Ember X
Blink
Blink
10
The blurred lime green number was followed by garbled writing and quickly replaced by a square cursor blinking in its place. He couldn’t remember. Was it words?
Ten? Ten what?
Oskar screwed his eyelids together. The room looked clearer when he opened them.
Percent? Days?
The cursor raced across the glass dome dropping letters behind it.
10 Minutes to Life Support Failure.
Cryopod O2 Level Critical.
Then,
9 Minutes to Life Support Failure.
Somewhere, buried deep, Oskar knew what to do. He pulled the pod cover emergency release handle. The glass dome sailed up and back. He wiped at the sleep crust gumming the outside edges of his eyes. His gloved knuckle banged against the clear helmet visor and he remembered where he was, in the most general sense.
Space.
The Ember X.
The cryo bay.
There was nothing unusual about waking up disoriented. He had made the trip from Saurus to Danen and back enough times to know that the human body did not take well to stasis. Just another feature of deep space travel. The low oxygen levels in the pod seemed to have made it worse.
He reached up and snapped the latch on the restraint that attached the helmet to the cryo-pod. Every suit had three magnetic restraint points. Head, hips, and knees. Protection in the event of gravity failure or sudden deceleration. He sat up, or at least attempted to. The muscles in his stomach cramped into a tight ball and twitched. He groaned and turned to the side, using his arm to leverage himself into a sitting position.
Rolling the helmet from side to side, Oskar’s neck bones gave an alarming crack and his muscles ached.
“ET. Status update.” His voice was dry and broke on the “a”. Oskar smiled. It had been thirty-five years at least since he had sounded like that. A stream of data swept up the inside of the visor, tracking in bright trails behind the harlequin green cursor.
Route plots - locked.
Local threat level - low.
Velocity – 0.18
Reactor status –Decommissioned
Solid fuel thrusters – 4%
“ET, please expand fuel and speed.”
The square pulsed twice, and a second flood of data filled the visor.
“ET, is this correct? No reactor? We’re coasting?”
The visor cleared and a single word flashed in front of his eyes.
Yes.
Oskar slapped at the remaining release points and swung his legs off the base of the gray metal pod. He leaned his helmet against the lip of the raised pod cover and closed his eyes. Even after a long food-free cryostasis, he still felt bile rising in his throat. Probably thaw-sickness.
“ET, wake the crew.”
The green cursor blinked for a long time. Does not compute. Please rephrase.
“ET. End all cryo sessions now.”
Blink.
Blink.
Unable to initialize.
Oskar swept an eye over the nine sealed cryopods in this bay, arranged in a semi-circle around a central workstation. Their covers remained sealed. He waited, hoping for the telltale hiss of pressure equalization as they opened.
“ET, open pods.”
Blink
Blink.
Unable to initialize.
He fought to focus his mind. There was an emergency release on the control station. Stretching across to the blue, powder coated steel desk, Oskar slammed his palm down on the large emergency pod depressurization button.
The loud snap of latch releases rang off the bare metal walls, leaping from one pod to the next and ending at the nearest, followed by a deafening silence. The covers rose silently on their hinge points.
“ET, where are the crew?”
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
On board:
Arends, K – Galley
Avigdor, B – Recycling bay
Daniels, G – Stateroom 7
Denby, T – Stateroom 12
Malinowsky, D – Recycling bay
Ondongwe, C – Loading bay 3
Singh, R – Galley
Tremaine, W – Galley
Volodkin, Y – Galley
“ET, audio link to Yelena, please.”
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
“ET, run a system check. Is there a problem with your code?”
The cursor flashed for a long time. Oskar nibbled at a flap of dry skin that had peeled back from his lip.
All available systems nominal.
“Damn it. I’ll check on them myself.” He pushed himself up from the pod and swayed for a moment, allowing his legs to get under him. His muscles were tired, atrophied, more than usual. Maybe he was just getting older. Probably getting too old for this shit.
Oskar gripped one thick gray glove under his armpit and pulled. The sensation of air on his skin tingled. He pulled off the second glove and used both hands to lift the helmet from his head. The air was stale, vaguely reminiscent of plastic containers that hadn’t been opened in a long time.
Overcome with an urgency to shed the suit he tugged at the large fabric zipper pull, dragging it down in short bursts. “Dammit. I don’t remember this being so hard.” With a shrug, the heavy pressure-suit stuffed full of coolant and sensors crumpled around his ankles. Benny called it his technology turd and laughed at his own joke, every time they came out of cryo.
He stepped out of the pile and stretched. His blue bodysuit had clung to his form at the start of the journey, now it was loose, hanging ever so slightly in shallow folds below his arms. The chill of metal floor plates rose through his thin gray cotton socks as he padded over to the rack on the wall behind his pod. Using two fingers, he lifted out the wrap-around data-sight glasses. As they settled on the bridge of his nose, the lenses flickered and the familiar incandescent green type rolled by in his peripheral vision.
Stateroom seven. If anyone were working on the computer glitch, it would be Graham, the shipnet systems engineer.
The passage followed the curve of the gravity ring, LED clusters stretching away to the left in a graceful arc. The living quarters and cryo bays were placed in two clusters, with maximum distance between them. Space travel was dangerous. A rogue meteorite might take out a crew cluster. The intentional design ensured that at least half the crew would remain alive and capable of completing the mission. Oskar was glad B-block was close by. A trip all the way to A-block would have been painful.
A ragged buzz accompanied by a small shower of sparks snapped Oskar’s head up. His eyes locked on a rip in the white cable shielding that ran the length of the juncture between wall and ceiling on his right. The edges were blackened. Burned through. A weapon discharge, perhaps. A shredded red wire swayed in the breeze from a punctured air channel and sparked intermittently.
“ET. Get me Arends.”
Blink.
Blink.
Unavailable.
“ET. Open a commlink with the maintenance bay.”
Blink.
Blink.
Unmanned.
Oskar, stumbled into a slow jog, ignoring the pain radiating from his joints. Reaching the bulkhead door to Block-B, he leaned against the wall and fought to bring his breathing under control. He could not remember a time he had felt so exhausted and dizzy.
Pushing himself away from the red floor-to-ceiling letter “B” behind his back, he shuffled on, stopping at seven.
He knocked and waited; his hands pressed flat at either side of the door. He knocked again and listened closely. Not a whisper.
“ET. Open seven.”
Blink.
Blink.
The door slid away into a hidden recess. The bed was unmade. Standard issue sheets on the Ember X were white, but here, the bottom sheet was a mottled brown. Greg never mentioned bringing his own sheets from home. Anyway, Captain Singh would never have allowed it. Even a cargo vessel like the Ember X was subject to company rules.
Oskar crossed the floor, stepping over a discarded pair of data-sights. He touched the sheet. Rust flakes came away, disintegrating into a fine powder that rose on soft currents. A faintly metallic pungency infiltrated the air around him, triggering a deep, limbic response that sent him stumbling to the door, retching.
“ET, please. Get anyone on the comms.”
Blink.
Blink.
Unavailable.
A truth began to scratch at the very darkest recesses of Oskar’s mind.
“ET. Show me crew locations.”
A floorplan scrolled out from the center of the data-sight with clusters of red pinpoints. Oskar’s blood chilled in his veins. He was directly beside Gregory on the map. Not easily scared, he nevertheless spun around, expecting to see a body or a— something. He reached down and picked up the glasses from the floor. Greg’s red dot radiated rings, showing movement. It was the only one. Oskar dropped it to the floor.
Oskar’s face flushed and he felt a tightness in his chest. He ran from the room, his hand slapping against the passage wall as he faltered and stumbled onward. He dropped back against the wall outside stateroom twelve and barked the open command. A knot of apprehension wound tighter in his gut. The door slid away. Another vacant room. Shipshape, this one. Neat edges to the bed. Denby’s kitbag was on the nightstand. His data-sight hung from a loop on the front pocket.
“Holy mother of—where is everybody?” Oskar hissed under his breath. He turned to the empty passage and screamed, “hellooooo…”
The ship’s white noise deadened the yell.
Tears burned his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was frustration, or fear, or the growing sense of isolation that had begun to suffocate him. Staring at the crew tracker, he waited for any sign of movement. Just one ping. That would be good. Then the grip of a firm handshake. Perhaps a hug. How are you doing after cryo? Can I get you a bite to eat? You’ve got mail from home, bud. Mail. Mail from home. Heia would be waiting for word. Max would be turning ten about now. They would have sent him messages, regularly. This far out, his family’s messages might be a few months out of date, but he’d have them on screen.
Running again, Oskar made for the elevator. Most of the crew were in the galley on level two. The two mail bays were there, alongside the food rehydrator. Say a quick hi, then grab a plate of something hot and eat while he caught up on news from home.
The yellow elevator doors set into the tube-shaft snapped open as Oskar approached. He stumbled in, collapsing to the floor against the far wall and sitting with his legs out in front of him, marionette style. Accelerate. Decelerate. Stop. The doors opened. He clambered up and lurched out into the atrium behind the bridge. No one in there. No one out here.
He cocked his head. Music. It was faint, but familiar. Songs For Drella, Yelena’s favorite album. Unmistakably Lou Reed, the voice was streetwise and tired and pissed-off.
Oskar struggled to remember the words and sang Starlight in snippets as he walked, following the source of the song. He and Yelena had listened to the album a hundred times at least. She had a playlist to accompany her on EVAs, sort of a good luck charm. She floated more than any of the crew. As the ion drive engineer, she spent a lot of time fine tuning those reflector blades. If you went extra-vehicular, you were on her turf.
“It’s the only music fit for a walk among the stars,” Yelena would say.
Oskar’s steps quickened as he approached the galley, and the music became louder. The sliding automatic door, jammed by an overturned chair, closed, and opened, closed, and opened, closed, and opened. The song ended, leaving the shuh-dunk, shuh-dunk of the door to expand into the quiet. Then, the song began again.
Oskar stepped over the chair and kicked it into the passage. The door slid closed with a soft, grateful hiss.
Three of the four round-top tables that once were artfully arranged in a diamond pattern, three chairs to each, now lay scattered. Only one remained standing. Yelena sat beside it on a chair, her head on her folded arms and her long auburn hair covering her face.
“Yelena?” Oskar whispered, and crept forward, keeping a wary eye on the room. “Yellie, you okay?” He reached out to place a friendly hand on her back.
His fingers brushed the arm of her overall. With a muffled click, her shoulder dislocated. The overalls sagged and, with a dry clatter, folded in on themselves and slipped from the table. Bones scattered across Oskar’s feet. He screamed, but only a choked gargling sound left his throat. Yelena’s head rolled to the side and flakes of ancient, desiccated skin dropped from white bone, salting the table. Her sockets stared across the room. The jaw released and clattered to rest alongside a seven-petawatt sidearm. One bony knuckle remained lodged in the trigger guard.
###
Oskar awoke to Lou Reed. Starlight. His head hurt. He felt around the back of his skull and came away bloodied. A swelling had formed. It throbbed. He remembered and scrambled back, sending bones skittering away in every direction. A desperate sob broke free and he doubled forward, clutching his knees. Drool dripped from his chin onto his legs, and he slapped the strands away with a feral cry.
Pitching forward onto his knees, Oskar stood and forced himself to look again. To see. Wiping away tears, he reached for a strip of white plastic that lay in the folds of Yelena’s overalls. Tightly written hand script covered the surface. As an afterthought, he slid the sidearm off the table and tucked it into his waistband, leaving the knuckle bone spinning on the tabletop. An involuntary shudder wracked him.
Setting the table nearest the entrance on its base, he laid out the long strip. The permanent marker was hard to read on the textured surface and it had faded in places.
In his mind, Oskar could hear Yelena’s voice, loud, above the din of the blaring music.
“Dear Ozzie,
I’m sorry I left you such a mess. We hit a patch of space dust. The plasma burst killed our fuel rods and the ion drive failed. Also, ET was fried. Two banks had holes burned through them. I failed. There’s no way to get us past 0.2 light speed and not enough power for outbound quantum signaling. We’ll be behind ULAS J0744+25 for about eight hundred years at this speed, so normal comms is useless. I managed to set ET to pick up stray inbound signals on the bend, so we do get some messages.
I woke Greg and he brought ET partially back online. He wrote some code and rerouted as many circuits as he could. ET can’t manage cryo or reset course now, so your pod is autonomous, and we aren’t turning around.
When the food ran out, Greg fought me. He hurt me bad. I was locked out behind the bulkheads, so I came in the airlock and got him in his bed. Dumb systems engineers, you know. Sorry, I remember you were friends. There was no choice, though. I was hungry.
I made sure it was quick for each of them and rationed them carefully. Apart from Greg, I got them as they came out of stasis.
Anyhow, I left you to sleep until your cryopod runs dry. We had some good times.
Hopefully help is on the way and when you wake up, you’ll be rescued.
Love,
Yellie
April 1, 2210
###
Oskar carefully rolled the plastic strip into a tight spiral and gripped it to his side. Numb, he walked over to the mail bays and crumpled into a seat. “ET, open my mail.” His tongue stuck to his teeth.
A hologram of forty or fifty clusters of mail items floated in the air above the desktop. Oskar tapped one near the top left.
August 7, 2209.
A fragile holograph of his son floated up. “Daddy, mom bought me new shoes. Look. They have Captain Fi—” The image splintered.
He tapped another, closer to the middle.
January 22, 2214
His wife’s face was lined and weary. “Hey darlin’. If you get this, we miss you. I’ll keep sending these for as long as it takes. Come home soon, okay. Max is doing good. He asks about you.”
Oskar’s hand shook as he reached out to tap a message lower down.
November 19, 2231
“Hey Dad. It’s Max.”
Max? His son. A man with graying temples.
“I’m sure you’ll never see this, but Mom asked me to send it anyway. She said she loves you. She— well, she died, you know. She was sick, and old. I’m sorry. This is stupid.” Max’s lip quivered, and he turned away as the image blinked out.
March 1, 2250
Max’s face, old and deeply worn, stared impassively. He sat, quietly, looking through Oskar at something far beyond. He said nothing, but Oskar knew. This would be Max’s final communication.
Oskar reached out and touched the message at the very bottom of the last cluster.
August 10, 2691
The message flickered in and out. Mostly static and garbled shards. Then it ended.
Oskar slowly pushed back the chair and stood, hunched. Thirst and hunger panged, deep below the aching. He shuffled over to the row of portholes that lined the wall between the rehydration equipment and food storage. He stared out into the black void that lay beyond the outer halo.
His hand slipped down to his waistband and felt for the comforting bump of the sidearm as Starlight played one more time.
THE END