For the science behind this story, check out the sci-fi Today on neurons.
There’s nothing like a dopa-dream to get the heart fluttering and full of joy. They say back in the day, when people had homes to think of, they’d dream of lush planets. Earths, they called them. Smiling faces sealed under an atmosphere of greens and blues. Imagine all that air. All that water. No worry, no terror, no living by the seat of a barely functioning scanner.
Sounds like a myth to me. I bet you it was. When I dopa-dream, I think about the old space station. The UCST Nissl. By the time I was born, no one knew what ‘UCST’ meant - just that it was on the haul of the ship. That isn’t part of my dreams though.
I dream about my parents teaching me how to move through zero-g. I dream about a world where I can float down the corridors with them for the rest of my life, still that ignorant child. Still so unaware of the vast, hostile world that lived outside those hallowed halls. I miss the Nissl. It orbited a barren planet called Wayside. They said Wayside was bursting with life a couple hundred years ago. Until the Ganglia came.
They called them Ganglia, but that wasn’t what they were. We didn’t know what they were, or where they came from, or what they even wanted with us. No one ever found out. Systematically, they purged every planet of human life. And when they were done, they made the planets uninhabitable just to make sure we couldn’t come back like the little cockroaches they must’ve thought we were. Too bad we hid. In every corner of the cosmos, we hid, we clung to life, and we resisted through our presence alone.
Legend says that my ancestors only survived on the Nissl because our orbit was regular enough to appear like a natural satellite. Not a soul dared move or breath until we knew the Ganglia were gone. And when they were, we held on for dear life. Hundreds aboard the Nissl didn’t make it past the first year without Wayside flourishing beneath us. When Wayside died, a part of Nissl went with it. When we finally stabilized - living off cultured meats and mushrooms - we grew again. I guess those weren’t real happy times. Not worth a dopa-dream by some standards. I wish I had something happier to dream of. A pretty face. The Earth of Wayside. The real Earth - as mythological as it may be - or even just a world that wasn’t fighting for survival. We take what we can get though.
And I took a chance on the UC Axon. Axon was as ancient as stone - the kind you see falling infinitely towards the nothing of a distant gravity well - but she was sturdy, fast, and sustained life well enough that I felt safe joining.
We were ragtag. Captain Higgins said we were like pirates of old on the seven seas. I don’t think he knew what that meant, and neither did I. Closest I ever saw to a sea were those ‘dust seas’ that traveled across the surface of Wayside. We saw them from orbit from Nissl. The observation decks would fill with people watching them. I heard an old man call them a ‘light show’ one time. I never asked what that meant, but I wish I had.
We didn’t see anything like that on Axon, but I’ll tell you what I did see: I saw the vastness of the unknown. I saw stars born and die. I saw planets so barren, so desolate, that it only could’ve meant that there was a history lost there. I bet the Ganglia decimated them too. Whoever they were. I liked to think about what their lives were like. What they did. What they had. But I never knew to forget. It almost feels like it would’ve been a privilege - a gift - to forget. But I never got to.
Captain Higgins said our goal was simple: Salvage what we could, find who we could, connect us all. It had been easily a dozen stops since we were at the Nissl. Since then, we’d been to space stations, abandoned asteroid habitats, ships hurdling into oblivion, and my personal favorite: desolate planets with electric signals detected. We never found any life on the planets, but we’d made a few friends across the universe, and connected them together on what Captain Higgins called ‘The Pathway,’ a universe-spanning system using old tech designed to connect the entirety of mankind to one another. Now we use it to limp back to unity.
“For over two hundred years, we’ve been a separated people. But no more! Now, we come together. And that begins with Axon!” Captain Higgins always used that to sell his dream to anyone we found. Then, once they agreed with us, we’d hop aboard with them, help get their comms on The Pathway, do a little trade - of crew and supplies - and be on our way.
Since then, my Dopa-dreams had changed a little. They were the same, but they came with a new feeling. A new underlined shift in reality. I keep dreaming that we’re in a world where The Pathway is connected and we are together again. We are connected. We are united.
“All hands, report to the main deck. All hands!” The tinny voice of Higgins demanded over the speakers as I was ripped out of my meandering dreams. I climbed out of my impact tube, and dried the suspension goo off my skin before slipping into a body suit and running down the echoey, rusted halls of Axon. Metal lurched and creaked overhead, telling me we had recently come to a stop. Doors squealed open from up and down the corridor as other members of the crew came out of their suspension chambers and began their trek towards the deck.
The hydraulic doors of the deck were stuck permanently ajar, meaning we always had to slip through, but that was just fine. We all took our places on the deck, standing before the captain where he stood on a central command pedestal. Ship navigators, pilots, and technicians all worked away on computers facing the walls. Behind the captain was a projection screen showing deep space. I could just barely make out a distant rock gently hurdling through space.
Jacobs elbowed me from nearby, “Looks like another abandoned habitat, eh Sylvie?”
“Looks like.” I replied with a nervous laugh. Captain Higgins said to never trust ‘looks like.’ I think he made a good point.
After a while, the last of the crew shuffled into the deck. Not including the deck crew and the captain, there were about three dozen of us. We usually worked in crews of six, making searching for tech and signs of life an efficient endeavor.
“Axon, the Cosmos has gifted us the grandest of gifts on this day!” Captain Higgins announced with a glimmering smile, “We’ve found a dead comet.”
“Uh, captain, that’s not a thing. That’s impossible.” Darcy, one of my crewmates, said from nearby.
“You’re right, Darcy. Indeed, you are. Isn’t that interesting then that we have one here?” He gestured to the rock on the screen. As he did, the image flickered, stuttered, then zoomed in. At a closer look, it was clear it was a chunk of ice-cold resources fresh for the plucking, but there was more to it than that.
“Cap, what about the ship docked with it?” Jacobs asked.
“Ah, good eye, Jacobs. What about that ship? We have an abandoned comet with a ship docked on it. More interesting than the ship is the apex of the comet. The ice is shattered. Why?”
“You don’t think…” A voice I couldn’t pick out gasped.
“I don’t ‘think.’ I know.” Captain Higgins brought his arms out, evoking wonder in all of us. Then, he focused the screen’s image on the ship, zooming in even further.
“The Flux…” I gasped. It couldn’t be. How could it be? How could we find Flux out here in oblivion?
“There. It. Is.” The captain pointed at me and nodded, “Flux. The legendary comet catcher in the flesh. Her lipid bilayer has dissipated away, but the electric current is still pulsing through her - though weak as it is, we detected it. Back-up generators humming for what? 200 years?”
“Is - is anyone alive on her?” I asked.
“We can’t say. Not until we get in there. Based on Axon’s records, she docked with Flux once before. Flux is much bigger and made for longer, harder, and faster burns. We’ll need at least half our crew to get through her in a reasonable time, so we’re splitting squads into groups of three rather than six.”
“What about the other half, cap?” Jacobs asked.
“We’ll need people on the comet.”
“On the comet?” Darcy coughed out.
“He can’t be serious.” I heard somebody whisper.
“Of course I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be serious?” The Captain asked with an innocent look on his face.
“We all know the stories, captain.” Darcy replied, “The comet is where they came from. Flux was the first casualty in a genocide. We can’t go on the comet. Flux is one thing. She’s probably stocked with all kinds of supplies we need, but the comet? You’re asking us to kill ourselves.”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
“Now, hold on!” Higgins retorted. “Energy readings show no signs of electrical pulses as high as those the Ganglia put out. We’ll be safe on the comet, and that’s a promise. Look, I’d never ask you to do something I wouldn’t do myself, so I’ll be leading the crews aboard the comet. Crews aboard Flux, priority one is collecting supplies and salvaging parts. Dismissed.”
I always thought ‘dismissed’ was a funny way of saying ‘get to work.’ Still, Captain Higgins cared about our mission. Our ‘Cosmic Mandate’ as he called it. He was a single man with a ship and a dream, and he pulled all of us together. Maybe Darcy or Jacobs would disagree with me, but I think Captain Higgins was worth following. At first I thought it was something to do. Trade the confined walls of Nissl for the confines of Axon, but at least it was different. I needed something new. In it, I found something worth dying for. Captain Higgins gave me direction, and so I didn’t mind giving my life to his cause. As long as I got to keep some of it, and see the infinite horizon from time to time.
In the launching bay, I wriggled into my rubber EVA suit, and sealed my head into the flexible helmet’s vacuum that bound to the rubber. I breathed in then out, and flexed my knees. As soon as the vacuum sealed around my head, the network came to life with the buzz of overlapping conversations.
Captain Higgins voice broke through them all, “All hands, prepare for boarding! Darcy, Jacobs, Sylvia, you’re on Flux.” He continued on with the assignments, then finished with “Team Flux take channel 1, team comet take channel 2. Emergency comm will be on channel 3. Keep your team’s comm on both your location channel and your emergency.”
It was weird he was going through all the basics again. I ignored it as I focused my attention to Darcy and Jacobs.
“Cap must be nervous.” Jacobs said on our squad’s channel.
“Must be.” Darcy agreed. She shook her head and grinned, “I’m all nerves too. We’re going on the Flux, guys.”
“Pretty special.” I agreed. I had spent my whole life hearing about Flux. The first ship to go down. The most important ship in galactic history. I thought it was lost forever, but here it was, coming into view.
Higgins’ voice broke through the comms, “Team Flux, get to the bay doors and prepare to drop. Ready your spindles, and don’t miss your mark. Moving in 10… 9…”
All of us instructed to salvage from the ship began running for Axon’s bay doors. A klaxon blared over our heads as hydraulics yowled. The gentle pull of vacuum tugged at my suit, but I held firm on mag-boots. Darcy and Jacobs stood on either side of me, waiting for the OK. I looked between them, gave a nervous smile, and just as Higgins called ‘one’, I disengaged my boots with a tap on my suit’s wristpad.
I lifted off gently. The silence set in soon after. It never went away. I sort of hoped it never would. The silence roared over top of the countless voices in my ear. Someone far away had an unforeseen puncture in their suit. They don’t make suits like they used to - that’s what they said at least. I believe it given our suits gave out regularly. I heard the emergency coming through my comm, but I didn’t fully process it. Instead, I stared outwards at eternity. There was a silence in these moments. A darkness in my periphery that spoke to infinite unknowns. The thing that amazed me was knowing that within that darkness there were millions of planets, probably thousands of space stations and distant lifeforms. Probably so much that I couldn’t even fathom. Maybe even the Ganglia slumbering somewhere in the depths of space, waiting to awaken and decimate us all over again.
I tumbled end over end, feeling the awe that consumed me as we inched towards the stationary comet. Towards Flux. She was glorious. It was fascinating to see it before us on the infinite horizon, an expanse of twilight between us that could only be bridged by the distant glimmer of stars. Comet catchers were supposed to be surrounded by bio-lipids - a protected insulated layer that bolstered their comms array and their ability to move at rapid speeds. Flux had no such thing, though it was clear she once did.
The ship itself was like a massive bullet with scaffolding and pressurized doors around the bullet. Based on the old holograms I’d seen, the scaffolding was supposed to be polarized to bind the fatty layer to the ship’s haul. I bet she was beautiful in her day. Now she was a gunmetal blip frozen in time. The closer we came, I also realized she was covered in chunks of ice, binding her to the comet.
“Haul damage deck-side!” Darcy shouted in my ear. “We’ll brace there and hop in, copy Sylvie?”
“Copy!” I shouted back, pulling myself from my enthrallment with the beyond.
“This is going to be unforgettable.” Jacobs said, laughing with glee.
“Focus up. We’ll all be forgotten if we don’t do this right.” Darcy responded.
I nodded, not thinking about the fact that they couldn’t see me. I twisted in a spiral, redirecting my motion so that I wasn’t flipping end over end anymore. I reached for my waist and unraveled my spindle. Spindles were fibrous grapples for latching to the hauls of the bio-age ships. The ships we still clung to. Spindles were made up of microscopic bacterial fibers that searched for the biometal of the hauls of the ships. As long as you were in range, the spindles hungered for the biometal, and reached out, gripping them. Spindles slowly devoured the hauls, but that was okay for our purposes. The spindles ate, and we got inside to salvage.
My spindle snapped forward then died in space. The first few times this happened on missions, I panicked. Now I knew this was just how they worked. Spindles needed to find their mark first. Then, they pulled. I snapped forward, the spindle dragging me through space as it propelled itself through the vacuum until it smashed into the haul of Flux. I slammed into the ship shortly after. I activated my mag boots and clung to the haul, working to catch my breath. I felt heat coming off the spindle. If I wasn’t careful, it could eat through the haul. It didn’t matter in this case. I disengaged the spindle with a gentle squeeze, and crawled along the haul towards the puncture point.
“Made it to the puncture.” Jacobs announced. “Tell me how these corridors look nicer than ours and they’ve been exposed to hard vacuum for two hundred years.”
“Axon gets her use.” Darcy replied. “Be there soon.”
“I mistimed my spindle release. I’m half a kilo down the ship. I’ll get there.” I added. I didn’t realize how far off the mark I was until Darcy and Jacobs tags appeared in the distance on my HUD.
“Flux is a big one, huh? Have a nice run.” Jacobs said.
Once I caught my breath and got a feel for the vastness that I had to run through, I gathered myself up, stowed away my spindle, and began to jog along the haul. By the time I made it, Darcy was lowering an orb of light into the haul.
“Power’s out.” Darcy said to me as she saw me approach.
“Gale, Podesta, and Walton are already in engineering checking out the reactor.” Jacobs added.
“I’m on the same channel as you guys.” I replied.
“I know.” Jacobs said with a shrug, “You don’t always listen though.”
I cracked a smile, “Here and now, right?”
“Right.” Darcy said, all business, “Let’s get to the deck. See if they’ve got anything worth our time.”
We lowered ourselves into the ship. The hallway looked mostly intact - Jacobs was definitely right about it looking better than Axon. Reports were coming in from all over the ship of heavy damage to the other corridors though. Damage in line with what we knew as a Ganglia attack. The metal walls were covered in boils and empty air pockets. The floors were shredded apart, and the air was electrified.
Our hallway was nothing like that. There was the haul breach, but the floors were pristine and the blast doors were sealed. We made it down the hall, and to the sealed door. According to schematics, that door was the only thing between us and the main deck. Darcy connected her suit to the door’s panel, and began the process of bypassing the lockdown.
“Deck team reporting in. We’re getting through the deck’s blast door. Looks like the inside’s still habitable. Cycling…”
Jacobs and I tried to peek through the window in the blast door, but it was iced over.
“We’ve got a tank still active. Repeat, tank still active on deck.”
Captain Higgins’ voice broke through, “Darcy, report. Does the system say life support is active?”
“Life support data’s a mess. Can’t say yes, but can’t say no either.”
“What are we expecting, cap?” Jacobs asked. “Flux was lost with all hands 200 years ago. Not like anyone’s going to survive that.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Higgins replied. “Get to work, crew. Higgins out.”
Jacobs and I shared a wary look. “Cap knows something.” Jacobs said.
“Can’t disagree,” I shrugged, “but what’s there to know?”
“Heads up deck crew,” A voice I didn’t recognize chimed in, “We’re cycling the generator. She’ll stop running on the solar currents and go nuclear any second now. Might help you get that door open.”
“Thanks, Podesta. Waiting for power.” Darcy said. She tapped her foot as she stared at her wristpad, waiting for the status to change.
Then, the power kicked in. Lights flared all around us from behind panels in the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor. Around the door, the lights were red.
“Thanks, engineering. I’ll try it again.” Darcy said. “Cycling the doors… now.” There was a muted klaxon that barely traveled through the metal of the walls and vibrated the floors beneath our feet. Then, the doors opened, a blinding white light blasting from the other side. I covered my eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the light. Darcy let out a cheer, “She’s intact! Repeat, deck is intact!” She shouted.
There were several cheers across the Flux channel.
“Looks like we can replace those nav computers after all, huh?” A voice said.
“We haven’t found an intact deck… well, not since I started.” I said, amazed.
“Since ever.” Darcy said with a laugh of joy. “Ganglia always went for the deck first. They must’ve learned that after Flux. I don’t know what, but it had to have been after this, because she’s fully intact.”
Jacobs walked in first, marveling at how well preserved the entire room was. “Come in, Flux crew, we’re going to need some support on deck. We’ve got some shiny new goodies to bring in.”
“Understood, deck crew. We’re just about finished peeling off their mess hall oxidizer, and we’ll be right there with you.” Someone replied.
Darcy and Jacobs began looking through the tech. Darcy plopped down at the nav computer and began checking the data. “This is amazing. She’s got resources stored from 18 different comets onboard. We could spend months picking her clean.”
“Maybe we should.” Jacobs replied.
“We don’t need all those resources. Besides, if Ganglia still hang around this comet, that might be the last thing we should do.”
Jacobs grunted in reply as he sifted through the captain's logs. “This captain… seems kind of like a jerk.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked as I began walking to the far end of the deck towards the tubes - the suspension chambers. They were caked in ice. I’m guessing it was a flash freeze from us breaking the seal on the room. There was a control panel nearby. I went to the control panel and began scouring the data.
“According to the logs, he made a run for the suspension chambers in the middle of the Ganglia’s boarding.”
“Knowing what we know now, can you blame him?” Darcy asked.
“Guess not. Just - what happened to going down with the ship?”
“She’s still here, isn’t she?” Darcy replied. “Besides, what did you want him to do?”
“Guess you’re right. Here’s something odd. Under inventory, it has crew members listed.”
“Really?” I called over my shoulder. “The captain considered the crew ‘inventory?’”
“Not the captain. Whoever owned the Flux. It wasn’t the captain. Some big company. Cerebra.”
“Cerebra.” Darcy nodded, “Yeah, I’ve seen their insignia around before. Freaky.”
“Lower level crew signed their names away. Took on their titles and a number. You know, Tech 1, Tech 2, Tech 3. They were restricted from using their names.”
“Imagine that.” Darcy said with a laugh. “If Captain ever tried that with us, we’d be revolting, wouldn’t we?”
“It was a different time, I guess.” I mumbled as I navigated the suspension chambers’ panel. Finally, I made it to the screen I wanted to see. The status of each chamber. There were five total chambers. Two were empty and the other three were occupied with occupant status’ marked as unknown. I walked over to the chambers and used my rubber-clad armor to try and swipe away some of the ice. Even through the insulation, I felt the cold run through me. I stepped back in stunned silence as the inside of the chamber fell into view. Through the clear suspension gel, I saw a preserved skeleton with meat rotting off its bones, eyes still squeezed shut, and a wild long mane and beard of white to match. The figure was permanently trapped in the fetal position, unmoving. Stray fabrics that must’ve been a uniform floated around the gel.
“Got a body in the chamber.” I announced. Darcy walked over and looked it up and down.
“Bet that’s our captain. Shame. We can’t salvage that fluid, that’s for sure.” She said.
“Should we drain for his ID though?” I asked.
“Nah. Flux is pretty open so far. Looks like someone disengaged security measures before she went dark. She’s an open book.” Jacobs replied.
“Guess that’s good for us.” I said.
“Yeah. Here, help me out with getting these nav logs. We could import them to Axon and update our maps with locations to visit.”
“Give me one second. I want to check the other two.” I replied. I walked to the next ‘occupied’ chamber. I wiped away the ice and saw more of the same. This one was a woman whose body was much better preserved than the captain’s. Her uniform clung to her musculature, showing her to be some sort of officer, but I couldn’t be certain of what kind - I didn’t know how ancient ships ranked crew members.
“Another one down.” I murmured and went to the last one. As I got to it, two more crews arrived in the room.
“You guys wrap up your sections?” Jacobs asked.
“Whoa, I’ve never seen a deck in this good of shape before.” One of them said in awe.
“You and me both.” Darcy agreed. “Its our lucky day.”
I nodded in agreement as I swiped the ice away from the final chamber. I let out an audible gasp as I stumbled away from the chamber. My back hit the control panel and I lost my footing. Had we been under thrust, I would’ve fallen. Instead, I lost my magnetic grip on the floor and I floated up into the air.
“Sylvie, you good?” Jacobs called.
It took me a moment to recover, but once I got myself back to the ground, I tried to control my breathing, and I turned on my comm. Before I could speak, Captain Higgins spoke up on the emergency channel, “All hands, all hands, Axon is coming in for pick up. We’re moving out.”
Darcy pushed back, “Wait, captain, we need more time to -”
“Sorry, everyone, there’s some weird stuff down here, and we need to move before we attract the wrong kind of attention. I know we have all the goods to get out of here, but there’s no time without risking something real bad. We’re getting electrical impulses like you wouldn’t believe, and the comet’s starting to liquify beneath our feet. Let’s move, and move quick. Grab what you can carry. We’re moving on.”
“Wait. Captain,” I said, trying to find the words, but they were failing me.
“Sylvie, there’s nothing you can say that’ll convince me. You aren’t seeing what I’m seeing down here, got me?”
“Captain, we have a survivor.” I said as resolutely as I could. The chatter on all channels died.
“A what?” Captain Higgins said, his throat hoarse with effort.
Still, I had told the absolute truth. Suspended in the chamber in front of me was a man. He was clad in an obnoxiously orange uniform made of cloth and rubber. His skin was a deep brown and his hair was long and curly. His eyes were squeezed shut and he floated aimlessly in the fetal position. He looked like he had something clutched in his palms, but I couldn’t make it out. It wasn’t entirely clear if he was truly alive or not, but bubbles dribbled out of his nose, climbing into the chamber, then popping at the very top. If he was dead, we’d have to take him out to confirm given Flux’s life support systems acting all sorts of strange, but it looked to me like he was breathing in the suspension buffer.
Darcy and Jacobs were suddenly standing next to me. “No way…” Darcy gasped.
“Well, I’ll be.” Jacobs added. “Cap, she’s telling the truth. Looks like Flux’s first officer is alive and suspended in the chamber. Other than some wicked facial hair, looks like he hasn’t aged a day. At least not 200 years.”
The silence stretched across the comms. It made me feel sick hearing the absolute nothing float across moments.
“Captain,” I urged, “please advise.”
“I -” His deep breath of composure traveled across the comms, “Alright. Axon, come in. Send a drone to collect the chamber.”
“Drone deployed, Cap.” The pilot on the Axon said faster than I expected.
“I want everyone who’s not on Flux’s deck back on the Axon when she comes down, are we clear?” There was a cacophony of agreements on comms.
I got to work prepping the chamber for transport while the rest of the crew began tearing apart the deck, getting as much as they could ready to put on the drone. It didn’t take long with everyone working in tandem. We’d done this so many times, it was like second nature to tear down a ship to its basic components and then take those too.
“Come in deck team, we have a class A Vesicle waiting at the haul to transport the survivor and all collected goods back to the Axon. You have five minutes. Get to it.” The captain’s voice sounded further away. He was definitely back on the Axon.
“We’re picking up increased electrical pulses from the comet. Something’s -” The voice of one of the deck crew cut out. I heard what sounded like a hard swallow followed by, “Cap, something’s waking up.”
“Deck crew, move your asses!” Captain Higgins shouted over the comms.
“Moving fast as we can, Captain.” Darcy said.
We pushed our plunder down the hall, all of us in high spirits, even if we were slightly unnerved by the panicked chatter on the comms. When we made it to the haul breech, we tossed everything up one by one. The Vesicle collected each thing we threw with one of its many crane arms, and stowed it inside itself. Lastly, we passed the suspension chamber up. With an electric joy between us all, we tossed ourselves up and gripped tight to the handlebars all around the Vesicle. The heavy duty drone heaved slightly, then propelled itself forward through the awe inspiring infinite back to the Axon.
As we were leaving, I looked back on the comet. “Did we get anything from the comet?” I asked over the comms.
“Nothing but nightmares.” A voice I didn’t recognize said back.
A chill ran through me. Part of me wished I knew what happened out there. But still, I got to find the survivor. If anything, I had a better day. I shrugged off the fear, and gave into the excitement.
I turned to Darcy where she was hooked onto the Vesicle as well, “How do you think he’s still preserved?”
Darcy shrugged with her free hand, “I’m not a doctor, Sylvie. Maybe this is just another one of those secrets of the universe I keep hearing about.”
She was probably right. Not worth overthinking too much. Before we crossed into the hangar, I turned back to the comet. It had begun to shake and shutter. I couldn’t see what was causing it, but I barely made out something. Something moving in the cracks and crevices of the dead comet. I shook it off as jitters, and refocused.
The Vesicle docked with Axon back in the hangar bay. Immediately upon setting down, the bay doors closed behind us. The entire crew was running around unloading, but as soon as the Vesicle powered down and we started unloading, they all came over to see us.
Immediately, the suspension chamber was surrounded on all sides. People were clamoring to get a look at the man inside. Captain Higgins made his way to the front and observed the motionless man inside the chamber.
“You think he’s alive?” He asked me.
“I think so.” I replied.
“That doesn’t make sense though. How could he be?”
“Could be someone who found Flux and stowed aboard.” Jacobs offered as an option.
“No. No, doesn’t make sense.” The captain removed his helmet and began running his fingers through his beard as he thought, “Let’s get moving,” he announced, “there’s something down there, and I don’t think we should be here when we pop this baby open.”
“Aye, captain.” The pilot said from nearby. She ran out of the bay and back towards the deck. There were a few moments of silence before the pilot came over comms, “Captain, we have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” Captain Higgins asked.
“Uh… Captain?” Someone at the hangar doors shouted to us. The entirety of the crew rushed over to the hangar doors. We let out a collective gasp as we stared back on the comet. It wasn’t dead. It was sleeping. From the dark cracks and crevices, monstrous forms erupted, stretching out tentacle-like arms that had been bound up in the depths of the celestial body for hundreds of years. The sleeping beasts of the beyond were awakened, by our greed alone, they had come to, ready to pillage our galaxy again.
“Get us out of here.” Captain Higgins said through gritted teeth.
Within a few minutes, Axon lurched around us, and she began to move. None of us peeled our eyes away from the Ganglia as they struggled to bloom forth from the comet. Then, Axon gave one final lurch and picked up speed, going just beneath the threshold where we’d need to hop into our tubes. I took a deep breath, trying to gather my wits as I noticed that the Ganglia weren’t following us.
It took far too long before Captain Higgins was fully comfortable enough to open the chamber up. We all stood, waiting in anticipation, staring at him, then back to the man.
“Alright,” He finally said, “pop it open.”
“What have we got to lose, right?” Darcy said with a nervous laugh, “We already woke them up.”
Jacobs grabbed a pry bar and jimmied it into a crease in the chamber. With a hiss and a pop, he ripped the chamber open. Gel spilled onto the floor, covering all our rubber soles in buffer. The man spilled out, but Captain Higgins caught him. The man still had the wires of a dopa-dream latched to the back of his neck.
The captain checked his pulse. I saw his face twist to disbelief, “He really is alive.”
The crew gasped.
“He’s still dreaming.” I said, gesturing to the wires.
“Been dreaming for two hundred years…” Jacobs added.
“We don’t know that.” Darcy pushed back.
“She’s right.” The captain agreed.
“Captain,” I spoke up, taking a step towards the man cradled in Captain Higgins’ arms, “he has something in his hand.”
Indeed, he still held whatever it was in a vice grip that he refused to give up. I couldn’t make it out, but I knew it must be important. Captain looked down at his hand, but hesitated.
“Cap?” Jacobs asked.
“Should we wake this guy?” Captain Higgins finally asked. There was a discomfort that immediately rose in the room. It wasn’t often that Captain Higgins didn’t know what to do.
“Why wouldn’t we?” I asked.
“He’s been dopa-dreaming for two hundred years - maybe. Maybe. The withdrawal could - it could kill him.” Higgins said, uncertainty creeping ever closer.
“Better to live the reality of hell, than the lie of a dopa-dream heaven.” Darcy said.
“Maybe.” Higgins replied. “Let’s have a look here first,” The captain carefully pried the object out of the man’s hand. The man let out an involuntary moan as the item in his hand parted with his palm. Immediately, Higgins let out a gasp and let the item fall to the floor. Then we all got to see it.
On the ground was a palm-sized, pill-shaped red object. It pulsed slightly and let off a faint glow. When it touched the floor of Axon, the floor of the ship began to burn and boil.
“It can’t be…” Was all Jacobs was able to gasp out.
Darcy was the first to act. She grabbed a hold of the pill, ran to the nearest airlock, and jettisoned it out.
I let out a shaky breath as she came back over, “I’d never seen one before…”
“None of us have, but we all know what they look like from the legends.” Captain Higgins said.
“We’re in trouble. He let out a shaky breath. Okay, we need to get as far away from this as possible, and this guy,” He gestured to the man, still deep in his slumber, “when we’re safe, he’s going to wake up to a whole new universe. Get him in an e-chamber” He activated his comm, his voice booming over the ship’s speakers, “All hands, brace for hard burn. Make for your suspension chambers immediately. This is life or death, repeat, life or death. The Ganglia know where we are.”
I was full of electric energy that could only be described as euphoria. I took one last look at the ghost of the past, and turned and ran. The last thing I saw before leaving the hangar was Jacobs and the captain carrying the man to a nearby e-chamber. When we were safe from the Ganglia, there’d be a whole new world waiting for us. One ripe for the network to thrive together.
The future was just a dopa-dream away.
Hey everyone, thanks for reading!
I genuinely feel like this story could be part of a much larger one, but I’m not sure I have it in me at this point in my life. For now, I hope you enjoyed this! I really loved this story! Between this and Across the Threshold, I’ve really made a fun biopunk spacefaring journey. It’s a ton of fun, and I do think I want to play around with it more… just not yet.
Stay tuned for more upcoming fun in the month of October and beyond!
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you soon! As always, subscribe if you haven’t yet, and consider tipping if you have the ability and the inclination!
Thanks, gang!