A Dark Hell

The experience of travelling without an escort was just as much of a pain in the ass as Donovan had thought it would be. In fact, it might even be worse. It was simple really, he had drastically underestimated just how much shit was going to get in his way.

From the makeup of the debris he was dodging, there was some element of a battle that ended up drifting in his way. Despite the vastness of space, the frequency at which man-made debris found its way into the paths of ships was shocking.

The result of this was that his sleep shifts were incredibly erratic. Instead of the neat cycles he had anticipated, he was falling into the habit of sleeping in the pilot's seat. Two days and some change in and he had already gone through two of the bars of meth chocolate.

Mercedes was not too terribly pleased with the situation either. All of her needs were met, Don had time to feed and water her and he could throw a ball from the cockpit, but the inconsistency of all of this was inexcusable to her. The lack of an established sleep schedule was probably the worst for her in general, though she did nap in Donovan's lap.

Don did not even have the luxury of an interesting sight this time around. Before he had the random glory of an asteroid, the powerful figures of a fleet in formation, or the backdrop of a gas giant to stare at.

What he had now was the pilot's equivalent of a dark hell.

Light was becoming so dim now that it was easier to see things on screen with the low intensity scanners. Small random blobs of the rainbow scattered over a canvas of black was rarely ever a sight to see, and became even less appealing when the majority of those dots were purple.

Don's eyes actually hurt the first time something managed to get close enough to turn yellow. It would seem that the engineers, in all their infinite wisdom, could not imagine that lacking a gradient change for things entering the 'danger zone' would do more harm than good.

He was definitely going to be complaining to whoever's command he fell under that there was only a single pilot. Serious design flaw.

It was on the fifth day that he began to see signs that there was indeed something going on out here, a faint 'glow' slightly to the left of his current trajectory had made an appearance on the scanners.

The odd thing about this glow was that it was not on a scanner who's functionality and purpose he had not remembered.

Not surprising since the only thing that had ever given a response to this particular sensor array was the Sun. The Sun gave responses to everything.

"Hey ARC, what does that sensor pick up again?"

"Which one?"

"The one that is giving a reading at Sol and a bearing, in-plane, roughly twenty degrees to the left."

"That array reacts to Split Radiation."

"What is that?"

"A type of radiation that certain power sources give off I presume."

"Presume? What do you mean 'Presume'? Aren't you aware of the exact capabilities of this ship and its components?"

"Yes, however I am unsure of what it is exactly that causes this Split Radiation. It is labeled as a passive threat detection system, implying it looks for irregularities in concentration from the background radiation and not for irregularities in the source's movement. Exactly what this radiation is generated by is a mystery to me."

"FaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAA!!!!" Don had only 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, none of it in a long enough interval to constitute actual rest. Combining this with a dose of chocolate meth made him more than a little irritable. Mercedes had read this change in disposition a while ago and was not asking him to play anymore.

"Might I posit that our own power source emits this radiation?"

"What would that have to do with anything?"

"It could explain the reason why we are in the dark as to what exactly it means. Even I am unsure of how this reactor works, I assume you know even less. Perhaps it was implemented to be a warning of the relative technological level of an enemy vessel. Having this tech would no doubt signify a threat, markedly an intelligence leak."

"So what are we looking at then? Our target?"

"It certainly lies within the coordinate range provided in our orders."

Head back and eyes closed, Donovan let out a lengthy sigh. It was a mix of agitation and relief. Relief that he might not be out here for nearly as long as he had initially thought. His agitated was generated by the fact that that direction had the most amount of shit in the way.

He tugged slightly at the shock ring around his neck to relieve stress. This little collar was the agent through which ARC guaranteed he would wake up. It was meant to wake up pilots if they drifted into unconsciousness, but it was only supposed to be used sparingly.

The evenly spaced patches of off color skin around his neck suggested he was being subjected to this far too often.

"Before we head into that area, can I get some proper rest? How long will it take to get into a stable orbit relative to the materiel around here?"

"Forty minutes at a pace comfortable for Mercedes."

"Give me a vector. I wanna get as close to twelve hours of sleep as possible."

"Would you prefer to anchor to an asteroid?"

"No. That's an excellent way to get spotted by a passing scout. Just drift for now."

In recognition, a green dot and red arrow appeared on screen. Turning the Noah in the direction of the arrow until the green dot overlapped a red ring, Don upped the throttle to about two thirds of maximum. It was enough to feel a slight tugging towards the rear, as if he was performing a light dive in a plane, but not enough to warrant restrictions in his movement.

Keeping half an eye on the timer, he went about getting ready for some much deserved rest, noting to great amusement that Mercedes still exhibited confusion in the face of acceleration.