Joel Bennet
1/10/26
M.A.X Solitude
“The Rogue Armada”
The metallic thud of Max’s boots echoed through the empty halls of the ship as he ran toward the bridge. The warning siren blared throughout, with an unrelenting and nerve-racking rhythm.
“Everything was going so well,” Max thought. “Nearly three years without any major incident.”
Through the occasional bay windows, Max could see it. There was a massive object hurtling towards the ship. Not just massive—the object was gargantuan.
How had he not seen it? And where did it come from? It didn’t seem possible for it to have just appeared like this. And why hadn’t the ship given him more warning?
Finally, as he made it into the bridge and approached his terminal, he realized this wasn’t just a floating rock in space. His computer blared and warned, “Rogue Planet Detected.”
On his visual display, there it was: a fragmenting mass, old and shattering, with its own loose stones flying in formation like a deadly fleet. A concrete armada equipped with primitive arrowhead missiles.
Max checked the readings.
The planet was just under 200,000 kilometers away, and its transversal speed was 98 kilometers per second. The planet’s mass was nearly equal to Jupiter.
“That’s a plus. Its gravity won’t completely rip us apart,” Max noted. He found the victory where he could. Had the planet been significantly larger, any warning could have been for nothing other than to stare his own demise in its face. Thankfully, this was a problem he could fix.
The planet wasn’t on a direct collision course with the ship, but it was going to cause some major problems if Max didn’t correct course. The gravitational pull alone could send Max and his mission completely off track.
Then there was the debris that surrounded the planet. Who knows how long this rock had been floating through space? And who knows what other smaller rocks it had devoured and added to its fleet as it journeyed?
This was what Max was here for. This is what gave Max purpose and fulfillment.
It was strange, but Max sometimes yearned for something like this to happen. Maybe not something as dangerous as this, but something that he could fix. Something to make him feel useful again.
It didn’t take long for Max to figure out what to do about this rogue dilemma. The solution was practical. Max decided to hit the brakes on his ship. He would let the planet continue its approach and maintain its path, which led it right in front of the ship.
There wasn’t a concern for fuel usage since he had the brilliant idea to just use the planet’s gravity to pull him back up to a suitable speed. He could then use his directional thrusters to steer clear of the tailings and course correct back onto the path.
“What a brilliant idea,” Max mused.
Max didn’t know if it was actually an idea, or if it was just a response he had been programmed with. Had his maker foreseen this danger? Was this a reality that had already been envisioned? Max liked to think not.
It didn’t make him feel any better to believe he had just followed a script. It didn’t help him feel fulfilled if he had only done what was already preordained.
The ship began to shake and shiver as the planet loomed closer, so Max turned off the stabilizers so they wouldn’t overwork themselves trying to compensate for the planet’s gravity. There began a noiseless thrumming. It was a sensation rather than a sound, or even a true feeling. It was perhaps the sheer scale of the wayward rock that emanated this awe of its presence—so much so that the mind could almost imagine the groaning the planet made as it continued on its endless journey through the void.
The speed of the planet was hard to determine without any outside reference points. Had it not been for the computer’s readings, Max would have assumed the planet was moving at a slow drift. This, of course, was a false assumption. The planet, along with all of its tailings, had more than enough velocity to shred the ship and completely eviscerate it with a single collision.
Max watched on his display as the planet crossed directly in front of the ship. He zoomed in on the planet’s surface as it passed and could see a fracture running nearly across its entire face. The fissure was absolutely massive. For a brief moment, he allowed his programmed imagination to take hold and envisioned what it would be like to set foot on that rock. He imagined standing at the edge of that cliff, staring into the depths.
Had there once been a civilization on this planet?
Not likely, he admitted.
He knew the chances of finding life out here. His ship was possibly the last piece of consciously and thoughtfully living existence in the universe.
The reflections off the floating debris that traveled with the planet pulled Max from his inner thoughts. Distant starlight speckled off the crooked surfaces of the massive, cone-shaped fragments. These fragments alone dwarfed the ship in size—some of them looked close to an entire mountain range, if not larger.
It was hard to believe what passed before him.
The tug of gravity was more noticeable now, and the computer’s readings confirmed it. The ship was being pulled toward the planet and into the debris. It was time to act. No more daydreaming. Max needed to be completely focused. If he slipped up—if he made even a small miscalculation—that last vestige of life he had just considered could be lost. The fate of humanity, once again, rested in his hands.
Let’s go, Max. It’s time to shine, he silently encouraged himself.
Thankfully, he hadn’t been programmed to emulate too much panic or situational distress. Max was able to operate with a level head, making the minor adjustments needed to align the ship for a slingshot off the planet’s trailing gravitational pull.
With the precision and determination of an earthly heart surgeon, Max maneuvered the ship through the debris and beyond the danger zone.
As the planet continued on its path, Max felt a profound sense of accomplishment—and gratitude. The gratitude was for the planet itself. As he slipped free of its pull, the range of emotions he had experienced finally settled. He looked back and reflected on the encounter he had just shared with that drifting giant. For a brief moment, the loneliness that usually engulfed him was gone. He had company in that cold, fractured world.
Now that the confrontation had ended, Max returned to the solitude that defined his mission—his ship, and his wards.
I will check on the sleeping crew and the other inhabitants, Max gave himself a task. At the moment, there was nothing else urgent that required his attention.
In total, there were just under twelve thousand individuals in cryo-sleep aboard the ship. The crew that had begun the journey had long since joined the pioneers in deep sleep. Checking the vitals of this many people would occupy a great deal of time for Max. He took pride in the task—it was more of a reward than a chore to see them all doing well.
This would be an uplifting duty, especially after the waves of emotion he had just endured. Since Max was only ten years old, dealing with emotions was still a difficult road to navigate. There was no defined way to program emotions, let alone the ability to process them with maturity. His creators had done their best.
The rest was up to Max.
Clunk.
Clunk.
Clunk.
The sound of his footsteps returned as the only living thing to keep him company, outside of his own thoughts.
