Into the Trash Patch

LOCATION: The Halo

STATUS: Evasion Maneuvers

The Halo was not empty space. It was a river of metal. Hundreds of years ago, during the Old Earth era, this altitude was the most valuable real estate in the solar system. It was the Geostationary Belt—a precise ring thirty-five thousand kilometers above the equator where the great communication platforms hung suspended in the sky.

Then came the Rip, then the wars, then the string of failed missions to get to Earth, then the decay and the collisions and the clumping. Then eventually the scavengers started coming.

It had become a grinding, rotating belt of shattered hulls, dead reactors, and even frozen bodies that encased the planet in a cage of debris.

The Mighty Sparrow dove straight into the field.

-Proximity Alert, the on-board computer warned, her polite Old Earth voice echoing in the rattling cockpit.

-Collision imminent.

-Shut up, Phoenix shot back. He twisted the stick. The ship rolled ninety degrees, narrowly missing a spinning solar array the size of a football field.

Behind them, the two MTC drones followed. The drones, known as mule killers, were faster than human reflexes, but they lacked imagination. They saw a straight line, but Phoenix saw a path.

-Bit, watch the thermal, Phoenix ordered.

-If they lock missiles, you tell me!

The kid was staring at the scope, his small hands gripping the console. He was focused and having fun.

-Two lights! Fast!

-Market, get on the rear turret, Phoenix shouted.

-I’m not a great shot, Market responded.

-Do you know how to work it?

-Sure.

Market unbuckled and scrambled into the small gunnery bubble behind the cockpit.

The debris thickened. They were deep in the Old Earth zone. Massive, skeletal frames of colony ships floated in the dark, stripped of their plating by centuries of micrometeoroid impacts.

-They're locking in, Bit yelled.

-Hang on!

Phoenix fired the retro-thrusters to kill the momentum. The Mighty Sparrow drifted backward, sliding under a tumbling slab of hull plating marked UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE. The two MTC drones overshot. They zipped past the hull plating, unable to brake in time.

-Now! Phoenix yelled at Market.

A beam of violet light lashed out from The Sparrow's rear turret. A crack beam, meant to split up asteroids it worked just fine slicing through drone fuel tanks too.

-I got one, Market shouted quietly, sounding horrified and exhilarated as he watched the explosion on the viewscreen.

-Job’s not done, Phoenix said, wrestling the stick as the ship tumbled in the explosion's wake.

He checked the Orrery on his dash. The brass marble of Earth loomed large below them. They were deep in the gravity well, burning fuel they didn't have. They couldn't stay in the Halo forever. The debris density was too high. Eventually, a bolt or a paint chip would punch through their cockpit glass.

He needed a shield. He scanned the darkness, and then he saw it. Five kilometers down, drifting in a decaying orbit, was a shadow, huge. It was a cylinder almost a mile long. It didn't register a transponder. It was a ghost. The Vanguard, its hull read.

-What is that? Market asked, peering through the gunnery scope.

-A tomb, Phoenix said. Or a garage!

He banked the ship, aiming for the massive shadow.

-We're going to dock? Market asked.

-We're going to hide, Phoenix corrected him. That hull is thick enough to block the drone's sensors. We go dark, we drift in its wake, and we wait for the MTC to get bored and leave.

-That ship has been dead for three hundred years, Market said.

-Then it won't mind company.

He cut the main engines to reduce their thermal signature. The Mighty Sparrow went silent, drifting on maneuvering thrusters toward the massive, ancient hulk.

As they got closer, Phoenix saw the markings on the side of the derelict. Faded white paint against grey metal. A symbol of an eagle clutching arrows.

-Bit, Phoenix whispered. Kill the running lights.

The kid flipped the switch. The cockpit went pitch black as the ship slid into the shadow of the dead leviathan, hiding in the graveyard of the world that came before.