Star Map E-Book

Fabienne Gschwind

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 427

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

When Captain Jay Shackleton of the cartography starship Abhysal finds himself and his crew thrown across the galaxy, he has no idea how they are going to get back home to earth. Although his five-member crew are gifted space travellers and scientists, the situation seems hopeless. However, their luck seems to change when a seemingly friendly alien trade association, the Squeltrems, picks them up. In exchange for their technical knowledge, they'll be able to hitch a ride back to earth. This seems to be a good deal, and the crew starts full of enthusiasm for the development of new subspace technologies together with their new Alien friends from the research department. Until they realize that the peaceful Squeltrem Association is not so peaceful after all and that they are space pirates who like to plunder whole planets. As if that is not bad enough, another species is in the process of hijacking planets to steal their resources… Set in the 24th century, Fabienne Gschwind's "Star Map" is an epic science fiction adventure novel that will captivate readers and transport them to another world. For anyone who is a fan of classic sci-fi mixed with a cast of intriguing characters, science and comedy, this is the perfect read. Add it to your arsenal today.

Leseprobe

Star Map

What happened in the last 400 yearsAbout space travel The Cartography StarshipThe MissionThe CrewLife on the AbhysalThe AbhysalSubspace HazardsThe VortexThere is someoneThe SqueltremWhat to do with AliensFirst Day at WorkThe Prototype BuoysPeculiarities of the ChrismaxesThe Deadline Approaches Real MembersReligionFirst SundaySpace PiratesBaltrakNew FriendsA New HomeThe EmergencyCelebrationsMorchen's ProblemTen WeeksLex and MorchenRacking Until the Last SecondThe AttackThe AnswerThe PillageEven More LootingJay’s PromotionWho Gets the Power?Full Speed Ahead in the AbyssSimon Grows UpThe DeathJay’s ReturnVacation on the PlanetGalactic WalkCaptain of a Battle CruiserWhere is Jay?Holy ShitMaking PlansSimon and KikiMilos PrototypshipFirst EpilogueFour years laterOn the Road Archans and TollansThe Destroyed PlanetOuthouse AlienOutside the GalaxyEncounterCat and Mouse GameKiki and Simon, AgainExcuse me?The LighthouseStorage Room 13A-6ZScattered RadiationThe SqueltremsPreparations and new weaponsGetting Defense ReadyPlanet in SubspaceShort BreakSlaving Away Until the EndBeginning of the EndThe BattleDrone Collection ActionGoneEndLast Epilogue

What happened in the last 400 years

The beginning of faster-than-light space travel is dated to the mid-21st century. It all started with burnt chocolate muffins:

It was in a small apartment shared by two junior physics professors. Marinella Fregara was a dark matter expert. Marie-Louise Häberli was a theorist and advocate of quantum string theory with its ten curved and bent dimensions.

On a Sunday morning in 2044, Marinella was in the kitchen filling muffin batter into a muffin baking tray while Marie-Louise had commandeered the kitchen table and was writing a grant proposal. Once the muffins were in the oven, the two professors began a scientific discussion about dark matter and curled dimensions. It wasn't until the acrid smell came from the oven that the ladies ended the discussion and hastily went on a muffin rescue mission. 

The burnt muffins were quickly retrieved from the oven, and Marie-Louise began gesturing excitedly, pointing to the burnt batter and reportedly saying, "That's exactly what I'm trying to explain; dark matter is nothing more than coked-up dimensional space-time!"

Thus, began the subspace research.

It took six months to calculate and publish the new theory, and another five years to provide experimental proof. This was immediately followed by the Nobel Prize. Yes, it was possible to open the access to a curved dimension.

Just like at the beginning of the 20th century, with the discovery of quantum physics, the new Häberlin-Ferrara dimension opens thousands of new possibilities. Subspace—as the curved dimension was colloquially known—not only enabled faster-than-light travel but also opened up new possibilities for energy generation and medicine. But more about that later.

For humanity, in the first ten years after the discovery of subspace, it was all just physicists playing around, with no real impact on life. But the first "journey" through subspace with a robot spaceship was still a sensation. Despite raging religious wars and the struggle for resources, a billion people watched this spectacle in real-time. It was much easier to open subspace gaps in space, so the experiment took place in geostationary orbit. And then the moment that profoundly changed the history of mankind: 

In the first subspace crevice, the robot ship discovered an alien spaceship!

The huge spaceship was pulled out of the subspace crevice and brought down to earth.

It was several kilometers long and made of an unknown praseodymium-gadolinium alloy. The ship was just an empty carcass, but the mounts for the huge cannons were still clearly visible.

Of course, the “fake news” screamers and the conspiracy theorists were present, claiming that this was all a conspiracy theory made up by some governments.

But anyone could make a pilgrimage to the ship and take a look.

The biggest skeptics fell silent within seconds. The spaceship was so inhuman that no doubt remained: it could only be extraterrestrial.

But how old was it?

The dating gave values between 10 and 40000 years. Extrapolations showed that it had enough weapons potential to turn the earth into mud. And the alloy was so dense that no human weapons could harm the ship. Not even a Tsar bomb would do more than paint damage.

A horror gripped humanity: yes, there were aliens, and if they meant evil, humans would be doomed!

Suddenly religions, skin colors, politics, and everything else did not play a role anymore. They were all just vulnerable people on a single planet.

Peace treaties were signed in record time and everyone moved together. Money and selfish posturing was unimportant. Trillions were spent.

Fifty years later, the world looked very different. Electricity was cheaper than ever before—it was even free. It was generated by two giant phalanxes moving around the Earth's orbit, drawing electricity directly from the Earth's magnetic field like giant dynamos. The electric current was conducted directly to Earth through subspace tunnels. Electricity was plentiful, and freshwater could also be easily distributed around the world through the subspace pipeline. Since all the electricity had to be used somehow, seawater was evaporated to produce fresh water. Energy wasting was a must to keep the circuits from overheating. 

But the biggest impact on each individual was not so much the newly burgeoning space travel and free electricity, but the brain scan. Based on subspace-science, this new technology made it possible for the first time to scan and understand the human brain at the neural level. 

At last, doctors could determine where depression and many other mental illnesses originated. Now it is possible to develop targeted therapies. Depression, schizophrenia, and many other illnesses were a thing of the past.

But like almost all technologies, there was a downside. The brain scanner was like the ultimate lie detector, and you could almost read minds and also detect all sorts of predispositions. Pedophiles or psychopaths were taken out of circulation before they could even commit a crime. All kinds of crimes were easily punished: ten minutes in the brain scan and you knew who had committed which crime or planned to do so. Terrorists and other rebels could be arrested while they were planning a crime. Likewise, it became a habit that important politicians had to undergo a brain scan in public, after all, one had to prove that one had a clear conscience and wanted only the best for the people.

The 22nd 23rd centuries were the most peaceful that mankind had ever experienced. Going for a brain scan was a regular duty, and it helped to guide young people to the right professions as well as to detect problems and diseases in time.

The error rate, that is, the probability that an innocent person was wrongly convicted, was extremely low. And the five to ten people per year who were wrongly convicted, had very hard time to prove that the scanner was wrong. In this sense, the brain scan was a highly valued method. Along the way, a fleet of spaceships was created to protect Earth from danger. But during the next 350 years, no aliens were seen. Only at the end of the 24th century, during the great attack, they appeared for a few hours…

About space travel

Space travel in subspace is a complicated matter. The human mind can't imagine a curved dimension, and you can't see, feel or hear it with any human sense. There were spaceships equipped with windows, you couldn't really see anything... really nothing, nothing at all. And if you stare out too long, you just get sick.

The subspace ships need a huge battery of sensors to display subspace. To make it somehow understandable for the human mind, the many ones and zeros were converted into a kind of sea chart. Subspace used terms from seafaring. There were currents, reefs, waves, tides, sandbanks, bays, and much more. In fact, subspace travel was more like sailing, because even 400 years after the discovery of subspace, ships had no active propulsion. The dive generator was used to get the ship into subspace, where it had to find currents and winds to get around. 

Three zones were distinguished in subspace: First, the "surface water." Here space was only slightly curved and there were no currents or other hazards. But without propulsion, one stood still in this zone and no one was interested in being there. If a propulsion system were eventually developed, this zone would also have little interest, because here space was only slightly curved and you could not travel as fast as if you were deeper in subspace. Second, the lowest zone was called Abyss, just like in the sea. But also, here there was no wind, only with propulsion it would be interesting here: hundreds of light-years would be crossable within a few minutes. But even this zone remained closed to humans, and they had to be content with meso-subspace for the time being. The part of subspace where there were winds and currents that could be used, but which was also full of dangers...

So how does subspace travel work?

Essentially, what was needed first was a mapping ship. This ship mapped subspace with its extremely sensitive sensors. Then a nautical chart was created and a safe course to a safe location was calculated. The next few days or weeks were spent drifting to this safe location. With careful surfacing in normal space, the crew determined where they were now, and both charts were superimposed. 

"Surfacing" sounds very simple, but it was much more complicated than surfacing with a submarine. Many things had to be considered: not surfacing too close to a celestial body, otherwise, you could materialize directly inside it. But fortunately, you could see massive objects even from subspace. If wanting to arrive at a planet, the orbital mechanics had to be observed so that one arrived correctly in the orbit of a planet and the planet did not fly away from one. In that case, you could still use the sublight drives, but that was energy-consuming. And very important that you looked up when you surfaced and didn't crash into a quicksand bank from below, for example. So, subspace diving was a complicated discipline, and you had to have studied for years before you were put at the helm.

The subspace cartographers would then lay out some warning buoys or cairn and then set about mapping the next section. But after that, everything became easier; so-called road-building ships used the charts and determined where it was best to "lay roads”, that is, to equip the routes with radio buoys. The following ships did not need to calculate anything, they could simply follow the given routes. So, what cost a cartography crew years of work was later bridged within days or weeks.

Actually, cartography would be a perfect task for the advanced artificial intelligence that existed in the 24th century. But autonomous subspace ships had an above-average number of accidents and disappeared into subspace never to be seen again. Nobody really knew why this happened, and there were all kinds of hypotheses. But this did not help: So, there was nothing else to do than to send human crews on years-long journeys.

After fifty years of subspace travel, four planets could be colonized, and finally, Earth could be freed from extreme overpopulation. Gradually, other colonies followed. However, despite an intensive search, no other alien race willing to trade was discovered. The humans discovered what looked like ruins of civilization on an ice-covered planet, with an excessive amount of scrap metal in its orbit. But civilization had probably died out 20000 years ago. Another planet was also thought to have intelligence in the form of giant squids, but they didn't seem to have any technology. 

The only one they found was the Tollan. They had a thriving civilization, and their orbit was filled with high-tech satellites. It took twelve years to make contact, as the Tollans ignored all attempts at communication. Even explorers wandering the planet were ignored. Only after twelve years a breakthrough; the Tollans sent a message to the observation ship. Actually, it was software that learned the human language in a few seconds and translated the following message: "We have seen you, but we are not interested in communicating with you."

So, the humans left the Tollans alone and returned with the only known piece of alien technology: this super-translation software that solved all language problems from then on.

That was in short words what happened in the last 400 years.

The Cartography Starship

Captain Jay Shakleton sat in his command chair on the bridge of the cartography starship Abhysal. Well, actually it wasn't a real bridge, just an office with lots of screens, and Jay wasn't officially a captain. The spaceship of the cartography company StarMap Ltd. had no military structure and Jay was only "ship manager".

Jay was bored clicking through the latest cartography charts and looking at the screens to see what the others were doing.

The crew consisted of five people. Besides Jay, there was the ship's mechanic Almamira Malhotra, who took care of the subspace diving generators and the complicated sensor technology. Her nickname was Joe for short, and no one really knew why. Nicolai Sweroltzki was the engineer, janitor, MacGyver, all-rounder, he was a subspace veteran and his nickname was Nemo, named after the captain of the Nautilus from the novel by Jules Verne.

The subspace astrophysicist was Milo Aaron, and as an natural genius with a very seldom talent, he could intuitively grasp subspace. Milo was just Milo; he didn't care about nicknames. The last was AI expert Lexaly Park, she had a data implant and could communicate directly with Abhysal's artificial intelligence. Her nickname was Lex and the artificial intelligence was called Kiki.

The Abhysal was also populated by well over 100 other robots that took care of everything from maintaining the hydroponic gardens, servicing the fresh air systems, inspecting the hull, or even acting as sparring partners for Jay.

In fact, the ship could have flown completely automatically. The crew was only there to intervene in an emergency situation and check that Kiki was functioning properly. 

The Mission

Everyone had gotten used to the boredom. After all, it was no one's first mapping trip. The Abhysal was the best and most expensive subspace mapping ship ever built. It was said that it could still hear an alien fart three light-years away, so accurate were its sensors. This marvel of sensor technology has been built for the longest mission ever. The Abhysal broke the 45’000 light-years mark last week, and the crew was the farthest from Earth. 

Typically, mapping missions lasted 10 to 15 years, and the crew received a substantial pension so they could enjoy their retirement without ever having to work again.

There was no proper training to become a subspace cartographer; everyone was a lateral hire, from physicists, computer scientists, technicians, engineers, pilots, even cooks, hairdressers or opera singers could be found on the ships.

The training was simple: spend two years on a training mapping ship and then sign on for 10 to 15 years on a real mission. Brain scans showed whether candidates could handle the isolation and each followed psychological counseling. But those who survived the two-year training flight knew for themselves whether they were made for another ten years of isolation.

Essentially, this meant that Star Map was desperate for personnel.

For the Abhysal mission, it was even more difficult; no newcomers could be placed on such an expensive ship, only experienced cartographers. It so happened that each member of the Abhysal crew had a very special reason for signing on for at least 20 more years after an already completed first mission. That's how long the trip was planned to last. The Abhysal itself had enough power and spare parts to last half a century. Water and food were not a problem, and it depended on the mood of the crew how long the mission would last. In fact, they were now in their 14th year, and no one in this particular crew seemed interested in returning.

The Crew

So what kind of people were on board?

Aboard mapping ships, the past of crew members was unimportant, and no one would ever ask the other to reveal it unless he or she wanted to. But Jay's story was common knowledge.

His real name was Johann Jeremias Joshua Shakler. His parents had been well-meaning and had given him many biblical names. But even as a child, Jay knew exactly what he wanted to be, a member of the Hades Troop. The Hades Troop was a special military command since the 23rd century. There was no longer a normal army on Earth, but if there was to be an invasion or other attack on Earth, well-equipped and well-prepared soldiers were needed. And the Hades Troop was one such task force.

Jay was magically drawn to all things military, reading survival books like other kids reading comic books, and attending martial arts classes at an early age. At sixteen, he applied for the Hades entrance test, but before he could even take the fitness test, he was given a brain scan. The scan revealed that Jay was not at all fit to be a soldier. He allegedly had an inferiority complex and was thought to be reluctant to follow orders, preferring to command himself.

He was also rejected by the police. The muscular man, who looked and moved like a real professional soldier and spent half his life training martial arts to be part of a hit squad, didn't fit the job description of the modern police officer. 

But the professional psychologist Jay visited saved his career; she suggested he become a mountain rescuer. After all, there were enough tourists risking their necks in the mountain’s day in and day out. And in such a profession, you need strong and brave people. Jay first trained as a nurse and paramedic, and shortly thereafter flew his first helicopter mountain missions. After two years, he received an invitation to help on a subspace ambulance ship.

Subspace was also accessible to normal people, and adventurous people who couldn't get an adrenaline rush from normal sailing or mountaineering eventually joined subspace races. Of course, there were also countless luxury yachts and private spaceships. Rescue missions were the order of the day. Jay got to sit in the pilot's seat and steer the ambulance for 10 minutes. It was a moment that changed his life. Now he finally knew what he wanted: subspace pilot! He quit his job and continued his training. With the pilot goggles showing him the cartography map and the joystick in his hand, he felt like an adventurer. He seemed to have a natural talent for getting the ambulance ship into the perfect current and quickly targeting the casualty vessel.

At the age of 25, he was named Subspace Pilot of the Year. 

Two weeks after receiving the award, his life changed, as did the lives of many others. It was the year 2390 when an alien spacecraft suddenly emerged from subspace at about the same altitude as Mars. It sped past the moon's orbit and splashed into the ocean near the Philippines. Then it surfaced and activated its weapons, a kind of diffuse microwave radiation that boiled the brain matter.  The alien ship fired all its weapons, several thousand people died and many more survived with brain damage. After three hydrogen bombs, the attack was finally silenced.

Complete chaos reigned for days, and the mothballed space fleet was hastily brought out. However, for cost reasons, the pilots and officers of the fleet had never flown the combat spaceships but had only worked in a simulation environment.

It must be mentioned here that the simulation environments were as real as possible. The 3D exoskeletons the trainees inaccurately simulated all movements and touches, light brain stimulation contributed to the trainees almost believing it was real, but only almost.

In the meantime, two more alien spaceships had appeared on course for Earth.

Time was of the essence!

The fleet quickly sought the most experienced pilots to man their ships. So, Jay suddenly found himself as chief pilot aboard the flagship. He, who had never been considered for a military career. 

He was so happy that even a fight with an alien spaceship did not scare him. He was full of adrenaline and couldn't wait to fight and protect the Earth. The battle did not last long, because the alien ships suddenly accelerated and were in Earth orbit earlier than planned. The battle was a mess.

The aliens activated their weapons, and two destroyer crews died when their brains exploded. Jay's ship was partially hit and half died. Jay himself had suffered a brain hemorrhage, he clung to his chair and in his delusion, he was the captain and had to stop the alien ship. From his point of view, everything was clear, despite the pain, he crawled to the weapons officer's console and wanted to fire the missiles. But the ship refused; someone had hacked it. Then someone attacked him, but Jay was a martial arts expert. With two kicks, he brought the attacker to the ground and kept typing on the console until he could finally fire the missiles. On the screen, he saw the alien spaceship explode into a fireball. Then he passed out.

Only when he awoke from the artificial coma after six months did he learn what had really happened. The alien spaceships had immediately stopped their attack when another destroyer fired at them. Immediately, they dived into subspace and fled.

Jay's action took place only 30 minutes after the attack. On the ship's camera, a wavering Jay could be seen running through the bridge, ordering the other wounded to fire on the alien ship immediately. When no one responded, he manipulated the weapons console, but he aimed not at an alien ship, but at the Phalanx, which was generating power. The young weapons officer recognized this and tried to stop him. Jay broke her neck with a kick. He then managed to override the ship's safety mechanisms and fire the missiles. 

In doing so, he cut the power supply to Earth in half. 

Prices rose dramatically, there were shortages everywhere, until finally, the replacement fusion plants came online.

Johann Jeremias Shakler was cursed everywhere, only the fleet held back. In fact, a loophole in the software had ensured that Jay gained access in the first place. He wasn't charged with murder either; the weapons officer had suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and, according to pathologists, would have died a few minutes later anyway.

But the height of irony was when it was discovered that the alien weapons were not weapons, but a radio message. 

The message was something like this, "We come in peace, we are peaceful explorers. We mean you no harm, we just want to empty our latrines and fill our water tanks."

So, Earth would have been just a cosmic toilet…

And so the Aliens got their nickname: Outhouse-Aliens!

Jonathan was cleared of all blame by the fleet. But that didn't help. He felt that all of humanity hated him. Changing his name didn't help either. Constant vituperative messages filled his phone, and his family turned away and moved away. He tried to kill himself, but not seriously enough. He didn't really want to die! And then he was offered the solution: he hired on at StarMap Ltd. There, a subspace pilot was always welcome, and he was offered the position of "captain," or in this case, ship manager.

This was the opportunity to escape from humanity and its injustice.

When he returned after the first ten-year mission, he felt no need to settle anywhere and immediately signed up for the mission with the Abhysal.

For Milo, there was no particularly tragic story. Milo had a rare disease; in centuries past, it might have been mistakenly classified as savant syndrome. But with modern medicine and the brain scan, much more was now known: Milo's brain was aligned with subspace. He felt all vibrations and impulses. Unfortunately, even modern medicine had no solution at hand to heal him, but this was not necessary. Neither his parents nor the society found it necessary that people should follow a social scheme. He attended a special school, where he received special support. Everything was done so that Milo could live his talent and preferences and have a fullfied life. The most important thing for Milo was subspace. In addition to his ability to sense subspace, he also had a genius-like mathematical and physical talent, and before his twenty years Milo had become a world-renowned subspace expert. Special care robots helped him in his daily life, because he could not do it himself, he also had trouble getting involved with other people. Dealing with many people irritated him, made him angry and unfocused. He preferred to live alone, or within a family structure. Since he was magically attracted to subspace, it had been a natural decision to work at StarMap and dealing with a small crew that was almost like his family was also absolutely ideal for him. His terms of employment were simple: He had to follow the orders of the ship's manager unconditionally and navigate the spaceship with artificial intelligence as safely as possible through subspace. In return, he was allowed to use as much free time for his research as he wanted, and also to access all sensor data. Of course, he was also allowed to publish his discoveries. 

Back from his first ten-year mission, he brought back 1000 pages of groundbreaking subspace observations and also a new theory for calculating discontinuity in multidimensional form. He became a pop star among subspace physicists and toured the united planets with his family giving lectures and publishing his findings. Here he also discovered that he liked to share his knowledge. But unfortunately, his lectures were completely chaotic and far from organized. He wrote formulas on the old-fashioned chalkboard and often began to stutter so that no one understood him. Thus, his lectures were usually poorly attended, and the scientific community focused mainly on his written work. Milo could have easily imagined himself teaching and doing research at a university. But no one wanted to offer a chair to this disorganized genius. This made Milo very sad, and living with many people made him irritable and he could hardly concentrate. So, he asked StarMap if he could participate in a mission again. StarMap, of course, was very enthusiastic, because in two years the great Abhysal mission would begin. To keep him happy until then, he was given an office and a small apartment at StarMap headquarters and allowed to work through all the raw subspace data collected by the mapping ships.

Milo missed being in subspace himself and couldn't wait for the Abhysal mission to begin.

Lexaly was a special case; no one knew exactly why she had joined StarMap. In any case, she didn't seem to be adventurous, and a tragic disaster like Jay's could not be accounted for. She claimed only to want to make money and to love subspace. She was a computer scientist and had discovered AI programming while in college. AI programming was the most difficult thing there was, and programming only small parts required thousands of man-hours. That's why the data interface was developed. It was implanted in the brainstem, and programmers could work directly in the AI. To do this, one had to be very conscientious, perfectionist, and able to concentrate for hours. Of course, you had to be able to program excellently in advance, otherwise, you had no chance with the complicated AI programming language. Lex met all the requirements. She was always introspective, very precise in all her work, also very calm and focused. Most people thought she was shy and timid. But in reality, she just liked to work alone and found computer programs more interesting than other people. But in the third year of her training as an AI programmer, disaster strikes.

She was at the AI headquarters in Marrakesh and connected with her implant to the AI chair as usual. Conscientiously, she studied the changes she was seeing in the hospital AI at a hospital in Delhi. The new fully automated premature infant unit would open soon, and she needed to make some final adjustments. Routine work. In fact, it wasn't her project, but that of Betty, her supervisor, who was on sick leave. But the work was so simple that the programming company decided to have an apprentice do it. The window of opportunity opened and Lex contacted the foreign AI. She worked diligently for two hours, with only one correction giving her trouble. Was she programming correctly? Should she call the supervisor? She was at odds with herself. The window would close soon, and if she delayed and the AI wasn't ready in time, the company would have to pay fines. It would also negatively affect her evaluation if she couldn't do such a simple routine job on her own. Failure was the worst thing Lex could imagine. So, she decided to take a few more minutes and retrace the steps. When she looked at the code again, it looked perfectly fine, and Lex calmed down. She finished the programming and conscientiously wrote her log before finishing her shift.

The horror followed three months later. A newspaper article said 17 infants had died in the newly opened premature infant unit. The fault was a misprogrammed infusion pump. Lex still had all the program codes in her head. She had made the mistake, now she knew: She had made a comma error and the infusion pump had dosed incorrectly. In a panic, Lex waited the next few days for the police to arrest her. But nothing happened. When she reread the newspaper, it turned out that the manufacturer of the infusion pumps had been charged because a pump had actually made a mistake.

Lex was paralyzed; someone would find out. Someone would see that the AI programming was wrong! By the time of next month's brain scan at the latest, everyone would know that she was responsible for a terrible accident!

But an accident rarely came alone; her twin sister died in an accident just two days later. Lex fell into a deep depression, not only the death of her sister but especially the death of the newborns weighed on her, 17 innocent children had died because of her fault. The brain scan showed Lex's deep disruption, and everyone believed it was the death of her beloved sister. 

The AI company offered her time off to grieve. As if in a trance, Lex booked a grief workshop. It wasn't until she stayed overnight in an old convent that she realized she had booked time off with nuns.

But the months there did her good. Religion had been completely forgotten in the modern world, and it was the first time Lex had heard of a God. But she soon found comfort in faith, and one morning while praying in the old church, she realized what she had to do. She had to atone for her guilt! Her confessor listened to her concerns without judgment and helped Lex find a solution. Lex knew exactly what she had to do, she would spend her life as a kind of emeritus. She was going to do something good for humanity. She would join StarMap and use her skills to contribute to the successful completion of missions. In seclusion on the spaceship, she would have all the time in the world to pray for the lost souls.

She never told anyone about her plans. It was clear to her that her plan would sound completely crazy to an outsider.

With fresh courage, she completed her training and hired on at StarMap. She almost expected the police to be waiting for her when she returned from her first ten-year mission. But no one noticed the AI error, and in the meantime, the hospital AI had been replaced. So, there was no longer any evidence of Lex's "crime." But Lex judged that God had cleared up some of her guilt and wanted to save her from the shame of an arrest. She felt vindicated in her actions and immediately signed on again for the Abhysal mission.

After her first mission, no one from her family understood why she wanted to fly away again. But you could see how happy and content she was, and her family let her go again.

Joe was a classic adventurer, as were most of the people who joined StarMap. In her youth, she had participated in both sailing races and subspace rallies, and could never get enough of the adrenaline rush. But her hobbies were expensive, as a subspace racing ship costs several years' salary, so she signed on as a machinist on subspace cruisers early on. But her earnings weren't that high, and vacation days were never enough for her planned adventures. So, she decided to work for StarMap for ten years. That would earn her enough money to sail or do subspace rallies for the rest of her life.

Her first StarMap mission failed completely. Two monster waves rolled over the ship, and they were stuck on a reef for two years after that. Joe was the only one who had experience as a pilot in uncharted subspace. So, she was sent off in the small shuttle because everyone had lost hope that the rescue ships would find them. It took her six months to fight her way through subspace to the nearest road. But finally, they were all rescued.

After such an adventure, all the subspace rallies and sailing trips seemed boring, and Joe simply decided to go on another mission. After all, discovering subspace was probably one of the last adventures one could have as a human.

So, the small wiry, and daredevil machinist came aboard the Abhysal.

Nicolai, or simply called Nemo, also had a tragic story behind him. His first brain-scan at the age of eight certified severe pedophilic traits. A shock for the family and lack of understanding for Nicolai, who was taken out of public school and had to attend a special school.

The brain scans a year later and two years later still showed a severe pedophilic disorder, and several neurological reports said it was only a matter of time before this dangerous streak would breakthrough and he would commit his first sex crime.

At the age of 13, Nicolai could do statistics better than any math student. Time and again, he told doctors, judges, and psychiatrists that he was a false positive. The brain scan had not worked on him, he said, and he was one of ten people worldwide to have been falsely tested. But everyone just smiled mildly.

His fate was predetermined, at the age of 16, he was to be relegated to the "plastic waste team". There were all those whom the brain scan classified as a danger, but without ever having committed a crime. They lived in a luxury resort on the Kerguelen Islands, from where they cleaned Antarctica of thousands of tons of plastic waste produced by mankind in the 20th and 21st centuries.

That same year, he was flown there for summer vacation. The people were all nice and he had a chance to talk to the dozens of men who had also been banished for having a pedophilic streak. They all, but really all, affirmed that they were innocent and would not hurt anyone. They all claimed that the brain scan had not worked and that they had tested falsely positive. 

Nicolai was horrified.

Barely back, he had been given an ankle bracelet and had become accustomed to making a wide berth at every kindergarten and school. He always looked around in a hurry to avoid getting too close to a child. His family could not bear his situation and moved to a farm in the Carpathians. Through correspondence courses, Nicolai completed his compulsory schooling and otherwise spent time with his two dogs and horse. He hardly left the farm and avoided other houses or villages like the plague. The idea that he would spend the next 100 years of his adult life living on a deserted island collecting plastic waste was so absurd as to be merely surreal. But he could count on the support of his family. Everyone was feverishly searching for a way out of exile. And they found it.

StarMap promised the police to take care of Nicolai in the future. From now on, he will only be in StarMap spaceships or at the company's headquarters on special occasions. If he had to leave the premises for unknown reasons, the police would be contacted immediately.

Thus, on his sixteenth birthday, Nicolai was picked up by StarMap to be taken to the training spaceship. In the confined space of the ship, Nicolai felt freer than ever before. The other adult crew members didn't care about his possibly pedophilic streak, and he quickly became a competent and reliable ship's engineer.

He started a video blog, always posting about life in subspace and all sorts of technological aspects. He also wrote children's stories, which were very popular on Earth.

After four missions and 42 years in subspace, Nemo, as everyone called him, was a living legend and the longest-serving subspace veteran. Two generations had grown up with his stories and adventures. The brain scan was officially deemed "false positive," and Nemo was allowed to return to Earth.

But Nemo would hear no more of it; deep inside him hummed a hatred of humanity, and he vowed never to set foot on Earth again. Just like his namesake from the novel by Jules Verne. In any case, he knew nothing but subspace and outer space, and as soon as he was on a planet, he felt land sick.

So, it was clear to him that he would work for StarMap for the rest of his life.

The money he earned, he distributed to all kinds of charities or spent it to equip himself for all his expensive hobbies.

What did the crew members look like and what were their characters?

In the 24th century all peoples had mixed strongly and it was hardly possible to classify the origin of somebody by his appearance. On the passports "Species: Homo Sapiens" was written and only the place of birth was listed. But it was fashionable to go back to one's roots. With gene analysis, family trees, ancient geography and history books, people tried to trace their kinship. Most of them carried genes from all ethnic groups and so everybody could choose his favorite ancestors according to his mood. 

The character traits of the people on board were not extremely pronounced and everyone had a very calm, peaceful and moderate character. A crew that had fights or drama every day was good for movies and TV but certainly not in reality. For such long-term missions StarMap paid very close attention to the fact that only psychologically absolutely stable people were on board. Because on board it was a matter of being able to intervene in an emergency. Everyone had to work calmly and efficiently under high pressure and danger to life and was not allowed to panic under any circumstances. Specially developed psycho-hypnosis programs and breathing exercises helped the crew to prepare for the worst emergencies and also to cope with their life in seclusion. All of them were on their second mission and after decades of psychic training, none of them would panic if suddenly aliens would storm on board and for such cases there were also drugs that would dampen the emotions and make the crew even more efficient. But despite the general similarity of the characters on board, each of them had their own peculiarities.

Jay was tall and broad-shouldered, large muscles were bulging under his dark skin. Many people thought he was a professional soldier or wrestler, because that's what he looked like. When asked about his ancestors, he liked to claim that they were Maori warriors. He preferred to wear military clothes and tried to be always and everywhere correct, an exemplary officer, as it should be for an ideal ship captain. From time to time he felt angry about his fate and dreamed of taking revenge somehow. But this usually lasted only a short time and these dreams of revenge had almost completely faded away in the many therapy sessions. He did not know what to do after the Abhysal Mission. Continue to work like Nemo? Or retire somewhere? Occasionally he dreamed of meeting aliens and earning his living as a mercenary. The others laughed at his dreams. But the discussion of meeting aliens could fill whole evenings and was a valued topic of conversation. Just as people could have full-length discussions about possible lottery winnings.

Joe also dreamed of meeting aliens, it was also one of the reasons she had signed on. To be the first human to encounter and explore a new race! She was of medium height and had brown hair, which she liked to dye red. She had grown up on the flanks of Stromboli in the Mediterranean, but she claimed to have Viking ancestors and liked to talk about the Normans who had come as far as Sicily around the year 1000. She was wiry and athletic. In her youth she had participated in almost all sailing races and even sailed the Route de Rhum solo. She didn't mind loneliness and the more dangerous it became the better. She was rather the joker of the crew and always up for something funny.

Lex was the complete opposite. She was rather an anxious character and had an unsurpassable talent to see worst-case scenarios everywhere. This was quite practical because with her pessimist the crew was prepared for all unthinkable eventualities. Meeting aliens would be a horror for her. What if they destroyed Kiki? When asked about her ancestors, she would only reply "the corner between Korea and Japan or something." Like everyone in the crew, she had gone through over a decade of excessive athletic training with Jay and her round chubby body was now lean and well defined. Anyway, many people on earth would have been jealous of the crew's well-toned bodies.

Nemo at nearly 70 was exceedingly fit and could easily beat Jay if they ran a simulated marathon. He was gray-haired. Alternately wore a thick mustache or a bushy beard. He was the only one who could be seen to have Caucasian ancestry and liked to claim that his ancestors came from an influential tsarist family. He was very lethargic and laconic. "Let's see..." was his favorite phrase. And this trait had already saved his life in a few situations. He was exactly the man you wanted at your side when your spaceship was torn apart and you landed on a monster-strewn planet. Nemo would always and everywhere found a solution. He had put aside his hatred of humans for two decades and loved being an emeritus. If the Abhysal would return...if...then he would simply sign on for the next mission. Again and again until he died somewhere in an accident or passed away in peace.

Milo was born on a small colony planet but had spent his entire childhood in South America. When asked where his ancestors came from, he would only say, "from Earth." He had a southern Spanish-type look and could have easily been a heartthrob. But he was not interested in that. He was extremely shy around people anyway, and it had taken him five years to get to know the crew enough to confide in them, but now he considered them his family. Most of the time he was taciturn, but he could easily talk for hours when it came to astronomy or physics. He also pursued psychotherapy and the crew was sure that he became more confident and communicative every year. He faced the idea of encountering aliens fearlessly. "If they have spaceships, they must have a good knowledge of physics. I bet that's exciting." Milo was even taller than Jay and had to duck each time to go under the bulkheads of the starship doors. 

He was the only one on board who had no hobbies.

Life on the Abhysal

Time-consuming hobbies were probably the most important thing aboard a mapping ship. 

Even when the crew was on board, they didn't have to do much, and their only job was to monitor Kiki.

A day passed like this:

At six in the morning, the crew met. That might seem early, but after 400 years of genetic manipulation, the average human's sleep time had been reduced to three to four hours. Most of them went to bed at one in the morning and by six o’clock. They were fully awake.

Now Jay took the helm. As the ship's manager, he was responsible for keeping all crew members healthy and fit. Although the Abhysal had artificial gravity, the gravity plates left much to be desired, and without exercise, the astronauts would quickly lose muscle and bone mass. A minimum of two hours a day was mandatory. But Jay's obsession with sports and fitness meant that the average was more like four hours a day. Jay had built a gigantic fitness track in the Abhysal and kept coming up with the latest ideas to get everyone moving. So, the day started for example with a five-kilometer run through Abhysal's storage rooms, followed by a climb up the shaft of the freight elevator. To be very mean, Jay also liked to increase gravity or make it reverse. So, everyone had to try hard not to fall off the climbing wall. When Jay didn't put climbing on the program, there were obstacle courses, because he had built a real ninja warrior parkour where everyone practiced coordination and dexterity. There was also a well-equipped fitness center in the lounge, so all the usual equipment like weight training, spinning, or rowing machines could be used. Fun exercises like jumping rope, trampolining, and gymnastics were on the schedule as well as athletics, dance or ballroom sports, or military drill. Jay himself was still an avid martial artist, and so there were regular boxing or Kung Fu classes. Nicolai and Joe had also discovered their passion for martial arts and trained regularly with Jay. Lex trained with them when asked, but she didn't like it. She only liked archery at Jay's range. 

Milo performed his sports exercises as he was instructed, but felt sports were just a boring waste of time. 

After the sport, they had breakfast. The storage rooms of the Abhysal were filled with stasis containers of food. And if food ran out in 30 years, the hydroponic garden could be expanded to grow all the food they needed. The garden currently provides only vegetables, protein cucumbers, meat eggplants, and noodle tubers. Thus, the crew could also benefit from fresh food.

After breakfast, everyone turned to their work:

Joe and Nemo mostly worked together. But before starting their work, both engineers squeezed into their high-tech technician outfits as usual. In addition to all kinds of technician bells and whistles, it also offered radiation protection, cooling and heating systems, as well as a light muscle booster. In one of his previous missions, this suit had saved Nemo's life when a leak occurred. That's why he had insisted that they always wear it on routine missions. Joe was officially responsible for everything around subspace technology and Nemo for the fission reactor and life support systems. But after so many years in starships, both were experts in both areas and did the work together.

They had to perform daily inspections of the various parts of the ship. Today they inspected the outer casing of the subspace diving generator and evaluated the X-ray image of the maintenance robot. There were no faults to be found (which was logical, because otherwise, Kiki would have informed them immediately). Then they checked the filters of the water treatment plant. Here, too, everything was in order. Conscientiously, they filled out the maintenance forms and got ready to enjoy their free time.

Jay himself sat down in his office. There he filled out the fitness forms and noted the team's progress, then Kiki gave him his agenda. From time to time, he had to do medical exams and check up on the other crew members. Or he would go through the stock lists and check to make sure everything was in order. He also looked at what everyone in the crew was doing and if they were doing their jobs on time. At least this way he could feel a little like a captain.

But his favorite thing to do was test the latest subspace maps that Kiki had created overnight. He used a simulator and flew through the newly mapped area. If there were any ambiguities, he reported them to Kiki, who then recalculated the maps, which happened once every two years. The subspace maps traveled with all the other documents in the "carrier pigeons" small autonomous spaceships that flew back in the opposite direction and delivered the data to StarMap.

Afterward, he did stretching exercises for an hour to work on his mobility. Occasionally, he would sneak into the simulation box. This was Jay's favorite retreat. Virtual reality was set up in the box, and thanks to a full-body suit and an exoskeleton, movements, and touch could be simulated almost lifelike. Brain stimulation helped make it seem even more real. Jay practiced everything from complicated surgeries to spacewalks in the simulation box. But when he could, he played war games. First-person shooters as well as strategy games or replicas of famous battles. Sometimes he needed the box six to eight hours a day, but no one would deny it. Lex got seasick in it, Milo didn't care, and Joe and Nemo only used it a little.

Milo disappeared into the astrolab immediately after breakfast and would not come out again until the evening. Most of the time, his nursing robot escorted him to the dining table so he could eat properly.

Milo used his time both to create the new navigation plans with Kiki and to track down and explore unknown subspace phenomena. He wrote new publications and once a week he was allowed to present his latest results to the crew. Not that anyone understood much about his theories, but everyone made the effort to listen to him carefully. After all, it was important that Milo felt comfortable and had fun. The benefit was that with time most of the crewmembers were now also experts in subspace physics too.

Lex went to the computer room, which was connected to the Astrolab, where she logged in with Kiki. Through her data interface, she reviewed a small portion of the AI programming each day. The common hypothesis was that some subspace radiation was causing errors in the computer code, which was the reason robot ships crashed so often. But neither Lex nor other programmers had ever encountered induced errors. Lex loved spending time with Kiki. To her, Kiki was almost human, even her best friend. She enjoyed spending time in the logically clear world of program code. Here and there she made changes and improvements. Apart from that, Lex liked to work on her "baby", programming her own AI according to her needs. 

It was almost one o'clock and Lex had to stop her work. Even the best AI programmers could not spend more than three hours at a time in an AI environment. After that, the risk became too great that she would get distracted and some faulty code would creep in.

Lex crossed the short corridor to the lounge. Here were the kitchen and dining room, as well as the gym and a cozy sofa area with multimedia screens and library.

At the same time, Nemo and Joe arrived, as well as Jay, who mostly crawled out of the simulation box exhausted and retired to his quarters to change.

At noon they had a light meal with soup and bread.

Every day there was an emergency drill in the early afternoon, this could be just a simple briefing where Jay went over the instructions again or a full simulation. Today there was only a short drill, and everyone had to get into the emergency space suit as quickly as possible. After all, people were on the ship to intervene in an emergency. So, it was logical that all possible scenarios had to be practiced. Shortly after, people went either to their quarters or to their workplace and performed their psycho-hypnosis program. Many techniques taught them to focus, or to remain calm in life-threatening situations. In the meantime, the crew had reached mastery in this, and they enjoyed also practicing all together as a group. Three times in the last few years they had barely escaped catastrophes and that was only thanks to the fact that everyone in the crew had quickly mastered the situations calmly and thoughtfully. When such situations occurred, it was as if a switch was flipped, everyone was immediately in the flow and acted as one.

Afterward, they had coffee and cake.

After fourteen years of being together day and night, everyone knew each other as well as they could.

They chatted a bit about the morning routine, talked about fitness training, and everyone explained what they would be doing in the remaining afternoon, and most importantly, they planned the evening activities together. Twice a week they all played theater together, once they played music together, and the remaining two evenings were movie or game nights.

Anything that could be done in the confined space of the Abhysal was considered to be an ideal hobby. Logically, everyone loved subspace, and job-related courses or distance learning were highly valued as pastimes. Everyone had been on mapping ships for at least 25 years, and the list of degrees was correspondingly long. Joe now has a degree in chemistry and even an honorary doctorate in sensor technology. Nemo was a nuclear physicist and a graduate gravitational engineer. In any case, all but Jay were world-renowned experts in the field of subspace technologies. Joe, Lex, and Nemo worked together to develop improved gravitational plates or other new gear and engines, and they had a superbly equipped high-tech workshop and an even better equipped general research laboratory. Sponsored by Nemo's vast fortune.