Chapter 8: Brake
The trumpet faded mid-note as Karl killed the music. Haven-3 now filled half the optic screen: a hexagonal frame wrapped in solar blankets, docking arms folded like spider legs, a single lamp blinking amber at its apex. No ships in berth. No comm traffic on standard hailing channels. No defensive fire control beams painting his hull. The station looked asleep, maybe dead, but the panels still tracked the sun—power meant possibility.
He checked the clock: fourteen hours to closest approach. Velocity relative to station: 940 km/s. He needed to shed it all, come to gentle rest within docking cone tolerance—five meters per second closure, no faster. The math was merciless: flip at plus seven hours, burn at 0.12 g for six hours, final tweak at one hour. Margin for error: thirteen metres per second—the gift bought with sacrificed bunks and a mess table now orbiting somewhere light-hours behind.
First manoeuvre was attitude flip. He strapped in, ignited gyros, and fed the command. Folly groaned as thruster clusters popped in sequence, slowly cartwheeling until her bow pointed back along the velocity vector. The manoeuvre cost 4 m/s of precious RCS, but the tanks still held 18 m/s after. He logged the spend, then powered the clusters down to save squirts for final alignment.
Next came the big burn. He brought the main bottle to full standby, field coils glowing faint violet. Fuel lines chilled to minus two hundred; frost feathered across the bay like white ferns. He set the computer to auto-throttle, but kept a gloved thumb on manual override—computers died when you needed them most. At T-minus sixty he started the pump. Reactor hum rose to a growl, then a howl as magnetic bottles squeezed plasma into the thrust chamber. Acceleration pushed him into the couch: 0.12 g, twice what the ship had felt in years. Frames creaked, cargo straps groaned, the half-healed starboard patch flexed under fresh load. He watched the stress sensor above the patch: yellow, steady, no red. Hold, cousin, hold.
Minutes stretched into hours. Velocity bled away in chunks: 900 km/s, 850, 800. The station grew from dot to disc to detailed skeleton. He could see micrometeor pits on the solar blankets, insulation quilted like old mattress padding. Still no hail. He tried anyway. "Haven-3, Haven-3, this is patrol frigate Folly, inbound for emergency docking. Respond on channel six, over." Static answered, soft as snowfall.
Half-way through the burn the reactor temperature crept toward yellow. He nudged the cooling pumps higher, sacrificing a few amps of power margin. Bottle temp stabilised at 814 K—two degrees under trip point. The patch above the cargo bay remained yellow. He whispered to it, voice raw under acceleration. "Stay with me, scar. One more hour."
At plus five hours the station filled the window. Range 40,000 km, closure 60 km/s. He throttled back to 0.08 g to let the radiators catch up. Sweat pooled at the small of his back, wicked away too slowly; he opened the suit vents and tasted recycled salt. The log auto-recorded every parameter; he spoke anyway, for the girls on the wallpaper and for Rios's ghost. "Burn steady, field stable. Haven-3 visual, no traffic, no lights inside view-ports. Continuing brake."
At plus six hours fuel reached ten percent. He counted down: ten, nine, eight—cutoff at seven. The rumble died, thrust vanished, silence crashed in like surf. Relative velocity now 11 m/s inward—well inside docking tolerance. He vented a breath he had held for minutes. The patch sensor flicked back to green. Somewhere aft, metal pinged as it cooled, a lullaby of survival.
He had eighteen minutes until closest approach. Station range: 12 km. He used the time to study the docking cone—an old Meridian standard, ring diameter thirty meters, guide rails scorched but intact. The cone mouth pointed spin-ward; the station rotated once every 120 seconds, giving the rails a gentle 0.2 g at the lip. He would need to match tip speed, slide in, and clamp before rotation carried him past. RCS reserve: 14 m/s. Tight, doable.
He ignited thrusters in pulse mode, nudging closer. Range dropped: 10 km, 8, 5. The station's spin became visible, solar blankets rippling like slow waves. At 500 meters he matched rotation, feeling the ghost of centrifugal force tug his inner ear. Amber lamp filled the window, blinking steady, indifferent. He crossed the ring at 2 m/s relative, guide rails sliding past like steel ribs. Magnets kissed, sensors registered contact, clamps auto-locked with a satisfying clunk. RCS tanks read 6 m/s remaining—enough to undock if the station tried to eat him.
He cycled down the reactor to whisper, then sat still, listening. No alarms, no automated welcome, no gun ports opening. Just the soft creak of cooling hull and the distant whir of station gyros. He spoke into the silent comm. "Haven-3, Folly docked. Requesting umbilical power and air. If you're listening, I come in peace. If you're not, I still need your help."
No reply. He unstrapped, grabbed the rail-rifle, and floated to the airlock. The station's docking collar matched Meridian specs—good fortune or trap, time would tell. He cracked the outer hatch. Haven-3's coupling stood open, dark beyond, a tunnel into unknown. He clipped a tether, chambered a dart, and whispered to the girls on the nav screen, "Stay with me." Then he stepped across the threshold, boots ringing softly on alien metal, and began the slow drift inward.
Behind him Folly clung to the station like a tired child to its mother's leg, patched hull glowing faint under the amber lamp. Ahead, corridors swallowed his helmet light, revealing only stillness and drifting dust. But the airlock sensor blinked green: pressure 80 kPa, oxygen 21 percent, temperature 8 Celsius. Breathable. He lifted the visor, smelled cold iron and old lubricant, and felt the first breath of another world slide into his lungs. It tasted like maybe.
He clicked off the rifle's safety, advanced ten meters, and paused. Somewhere deep in the station a relay clattered, then silence again. Karl smiled—the kind of smile that cuts itself on broken glass—and spoke into the dark. "Haven-3, my name is Karl Hasser. I've come a long way to pay your power bill. Let's talk."