Reading · Beyond the Droid

Greetings, lovely humans!

A little status: T is for Time Travel received a lot of amazing feedback from my beta readers, I’ve made a bunch of updates, and it’s now in the hands of my editor!

Next month, I hope to be doing some cover reveals… although if you’re also one of my Kickstarter backers, you’ll be getting the cover reveal early (within the next week)!

Amongst all that, I managed to find the time to write a little flash fiction diddy for today.

But… before we move on and get into today’s flash fiction, here’s my usual plug for all the books and stories I have out there, with their links:

Links: Lunar Logic | Robot Galaxy Series | Final Orbit | Objective Reality

Also make sure to read to the end of this newsletter and check out other Indie writings! (And my bonus pic at the end.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about asteroids recently.

Mostly because I’m working on a paper regarding planetary protection from asteroid strikes for my law class. (Yes, there’s a few things to unpack in that sentence. The big one that: yes, I’m taking some law classes. Story for another day, maybe?)

But there’s a lot of asteroid stuff in the news. Weekly, new asteroids are discovered and there are organizations out there dedicated to finding, tracking, and cataloging these objects.

One such article came out a week ago:

“Astronomers discover 2nd fastest asteroid in the solar system hiding in the sun’s glare.”

The part that struck me was the quantitative: “2nd fastest”

Like… why does it matter?

I mean, it’s a cool metric. But… so what? (I still don’t know why that particular fact matters at all.)

But it sparked the idea that maybe it mattered because maybe there was some kind of race… the kind of thing that people bet money on. People will bet on anything right?

And well, that’s how today’s little flash fiction piece was born.

As always, please read on and let me know what you think! (Either send me an email, or post a comment on Substack)

Jet stood at the control console, opting to let his body be held in place by footholds. When he was outfitting the ship, he’d opted to forgo spending any of his limited funds on the various versions of artificial gravity the salesman tried to convince him to buy.

Instead, he poured every last line of credit into the equipment he needed to build the slingshot system. A system that, if the day went as planned, would launch Jet into a whole new career.

“Turn on SSESPN,” Jet ordered the computer.

The computer emitted a soft ping in response and then one of the monitors to Jet’s left came alive.

A woman with purple hair was looking straight into the camera. She was surrounded by icons and text scroll at both the top and bottom of the screen. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out.

“Computer,” Jet said, “volume fifty percent.”

“—and bets on this month’s astrobowl have taken an interesting turn as not just one, but two new competitors have entered the competition.”

Jet’s chest tightened. He was one of those new competitors and had only learned less than 48 hours ago about the other.

As if on cue, the announcer provided the details:

“Known only as MetaRob, this most recent competitor waited until the entry deadline was nearly up before declaring their intent to be a part of the competition. Entry doesn’t require participants to disclose their technological solution to what has become the solar system’s most interesting and important competition—designed in part to help protect Earth and in some cases, provide our solar system’s colonies with vital elements for construction.

“So,” she continued, but looking into a different camera that was situated to her left, “a second-tier betting system has sprung up. We’ve learned that this new system is sponsored by the Venus Upper Atmosphere Colony. VUAtCo has always been known for trying new and creative ways to raise money to keep itself operational.”

This caused Jet’s chest to tighten even more. Again, something he learned about only recently. Again, something that shouldn’t distract him from the task at hand.

He continued to adjust the control panel.

“Okay, we’re ready for our final systems check before the live event,” he said to the computer.

One year ago, entering the competition couldn’t have been further from Jet’s mind. He was happily—okay, maybe not happily, but satisfactorily—working as a factory supervisor overseeing a team of robotic manipulators at the Dolland Alpha base on the moon.

He was warned that the sleeping aid he needed to keep in sync with the 24hr clock that his management insisted he stay in sync with could produce some extraordinary dreams. At first, he had some. The girl he had been dating before he left for the moon frequently appeared as a gorilla trying to get inside the base. Just as often, he appeared as a cat in his own dream, exploring the base through feline eyes.

It’s how he knew this was not a dream. No, this was a message, and it came with highly detailed instructions. Jet was able to follow them every step of the way and that way led him here…

Although standing—or rather, floating—here now, Jet couldn’t have said the exact moment when he knew that this was his path. But here, getting ready to launch an asteroid plucked from the Oort Cloud towards the inner solar system, on a trajectory that would ensure the safety of all human life along the way, it didn’t matter.

What only mattered is that Jet, the underdog, with the odds against him at 3361 to 1, he was going to make anyone who had the guts to bet on him supremely wealthy.

He must have subconsciously heard the announcer go into the details of the betting structure, because he had zoned out a little before catching her adding, “…and betting closes in two hours—at midnight per the International Date Line.”

He couldn’t worry about that now. He’d set up a countdown timer to launch which was exactly 20 minutes after betting closed. He had still so much to do…

And that time passed in a blink.

With two minutes to go, Jet’s fingers hovered over the last set of buttons he needed to press to launch his asteroid. Sweat pooled on his back, clinging to him in zero-G.

He’d also set up a monitor for the competition. Most notably, what he perceived as his greatest rival among the dozen or so competitors: MetaRob. That ship appeared already aligned for its run.

“Telemetry stable,” the computer said.

Jet nodded to himself and keyed in the final sequence. Power surged through the ship and into the alien-derived technology that would be his slingshot. For a second, the screen filled with warnings—oscillation, phase drift, unknown feedback loop.

“Override safety!” Jet yelled.

“Are you sure?”

He laughed. “I didn’t come this far to play it safe.”

The ship bucked. Stars streaked in the window. For one glorious instant, Jet saw the asteroid’s trajectory curve—perfectly—toward the inner solar system. The feed from SSESPN flickered in his left monitor: commentators shouting, odds recalculating, his name climbing the leaderboard.

Then the stars twisted.

“Trajectory deviation detected,” said the computer. “Vector unknown.”

Jet stared as the numbers flipped into nonsense. He was supposed to be on a corresponding trajectory back to the inner solar system himself. Instead, he wasn’t on a course there—or anywhere mapped. The slingshot hadn’t just hurled the asteroid. It had hurled him.

SSESPN’s audio cut out mid-sentence. Silence. Then a shimmer filled the viewscreen—something vast and geometric waiting beyond the solar system’s edge.

Jet allowed himself to float free of the console, weightless, and in awe as he stared at the structure.

“Computer,” he said softly, “maybe we should place our own bet.”

“Specify parameters.”

“That I just found where my message came from.”

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