evardsson.com: stuff that w0rks

prompt: Write a story in which a conversation takes place where the true subject is only implied.

available at Reedsy

“Jack” walked into the bar as if he owned it. He didn’t pause at the door to adjust to the dim lighting or to suss out the crowd. His broad frame nearly filled the width of the door, while his stained, blue baseball cap with a daisy logo nearly brushed the top of the frame.

As he made his way to a table in the back, he adjusted the leather bomber jacket he wore that matched the brown of his hair. Anyone watching closely enough might have caught a glimpse of the weapon hidden in his waistband at the rear. That didn’t happen, however, as the bar’s patrons were more interested in not catching his attention.

He was the biggest person in the bar — not that big of an accomplishment when he was the only human. The small, flat faced, large eyed, bewhiskered, pale blue aliens that called themselves murins filled the bar.

Jack had to remind himself that this was not Earth, this was Kula, and he was the alien here. He sat across the table from “Jill,” the small, female murin whose pale blue skin was crossed by faint stripes of even paler teal. The size of the table and bench meant that his knees were spread wide and pressed against the table. It felt like sitting a child’s school desk.

“Jill,” he said, “good to see you.”

She pushed a glass full of an amber liquid across to him. Her whiskers moved up and forward from their relaxed position where they had hung parallel to her face with a slight droop. “Good to see you, Jack. How are things going for you?”

“Nothing exciting, but that’s good for a freight pilot.” Jack smiled at Jill’s obvious excitement at seeing him. He took a sip of the warm liquid, letting it coat the inside of his mouth. It was like a cross between Amaretto and maple syrup. Too sweet, but he’d grown accustomed to it.

Jill let her whiskers relax. She focused on her drink, tipping the glass and turning it, letting the liquid coat the glass. She slid a foot under the table until her toe bumped into Jack’s boot and held it there.

Jack knew something was bothering her. “How’s business been?”

Her whiskers pulled back tight against her face and her eyes opened wide enough that the whites showed. Jack put a hand over hers on the table and she got herself under control.

“What’s got you stressed?”

“Ella’s moving to another city. I want to follow, but I don’t know if I can get out of my job here.”

“Just go, then. Ella will be happy to have you, and you can probably work for Ella.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Contract?”

Jill nodded.

“And it covers the new city, too?”

“The contract severely limits my mobility,” she said.

Jack gave her hand a light squeeze. “Tell you what, ma’am. You don’t worry about your contract, I’ll sort that out. I’ll have my lawyer call his lawyer.”

“You’d do that for me? Even if I want to work for you, instead?”

“Of course I would.” Jack cocked his head. “Why is Ella moving, though?”

“One of the stepsisters, again.”

“Snooping around, putting their noses where they don’t belong?” Jack sighed. “Annoying.”

“Speaking of annoying,” Jill said with a slight twitch of her whiskers toward to the door.

Jack looked at the three murins that had entered. Slightly larger than the average, each was dressed in the armor of Enforcers, with their shock sticks held at the ready.

One of them held up a device and swept it around the bar. When the device was silent at the end of the sweep, he said, “Not here. We’re getting closer, though.”

“You!” he barked at the waiter nearest him. “You’re the new squad laborer for the day. Get up and follow us.”

The waiter’s eyes were wide, the whites showing, his whiskers plastered against his face. He set down the tray of drinks he’d been carrying, careful not to make eye contact with any of the Enforcers, and followed them, his head bowed, his legs shaking.

“The Enforcers’ powers were meant to be temporary,” Jill said with a sad droop of her whiskers.

“No power, once gained, is ever relinquished freely. Power corrupts, and all that.” Jack took another sip of the warm, sweet drink. “I get that Ella’s moving and all, but did she leave anything for me? I’d hate to leave with an empty cargo hold.”

Jill took a solid swig from her drink. “Yeah, twelve crates of assorted textiles. I think one might be blankets.”

“It’s good to know her sisters haven’t slowed her down.” He took another sip of the sweet drink. “Do we have the lading bill?”

“We do. The crates, customs paperwork, and bill of lading will be waiting at your ship by the time you get there.”

Jack thought for a moment. “I’m going to stop by my lawyer’s office then come down. Why don’t you meet me at the slip? You know how to open up the ship and settle the cargo.”

“I’ll see you there.” Jill left the bar with the sort of determined walk that advertised places to go and things to do. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was the best way to keep from being picked up by a roving Enforcer squad looking for someone to humiliate.

Jack left the bar with the kind of ambling walk that said he had nowhere in particular he had to be, and no kind of schedule to be there. The Enforcer squads avoided him anyway. He wasn’t a citizen, and the Enforcers weren’t looking to create an interstellar incident.

His wandering took him to a warehouse. He’d been there before, but his business was different then. When his knock on the door was ignored, he kicked it open while drawing his weapon from his waistband.

He reached his ship an hour later, the crates all loaded and pasted with customs stamps and inspection stamps. Jill’s whiskers pointed up and forward. “Here he is,” she said.

“I suppose you need my sign on your paperwork,” he said.

“Yes, please, thank you.” The dockworker was stout for a murin, with a grizzled mien; the politeness felt artificial and more driven by fear to Jack.

“Hey, no problem.” Jack signed with his print, and said, “You can relax around me. Next time just say ‘Hey asshole, hurry up and sign this so I can get back to work.’ I won’t take it personally.”

The dockworker’s whiskers wiggled in the manner of murin laughter and he said, “Good to know, asshole. Now get out of here so I can go home.”

“Even better! Have a good day.” Jack waved at the dockworker before walking up the ramp to the cargo bay of his ship. Jill was there, waiting for him.

“Everything’s secure,” she said. “What did your lawyer say?”

“Your contract is null and void. If you still want to work with me, you can, but I need to get this cargo in space right now.”

“Show me where to strap in.”

After takeoff, clearance to high orbit, clearance to depart orbit, then entry into slip-space, Jack left the cockpit and made his way to the cargo bay. “Jill, we’re in the clear,” he called out.

Jill joined him in unstrapping the crates and opening them up. From each, a murin climbed out from under the piles of cloth in the crates; political dissidents in danger of being “disappeared” by their repressive government. The largest of the crates, marked “blankets,” contained a murin female and her three children.

Jack made sure everyone was safe and healthy, and invited them to make themselves at home in the large galley where a feast awaited them. Once everyone was settled, he told Jill to follow him to the bridge.

They strapped into the chairs in the bridge, and he said, “Tyler Mitchell, pleased to meet you.”

“Inkira sal-Birna, my pleasure.”

“It’ll probably be a long while before you can go back, Inkira.”

“I know. Ella warned me it was getting too dangerous, but without getting rid of —”

“Yeah. I figured he was tracking you. And he would’ve sounded the alarm if he saw you were at the docks.” He removed the pancake holster from the back of his trousers with the revolver. Stamped on the holster was a balance scale. “I don’t like killing, but good riddance. The Enforcers can fight over who wanted him dead more: the Enforcers he was paying off or the drug runners.”

“When are you making your next trip?” she asked.

“We’ll get these folks settled, then I’ll have to get another ship, a new alias, and see where our agents make contact with Ella. It’ll be a couple months, at least.”

“That’s a long time?”

“About sixty Earth days, so around seventy-five of your days.”

“Not too long, then.”

Tyler, a.k.a. Jack, turned toward the small murin woman. “Are you sure Cinderella is safe?”

“She is. Very safe. Last night was the first time I ever met her in person. She scared me half to death.”

“Why’s that?”

“She showed up in her Enforcer uniform. I thought she was there to arrest me.”

“Oh, she made it in. Good to hear.” Tyler smiled.

“You knew she was an Enforcer?”

“I knew we asked her to try, and we provided all the help we could to get her there. For her own safety and for the safety of the people we smuggle out. Plus, it gives her access to places and people she wouldn’t have otherwise.”

“When we finally overthrow the government, and get our democracy, what will you do then? I’ll want to help rebuild, of course. I suppose you aren’t a smuggler by trade.”

“You’re right about that; I’m not. But when the time comes, rebuilding requires a lot of materials and supplies. I’ll go back to hauling normal freight and make Kula my home port. Maybe even buy a house there. I’ve grown fond of it.”

“Just Kula?” she asked.

“Well, you too. Makes it that much better.” He winked.

Her whiskers wiggled. “I do, don’t I? Come on, ‘Jack,’ let’s see if our guests need anything.”

prompt: Write about a character who isn’t nostalgic about their past at all, and show readers why.

available at Reedsy

I sat in the waiting room for my name to be called. My body was due for service months ago, but this was the first they could get me in. There wasn’t much that needed to be done, I was sure, but maybe they could find out what was binding in my left shoulder, limiting some movement there.

A technician opened the door, looked at me, back down at the pad she carried, and called out, “Alexis?”

As I was alone in the waiting room, I knew she meant me. I stood. “Alexi,” I said, “no ess on the end.”

“Ah, sorry Alexi, I’m Kendra and I’ll be your body technician today. Right this way.” She kept glancing at me as we walked.

“I know that look,” I said “You’re trying to figure out why I don’t look like a forty-year-old man. The same reason I’m here for a service. I mean — do enough experiments on a kid, he never has a normal puberty, right? He ends up like me with a baby face, so people assume I’m a woman.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t sweat it,” I cut her off. “I’m just in a foul mood today and shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I apologize.”

Kendra instructed me to strip and lie back on the exam table and began plugging in all the diagnostic equipment. “Any specific complaints?” she asked.

“Reduced mobility in my left shoulder…like something is binding in there.”

“Any pain?”

“No more than usual,” I told her. The constant, low-level pains that come from age and wear-and-tear had turned into little more than background noise.

She spent some time going over the readouts of the machines before adjusting the table to where I could sit upright. “You probably already know, but your legs are well past their expected functionality, and long out of production. They’re working for now, but if something would happen, we don’t have any way to repair them. No parts available anymore. I would recommend replacement as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, I figured. Might as well do that now. What about my shoulder?”

“Looks like part of the binding for the AC joint pulled loose at some point. We can pull that out, replace the AC joint binding, and that should restore full motion. Your clavicles, scapulae, and arms are still under extended warranty for another eight months, so we caught that just in time.” 

She took a breath, but I already knew what she was about to say, so I said it first. “While we’re doing the left, we might as well do the right, since we know the most likely failure point, now.”

Kendra gave a pleased nod. “It’s nice to see someone take their maintenance seriously.” She did some typing on her tablet then looked up at me. “We don’t have the same model — of course — but we have the same manufacturer, if you wanted to keep things from being too different.”

I shrugged. “Different is fine. How about whatever has the highest rating, longest service life, and best warranty?”

One of her eyebrows raised. “That would be the Nakimara Y-73, combat-rated. Do you still need—”

“I’ve never needed combat-rated, I just get them because they last longer. So, yeah, those.” I couldn’t quite read the expression on her face, but I guess she didn’t expect to hear that.

“I thought, given your overall conditioning and the current limbs…,” she stopped and focused on entering the order in her pad. “It doesn’t say in your record how you — I’m sorry, I should shut up now. Oh, and the pelvis looks fine, no wear. Those Hendriks Titan-Steels seem to last forever, especially with the mil-grade number four standard socket.”

I don’t talk to others without a purpose — ordering at a diner or explaining symptoms to a body tech for instance. Then again, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who made me want to. There was something about the way Kendra kept tripping over her own sincere concern and curiosity that made me think she was someone I could open up to.

She was interrupted by an orderly wheeling a cart into the room with a pair of legs and several bags of parts. She thanked them, closed the door, and prepped herself to work.

As the table returned to a flat position, I said, “You’re going to explode from trying to hold the question in. You want to know how I ended up with quad-replacements, including scapulae, clavicles, and pelvis, plus the spine and sternum reinforcements, right?”

She had a momentary flash of stunned shock on her face, then relaxed. “Yeah, but if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. I can start working here, and we can talk about anything or nothing or I can shut up and let you rest. Your call.”

“I wish I could handle memories the way I handle my cybernetics; repair and replace.”

She cleaned all the areas she was going to work on, changing her gloves often. Then, she laid out the hermetically sealed legs and assorted parts in the order she’d need them, along with the tools she’d need. Each of the four areas she’d be working on had their own, sealed tools lined up.

In spite of how much this trip was going to cost me, I found my mood improving. “How do you feel about your childhood? Primary school, secondary school, family. all of that?”

“I had a pretty normal childhood, I guess.” She unplugged the diagnostic leads from the ports on the inside of my thighs, sprayed a topical anesthetic around my hips, then proceeded to wash and glove up yet again.

“Do you ever find yourself thinking back on those times fondly?”

Kendra smiled. “I do. Especially secondary school, but time does that.”

“Does what?”

She made a quick, clean incision where my skin and the synthetic skin met and peeled the synthetic down and away from the hip socket. “Blurs the edges on things; the bad doesn’t seem so bad, and the good seems better than it was, maybe. Rose-tinted glasses and all that.”

I heard my old leg drop onto the disposal cart and shook my head. “I don’t. I mean, I think about those times more than I would like, but never fondly. I don’t think there’re any rose-tinted glasses for me. More like shit-tinted, but even when I take them off and take an impartial look at my past, it was objectively shitty.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“I’m getting there.” I let out a deep sigh. I hadn’t talked about this with anyone in years…ever since my last therapist gave up on me.

“When I was six, my parents signed me up for a medical study being run by ‘Dr. John’ — I don’t know what his real name was. They said the money would be set aside for my college. It didn’t last the week that I was in the study.”

“What did they spend it on?”

“Probably booze and drugs. I know it wasn’t the rent because we got evicted right after that.”

Kendra shook her head. I could tell she was trying to avoid the pity face, as most of us in the shop would have no desire to see that anymore.

“About a month later, we moved into a nicer apartment, and they dropped me off for a month-long study with Dr. John. They didn’t even pretend the money was for me that time. I spent my seventh birthday there.

“Over the course of the next year, I was in study after study, until just before my eighth birthday. I was told that I’d become too difficult to care for, and that my new home would be with Dr. John. It wasn’t so much a home as a cage in a lab. I spent my entire childhood being poked and prodded, injected with questionable substances and hooked up to even more questionable devices.

“By the time I was sixteen, it was obvious that I’d never mature physically. Dr. John pumped me full of hormones, but I’d developed — or always had — an insensitivity to them. This was followed with direct injections of some pale blue liquid into my bones, in an attempt to get them to mature, but they never fully did.

“I had a couple growth spurts, put on a few inches, but my arms and legs, pelvis, scapulae, and so on were so weak and stunted, Dr. John decided I’d be better off having them all replaced, then he beefed up my spine with the same sort of permanent supports you’d use for severe scoliosis, and added a layer of poly-bone to my sternum to help protect my ribs.

“I’ve been outfitted with combat-grade cybernetics since I was seventeen, and Dr. John used to parade me around for defense department types to get them to buy into cybernetics for soldiers. He used to say he had treated me for a ‘rare birth disorder’ that required the extensive work, even though he caused all of it. My only birth disorder was the parents I was born to.”

I looked up to see tears welling in Kendra’s eyes as she was attaching the electronics in my new left leg. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you down. I just thought that maybe you’d understand.”

“I don’t understand why your parents did that to you, but I think I understand why you don’t put all that in your history when you come in for service.” She wiped her eyes with her arm and chuckled. “Don’t want to get tears in there, the salt would corrode the connections.”

She finished up the second leg and re-glued the skin to the synthetic. It would heal together in a week, long before the glue wore off. She sprayed the anesthetic on my shoulders and asked, “Have you tried to contact your parents since then?”

“Yeah. It was the first thing I did when I left Dr. John’s. Found out my mother OD’ed when I was ten, and my father drank himself to death a couple years after.”

“Watch your eyes. What about Dr. John?” she asked.

“He disappeared shortly after I left. The second thing I did was call the cops. By the time the cops got there, he was gone. Left all the equipment but took his experimental drugs and records.

“I don’t know what happened to the three younger kids that were there, and I wasn’t right in my own head at the time to help them.” I closed my eyes as she used the UV light to cure the new AC joint binding.

We were silent while she finished both shoulders, then had me sit up, move my arms and legs, and go through range of motion exercises.

“I’m sorry all that happened to you,” she said, “and I hope someone catches that so-called doctor.”

I smiled at her. “I hope it’s me,” I said. “To be honest with you, I haven’t kept paying for combat-ready cybernetics just for how long they last.”

prompt: Write a story about someone whose time is running out.

available at Reedsy

Niri set the auto-injector into a slow spin the air in front of her. She could use it now or wait. Either way, the result would be the same; dead is dead.

She checked the readout on the console. Her orbit was in a steady, slow decay. At the current rate, short of using the injector, it was a toss-up as to which would do her in: gamma radiation from the accretion disk leaking through the shielding, toxic buildup of CO2, or being shredded by passing through the accretion disk.

It was meant to be a simple job; two weeks her time, two and half months to those on the station. Do a fly-by of the black hole and give a boost to the probe  on the way by to keep it in orbit outside the accretion disk. She’d just boosted the probe and was in the perigee of the maneuver when an unseen piece of debris slammed into her forward radiation shield, vaporizing itself and enough of her shield to slow her.

The impact damaged multiple systems, including the cameras, and knocked the external main thruster off the ship. Three of the maneuvering thrusters were still operational, and she was using them to keep the most intact part of the radiation shield between herself and the accretion disk while the Geiger counter let her know just how much was leaking through.

She’d watched the probe pass by her twice now, higher the second time. Based on the probe’s speed and orbit parameters, she’d estimated her speed and from there, figured out her orbital decay. Probably not the most encouraging use of her remaining time, but it had kept her mind occupied for a short time.

She’d sent a distress call right away, but with the increasing time dilation the nearer she got to the black hole, she had no way of knowing how long ago it was in their terms. Not that it mattered either way. They all knew this was a possibility every trip…thus the injector.

“This is Niharika ‘Niri’ Cullen. I’m in a declining orbit around 1S-MU4-A2. The Explorer 4 probe has been boosted into a stable orbit above me. As I said in my last transmission, my main thruster is offline — actually, it’s probably in the accretion disk by now — and a large portion of my radiation shield has been vaporized in a collision with a fast-moving meteoroid of approximately three to five millimeters.

“I’m not certain how long it’s been for you, but since my last transmission, it’s been…uh…about an hour. I have the injector out, but I’m not ready to check out just yet.

“I’ll be getting into the vac suit for the added radiation protection, and when the CO2 gets too high, I’ll button up and use up the oxygen from the suit.”

She let out a short laugh. “I’m taking every second I have. I don’t know why I’m prolonging it, I’m just not…I don’t want to die. Just…not yet.”

She keyed in the command that would compress the voice message and transmit it as a burst package. Niri left the injector floating in the cabin and squirmed into the IEVA emergency suit. Once in the suit, she attached the injector to a lanyard. There was no way to inject it through the suit, but she would deal with that issue when it came up.

Niri floated to the command chair and strapped herself in. She called up the specs for the maneuvering thrusters along with how much fuel for them remained. Based on the last positioning burn, she had a good estimate of the craft’s new mass, now that it was minus part of the shield and the external thruster.

“Orbital dynamics,” she said, “I can figure this out.”

She approached it as if it was a university assignment. Trusting the suit for radiation protection, she stopped using the thrusters to keep her shield aligned in order to save every gram of propellant.

At one point, she turned off the Geiger counter as its steady noise was a nuisance. She thought she had come up with a workable plan and had a moment’s jubilation before she reminded herself to double-check her work.

Working through it from back to front gave her a ridiculous result. Once again, she worked the problem front to back and realized that she’d assumed all four thrusters being operational.

She picked up the mic again. “This is Niri again. It’s been a couple hours since my last broadcast. I almost have enough propellant for the three working maneuvering thrusters to put myself into a very long slingshot. Almost.”

Niri sighed. “The best I can do is extend my stay in orbit by another few hours. By that time, the CO2 scrubbers will have failed, I’ll have used up all the ship’s oxygen, and I’ll be running out of oxygen from the suit’s PLSS. I’m going to do it anyway. Every second I can eke from this killing bastard I will.”

She programmed the burn into the positioning computer, set to fire at the perigee of the shallow, elliptical orbit to take advantage of the Oberth effect. “A few more kilos of propellant and I’d be out of here, but you’re not killing me yet,” she said to the black hole, its accretion disk represented by the arc of red at the edge of the navigation screen.

She tried to count down the time to the burn in her head and was surprised when it kicked in while she was at four. The ship spun as the three thrusters worked to both increase its speed and keep it from an inward trajectory.

The spin was more pronounced than she’d expected, but the thrusters sputtered to a stop after only ninety-four seconds. The induced spin gave her a very slight pseudo-gravity toward the port side. She forced herself to look at the display. Part of her wanted to believe that she had done better than hoped for, while another part was worried it was far worse.

The monitor told the story. She had extended her time outside the accretion disk for nine hours and seventeen minutes…give or take. The console notified her that the burn was complete, and her updated trajectory had been sent in burst transmission as it did after every burn.

Niri spent the next hours trying to think of any way to escape her fate. Wild plots of waiting until the door was in just the right position, holding on to it, and blowing the emergency bolts. A quick bit of math on the console told her that wouldn’t be enough.

She began to find it hard to breathe, panting, her heart racing; it was CO2 poisoning. Niri put on her helmet and buttoned up. The fresh oxygen from the suit was a welcome relief. The O2 readout on her sleeve said she had two hours and four minutes oxygen remaining.

She keyed the mic in her suit to record another message. “I’m buttoned up in the IEVA suit and on the PLSS. Ship’s systems are out of oxy, and the CO2 scrubber is done. I have two hours and three minutes of air left. When it gets down to the last, I’ll use the injector. Even if I’m not ready, I’m going out on my terms, not those of this bastard black hole. This will be my second-to-last transmission.”

Niri sent the burst transmission and worked on taking slow breaths. She was surprised how easy it was for her, given the circumstances, to remain calm.

She sat, not focused on anything, the lights from the console a blur. She thought about every happy memory she could dredge up. The unhappy memories came along with them, but she accepted the price.

Finally, she checked the O2 readout on the sleeve of her suit. Six minutes remaining. She keyed the mic. “I guess this is it,” she said, tears hanging in globules on her eyes. “I’ve only got a few minutes of air left, then I’m going to cut open the suit and use the injector. I just wish the cameras still worked so I could look this bastard in the eye when I do. I…uh…I guess I love you all, even if I don’t like you. Funny what it takes for that to sink in.”

She swallowed a sob. “This is Niharika ’Niri’ Cullen, signing off for the last time.” She sent the burst transmission and heard a beep from the terminal.

Niri switched the inbound from the terminal to her suit and keyed in response to the beep.

“Niri, come in. Hess here, on a rescue mission.”

“Lunchbox! Where are you?”

“I’m plotting my fly-by now. I’ve been enroute for the past week. They sent me as soon as they got your initial distress call.”

“The ship’s banged up, and we don’t have enough time to transfer fuel for another burn.”

“I got that. That’s why you’ve got to go EVA and kick off from the ship. I’ll be deploying the DCS for you. How much air does your suit have left?”

“Four minutes.”

“Looks like this is a one-shot trick. You need to get out now. You’ll see me coming. The tethers will wrap you up and drag you in automatically.”

“Wait, you’re using the drone capture system…on me?”

“It’s the best we could come up with in the time we had. It’ll probably hurt, so I apologize in advance.”

“Heading EVA now.” Niri opened the door, hanging on while the stale air rushed out, then climbed out onto the ship.

She positioned herself so the edge of the accretion disk was “down” and kicked hard against the side of the ship to separate herself from it. As she floated away from the ship, she looked down, her face shield darkening as the glow from the accretion disk lit her up.

“It may be a murdering bastard,” she said, “but my god, it’s beautiful.”

“That it is. Coming up on you know. Prepare for impact.”

Niri looked at the O2 readout, that had been flashing a big zero for at least a minute by then. “I’m out of air, you might be too late,” she panted. She saw the tendrils of the drone capture system splayed out behind Hess’s ship. As they neared, she swung her arms to turn her back to it and went limp.

Two of the tendrils made contact and whipped themselves around her, jerking her into motion behind the ship as her world went dark.

She woke inside the ship, with a worried Hess standing over her, holding an oxygen mask to her face. “Lunchbox, you’re still skinny as hell,” she said.

“I thought we lost you,” he said.

Niri coughed and groaned as she sat up. “Not yet.”

prompt: Write a story about someone looking for a sign in a dark sky.

available at Reedsy

The signs had been there, annoying, unwanted, a random, occasional nuisance, but the one that was wanted was a nuisance by its absence. Right after leaving the nebula, the first signs were there, then gone, then there again — the ones that foretold disaster. Now, the cameras and antennae swept in slow circles, the AI controlling them looking for the faintest change, looking for the sign that may, despite all hope, not be coming.

The only light in the cockpit was from three small LEDs. The red one that signified the distress call was being sent, the yellow one signifying that environmental controls were operating on emergency battery power, and the blue one that said the twelve cameras and nine antennae were sweeping space in a 360-degree sphere around the ship.

At first, the loss of the light from the monitors and regular lighting systems had left the pilot in what seemed like impenetrable darkness. In a few moments, however, acting on muscle memory to activate emergency systems, there were the three glowing indicators that defined what might be the last light he would ever see.

The pilot wasn’t a warrior, just a cog in a commercial supply chain, but the unmarked light freighter, stranded in the buffer zone after evading the enemy picket was likely to be targeted as hostile. Based on the last burn he’d made before the engine seized, he guessed he was drifting away from his own people he was meant to supply.

He tried to sleep. There wasn’t much else to do to occupy his time until the first to greet him arrived; rescuers, death at the hands of the enemy or death by asphyxiation when the environmental controls failed.

After failing to sleep for what seemed hours, he pulled out the hard copy of the cargo manifest. It was only ever used when the regular systems were down or — as in the case of dropping cargo for the front-line ships — unavailable. It took some time to find the right angle to hold the printed plastic sheet to read it in the feeble light.

Vaccine for the pox that was spreading through the settled worlds, anesthetics, antiseptics, bandages, burn treatments, decompression treatments, artificial blood, surgical tools, assorted other medicines, and body bags. The last made him shudder.

I’ll probably end up in one of those, he thought. Then he thought probably not, unless he crawled in himself before he died from the failure of the environmental systems. The enemy wouldn’t bother. They’d see who was piloting the ship and blow it up.

“Crawl out of the hole and think positive,” he muttered. His voice sounded thunderous in the dead silence of the ship. He let out a loud yell of frustration that echoed back from the far reaches of the ship.

He put his hand on the control for the sensor monitor. Switching it to battery power would allow him to see what the cameras saw and hear any radio signals but would reduce the time he would be able to breathe. He knew he should wait for the blue LED to turn red and blink to turn on the monitor, but the monotony was eating away at his mind.

The monitor flickered to life. At the bottom, the time was displayed. What had felt interminable was less than three hours. He shut the monitor off and tried again to sleep. It would make the air last longer, and the wait seem shorter.

His sleep was filled with visions of the enemy, said to be monsters. They burst into the cockpit, tore him limb from limb and began eating him while he still lived and screamed in terror. Their cruel fangs dripped with his blood as one leaned in to bite his face and he woke screaming.

After getting his breathing and pulse under control, he chided himself, “Panic uses more air than exertion. Slow breaths, steady.”

His hand hovered over the control for the sensor monitor. He didn’t know how many minutes he’d already reduced his survival by his nightmare, but checking the unchanging monitor just to see the time would use up power he couldn’t — or at least shouldn’t — waste.

He closed his eyes and took slow, even breaths. If he was going to survive long enough to be rescued, he’d have to be conservative with his power use. He felt his pulse slow, almost to a trance-like state. This would be the way to prolong his life.

The pilot wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, relaxed against the straps that held him in the chair, his arms floating freely at his sides, his eyes closed. It felt like forever and no time at all.

He was pulled back to a dim awareness that the light that filtered through his closed eyelids had changed. It was a struggle to open them and focus. The blue light had turned red and was blinking. It took everything he had to turn on the monitor.

The voice on the radio, repeating the same message over and over was heavily accented, almost impossible to understand. “… life-support … weapons … declare … docking … rescue … life-support …”

He tried to focus on the image of the approaching ship. Even though his eyes refused to fully comply, he could tell it was the enemy — the monsters. He must’ve drifted into territory they controlled. They were declaring rescue, but would kill him as soon as they figured out he wasn’t one of them.

He couldn’t find the energy to panic. Instead, he found himself ready to die. It wouldn’t be so bad, now.

The ship rattled as the enemy docked with it. A few moments later, the airlock cycled, and the monsters came in. They wore suits that held their poisonous atmosphere around them and hid their hideous faces with slavering fangs.

One of them came close and began speaking in their guttural language. Another slid a mask over his face, delivering fresh air. The one that had put the mask on him, and the other one stayed there as the fresh air woke him from his daze. He saw that the yellow environmental control light had gone red, but he had no idea how long ago.

The one in front of him raised the visor of its helmet to show its face. He thought they must want him terrified before they eat him.

Rather than show fear, he looked directly into the predatory eyes of the one that showed their face. The face looked softer than he’d expected, ugly but not hideous, just not properly defined. It spoke to him, with a far easier to understand accent.

“Your life-support system failed before we could get here. We were worried you had died. The doctor says you’ll be okay, though.” It angled itself so its predatory eyes were level with his own. “Are there any weapons on this vessel?”

“No, only you monsters.”

“What is your cargo?”

“Medical supplies.”

It spoke in their guttural language again and seemed accepting of the response over the radio in its helmet. “Is the vaccine for the pox that’s been spreading on your worlds?”

“It is. You monsters probably spread it.” The pilot was not going to show any fear.

“We’ll make sure the vaccine gets where it’s needed. You gave us quite the runaround when you blew past the blockade in this old vessel.” The creature bared its teeth.

He’d been expecting fangs, but instead, he saw flat-edged teeth, and no hint of aggression in the expression. If he was reading this creature right, it was happy.

“You’re not going to kill me and eat me, then?” he asked.

The creature’s expression went to one of surprise. “What? Why would we do that? Who does that?”

“They say the monsters — you — tear us with your fangs and eat us alive.”

“No. We do no such thing.” The creature checked the readout on the arm of their suit and removed their helmet. It said something in their language again, and the one it had called the doctor helped it out of the vacuum suit.

Its body was encased in a tight suit, but it looked soft underneath. No claws or stingers or other natural weapons showed. It removed the cloth that was tight around its head and a covering of curly, soft filaments floated out from it.

“That’s better,” it said.

“Your poisonous atmosphere…it’s in here?” he asked.

The creature made the happy face again. “It’s only poisonous if you’re not getting enough…uh…I forgot your word for [guttural sounds].” It tapped on the mask with one of its slender appendages.

“How did you know about the pox?” he asked. “That’s a state secret.”

“We are at war. We would be remiss to not have our spies where we need them.” The creature rotated its orientation some. “My crew has inspected your ship and cargo. We’re going to take you and the cargo on board and jettison your ship. The engine is totaled, and we have no way to tow it.”

“What will you do with the medicine?”

“We’ll drone it across the lines to your people’s medical ships. We’ve already sent six other drones of vaccine and supplies.”

“Why would you aid your enemies?”

“It’s part of the mandate for the picket. Life-saving goods are allowed in, refugees are allowed out. If my hospital ships were cut off from the rear by a picket, I would hope the enemy would at least be that civil.”

The creature helped him out of the seat and through the docking tube to their ship. “You’re not quite the monsters I was told you were.”

“The enemy rarely ever is.”

“What kind of warrior are you?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The creature made a long string of guttural sounds then followed up with, “female. And you? I’m guessing you’re not a warrior by the lack of any weapons.”

“Commercial Pilot Ezan. Empty Sky Cargo Company, male. The company sent me out in that rented ship because I’m the only one that could fly it through the nebula to get past the blockade.”

“Well, you’ve got some [guttural sounds],” she said. “We’ll make sure you’re safe to travel, then you’re free to either return home, or join the refugees in [guttural sound] space.”

“Refugees? Others have left?”

“A couple million so far, that’s why we have everything you need on board.” She pointed at the mask again. “In fact, there are a few doctors on board that are your species that will meet you here and check you out.”

A mechanized voice came over speakers all over the ship in the creature’s language, then followed up with the heavily accented, “Prepare for gravity under going. Prepare for gravity under going.”

“That’s my cue,” the creature said, and left Ezan with a guard in what looked like a medical station.

She rounded the corner and keyed her comms. “Doctors Elim and Oran, civilian patient waiting for you in the med bay. If he can be persuaded to help out with the refugees, he’d be a major asset. He’s one hell of a good pilot. Otherwise, find him a ride back home or wherever he wants to go.”

The ship began accelerating under one-half gravity and she loped down the corridor as she listened to their reply in her earpiece. After they’d replied in the affirmative, she added, “Oh, I think he’s almost there, but could you convince him that humans aren’t monsters? I’d appreciate it. Either way, make sure he has plenty of backup methane on-hand, so he doesn’t feel like we’re restraining him in any way.”

prompt: Start your story with someone uttering a very strange sentence. (As close to 1000 words as possible.)

available at Reedsy

“A can of apes is a silly basket to put all our eggs in but…here we go.” Maybe not the best quote for the history books, Wills thought, as the outer door closed.

“Cap, that was not the inspiring speech the commission wanted.” Cruz was going through the motions of the preflight checklist, as had been practiced hundreds of times.

Wills strapped in. “Welcome to the last shuttle to Hope’s Deep, fellow apes, where we’ll be leaving Earth forever. I’m your captain, and Cruz is your pilot. We hope we find somewhere fit to land…someday. Please take notice of the fasten seatbelts sign.”

Cruz groaned. “You’re not as funny as you think, Wills.”

Wills laughed. “I’m dead serious. Fourteen on this shuttle, twenty-eight waiting for us up there; we head toward TRAPPIST-1 and go into deep freeze for twenty years give or take — our time — forty-six on Earth. I hope we find somewhere to land.”

“But what was that quote to the media?”

“I started thinking about how this is our one chance, blanked, and something I read online popped up.” Wills shrugged. “Done is done. Assuming we have a place to land I can make it up to them in roughly eighty-six years, their time.”

They lifted to orbit, matched speed with Hope’s Deep, and docked strictly by the book. Once the passengers were secured in their hibernation pods, Wills met up with Cruz in the cramped cockpit where they went through a whole new preflight checklist.

Under one-half g acceleration, the long ship with its kilometer-wide scoop sucking in particles to throw out of the thrusters left the Earth behind. Wills and Cruz would be the last two into hibernation, after the two-week shakedown and course correction period.

“You ever think about the Fermi paradox?” Cruz asked on their last day awake.

“Sure. That’s what made me sign on to this suicide mission.”

“Wills….”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll find a new home, send a message that’ll reach Earth forty years later, then fifty or so of our years later we’ll have new ships coming and we’ll live happily ever after.”

Cruz sighed. “Seriously, how does the Fermi paradox make you decide to leave Earth forever?”

“Think about all the possible solutions. Let’s start with the ones that assume we’re the only technological species out and about in the galaxy. That would be the Firstborn hypothesis, Great Filter, those kinds of arguments.

“In those cases, we’re just doing what intelligent life should do — spreading out and claiming more space to keep our species alive.”

“But what about the ‘Dark Forest’ hypothesis?” Cruz asked.

“Well, in that case, we’re doing what intelligent life shouldn’t do, but what humans have always done.

“It’s dark in that cave and bears might live in there? Let’s go find out. There’re saber-toothed cats that want to hunt us in those hills? Let’s go hunt them, instead.”

Cruz laughed. “You say that like we’re going to exterminate all the galactic threats to humanity.”

Wills frowned. “I say that like I worry we’ll do exactly that, without finding out what the wider impact might be.”

“Wider impact?”

“What happens when the predators in an environment go extinct?”

“Uh, the prey takes over.”

“Overpopulation, over-grazing, conflict over dwindling resources, the ecology collapses, and the prey is likely to go extinct as well.”

“We’re the prey?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.” Cruz readied the hibernation pods. “I’ll see you in about twenty years.”

“As long as nothing goes wrong. I’d hate to be woken up early for an emergency.”

“No kidding, Cap. We know all the drills, and there’s redundancies on redundancies, but if we get woken up early, it means something is terribly wrong.”

Wills shrugged. “We can fix whatever. It’s just the thought that we can’t re-enter hibernation once we come out. If we wake up at the half-way point, I’d have to spend ten years pacing back and forth in this can.”

Cruz took a deep breath. “Good night, Wills. Pleasant dreams.”

“You too.”

Wills came out of hibernation feeling like it had been no time at all. “What happened? What broke?”

Cruz was already awake and standing near the pod. “Nothing broke. We’re entering the TRAPPIST-1 system. I’ll need your help to plot out a fly-by of all the candidate worlds.”

“Has it really been twenty years?”

“It has. We’ll enter orbit around the star in about an hour.”

Wills followed Cruz to the cockpit where hot coffee and a twenty-year-old packaged meal awaited him.

“Figured you’d be hungry, like me. There’s a water bottle near your station, too. You’ll want to hydrate.”

“Thanks.” Wills looked out at the distant planets visible from the ship’s location. “Cruz, does that one look blue to you?”

“It does. That’s TRAPPIST-1e. Looks kind of like Earth at this distance.”

Wills set the computer to figuring the paths of their flybys. With the short planetary orbits, ranging from one-and-a-half to nineteen days, the trick would be to not gain too much momentum moving from one to the next.

Having emptied the coffee, water bottle, and packaged meal, Wills stowed all the debris and strapped in just in time for engine shut-off.

“How long to survey all the habitable zone planets?” Cruz asked.

“We might as well wake everyone up.” Wills projected their path on the main screen. “It’s seventeen days to make three orbits of e, then g, then h, then f. Could do it in less time with higher-g flybys, but it would put too much stress on the cone.”

Cruz typed in the commands to begin waking everyone from hibernation. “How many doctors are we carrying?”

“Three. Orbal, Adumbwe, and Singh.”

“I meant PhDs.”

“Out of the forty-two people on board, I think you and I are the only two without a doctorate.”

“You have four Masters, that has to count for something.”

Wills chuckled. “I just hope it counts for finding a safe place for us to settle down.”