The Ancillary

By David Kristoph

In a dangerously-close orbit around its star floats the Ancillary, a hollowed-out asteroid that harvests energy from the solar ring before relaying it deeper into the Sarian system. It fulfills the entirety of the Melisao Empire's energy needs--a masterful feat of engineering, once.

Now, with the star it orbits dying and the departure of the Exodus Fleet near, the Ancillary's usefulness has come to an end. And so labors Javin, an aging engineer who must dismantle the structure he's spent his entire life maintaining.

But there are those who would take advantage of the Empire's absence. Do they simply want the Ancillary and its precious solar panels, or are their motives more sinister?

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Kristoph
• Release date: Mar 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310338458

David Kristoph

David Kristoph lives in Virginia with his wonderful wife and two not-quite German Shepherds. He's a fantastic reader, great videogamer, good chess player, average cyclist, and mediocre runner.He's also a member of the Planetary Society, patron of StarTalk Radio, amateur astronomer and general space enthusiast. He writes mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy.

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Copyright © 2016 David Kristoph

www.DavidKristoph.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior consent of the author.

Cover design by Kyle Guay

Illustrations by www.MichaelKPurdue.com

Editing by Briana Kirby

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To my grandfather Buck, for teaching me to play checkers.

(And letting me win.)

Part I: The Engineer

Chapter 1

Javin dislodged the weightless panel easily from the ring. It floated away, revealing the dying star behind.

The visor on Javin's helmet clicked into place automatically. Saria filled his view. She was a cauldron of fusion, roiling and sputtering from this distance. He was so close he could make out individual features: cooler spots of black on its surface, flares spinning outward like volcano plumes, pockets of light that looked like shiny seas of gold.

She wasn't just a faraway point of light. From his spot here, floating only a few million units away, Javin saw she was alive.

A human-shaped electroid appeared, clamping onto the now free solar panel. Sunlight reflected off the panel's blue surface as the electroid spun around. Silently it jetted away, carrying the part back to Javin's ship.

The appearance of the electronic worker jolted Javin back to work. His hand went to his side and squeezed a joystick. Air jets within his space suit puffed, gently pushing him farther along the solar ring. After a moment he touched the controller again, canceling out his momentum in front of the next group of panels.

Each grouping comprised of nine rectangular panels in a three-by-three grid, facing the star to harvest its energy. The individual panels were twice as tall as Javin and would have weighed a hundred times as much if they weren't orbiting in space. The side facing the sun was flawlessly smooth, but their backs held more function. Messy wires criss-crossed the surface, bundled together as they ran toward the center. That's where the battery packs were, columns of fat cylinders. From there even thicker wires ran toward the grouping's center panel, to the long laser that pointed backward, away from the star.

A dozen electroids were already at work on the three top panels, floating around like a swarm of Melisao flies.

Javin pulled himself along the left-center panel until he reached the inner edge. The wires weren't continuous; they snapped together where they met at the center panel and could be disconnected. That way an individual panel could be replaced instead of an entire grouping. Or, in this case, dismantled one-by-one.

He unclipped one of the tools from his waist, gripping it in a gloved hand. Two bolts on either panel came away with ease, and Javin slipped them into his suit's pocket. Now that the wires were loose from the panel he could unscrew the connectors. The wires were so thick he could hardly fit his hand around them, but they disconnected without problem.

With the power decoupled he could now safely dismantle the rest. He replaced the tool with another from his waist and found the clamps that connected one panel's frame to the other. More bolts came away, these too big to fit in his pocket. He let them spin away in space; an electroid would scoop them up and take them back to the ship. He moved along the border, discarding bolts one by one until finally the panel was free. The view of Saria entranced him again for a moment, until he pulled himself to the next panel.

He found himself admiring the star more these days. Age stiffened Javin's joints, turned his hair from brown to grey to white. His back hurt more each morning, and if it weren't for all the weightless work he knew he'd walk with a hunch.

But not Saria. Red giants rage against their death. Once all hydrogen is exhausted from the core they begin fusing the element from the outer shell. They expand rapidly in this phase, increasing in luminosity many thousandfold, enveloping anything in the inner system. Saria's expansion would destroy the ring of solar panels, and eventually the planet Melis itself.

The process was admirable; it was easy to see why religious cults worshipped the star. Some mornings Javin barely had the energy to get out of bed.

He didn't need to be there. He'd long since passed the ranks that required such menial work. He was the Custodian of the Ancillary, the head engineer of the space station that orbited near the ring and relayed power back to Melis. His job was to oversee the dismantling of the solar ring, not unscrew every bolt himself. But he hated sitting around, giving orders to younger men and watching from afar. His hands may be wrinkled, but they were made for working, not pointing.

He enjoyed the solitude, too. His fifty years of maintaining the ring were mostly quiet, just him and one or two assistants on the Ancillary at any given time. Sometimes they went months or years without seeing anyone else.

Now the space station was a buzz of activity. Once the Exodus Fleet was announced dozens of workers arrived to assist in dismantling the ring. Men and women catalogued every bolt and panel, oversaw other electroid teams, began preparations to abandon the Ancillary itself. Javin's life had been peaceful, and such a sudden disruption was jarring.

And so he floated along the ring, dismantling panels himself. By himself.

Inside his helmet was an electronic display, offset so it wouldn't obscure his line-of-sight, where data was viewable at a glance: suit temperature and oxygen level, his position along the ring, a clock showing ancillary and Melisao time, numbers and information on each of the electroids around him. One electroid, SRE-100504, blinked red.

He looked around. It didn't take long to find it. Most of the electroids jetted around with precise purpose, but one above him was erratic. Its arms were attached to a bolt connecting two panels together, but its body jerked back and forth, twisting.

A soft push and Javin floated upward.

He frowned when he reached it. It looked the same as all the others except for a blotch on one of its arms. The blemish was brown like rust, except he knew the carbon-metalloid material didn't oxidize. It almost looked like dried blood.

These electroids had mechanical hands that could rotate freely to unscrew objects. They needed leverage though, either by clamping onto the panel with their other appendages or by using their propulsion jets to hold them in place. This electroid did neither, which caused its body to rotate helplessly while the arm and bolt remained still.

Javin sighed. It wasn't the first electroid to malfunction since the new shipment arrived. He was supposed to discard malfunctioning workers and request new ones, but one fewer electroid on this section of the solar ring would slow them too much. And he hated wasting workers that could be fixed with a little effort. Gently, he touched the electroid with a gloved hand, feeling its spasms.

He glanced at the clock showing the Ancillary's time. The flyby was less than an hour away, but it didn't matter. He had no intention of returning just yet.

He pressed a circle-shaped button on the electroid's back. It became still, and the glow from its torso dimmed. The robots were shaped like humans except for the lack of head; all processing was done within the square torso. Four screws and the maintenance plate came away, revealing the circuitry inside. From an external pocket on his suit Javin extended a data cable, connecting to an exposed port within.

He spoke a command and data scrolled across his helmet's display, numbers and symbols and code. He said, Diagnostics, and new information appeared. He paused to skim the data. Another spoken command and a new screen of data.

It went on like this, delving deeper into the electroid's information, until Javin identified the problem. The cable was too short for him to maneuver much, so he disconnected and pushed down to the electroid's leg, the data cable dangling like a tentacle. More screws came away under his drill, another plate removed. Here the electroid's left leg connected to the torso, with a series of wires and servos to control movement.

The problem was immediately obvious: one small pneumatic pump was disconnected, just as the diagnostic screen implied. It was now tangled around a series of wires, some of which were torn. The pump must have flailed around inside the metal housing.

The damage wasn't too significant, he decided. From the left pocket of his suit Javin removed the wire repair kit: a small fusing laser, electric foam, and a coil of wire. Who's over-prepared now? he thought with a smirk thinking of Beth, who teased him for carrying so many tools on routine jobs.

He counted fifteen wires that needed repair. Some were quick fixes, fused together and coated in the electric foam. Others required more work. One wire was ripped farther inside the torso, out of view. Javin removed another plate, then another, until he found the disconnect. He ran a new length of wire back through the housing, fused it at both ends to create a new connection, then removed the old wire.

He returned to the torso and checked the diagnostics, but the problem remained. It took two more trips back-and-forth before he discovered which wire was repaired incorrectly. He fused more wire, coated more foam.

Finally he reconnected the metal plates and powered-on the electroid. It immediately returned to its programmed task, clamping the fixed leg to the panel's frame for leverage before unscrewing the bolt with ease.

Javin watched it work to make sure it had no other problems. It was satisfying to fix something. After decades maintaining the solar ring, dismantling it was depressing work.

It would be reconstructed once the Exodus Fleet arrived at the new system, but the thought didn't comfort Javin. That would be years from now--he surely wouldn't be there to see it. The first group of settlers was already chosen, and millions more waited for their chance. Families were prioritized, men and women who'd completed enough military tours to compose children together.

The Exodus Fleet needed engineers and workers too, but Javin wasn't among those asked. Why take a stubborn old man who would probably die during the journey? There were plenty of young, amiable engineers. Javin was neither.

With effort he pushed the thought aside. There was no use daydreaming about an impossible future, or scenarios that could have been. He'd had a long life, was happy with how he'd lived it. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he was as expendable as an electroid, given orders and put to work until he ceased functioning.

A notification blinked in his helmet's display. Proximity alarm, disable, he said, annoyed. The newer suits had alarms for everything, as if a man couldn't use his own eyes. The clock showed the Ancillary was close to its flyby; he didn't need another reminder. Besides, there wasn't much traffic out here. Peacekeeper patrols used to be more common to protect the ring from scavenging pirates, but most were reassigned to assist the Fleet, or to help occupy Praetar. Javin was very much alone out here, save for every eighth day when the Ancillary flew by.

We're coming your way, old man, Beth's voice was crisp in his helmet. See you rock-side soon.

Sorry, Beth. I'm staying out here for another rotation.

She laughed in his ear. I don't know why I'm surprised. You were supposed to return two rotations ago. A pause. "Would a bottle of sweetwater change your mind? I've been saving it for when the work's done, but stars save me, these workers are driving me mad. I need to drink something."

Javin smiled to himself. Next rotation. I promise.

That's what you said last time, she said. You can't stay out there forever.

Like hell I can't. I'll stay out here as long as I need to.

You're fixing more electroids, aren't you?

I'm making sure the job's done right.

Just get a replacement from your ship, she said.

"It'll be broken too, Beth. These electroids up from Praetar are junk. I don't have a choice."

She sighed in his ear. You're more stubborn every day. There was silence for a long moment, and then she said, "If the Admiral contacts me I'm not making any more excuses. You're supposed to be in charge, not me. See you in a week, old man. And make sure you don't get fried."

Silence