January 1, 2019. The Forest Clearing. 01:45 Local Time.
The monster didn't land. It couldn't. Four hundred meters of armored hull would have crushed the frozen soil into a crater, snapping the underground roots and leaving a geological scar visible from space. Instead, it floated.
The Nomad hung in the air, a massive slab of Vantablack darkness against the swirling grey smog. The anti-gravity thrusters—repurposed from the heavy mining tractors—hummed with a sound that wasn't audible so much as felt in the marrow of my bones. Leaves and twigs on the forest floor skittered away, pushed by the displacement of air.
"It's... hovering," Mereel shouted over the hum, shielding his eyes from the dust. "How much does that thing weigh?"
"Fully loaded? About 120,000 tons," I yelled back, grinning like a maniac. "Archi is balancing it on a magnetic cushion. Look!"
At the front of the ship, the massive cargo ramp began to lower. It didn't slam down. It moved with the smooth, oiled precision of a bank vault door. It stopped exactly three centimeters above the grass. Not a single blade was crushed.
"Come on," I waved at Mereel. "Welcome aboard."
We walked up the ramp. It was wide enough to drive a tank column through. As we crossed the threshold, I felt a slight tingle—static electricity on my skin. "Atmospheric containment field," I explained, tapping the air behind us. "Keeps the smog out. Keeps the clean air in."
Inside, the noise of the forest vanished instantly. The hum of the thrusters became a distant, pleasant vibration. The air smelled different here—sterile, metallic, with a hint of ozone and recycled pine scent.
We stood in the main cargo bay. It was a cavern. The ceiling was lost in shadows fifty meters above us. Mereel spun in a circle, his mouth agape. "This... this is real. This is actual steel. I can touch it." He ran his hand along a structural support beam. "It's cold."
"It's been in the Kuiper Belt," I said, looking around. I knew every bolt of this ship from the blueprints, yet seeing it made me feel small. "Archi heated the habitable sections, but the hull still remembers the deep freeze."
I pointed toward a bulkhead door in the distance. "If the schematics are right... the crew elevators should be that way."
"Should be?" Mereel raised an eyebrow.
"I built it, Mereel. I never walked in it. I'm seeing this for the first time, too."
We walked through the ship. It was a surreal experience. "This... should be the Med-Bay," I said, swiping my hand over a sensor. The door hissed open, revealing a pristine, white room with an Auto-Doc table. "Check."
We walked further. "And this... ought to be the Mess Hall." Door open. Tables, chairs, and a food fabricator unit. "Check."
"It's a ghost ship," Mereel whispered. "It's fully furnished, but nobody lives here."
"Not yet," I said. "Come on. The best part is upstairs."
The Bridge.
The elevator ride was smooth. When the doors opened, we stepped onto the Command Deck. It wasn't like Star Trek with bright carpets and wood paneling. It was like a submarine or a battleship. Dark metal, tactical displays, and thick, reinforced glass. The viewport wrapped around the front, offering a panoramic view of... well, currently, grey fog.
In the center sat two chairs. Heavy, leather-clad, with control interfaces built into the armrests. "Captain's Chair," I said, pointing to the center one. "And the Executive Officer's station to the right."
I sat down. The chair adjusted to my spine instantly. It felt right. It felt like coming home. Mereel hesitated, then sat in the XO chair. He ran his hands over the haptic glass panel. "I can't believe I'm sitting here," he muttered. "I should be fixing a clogged drain in Kreuzberg right now."
"Archi?" I spoke to the room.
"Online, Surgrim," Archi's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "Ship status: Green. Reactor output: 15%. Camouflage: Active. We are holding position."
"Where are you piloting from?" Mereel asked, looking for a joystick.
"I am the ship, Mereel. I do not need a stick. I process the telemetry directly."
I turned to Mereel. The excitement was buzzing in my veins, but I needed to be sure. "So," I asked casually. "Do you have any plans for the next few days? Or is Mrs. Kowalski's toilet urgent?"
Mereel looked at the console, then at me. He grinned. "You're my boss, Surgrim. You pay me to manage the 'network'. If the network is suddenly orbiting the planet... I guess I have to be there to maintain it."
"Good answer."
I turned back to the forward viewport. "Archi. Let's get out of this soup. Plot a course for High Earth Orbit. Geostationary Transfer."
"Trajectory locked. Inertial dampeners at maximum. You might feel a slight... pull. Prepare for ascent."
"Do it."
The Ascent.
There was no countdown. No roar of chemical rockets. Just a sudden surge of power. The floor pressed up against my feet. My stomach did a little flip, like when an elevator starts too fast.
Outside the window, the grey fog rushed downward. "Altitude: 1 kilometer," Archi reported. "Clearing the smog layer."
And then, it happened. We burst through the cloud cover. The grey nothingness vanished, replaced instantly by a sea of black, studded with diamonds. The smog of Berlin lay below us like a dirty carpet, glowing orange from the city lights. Above, the sky was crystal clear.
"Wow," Mereel breathed.
"We are accelerating," Archi warned. "Mach 1... Mach 5... Leaving the troposphere."
The sky shifted from black to blue, then to a deep, bruising purple, and finally... back to absolute black. But this wasn't the darkness of night. It was the void. The curvature of the Earth became visible, a glowing blue arc against the infinite dark.
"Orbit achieved," Archi announced calmly. "Altitude: 400 kilometers. Adjusting for Geostationary Transfer. Welcome to space, gentlemen."
I unbuckled my seatbelt—which I hadn't even realized I'd fastened—and stood up. I walked to the window. Gravity was normal (thanks to the deck plating), but looking out, my brain screamed that I should be falling. Below us, Europe was a glittering web of lights.
"We did it," I whispered.
Mereel joined me at the window. He didn't say anything. He just pressed his hand against the glass, leaving a fingerprint on the window to the world.
"So," he said after a long silence. "What now? We have a spaceship. We have a crew of two. And we have the ultimate high ground."
I looked at the Earth, then at the Moon in the distance, where our empty crater lay. "Now? Now we figure out what comes next."