For the science that inspired this story, go ahead and click here
Without further ado, let’s get into this.
The day doesn’t matter when you're careening across the cosmos, trying to get by in a comet catcher. I wasn’t anyone important. I wasn’t the captain; I wasn’t the first mate. No pilot, no navigator… no. I was a technician - technician number three on shift three to be exact. I was a little worker bee on the UC Flux - the first comet catcher. Comet catchers were fast moving interstellar ships designed to accelerate and decelerate at breakneck speeds. Ships designed for cross system communication through high powered communication arrays and full ship reactivity through a highly conductive fluid layer. Flux was designed to chase comets for hours at a time, dock, clean them out and be on their way. But she was a first gen, and these days the first gens were a mess.
Flux was barely holding herself together inside her sheath of biofilm that insulated her electric pulses from the vacuum of space. It was my job as a tech to slide my way between the frame of the ship and the fatty lipid bilayer that kept our ship functioning as electric signals cascaded up and down the metal frame. There I was wearing that miserable sticky, rubber jumpsuit that was designated technician flight suits, swimming through conductive fluid. My suit stuck to all the wrong places and sweat ran down my limbs. My helmet was already beginning to fog over - Flux didn’t have those new grade A suits. I had to work with what I had, and of course the bilayer had a tear in it. We were adrift, scanners searching for our next hunt. The power was switched to internal so the sheath and the ship’s external haul could undergo repairs.
It was nothing - probably just debris that ripped through the layer. Every now and then something would scratch Flux just right and she’d shred open, leaving micro asteroids adrift in the conduction fluid. That’s what technicians were hired to handle. What I was hired to handle.
I squeezed my way into the high conduction fluid-filled space between the haul and the sheath, and swam through the viscosity to the puncture point, but I stayed close to the frame of the haul. Even with the ten-meter gap between the sheath and the frame, I could see the fluid was beginning to create a bubble as it slowly dribbled out of the puncture and into deep space. It would only take a second for me to seal the puncture. All I had to do was place a bandage on the wound, and it would heal on its own over time. It would slowly absorb the bandage into the membrane, and then my work would be done. I tethered myself to the frame directly across from the puncture, then kicked off, landing against the uncomfortably squishy yellow-white sheath. Just as I began to apply the seal, I noticed something adrift nearby in the conduction fluid.
It was close enough that I could reach it, so with my feet suspended on the sheath, I stretched my arm out and grabbed hold of it. It was a small bulbous purple-red organic device. It could’ve been human in origin - biospace tech was becoming more and more common since the success of the conduction sheath on comet catchers like Flux. It wasn’t like anything I’d seen before though, and to my knowledge, nobody was this far out from galactic civilization’s center other than Flux. I squeezed the little device gently in my fingers, and it foamed as a dense fog-like substance dispersed into the conduction zone. The fluid around it felt slightly warmer. I needed to report this.
But before I could put my free hand to my comm, a voice came to life in my helmet,
“Tech three, tech three come in.”
“Tech three here.” I replied. It sounded like Deya, the comms officer on Flux’s main deck. “Look, officer, I’ve got a -”
“Go ahead and pick up the pace on finishing that patch,” She cut me off, “we’ve got an exocomet in sight and are preparing to make a hard burn in its direction. You have ten minutes to get inside and get in a suspension chamber.” Any worry about the strange biomatter in my hands melted away at her words. I dropped it and it began to drift deeper into the conduction fluid. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be worth as much as my life.
“Ten minutes?” I blurted out, dumbfounded. Ten minutes was plenty of time to apply the bandage. I could’ve been done in the time we were having this discussion, but getting through the fluid, getting off my dirty flight suit, and getting back into the chamber in my quarters would take twenty minutes minimum. “Deya, I won’t make it in time -”
“Sorry, tech three, we’ve been running dry for way too many AUs. All personnel knew what they signed up for.” She was saying my life meant less to them than the comet that was within their grasp. I did know what I signed up for. I put my name on that dotted line three years ago, said goodbye to my family, and got on the first orbital transport I could. The Flux was as much a home as any place planetside was. But I was reminded that the Flux could easily shake me off into the endless night and replace me with someone else named tech three.
“I’ll make it happen. Tech three out.” Life or death wasn’t staring through a hole in your ship wondering if you’d get pulled into the cosmic depths. Life or death was the shift from order to chaos - when you were just a bug in the wrong place - when the divine cosmos decided to make the shift as you were on the precipice of the hurricane’s eye. I just might end up being the unlucky bug.
With expert pace, I pulled the bandage from my supply pack, stripped away the cover and placed the healing protective layer onto the sheath. I kicked off from the sheath and engaged the reel from my tether. I smacked into the haul with a thud, then gathered my senses. Crawling across the frame would take way less time than trying to swim through the fluid again. A robotic voice twisted and distorted through the fluid,
“All hands, prepare for comet pursuit. All non-essential personnel, please enter your chambers for temporary suspension.”
I had less than 10 minutes if they were already sending out the warning. I had to hurry. I felt Flux lurch beneath my hands and feet as I pulled my way across the frame. The ship was preparing to re-engage the electric current in the conduction zone. I had to hurry. I was sweating more than I ever had in my life. If they re-engaged the conduction zone, it wouldn’t be the acceleration that killed me - even a conductive rubber suit wouldn’t be enough to protect me from that current. I scrambled for my life as I felt the air around me begin to thrum. I felt the electricity in my heart as it skipped and stumbled its way through the intense terror overwhelming me.
But I made it to an airlock. I used the override emergency code, and forced open the door that decided just then that it wasn’t going to open all the way. It shuddered shut and hissed as the hydraulics engaged. The airlock cycled around me - filtering out the fluid that seeped in with me. Through the window to the conduction zone, I saw the electric pulses begin. It looked like the fluid began to pulse quickly then thrum as it vibrated with intensity. I had barely made it before the current started. It wouldn’t be long before Flux accelerated.
I was nowhere near my quarters, so getting to my suspension chamber wasn’t an option. There were emergency chambers in the med bay. As soon as air rushed into the airlock, I yanked off the dripping wet helmet and fastened it to a secure magnetic holster on the wall. When the airlock door to the ship shuddered open, I broke into a dead sprint.
“Final warning, we will begin acceleration in 60 seconds. If you have not made it to a chamber, please proceed to your nearest emergency chamber immediately.”
My soaking wet rubber suit plopped on the slippery metal floors. I slid around corners of the empty hallways of the Flux, stumbling my way into the med bay.
“30 seconds until acceleration. All hands, brace.”
With my sopping wet suit still on, I climbed the ladder into an emergency chamber, scanned my ID at the top so the chamber would open, and leapt in with my arms across my chest. I fell into the chamber and was immediately embraced in a dark never-ending hug of protective ooze.
In your home chamber, little wires would extend from the blue goo that you sank into and transmit happy feelings into your brain. Some people called them dopa-dreams, but I never understood that. I couldn’t see, couldn’t experience. There were no dreams, only a flush of happy excited emotions. The kind of emotions you couldn’t get enough of. It gave you a desperate need to want more. From what I heard it was different for everyone, but the main theme was the same: After too many dopa-dreams, you didn’t just want more. You needed more. No skin off Flux’s teeth, though. It kept us climbing in our chambers when we were told to.
For me, the ‘dopa-dream’ felt like the first kiss you shared with a first love - that flush of joy and child-like wonder. That feeling of not knowing what was next, but knowing you were excited. You didn’t understand love or what it took to keep it going, but you knew you’d do anything for it. There was this inescapable joy that flooded into you. It was as if I was fully in love, but I couldn’t see, couldn't feel anything outside my own mind. I couldn’t tell you anything about it other than it felt good. I didn’t know what I loved or who I loved, but I did need them. I guess ‘them’ was the chamber.
Dopa-dreams were supposed to overpower the trauma of being thrashed around in the chambers. Apparently early tests showed that the chamber suspended you, but being thrashed around in that protective goo had a habit of leaving the mind and body traumatized.
Emergency chambers didn’t have dopa-dreams.
It turns out they were right about the trauma.
I felt myself being thrown around the chamber. My arms were trapped across my chest, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I always felt inches away from smacking against the chamber walls, but instead the direction would shift slightly and throw me in another direction. My head began to throb, and my limbs ached as they tried to hold still, but the cosmos wouldn’t let them. In that moment, I think I would’ve rather been that bug being zapped in the conduction fluid than be in a chamber with no safety net of good feelings coursing through my mind.
I don’t know how long or how much trauma my body went through, but I do know that by the end of it when the goo drained out of the chamber and the front of it popped open, I was shaking and couldn’t stand at first. As the world spun around me, I noticed somebody else in the room changing into a clean lab coat. The ship’s chief doctor - Doctor Sangheet - was smiling at me.
“First raw chamber experience, huh?”
I nodded.
“Ah,” He laughed and chuckled, “I remember mine. First time being shipped out on the AP - ever hear of the AP? Talk about a fast ship. Quicker than the old Flux…” His words drifted away from me as I struggled to focus on any one thing. Then a voice came over the ship’s metallic comms,
“We have officially docked and tethered to the comet. Second shift, begin salvage immediately. Third shift dinner starts in five minutes.” I breathed a sigh of relief,
“Thank the cosmos…” I gasped. At least I don’t have to worry about salvaging for a little while.
“Don’t worry, it’ll wear off. You’re one dopa-dream away from forgetting this ever happened.” The doctor patted me on the back, then looked at his hand, disgusted. He wiped the concoction of conduction fluid and chamber goo off his lab coat and walked away from me.
I stopped off at my quarters to shower off and change into a fresh jumpsuit, then made my way to dinner. In the cafeteria I saw my usual group and sat down amongst them, my tray landing with a thump.
“Whoa, three.” Two announced with a gasp. “I didn’t think you were going to make it…”
“No, no. Three wasn’t the one.” Five added with a shaking head.
“Who was it?” I asked. The techs always said - long before I ever joined Flux - that someone had to be lost when we did sudden burns like that. There was no way a ship of this size - with nearly one thousand aboard - could make sudden burns without someone being left behind. That was the price of Flux. Somebody had to go.
“One of the custodial staff, Monty. Serves him right for sneaking into the first mate’s quarters from what I heard.”
“Whoa, what was he doing in there?” One asked.
“Beats me. Being a creep, I bet. Didn’t hear it from me though.” Five continued after finishing a way too big bite of food.
“First mate Val tell you all that?” One asked again, soaking up the gossip.
“Didn’t have to. Emergency med crew spilled the tea almost immediately.”
We all laughed as five continued to regale us with stories of gossip and other nonsense that happened aboard interstellar ships as we struggled to keep our sanity. Towards the end of our designated dinner, four turned to me,
“How’d that patch job go by the way, three?”
“Went fine. Just a routine patch. There was a weird thing that caused the puncture, I think. Never saw anything like it, but before I had time to report it, the acceleration started. Had to hop in an E-chamber in med with my suit still on, but I got the job done and saved my own skin. Flux’s sheath should be back to full power before -” The ship shuddered and jolted.
“That was weird…” Five said, looking around.
“The hell?” Sheathed ships with conduction fluid buffer zones didn’t move like that. Unless navigation made a mistake and we hit something really big, nothing should move any comet catcher like that. An air of uneasiness floated amongst the cafeteria as the third shift employees all looked around in a panic.
The ship lurched again, and the lights went out. Gasps and whispers followed, then the emergency red lights bloomed to life and a klaxon began to blare.
“All shifts, we have multiple punctures to the sheath. We need all technicians outside now. Repeat -” Without a second thought, we all jumped up and ran to prepare. This was unprecedented. Unless the navigation team linked us to a comet right before it flew through an asteroid field, this should never have happened.
We split up, making our way to our respective quarters to grab helmets and supplies. When I got to my quarters, I grabbed my fresh helmet and resupplied a supply pack that fastened around my waist. I put on the helmet and shifted to the tech channel. There was immediately a bombardment of screams and calls of concern,
“We’ve got a problem -”
“My god - it’s everywhere!”
“What is it? What are we looking at?”
“The bilayer is breaking down, repeat the bilayer is breaking down!”
“We need to disengage from the comet, we need to get out of here!”
“Negative, shift two is still cometside, we can’t peel off yet!”
I listened in horror as the unknown reality began to creep in around me. I needed to see what was going on. Over the ship’s comms, the panicked voice of the captain came to life, “All hands, make your way to your dispersion pods and prepare for potential disengagement. The sheath has retained heavy damage, and the haul might not survive. Techs shifts 1 and 3, continue repairing the sheath. We might just save Flux yet -” The captain’s voice cut off.
Once again, the lives of the ship’s technicians were put beneath the rest of the crew. The tech channel went dead silent, then I heard an all too familiar voice,
“Well, you heard the captain. I hope we all got our last rites in order.” Five announced. “Let’s get to work and keep Flux on her feet. Only way we’ll live another day - or at least some of us.” There was resolute confirmation from everyone. Everyone was prepared to throw themselves to the wolves of the darkness beyond. I was still standing in my quarters shaking.
But fine.
I’ll sacrifice myself to the Flux.
I made sure my suit was secure and the filter was functional, then left my quarters. Immediately the hallway was filled with screams of terror and the flashing klaxon in the hallway. A woman ran past me, screaming as she stumbled down the corridor. Behind her, was the incomprehensible.
Thousands of strange arm-like tendrils cascaded out from a glowing bulb. It slung itself forward by gripping and melding to the walls. As it touched each part of the wall, it briefly melded with the metal, and as it pulled away, something like spores bloomed from the wound in the metal and dispersed into the air. I backed into my quarters and ducked away from the arms as it propelled past me, using my walls to throw itself further down the hall. I ducked back into the corridor and noticed something strange on the walls: The metal where the arms touched the walls, ceiling, and floor were beginning to bubble and swell. The air was becoming thick with whatever was dispersing into the air, but I hoped my filter might protect me. The corridor was becoming hot, and the walls were blooming and flaring up around me. I felt my feet burning through the insulated rubber.
I turned to look back at the crawling entity. I heard the final throes of the woman I had seen as she was cornered by the creature. Then silence. The entity was unmoving, but it appeared to be expanding, reaching out grabbing hold of something, then expanding even further as its many arms steadied itself on the walls even as they began to twist and contort as it turned red with heat. The walls around it began to melt. Over the klaxon, I began to hear a puncture warning.
Fluid began seeping and bubbling around the creature. The hallway emergency airlock doors began to close behind me. I turned and ran for my life. As the door slammed shut behind me, I turned one last time to look at the creature through the airlock’s pane. Peering from its bulbous, nearly translucent body, I swear I could see that woman staring at me through the insides of her devourer. The creature - without turning or shifting its body in any way - began to back track heading towards the now sealed door. Heading towards me.
“Three, where are you at? We need another tech out here!” Five shouted in my ear.
“I - I - I’ll be right there! One of these things just ate a woman! They didn’t say we were being boarded by something!”
“Don’t worry about that, just worry about the -” There was a long static-filled silence.
“Five? Five are you still there?”
“Five’s out…” A voice I didn’t recognize announced. “Get out here quick, we really need all hands here.”
Five signed up around the same time as me. We gave our names to the Flux. Next, we were going to give our lives. Five already did. For the second time in recent memory, I was running through the corridors of Flux, trying to keep my footing on the hot, swelling floors. I could smell a strange metallic tinge through my helmet’s filters. The haul of the ship was beginning to expand around me. My helmet let off an oxygen loss warning as the atmosphere inside the ship became compromised.
I weaved through halls, avoiding paths completely taken over by the large monsters that clung to the walls. As the atmosphere broke and the walls began to bleed with the viscous fluid that conducted electricity up and down the ship, I stumbled to an airlock. I didn’t have to wait for it to cycle as it was already shredded open and flooding with fluid. I dove in and began the slow-motion swim to the sheath. As I got closer and the fluid became less dense, I saw my worst possible fear: The sheath was riddled with millions of small punctures and tears.
I wasn’t sure what the other technicians could possibly be thinking. How could we fix this? The ship was flooding, monsters from the beyond were tearing the ship apart, and the insulated sheath was ripped beyond repair.
Worse still, the tech channel had gone quiet.
“Hello? Is anyone still out there?” I called across the channel. I began flipping across channels. The fluid began to vibrate around me. There was no one left, but I could see I wasn’t the only thing moving through the fluid. In the distance I saw those strange masses of arms propelling calmly through the fluid, making it vibrate gently as their propelling tendrils let off waves with each gliding move. The technicians weren’t sent out to fix the sheath. That was never the plan.
The fluid was getting thinner as it bubbled out of all the punctures in the sheath. Things were falling apart fast. In the distance I saw a small bulbous object - it was just like the one that broke through the sheath earlier.
I propelled myself forward and grabbed hold of the object. It was a strange biological material that morphed and moved with the contortions and shifting weights of my hand. I squeezed it until it popped, and the strange ooze poured out around me. As it popped, several of the masses began moving in my periphery. I felt a strange pulse coming off the object. All the deep space creatures began coursing through the fluid, making their way towards me. The cosmic beyond was closing in around me, and as far as I was concerned, Flux was gone. She had fallen the minute the sheath was turned to Swiss cheese. This was the end for her. Where was the captain? The first mate? Where was Deya, the comms officer? Where was anyone?
Not a single escape pod launched. Not a single scream for help. Just sudden, complete silence. In my awe at how much was lost so suddenly, I didn’t realize just how close and how many of those strange creatures had begun closing in around me. From their arms, they released that strange pollen. It let off a beautiful glow in the conduction fluid. As the pollen touched the fluid, the fluid popped and boiled like water on a burner.
In my terror, I only saw one way out: I had to crawl out of the sheath and cross into true deep space. These creatures couldn’t survive in a vacuum - there was no way. I just had to get off of Flux and pray to the divine cosmos that another ship would find me in her wreckage.
I swam as fast as I could towards the nearest puncture. It was just wide enough that I could push through the fatty tissue and make my way out to freedom. I felt the greasy feeling of lipids squeezing my body as I pushed my wide helmet through and jammed my arms in between the bilayer to propel myself forward. The viscosity was gone, replaced only with the feeling of oil propelling me forward as the sheath tore slightly to give way for my freedom. It tightened around my waist, and my legs began to kick uselessly as I forced my arms to send me further along the path to freedom.
Finally, just as I felt an intense heat beginning to burn my legs, I squeezed myself out of the sheath and into space. My helmet was caked in oil and my body immediately became cold even with my suit’s insulation. I was trapped in deep space, but I was free of those creatures.
They overran Flux so quickly. Just like that, the first comet catcher was gone. She wouldn’t grab riches from the cores of those flying behemoths ever again. I used my hands to swipe away the grease on my helmet and looked out on the depths of infinite space that I was sure would be my last home.
Then the air left my lungs. My eyes began to water. My mouth fell open.
Stretching across the darkness of space were a million of pasty white, undulating, pulsing, tentacle-like arms connected to the single monstrous cell with a pinkish-red center that began to glow. Its moon-sized body danced to the silent beat of the universe. All around it, there was an uncountable number of smaller creatures drifting towards Flux. Near Flux I could see the remains of the comet we had chased out here. It looked completely mined… but we hadn’t done that. We couldn’t have ever done it that fast.
This… this thing was hiding inside, waiting to be awakened. And now… now there was no one left. It was over
Flux was gone.
Maybe they wouldn’t see me. Maybe they’d never expect someone to survive. I could only hope they would think like us.
Then, something grabbed my leg. Tentacles wrapped around my leg, burning me through my suit. I fought to crane my neck around to see what was happening - if I was about to die, I wanted to know what sealed my fate.
One of those creatures had reached through the sheath and was grabbing hold of me, pulling me back across the threshold into Flux’s corpse. Then I realized, it wasn’t pulling me in. It was pulling itself out. It contorted to fit through the puncture wound, the sheath didn’t need to tear as it let itself fit into the small space with ease. Then, it broke free and expanded out to its full size. It filled almost all my vision, but behind it I could still see the much larger monstrosity moving towards the flux, expanding as it approached.
Then, my assailant began to expand further too.
It widened and widened, revealing its innards. Its organelles shifted and moved away to make space for what came next. I imagined it would have wide teeth, but instead it was bare - wet and dripping.
It stretched forward towards me, my skin burning through my suit as it wrapped around me. Before I lost all sight, I saw its mirrored goliath begin to wrap itself around Flux. Even if I could scream, it wouldn’t matter. It began to wrap around me, the silence deafening as sweat pooled and dripped around me, inside me.
Then - as the dark coalesced, and the heat enveloped me - I felt peace. Something told me deep in my mind that this was inescapable. This was what happened when we stretched too far into the beyond.
The beyond stretched back.
It whispered secrets of the divine to me and filled me with emotions of peace and certainty. They weren’t mine, but as parts of my mind flickered on and off, it became mine. All of mine. This was right. This was how it should be. This was what I deserved, and this was all I ever wanted. I think her name was Renee. And I wasn’t three. I used to be someone, and that someone loved Renee, and Renee loved that someone. I could feel that first love over and over again - live in that moment eternally as I was broken down to my bare components.
I wanted this. I needed this.
At least the end was addicting.
Now that was a fun challenge!
So a little insight, I started this post at 8:30am on Friday (7/26) morning. I am finalizing this draft at 10:30am on Wednesday (7/31). This was such a cool little challenge and oh my gosh my sci-fi today post is easily my most successful post! It genuinely blows my mind.
Its about to surpass We Weren’t Meant for the Stars and it has already surpassed Reject the Null from Project Blackwater, making it my second most viewed story! Not only that, but it is now officially my most liked post! So, hey, thanks for making my science-y post about how cool glia are my most successful post in the 10 months I’ve been on substack! What a gift.
If you enjoyed this story, consider dropping a tip if you can swing it!
And if you enjoyed the story feel free to subscribe - though the one post where I didn’t leave a subscribe button at the end actually led to the most new subscribers from a post, so maybe the button isn’t necessary. Well, for the sake of convenience, it will stay!
Thanks so much, everyone! If you come up with your own cool glia-based/inspired story, please share with me. I’d love to see what you make!
Catch you next week for… I’ll be honest, I’m not actually sure what I’m posting yet next week. Stay tuned for whatever that may be! Thanks again!
[Also, little sidenote, but I did a reverse image search of the original image that inspired this discussion (the cover photo for this post) and it appears to originate from a 2008 post to flickr and is discussing a white blood cell ‘attacking’ bacteria. Microglia are a type of macrophage derived from white blood cells, but I’m not sure if this post confirms that this specifically is microglia. In fact other articles that used the image actually refer to it vaguely as a white blood cell, a macrophage, or a glia, so identification is fairly unclear BUT it’s still a pretty neat photo so I’m going to use it anyways with this disclaimer in mind.]
Wow!! So cool! I’m honestly in awe at how seamlessly you melded all the biological and tech elements. Just an awesome story!
What a great story!! I absolutely love the idea of the biolipid sheath tech, very very clever! Fabulous tension & action as the story unfolds. And so many great details too - the dopa-dreams for one. Fully lives up to the promise of your original prompt!