-over-hand movements to get back towards the blown hole in the main cabin.

Static noises pulsed in my earpiece. I ignored it.

30 meters. The main cabin was now completely flooded.

“Alex, when you get outside the Eagle. Flood your suit with oxygen. It should get you to the surface,” stated Drex. I queued up the suit command in my HUD.

“Got it,” I said and grabbed the ring of Tyler’s blown hatch.

36 meters.

“If they don’t pick us up quick, we survived a sub-orbital crash out just to die of the bends,” I joked as my helmet’s earpiece came to life.

A shout calling “Alex!” echoed in our helmets. It was Lyla. Drex and I both responded and told her we were coming to the surface. She didn’t reply. I pulled my feet clear of the craft; I didn’t need to get caught on the jagged edges caused by the explosion.

40 meters.

I tried equilibrizing my sinuses, but it was nearly impossible at this point without being able to plug my nose. I used my HUD to increase oxygen levels to maximum. I started to ascend.

36 meters.

30 meters.

Lyla’s voice broke through again, “Alex, Drex, anybody! Can you hear me? I’m locked in the research module. The airlock won’t open. Help!”

20 meters.

My nose started to bleed from the rapid decompression. I passed out right before I broke the surface with Lyla still shouting in my ear.

Since men started shoveling coal into steam plants, silence on a ship is a quick indicator that something is wrong. Even when a ship is all stop there are still plenty of machines at work – pumps cooling the engine, electricity humming in the bulkheads, or the whirring of fresh air spilling out of the vents. These are all healthy indicators of a ship capable of life. In the void, it is no different…a silent ship is a dead one. Even when all hands are in their bunks and the captain is asleep in his cabin, recycled oxygen circulates throughout the modules, the internal bulkheads gently hum with the reactor, and hundreds of support systems beep and buzz. A silent voidcraft among the stars will experience entropy. Silence is dangerous. A silent voidcraft that hasn’t quite escaped Earth’s gravity and is gliding 40 kilometers above the Central Pacific Ocean. Well…that’s a different problem entirely.

It was supposed to be simple, at least that’s what I told myself as four successive shudders were felt on the stick. The Eagle’s display screens flickered as the auxiliary power failed to start. The stick remained unresponsive.

Lyla Jericho was to my right in the co-pilot’s chair. She asked, “are you seeing this?” As if I wouldn’t notice the entire craft losing power as we entered the stratosphere.

“Switch to spectrum,” I replied as I activated my HUD. At the time, I was only linked up to level one as the Reclaimer Program rejected candidates with cybernetic links higher than one. My personal cybernetics were nothing fancy, they were a gift from my dad when I turned 18. The best part about it was that I had my own personal HUD that required no additional wearables. It gave me geo-coordinates, my altitude on earth, and my personal biometrics such as my heart rate. My HUD also allowed me to interact with my prototype Reclaimer All-Terrain Multi-Environment Pressure Suits. We just referred to these as “tempsuits.”

“Hammer!” yelled Drex Hammond. He was sitting in the weapons officer pod, also known as the WSR (pronounced whizzer) beneath the main cabin. His 270-degree portholes gave him the best view in the house. Since it was a training exercise, there was no need for weapons, so his control console was mostly de-activated.

“Yes?”

“Why are we moving back towards the clouds?” Drex stated nonchalant.

A slight tug of gravity pitched the craft forward and down.

“Umm…Standby,” I replied. I always liked Drex. The system wasn’t doing its complete reboot as planned.

“Hammer, I have errors I’ve never seen before,” said Ken Taka sitting at the flight engineer console. Ken had considerable experience with DFD, direct fusion drives, so the statement caught me off guard.

I quickly tried to toggle some controls and got no response from the Eagle.

“Crosswind this is Red Gamma, we have a catastrophic loss of power, over.”

Silence. I tried again. “Crosswind this is Red Gamma, over.”

I caught a glimpse of the horizon – a thin line of yellow fire peeked over the bluish haze.

“Hammer, what’s going on,” Tyler Costello’s voice came over the comms. He was the navigator for the mission and was plotting our trip to Luna-2. We were practicing to fly with no auto-guidance or autopilot.

Our descent accelerated. Six lives onboard, I told myself. The control screens stopped flickering and finally turned on.

The altimeter started to decrease gradually, then suddenly. “Alex, the engines have shut off…” Lyla’s voice sounded panicked. I noticed that the reactor diagram on the console displayed that both Alpha and Bravo Engine had completely shut off.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” I said.

Ahmed Saar, the Reclaimer Program’s liaison training officer, was sitting behind Tyler at the engineering console. “Cycle a reboot immediately.”

I reached under the console and moved the small red switch. Nothing happened. I flipped it again. Nothing.

I told Ahmed that the reboot was ineffective.

“Release the emergency braking chutes,” he replied.

I broke the glass and prepared to press the PARACHUTE BRAKE button.

“Press it.”

With a tactile click, I pressed the button. I pressed it again. An error buzzer started sounding.

“That’s impossible…they are analog…” said Ahmed.

“Parachutes are not released!” yelled Tyler nervously.

“…That’s not supposed to happen,” Ahmed sounded confused.

The Eagle OBS was just a prototype, yet something seemed oddly wrong. Cascading, unrelated failures throughout the system were as Ahmed said…not supposed to happen.

40 kilometers.

“Alex, what are we going to do?” Lyla asked.

I needed to get us down. I knew the Eagle was engineered for many different types of collisions, such as impacts with asteroids or ice. The voidcraft’s hull would probably be fine yet no amount of nano-engineering could prevent us from dripping off the bulkheads after impact.

36 kilometers.

I started to feel as if I was being choked by gravity.

30 kilometers.

“Drex, open all the weapons doors.” We needed to create drag.

Two large mechanical clicking sounds could be heard. Thank God those controls were analog.

The craft slightly bounced as it caught the air. “Doors open.” Drex sounded slightly winded.

“Crosswind, this is Red Gamma, over,” I managed to say as the increasing strain of G-forces could be felt on my lungs

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind,” Deputy Program Director April Lee came over the net. “Why are you returning to the launch site?”

“Crosswind, Red Gamma. We have a catastrophic loss of power. Request Goalkeeper immediately over.” Goalkeeper was a hypersonic Low Earth Orbit (LEO) retrieval platform originally designed for intercepting hazardous satellites or illicit craft as they re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. Goalkeeper utilized an advanced sensor network to identify craft in launch or descent. We needed Goalkeeper to match our descent speed. Once Goalkeeper attained our course and speed, it would be able to latch onto the Eagle and gently slow the Eagle’s speed.

The radio was silent for a few moments, “Copy, we see the issue up here. Standby.”

29 kilometers. Tyler started screaming in his seat.

“Goalkeeper away.”

Lyla let out a sigh of relief.

28 kilometers. I acknowledged the overheat warning on the weapons module and ordered Drex to shut the blast covers.

I released the craft’s retracted aft delta wings. The stick shuddered.

“I’ve regained some control.” I started to roll the craft.

Gravity and fear had temporarily silenced my crewmates…except Tyler.

25 kilometers.

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind. We copied your distress call. Goalkeeper unable to meet you at your current velocity. If possible, pitch your craft up towards the stars to slow descent with keel.”

“Copy.” I replied.

“Hammer!” exclaimed Ken Taka. “System reboot in 1 minute.”

“Increasing roll 5 degrees,” said Lyla as she re-assumed some control of the craft’s co-pilot stick.

22 kilometers.

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind. If you don’t bleed more speed in less than 30 seconds, you’ll hit the deck with zero assistance from Goalkeeper.”

“Red Gamma, copies all.”

18 kilometers. All that we could see outside our windows was a thick orange haze as the atmosphere attempted to dissolve us.

13 kilometers. The craft wouldn’t pitch up any further and we were falling more like a 20th century space capsule instead of the somewhat controlled descent we were attempting.

“Alex, the depth in these waters…even if we do survive…” said Ahmed.

I told him we needed to prevent implosion before worrying about drowning.

At that moment, drowning was a secondary concern. However, depending on how we impacted the ocean, the Eagle’s sleek body almost assured us of a quick sprint toward the seafloor. However, the tactical yet thin and comfortable tempsuits we were wearing would hypothetically prevent us from drowning. Tempsuits could sustain all human life support needs for a minimum of six hours in some of Solis’ harshest environments such as Venetian mountain peaks or icy caverns on Europa. Surely, that included Earth’s own oceans.

10 kilometers.

Then we heard the comforting jingle of the system being rebooted. For a brief few seconds, it seemed like everything would be alright.

Lyla passed the bad news, “Alex, the engines aren’t igniting. Fusion restart failed.” She flipped two switches. “Thrusters activated.”

“That’s impossible!” I didn’t have time to acknowledge Ahmed.

Auxiliary power could only control the midships and bow thrusters. In the event of an emergency during docking procedures, the Eagle’s thrusters would still enable the craft to dock safely.

“Ken, transfer all non-critical auxiliary power to the mid-thrusters.” The cabin went dark as the touchpad controls dimmed. A rumble was felt as the thrusters fought to stabilize the descent speed. It wasn’t enough.

8 kilometers.

I pressed the parachute button again. Nothing.

The crew slightly panicked as Tyler started to scream violently and writhing in his seat. Drex kept speaking gently over the net trying to calm Tyler down.

“Red Gamma, this is Crosswind. I need you to immediately bring your pitch to match Goalkeeper. Inbound in 15 seconds.”

A yellow-black display box appeared on the corner of my main console. It was the Goalkeeper attempting to communicate with the Eagle. I tried to concentrate over Tyler’s screaming.

Lyla and I de-activated the forward thrusters. The lack of resistance immediately tossed the Eagle into a downward angle. It felt as if our descent speed doubled. The floor for Goalkeeper was an altitude of 1 km, it had to slow us down before we got there.

4 kilometers.

We were cutting it close. A green warning light flashed on my HUD.

I let out a sigh of relief as the main control console indicated there was an unidentified object within 30 meters of the Eagle – it was Goalkeeper. Lyla announced the Goalkeeper’s approach. Maybe we were going to make it. The craft began to hum as Goalkeeper’s magnetic coupling commenced.

3 kilometers.

The hum turned into a vibration. Lyla and I were intensely focused on manually controlling the mid-thrusters to keep the craft as stable as possible as Goalkeeper transitioned to the physical coupling process. Tyler’s screaming continued as Ken attempted to calm him down.

“Oh, God,” said Lyla as she turned around in her seat. That was the last thing I remembered aboard the Eagle.

Despite being masters of unmanned vehicles and synthetic intelligence, humanity had always preferred (despite the cost and advanced sciences required) a human in the seat. Cruising through the void was no different from a Wright brother gliding at Kitty Hawk, Neil Armstrong safely touching down the Apollo lander safely in the Sea of Tranquility, or E. Bruce Walker navigating The Belt to land on Ceres. We loved to be in the seat regardless of the lifeless robotics that were available. Not much had changed since the 20th century. Though, these adventures required us to have the ability to punch out, to eject. Today, a medium-sized voidcraft would usually have one small escape pod capable of bringing a lucky few to safe haven. However, almost all modern OBS, such as the Eagle, allow the entire crew a chance to escape.

The Eagle was programmed to de-activate the ejection system while running on auxiliary power. These safety locks gave the pilot and co-pilot control of the voidcraft and prevented the crew from inadvertently taking catastrophic actions in-flight – the pilot would choose when it was safe to abandon ship. Some of the other safety locks included the de-activation of manual operation of air locks and automating the cabin oxygen levels. As the Eagle cycled back power from Alpha Engine, the safety mechanism de-activated and control of the craft safety system shifted back to each individual crew member.

As Goalkeeper closed within 2 meters of us, the Eagle began to tremble violently.

Once he felt these new vibrations, Tyler must have thought the Eagle was about to rip apart. In a fit of panic, he stopped screaming and clamored for the ejection buckle.

The speed of the Eagle broke Tyler’s neck immediately as his head breached the overhead opening. Though, Tyler’s ejection wasn’t what doomed the Eagle. At a speed of nearly 100 miles per hour, Tyler’s lifeless mass sprung into Goalkeeper and caused our rescue vehicle to become unstable. The Goalkeeper’s onboard guidance system attempted to slow the wobble caused by Tyler’s impact, but the wobble increased until friction ripped apart, then the Goalkeeper imploded.

1 kilometer.

Goalkeeper’s implosion fractured its stainless-steel hull like a giant fragmentary grenade that spewed shrapnel into Tyler’s now-open ejection portal. Ken had his face ripped off and Ahmed’s body was punctured by shrapnel ping-ponging inside the command cabin. The blast itself caused the Eagle to roll over and barrel down towards the glass-like ocean.

2 meters below the sea.

I gasped for air as I came to. My tempsuit wasn’t torn and I could still breathe oxygen. My HUD reported my Med ID was inaccessible, so I didn’t know if anything was broken. The navigator’s cabin was already burbling with salt water and Lyla’s chair was empty. The ejection hatch above her seat remained closed so I assumed she escaped through one of the airlocks. I reached down for my ejector cable and felt it via the gloves’ haptics. As I tensed to pull the cable, a thought went through my head: if I blew open this hatch the cabin would finish flooding immediately and anybody left inside would drown.

3 meters below the sea.

The craft wasn’t sinking as fast as we anticipated. The main console displayed that all of the storage compartments and reactor room were sealed, likely providing just enough buoyancy to keep the Eagle from racing towards the bottom. The Eagle wasn’t designed to be a transmedium craft so it couldn’t propel itself out of the ocean even if the engine was working.

5 meters below the sea.

I detached from my seat. “Lyla, Drex, anybody copy?”

“Alex, you’ve gotta help me.” It was Drex. He said he was trapped in the WSR.

I swam into the main cabin. Unlike the navigation cabin, it was almost completely flooded because Tyler’s escape hatch was blown open. The sea was battling the remaining air pressure as it attempted to flood the craft. The Eagle’s onboard synthetic intelligence was probably trying to re-gain equilibrium in air pressure and injecting breathable gases into the main cabin. All the lights in the main cabin were still on so the water appeared a brilliant turquoise color. There was no sign of anybody else. Where was Lyla? The craft shifted slightly; I grabbed hold of a handlebar on the bulkhead. The craft was sinking.

12 meters below the sea.

It felt as if somebody was pinching my ear canal as the tempsuit wasn’t optimized for hydro-static squeeze. They were built for the open void; they weren’t meant for the increasing atmospheric pressure caused by rapid descent towards the ocean floor.

“Drex, I’m coming.” I swung around the ladderwell that led down to the WSR. Drex was still in his seat.

“Alex, I can’t get out. Can you cut me loose?” His three-strap belt was clamped down tightly on his tempsuit. He attempted to eject, but the system didn’t work. His hatch only de-pressurized and his seat still thought it was about to eject thus tightening his belt in place to prevent him from moving. Because of his location at the bottom of the craft, ejecting Drex would shoot him towards the seafloor.

18 meters.

Drex let out an inaudible grumble and grabbed at his helmet. The atmosphere at this depth wouldn’t kill us but the pain was distracting. He was clearly feeling it his nasal cavity and ear canal too. I needed to get us out of there. I grabbed the ladderwell and swung myself back up to the main cabin to grab the small axe mounted on the bulkhead. I was back in the WSR within 30 seconds.

20 meters.

With a gentle carve, the axe’s blade parted the strap around Drex’s waist. I repeated this with the strap securing his right shoulder. After the second strap fell away, I gently tugged him out of seat and he floated up.

“I owe you a bottle of mash,” he said with a whimper. Despite the pain ringing through our heads, we exchanged smiles.

“We need to get out of here. Now.”

My heartbeat was elevated to 140 bpm.

24 meters.

I thought the first time I would float in an Eagle would be above the atmosphere in zero gravity. Now, I was literally floating in ocean water inside the Eagle’s main cabin. The craft continued to sink. It was a bit harder to move through the cabin as there was drag on our suits and the water was pushing back on us. We used hand-over-hand movements to get back towards the blown hole in the main cabin.

Static noises pulsed in my earpiece. I ignored it.

30 meters. The main cabin was now completely flooded.

“Alex, when you get outside the Eagle. Flood your suit with oxygen. It should get you to the surface,” stated Drex. I queued up the suit command in my HUD.

“Got it,” I said and grabbed the ring of Tyler’s blown hatch.

36 meters.

“If they don’t pick us up quick, we survived a sub-orbital crash out just to die of the bends,” I joked as my helmet’s earpiece came to life.

A shout calling “Alex!” echoed in our helmets. It was Lyla. Drex and I both responded and told her we were coming to the surface. She didn’t reply. I pulled my feet clear of the craft; I didn’t need to get caught on the jagged edges caused by the explosion.

40 meters.

I tried equilibrizing my sinuses, but it was nearly impossible at this point without being able to plug my nose. I used my HUD to increase oxygen levels to maximum. I started to ascend.

36 meters.

30 meters.

Lyla’s voice broke through again, “Alex, Drex, anybody! Can you hear me? I’m locked in the research module. The airlock won’t open. Help!”

20 meters.

My nose started to bleed from the rapid decompression. I passed out right before I broke the surface with Lyla still shouting in my ear.