Clause 185.23

There was never anything worth seeing out here, just the same old chunks of rock tumbling along a route as old as the planets themselves. Karen had seen it all a hundred times and still thought they all looked the same. Back on the Earth-Luna run she knew several pilots who would have given everything they owned to get this close to an asteroid, somewhere, in the back of her mind, she could imagine them getting off at the thought of flying through one of the greatest natural hazards of the spaceways. One of the phrases she had heard used was, "better than sex" but the reality was far from it. Sometimes she wished for a little excitement, nothing dangerous, maybe a system failure so she could take over the controls for a little while, but the computer handled everything. No, it did everything perfectly, faster and more efficiently than any human could. So why did she have to baby-sit? The answer wasn't as exciting as; "to be there in case something went wrong" that wasn't going to happen, Karen Lawrence was a clause 185.23. The insurance companies knew nothing could go wrong, but still wouldn't cover unless a human pilot was aboard. "Aboard and being driven slowly insane by six month cargo runs on which I do nothing but verify that an box of microprocessors is doing my job better than I can."

The 'Gold Rush' had been one of the fastest survey ships of her time; unfortunately, her time had been over 35 years ago. After a number of giant leaps in propulsion technology, this once proud ship had been reduced to hauling low-grade components out to the shipyards orbiting Titan. So, it seemed, had Karen. She sighed at the thought, tried to remember her dreams of deep range exploration and ticked off her checklist, everything was spot on, again.

"One mistake and I'll have you, stupid piece of shit!" She was seething with resentment at being replaced by something that couldn't even hold a conversation, "Look on the bright side Karen" she told herself, full of mock cheer, "one more run and you'll have enough money to take your class 2 licence. At least then you'll rate a human co-pilot and be flying something a little more comfortable than this floating heap of scrap." She checked her watch, "Three hours before jumping, time enough for a nap." Karen Lawrence closed her eyes and dreamed of unsurveyed systems and the percentages they hold.

She woke with a start. "Warning, unidentified contact closing... Collision in T-minus fourteen minutes..." the speakers called out, the tone almost aloof, the computer knew it was able to handle the situation but wanted to ensure it had an audience to its superiority, or was she becoming paranoid?

Karen lurched forward in her seat, the harness cut into her shoulder, cursing, she managed to blurt out a command, "Show me!" She glanced at her watch, 25 minutes sleep, someone was punishing her for crimes committed in a past life.

The navigational display on her console lit up with hundreds of points representing the asteroid field around the 'Gold Rush'.

"Remove known contacts." all but twelve lights disappeared, "Remove all non-threatening contacts." Just one remained. The excitement was rising up insider her, no, not excitement, fear. Karen scrolled back along the recorded flight path of the object, two, three course corrections and it was still on target for them? This wasn't a rock. Her fingers froze over the keyboard, refusing to move.