Date Point: 6y 10m AV
Bankhead Parkway NE, Huntsville, Alabama, USA, Earth
Adam Arés
“Fuckin’ Christ, Arés. How heavy’s that ruck?”
“Tell…you what…” Adam took a few huge breaths to try and force down his panting breath, leaning on his own thighs. “You wanna…wear it? Try and…beat my time?”
He shrugged said pack off, and lowered it to the ground, restraining a sigh of relief. The bag was at least half again as heavy as his spacesuit was eventually going to be and he’d just finished a twenty click forced march that had, through sheer competitiveness and bloody-minded macho stupidity, become a twenty click jog, and then a twenty click run. He was fucking beat, but also determined not to show it.
That was probably true of everyone, however. Every last one of them had taken the opportunity, upon crossing the finish line, to ditch the bags and start inhaling sports drinks, and all of them, to his trained eye, were nursing something or another that was causing them pain. Most were staring off into the distance beyond the ground between their feet, in the meditative way of the truly exhausted.
“Not this year, thanks.” Price smacked him on the shoulder in a friendly way, and looked back down the path, wiping the sweat off his brow. “And hey, you beat the Major at least.”
“He’ll make it.” Adam said. “Can’t expect him to keep up with guys who are like two thirds his age.”
“Oh, I know he will, mate. I was on Operation Elder Grove with Powell.” Price said. “And to be fair, he only started on the magic potion like three months ago. He’s come a long way, fast.”
Adam looked back down the trail they’d just run just as Powell finally came into view.
He looked in a bad way. He was limping, his whole head was red with exertion and his scalp and nose were dripping with sweat, but there was a ferocious scowl on his face, the expression of a man who was doggedly telling physics and biology to go fuck themselves.
The Deltas to a man, plus Legsy, Burgess and Firth, hauled themselves stiffly to their feet and started whooping and hollering, inspiring their CO to put his head down a bit more and pick up his pace on the final straight, just by a little.
The cheering faded when his leg suddenly gave out under him, totally failing to hold his weight any longer. Powell nose-dived into the dirt and rolled, clutching at his calf and gritting teeth that were suddenly covered in the blood that was pouring from his nose.
Adam took off running just ahead of BASEBALL, and they arrived as Powell rolled over and started to lever himself upright.
“Sir—”
“Fook off.” The major tried to weight-bear on his left leg and nearly fell over again—there was no strength left in it at all. “Ee, ya fookin’- Aaargh!”
“As your medic—” BASEBALL began.
Powell grabbed the front of BASEBALL’s shirt…“I’m finishing. This fookin’ run.” he snarled, pausing for emphasis, “If I have to fookin’ HOP.”
”…Yes sir.”
Powell did exactly as he’d described, bouncing on his good leg to the edge of the trail and drawing his knife to cut the base of a thumb-thick branch from one of the hundreds of trees that had lined their trail. He tested his weight on it, then set off hobbling, pinching his nose to stop the bleeding and with two concerned pararescuemen exchanging worried glances in his shadow.
He was barely managing a walking pace, but true to his word, he finished the run, swearing and chuntering away to himself every inch of it before he finally crossed the line and sank down onto the concrete divider that marked where the path met the road, his face pinched and his teeth clenched. The men were all watching with expressions of mixed concern and admiration.
“Arright.” he declared. “NOW you can fookin’ medic me.”
BASEBALL set to work, examining the enormous bruise that was already spreading across Powell’s calf. “Crue.” he demanded, sticking out a hand.
Adam had already prepared an injector, which he duly handed over. BASEBALL had a soft and efficient touch with needles. He also handed Powell an anaesthetic lolly. “stick that under your tongue for thirty seconds, sir.” he ordered.
Powell did as instructed, popping the little white painkiller wand into his mouth and then began to count aloud, though the stick under his tongue hindered the attempt slightly. “One michichippi, two michichi—”
“We’re in Alabama, sir.” Legsy joked. This earned some chuckles from the men, and the kind of feigned unimpressed look from Powell that the major reserved for bad jokes, but after a second he made an amused harrumph and started to count again, the crow’s feet wrinkles at his eyes deepening just a little. “One awagama, two awagama, free awagama…”
The chuckles became a ripple of laughter. Adam let him reach a twenty count before taking the stick back.
“You’re gonna need an hour or two for the Crude to work, major.” BASEBALL declared, using one of the many nicknames they’d adopted for Crue-D. He stood up. “Your nose—”
“Has been broken before, Burgess, thank you.” Powell shrugged. “I already fookin’ sorted it.”
“Yes sir. You should probably still put a slap patch on that.” BASEBALL replied, cutting little triangles out of one so that it would fit over the major’s nose properly.
“I’ll save it for my fookin’ beauty sleep.” Powell told him.
“Wear it now, sir.” BASEBALL insisted.
Powell tried to sigh through his nose, only for a thin trickle of blood to start flowing back out of his nostril. He frowned, took the slap patch and pinched it to the bridge of his nose, wincing slightly as he disturbed the break. “Anyone get my time?” he asked.
“I got it, sir.” Sikes produced the tablet computer he’d been recording them on.
“Right.” Powell looked at it, made a noncommittal grunt, and then looked around. “That, lads, is the worst time you’re ever going to do in this unit. Keep that time and look at it every now and again, because by the time we’re up to operational readiness? You’ll look at the time you just did today and think ‘bloody hell, how was I ever that slow?’ Arright?”
A chorus of “Yes Sir.” answered him.
“Good. Firth, call the barracks, get them to send our ride, will you? I don’t really feel like walking back, now…”
Date Point: 6y 10m AV
Regent’s Park, London, UK, Earth.
Ava Rios
“Is everyone on Cimbrean as into fitness as you are?”
Ava and Sean were out for a mid afternoon walk. Ava would have preferred to jog, but Sean had vetoed it, and was complaining about the pace too, despite having longer legs.
“You have to be.” Ava explained, “The gravity’s so low that if you don’t spend time in the gym at least three times a week, all sorts of things go wrong.”
“Like what?”
“Muscle wastage, brittle bones, heart problems…all sorts of things. And then you get so used to it that NOT exercising just feels bad, you know?”
“I can’t say that I do, duck.” Sean shrugged.
“You’re not interested in getting fit?”
“I am fit!”
Ava restrained herself from laughing, with difficulty, but she couldn’t let that pass. “You’re not.” she said.
“Look at me! No fat on this anywhere!” Sean protested, lifting up his t-shirt. He was right. There was nothing on him but some dark hair, and his ribs, but Ava still snorted.
“No muscle, either.” she told him.
“Oh, like you’re the she-Hulk.” Sean grumbled, tugging the shirt back down again.
“I don’t need to be. I’m not in training for anything, I don’t want to run marathons or anything. I just want to be able to live on a low-G world without getting health problems, and have energy to do stuff.”
“And look good naked.”
“Please. I’d have to work at it to look bad naked.” Ava joked.
“So would I!” Sean retorted.
Ava just shook her head smiling, and they walked in silence for a bit.
She became aware that he was breathing heavily as they started round the second side of the park, where huge cheering was just audible from Lord’s Cricket Ground. Sean fished his phone out of his pocket.
“What?” Ava asked him.
“Just checking…Oh, nice!”
“What?!”
“Patel’s gone for a duck.”
“That’s…good?”
“That’s good.” Sean agreed, running his hand through sweat-heavy hair. “Here, can we slow down?”
“For crying out loud!” Ava rounded on him. “You can’t even walk round the park without getting out of breath, and you claim to be fit?
“Well what do I need to be fit for?” Sean objected.
“Not getting short on breath when you go for a stroll? Better sex? Having something to show off under that shirt besides ribs and fur? Take your pick!”
Sean frowned at her. “I have great sex!” he objected.
“With who?”
“I’ve had five girlfriends, they didn’t complain.”
Ava laughed. “Fine, whatever.”
“They didn’t!”
Ava ignored him and drew her—Sara’s—camera from its by-now habitual spot on her hip. She’d found the custom-made quick-draw leather camera holster on Etsy, had treated herself to it, and had not regretted the decision for a minute. It earned her the occasional strange look, but a rather larger number of looks that said ‘that’s so cool’, though she was frankly past the point where either kind of look really mattered to her.
Sean didn’t have to wai t long. The camera was out, focused, took a series of seven rapid-fire photos, and was back in its holster inside five seconds.
“Aren’t you going to check those?” He asked.
“Nope.” Ava shrugged. She wasn’t pushing the pace at all, but still Sean seemed to be scurrying to keep up despite his longer legs, and he was short on breath.
“But how do you know they’re okay?”
“I took them okay.”
“How do you know though?”
Ava shook her head. “Because I took them okay.” she repeated.
“But—”
“Sean!” she stopped to glare at him again, then softened when he raised his hands defensively. “…Look, this was my best friend’s camera. Her parents gave it to me when she died. I was already pretty serious about getting good with it before Adam left for basic training, and since then I’ve had no social life, I’ve had nothing to do but study and practice with this thing. For a while there it was literally the only thing I had. So trust me: if I say I took a picture okay, I took a picture okay. Okay?”
”…Do you do anything with those photos?” he asked.
“Not really.” She shrugged. “Not yet.”
“Maybe you should. If you’re going to make a living from it, you need to start getting your name out there, and if you’re that confident that what you’re taking is good…”
Ava considered it as she started walking again. “Maybe you’re right. A blog maybe? My own website?”
“Go with the website.” Sean recommended. “My mate Dave can set you up, if you want. He’ll code the site, host it, get you social media awareness, the works.”
“Yeah? What’s the catch?”
“No catch.” Sean promised. “It just costs a bit. It’s his job, after all, but he’s good at it, and he might give a discount to a mate. Interested?”
Ava shrug-nodded. “Okay.”
Date Point: 6y 10m 3w AV
Huntsville Alabama, USA, Earth
Adam Arés
“Gentlemen.”
The SOR perked up as their instructor arrived and claimed their immediate full attention. He was a wiry, tired looking man who Adam immediately spotted had some kind of facial nerve palsy, or who had maybe suffered a stroke at some point.
“M’names Drew Cavendish.” he introduced himself. “I’m a co-founder of C&M Extravehicular Systems, a member of the Hephaestus LLC, but right now I’m here as your extraterrestrial environment instructor.”
“Mr. Cavendish here has more EVA experience than anybody else in the history of the human race.” Powell told them, shaking Cavendish’s hand. “He’s also responsible for designing our spacesuits. You will treat every word he has to say as Gospel, is that clear?”
They were outside of a formal context, so he got a slightly asynchronous rumble of nevertheless clearly-enunciated ‘yes sir’s. Satisfied that the lads were listening and switched on, he deferred to Cavendish again.
Cavendish nodded, and scribbled a note on the back of his own hand.
“Right. Welcome to zero-G one-oh-one.” he said. “That room through there is this facility’s variable-gravity training room, one of three. A few things to know before we get started.”
“First of all, I’m an easy-going type, but I’ve been training people in this field for a while now, and we’re dealing with stuff that’s essential to your safety and that of others. Out here in the corridor, I’m Drew. In there…” he nodded towards the large doors with the light over them “Keep it formal, attentive and promptly obedient, please. I won’t be deliberately putting you in harm’s way, but equipment failure is always an option. Clear?”
The team nodded their understanding, and Cavendish checked his tablet computer.
“Right. Cavendish’s Rule Number One: Altered gravity is dangerous.” he told them. “Those rooms can be configured in ways that could kill or seriously injure anyone who enters them at the wrong moment. That light above it is colour-coded. If entering the room would pose an immediate danger to your health, it’s red and the door will be locked. If it is somehow open while the light’s red, do not enter. That light’s never supposed to be off: If it is, assume that it’s red and contact the controller immediately.”
“Yellow means the safe zone around the door is fine. The room’s controller will need to admit you, and you must not leave the yellow demarcated zone without permission. Green means that the room is active but that no part of it should pose a health risk—you must get the room operator’s permission to enter, but may move freely once permitted. Blue means that the room is not drawing power, and you may enter freely because it’s exactly like out here in there. With me so far?”
There was another chorused confirmation: “Yes, sir.”
“Finally, under no circumstances, not even if the light is blue, may you enter that room without one of those helmets.” Cavendish indicated the rack by the door. “Find one that fits and put it on now.”
The team stepped smartly to obey, and had all soon found one that fit.
“Right. As you can see, the light is yellow. That means–?”
“Don’t leave the yellow zone without permission.”
“Good. As that room’s operator, I’m now granting you permission to enter.”
He filed in behind them. The room was a cube about a hundred yards to a side—the yellow zone occupied only about the first ten, followed by a green zone, a blue zone, and the rest of the floor was black. Sitting just inside the black zone, somebody had set up twelve kettlebells.
There were some murmurs of surprise and interest as the men crossed the threshold, and Cavendish smiled. “Earth standard gravity is known as one G: What you’re experiencing right now, gentlemen, is about two thirds of a G, which is somewhere toward the middle of the Galactic Standard Gravity range. That’s the range of gravity settings that are used in space to be comfortable for most species. Take a moment to move around, get used to the difference. Jump up and down a bit, do some pushups, whatever takes your fancy.”
Legsy and Adam beamed at one another. Cimbrean fell inside the Galactic Standard Range, and they’d guessed that something like this might come up, and had secretly come up with a little stunt.
As planned, Legsy stooped, then launched himself off the ground in the highest explosive jump he could manage, achieving his own impressive body height at apex and landing neatly on Adam’s raised hands, which the younger man had thrust above his head.
Even Cavendish seemed taken aback. “I…see you two have experience with low gravity.”
“Yyyep.” Adam shifted his right hand so that he was holding Legsy aloft one-handed, and dropped his left hand casually to his side.
Even at two thirds gravity, he was still holding up a fairly impressive amount of weight, and it was an effort to remain stable and steady—Legsy was wobbling alarmingly, and jumped down after a second or two, landing lightly.
“Show-offs.” Burgess muttered.
“You got that out of your system, lads?” Powell asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I know you’re both used to this, but focus. You might still learn summat.”
Adam and Legsy both straightened up and nodded their understanding and agreement. “Yes sir.”
Cavendish gave them all a few minutes to move and grow accustomed to the conditions before indicating the rest of the room. “The rest of this room is in microgravity, sometimes called zero-G. Does anyone here remember Newton’s laws of motion?”
The Deltas, CCTs, Adam and Powell raised their hands. Cavendish gestured to Adam. “Alright mister showoff, go on then.”
Adam cursed inwardly, but focused his memory. It had been a few years and he’d never expected to need them.
“The…first law defines inertia, stating that an object’s velocity will remain unchanged unless it’s influenced by a net force.” he said.
“Nice.” Cavendish nodded his congratulations. “The second?”
“Uh…whenever one object exerts a force upon another, it is in turn subject to a reaction force of equal magnitude with an opposite vector.”
“That’s the third law.” Cavendish corrected him. “What’s the second?”
Adam scowled in thought, but finally had to shake his head. “I can’t remember.”
“Force is equal to…?”
Adam’s memory snapped back into place. “Mass times acceleration!”
“Good lad. For the rest of you who didn’t follow that, and because academic knowledge of something’s not the same as intuiting it, here’s some practical demonstrations.” Cavendish pulled a tennis ball from his pocket and tossed it lightly in his hand a few times. “What goes up, comes down. That’s because this ball is being acted on by gravity. Catch.”
He tossed it lightly to Murray, who caught it easily, then tossed it back. “The arc the ball describes through the air…” Cavendish told them, gently throwing the ball to Blaczynski, who threw it to Sikes, starting a slow game of catch that circled the unit “…is called a parabola, and it only describes that arc because it’s constantly under the effect of a net force. There’s no magnet on the ceiling pulling it up or anything like that, just gravity pulling it down. Back to me, please.”
He snatched the ball easily out of the air when Vandenberg threw it to him. “If there’s no gravity, however…”
He tossed the ball over the edge of the yellow zone. It described a perfect parabola just like before, right up until the moment it crossed the threshold, and was suddenly moving slowly in a perfectly straight line, spinning eerily. They watched it bounce forlornly off the ceiling at the far end of the room.
“As sergeant…Arés explained,” Cavendish said, peering at Adam’s name tag “the first law means that an object’s speed, and the direction it’s moving in—collectively known as its velocity-–remains unchanged, unless a force such as gravity acts upon it. The third law’s simple enough to not need an explanation—when you push on something, it pushes back. Simple enough, but that’s why that whole cartoon thing of going boating by blowing into the sail doesn’t work. You’re pushing that air forward, and yes it’ll push on the sail, but by blowing you’re also pushing yourself backwards just as strong, and pushing back on the boat through your boots. Follow?”
There was nodding.
“Next, a practical demonstration of the second law in action.” Cavendish tapped on his tablet computer, and an electric hum that had been pervading the room so subtly that they hadn’t noticed it suddenly became obvious by a change in its texture. “You may now enter the green and blue zones. The areas beyond are still microgravity, so don’t enter them yet. Be careful, the gravity’s even lower over that end.”
They walked cautiously. Sure enough, the gravity halved, then halved again as they passed into the green then blue zones, until they were each standing next to a kettlebell, anticipating what was to come.
“Now, those are twenty-five kilogram kettlebells, and we’re currently in lunar gravity, one-sixth that of the Earth.” Cavendish explained. “When I tell you to, I want you to pick them up, slowly and carefully. Don’t swing them or anything, just lift and hold them in one hand. Okay? Pick them up.”
They did so. Adam practically overbalanced. His kettlebell felt like nothing, and to judge from the expressions and utterings around him that was true for everyone.
“Light, aren’t they?” Cavendish asked, rhetorically. “Why don’t you swing them around a bit, same way as you would normally.”
Adam gave his an experimental swing and suddenly understood where Cavendish was going with this. The kettlebell may have been light to lift, but in motion it still put the exact same forces as always through his limbs. More so, actually—he had to fight to hold it down rather than hold it up, as the natural apex of each swing was now much higher.
“You’re now receiving a practical demonstration of the difference between weight and mass.” Cavendish told them as they swung. “In low gravity, those things have a light weight because there’s less gravity pulling on them. But their MASS hasn’t changed, and the second law of motion means that the force you’ve got to exert to make that unchanged mass accelerate is the same regardless of whether you’re in full Earth gravity, Galactic Standard, or Lunar.”
“Now.” Cavendish grinned and rubbed his hands together happily. “I notice that every single one of you is struggling with your swing. You’re overextending, you’re having a hard time holding on, those weights are going higher than you want. As you will have by now gathered, working in low gravity is remarkably tiring. So. Stop swinging and listen.”
He let them stop. “Cavendish’s Rule Number Two: Altered gravity is demanding.” he announced. “Your bodies are evolved to work with gravity to aid them. You are used to pushing against a surface, you are used to having things be pulled down as they come up. Your every instinct is built around the fact that if you are bringing something down from a high place, you let gravity do the work and your muscles are the brakes. In null gravity, that does not apply. In null gravity, if you want to get something down from above your head, you have to drag it down, not support it, and in doing so you’ll also drag yourself towards it. Everything you do is an exertion, without exception.”
He tapped his tablet, and the gravity went away. The door locked, loudly, and an alarm hooted through the room. “Start swinging again!” he ordered.
Everyone immediately found themselves being dragged around by their weights—to a man, they parted ways with the ground. Firth actually wound up in a spin, hugging his weight to his chest.
“Alright, you, hugging the ball. Push it away from your chest, arm’s length!” Cavendish told him. He was hanging comfortably only a half-inch or so off the floor, and seemed perfectly happy.
Firth obeyed, and his spin became much slower.
“That was a demonstration of angular momentum!” Cavendish declared. “We’ll get to the academic bit of how it works later, but for now, understand this—if you’re spinning fast, spread yourself out to slow down. If you’re spinning slow, make yourself small to speed up. Which brings us to Cavendish’s Rule Number Three—if you are spinning, spread out and slow down! Everyone throw your weights away from yourselves, gently now.”
They did so. One of the guys—Adam didn’t see who—yelped as the weights, upon being thrown away, launched their prior owners in the opposite direction. “And there’s Newton’s third law in action!” Cavendish announced. “You’ve just performed rocket propulsion—throw something out the back, and you accelerate yourself!”
He gave them twenty seconds to tumble and flail in mid air, all drifting in random directions across the room at a glacial pace, before finally relenting. “Hug your limbs in, protect your face, and go limp.” he ordered. “I’m about to turn the gravity back on, gently. Don’t throw your hands out to arrest your fall or anything—just relax and let it happen.”
Gravity came back, and Adam’s slow trajectory to the ceiling became a gentle fall to Earth, a surprisingly high bounce, and then a gentle skid as the gravity ramped up to galactic standard over a few seconds. It didn’t hurt at all, but like all the others, his dignity was a bit battered, especially when he saw that Cavendish had alighted gently on his feet.
Cavendish hooked his thumbs into his belt and looked thoroughly pleased with himself. “Hopefully, gentlemen, I have now broken any illusions you may have had that Extra-Vehicular Activity will be easy. How about you get up, and I start with the actual instruction now?”