When you live in space, everything is life and death.
Out here, everything is trying to kill you. The cold. The radiation. The vacuum. The lack of basic resources like air and water.
They say that water is the most important resource for sustaining life.
They’re right.
This is something you don’t truly have an appreciation for until you find yourself in an environment where water is nonexistent. That’s why Rex decided to become an ice hauler. Instead of going to university back on Luna like his mother wanted, he bought a one-way ticket to Mimas, one of Saturn's nearly one hundred moons.
So, here’s the thing. Mimas is entirely made of water. Unfortunately, the CEO of Keeler Ice Company, the governing body on Mimas, decided that harvesting water from the moon’s mass should be unlawful, which means water has to come from somewhere else. Lucky for us, not only are the rings of Saturn full of water, but so are many of its moons.
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“This is Tenacity, requesting permission for launch,” said Rex.
“Tenacity, you are go for launch.”
“Acknowledged.”
Rex engaged his thrusters and moved the Tenacity away from its docking berth. After three years of making ice runs between the tiny moon, Mimas, and the rings of Saturn, Rex was beginning to feel a bit restless - the monotony of the job was starting to wear on him. Of course, this job wasn’t without its challenges or its dangers. Ice haulers who ventured out without the proper training had been known to maneuver their ships into deadly places in an attempt to snag what appeared to be an easy target. Finding yourself stuck between two chunks of ice the size of habitats could result in you and your ship being flattened to an unrecognizable wafer.
“Tenacity, this is Samurai, come in.” Lucy was an excellent ice hauler. She had started the same day as Rex but was obviously the more skilled pilot.
“Samurai, I read you loud and clear. How’s the weather in your part of the neighborhood today?” A smile formed on Rex’s face every time he spoke with Lucy, which was almost every day since Lucy always volunteered to fly support for him. Rex tried not to make it too obvious, but he always looked for Lucy’s name on the job board and would sign up to fly support for her as well, as long as someone else hadn’t already snagged the spot. If Rex was honest with himself, he had a bit of a crush on Lucy, which made him think of the crushed-ice snack that was Lucy’s favorite. He thought she was crazy for enjoying crushed ice so much, especially seeing as she was surrounded by the stuff so much of her life. And then he thought about how, just last week, poor Carlos had been crushed by the very ice he was trying to haul back to the station. The smile faded from Rex’s face.
“The stars look beautiful as ever, Tenacity!” said Lucy.
Lucy loved being in space. She thought the stars looked like diamonds scattered on a black cloth. It reminded her of a piece of classical music that was popular back on Earth over one hundred years ago that was sung by a group of musicians - oh, what was their name? - it was some kind of insect…
The smile returned to Rex’s face as he thought about what Lucy liked to call “classical music.”
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After only a few hours journey, the Tenacity and Samurai reached the outermost rings of their host planet, Saturn. Despite flying this route hundreds of times, Rex still marveled at the view. The giant planet's rings extended like a vast plane, stretching more than 65,000km in front of him. This side of Saturn was currently illuminated by the sun, and the light cast filtering through the rings cast an incredible set of shadows across the planet.
“Tenacity, I think I see a candidate on the scopes. I’m going in for a closer look.” Lucy’s ship veered away from the Tenacity and shot like a bullet toward the chunks of ice that make up Saturn’s rings.
“Good hunting, Samurai. I’ll stay within a few hundred klicks of you.” Rex’s gaze drifted up from the rings to the planet, wondering what secrets were concealed within those clouds.
The job is relatively simple. Fly to the rings. Cut a 10-ton chunk of ice from a larger chunk of ice. Bring the ice back to the station on Mimas. Oh, and don’t die. And don’t get caught by pirates. That’s right. Ice Pirates. Rex thought the idea of Ice Pirates sounded like a bad science fiction movie. He'd seen other ships in his three years as an ice hauler, but they had always kept to themselves. He knew that the Keeler Ice Company had at least ten ships on mission at any one time. That helped provide a constant stream of ice, which was transported in-system to any number of stations in the asteroid belt.
“Samurai, I think I’ve spotted my target for today. I’m going to settle in and make the cut.” Rex maneuvered his ship in close to what looked like a 100-ton iceberg. The Tenacity was equipped with four manipulator arms, each with claw-like grips and a powerful laser. Rex used two of the arms to grab hold of the ice block while the other two arms started cutting a large chunk free from the rest of the body of ice. When the first two arms were finished with their cut, they would clamp onto the ice block, and the other two arms would make a similar cut, eventually breaking the block free.
“Tenacity, I think I might have a problem over here.”
“What’s going on, Samurai?”
“It might be nothing, but I thought I saw something on my scope. Wait, there it is again!” Rex could hear the stress creeping into Lucy’s voice.
“Samurai, I’m on my way,” Rex said as he hit the emergency release button, sending the ten-ton block of ice floating free. Thankfully, protocol calls for a marker to be placed on recently cut ice cubes so that they can quickly be relocated in the event they must be dropped when one pilot is required to assist another.
Rex engaged his thrusters and shot toward the Samurai with incredible speed.
“Tenacity! Rex, it’s scavengers!”
“I’m on my way, Lucy. Try to stay calm,” said Rex as he felt his heart trying to beat out of his chest. He had really grown fond of Lucy and was finally working up the courage to ask her out on a date. A real date - something more than shaved ice. He couldn’t let anything happen to her.
Rex could see the Samurai on the visible light scope now.
“Lucy, I’m 60 seconds out. What’s happening?!”
“Tenacity,” Lucy replied, her voice now calm, “he’s gone. I think I’m ok. He disappeared as quickly as he appeared.”
“I’m glad you’re ok,” Rex said, sighing a breath of relief.
Several loud clangs reverberated through the Tenacity, and the little ship shook violently from the impacts. Rex’s screens lit up in multiple places, indicating damage to the ship’s hull. He reached up and turned a small crown on his visor, quickly cycling through the exterior camera views.
When he saw the scavenger ship that had attached itself to the Tenacity, a mixture of emotions flashed through Rex’s mind in an instant: fear for himself and for Lucy, anger that these thieves would try to take what did not belong to them, betrayal - as it became clear what was happening.
“Don’t resist, Rex,” came Lucy’s calm voice through his comm. “We need the ice. Just let us have it. You can always cut more.”
We… Us…
Lucy is one of them! Rex couldn’t believe it. The girl he had trained with, worked with, and fallen in love with, had just betrayed him. For three years, he believed that she was his friend. He believed that they could become something more.
“Rex.” Lucy’s voice came through the comm again, but this time, instead of savoring the sound of it, her voice cut him, her betrayal slicing through his heart.
Rex’s chest hurt, and he was having difficulty breathing. As his vision tunneled, he continued to struggle with the controls, trying to break free from his captor.
“Rex, listen to me.”
“You led them here! Didn’t you?!” Rex exclaimed as the initial shock began to wear off. “You’re helping them steal the ice from us and putting Keeler pilots in danger.”
“Rex, we never intentionally hurt anyone. That’s just misinformation from the Keeler head office. I know this seems hard to believe right now, but we’re helping millions of people. Keeler is keeping ice prices low on Mimas so that we will think everything is okay. Meanwhile, they slap a 10,000% markup on all of the ice being sent inward to the asteroid colonies. Those people have so little to begin with, do you really think they can afford 1,000 credits per liter of water?” Lucy’s voice was at the same time gentle and passionate. Rex sensed that she really believed that she was doing the right thing.
“But, you’re stealing ice from the company,” Rex replied as his mind spun. You’re endangering the livelihood of all our pilots.”
“Rex, listen to me. I agree with you that stealing is wrong, but isn’t that akin to what Keeler is doing? They are lying to us by presenting us with a reasonable price and then gouging everyone else in the system. Keeler is actively endangering millions living in the asteroid belt.”
“So, you see yourselves as a type of Robin Hood? Stealing from the rich to feed the poor. Is that it?” Rex’s voice took on an unusually high pitch.
“Is it really stealing if you are liberating a *free* resource from someone who is using their access to that resource to control the lives of others?” Lucy said with some irritation creeping into her tone. Surely, Rex wasn’t that naive.
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The Samurai was now nearly nose-to-nose with the Tenacity, and Rex could see Lucy through the canopy. He wrenched on the controls once more, and with a loud scraping sound, the Tenacity broke free.
Alarms immediately sounded, indicating that the Tenacity was losing air pressure. As he reached for his helmet, Rex quickly scanned the outside of the ship through his canopy and saw the jet of air above him. The air acted as a thruster, pushing the Tenacity downward toward the vast field of ice.
Rex tried to regain control, but the damage that caused the air leak must also have damaged his attitude control jets. He needed to think fast. If he couldn’t stop the ship, it would take him into the ice field and into the path of the massive ice blocks. He did not want to end up like Carlos.
The alarms were very quiet now, which meant that his air was nearly gone.
The crash was silent due to the lack of air, but the impact was bone-jarring. At first, Rex couldn’t see what he’d hit, but the impact changed his trajectory, causing the Tenacity to spin. As the ship completed its first backflip, the giant block of ice came into view. Rex knew he had to act quickly. If the ship’s canopy smashed into the ice, it could irreparably damage his ejection capability.
Rex reached for the yellow and black striped handle between his legs and pulled with all of his strength. The canopy noiselessly exploded away from the ship, and suddenly, he was rocketing further into the ice field. Had he waited a fraction of a second longer, he would have ejected directly into the ice cube and to his certain death.
Rex became aware of a ringing in his ears, and as it faded, he realized that Lucy was still talking to him.
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“Try to stay calm, Rex. I’m on my way to get you!” Lucy’s voice was in his helmet - calm but with an edge of anxiety.
Rex felt like he was in a dream. One of those dreams where everything is surreal and beautiful until you realize that you’re about to die. Being out here, just above the ice field, but without a ship, was definitely a surreal feeling.
His thoughts lost in the ice, Rex was startled when the red wedge of Samurai’s nose crept into view just below him.
One of the Samurai’s manipulator arms extended and grabbed hold of the back of Rex’s ejection seat.
Rex breathed a sigh of relief. Death would have to wait for him a little longer.