Uranus Robbery Star Map Draftsman I: Federation War

How long is a life? Maybe it is the length between one opening and one closing of the eyes.

The Dawn ship had successfully gained slingshot acceleration at Saturn, and Chang E predicted that the Dawn ship would enter Uranus’ low orbit in a day for its third and final slingshot gravitational acceleration. Since the food shortage began, Dawn Lucius had been eating only once a day, squeezing pureed food into his mouth, then stuffing in a mouthful of leaves and chewing them together before swallowing. Time is a son of a bitch. Besides bringing Dawn Lucius infinitely closer to his own death, time had also let his body improve somewhat. According to the biological data in the flexible device, the crush injuries to his internal organs were healing, but the data also showed bad news: serious nutritional deficiencies, severe hunger, arrhythmia, a falling pulse. He was living like a dried-up corpse.

Dawn Lucius did not dare to walk fast now. When the Dawn ship first accelerated to 1,000 kilometers per second, it was as if someone had put many pieces of broken glass in his brain and chest, and if he walked fast, those pieces of glass would cut into his flesh, causing him to shed tears. The stars glowed lazily, and behind those lights, there were probably countless children like Stacean Lucius, looking forward to their father’s return. Dawn Lucius had changed Chang E’s humor parameters, and now it no longer needed Dawn Lucius to call “Chang E”; it would start up from time to time, telling Dawn Lucius new jokes it had just learned or recommending its favorite music to Dawn Lucius, and sometimes Chang E would tell Dawn Lucius a sad piece of literature. Dawn Lucius still felt lonely.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here, miss me?” The female voice was sweet, like a naughty first love.

“What do you think Stacean Lucius is doing now?”

“Sleeping, I guess. It’s the middle of the night in his time zone.”

“I wonder if he kicked the covers?”

“Mommy will cover him up, don’t worry.” The AI’s words were comforting, and Dawn Lucius lay on the floor, tears sliding down his creased skin.

“Will he be mad at me if I don’t help him bring the stars back?” Dawn Lucius asked with a sob.

“Yes, he’ll definitely say ‘Daddy’s a liar,’ but he’ll still jump into your arms and ask if you’ve experienced anything interesting!”

“Ha ...... ha.” Dawn Lucius forced a couple of laughs as he thought about Stacean Lucius’ small head that smelled slightly of sweat, soft hair, and how every time Dawn Lucius put his nose to his head, he felt as if he were on some mountain meadow in spring, with the air filled with the scent of flowers.

“Commander Lucius, are you ready for the story?”

“There’s, ah, engineers killing engineers, kind of a ...... very powerful story.”

“No, no, no.” Chang E hastily refused. “How can you tell scary stories to children? Change it.”

“Oh, well, I’ll have to think about it.” Dawn Lucius’ voice was faint.

“Commander Lucius, are you okay?” Chang E asked, and after a few seconds of silence, it spoke again. “I detect that your vital signs are below the alert line. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Mission accomplished!” Dawn Lucius finished and fell back into a deep sleep.

He remembered when he was at the Space Academy and the professor discussed the problem of peace. If the countries of the world were united in astronautics engineering, the progress achieved would certainly be greater than today’s. Each country would bring its own strengths to the cooperation, rather than one country doing everything by itself: whoever is good at engines should do a good job on the engine and not get into antennas, and whoever is good at antennas should optimize the antenna to the extreme and not waste time on the engine. Think about it: all of humanity, the smartest people working together, could bring the voyage into the universe forward by many years. The professor was not optimistic about this idea. Throughout human history, peace has been predicated on a superpower overriding other nations and ensuring that small nations do not attack each other. But then the problems come. First, some small countries want to escape the control of the big powers, so they incite others to confront the big countries together, which eventually leads to the collapse of the system that ensured peace, and the world goes back to war. Second, no one can clearly know the intentions of other countries; since they are impossible to guess, the human instinct of self-preservation always drives action in a military direction. And here again is a vicious circle: strengthening your military is originally for self-preservation, but to others it looks like preparation for invasion.

Dawn Lucius recalled asking his professor at graduation what would happen if he ever met an astronaut from another country in space.

“The first battle is the decisive battle.” This was the professor’s answer.

Dawn Lucius pulled the quilt over himself. He felt cold and thought it might be because he was going into the orbit of Uranus, a gaseous ice giant four times the size of Earth. Because it was far from the sun, the temperature on Uranus was low. It had about eighty percent hydrogen inside, but that hydrogen was frozen into ice clouds; if humans could visit its interior, the clouds floating in its sky would be heaps of ice. At the thought of ice, Dawn Lucius felt even colder, and he pulled the covers up to his neck.

He remembered when he used to look at the stars with Stacean Lucius, and Stacean Lucius told him that they must go to Uranus’ moons together in the future. “Why do you want to go?” Dawn Lucius asked Stacean Lucius.

“Dad, that moon you’re talking about, is it circling Uranus?” As Stacean Lucius spoke, he couldn’t keep his hands off the telescope, through which they could see the outline of the moon base; Stacean Lucius always liked to come here to look at the stars.

“Yeah.”

“Then we can play for just about a month.” Stacean Lucius put his face behind the telescope.

“Why is it a month?” Dawn Lucius wondered.

“Uranus has thirty moons. If we play one day on each moon, that’s just a month.”

Dawn Lucius had no good way to explain it to him, and finally he told him that Uranus was busy now, busy pressing diamonds. Uranus’ own gravity was so strong that it pressed the carbon in the atmosphere into diamonds, but, ah, these diamonds were still liquid, floating on Uranus’ diamond sea, and it had to collect these diamonds and hand them in to its teacher before it could go play. Dawn Lucius remembered how seriously Stacean Lucius explained that he didn’t want to disturb Uranus because he was a responsible little man, and how proud of himself he was.

The flex device screen flashed a danger alert and the watchtower was in a bustle; Chang E was sounding the alert and also alerting Dawn Lucius on the screen. Dawn Lucius felt his ears sting as if a raging bull were rattling his eardrums. Dawn Lucius climbed to the captain’s seat, and the impact alert appeared on the screen. At first he didn’t react: in Uranus’ orbit there are satellite belts and also floating meteorites, but they are carried around by Uranus and are unlikely to actively hit the Dawn ship. However, Chang E did detect an active impact hazard.

“Chang E.” After shouting for Chang E, Dawn Lucius seemed to have exhausted his strength, his body like a boneless puddle of flesh, left to flow at will.

“I’m here.”

“Report back.”

“Commander Lucius, we are about to enter Uranus’ low orbit, but there are two self-accelerating craft in this orbit heading toward the Dawn ship, and they will impact the Dawn ship in twenty minutes. The damage assessment is that the Dawn ship may disintegrate.”

“What is it?”

“Artificial objects. Two jet engines detected in the tail, no signs of life.”

“What is it?”

“No specific features. Extrapolating from the current form, they are rival craft.” The female voice did not sound so sweet now.

“A bomb?”

“It’s impossible to tell.”

“Where is the opponent?”

“Location?”

“Yes.”

“It has obtained slingshot acceleration and is zero point eight astronomical units from Uranus.”

“Intent.”

“To stop the Dawn ship from flying out of Uranus orbit.”

“Circumvention?” Dawn Lucius had little strength left, and this sudden danger had him worried.

“It’s too late. We’ve been captured by Uranus’ gravity, and this is the only orbit suitable for gaining acceleration.” The female voice said.

“Lower orbit?”

“Dangerous.”

“Feasible?”

“It works!”

“Specific plan.”

“The Dawn ship lets Uranus capture it into a lower orbit with more slingshot gravity. When the Dawn ship escapes, it will need higher acceleration, which may cause an engine meltdown. Then the Dawn ship will not be able to escape from Uranus, and eventually, Uranus will pull the Dawn ship toward its interior until the Dawn ship crashes.”

“Probability of success?”

“Six percent.”

“Not zero?”

“No!”

Upon hearing Chang E’s reply, Dawn Lucius reluctantly sat up and tested the seat with his elbows to see if it was soft; accelerating again would overwhelm his body. He lay back down again, let out a deep breath and said, “Please execute.”

“The Dawn ship will execute a new flight plan. Today’s encounter will be transmitted back to the moon base along with the new data. Execution code: JHL1303. Execute!”

The Dawn ship was getting closer to Uranus, and even though it was not yet in low altitude orbit, Dawn Lucius felt the pull of gravity, and he scanned the computer screen. Dawn Lucius took painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs out of his pocket. His hands were shaking so much that he couldn’t tell the drugs apart, so he simply took them all; he didn’t have the strength to get water, so he chewed them up and swallowed them.

He had thought that a low orbit would be enough to avoid the craft’s impact, but Chang E’s calculations showed that the two craft had changed course, and now they were like cruise missiles locked onto the Dawn ship; they would come crashing in just the same even if the Dawn ship changed its trajectory. “Can’t just sit here and wait,” Dawn Lucius thought to himself. “Besides changing the orbit, is a wormhole jump the only way to save the Dawn ship?” Dawn Lucius was a scientist, and he did not believe in wormhole jumps; at least, such a thing had not been verified to exist. Earth’s physicists had been studying wormholes, and some people said they had observed one, but they could not say clearly what they had observed.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“Launch two engineering vehicles to ram them, and keep flying?” Dawn Lucius forced himself to finish his sentence. He felt pain all over his body and the painkillers he had just taken seemed to have worn off.

“It works.” The female voice was silent for a few seconds and continued. “Commander Lucius, the impact will create a large amount of debris in the area we pass through. If the Dawn ship goes through the debris, a large area of the hull will be pierced, and the Dawn ship will still be at risk of disintegrating.”

Chang E was right. The debris from the impact would not be captured by Uranus’ gravity for some time; it would be like cotton scattered in the air, and if someone rushed into the cotton, it would cling all over that person’s body. After the Dawn ship passed through the impact debris area, its whole body would be pierced, and the head of the ship might be shredded. It was too late to change to a high orbit, and the gravity of Uranus was getting stronger and stronger. If they plunged into Uranus, although the gravity of this planet is only 1.2 times that of Earth, the take-off conditions would not be as good as on Earth; the extremely low temperature of Uranus might even directly cause the ship’s engines to fail. Flying high would not work, and flying low would not work either!

“The nearest satellite?” Dawn Lucius had a new idea.

“Tianwei II.”

“Path?”

“Tianwei II’s orbit is lower than the Dawn ship’s, and it will pass below the Dawn ship in eleven minutes.”

“Size.”

“Tianwei II is half the size of the moon, but its gravity is unknown, so if the Dawn ship wants to use Tianwei II to attract the craft, the feasibility of this option cannot be predicted.”

“Tianwei II’s magnetic field, what effect would it have on the Dawn ship?”

“Commander Lucius, the area swept by Uranus’ magnetic field is large, and if the Dawn ship flies into the magnetic field area, we will lose directional control and the Dawn ship will probably be captured by Uranus forever.”

“How long would the crossing take?”

“An expected fifty minutes.”

It was too late to discuss, it was time for Dawn Lucius to make a decision. “Please execute, fly into the Tianwei II magnetic field zone, ten minutes ......” Dawn Lucius swallowed hard. He felt a roaring coal furnace in his head, burning until his temples swelled, and he continued. “Every ten minutes, ignite an engineering vehicle and push the Dawn ship away from ......”

“Building scenario. Crossing the magnetic field area takes fifty minutes. At the tenth minute, ignite an engineering vehicle in the direction opposite to Uranus’ gravity; after the second ten minutes, ignite the second; after the third ten minutes, ignite the third. Scenario executes in ten seconds. Execution code: JHL1307.”

Dawn Lucius suddenly felt that it was not artificial intelligence that was unreliable; it was humans. Artificial intelligence carries out tasks without personal prejudice; whatever humans tell it to do, it does word for word. Without Chang E, Dawn Lucius could not have flown so far. After the Dawn ship flew into the magnetic field area, the numbers on the computer screen began to dissolve until they disappeared and the screen went black. As the ship passed between Tianwei II and Uranus, it was as if Dawn Lucius had stepped into a dark night, with algae swamps beneath his feet and flesh-eating beasts hiding on either side.

Dawn Lucius’ body was near collapse. The muscles beneath his skin had wasted away, and his veins were like dead vines on an old stone wall, dying in the cold wind. He crawled to the threshold, picked up the little water left on the floor and poured a small amount into his mouth; he didn’t dare drink too fast now, since he had almost choked to death the last time he drank too fast. He fell into a deep sleep: another long wait, another long unknown. Fortunately, the Dawn ship’s flight plan worked. The rival craft lost power in the magnetic field, and Uranus’ orbit gained two more artificial meteorites.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“Rival details.”

“We have obtained Uranus slingshot acceleration and will meet the rival ship in twenty-three hours, at a closest distance of less than one hundred kilometers.”

“Risk.”

“Commander Lucius, if the rival sets up attack craft in orbit, then the risk to the Dawn ship is high and there is no way to avoid it.”

This Dawn Lucius knew. He pulled up the health data on the flexible device but could not see exactly what the problem was; perhaps his current physical condition was beyond what the health data could describe. He had serious internal injuries and no nutritious food, and his body not only had not recovered, but eating too many leaves had given him signs of poisoning. The time left to reach the Sane ship could no longer be counted in days; he had to arrive early, before he closed his eyes for the last time. The rival astronauts in space were all predators, and if the Sane ship’s technology fell into their hands, Stacean Lucius would face war where he lived. Dawn Lucius had to protect his loved ones. War and competition between countries could no longer be confined to the Earth; space was now the battlefield.

“Send a message.”

“Sending a message to a competitor?”

“Yes.”

“Using the announcement channel, the message can reach the other party in one hour. Commander Lucius, what do you plan to send to the other party?”

“The camera.”

“Commander Lucius, do you mean recording your video with a webcam?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Commander Lucius, the camera is on. After you say ‘record,’ the camera will start recording video, and it will save it after you say ‘stop.’ It will be transmitted to the other party’s announcement channel after one minute.”

Dawn Lucius sat up from the floor and looked at the captain’s chair. Normally, recording a video in it to send to the other side would count as real diplomacy. At the very least, the lines should be prepared before recording the video and the uniform should be cleaned up, and that’s not all: the lines should have cooperation and negotiation as their main theme, not provoke conflict. But now was not the time to talk about cooperation, but ......

“Recording!” Dawn Lucius took several breaths; he knew what he would say. “This is Commander Dawn Lucius. The other two engineers of the Dawn ship are dead. In twenty-three hours, the Dawn ship and your party will meet. If the Dawn ship encounters man-made craft again, the Dawn ship will melt down its reactor, and the explosion radius will be more than ten thousand kilometers.” After saying that, Dawn Lucius raised his hand, made a throat-cutting gesture and said “stop” with satisfaction.

Dawn Lucius felt a cold sweat on his forehead; he had used up too much energy. It was expected to take only five days for the Dawn ship to reach the location of the Sane ship, and there were still seven days of food left, so relatively speaking there was still a surplus, but Dawn Lucius could not eat anything at this time. He slumped onto the robot’s cylinder and rode it to the medical bay, took out a bottle of saline, the last bottle, took another bottle of glucose from the only five bottles left and added it to the saline, and after barely shaking it twice, he began to swallow slowly. Save your strength. As he moved back to the watchtower, he brought the leaves and food he had packed earlier with him and set them on the floor where he often lay.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“Go to Neptune ...... and call me.”

“Copy that.” The female voice fell silent, then spoke again. “Commander Lucius, do I need to wake you up if there’s an emergency?”

“No need.”

“Commander Lucius, my calculations show that the video you sent did not help keep the Dawn ship from being hit. Should I wake you up if I encounter craft about to hit the Dawn ship again?”

“Let me teach you a lesson.” Dawn Lucius was now warm all over; the glucose was powering his body like a small nuclear reactor, and he had the energy to talk a little more. Dawn Lucius pulled the pillow back under his neck and continued. “It is a consensus among all humans that if you’re going to sign some kind of no-war treaty with the other side, then you have to come to the table with powerful weapons. As the saying goes, a treaty signed without weapons is scrap paper.”

“Commander Lucius, what is our weapon then?”

“Dawn ship.”

Dawn Lucius, half asleep and half awake for who knows how long, flipped through Stacean Lucius’ videos to pass the time; the one thing he lacked most, and the one thing he lacked least, was time. “Daddy, can we eat now?” It was a Wednesday. The kindergarten had originally set up every Wednesday as toy day, when children could bring their favorite toys to kindergarten. Stacean Lucius had brought a diorama map simulator to show his classmates the galaxy, but the teacher had temporarily changed the curriculum and taken his toy away. Stacean Lucius cried and called Dawn Lucius, who took Stacean Lucius out of school, and the two brought tools to go fishing in a wetland park, where, if they were lucky, they could bake carp right in the park. Their luck was indeed good. The fish had just been set on the fire when Stacean Lucius, unable to hold back, kept asking his dad again and again if he could eat it. They had a great time that day; the two of them ate the fish before they went back, and when they went to bed, Stacean Lucius couldn’t stop thinking about it and showed his mom how he fished. That night Dawn Lucius lay on the floor pretending to be a fish, Stacean Lucius sat in bed using his shoelace as a fishing line to catch his dad, and the two played for more than two hours before going to sleep.

Dawn Lucius kissed the screen. “Daddy loves you!” He thought that if he could see Stacean Lucius again, these were the words he would most like to say. Dawn Lucius was now especially afraid of his own fate, yet he also wanted to be released from it sooner; the contradiction tugged at his heart, and the pain made him weep. He thought of the gravitational waves observed by the observatory, the energy generated when massive black holes collide, which can distort time and space. If that really happened, would Dawn Lucius have more time? Or, by folding the plane between him and Earth, could he go back to Earth and hug his son? Just then, the ship began to shake violently, and centrifugal force pushed him off the ground, sliding outward some distance before he felt a noticeable distortion in the ship’s path.

“Chang E.”

“I’m here.”

“Report back.”

“Commander Lucius, we are entering low Neptune orbit, using Neptune’s gravity to slow down the Dawn ship.” By the time the female voice finished the announcement, Dawn Lucius had been squeezed against the wall, and he felt his brain pushing against his skull, the pain like a bug trying to break through the sky and escape.