Chapter 50

Zeke chuckled, “Find a suit.”

He waved at the wall where a dozen suits of multiple sizes were hanging in clear cabinets. They were white with green and silver reflective strips on them and a Z.Salvage logo on the top right near a person’s collarbone.

Lindsay and Tean hurried to comply.

Zeke stuck his head into Hercules’s doorway. “Manny, you have to come and suit up.”

Manny got up from the pilot’s chair, “Why do I need a suit?”

“Get in a suit, and I’ll tell you on the way.”

Manny scampered out of Hercules. It didn’t take him long to find a suit, strip down and get in it. Once Zeke was also suited up, he checked Manny’s seals, read out and comms, and then Manny checked Zeke’s. Tean and Lindsay were doing the same routine.

They policed the room and made sure nothing loose was in it. Then they climbed into Hercules. Manny got the spare front seat. Tean and Lindsay happily claimed the two rear seats that sat a step higher so they could see over the pilot.

Zeke called Freya, and she gave them an ‘all clear’ for outside the ship.

Once the room was depressurised, Freya said, “The gravity is off. You may lift for door opening.”

Zeke pulsed the lower drivers and Hercules gently lifted off the doors.

“Doors opening,” Freya informed them. A few seconds later, she said, “You are clear to descend, Captain.”

“Thanks, Freya,” Zeke responded.

He hit the top drives to push them down and clear of the ship. Once clear, he used the drives to spin Hercules towards the coordinates and punched the main engine.

“Hercules, plot the best course to the coordinates set. Scanner on.”

“Complying, Captain,” Hercules intoned in a deep male voice.

“Whose voice is that?” Manny asked.

Zeke grinned, “My friend, Kilos. I forgot to tell him I used his voice for Hercules. He’ll be chuffed.”

“Okay, people, you can remove your helmets. In the back, look up the wall, and you will find a cubby hole with a sliding door for it, near your head. Manny, yours is closer to the armrest.”

Once they had secured their helmets, Zeke removed his. Manny just shook his head as he watched Zeke sit back and relax.

“Do you trust that computer to fly this ship?”

“Well, I trust myself, and I programmed it. Bella and I have had four years to work out the kinks. For Herc, it’s even easier, as he doesn’t have Bella’s mass or dimensions.”

“The mass to acceleration or deceleration ratio for him is faster, and he has greater manoeuvrability. Things get trickier when we have an uneven or heavy load like an iron asteroid. Containers are no hardship for Herc.”

“So why are we out here?” Tean asked.

“Some idiot just lost a container out of his ship. Control said that he was pushing the power when he had to dodge some junk. Somehow, a set of his hold doors opened, and a container slid out when the hold depressurised.”

“It smashed into one of his engine cones when he overcorrected to compensate. He is okay, but he has to limp back to Morpheus. However, Control believes the container is heading their way.”

“Time to visual, Hercules?”

“Estimated time is six minutes at current speed, Captain.”

Zeke pointed to the scanner and touched a glowing dot. He ignored the larger dot trailing behind it at a slower speed and to one side.

“Hercules, plot the trajectory of this target, please.”

“Trajectory plotted, Captain. I estimate that the target will contact the outer extremities of Morpheus Station in twenty-one minutes, twenty seconds and counting down.”

“Manoeuvre to match speed from behind.”

“Complying, Captain.”

“Wow, did you really program this ship?” Lindsay asked as they felt Hercules gently shift to a new course.

“Yes, but I did get a little help. Skywalker was the prototype. My friends Vic, Wayne, and Kira helped with the initial design. Kira is an amazing drive specialist and runs Z.K.Drives for me. Wayne is my systems man, and he is good at automation. He now runs the plant to build the runners on Mars, Z.Runners.”

“Old Vic taught me mechanics, and I taught myself how to program things to do what I want. Realistically, this ship can fly itself. However, it needs to know where you want to get to. It is not autonomous. Even an idiot can tell it to go from point A to point B.”

“It is amazing, all the same,” Lindsay said as he looked around at how the little ship was set out.

Tean said to Manny, “Zeke uses mostly Mars resources in his manufacturing plants. Prime Minister Darleen Carpenter got Mars the rights to make Ozlium and Oznglass about fifteen years ago.”