Hope?

Ace didn't know how much time had passed when he realized he didn't have a lot of food left, he could probably ask the chip to find out but it didn't actually matter and at the same time Ace didn't want to know, it would only bring his final piece of hope crumbling down.

Although not many things had gone well recently for Ace, his skill with breathing exercises and meditation had gone up a lot which was noticeable by how little food he had consumed the last few times he had been awake to eat and how low the general subconscious activity of his body had become. He had gotten so good and used to it by now he didn't even notice when the power in the pod came back on.

It probably wouldn't matter that much but he activated the radar to scan for nearby planets, asteroids, aliens, whatever really. He also got access to some more rations now that he could open all the boxes and cabinets which were previously locked in by the seat that he couldn't move around without power. It was a pretty weird design for an escape pod for emergencies but it was the design with the Air Converter, fortunately for Ace, otherwise he would've run out of oxygen some time ago.

The AC is a revolutionary device that contributed greatly to the recovery of the air pollution on Earth, bringing it back from the brink of destruction and saving humanity's home planet. How it did what it did was classified but it was guaranteed to work without any negative side-effects and that's what mattered. One of the great functions was that it didn't need an external power supply either. The whole thing was almost like magic but considering all other things that had been invented and discovered since The Tipping Point maybe it wasn't that strange.

Another great invention which greatly aided in space exploration was a device capable of generating a gravity field. Using this in a spacecraft would basically entail creating a field with the direction you wanted to go in and since the acceleration is constant and there is no opposing force in space the speeds a ship could travel in was only limited by it's own capabilities to withstand space-turbulence.

Compared to the AC however this thing required power and in no small amounts. With nothing to lose Ace cranked up the power in the gravity-propulsion drive so the energy consumption would match for how long he predicted he could stay alive. With no idea if he's going in the right direction, if there even is a right direction and with the subtle knowledge that it's possible for him to travel for years through space without even coming close to a single piece of matter Ace closed his eyes and crossed his fingers hoping for something, anything to save him. Especially since he was still traveling in an escape pod not built for high, galax-crossing speeds and only equipped with small basic gravity generators.

Without knowing why he was trying so hard to stay alive when he had only lived day to day completing the missions he was told to complete and training in preparation of the next mission. And before all that, before he was recruited it wasn't much different, looking for today's meal, finding a place to sleep, no greater goal occupied his mind. His coworkers and employers had some great ideal they wanted to complete or maybe some materialistic goal of great wealth, not Ace. Although Ace found his pay satisfactory, it never lit a fire in him. Maybe it had become part of him, just like it had many other humans, since the time around The Tipping Point, a survival instinct unexplainable by conventional means. Or maybe it came from a simple desire to not give up. He never gave up surviving previously, he never gave up on that hellish training nor when he had to learn these almost unbelievably difficult breathing exercises.

Deciding to not think about it anymore, Ace laid back down after activating the autopilot, radar, long-distance scanners and the gravity field.

***

*BeepBeepBeep!*

Waking up with a jolt to the alarm from the radar, Ace quickly oriented himself and looked at the flashing display. It showed nothing within a range of several spacemiles but when zoomed out, a large object located a few hours almost right ahead in Ace's path could be seen.