Space Cowboy Arc
26th April
I'm not really sure what happened. I guess I upset Hana somehow, but after our conversation, she immediately went to bed. I didn't really think too much of it during my shift, which ended without incident. As we slowly crept closer and closer to the asteroid that is our goal.
"Sayyad! Sayyad!"
I feel myself being roughly shaken awake. I'm still exhausted so I don't think I slept into my shift, and the voice sounds like Petr rather than Ahmad. Something must've happened.
"What is it?"
"There's another ship going for the same asteroid as us."
Even though I'm half asleep, I quickly understand the significance of that. The way claiming works out here, the first ship to get to an asteroid gets full rights to it. The whole asteroid is theirs to mine if they land on it first. So basically, if we want anything from this expedition, we need to get there first.
"Are you sure? Is it possible their headed somewhere else?"
Petr shakes his head, "there's nothing else out this way. At least nothing anywhere near as valuable."
I sigh. This could be bad.
"Okay, I'll get up. Give me five minutes."
The other ship is called the Hawk. I recognise it as one of the newer ships. A later design than our one, and faster. A lot faster. I don't know the crew, but since they work for Medano, even if I did know them, I wouldn't be able to convince them to back off if this asteroid is as good as Petr claims it to be.
Everyone's been woken up, and summoned, to hear Petr explain the situation to us. Hana and Ahmad were on the next shift, and they both look mostly fine. Well, more awake than me at least. I'm glad to see that Hana looks better now than she did before she went to sleep.
"How long until we reach the asteroid?" I ask Petr.
"A day. It'll probably only take them a little over twelve hours."
"Then we're done for," Ahmad replies, "we can't beat them for speed."
All of us stay silent for a while. Normally this wouldn't be the worst situation, but because we're currently in a tight financial situation already… this could end up being a little rough. Sure, we can find a smaller, less profitable asteroid on our way back to Ceres, but it probably won't even cover our expenses for this trip. The fuel, and food supplies, is more or less a waste. Perhaps we were too greedy trying to go for this asteroid. It was too far from Ceres. I shouldn't have agreed to this.
"Well… there's a way that we could still beat them to it."
I look over towards Petr, "what do you mean?"
"Usually we circle behind the asteroid, then follow it, catch up, then slow down again so that we're moving at the same speed, then land on the asteroid," Petr explains, "but, we could cut down on the travel difference if we went straight to the asteroid. If we planted ourselves on the asteroid's trajectory, allow the asteroid to slowly catch up with us, then land on the asteroid as it reaches us."
The four of us stay silent for a time.
"That sounds really risky," Ahmad is the first to speak, "if you get the velocity wrong, we're dead."
"If we don't do it, we lose this asteroid," Petr replies bluntly.
Once again, we lapse into silence. I'm not sure whether I'm willing to take that risk. We really need the credits that we'll get from that asteroid, but I don't know if I'm willing to risk my life for it. It isn't like we'll starve to death if we can't successfully claim this asteroid. We can probably find another asteroid on the way back to Ceres. I don't think we'll ever find another asteroid this valuable for the rest of our lives, however. This is a gold mine.
"Well, I'm against it," Ahmad says, "it isn't worth risking our lives for it. What do you think, Sayyad?"
I'm not sure. Maybe Ahmad is right, that it isn't worth risking our lives for, but what's the chances that we don't find another asteroid that'll pay for the expenses of this expedition and feed us all for a week or two? The chances of that are actually quite low. That would still have to be an asteroid that's more valuable than usual. Another rare find. Not as rare as this one, but still rare enough.
"How confident are you that you can calculate everything correctly, Petr?" I ask.
"I'm confident. I'm confident that I can get it close enough that we won't… be crushed by the asteroid."
I sigh. As the captain, this is my decision to make, but I'm not sure that I'm willing to make this decision without getting everyone onboard. I'm sure that Ahmad's mostly thinking of Hana when he says that he doesn't think we should do this. He doesn't want to risk it with her onboard. That's what he's thinking, I'm sure.
"What about you, Hana?" I ask, "what do you think?"
Hana opens her mouth to respond, but Ahmad answers in her place.
"She doesn't want to do this."
Me and Petr both stay silent, as standing beside Ahmad, Hana's face turns from neutral to anger, or perhaps even contempt.
"Do it," Hana says, looking at me and Petr, "you need this, right? Do it."
"No, we're not doing this," Ahmad says in response, "I don't want to risk it, it's not worth it. We're not doing this with you onboard."
"I can decide that for myself. I can choose myself. And I'm saying that it's fine."
"Hana-" Ahmad begins, but I cut him off.
"Ahmad, you're not going to be able to convince her either way. And besides, I agree with Petr. If he's confident that he can pull it off, then I'm convinced that this is the best option for us."
Ahmad looks around, swivelling his head looking at each of us three in turn.
"You can't be serious, can you? This isn't worth risking our lives for."
"That's not the point," I answer, "if we don't go for this, we'll be out of credits. Not dead, but we might as well be. We won't have the credits to even fuel up for another expedition, or even to feed ourselves for a week. We need this. It might not be life or death, but it's about as close as we'll get to it."
Ahmad stared at me for a couple of seconds, then shook his head, "I can't believe that you're doing this."
Understanding that the argument is lost, however, Ahmad walks away, muttering under his breath.
I'm still not one hundred percent sure that I've made the necessary decision, but I understand that this is probably the best choice. This is what's needed, but whether I'm making the right decision for everyone on board this ship, I'm not so sure.