Parallel Tracks by Dave Creek – FREE STORY

It’s a shame when we need a marriage counselor, but when you have a good counselor, who knows the great things you could do together?

Transcript of audio/video/cube recording of marital counseling session with Reiko Umari and Javier Umari, crewmembers aboard the Earth Unity starcraft Belyanka, during an exploratory mission in the Forneus system. Session conducted August, 2152 in Chief Medical Officer Walton Manning’s private office.

CMO Manning will be referred to as “COUNSELOR” in this transcript. Reiko Umari and Javier Umari will be referred to by their first names.

COUNSELOR: Thank you to you both for agreeing to this session. I’d —

JAVIER: It wasn’t our idea. The captain insisted.

COUNSELOR: So let’s talk about that mission you undertook —

REIKO: Which we insisted upon undertaking.

JAVIER: And which you insisted upon piloting.

REIKO: I’m the better pilot. I have more experience.

JAVIER: We still lost the probes. Next time someone’s life could be at stake. You have to understand that piloting experience isn’t the only factor in a mission like this.

REIKO: You enjoy getting your way.

COUNSELOR: I’m hearing the word “you” a lot, from both of you. Let’s consider using “I” phrases more, saying, for instance, “I feel hurt when you do a certain thing,” or “I don’t know how to respond to something you said.”

REIKO: Well, I’m willing to try that.

JAVIER: (to Counselor) I feel looked down upon when you talk to me like that.

COUNSELOR: I’m sorry you feel that way. See how it works?

JAVIER: (remains silent)

COUNSELOR: Let’s look more closely at how the mission developed. What exactly was the goal? Pretend I don’t know anything about this system. And quite honestly, I don’t know very much.

JAVIER: (to Reiko) You start out. Oh, sorry, I think you should start out.

REIKO: (sighs) We were aboard the shuttle Fucanglong, flying close to the planet Eligos. It’s a “super-Earth,” and only orbits about 18 million K from its primary.

JAVIER: Closer than Mercury is to our sun.

REIKO: Which means most of its surface is covered with lava floes and volcanos. But the other fascinating part about Eligos is that it was having its every-three-months conjunction with the next planet out, Forneus. It would approach within two million kilometers.

JAVIER: That one’s a gas giant about the size of Neptune. Eight times the mass of Earth.

REIKO: An earlier mission had done a preliminary scan. But we were to launch probes, aiming them at Eligos first.

COUNSELOR: What was your goal?

JAVIER: To discover how the surface of Eligos reacts during such a conjunction. I was working the sensors while (indicates Reiko) this one piloted.

REIKO: Mmm. I felt I was better qualified to pilot. Just that simple.

JAVIER: I did the best I could with the probes. I’d practiced using them a lot in sims.

REIKO: But it’s never the same.

JAVIER: Stop criticizing me for what happened.

REIKO: I wasn’t. I was explaining.

JAVIER: You were — dammit! — I mean, I felt like you were giving me an excuse just now. And because I lost the probes, we’ll have to prove ourselves again before we can be trusted on a more important mission. One where lives could be at stake.

REIKO: It’s why Mapiya Halvorsen and Amy Rafferty are back aboard Fucanglong, hoping to gather the information we didn’t.

COUNSELOR: What made this mission so difficult?

JAVIER: We didn’t trust even the slightest signal delay in operating the probes remotely. Bringing Belyanka close enough to avoid that delay would’ve been too risky. So we took the shuttle in close.

REIKO: We had to get to within about fifty kilometers of the surface of Eligos. More volcanos than you could count, wide rivers of lava all across the landscape.

JAVIER: I did my best with the probes. I sent three down all at once. We didn’t want to stay on site very long because of gravitational perturbations from both planets. That’s why I was controlling them remotely, so I could react instantly if they went off course.

REIKO: When they went off course. It’s also why I wanted to stay back farther from the planet.

JAVIER: It was worth the risk.

REIKO: It wasn’t worth trying to operate three probes at one time.

COUNSELOR: Tell me what happened with the probes.

JAVIER: I wanted to get them in as close as possible, for as long as possible. I sent them on parallel tracks along Eligos’s equator. The ones on either end aimed their sensors to one side, and the middle one straight down.

COUNSELOR: And that worked for awhile?

JAVIER: (doesn’t respond for several seconds) Until we passed over a mascon beneath the planet’s surface.

COUNSELOR: Excuse me, a what?

REIKO: A mascon. Mass concentration. It’s an area of denser material beneath a planet’s surface. Can cause a sudden variation in the planet’s gravitational pull.

JAVIER: And we hadn’t detected it beforehand. Not a big difference in gravity, but the probes are purposely made light, so it had a bigger effect than you might imagine.

COUNSELOR: And that’s when the probes went awry?

JAVIER: Yes.

COUNSELOR: Please tell me the rest.

JAVIER: One of the probes on one side veered toward the middle one. I worked the controls from the shuttle as quickly as I could.

COUNSELOR: But . . . that didn’t work?

JAVIER: They collided.

COUNSELOR: And the third one?

JAVIER: (to Reiko) Go ahead. You can say it.

REIKO: It went out of control, too.

JAVIER: Go ahead and say why.

REIKO: (frowning) Because . . . all of Javier’s attention was on the other two.

COUNSELOR: And how much data on the planet did you receive?

JAVIER: The probes were transmitting constantly, and we were recording both on the shuttle and back here on Belyanka. But no, we didn’t get much. Once they went off those parallel tracks . . . .

COUNSELOR: Do you see an analogy between those parallel tracks and the direction of your relationship?

(Reiko and Javier trade glances.)

JAVIER: Uh, no.

REIKO: That’s maybe a little too literary for our sensibilities. Besides, we’ve always worked things out before.

JAVIER: It’s that love thing. Makes up for a lot.

REIKO: Allows for a lot.

JAVIER: Either way, that’s when Captain Albright called us back.

REIKO: And insisted upon this meeting.

COUNSELOR: You can understand why.

(A knock at the door)

COUNSELOR: Come in.

CAPTAIN DAMON ALBRIGHT: (enters; recordings continue) Sorry to interrupt.

JAVIER: We were just talking about you.

REIKO: Please, not now.

COUNSELOR: How can we help you, Captain?

CAPTAIN ALBRIGHT: We have another problem. A much bigger one this time. Mapiya and Amy are in trouble. I need all three of you to rescue them.

(Transcript ends)

Transcript, one day later, of audio/video/cube recording of second marital counseling session with Reiko Umari and Javier Umari. Session again conducted in Chief Medical Officer Walton Manning’s private office.

COUNSELOR: So tell us about your little adventure to rescue Mapiya and Amy.

JAVIER: You were there!

COUNSELOR: But I was separated from you for much of it. And I want to know how both of you experienced it.

REIKO: Well, the part you were there for was taking the shuttle Tianlong down toward Fucanglong and docking with it. Part of its engine had exploded. Amy Rafferty was hurt, and you and Mapiya Halvorsen were treating her. I went to work on their engine.

JAVIER: And since the shuttle had been moving closer to the planet when it was crippled, its orbit was about to decay. I got to work on placing it back into a higher orbit.

COUNSELOR: I was at least vaguely aware of how busy you both were.

REIKO: You were keeping pretty busy yourself helping the injured.

COUNSELOR: And we all knew we were taking a risk as long as the two shuttles remained docked with one another.

JAVIER: I was pretty concerned about that.

REIKO: I saw how great a job you were doing, getting us out of danger, though.

JAVIER: It was close for awhile. (To counselor) I was glad you and Mapiya got Amy over to Tianlong when you did.

COUNSELOR: I knew we had to get her to its infirmary as quick as we could. But I was sure both of you would have to come over, too, and let Fucanglong go.

REIKO: I wasn’t about to do that.

JAVIER: Neither was I.

COUNSELOR: I like that I’m hearing a lot of “I” sentences. It seems the two of you were working together better this time.

JAVIER: (laughs) We didn’t have time to snipe at each other.

REIKO: Or even to be frustrated with one another.

JAVIER: (to Reiko) But even as I was bringing the shuttle back toward a safer orbit, I realized my frustration before had never been with you.

COUNSELOR: Who was it with?

JAVIER: I’d bet you could guess.

COUNSELOR: I’d like to hear you say it.

JAVIER: It was with myself.

COUNSELOR: How so?

JAVIER: I was fighting the shuttle’s controls, trying to get us into a higher orbit. I knew our lives depended upon that. With the two shuttles linked together, if Fucanglong went down, so would Tianlong. I needed to stabilize both of them enough so that at least you and Mapiya and Amy might have a chance to undock and get away.

REIKO: Wait a minute. You were thinking about sacrificing both of us?

JAVIER: I wasn’t as if I came up with the idea. It was forced upon me.

REIKO: It seems as if that would’ve come up earlier, when you were talking about being frustrated.

JAVIER: Again, the frustration was within myself. It was very freeing, actually. Getting the ship into a higher orbit was something I could do something about.

COUNSELOR: Without the distraction of your own frustration.

JAVIER: That’s right.

REIKO: Well, I was dealing with some frustrations of my own. Getting the propulsion system back in shape was a pretty complicated task. The engines had a lot of physical damage, and I had to do a lot of workarounds with the nanotech to get as much repaired as quickly as I could.

COUNSELOR: So I’ll ask the same question of you as I did of Javier. Who were you frustrated with?

REIKO: (looks toward the floor, doesn’t speak)

TIERNAN: C’mon, you can say it. I’m stubborn as hell, but I admitted that ultimately, I was frustrated with myself.

REIKO: That’s just it. I was frustrated with you, too.

JAVIER: What!

REIKO: If you had done a better job on our own mission, Mapiya and Amy wouldn’t have had to come in behind us. Amy wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

JAVIER: (stares blankly at Reiko)

COUNSELOR: Javier, how do you feel —

JAVIER: (to Reiko) You think I don’t know that? That’s why I was willing to risk everything.

REIKO: Including me.

JAVIER: No, I was going to make sure you went across to Tianlong.

REIKO: I wouldn’t have gone.

JAVIER: I’d have made you.

REIKO: How? Push me through both airlocks? Threaten me?

JAVIER: Yeah. I know that would never have worked.

REIKO: Which is why you didn’t actually try it.

JAVIER: Yeah.

REIKO: I had to keep nursing the engines while you were getting us into a higher orbit.

COUNSELOR: Or you could’ve both abandoned Fucanglong.

JAVIER: No, I couldn’t. Not after a failed mission, and . . . just as Reiko said, Amy getting hurt on the followup mission she and Mapiya had to go on to make up for it. And Captain Albright had already shown faith in us again. I didn’t want to betray that faith.

COUNSELOR: A shuttle isn’t more important than your own life.

JAVIER: Maybe my pride was. At least in the heat of the moment.

REIKO: And your life, and your pride, were important to me, too. Enough to me to stick with you, to make sure we all got back safely and without losing a shuttle in the process. You brought us home.

COUNSELOR: It looks as if you’ve resolved all your differences.

(Reiko and Javier trade glances, then laugh)

REIKO: Oh, not nearly. But we did confirm something.

COUNSELOR: And what is that?

JAVIER: Let me guess. (glances at Reiko) Neither one of us wants to be without the other.

REIKO: I, uh . . . I’m sorry for what I said — you know. About you frustrating me.

JAVIER: No, you were right.

REIKO: I didn’t want to be.

JAVIER: At least we’re consistent. About who frustrates us, I mean.

REIKO: Not the best basis for a relationship. But maybe that idea of parallel tracks isn’t so bad, after all.

JAVIER: Especially when we seem to be back on them again.

REIKO: But like we said before, it’s that love thing. Makes up for a lot.

JAVIER: Allows for a lot.

END