Open Space

Open Space: A Collection

The one-mile diameter by five-mile length of the Open Space cylindrical space-habitat is a part of a larger transportation system called the Star Way.

The Star Way stretches for 4.3 light-years from Earth to the Centauri System and along it, huge laser-powered light-sails transport people and goods.

At a distance of 100 AU from each other, the habitats support the beam relay stations which maintain the laser beams generated near the stars of the two systems.

The habitats also support families with young kids who find adventure in such a life.

Open Space: A Collection is set in the future (2390s) and is a collection of 8 short stories set in the Future Chron Universe.

The volume contains the following short stories:

Open Space

Who listens to kids? No one.

But on a space habitat the rules all change. And the kids might be the first to know.

Follow the gang of four as they discover an anomaly that could spell disaster for the habitat, if no one listens.

The Old World

After their adventure with the gravitational eddy Willis and the others had the opportunity to travel from their space habitat to Earth to tell their story.

There they were to make the rounds of media interviews and do some sightseeing. But there were those that didn't want any more publicity over the incident because they knew it hadn't been as accidental as people thought.

The kids were not alright.

Insurrect

Life in a space habitat has one fundamental difference from life on a planet. Each and every one of the habitat's inhabitants has the power to disrupt the lives of the others.

The simplest failure to obey the rules can lead to major ramifications and misunderstandings.

But an ideological effort to change the rules without regard to the reality of life in a habitat can have even worse consequences.

Second Beam

We, without thought, turn over more and more control of our lives to machine AI.

And machine AI does the thinking for us.

But what if it also suffers from the same failings of character that we do?

After all we make machines in our image.

All For One

No good deed goes unpunished.

This Willis and the others learn when their math teacher, for an unknown reason, insisted on making them an example to the rest of the class.

They would have to find out why they were targeted, what they had done, and still pass the class.

One For All

The kids take up flying lessons. But these lessons aren't like planet-based flying where gravity rules. At the center of the spinning habitat there is no gravity and flying is personal as each one spreads his own wings in the light air a half mile up from the spinning floor of the habitat.

Sometimes it only takes a moment to make a choice that can change many lives. But that doesn't make the choice easy.

When an accident happens, that moment arrives, what choice will one of the kids make?

Shotgun

Small things make life bearable, such as coffee aboard a fusion ship two weeks away from its destination. But what happens if the small things go missing

Usually nothing. But on a fusion ship in deep space, it could be the catalyst for disaster.

Willis was on his dad's ship the Jackson. Because he had forgotten to check the store of coffee the crew was suffering caffeine withdrawal and was distracted.

Now a mishap had quenched the plasma in the fusion engines and there was only about thirty hours of backup power without those engines. Then it would be over.

But even worse, the spacetime they were traveling through was changing. Something had to be done and fast.

Allison

Leaving familiar friends and surroundings to fit in at a new school is challenging for Willis.

But it could also be dangerous when a bully targets him as a rival for a popular girl's affections.

All Willis wants to do is study physics with the best in his space habitat but first he'll have to survive.

For more information see the writer's website www.dwpatterson.com.

Hard Science Fiction – Old School.