Drifting Dark

Cassie stared at the hole in the floor as Mike began climbing down the ladder. It creaked under his weight. The rusty nuts might have shifted, or it could have been just her imagination. He had to pull his shoulders in to squeeze through the opening.

She leaned over the side to peer past him. The tunnel went right through the ship. All six stories.

It looked like a long drop.

In reality, with the grav flip, it would only be three.

It looked worse than it actually was.

Cassie gripped the sides of the ladder firmly. She looked at the rung below. The yellow paint was flaking away. It was mostly black now. It probably wouldn't break under her weight, things rarely did. Benefits of being small and light.

She found herself testing it anyways. Force of habit.

It held. It didn't even creak as she shifted her full weight onto her foot. Her boots gripped the metal securely.

This was beginning to feel familiar.

She began to climb downwards, falling behind Mike again as she struggled with her heavy bag. One floor down, and she was already starting to regret packing so much. Another floor down, and the weight seemed to be disappearing. It took her a moment to realize that each step was easier than the last.

Cassie glanced down at Mike, who was almost half a floor ahead of her by now. "What's happening?"

"The grav flip is coming up," Mike explained. "We're climbing down right down, but we're going to be climbing up in a minute."

Cassie stopped, glancing downwards at the floor below, the divider between the two halves of the ship. It didn't look any different, save that the ladder below them looked cleaner, the bright yellow standing out against the brackish walls.

But gravity wasn't exactly something that could be seen.

"So how does it work?"

"It's microgravity in the middle. Then it switches on the other side," Mike explained as he continued downwards. "The two middle decks are actually half grav, but we don't use them for anything except storage. You won't have to learn the pains of working in low grav."

"Great," Cassie replied absentmindedly.

Mike paused right above the opening. "Here we are." He glanced up at her. "Just be careful when you fall to the other side."

Cassie's brow furrowed. "So I just... fall?"

"I'll show you, it's easier than it sounds." Mike grabbed each side of the ladder, his feet floating in the air. "If you launch yourself at just the right moment..." He yanked himself downwards, letting go at the same time, and launching himself precisely through the hole in the floor.

On the other side, he began to pull his legs in as he leaned back. In less than a second, he'd smoothly completed a half backflip. She watched carefully as his descent slowed, stopped, then he was slowly floating back towards her.

No, not towards her. He was floating towards the ceiling of the level below her, just opposite the ladder. As he straightened out, he twisted halfway around, just so his feet hit the floor pointing towards the ladder. All done in one smooth motion.

From her perspective, he was standing on the ceiling of the deck below her, looking up at her, smirking up at her.

"Wow," Cassie whispered, her grip on the ladder shifting, adjusting. "I want to try."

"Uh, maybe you should take it slow..." Mike started to say, but Cassie had already pushed off the ladder.

In the wrong way. In the wrong direction.

Mike took a couple steps back as Cassie flew through the opening, watching with mild amusement rather than concern as she flayed about.

"Woah!" Cassie tried to twist and flip at the same time, trying futilely to control her aimless trajectory. She'd managed to rotate about halfway upwards when her bag banged into the wall to the left of the ladder. The half grav kicked in and she found herself steadily sinking towards the floor.

Cassie landed on her butt. "Oof." Her backpack hit the floor with a thunk. The fine black dust that had been covering the floor was no longer just on the floor.

Mike was clearly trying not to laugh. "It takes some practice, but at least the landing isn't that hard."

Cassie frowned as she tried to wipe her hands off on her brown pants, but the black particles didn't want to come off easily. Distracted, she didn't notice the older woman who'd just appeared in the doorway in front of her.

"What's going on here?"

"Just introducing our new trainee to the grav flip." Mike gestured towards Cassie.

Helen looked down at Cassie, still sprawled on the floor, and chuckled. "I didn't get it on my first time either."

Mike smiled. "Cassie, this is our captain, Helen."

Cassie scrambled to her feet as her cheeks turned bright red. The rules must be lax if not even the captain was wearing a proper uniform, but she didn't want to test those limits today. It was always better not to make any waves.

"Cassie Wylen. Reporting for duty." She tried to stand as straight as she could. It didn't do her any favours.

Helen gave her a brief glance over. "Glad to have you on board."

"Thank you, ma'am," Cassie said quietly, fiddling with the strap of her backpack.

To her relief, Helen turned her attention back to Mike. "Did you get the latest data from intel?"

"I've got the updated map, it just needs to be uploaded into the computer," Mike answered.

"Good. Goeff is almost done with the cargo. Then we'll have our prelaunch meeting." Helen's gaze shifted back to Cassie. "That'll be a good chance for you to meet everyone."

Cassie nodded eagerly, even though that was the last thing she wanted to do right now.

"We'll head to the hall right after the tour."

"I'll see you there." Helen gave Mike a pointed look. "I think our medic can keep you safe until then."

Mike shrugged. "Of course."

Helen shot him a skeptical look as she walked, almost bouncing, back the way she came in. She moved with the practiced ease of someone who'd spent a lifetime in space.

Mike moved back towards the ladder awkwardly. He walked too heavily, fighting against the bounce rather than embracing it. Like someone who hadn't spent much time in low grav environments. Like someone who had spent most of their life planetside.

Cassie tried not to think about it. Instead, she shifted from foot to foot, getting a feel for the new grav level. This wasn't too low for her tastes, it was even comfortable.

But the grav flip, that was weird. Even the oldest stations had long converted their artificial gravity generators to unidirectional. While bidirectional was technically a more efficient gravity field setup, consuming the least EL-240 in the long run, it was definitely inconvenient.

Even then, it didn't even save that much EL-240. Not compared to what the engines, or the cloak, would be using on this trip. Grav fields were cheap, but they needed fuel, which was always in short supply. More so now, since the spaceborn controlled nearly all the stations capable of mining the rare, extraterrestrial element.

It was still hard to believe that stocks had gotten so low that ships were resorting to tactics like this. Everyone in space knew how important it was not to waste anything, not when you could be trapped in a closed cycle for days, months, even years. Air, water, food, were all so precious.

She raised herself onto the balls of her feet and let her heels drop, feeling the lack of weight there, the lack of gravity.

Clearly sometimes even they took things for granted.

Cassie hadn't even realized that she was staring downwards, her eyes glued to the empty space where the grav flip existed.

"You can try it again later, you'll have lots of time to play with it." Mike stepped on to the ladder, climbing upwards. "We've still got the rest of the ship to go through."

"Right," Cassie said agreeably.

"But next time, it might be easier to try it without the backpack full of rocks," Mike advised.

"They're not rocks," Cassie replied defensively. "They're tools."

"We have tools here, you know. Didn't have to bring your own," Mike commented as he stepped off the ladder only one level down.

"I just wanted to be prepared," Cassie said quietly as she stepped onto the solid metal floor, feeling the full weight of her bag settle once again. "I like mine."

"Why don't we head to crew quarters next then?" Mike eyed the bag weirdly. "So you can drop that off."

Cassie gave him a grateful smile. "That would be nice."