New route Star Map Draftsman I: Federation War

The head inside the spacesuit was no longer Rodney Cruise; he and the spacesuit together had become a monster.

Dawn Lucius used all his strength to get up and staggered toward Rodney Cruise. He kicked and punched the white spacesuit, but Rodney Cruise was unmoved; his two large hammer fists continued to whack Kenny Jr. Clooney’s head. Kenny Jr. Clooney had lost consciousness. The drinking water had spread to every corner of the E sector landing bay, covering Dawn Lucius’ feet. He grabbed Rodney Cruise’s helmet and dragged it backward as hard as he could, finally getting Rodney Cruise’s attention. He picked up things from the floor and slammed them into Dawn Lucius, slamming out his hatred of the system and the rules, of not knowing where to find his wife and kids, while Dawn Lucius crawled backward into another room: the storage room.

Rodney Cruise wasn’t about to give up. He said nothing, kicking and punching Dawn Lucius all the way. Dawn Lucius crawled through the door and turned to look at Kenny Jr. Clooney, who was no longer moving. Dawn Lucius rolled over and propped himself up on his hands, blood tasting fishy at the corner of his mouth. One of his eyes could no longer see, and the other was blurred with sweat and tears; he felt a stinging pain. Dawn Lucius gritted his teeth and shouted, “I’m the one who stole your position. If you want to kill me, make it hard on me; use the blade in the water purifier ......” Dawn Lucius pointed to the other end of the room. Rodney Cruise froze for a few seconds, then dropped the cabinet door in his hand and walked straight and fast toward the water purifier.

Indeed, the water purifier had a fan inside, with two long twisted blades like oversized watermelon knives. Rodney Cruise dumped out the water inside and examined how the fan was installed. He found that the fan blades were fixed by a screw at the bottom that could not be unscrewed by hand, but he could go to the landing bay to find a tool to unscrew it. Without wasting time, Rodney Cruise went to the landing bay and rummaged through the toolbox. Dawn Lucius’ heart was in his throat; he was afraid that Rodney Cruise would choose a screwdriver or saw from the toolbox to finish off him and Kenny Jr. Clooney. Rodney Cruise picked out a big wrench, as long as an adult’s arm. He walked up to Dawn Lucius, lifted the wrench and gestured at his head, then went around behind Dawn Lucius, using the wrench as a golf club and Dawn Lucius’ head as a golf ball for a while. He tried a swing, but the result was probably not what he wanted. Rodney Cruise walked on with the wrench, climbed into the water purifier, and unscrewed the screw with the wrench.

Rodney Cruise loosened the screw and was a little pleased with himself, but when he looked up at the two prey on the floor, he saw Dawn Lucius crawling out. Rodney Cruise wasn’t having it; he scrambled out of the water purifier and charged at Dawn Lucius with the wrench, the silver wrench glowing cold like the reflection on a sharp knife. Lucius struggled to crawl, his arms splashing through the water, the sweet taste of berries splashing into his mouth, mixed with the taste of blood and the fear of the wrench. The moment Dawn Lucius crossed the door frame, he rolled onto the floor in one smooth motion and clicked the door-close button on the flexible device.

But the door didn’t close, and Dawn Lucius poked the screen so hard that he nearly stuck his finger through the screen and into his own flesh.

“Chang E, lock D zone.” Dawn Lucius shouted himself hoarse.

Rodney Cruise dragged the wrench behind him and lowered his center of gravity, both legs having built up their strength; he intended to rush over without disengaging the magnetic shoes on his feet and scrape the wrench across Dawn Lucius’ body.

Fortunately, Chang E closed the door.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“If the captain orders a certain area to be cleared of oxygen and the engineer inside dies from lack of oxygen, is the captain guilty of murder?” Dawn Lucius asked in a low voice as he crawled toward Kenny Jr. Clooney.

“It counts.”

“How much oxygen is left in Rodney Cruise’s spacesuit?”

“Seven minutes.”

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“In seven minutes, please clear the oxygen from the D zone.”

“Commander Lucius, please confirm whether to execute this command.”

“Confirm.”

“Voyage log CX0306, executing Commander Lucius’ command: clear D-zone oxygen in six point three minutes. Executing.”

The sound of a wrench striking a metal door came from behind the door, and the sound was full of anger.

“Kenny Jr. Clooney, wake up.” Dawn Lucius crawled to Kenny Jr. Clooney’s head and cradled his head in his arms. He used his arms to shield the wound on the back of Kenny Jr. Clooney’s head, but the blood still soaked Dawn Lucius’s shirt and pants like a flood that broke the bank.

“Brother, I ...... can’t.” Kenny Jr. Clooney opened his eyes slightly.

“No, hold on, ten minutes.” Dawn Lucius swallowed and continued. “Then I’ll be able to get through D and take you to the medical area to patch you up. Just hang on for ten minutes, okay?”

“Brother, my father ......,” Kenny Jr. Clooney said as his face went white and his body began to twitch, and he forced himself to hold on. “What ...... did he ...... say?”

“Uncle said that you designed the antenna and he was proud.” Dawn Lucius remembered that last exchange, the regret, the two-year-long misunderstanding with his brother. “Uncle knew the outcome, but he was going to finish installing the antenna you designed ......”

“Brother, I’m sorry.” Kenny Jr. Clooney’s breathing was already weak, and tears streamed down the corners of his eyes, past his nose and rested above his smiling lips. No matter how Dawn Lucius called out to him, he didn’t respond.

Dawn Lucius put his face on Kenny Jr. Clooney’s forehead, as he had done when Kenny was a child. Back then, his uncle was a man of strong character, and his aunt’s family worked within the system; their marriage ruined the mutual admiration they had felt when they first met. At the beginning, even when his aunt’s family said his uncle would never amount to anything, his aunt was on his uncle’s side. Later, gossip proved fearsome, and as more people talked, his aunt also began to dislike his uncle. When Dawn Lucius was five years old, they used a divorce paper to set each other free, but such a result undoubtedly dragged Kenny Jr. Clooney into another vortex. The aunt forbade Chief Kenny Clooney to visit Kenny Jr. Clooney, and even told Kenny Jr. Clooney that his father was a no-good man, and every time Kenny Jr. Clooney said he didn’t believe it, he would get a sneer and even a slap from the aunt.

Kenny Jr. Clooney and Dawn Lucius went to the same school, and Kenny Jr. Clooney often went to Dawn Lucius’ home to spend the night. At five years old, missing his dad, he lay in the arms of his eleven-year-old cousin and asked his cousin what kind of person Dad was and why he didn’t come to see him. Dawn Lucius told Kenny Jr. Clooney that Dad loved him, but love doesn’t always mean being by your side. Dad was in the sky finding stars for Kenny Jr. Clooney, and when he found a good-looking one, Dad would bring the star back to him, and then, ah, they could hang the star on the ceiling, so he could see it as soon as he opened his eyes.

Kenny Jr. Clooney said he couldn’t wait; he wanted to go to his father too. The two brothers vowed to go to the Space Academy together and become engineers. Dawn Lucius put his face on Kenny Jr. Clooney’s forehead, telling him not to be afraid; his brother would go with him to find his father in the sky. Dawn Lucius’ breath tapped warmly on Kenny Jr. Clooney’s forehead, and on his nose. Kenny Jr. Clooney closed his eyes; it felt like the hot fog of engine jets, and in his dream he saw himself flying to the sky with his cousin, flying to his father’s side. Back then, Kenny Jr. Clooney had also fallen asleep with such a smile.

“Brother, I’m sorry, wake up.” Dawn Lucius shook Kenny Jr. Clooney, kissed Kenny Jr. Clooney’s forehead, and smoothed Kenny Jr. Clooney’s hair neatly, but through all this, Kenny Jr. Clooney would never answer him again.

Dawn Lucius had a long dream. He floated alone in space and saw Stacean Lucius on a grassland, chasing a horse and laughing. Dawn Lucius wanted to hug him, but he ran everywhere; Dawn Lucius wanted to shout at him to stop, but Stacean Lucius seemed not to hear and went on laughing and running away. Who knows how long he slept, but Dawn Lucius felt cold all over, and he woke up in the silent sky, lifeless, as if he were in an iron box and the box was running around in hell.

Dawn Lucius raised his hand and woke up the two cleaning robots in the landing bay. They busily began cleaning up the mixture on the floor, sucking the water into their stomachs and dumping it into the special water-recycling drain, then compressing and packaging the items mixed in the water and putting them into a metal trash storage box. After a flurry of activity, the floor was as clean as before, except that Kenny Jr. Clooney’s body was still seeping blood. Dawn Lucius dragged him into the storage room and put him in the cooler. As for Rodney Cruise, his madness had destroyed the food and the medical supplies, and had taken Kenny Jr. Clooney’s life. Dawn Lucius took off his spacesuit; death from lack of oxygen had left large bruises on his body. Dawn Lucius put him in another cooler. If one day the people of Earth found the Dawn ship in deep space, at least they would have the chance to bring them back to Earth, bring them back home.

Dawn Lucius opened the door to the medical room but did not let the robot in to clean up. After recovering some strength, Dawn Lucius first put away the packages that were not broken and the pills that had not been soaked by the water, gathering up whatever he recognized. Once nothing more could be salvaged, Dawn Lucius had the robot come in to clean the floor. Dawn Lucius crouched at the foot of the wall. His head felt heavy, and that, together with the injuries from Rodney Cruise, fermented into exhaustion throughout his body. Dawn Lucius lay on the floor and drifted off to sleep.

The Dawn ship’s data, just as it stood, reached the command center of the moon base after a long journey. General Quentin was the first to assess that the Dawn ship was no longer fit for the mission, having lost two engineers and with the remaining engineer wounded both physically and psychologically, not to mention that the damaged food and medical supplies were not enough to last Dawn Lucius until the Kuiper Belt. Even if there were still enough food, there were still months of travel to the Kuiper Belt, and he would inevitably have a mental breakdown along the way. The thing to do now was to return to the lunar base after the ship entered Jupiter’s orbit and gained a gravity slingshot. The command center shot orders into space toward the Dawn ship, and among those electronic signals was an instruction modifying Chang E’s mission: Chang E was to return to the moon from Jupiter orbit.

The engineering suit on Dawn Lucius was still wet, and water was oozing out where he lay. The sweeper kept bumping against his body as it recycled the water, and Dawn Lucius woke up; the flex device on his arm indicated that he was hypothermic and his pulse was weak. He knew what to do. Dawn Lucius walked to the room with artificial gravity, rinsed himself off and changed back into a clean engineering suit. Back in the storage room, Dawn Lucius re-counted his food, and overall, there was not much food left. The water was fine, and the recycling system would re-purify the contaminated water before pumping it back inside the water storage facility.

“Should the mission continue?” Dawn Lucius had been asking himself this for days, and he was not sure. If he returned to Earth now, no one would say that he had failed in his duty, and they might even arrange a long vacation for him. But what about the engineers on the lunar base if he didn’t continue the mission? Many people had given ten years of effort to this mission. Because of long hours of work in a low-gravity environment, half of the engineers had low bone density, and some were 80 or 90 years old; they did not have another ten years.

“Let’s draw lots.” Dawn Lucius threw half a peanut into the air. “Listen, when the peanut stops, if the back is facing up, then we continue the mission; if not, we go back to Earth.”

Saying this, he threw the peanut countless times, the same peanut, the same force, possibly the same timing, and not once did the peanut land back side up. He thought, “Forget it, it’s not fair to rely on throwing peanuts in zero gravity to decide the mission.” At least it was not fair to the peanut; it had no obligation to bear the burden of deciding whether to carry out the mission or not. Well, “then I can find two peanuts, one large and one small, throw them into the air at the same time, and close my eyes to catch one. If I catch the big one, I continue the mission.”

“Commander Lucius, we are about to enter a low Jupiter orbit. Jupiter’s gravity will capture the Dawn ship, and halfway around we will accelerate to escape. The speed of the Dawn ship is expected to rise to five hundred and twenty kilometers per second.”

“Got it.” Dawn Lucius lay on the floor of the watchtower as the protective cover of the porthole slowly descended, the huge planet Jupiter just ahead, with super-sized storms tearing through it that made the surface of the gas planet look like a lollipop. Dawn Lucius remembered when Stacean Lucius first started kindergarten. He didn’t think it was fun, and every night he would explain to Dawn Lucius why he didn’t want to go. Dawn Lucius encouraged him to discover the interesting things and not to focus on the things that weren’t interesting, all to no avail. Then one day, Stacean Lucius suddenly became interested in making lollipops.

“Daddy?” As father and son walked down the street holding hands, Stacean Lucius, holding a chocolate-milk-flavored lollipop in his hand, looked up and asked.

“What’s wrong?” Dawn Lucius looked at him with a smile.

“Daddy, I want to know how to make a lollipop.” Stacean Lucius stopped and showed the lollipop in his hand to Dawn Lucius. The round ball looked like many layers stacked together, white milk and brown chocolate, and at first glance, it looked like the Jupiter Dawn Lucius was seeing now. At that time, Dawn Lucius told Stacean Lucius that he had to go to kindergarten and learn things to know how to make lollipops; if he didn’t go to school, he couldn’t learn. From then on, Stacean Lucius no longer hated kindergarten.

“Baby, I’m flying past your favorite lollipop.” Dawn Lucius raised his hand, and on the screen of the flexible device is the smiling face of Stacean Lucius.

Dawn Lucius sat up from the floor, remembering that when he left he had told Stacean Lucius that his dad was going to pick him a star in the sky, and since he had promised him, he should keep his promise. In their years of training, engineers spend most of their time learning aerospace engineering and a small part learning medical skills, but they get little training in what to do when a crisis arises from within; the space agency believes too much in systems and rules. But then again, the space agency did teach the engineers how to re-plan their goals, or how to formulate a new plan to complete the mission. Competition on Earth was already fierce enough, and if the rivals obtained the Sane ship’s knowledge this time, the Earth could be knocked back to a more primitive era. The rivals’ methods would be relatively simple: suppress us and make our economy collapse, so that newborn babies have no vaccines and no clean delivery environment, and older children have no access to education. After a generation or two, Eurasia would be left with a bunch of manual laborers. Dawn Lucius did not want to see such a result. He had promised Stacean Lucius that they would travel the stars and seas together. His son had a dream, and as a father, he had the obligation to guard that dream.

The Dawn ship’s trajectory had been predicted in advance on Earth: the next time the command center saw the Dawn ship, it should be heading toward the Moon after breaking out of Jupiter’s low orbit, and the Moon base would re-plan the Dawn ship’s mission according to the original plan of carrying two hundred astronauts. The Dawn ship flew to the other side of Jupiter and was no longer visible to the telescope, but what they did not expect was that the Dawn ship showed no sign of flying back; instead, it accelerated toward the next rendezvous point at Saturn. At first the command center thought they had made a mistake, but when they analyzed the data again, they understood that it was not their error and that the Dawn ship was indeed continuing its mission.

The violent shaking and the pain of overweight pressing on his back, all while alone, brought tears to Dawn Lucius’s eyes without his realizing it. He covered his mouth and stayed in the chair until the Dawn ship escaped Jupiter’s gravity; the ship’s current speed was five hundred and seventy kilometers per second. He also faced another crisis: there was no longer enough food. Even eating only once a day, the food would last him only about ten days. It seemed he would have to re-plan the mission.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“I only have enough food for ten days. With the chlorella from the garden and some non-toxic leaves, I can last up to thirty days. So if we want to get to the Sane ship in thirty days, how fast do we have to fly to do that?”

After Dawn Lucius asked, Chang E did not answer right away; now it was like a little woman with something on her mind.

“Chang E?” Dawn Lucius called again.

“I’m here.”

“Answer the last question.”

“Twelve hundred kilometers per second.” The female voice was still sweet.

“Can you do it?”

“No. The Dawn ship’s reactor won’t allow it, and the insulation only supports a maximum of one thousand kilometers per second.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.” Dawn Lucius lay on the floor, using the ceiling as a backdrop on which to re-plan the flight path of the Dawn ship. He thought of another option. The risk was high, but the risk of not taking the new option was now higher. Dawn Lucius stood up from the floor.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“The original flight path planned for the Dawn ship was to use Jupiter and Saturn to accelerate and finally Neptune to slow down, right?”

“Right.”

“In that case we can only get two accelerations. But if this time we include Uranus, use Uranus to get a third acceleration, and finally still use Neptune’s gravity to brake, would that be enough to get to where the Sane ship is in thirty days?” Dawn Lucius was even a little excited; what a simple and effective solution.

“Theoretically, yes, but the Dawn ship’s reactor could be damaged at any time.” The sweet female voice was not sad.

What did damage mean? Why didn’t the damn AI just say that the mission would fail or that Dawn Lucius would be blown up? Was it afraid of mission failure too?

“Chang E,” Dawn Lucius said after a period of silence.

“I’m here.”

“Modify the sailing route.”

“Voyage log L20591227-K6. Commander Dawn Lucius has modified the log: the ship will accelerate to one thousand kilometers per second, and the original voyage route will be modified. Final decision: the Dawn ship will use Saturn and Uranus to obtain a second and third acceleration. Please confirm execution.”

“Confirm.”

“Commander Lucius, Dawn ship will pick up speed again in ten seconds, please fasten your seat belts.”

The compensation rods in the reactor were pulled out by the robotic arm, the number of neutrons soared, and higher temperatures were generated inside the insulation. Chang E adjusted the amount of hydrogen peroxide injected, and the blue flame at the tail of the Dawn ship was as bright as the lights of adult fireflies on a summer night in the vastness of space. Dawn Lucius was in the chair under the pressure of acceleration. At first, the pressure from his body and the ship accelerating in opposite directions was blocked by the chair. Then the squeeze became another kind of misery in his chest: his trachea was almost deformed, his ribs struggled on the verge of breaking, his liver was squeezed, and blood started gushing out of Dawn Lucius’ mouth; he almost choked to death on his own blood. Dawn Lucius’ vision blurred, and it was as if an old wine had been knocked over in his head, making him drowsy. The numbers on the screen slowed down, the squeeze became less intense, his windpipe slowly regained its original shape, air mixed with blood poured in, and he started coughing. At first, Dawn Lucius coughed on his knees, and by the time he was almost done coughing up blood, he had no strength left to support himself, and Dawn Lucius lay on his back in a pool of bright red, unable to move.

After an unknown amount of time, Dawn Lucius’ consciousness returned, but his body, like waking up from a hangover, was uncomfortable. He knelt on the floor and tried to stand up to clean up, and after several failed efforts, he summoned a sweeping robot. Dawn Lucius drew a line on the screen from his current location to the medical room, held on to the robot to get up, lay on the robot’s cylindrical lid, and clicked the start button on the flexible device, and the robot carried him to the medical room. Fortunately, there were still a number of painkillers that had not been damaged, and Dawn Lucius took three times the prescribed amount. He sat on the floor for a few moments to rest and seemed to feel better, and he squeezed a small amount of food into the water and, after a few hard shakes, plopped down on the robot and started swallowing.

“Change your clothes or the wound will get infected.” Dawn Lucius reminded himself in a low voice.

The robot was re-routed to carry him to the room with artificial gravity. He sat limply in the bathroom as the warm water began to rinse him off; he was too tired to put on clean clothes anymore. Dawn Lucius climbed out of the bathroom and crawled toward the bed. He pulled the covers off the bed, half on the floor and half over his body. He had never been so sleepy; he couldn’t wait to close his eyes, and he drifted off to sleep.