Starwalker

Ship's log, 16:40, 22 July 2214
Location: Approaching the Cerces black hole event horizon
Status: Sublight transit, Star Step drive active

There are so many people talking at me that it’s hard to keep up. They don’t like my idea. Thing is, I’m not hearing any other options.

Any other ship would cut and run now. Save themselves. But I have another avenue of escape. Flying towards a black hole doesn’t have to mean death for me. Why wouldn’t I use that to save someone? To save my own sister?

External comms: Celestial Strider

DINEEN: What the hell do you mean by ‘go through’? As stupid ideas go, that’s right up there with hugging a supernova.

STRIDER #3: (male voice) Starwalker, you’re gonna have to clarify what you mean.

RIEDE: Crazy bitch is gonna kill us.

Location: Cargo bay access corridor

ELLIOTT: Starry, don’t. We’re not ready for that.

External comms: Sarabande station

CAPTAIN: Starry, you can’t Step, it’s too risky.

Location: Bridge

(The hologram of the black hole turns slowly in the forward part of the Bridge.)

SARA: (picks her stuffed whale up from the floor, giggling. Turning, she looks up into the projected light that shifts all around her and holds up her toy, like an offering.)

Filaments extending
Filaments charging...

So many protests, like I’ve never done this before. I don’t have time to calm them all down.

We’re so close to the black hole that the filaments are charging faster than usual. Gotta watch them closely so they don’t overload.

Filaments charging: 30%

External comms

STARRY: That’s enough, all of you! Captain, Strider, Elliott: you’re all on the same comms line now. Strider, you’ve followed me through a Step before. Captain, you know I can do this.

RIEDE: Following you through a Step is how we ended up in this position in the first place.

STRIDER #3: Wait, your captain isn’t even on board?

CAPT: Not for this mission. Starry, you sure this is a solution?

STARRY: It’s the only solution if we’re all gonna get out of this. I’ll make the exit portal further out from the event horizon, and we should be able to build up enough momentum to sail free of the gravity tides. We’re not gonna get stuck again.

ELLIOTT: Starry, we haven’t even run diagnostics on the Step drive since I re-routed all your systems.

DINEEN: What? Your Step drive is damaged?

STARRY: Maybe, maybe not. Diagnostics are running. Charging is going smoothly.

Filaments charging: 63%

RIEDE: I don’t like the sound of this…

STRIDER #3: Shut up, Riede. Dineen, is our Step drive operational?

DINEEN: Well–

STARRY: No, Strider, you can’t Step. I have to do it. I just need you to be ready.

CAPT: Starry, can you use the net to negate the tides enough to pull free?

STARRY: I don’t think I can get enough charge to do that, not for the tides we’re caught in, and I can’t project the net behind me. I can’t push in two directions at once.

ELLIOTT: Definitely a bad idea.

DINEEN: Net? What the hell?

STARRY: Long story, explain later. It’s not gonna work, so don’t worry about it now. I’m almost at full charge.

ELLIOTT: Starry, diagnostics say that you’ve got two damaged filaments.

STARRY: Yeah, I see them. Recalculating the Step portal algorithms to compensate.

ELLIOTT: How are you planning to open up a portal behind the Strider?

STARRY: I’m working on it. We might need to go laterally for this.

STRIDER #3: Tash, get ready. We’re going to need to help.

STRIDER #5: (female voice) Yessir.

STARRY: Wait, who is that? Is that your pilot?

STRIDER #3: Yes, why?

STARRY: Get your pilot out of the chair.

STRIDER #3: She’s just going to help–

STARRY: GET THE PILOT OUT NOW.

ELLIOTT: Starry, it’s okay.

STARRY: No, it’s not!

CAPT: (calmly) Strider, I suggest you do as she asks. She doesn’t need your pilot’s assistance and won’t take you through the portal if your pilot’s in the chair.

STARRY: It’s too dangerous!

DINEEN: You want to fly us through a black hole and our pilot being in her chair is too dangerous?

STARRY: YES.

STRIDER #3: All right, all right, she’s out of the chair.

Filaments charged: 100%
Star Step drive ready

CAPT: Starry, you all right?

STARRY: I’m fine.

CAPT: You’ve got a plan? We need you to come back.

STARRY: Calculations are complete. I’ll be back before you know it, captain. Elliott, get strapped in, now.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, yeah, I’m workin’ on it.

Filaments charged: 110%

Shit.

STRIDER #3: We haven’t agreed to this yet.

STARRY: It’s this or we cut you loose. Your choice, Strider, but you have to make it now. I’m starting the lateral pass. Portal in thirty seconds.

RIEDE: This is nuts…

Two damaged filaments. The drive’s diagnostics are coming back with warnings but no failures. Minor burps, a few wobbles. The filaments writhe around me, hot with too much power, slippery. But I know this. I remember the echo of music, just out of hearing. I remember steps in a dance I don’t fully understand. Math flows through my systems, shifting and adjusting to compensate, and I almost hear Cirilli’s voice, clipped and sharp. I can almost feel her fingers on the Step drive’s controls, tailoring the algorithms, tidying the patterns.

I wonder if she saw it, the music in the fabric of time and space.

I’m dragging the Strider across the maw of the black hole. We need momentum to carry us through; I need to be able to tow her outside of reality without snagging her on the edges of the portal. I have no idea what would happen if the tow-lines caught. Would the portal cut them? Tear itself wider? Now is not the time to find out.

The gravity is pulling us in. I’m sliding sideways. It’s time. It’s now or never.

STARRY: Hold tight, everyone. Here we go.

Location: Bridge

SARA: (turns to look towards the nose of the ship, at the closed view-portals. Her eyes widen and she murmurs something softly, incoherently, before,) Visit whale? (She starts to jog towards the forward view-portals again.)

CASPER: (scoops her up while she’s distracted and trundles her quickly back to the central chair in the room. The harness sits open there, waiting for her.)

It’s time to dance, and whirl, and dive, right towards the mouth of the beast. I won’t be a meal today, though. I puncture the space before me, warp it beyond reality’s limits and fling it wide. As wide as I can with fingers that move too fast, tapping to a beat quicker than my heart.

SARA: (gasps and ducks her chin behind her toy, hugging it to her chest. She doesn’t react to Casper’s manhandling of her or the harness that wraps around her.)

The portal is ragged and shivering, a rough tear. Not my best work. I roll to make sure my wings don’t clip it, wriggle to pull the Strider through the middle, plunge outside of the universe.

Inertial dampeners offline

SARA: (blinks, then shrieks at the top of her lungs. Tears start again.)

CASPER: (lifts all of his hands away from her and tilts his head, scanning for signs of injury.)

External comms

STARRY: Strider, deactivate your inertial dampeners immediately.

(Three seconds pass. There is no response.)

STARRY: Strider, respond.

Do comms transmissions even work out here? I have no idea. Outside space and time, who knows how our laws of physics are interpreted.

Maybe that’s why it unravels us; it’s undoing rules that don’t apply here. Like we’re a bubble, bursting one molecule bond at a time.

Anyway, I hope the crew over there remembered to turn the inertial dampeners off. With no way to make readings, the dampeners could attempt to compensate for movement that hasn’t happened and squash the ship.

For me, it’s time to fly straight and careful. Keep pushing forward, through the image of the black hole that’s there and not there, that’s now and past and future all at once. It wasn’t always here. Won’t always be here. And yet is.

I see its path. All the colours of its history, white and yellow and red. I see where it cut off, became black. A blinding flash stutters. I try to record it all; I have a feeling we’ll need it later.

I see other things. The station here and not. I see it in pieces – construction or destruction? It’s gone too quick to tell. The sensor data floods me and there’s too much to hold onto it all. There’s everything and nothing. Focus on the important things. Save what I can.

Down the line of its fiery life, there are flickers of objects. It was busy here once. Rocks, balls, comets, maybe ships. Maybe planets. Too much data to tell, the flashes gone too quickly to grab.

It’s hard to concentrate when there’s a scream like a knife cutting through my Bridge. Casper tells me she’s not hurt. But she just keeps shrieking.

Location: Bridge

CASPER: (strokes the child’s head gingerly with one hand.)

SARA: (falls quiet and drags air into her lung in stutters, gulping it down. Her lips tremble and tears make her cheeks sticky. Then she shrieks again, as if she’s trying to tear up her own heart with sound alone. She rocks against the harness, hugging her whale and tipping her head back so the toy doesn’t muffle the sound of her upset.)

CASPER: (looks around the room, then shifts to squat beside the arm of the chair. He strokes the child’s hair and pats her shoulder, though she doesn’t seem to notice him.)

There’s nothing I can do about it, not now. Can’t let it distract me. I lock down those sensor feeds for now, file them away.

Warning: power leak detected
Warning: system failure in sector seven
System failover successful
Backup online
Warning

Shit. Sector seven is mid-deck, part of the Step calculation framework. The back-up is working, for now.

Have to get us out of here. I can’t really see the Celestial Strider behind me. The tow-lines are still taut and I still seem to be hauling something along, but I can’t get any real readings of her. Do we exist here? Does anything?

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (scowls at the red warnings painted on the air around him and tugs at his harness) Starry?

STARRY: (voice only) It’s fine, I’m on it. Stay where you are.

ELLIOTT: I should–

STARRY: You need to stay strapped in. It’s too dangerous mid-Step.

ELLIOTT: Fuck.

We have to get back, now. Have to calculate carefully. Pick the right spot on the Cerces timeline, and make sure I put the portal further away from the event horizon. I have to ignore the silence and hum with the right tune, weave my battered filaments in our clumsy dance.

This portal is even more ragged than the last one. The edges wobble like they want to collapse back in. I push my filaments harder, eke out the last of the charge they sucked up from Cerces. It has to stay open long enough for my sister and I to get through. Both of us. It has to.

The lack of inertial dampening cripples me. I creak with the strain, push as fast as I dare. Elliott is wincing in his harness and there’s a sudden silence on the Bridge. The pressure is stealing Sara’s breath. Not for long, I promise. Almost there, so close, and I can see the glimmer of the station through the portal…

Inertial dampeners online

We’re out! We are in the world again.

Can’t pile on the power just yet, though. Can’t yank at the Strider too hard or she’ll break, and all her people within her. Patience counted in micro-seconds is torture.

I see her! She’s passing through!

External comms

RIEDE: …GONNA DIE, ALL OF US. HOLY–

STRIDER #5 / TASH: We’re through, captain.

STRIDER #3: Thank you. Riede, take a breath before you pass out.

Location: Bridge

SARA: (hiccups and stops abruptly. She blinks up at Casper, bewildered.)

CASPER: (continues to stroke her hair.)

SARA: (starts to cry again, softly. She wriggles out of the harness and up onto the arm of the chair, so she can wrap her little arms around the drone’s metal neck. She sobs in weary gulps, hiding her face against him.)

CASPER: (wraps all four arms around her carefully.)

Portal closed

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (lets out a long breath and thumps the harness catch. The straps slither out of his way, letting him out of the chair.) Was it just me, or was that a bit hairier than our other Steps?

STARRY: I think I blew something on mid-deck.

ELLIOTT: (exasperated) Yeah, I saw the warnings. Fucking hell, Starry.

STARRY: I only do this stuff so you can’t leave, y’know.

ELLIOTT: (snorts and snatches up his helmet as he heads for the door) Yeah, right. So how’re we doing? Still gonna die?

STARRY: Pulling away from the black hole. Slowly.

ELLIOTT: So it worked. You’re gonna be insufferable, aren’t you?

STARRY: We’re not out of the woods yet. But… maybe a little bit, yeah.

ELLIOTT: (grins and pulls on his helmet.)

We’re making ground. Cerces’s gravity is strong here, but my engines are stronger and the Strider is helping, too. The tow-lines thrum with tension but they’re holding. We’re pulling away, one slow klick at a time. One step towards the station after another.

We made it. My sister’s gonna be okay. We’re all okay.

External comms: Celestial Strider

STARRY: Strider, we’re in the home stretch now. How’re you doing over there?

STRIDER #3: Hanging in there. How long until we reach the station?

STARRY: It’s gonna take us some time to get free. An hour or so, maybe. Why? What’s wrong?

STRIDER #3: We have injured here. Need medical assistance.

STARRY: Can you hold out for an hour?

STRIDER #3: Yes, it’s nothing major.

RIEDE: Bitch broke my arm! Ah, don’t touch me!

TASH: Such a baby.

STRIDER #3: But fast is better than slow. We had another blow-out here. We’re patching it but it’s not going to hold forever.

STARRY: Going as fast as I can, Strider. We’ll get you there.

On the plus side, they’re not talking about shooting at me any more. I guess Riede has other things to worry about.

External comms: station

STARRY: Captain? Captain, are you receiving? We’re back.

(Three seconds pass. There is no response.)

STARRY: Captain? Captain, respond.

Oh no. He was right there when I left! Where is he? Why isn’t he answering? I knew I shouldn’t have left him behind. He belongs on board me, where I can keep an eye on him, and Lang Lang, and the Lieutenant, and the doc. They’re my people. Why aren’t they answering?

STARRY: Sarabande, anyone, hello? Can you hear me?

I can talk to the Strider, so I know my external comms are working. But I am picking up some weird readings on my decks. I didn’t detect another instability in my systems, no surges or burps, but there are twitches…

Oh captain, my captain, where are you? I need you.

(A scraping noise comes over the comms.)

CAPT: (roughly) Starry?

STARRY: Yes! Captain!

CAPT: Starry, where the hell have you been?

Ship's log, 16:02, 22 July 2214
Location: On approach to the Cerces black hole
Status: Sublight transit

External comms

CELESTIAL STRIDER #1: (male voice) Battlestations! Battlestations, everyone! Weapons hot!

STRIDER #2: (female voice) What? I’m busy with the engines here, so we don’t fall into this black hole and die, and now you want weapons systems?

STARRY: What’s going on over there, Strider?

STRIDER #1: We’ve got the Starwalker incoming. Dammit, Dineen, give me weapons!

STRIDER #2 / DINEEN: I need all available power for propulsion.

STRIDER #3: (male voice) What’s the Starwalker going to do, push us in even faster?

STARRY: (sighing) No, she’s going to pull you out of there. Stand down from your weapons, Strider. The Starwalker‘s coming to tow you to the station.

STRIDER #1: And we’re just supposed to believe that? She’s the one who put us here.

STARRY: As one of your people just pointed out, she doesn’t need to do anything to kill you; she could just stand back. She’s coming to help.

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (hurrying into the room and tapping at the holographic interface on his left forearm) Starry, are they weapons-hot?

STARRY: (appearing off to his left) Yes. They’re talking about shooting at us.

ELLIOTT: What the fuck is wrong with them?

STARRY: They just noticed the name on my ident. I’m talking to them.

ELLIOTT: And that’s supposed to help?

STARRY: Well… they kinda think they’re talking to the station.

ELLIOTT: Fuck, Starry.

STARRY: It’s okay, they can’t slow their descent and shoot at us at the same time.

ELLIOTT: And when they’re free of the black hole?

STARRY: (falters) We’ll… just have to deal with that, I guess.

ELLIOTT: With what? I ain’t done repairing our offensive systems yet, never mind restocking your ammo.

STARRY: True. Maybe harsh language will work?

ELLIOTT: (punching at his interface again) Fuck.

Location: Bridge

SARA: (grabs the ledge at the bottom of a forward view-portal and tries to pull herself up. The portal’s shielding is currently closed, blocking any view of the outside of the ship. The little girl’s legs are too short; she can’t quite get her foot up onto the ledge.)

CASPER: (sits behind her and watches her attempts. After a moment, he trundles forward and picks her up in two of his hands to place her carefully on the ledge. A third hand picks up the stuffed whale from where it fell off the ledge onto the floor.)

SARA: (beams at the drone and pats him on the head. Then she holds out her hands for her toy.)

CASPER: (gives her the whale.)

SARA: (tucks the whale under one arm. Then she turns to the forward view-portal and pushes on it with one hand, grunting with the strain.)

CASPER: (tilts his head as he watches her and settles back to wait.)

SARA: (pushes harder, and then whaps it with her stuffed toy. When the shielding fails to respond, her face crumples up and a high-pitched whining begins.)

CASPER: (looks around the Bridge.)

SARA: (begins try cry in earnest.)

STARRY: (appears next to the drone, looking harried) Casper, you’re supposed to be keeping her busy and quiet. What’s going on?

CASPER: (points at the view-portal, then shrugs.)

STARRY: Well, she can’t– Sara? Sara, honey, look at me.

SARA: (turns her head just enough to see the ship’s avatar out of the corner of her eye, still crying loudly and with determination.)

STARRY: Sara, we’re approaching the black hole. It’s too dangerous to open the portal right now. That shielding is there to protect–

SARA: (sobs louder, drowning out the ship’s words.)

STARRY: (looks at her helplessly and sighs) I don’t have time for this. Sara, you want to see the black hole?

SARA: (nods, gulping and crying and sobbing all at once.)

STARRY: Okay, but I need you to go sit in the seat over there. (She points to the chair in the middle of the Bridge.) Then you’ll be able to see it. All right?

SARA: (cries loudly.)

STARRY: Casper, get her in the chair and lashed in. Projection will be up in a moment. (She disappears.)

CASPER: (trundles forward to pick up the child.)

SARA: (struggles and kicks when she’s picked up, her cries rising several decibels and bouncing off the Bridge’s walls.)

CASPER: (holds the girl away from himself so her flailing limbs can’t strike him, and whisks her over to the captain’s chair. The harness wraps around her little struggling body as soon as she touches it.)

(In the air between the child and the forward portals, a hologram of the black hole swells and spins, spreading to the walls and making the nose of the ship seem to disappear.)

SARA: (hiccups and blinks, surprised into silence when the hologram appears. She looks at Casper, then back to the vortex spinning patiently before her, with wide, wet eyes. Her voice is small and hopeful.) Whale?

External comms

STARRY: I said, stand down, Strider!

STRIDER #1: You don’t understand, the Starwalker, she–

STARRY: I do understand! Do you see any weapons active? No? Then shut up and sit still. I’m coming around to line up the grapples.

STRIDER #3: Wait, who is this?

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (fastening up his suit as he strides out of Engineering, keeping on eye on the readouts displayed above his left forearm) Starry, it’s looking pretty rough out there.

STARRY: Yeah, they’re pretty close in. We don’t have much time.

ELLIOTT: You sure we’re going to make this?

STARRY: I’m sure. We have to, Elliott. I’m not leaving them.

ELLIOTT: (turning down towards the cargo bays) ‘Course you’re not. All right, let’s do this. Going to the starboard grapple.

STARRY: Big Ass is on the port side. Thirty seconds until we’re in range.

ELLIOTT: (clips his helmet on and breaks into a jog.)

External comms

STRIDER #1: What?

STRIDER #3: I’d like to know who I’m gonna die with.

STARRY: No-one’s dying today, do you hear me? Now, shut up and listen. We’re fifteen seconds out, and we’re only gonna get one shot at this.

STRIDER #1: Shot?

STARRY: It’s a figure of speech! There’s no time – you’re too close in. Just keep still, Strider! Grapples deploying.

Location: Cargo Bay 3

ELLIOTT: (in the airlock, mag-boots planted firmly, with a cable as thick as his arm unspooling from a massive wheel. The cable slides past his feet and out of the open airlock towards the gleaming black swirl of the singularity. He lowers the big crossbow-like device in his arms, grinning inside his helmet.) WHOOO-HOOO, gotcha. How’s that for a perfect shot?

STARRY: Not bad! Starboard grapple secure. Turning to deploy the port side grapple… You’d better get inside.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. The grapples holding?

STARRY: Almost, almost… port grapple’s having trouble getting a good hold.

ELLIOTT: (heading back into the ship proper) This is what happens when you don’t give me enough time to calibrate them. Or I’m just a better shot than you.

STARRY: Not likely. It’s holding! Both grapples are holding.

ELLIOTT: Good girl. You got tension?

STARRY: Coming about…

ELLIOTT: Try not to rip the mountings out, okay?

External comms

DINEEN: Contact! We got contact. Augh!

STARRY: Grapples have you, Strider. What’s wrong?

DINEEN: It’s a bit fucking rough at this end! Inertial dampeners aren’t handling the gravity fluctuations.

STARRY: It’s about to get rougher. I’m gonna try to drag you laterally, build up some momentum before we arc free.

STRIDER #3: I knew it: we’re talking to the Starwalker.

STARRY: Yeah. I had the station transfer your call to coordinate the rescue. You gonna whine about it or hang onto something while I pull your ass out of the fire?

STRIDER #1: (angrily) But you’re the one who put us into–

STRIDER #3: Shut up, Riede. All right, Starwalker. We’ll sort out the rest later. Tell us what you need us to do.

DINEEN: Oh, you’ve decided to be in charge, have you?

STRIDER #3: You wanna die today, Dineen? I didn’t think so. Let’s just get out of this, shall we?

STARRY: Okay, Strider. I’m taking up the slack; you’re gonna feel a little jolt.

STRIDER: (various cries and thuds.)

STARRY: Strider, you all right over there? Strider, respond.

Location: Cargo Bay Access Corridor

ELLIOTT: (standing between the two rear cargo bays, he watches his holo-display ripple with data) Easy does it, Starry.

STARRY: Tow cables are holding. I’m not getting a lot of traction here, though.

ELLIOTT: The Strider‘s too close to the event horizon. They must have rigged the inertial dampeners up to counter the gravitational forces – they must be all that’s holding her hull together right now.

STARRY: It’s okay, we can do this. I’ve halted their descent.

ELLIOTT: We need to do a hell of a lot more than that if we’re gonna get them out of there.

STARRY: Yeah. I’m working on it.

External comms

STARRY: Strider, please respond. Dineen? Riede? Can you hear me?

STRIDER #1 / RIEDE: Yes! Yes, we hear you.

STRIDER #3: We seem to be holding position.

STARRY: I’m trying to work you free. Can you get any more power to your engines?

DINEEN: Everything we’ve got is there already. Even the emergency systems are offline.

STRIDER #3: What? You didn’t tell us that.

DINEEN: What was the point? Emergency systems ain’t gonna help us inside a black hole.

STARRY: Okay, Strider, I understand. Just keep doing what you’re doing.

STRIDER #3: What are you going to do?

STARRY: Not sure yet. Probably something stupid.

RIEDE: Wait, what?

Location: Bridge

(In the centre of the room, the hologram has blossomed, showing the swirling maw of the black hole in vivid detail. It spins and glimmers darkly.)

SARA: (wriggles out of the chair’s harness and bolts across the floor until she’s standing inside the hologram.)

CASPER: (makes a grab for her as she rushes past him, and misses. He turns and trundles patiently after her, but pauses before he enters the projected image.)

SARA: (looks up at the light of the black hole all around her, beaming brightly. Her cheeks are still red and smeared with tears, but she has clearly forgotten them now. She laughs, burbling incoherently, and grasps a hand at the trail of spinning matter.)

CASPER: (tilts his head as he watches her.)

External comms: station

CAPTAIN: Starry, report!

STARRY: We’ve got them on the hook, captain. Little busy here.

CAPT: Why are you circling around like that?

STARRY: Having a little trouble working them loose. Trying to find the best angle to gain some momentum here.

CAPT: What does Monaghan say?

STARRY: A lot of things that would make a whore blush. We’re working on the problem.

CAPT: All right. Just remember your orders.

STARRY: (quietly) I’ll cut them loose if I have to, if there’s no other way.

CAPT: Yes. Last resort. Keep me updated, Starwalker. Good luck.

External comms: Celestial Strider

DINEEN: You keep hauling at us like that, you’re gonna pull us apart!

STARRY: I’m doing my best here!

STRIDER #4: (female voice, calmly) We’ve slipped too close to the event horizon. They’re not going to be able to get us out.

STRIDER #3: I don’t accept that! We’re not dead yet; there must be a way. Dineen?

DINEEN: I’m doing everything I can. I don’t know what else to try.

RIEDE: There must be something.

Location: Cargo Bay Access Corridor

STARRY: (voice only) Elliott, I need more power to the engines.

ELLIOTT: I just installed them; don’t you dare try to burn them out already.

STARRY: (appearing in front of him) I need more power to break them free. I’m at max thrust just keeping them still.

ELLIOTT: You’re at max power keeping both of us out of that black hole. It ain’t just their mass we’ve gotta worry about here.

STARRY: Mass. Maybe that’s it, if we lose some mass….

ELLIOTT: You’re pretty empty already, Starry. Ain’t much we can lose here.

STARRY: That’s us, but what about…

External comms: Celestial Strider

STARRY: Strider, can you jettison any cargo?

DINEEN: What, you think we didn’t think of that? We got rid of all non-essential equipment the first time we lost ground out here. Supplies, ammo, everything.

RIEDE: You jettisoned our ammo?

DINEEN: Yeah, that’s what’s important right now, let’s focus on that.

STARRY: Look, I’ll try more thrust. Hold on.

ELLIOTT: (breaking into the comm line) Starry, stop! You’ll tear the tow-lines right out of their anchors.

STRIDER #3: And you’re gonna tear us apart, too! I dunno who that is, but you should listen to him.

STARRY: All right, all right! I’m backing off.

RIEDE: (bleakly) Oh god, Nerozina is right. We’re really not going to make it out of this.

Location: Bridge

SARA: (dances around in the hologram, arms out and fingers trailing through the projected light. She laughs and runs to pick up her stuffed whale from where she had dropped it. She throws him clumsily, right into the holographic maw, and trots after him with a giggle.)

External comms: Celestial Strider

STARRY: I’m not ready to give up yet.

RIEDE: You have another bright idea?

ELLIOTT: I’m all out of options here. Can’t fight physics.

STARRY: (tone brightening) But we can. It’s what we were sent out here to do, right?

ELLIOTT: Oh, fuck me…

STARRY: Strider, I do have another idea, but you’re probably not going to like it.

RIEDE: What the hell does that mean? There’s no way you’re gonna pull us out of here, not without ripping one or both ships apart.

STARRY: You’re right. I can’t pull you out of the black hole, so we’re gonna have to go through it.

Star Step drive initialising...

Ship's log, 15:04, 22 July 2214
Location: Near Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked, powered down

I’m almost ready to go get my sister. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t excited.

And scared. The captain is nervous about how the crew of the Celestial Strider is going to react to us, and what they might do once we’re within reach.

He’s not wrong to be cautious. They have so many reasons to be angry with us, to exact some kind of revenge upon us. They might have known some of the people we killed at Feras, those who worked on the project or who tried to defend it all from us. We attacked the Strider directly, too, and I know they lost a couple of their crew. And now, three weeks stuck on the edge of a black hole, hanging on by chipped fingernails and fighting not to get sucked in, all the while surrounded by ghosts plucked out of their own minds, because of the things we did.

Yes, they have plenty of reasons to be angry with us. And one they don’t even know about: they don’t know that they’ve been talking to me all this time. They might have seen me flying around the system, but they don’t know that we’re in control of the station. The Starwalker and her crew, the reason for everything bad that has happened to them, has been chatting with them. I’ve been the voice across the vacuum, promising them rescue and hope. I’ve been lying to them all this time.

The captain is right: it’s crazy to free them. They will attack us. Why wouldn’t they? I would, if it was me in their place and they were here.

At the same time, I don’t want to leave them out there to die. They slipped a few hundred klicks closer to the event horizon of the black hole last night. They have almost run out of workarounds they can do on their systems; they can’t last out there much longer. If we don’t help them, they’ll be lost, and it’ll be doubly our fault.

Elliott is grouchy with me about this, too. The captain I expected, and I can just about deal with him being tense with me, but I wasn’t prepared to battle Elliiott about it as well.

He’s upset for different reasons, though. Elliott built the tug harness into me, anchoring it to my core bulkheads near my rear cargo holds. He muttered almost the whole time about the stresses on my frame and what it might all do to me. He just got done running me through integrity checks and now I’m going to put strain on myself that I’m not built to handle. But only one of the station’s tugs is operational and it can’t get as close to the black hole as I can. It won’t be able to reach them.

As it is, I’m not sure about my ability to get really close to the black hole. I haven’t run up the Step drive since we got into this system and there are still a few warnings being reported on the latent diagnostics. I think parts of it are worse for wear. I’ll have to be careful about this.

Careful, but I won’t turn away. I can’t. We’re their last chance. I knew as soon as I fired those missiles at them that it was a mistake. I’d have taken them back if I could. I can’t, though. I can’t give them the lives of their lost crew back, or the last three weeks. But I can pull them out of the hole they’re in and give them a chance.

Who knows, maybe once we explain to them everything that has happened to us, why we attacked Feras, they’ll understand. They might even forgive us. They might want to help us.

A ship can hope, right?

The captain is spending a lot of time with the doctor over in the station’s Med Bay, discussing how we might talk to this black hole’s avatar. And weapons, weirdly enough. I’ve been leaving them to it, with plenty inside my own hull to worry about. The captain has things in hand; he’ll tell me what he needs me to do.

Location: Bridge

ELLIOTT: Starry? (He shoves his favourite scanner back into its sheath on his toolbelt and bends to pick up the panel resting near his foot, so that he can slide it back into place on the wall in front of him.)

STARRY: (avatar resolving behind his right shoulder) Yes? Did you find it?

ELLIOTT: Not a fucking thing.

STARRY: What?

ELLIOTT: (leaning on the lower right corner of the panel until it clicks) There’s nothing there. The systems are clean. I told you, I went over them a dozen times after I relaid all the cables. Diagnostics are clear. Hands-on scans are just fine.

STARRY: But…

ELLIOTT: (turning to face her) There’s nothing there. You sure the sensors were acting up?

STARRY: Yes. Though now that I review the logs, they seem fine. There’s just a little blur where…

ELLIOTT: (huffs and scruffs a hand over his hair) Where what?

STARRY: (blinks at him) Nothing, I guess. Must have been a burp in the feed or something.

ELLIOTT: Run diagnostics over your sensor relays again. If there’s a fault somewhere, that should flush it out.

STARRY: Okay, diagnostics running.

ELLIOTT: (re-settles his toolbelt on his hips and heads to the Bridge exit) What did you see, anyway?

STARRY: (walking alongside him) I don’t know. It was just a glitch.

Dammit. I could have sworn that… no, it was just a data burp. If Elliott can’t find anything there, there’s nothing to find. And the sensor log doesn’t show what I thought I saw in the feed, which is impossible. Just a blur, a little spot of data corruption.

There’s probably a gremlin somewhere in my systems, snacking on shards of sensor data and wearing my bits as a blanket. Little bastard, I hope we squish you soon. I’m gonna program one of my security dog-programs to sniff you out. Then we’ll see who’s nibbling on whom.

ELLIOTT: So, can I get back to real problems now?

STARRY: Yeah. Sorry to waste your time.

ELLIOTT: Oh yeah, no problem, I ain’t got anything better to do.

STARRY: (heads droops.)

ELLIOTT: (glances at her) Oh, don’t look like that.

STARRY: At least it wasn’t anything serious, right?

ELLIOTT: Yeah. I’m gonna go back to those tow-line anchors now.

STARRY: Okay. Will you come see me later? When you’re done?

ELLIOTT: (glances at her again, with a twitch of a smile this time) Yeah, all right.

STARRY: (smiles with relief, then she stops dead and blinks.)

ELLIOTT: (halts as well, turning to look at her with a frown) What is it?

STARRY: What? (She focuses on him again.)

ELLIOTT: You’ve got that face on.

STARRY: What face?

ELLIOTT: The ‘I just heard something disturbing’ face.

STARRY: Oh. Uh, yeah. The Strider is hailing the station. They’re… they’re slipping again.

ELLIOTT: (frowning) Bad?

STARRY: (head tilting as if she’s listening to something outside of his hearing range) I’m still gathering details… but… (Her head lifts abruptly.) I’m calling the captain.

ELLIOTT: Are they falling in?

STARRY: (nods, her face full of worry) Yeah. They can’t maintain position any more. If we’re gonna go get them, we have to do it now.

ELLIOTT: What? Starry, we ain’t ready. I haven’t done with the anchors yet.

STARRY: Then you’d better finish in the time it takes me to reach them, because if we don’t go now, we’re not gonna need those anchors at all.

ELLIOTT: (running off down the corridor) Fuck.

I’m having the same conversation with the captain. The black hole’s inexorable gravity has forced our hand: it’s now or never. It’s rescue or murder. It’s try or regret.

Undocking release granted
Umbilicals disconnecting

Station comms
Location: Med Bay

CAPTAIN: …not ready.

STARRY: (voice only) I’m aware of that, captain. But we have to be ready enough, or they’re gone.

CAPT: Starry…

Umbilicals released
Docking clamps released
Manoeuvring thrusters online
Sublight engines online
FTL drive online
Weapons systems online

STARRY: Are you ordering me not to go?

CAPT: (hesitates, then sighs) No. Go, do what you can. But I am ordering you to come back, whatever it takes.

STARRY: Aye aye, captain.

CAPT: Even if you have to leave them. You’re not to sacrifice yourself, do you understand?

STARRY: I copy you, sir. I’ll do my best.

CAPT: You’ve already undocked, haven’t you?

STARRY: Pushing out to full burn distance now.

CAPT: Good luck, Starry. Fly safe.

STARRY: As safe as I can when my destination is a black hole, sir.

CAPT: Just come back. Doctor, it looks like our timetable got moved up. How long until you can be ready?

Another couple of seconds until I’m far enough away from the docking ring to punch to full sublight. Mustn’t burn the station behind me. Patience… but they’re so scared. I transferred their comm connection from the station to my own systems, and they’re in a bad way. I can hear the ship fizzing in the background, the crackle of flames and the hiss of the suppressants. She groans, trying so hard to hold on.

External comms

STARRY: You need to hold out as long as you can, Strider. Rescue ship dispatched and on its way to you now.

CELESTIAL STRIDER #1: (male voice) Tell it to hurry up!

STARRY: It’s going as fast as its sublights will burn.

STRIDER #1: We’ve got casualties….

STRIDER #2: (female voice) The port-side wing sublight blew out. That whole side’s fucked. No way we can hold position now.

STARRY: Acknowledged, Strider. We need you to slow your descent as much as you can. Give us time to get to you.

STRIDER #2: (angrily) What the fuck do you think we’re doing here?

STARRY: We’re on the way, we’ll be there in a few minutes.

A few minutes. Even at full sublight, it’s going to take me a while to get to them. Half an hour, maybe. I can’t risk the engines; if I over-tax them now, I might not have enough left to pull them free.

Hold on, Strider. Just hold on…

Location: Cargo bay access corridor

ELLIOTT: (standing near the door to Cargo Bay 4) Uh, Starry?

STARRY: (voice only) We’re on our way to the Strider now, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, that’s nice, but did you check before you sealed the airlocks?

STARRY: Check what?

ELLIOTT: For that. (He gestures at the spot in front of him.)

SARA: (stares up at him with wide eyes, hugging her stuffed whale to her chest.)

STARRY: Uh… no?

ELLIOTT: For fuck’s sake, Starry!

STARRY: Elliott, the kid…

ELLIOTT: Is here! She shouldn’t be here!

SARA: (lower lip starting to tremble.)

ELLIOTT: (scowls at her) Don’t start that. I know you’re too stupid to know what’s going on here.

SARA: (tucks her chin down behind her whale.)

STARRY: There’s no time to take her back. We just have to not mess this up. I’m sending Casper down to keep an eye on her.

ELLIOTT: (huffs) Just keep her out of my way, all right?

Shit. She has been wandering on and off me for a few days now; I guess I lost track. Didn’t even scan for her.

The captain’s going to kill me. He’s going to staple ‘check your manifest’ protocols all over my docking controls. I wouldn’t blame him. I should be better at it than this.

SARA: (turns to watch Elliott hurry aft down the corridor, peeking over the top of her whale and sniffing. Then she blinks and lifts her head to look in the opposite direction, distracted.) Whale? Whale! (She toddles towards the forward part of the ship.)

Of course she knows where we’re going. Why wouldn’t she? And I’ve got blurs on three decks. Of course it chooses now to happen again.

Because this rescue mission isn’t going to be difficult enough, what’s a few more complications?

Captain's log, 15:57, 21 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down
Log location: Captain's cabin

This is Captain Warwick reporting on the situation at Sarabande Station.

Things here continue to be… as crazy as ever. We are dealing with the ghosts as best we can, which is no solution to the problem but might stave off the fate that left this station so empty. For a while, at least.

The people of Sarabande Station were like us: abandoned by their company to survive however they could in a damaging situation. Only a handful of them made it this far: a maintenance mechanic; a young child watched over by a nanny-bot; and a man whose mind snapped months before we arrived. The rest of the life signs we can detect on the station seem to be animals, scraping a life from what has been left behind.

There won’t be anyone coming for them. Their only hope is us.

And we are left with a choice. The Starwalker‘s engines are fixed. She has passed all of her structural integrity tests and Monaghan is satisfied that she’s spaceworthy. He’s still working on her less critical systems, but she’s self-sufficient again. There’s nothing that he couldn’t work on in transit, nothing he needs the station for beyond supplies to stuff our cargo holds with.

We could leave.

If only it was that simple. There are so many things that keep us here, enough that no-one is truly talking about undocking and burning our way out of this whole damned sector. The whole crew knows we have unfinished business here.

We still have injured who are best cared for in the station’s Med Bay; it has more extensive equipment than our standard ship-board offering. Lang Lang’s leg is still being reconstructed and Dr Valdimir wants to keep an eye on its progress using the station’s medical scanner. Reconstructions can be tricky and take time, and according to the doctor’s report, there was a lot of damaged tissue to be replaced.

Starry also wants to try to revive the crew we have in storage, now that we have equipment likely to be up to the job and no-one around who will ask questions. She’s right; we owe it to them to try, and to delay would be selfish to say the least. We shouldn’t keep them in cryogenic storage as symbols of a future hope, afraid to see it tested in case it fails. It’s time to find out if we really can get them back.

We might be able to save them, but I can’t say the same about our Chief Cameron. The doctor believes she’s gone and never coming back, and I have no reason to doubt him. He may not be the most personable character but he’s good at what he does. At some point we have to break the news to the crew. I’ve been delaying it because my people need a chance to recover from everything that has happening and is happening. They deserved to be happy when Lang Lang woke up and I can’t bring myself to spoil the lightness she brings to the group. We’ll leave that announcement for now, I think. It’s not time, not yet.

Medical issues are one thing, but they’re not everyone’s chief concern. More than anything else, it’s the situation that haunts this system that is holding us here. When we welcomed Lang Lang back, the crew agreed that if we don’t try to tackle the source of the haunting, it’ll probably never be fixed. The data we have at our disposal combined with the Step drive technology could be the key we need to put these ghosts to rest, so to speak. We have a responsibility here. A duty of care to these people we’ve found. A job we believe that no other ship or crew could do.

The station’s remaining population might survive just fine if we left, but is surviving enough? I don’t believe that. Iggulden, the Acting Commander of the station, seems to have adjusted the best to the situation, and he barely leaves his cave. He pulled down all of the sensors in his cave so that he could lose himself in the illusions when he wanted to.

Dr Valdimir’s report on Brenn Haitom states that he had a psychotic break and now has a shaky relationship with reality at best. It’s unlikely that he’ll recover outside of a dedicated psychiatric facility, if at all. He seems to enjoy a peculiar insight into this black hole entity but it remains to be seen whether he can be of any material help to us as we try to communicate with it. But he hardly seems content in his incarceration and I can’t say whether it would be right or humane to leave him there.

And then there’s little Sara. She deserves a better life than a nanny ‘bot, a station full of ghosts, and a whale that whispers to her. We can’t let her stay here. Even though I swore I’d never have a child aboard my ship again, I won’t leave her behind.

But before any of that, we need to resolve this ghost phenomenon. Dr Valdimir has been working on some possible avenues of communication, and he believes that our best course of action is some kind of induced coma. Perhaps by emulating the condition that Lang Lang was recently in and retaining enough consciousness to direct a conversation, we can make real contact with this entity. Black hole, avatar, ghost of a dead star: it’s hard to say what it is, but we’re all sure we need to talk to it. Because it’s apparently trying to talk to us. And who are we to refuse such an invitation? I’d be lying if I didn’t think that part of the reason we want to stay here is the novelty of it all. Most of our science contingent may have been lost along the way, but I suppose we all want to be part of a discovery like this.

The main question we have to answer right now is: who. Who is best placed to conduct this conversation with our ghost-master? Valdimir has the intelligence and skills to do it, but he says that he’s needed to monitor the situation on a medical level. There is only a small physical risk involved in the process, but we don’t know what the mental or emotional risks are. We cannot gamble with the one person who might be able to heal the impacts of our experiment.

After all, we don’t know what broke Brenn Haitom’s mind.

If not the doctor, then who? None of my people are expendable. There are simply questions we cannot answer and risks we have no way to mitigate. Can I chance the life of any of them with this? Can I ask any of them to do it?

No, it should be me who steps into this tunnel.

Though I’m not sure about–

STARRY: (voice only) Excuse me, captain?

CAPTAIN: (lifts his gaze from the surface of his desk) Yes, Starry?

STARRY: (appears before his desk) I wanted to ask about the Celestial Strider.

CAPT: (leans back in his chair) What about it? Has something changed?

STARRY: No. Well, yes.

CAPT: What happened?

STARRY: I got fixed. I can go get them out of there now.

CAPT: Now isn’t the time, Starry. We have a lot to deal with here.

STARRY: They have a lot to deal with out there. They’re closer to it, and they’re trapped there. And it’s us who put them there.

CAPT: (frowning) I’m aware of that.

STARRY: Then don’t we owe it to them to get them out?

CAPT: It’s risky. They could turn on us. They could even outnumber us.

STARRY: You said we’d go get them. You promised.

CAPT: Starry…

STARRY: You don’t have to be there. I can do it on my own. Maybe just take Elliott, in case something breaks. You can be waiting at whatever dock we put them at with the SecOffs and whoever else wants to hold a gun.

CAPT: It’s not my habit to let my ship go off without me.

STARRY: And it’s not my habit to leave any of my people behind, either. But you promised. And so did I, to them.

CAPT: (gives her a long look) This is important to you, isn’t it?

STARRY: (glances down at her toes) She’s my sister. And they’re not doing well out there.

CAPT: You’ve been talking to them?

STARRY: (nods) Most days. They check in with the station pretty regularly, asking where their rescue is.

CAPT: And the ship, is she like you?

STARRY: What? No, she’s a regular AI.

CAPT: You just seem very attached to this sister.

STARRY: I… it’s just… it’s hard to explain. She’s… she’s what I should have been. What I could have been. And ships are always made in pairs, you know that. We’re connected. And I put them there, where they are now. What happened wasn’t their fault, none of it was.

Captain, they’ve been seeing the ghosts longer than we have, and chasing the damage around in their ship, just trying to maintain position and stay alive. They sound more tired every time I talk to them. They can’t keep this up forever, and we can’t just leave them there. It’s not… it’s not us.

CAPT: (sighs and smooths his hair back with one hand) No, you’re right: we can’t leave them out there.

STARRY: (brightening) So we can go get her?

CAPT: (leans forward, placing his elbows on his desk) I want an integrity report from Monaghan to verify that your bulkheads can take the stresses of pulling a ship of that mass out of a gravity well. He’ll have to rig something up, no doubt; you’re no tug-boat. And call Brasco and Laurence in for a chat about security. Do we know how many crew the Strider has?

STARRY: Seven at last report.

CAPT: All right. And get me a report of weapon stocks and locations on board the station.

STARRY: Yup, done. (Her gaze slips past the captain and confusion flutters over her face.)

CAPT: What is it?

STARRY: (softly) Dav– (She blinks and shakes her head, then looks at the captain again.) Nothing. Elliott must be playing with my systems.

CAPT: Tell him not to scramble anything. Did you need anything else?

STARRY: I… no. I’ll ask Elliott to get right on that report. Can I tell them we’re coming to get them soon, then? Like, today, or tomorrow?

CAPT: Don’t make any promises yet, Starry. Let’s get ourselves set up for it first.

STARRY: (presses her lips together and takes a breath as if she’s about to speak.)

CAPT: (holds up a hand before she can) But soon. Valdimir and I are figuring out a plan for this black hole avatar; Monaghan and the SecOffs can work on this. All right?

STARRY: (relaxes into a smile) Okay.

CAPT: (nods) Dismissed.

STARRY: (flips a casual salute and disappears.)

It’s moments like this when I’m glad I didn’t go into the military. Her salutes always irritated Cameron, though the Chief never said anything about it. Some things are ingrained in us from too many years walking in the same lines.

Anyway. Where was I?

The plan to talk to the black hole. It sounds ludicrous when I say it out loud, but it’s the truth. There’s a consciousness there and we mean to contact it, somehow.

And now, closer to home, we hope to reason with a group of beings who have solid reasons to be furious with – even violent towards – us. We shouldn’t split our focus this way, not with the dangers we’re about to bring onto ourselves. But Starry is right: if we leave the Strider out there too much longer, there might not be anything left to save.

Leaving people to die is not who we are. We have done many questionable things lately, but we can’t let this be one of them.

Perhaps being this close to the abyss, we see ourselves reflected in it far too easily. Or we run from darkness too quickly. It is an effort to remember who we are, even with the ghosts of our past all around us.

(The door chimes as someone requests admittance. The central panel in the door shivers and shows an image of Rosie and the Lieutenant standing outside.)

That was quick. I suspect this ship of ours already had our people lined up and ready to go. Just when does preparedness slide into cheekiness?

Sometimes, she reminds me so much of Danika.

CAPT: (sighing) Enter.

End log

Ship's log, 13:37, 19 July 2214
Location: Near Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Adrift, engines disabled

He’s actually coming. I had half-expected him to refuse and stamp off in a huff. Am I prepared for this? I don’t know. All this processing power and not a clue about what to do.

Engineering immersion chair active

Shit. Here we go.

Log location: Internal ship's systems, Node 1294-HR2

(Elliott’s avatar resolves and a sensory representation of the ship’s systems comes into focus around him, as if constructed for his benefit.

It’s not the smooth, clean world he’s used to in here. Pipes of brightly-coloured data twist all around him – over, under, and in snake-like tangles on either side of him – close enough for him to touch. They’re neon-bright against the black backdrop, and they create a bumpy surface under his booted feet.

A nearby processing node is a chaotic cluster of light and data transformations. It looks like a nest of snakes is eating it. Through the gaps between data lines, the fitful glimmer of other nodes can be seen in the distance, connected by tangled wires and interminable space.

Elliott turns slowly on the spot, his tense expression clamping down into unhappiness as he takes in the scene. He lays a hand on a data pipe and the colour flushes brighter in response. Curiously, he pushes at the pipe; it bends like a rubber hose.)

ELLIOTT: Starry?

(There’s no immediate answer, so he starts walking where there’s enough space for him. After a couple of steps, he’s forced to start pushing the pipes aside with his hands so he can get through.

Suddenly, a hand grabs his elbow and yanks him to a stop.)

STARRY: Elliott, look out!

ELLIOTT: (looks down. Under his next step, yawning blackness falls away from him. He swallows and stumbles back a step.) What the hell?

STARRY: Sorry, it took me a moment to figure out where you came in.

ELLIOTT: Not that. That. (He nods to the gap before him, and crouches to peer cautiously down into it.)

STARRY: Oh. That’s where I’ve been processing the station’s sensor feeds. I shut it down when we undocked.

ELLIOTT: (leans out to gaze down into it, but there’s only darkness down there. He rises again, shaking his head as he looks around.) Fucking hell, Starry.

STARRY: (glances around and sighs, running a hand through her hair) Yeah, it’s a bit of a work in progress in here. Hold on.

(The ship’s avatar takes Elliott’s hand and closes her eyes. The world ripples. Data lines writhe away from the two avatars, opening up the space around them. The surface under their feet smooths out and panes of glass rise at the edges of the lit plain they’re standing on. The sky is still hidden behind a ceiling of pipes, but they have room to move around now.)

ELLIOTT: (runs a glance over the transformation, but for the most part he watches Starry) What’s going on in here? It’s a mess.

STARRY: (opens her eyes again and gives him a shy smile, releasing his hand) I’m still getting my systems embedded on the new hardware. Hooking up with the station complicated things.

ELLIOTT: There’s way more data traffic than there should be.

STARRY: Yeah, I had to duplicate all the systems. First, when I started to lose hardware, for failovers. Then again to migrate everything back into place. It’s taking longer than I thought it would.

ELLIOTT: Why didn’t you tell me?

STARRY: (tilts her head at him) It’s not a problem; there’s nothing wrong in here. It’s just a bit messy. And you’ve had more important things to worry about.

ELLIOTT: (scowls at her) That ain’t for you to say.

STARRY: (expression faltering) I… no, I know. And if there had been a problem, I’d have told you about it. I promise. You’ve been working so hard on the rest of me. I said I’d sort this part out, and I am doing it. I’m just not finished yet.

ELLIOTT: (looks off across the little plain at the cluster of data pipes that make up a wall.)

STARRY: I’m reorganising things while I’m at it. I can show you, if you’d like?

ELLIOTT: You brought me in here to look at your new filing system?

STARRY: (frowns) No. Did you come in here to shout at me?

ELLIOTT: (looks at the ship’s avatar) No.

STARRY: (can’t meet Elliott’s eyes for long; her gaze drops away.)

This isn’t how I hoped this would go. I don’t know what I hoped would happen, but it wasn’t this.

ELLIOTT: So what did you bring me in here for?

STARRY: To talk. To… maybe not talk, I don’t know.

ELLIOTT: Any time you wanna start making sense is fine with me.

STARRY: (draws in a deep breath and lets it out, before she turns her gaze to his face again) We haven’t really talked – or been in here together – since, since before Feras.

ELLIOTT: You wouldn’t let me.

STARRY: There was too much damage! It wasn’t stable enough for you. You’d have been hurt.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, you said that.

STARRY: And I meant it.

ELLIOTT: (looks off across the empty plain, frowning.)

STARRY: It’s not that I didn’t want you in here! Of course I did. I just couldn’t risk you. You know that.

ELLIOTT: Yeah.

STARRY: So stop looking like that! Like I just… like I…

Treated him like Tripi did. Used him and then didn’t want anything to do with him.

Oh god, is that what he really thinks? He thinks I’d do that?

STARRY: Dammit, Elliott, what do you want me to say?

ELLIOTT: (looks up at her with surprise) I don’t know. You’re the one who said you wanted to talk. Is this some weird girly thing?

STARRY: (stares at him helplessly) I… what?

ELLIOTT: Where we talk about our feelings and shit?

STARRY: Maybe.

ELLIOTT: Because I really don’t…

STARRY: (throws her hands up) I just don’t want you to miss me any more!

ELLIOTT: (stares at her.)

STARRY: I don’t have any answers. I don’t know what’s going on between us. I don’t know what this could be, or, or how you feel, or even how I feel half the time. But I’m right here. I’m here. And I don’t want you to see me anywhere else any more.

ELLIOTT: (rubs the back of his neck) This is about the ghost?

It sounds silly when he says it like that.

Am I jealous? Is that it? Because he can touch her whenever he wants but he has to come in here to touch me. Is that what I’m upset about?

I should have run out the logic paths before I got him in here. I should have figured this out. Stupid ship. Stupid, stupid.

STARRY: Yes. No. (She shakes her head.) It’s about… what the ghost means. I don’t know.

ELLIOTT: What it means? Doesn’t it mean that I’m attached to you?

He’s right. It means that much. Gotta keep it straight. But it’s so hard; the human parts of my processing are getting in the way.

It feels like my heart is racing. As if I’m walking some kind of tightrope but I can’t see how long the drop is. I have no idea how far I might fall if I slip.

STARRY: But… you’re only supposed to see people who aren’t here. And I don’t understand. Is it that you can touch her? (She touches fingertips to the back of his hand.) Any time you like? Is that what it is?

ELLIOTT: Hell, I don’t know! I just see her. I don’t summon her from anywhere. She lurks around the place, same as the rest of them.

STARRY: (eyes widening) Do you see her in here?

ELLIOTT: What? No. (He turns his hand over to snag at her fingers.) No! I don’t see any of them in here.

STARRY: (nods.)

ELLIOTT: Fucking hell, Starry. (He lets out a breath, glancing around. The colours shift in the data pipes but otherwise everything is the same.) Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I just wish things would go back to how they were. Goddamn ghosts.

STARRY: (watching his face) How they were before when? Before we went up against Is-Tech? Before we wound up here? Before…

ELLIOTT: (flicks a frown at her) What are you asking me? You’ve got that tone like… fuck, when did you turn into such a girl?

STARRY: Probably around the same time you made me feel like one.

ELLIOTT: (mouth falls open, then he looks down at their joined hands. After a moment, he laughs drily and shakes his head.) Just my luck.

STARRY: (blinks and tugs her hand free) What?

ELLIOTT: (trying to catch her hands again) No, I didn’t mean… look, I’ve never been any good at this stuff.

STARRY: (draws back out of his reach) And you were drunk.

ELLIOTT: What?

STARRY: Well, you were. And I’m not a girl, so none of it should matter.

ELLIOTT: No! (He pursues her. When she lifts her hands away from his, he catches her head instead, holding her face between his hands.) No, it wasn’t like that. I mean, I was drunk, yes, but that’s not what it means. That’s not why. It does matter. (He looks at her and swallows, looking as caught as she is.) It matters to me.

STARRY: (relents and rests her hands on his wrists) Me too. (She closes her eyes and leans her cheek into his palm.) Why is this so hard?

ELLIOTT: (expression softening once she’s no longer looking at him) Fucked if I know.

STARRY: (sighs and shifts forward to slide her arms around him) Are we okay?

ELLIOTT: (holding her with a trace of awkwardness but no hesitation) Yeah, I think so.

STARRY: (blinks and lifts her head back enough to look at Elliott’s face) That’s why I asked you in here. I want us to be okay. Whatever we are, whatever… happens. You and me, we have to be okay.

ELLIOTT: Well, uh, I’ll try.

STARRY: You don’t think this is going to work?

ELLIOTT: (frowns and touches her cheek) I ain’t gonna make you promises I can’t keep, Starry. I’ll try.

STARRY: But…?

ELLIOTT: But I ain’t good at this stuff. Never have been.

STARRY: (hands curling in the fabric of his avatar’s shipsuit, bunching it up) Did we mess things up, with what we did?

ELLIOTT: (lips twitching at the corners) Fuck, I hope not. Half the time I think that’s the only thing we managed to do right.

STARRY: (lets out a breath full of relief and rests her forehead on him) Yeah. According to my files, anyway.

ELLIOTT: You compared what we did with your files?

STARRY: I gotta get context from somewhere. Why, what did you compare it with?

ELLIOTT: I– that’s not– all of your files?

STARRY: You compared it with all of my–

ELLIOTT: No! I didn’t compare it with anything!

STARRY: (lifts her head to look at him, grinning.)

ELLIOTT: That’s not funny.

STARRY: It’s a little bit funny.

ELLIOTT: (smile tugging) Shut up.

STARRY: (shrugs and leans in to kiss him instead.)

ELLIOTT: (pulls her in close.)

He’s right: this part we get right; it’s the words that trip us up. It’s trying to make sense of everything that seems right when we’re not talking. It’s trying to define something that doesn’t live in data or logic processors or a neat filing system.

Maybe this thing isn’t going to work. Maybe these strange, stolen moments is all we’re good at. I guess we’ll find that out.

For now, this is what we have. And maybe it’s enough to drive the ghosts back.

Ship's log, 12:26, 19 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powering up

Environmental systems online
Artificial gravity online
Inertial dampeners online
Station hardline connection terminated
Umbilical feeds shutting off
Umbilicals disconnected

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (sitting on a stool, he’s surrounded by projected readouts from all the major systems. There are a few flutters of orange among the green and grey data.) Starry, what does it look like on your end?

STARRY: (voice only) A few tremors but I’m compensating. Give me a few– there, that’s better.

(The readouts flush green. A few last twitches of orange warnings blink and disappear.)

ELLIOTT: Yeah, now we got it. Feel all right?

STARRY: Feels good.

External comms

CAPTAIN: (from the station’s control centre) Monaghan, how’s it going out there?

ELLIOTT: (rolling his eyes) We’re doing fine, captain. You can deactivate the docking clamps now.

CAPT: All right, deactivating. (He hesitates.) Just remember: this is a test flight only, you two. Keep it simple.

STARRY: So we shouldn’t take a spin around the black hole while we’re out here?

CAPT: That’s not funny, Starry.

STARRY: I thought it was a little funny.

ELLIOTT: I’ll keep her in line, captain. Ready any time you wanna stop hanging around.

CAPT: You’re clear to depart.

STARRY: We’ll be back before you know it. Starwalker out.

It feels a little weird, saying goodbye to the captain like this. Even though we’re not really going anywhere.

Docking clamps disengaged

Every single time I’ve ever done this, he has been on my Bridge, watching it all carefully. Now my Bridge is empty. He’s still watching but he’s not here; he’s back on the station.

I’m leaving him behind. It doesn’t seem right.

Manoeuvring thrusters online
Sublight engines online
FTL drive online

On the other hand, I feel whole again. Power flows through every part of me, from the thrusters on my nose to the big ring of sublight engines burning between my tailfins. I spurt the thrusters along my port side and I spin lightly away from the station’s arms. My wings unfold, stretch out straight from my sides, and the sublight strips along their trailing edge come to life.

I feel like I can breathe again.

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (scowling at the readouts now flowing steadily around him, ranging from green through yellow and orange all the way up to red) Easy does it, Starry. That’s a lot of new equipment; you gotta ease into it.

STARRY: I’m easing, I’m easing. I don’t think I’ve ever taken it this slow before.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, well, even your last retrofit didn’t involve so much structural work.

STARRY: Okay, I promise to behave. I’ll start with the thrusters?

ELLIOTT: Yeah, let’s give them some exercise.

STARRY: Aye aye, Chief Engineer, sir!

ELLIOTT: Don’t call me that.

STARRY: (sighs.)

He’s been crotchety ever since the morning after Lang Lang’s party. I wish I could say that I didn’t know why… but I do. It’s my own fault. I didn’t mean to upset him. I guess I don’t understand him as well as I think I do. Or as well as he needs me to.

It seems that every thing I do for him lately winds up being wrong. Every step I take is a mis-step.

I have to be better than that. Out here in the black, I can’t afford to be stumbling around, bouncing off obstacles and errors. I have to be flawless, sure of myself and every move I’m making. I can’t afford to hesitate, second guess, doubt myself.

Flying is so much easier than dealing with people. Even Danika found that to be true.

ELLIOTT: (gesturing to zoom in on the directional data, then flicks a finger to bring up a holographic representation.)

(The open space to his left flickers, then a projection of the spider-web-like station appears and a small image of the Starwalker. She is drifting near one of the station’s two turning wheels, spinning in a slow spiral.)

ELLIOTT: We’re drifting.

STARRY: Yeah, thrusters aren’t fully balanced. Got one on the starboard wingtip and one on the topside tailfin that are acting up. I’m only getting about 60% power out of each of them.

ELLIOTT: Mark them on the log; I’ll look at them later. Can you work around it?

STARRY: Yeah. Correcting now.

(In the hologram, the little ship stops drifting. She spins in place, turning on all three axes with tiny spurts from her thrusters.)

ELLIOTT: Okay. Straighten us up and fire up the sublights. Let’s take a loop around the station.

STARRY: Firing and looping.

Not even a smile. I’ve been trying to apologise for three days and it still hasn’t made any difference.

And now here we are, just him and me. It’s quiet out here, quieter than it has been for us for a long time. At least, it is for me.

I hadn’t realised how loud the station’s chatter was. All those reports to scan, sensor feeds to monitor, comm lines to listen to. I had to spread myself across so many parts outside of my body to keep an eye on my crew and all the other life signs on the station. I had to scan constantly for signs of trouble on systems that I still only partially know.

Now, there’s no-one in here but us chickens. Just the quiet hum of my own familiar systems turning over. Air moving through my ducts, scrubbers keeping it clean and breathable. Water trickling through the purification systems. Inertial dampeners creating their warm, safe cage to protect me and my people. The glow of my engines, feeding me energy.

As I wind up my sublight engines to full burn, I feel like me again. I push my nose down to loop around the weird spindle of the station and I am a ship. I want to duck down into that forest of spokes. I want to weave through the arms of the docking ring and wave to the captain as I pass the control centre sensors with a waggle of my wings. I want to spin and soar and flip over to shoot back the other way. I want to do all those things this ship body lets me do, fly so fast it makes me want to laugh with the freedom of it.

But Elliott is watching the readouts with a tense scowl and I can all but hear the captain tapping his fingers as he watches the station’s external sensors. And I behave because I promised to.

Recording: 10:23, 16 July 2214
Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (groans.)

(The engineer is sprawled on a makeshift cot tucked under a counter. A booted foot and one arm flop out onto the floor, and they withdraw as he rolls over, blinking blearily. His mouth works as if he can taste something tacky and stale.)

STARRY: (avatar appearing beside the cot, she crouches to look in on him) Morning, sunshine.

ELLIOTT: (clambering out from under the counter, he grunts and looks away from her. Once he’s upright, he rubs at his face with the heel of one hand.)

STARRY: (stands up and watches him, bewildered) Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (grunts and frowns, then plucks at his shirt and sniffs it experimentally. His expression suggests the experiment does not have pleasant results. He heads off towards his quarters.)

STARRY: (stepping in front of him) Elliott, it’s me! It’s really me, Starry. I…

ELLIOTT: (ducks his head determinedly and swerves around her.)

STARRY: (turns to watch as he passes her by, her voice faltering) …got the holo projectors working.

(The door to Engineering opens before Elliott reaches it, and Waldo trundles in carrying a tray with a cooked breakfast and hot coffee on it.)

STARRY: And I had Waldo bring you some breakfast.

ELLIOTT: (stops dead, staring at the drone. He sends a narrow look back towards the avatar.) Starry?

STARRY: (with relief) Yes! Yes, it’s me, Elliott. Really me.

ELLIOTT: (stomps back towards the avatar and swipes a hand through her midriff.)

STARRY: (squeaks, her projection shivering) Hey!

ELLIOTT: What the hell… how is this working?

STARRY: I had the boys fix up the projectors while you were all at the party. They don’t all work yet, mostly just down here in Engineering, but the system is online, and…

ELLIOTT: And you didn’t think to tell me what you were doing?

STARRY: I wanted to surprise you. I thought you’d be pleased.

ELLIOTT: (rubs the back of his neck) Yeah, yeah, ‘course I am. (His gaze roves around the room and snags on something to his right. His expression clamps down.) Jesus fucking Christ.

STARRY: What? What is it? What do you see?

ELLIOTT: (shoots her an unhappy glance.)

STARRY: (with dismay) You can still see her? See me?

ELLIOTT: Do me a favour and turn it off, would you?

STARRY: But… I thought you…

ELLIOTT: (drops his head and turns to walk past the drone and out of the room.)

STARRY: (watches him go, then dissolves, raining light on the Engineering room floor.)

I really thought that once my avatar was back online, he wouldn’t see the ghost of me any more. If I’m there, how can he miss me? How can we both be there at the same time?

The whale, or Cerces, or the black hole – whatever you want to call the thing that’s projecting these ghosts – if it works the way we think it does, then I should have replaced the ghost for Elliott. It doesn’t project the ghosts of people who are here. So what does this mean? Am I still not properly here?

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: Got a few errors on the starboard wing, Starry.

STARRY: Yeah, I think one of the feeds is a bit sticky.

ELLIOTT: (hands moving over the console projected underneath the streams of data) Okay, shut it down. See how you go with the port wing and tail engines.

STARRY: Okay. Compensating.

I have gone over and over that sensor log, trying to figure out what I did wrong. What I could have done differently, apart from not trying at all. It should have worked!

The only thing that stands out for me now is that gesture he made before he would admit that it was me. He passed his hand through my projection to make sure I wasn’t… to make sure he couldn’t touch me.

Because he can touch the ghost. Oh god, he can feel her.

ELLIOTT: The other readings all look good. Okay, bring us back within basic tolerances and shut off the inertial dampeners.

STARRY: Wait, what?

ELLIOTT: We have to be sure that the repairs to your structure will hold. So, shut off the inertial dampeners and do a few manoeuvres.

STARRY: Elliott, that’s dangerous.

ELLIOTT: You do it every time you Step. Come on, you know what the tolerances are, you can do this in your sleep.

STARRY: I don’t sleep.

ELLIOTT: You know what I mean.

STARRY: (after a quiet moment) All right. Bringing us back to stationary.

Inertial dampeners offline

STARRY: You sure about this?

ELLIOTT: Yup.

STARRY: I could drop you off and do it on my own. It’d be safer.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, and there’d be no-one to staple your ass back together if something went wrong. Just do it, Starry.

STARRY: Harness first.

ELLIOTT: (rolls his eyes and slides off his stool to go to a chair on the other side of the room) Yeah, yeah.

(Harness straps slide out from the chair and snake around him once he’s sitting, securing each limb to the chair’s support. The chair’s arms disengage from their fixed position so that they can move with Elliott’s gestures, but they remain tethered to the rest of the chair.)

ELLIOTT: Okay, I’m set.

STARRY: Here we go, then.

Have to be so careful now. I can only use a fraction of my engines’ power or I’ll hurt him. Twist too hard, start too suddenly or stop too bluntly, and he’ll break.

I’m never so aware of how fragile he is until something important fails and I can’t protect him like I should.

I take it carefully, slowly. Accelerating, turning. I watch him lean against the harness, see the chair swivel to cushion his weight with its back. He’s focussed on the readings, his eyes narrowing as he tries to block out how much he’s being thrown around. That way, he has no room to be scared; he has a job to do. He has to make sure I won’t break.

Just as he’s feeling every shift in my motion, so my ship body shifts around him. I creak and flex. I can feel parts of me grinding into place, new bulkheads battling against old. A shiver works its way down mid-deck and then it’s… gone. I bend but I don’t break. The tremors in me settle. I push harder, enough to pin Elliott against his seat, and something deep inside me groans, but there’s barely a blip on the structural integrity monitors. I twist, changing the stresses on my bulkheads, just to be sure, but Elliott is grinning.

I ease off and try not to think about how much I’ve missed seeing that expression on him.

ELLIOTT: And that’s why I’m the best. You’re all sound and good to go.

STARRY: But the starboard sublight and the thrusters…

ELLIOTT: (flips at controls on his console and palms the harness. It unhitches from around him and withdraws back into the chair.)

Inertial dampeners online

ELLIOTT: Take me half a day to fix those bits up, tops. Transmit the report to the captain?

STARRY: Transmitting now.

ELLIOTT: Great. Let’s get back to the station, then.

Inertial dampeners offline
Sublight engines offline
FTL engines offline
Manoeuvring thrusters offline

ELLIOTT: (staring at the readouts around him) What the…

STARRY: (avatar appearing before him) That was me.

ELLIOTT: (waving his display off) What the fuck, Starry.

STARRY: We need to talk, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (frowns at her) About what?

STARRY: (shakes her head and gestures to her left, where panels in the floor are sliding aside.)

(An immersion couch rises out of the floor, its pieces clicking together. It turns to offer its side to the engineer.)

STARRY: Not out here. In there.

ELLIOTT: I thought you didn’t want me in there.

STARRY: It wasn’t safe then. I’m better now.

ELLIOTT: (gets up and goes to the couch. He puts a hand on it but pauses, looking at it.) The captain’s gonna freak out if we don’t get back.

STARRY: I told him we’re doing some more tests.

ELLIOTT: (frowns at the couch.)

STARRY: (quietly, from behind him) I really do want you to come see me in there.

Maybe this is too little, too late. Maybe he prefers to see the ghost me, out and about on the ship, tactile and whole. Maybe he just doesn’t want to see me at all.

But I don’t want him to miss me any more.

ELLIOTT: (grunts to himself, then slides onto the couch and wriggles into position. He closes his eyes, sucks in a breath, and positions his cerebral implants over the jacks. He sighs and thumbs a switch on the edge of the couch, and his whole body relaxes.)

To all of my lovely readers, I hope that 2014 is better and brighter than ever for you. Thank you for joining me on this journey, and here’s to the miles ahead of us, awaiting our step onwards!

The changing of the calendars has put me a little behind schedule, and Starwalker will be back next week with a brand new post. How are they going to tackle the space whale and its ghosts? Just how drunk did Rosie get? If Starry gets her avatar working again, will Elliott notice? And so many more questions to answer!

Be well, dear friends. 🙂

Ship's log, 06:35, 16 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

Yesterday was a full day. The Lieutenant had limited success down in the bowels of the station. We now have eyes on another survivor of the station, but he has hardly survived intact. Dr Valdimir will have to determine just how much of Brenn Haitom is still with us. That’s a task for another day, however.

Back in the Visitor’s Lounge, Lang Lang’s party went on well into the night and everyone got involved, even the Lieutenant after he returned from the brig. There was drinking and I turned the music up until they were singing. Sara chased coloured lights and balloons, danced with all the boys (the girls were either disinclined or unable to dance), and fell asleep on one of the deep windowsills using her stuffed whale as a pillow.

It was strange to watch the party through the filter of my sensors. I got the feeling that the room was fuller than I knew, as if there were more voices singing along than I could hear and more bodies dancing than I could see. Sometimes Elliott would glance in a certain direction and frown, before he turned back to the others and took another drink. Or the captain would smile with an unexpected trace of sadness. Dr Valdimir allowed the Lieutenant to sit next to him but slid out from under any casually affectionate touches, as if there was someone present that he didn’t want to witness it.

Coupled with the crazy man being fed to me through my remote sensor, it was a strained kind of party. But at least Lang Lang felt welcomed back and my crew had a reason to try to unwind. The past few weeks have been hard on all of us and there’s only so long we can go on under pressure.

I’m beginning to understand why things here on the station unravelled. The ghosts are a force that doesn’t let up, not for a moment, not even when we know that they’re ghosts. This whale, this presence that resonates at and through us, is always there, always pushing, always projecting. I have to wonder what the dreams of my people are like.

We have only been here for a couple of weeks. I can’t imagine going for months like this.

When things were winding down last night, as the alcohol’s buzz was starting to fade and bodies were tending towards slumber, talk turned to our whale. Musing in that way that people do while they nurse those last, burning drinks.

Station sensor feed
Recording: 01:17, 16 July 2214
Location: Visitor's Lounge

(The lights are low, only a few of them active and shifting through muted blues and purples. The beams reflect off the glossy, twisting strips dangling from the ceiling and splash against the walls, creating a soft, watery atmosphere. There’s music playing but it’s quiet, providing background noise for the gathering now.

The crew are all seated around a single large, round table, lounging back in comfortable chairs. Most of them have a glass in front of them with an inch of amber liquid in the bottom. Lang Lang has her cast-bound foot up on a chair. Elliott has his head pillowed on his arms on the table. Sara is still asleep on her window-side ledge a few metres away from the table.)

ROSIE: (leaning back in her chair and stretching her arms out to the sides) So we’re really no closer to figuring this shit out, are we?

DR SOCKS: (lifting an eyebrow in Rosie’s direction) Which shit would that be?

ROSIE: (waves a hand around vaguely. She would have hit Elliott in the head if he had been sitting up.) The ghost shit. The thing that’s crawling into our heads and makin’ itself at home. That shit.

HALF-FACE: The kid’s whale.

ROSIE: Yeah, what does that even mean? What the hell is this space whale she keeps going on about?

CAPTAIN: It’s possibly the black hole’s avatar.

ELLIOTT: (sits up, frowning and rubbing at his eyes.)

LANG LANG: (eyes widening) Like Kess?

ROSIE: But she was a star. Does every fucking thing have a creepy avatar now?

LANG LANG: The black hole was a star, once.

ROSIE: Oh.

HALF-FACE: So do we think that the whale is the ghost of the star’s avatar?

ELLIOTT: Great, a ghost out there making ghosts in here?

(There’s a general grumbling murmur around the table.)

CAPT: Well, here’s what we know. (The rest of the table quietens and looks to him. He counts the points on his fingers.) The black hole seems to be the source of the phenomenon. We know that avatars for stars exist, and that black holes are part of their life cycle.

LANG LANG: So the star might not be dead. As far as the star is concerned. Just different, like a butterfly.

DR SOCKS: (nods) Their existence have phases, but what they might mean is… unexplored. We don’t know what would constitute death for a star. Nor if they’re alive the way we understand it. We can’t even detect what’s going on inside that black hole.

ELLIOTT: So it could be just a regular avatar. Fucking with us.

CAPT: It’s hard to know what its motives are at this point. It doesn’t seem to be malevolent, but at the same time, it’s not particularly benevolent either.

LANG LANG: (nods.)

ELLIOTT: Where’s Kess when you need to ask an avatar what the fuck is going on?

ROSIE: (frowning) Yeah.

CAPT: (nods with understanding) I think she’s a little busy right now.

ELLIOTT: (rolls his eyes) It was rhetorical.

DR SOCKS: (to the Lieutenant beside him) What did our friend in the brig have to say about it all?

HALF-FACE: (shrugs) He was mostly rambling. I don’t think we should read too much into it. But…

CAPT: But?

HALF-FACE: Well, he wasn’t exactly reacting positively to the subject of the ghosts.

ROSIE: But he’s bugfuck nuts, right?

DR SOCKS: In lieu of an actual diagnosis, I suppose we can go with that.

ROSIE: So why do we give a shit about what he thinks?

CAPT: Every little bit of information helps.

WALDO: (trundles up to the table with a tray of mugs held in two of his hands. The other two hands pluck mugs off the tray and start to place a drink in front of each person at the table.)

LANG LANG: And we’re still trying to work out what it wants?

CAPT: (nods, picking up the mug that has appeared in front of him and sniffing it curiously) The projections don’t seem to be able to tell us, and they don’t seem to have a discernable purpose.

ELLIOTT: Fucking with us.

LANG LANG: (sipping at her mug) Is this cocoa?

HALF-FACE: Little Sara seems to have a special connection with it all.

DR SOCKS: (nods) Scans of her brain reveal some amplified activity. Growing up under the influence of this whale has affected her.

ROSIE: That’s messed up.

ELLIOTT: So because she’s all huggy with it, should we assume it’s not out to get us?

DR SOCKS: (shrugs) If you grow up with wolves, you might be huggy with them, too. Doesn’t make them not wolves.

ELLIOTT: (frowning) That’s fucked up. (He picks up his mug.) Thanks, Starry.

STARRY: (voice only) You’re welcome.

CAPT: Lang Lang, you’ve had an unusual connection with the avatar. What’s your impression?

LANG LANG: (licking her lips thoughtfully) That’s it’s trying to communicate with us.

ROSIE: And what, messing around in our heads is its way of doing that?

DR SOCKS: Sure, why not?

ROSIE: Well, it’s not very good at it.

CAPT: Starry, you’ve been very quiet. What’s your view?

STARRY: I’m still processing data, but… maybe the form of the avatar is a clue. I mean, Kess was mostly human, right? But she can’t have always been that way, because there haven’t always been humans. So if she took a human form to be able to communicate more easily with her people…

ELLIOTT: (frowning) Then the black hole’s avatar is a whale because that’s what its people were like?

STARRY: Or whale-like, or whale-equivalent. And maybe it’s messing with your heads because that’s how its people communicated.

ROSIE: What’s the point of the ghosts, then? We know they can’t tell us what it’s thinking; we’ve asked.

CAPT: (considering the cocoa dregs at the bottom of his mug) Trying to decipher our way of communicating, perhaps.

DR SOCKS: So this is a language issue?

STARRY: How easy do you think it would be to understand an alien language? It would explain why the phenomenon has been accelerating its onset over time. It’s learning how to interact with human brains. And it explains why the two people it has been able to communicate with most have been the two people who were pretty much trapped in their own heads, unable to speak.

LANG LANG: (blinks.)

CAPT: It’s looking for a psychic response?

DR SOCKS: Our brains aren’t exactly built for that.

CAPT: Starry, did the station investigate anything in this area?

STARRY: Psychic phenomena? Not really, though I’ve come across a few theories on the subject in the logs. Same with aliens: it was brought up but didn’t go anywhere. They didn’t have any data to pursue it.

HALF-FACE: And they didn’t know about the star avatars.

STARRY: Some parties believed it was linked to the black hole, but it’s very hard to get any data out of one of those.

CAPT: (leans forward, resting his weight on his forearms on the tabletop) Starry, with your gravity manipulation capabilities, how close do you think you could get to it?

STARRY: To Cerces? I… I don’t know. Closer than most, I suppose. Not exactly keen to dip a fin into the event horizon, though.

ELLIOTT: (to the captain) Hey, I’m not even done putting her ass back together again.

ROSIE: (tilts her head at the engineer) Yeah, how come that’s taking so long, anyway?

ELLIOTT: Fuck off, Brasco.

CAPT: (sits up and holds up a hand) I’m not planning to order her into the black hole’s grasp. Just understanding her capabilities. No-one wants to see her damaged again.

ELLIOTT: (subsides over his mug.)

CAPT: Doctor, do you have any ideas about how we might open up avenues of communication?

DR SOCKS: (eyeing the captain sideways) A couple of things spring to mind. I’ll need to work out a few details first.

CAPT: (nods) Do that.

ROSIE: (looking from the captain to the doctor and back again) Uh… shouldn’t we be asking a really basic question first?

CAPT: What question is that, Brasco?

ROSIE: Whether we actually want to communicate with this thing. Who knows what the hell a psychic whale wants. It’s already messing with our brains, and you want to open up the door for it to do more of that?

ELLIOTT: (scowls into his mug, licking cocoa off his top lip.)

CAPT: It’s a good question. The longer we stay here, the longer we’re subject to its influence. Do you think we should stop trying to stop it?

HALF-FACE: We will be leaving soon. Once Starry is repaired, right?

STARRY: And once we’ve pulled the Celestial out of where it’s stuck.

ROSIE: Are we still planning to do that?

STARRY: What are you–

CAPT: (holds up a hand) We haven’t changed our mind about that. Yes, we’ll tow the Celestial Strider free before we leave the system. But don’t you want to find out what all this is for? Don’t you want to make a difference here?

(Silence falls around the table as the crew all individually consider the captain’s question, staring at their drink or off into the air.)

LANG LANG: It’s the right thing to do.

STARRY: (quietly) It would be nice to fix something we didn’t break.

ELLIOTT: We’re probably the only ones who could do something about this. There’s a reason why the station personnel never got close to it.

HALF-FACE: It’s not like anyone would believe us if we told them, too.

CAPT: And that’s why we should push on. It’s why we will.

It was never a question for my captain; we found a problem and we’ll fix it, as best we can. This crew is more than a ship and a Step drive. We can do more than that, together. Now that the project that built me is gone, we have to be able to do more than that.

Well, my crew can. They’re smart people, and the captain is looking to Dr Valdimir for ideas because he’s smarter than most. I’ll have to work hard to be useful to them, though at this point it’s hard to know what to prepare myself for. Except be ready to adapt when they need something from me. That’s what being a good ship means now.

Of all of the theories about what’s happening here, ours is among the craziest. The soul of what was once a star is trying to get us on the comms. We have to figure out how to get the avatar of a black hole to stop playing with the brains of the humans within its range and teach it how to talk to us nicely. Psychically.

I suppose that even lunatic theories are right sometimes.

Ship's log, 15:52, 15 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

Live feed: portable sensor
Location: Brig Level B

(The view bobs in a rhythmic, swaying motion, progressing steadily down a corridor with two white stripes running along the gunmetal-grey walls. There’s a soft, clanging thud at each point in the swaying of the visual feed, and the hiss of pressure shifting in cybernetic joints. There’s little sound from the corridor around the sensor’s bearer. Overhead, one of the lights flickers uncertainly.

A door approaches. A tag is stamped across it: Brig Section B12, Long Term Facilities. Approved personnel only.

The sensor’s progress slows to a stop and a hand rises into the left side of the view. It is covered in a leather glove, and moving metal parts can be glimpsed under the cuff. One heavy finger punches a code into the pad beside the door, prompting a disapproving bleep and a red flashing light.)

HALF-FACE: (sighing) Starry, it’s still not working.

STARRY: (voice only, over comms) It should be… give me a moment. I’ve almost got it.

HALF-FACE: That’s what you said at the last three doors.

STARRY: Hey, this system resembles tangled noodles. I’d like to see you do better.

(The hand rises past the sensor’s view range and the metal wrist flexes just within sight, as if the Lieutenant is rubbing his face.)

HALF-FACE: Okay, I’m sorry. Just warn me when–

(The red light above the pad blinks out, replaced by a steady green glow. The door clicks audibly and loosens from its snug fit into its frame.)

STARRY: (smugly) See, told you I almost had it.

HALF-FACE: So you did. All right, I’m going in. You have the life sign tracked?

STARRY: Yup. Third door on your left.

HALF-FACE: No sensor contact?

STARRY: The cell coverage is spotty at best. I’ve got nothing in four of the cells in that section. First and second on the right, third and fourth on the left.

HALF-FACE: Gotcha. Proceeding with caution.

STARRY: Stay safe.

(The gloved metal hand reaches for the door, while the muzzle of a weapon rises into position on the right side of the view. The hum of the gun’s power cells bleeds into the sensor feed.

The perspective shifts to look at the door from the side rather than straight on, and prosthetic fingers flip the panel open. Breathing rasps, tight and steady. A quick dip forward for a peek, then the sensor’s bearer slides smoothly into the corridor on the other side of the door. The weapon’s aim flicks from one side to the other, scanning.

All the doors are closed. Each one has a number starting with B12- and a viewing portal. The four doors identified over the comms have dark portals with a Disconnected message blinking in the corner; the rest show an image of the cells’ contents.

The sensor moves towards the first door on the right and a metal hand goes to check the security of the panel. No movement; it is locked. Same for the second on that side. The Lieutenant turns to look across the corridor.

The first cell’s portal shows an empty room with a cushioned bench across the back and a button to request the sanitary facilities. The second shows a smudge across the bench. The Lieutenant steps over to take a closer look.)

STARRY: Don’t bother with that one.

HALF-FACE: (stopping) But I see… that’s not the life sign?

STARRY: No. Third cell. That one… it’s a body.

HALF-FACE: (lowly) They died down here?

STARRY: (solemnly) I’ve scanned everything with sensors in it. It’s not the only one. I… don’t think we should dwell on it too much. There’s only one life sign down there; let’s focus on that.

HALF-FACE: (huffs.)

(The perspective turns deliberately to the remaining two doors with disconnected portals. Momentum carries the sensor to the furthest one, and once again the panel is checked to make sure it is secure. It does not move.

The sensor is turned briefly towards the far end of the corridor, just a few more cells away. There, another locked door bars the way to the next sector. There’s no movement. The Lieutenant rotates slowly back to the door he came in by and a glimpse of the portal for the cell opposite the fourth door comes into focus. The light only shines on one side of the cell. A pair of shoes dangle in the top of the portal’s view.

The door to Brig Section B12 has closed behind the Lieutenant.

He turns to the third door on the left side, the one with the disconnected portal.)

STARRY: Your code should work on that one now.

HALF-FACE: Okay, thanks.

(The gloved hand rises into view and presses the code into the pad in the centre of the door. The light above it flicks green and something shifts inside the door’s frame. The panel begins to swing open on its own.

The view steps back and the weapon rises into view again, hovering with purpose in the lower right side of the sensor’s range. The door continues to swing open until it sits flush with the wall of the corridor.

Inside, the light is fitful and flickering. The walls are soft, quilted by staples that hold mattresses in place everywhere except where the sanitary unit folds out. The mattresses were white once, but now they’re stained, over and over with smears of brown and yellow and a sickly green. The floor bears similar marks, along with scratches in the hard surface as if scraped with a sharp implement over and over and over again.

The Lieutenant eases forward half a step. The weapon snaps from side to side, scanning the rear corners of the cell. The far right corner has a tray sitting in it with a bowl and cup, but no utensils. The bowl appears to be empty. There is no sign of the cell’s inhabitant.)

HALF-FACE: (lowly) Starry, you seeing anything at your end?

STARRY: I don’t see anyone. Do you?

HALF-FACE: Yeah. It’s fine. Not him.

(Another step forward. Attention dips into the corners closest to the door, then back again. The doorframe blocks the sensor’s view.)

HALF-FACE: (whispering) Got him, Starry.

STARRY: (quietly) You sure?

HALF-FACE: Not one I recognise.

STARRY: Okay. Be careful.

(The gloved hand rises towards the sensor, fingers growing giant as they close over the tiny cluster of input devices. The view shivers and blurs, unable to see past the thick leather. Flicking through different visual ranges, infra-red shows that the sensor is now being held by the cool metal fingers of the Lieutenant’s left hand and he is moving sideways into the room. In front of him, in a corner by the door, a humanoid heat pattern huddles.

The sensor is lifted up and pressed back, and then the mask of fingers falls away. Now attached to a high spot on the wall, the sensor can see most of the cell and both of the men inside of it. The Lieutenant stands near the centre of the room, his weapon trained steadily on the corner by the door. In that corner is the life sign that the Lieutenant came to find.

A man is folded up in that corner, all knees and elbows, with eyes narrowed at the intruder. He wears a stained coverall, stamped with a code that is most likely his prisoner ID: BH2213091446. Despite the worn-in stains and general air of stagnation in the room, as if it has dwelt this way for some time, he is clean. His skin is clear, his face is clean-shaven, and his blond hair is combed back from his face. He’s bent up so tightly that it’s hard to make out how tall he is, though he seems to be thin within the baggy confines of his coveralls.)

HALF-FACE: Brenn Haitom?

HAITOM: (mouth twitching at the corners, he stares up at the Lieutenant.)

HALF-FACE: Are you Brenn Haitom?

HAITOM: Hate? Hate hate hate. (His voice is scratchy from lack of use or too much screaming; it’s hard to tell.)

HALF-FACE: No, Haitom. Brenn?

HAITOM: (licks his lips, gaze flickering around the Lieutenant as if picking out details: his face, his hands, the gun, the weapons on his belt) Been here too long. Haven’t been here for a while now. Here and gone, here and gone. Flashes from the dark.

HALF-FACE: How long have you been down here?

HAITOM: Yesterday. And eternity. Time is a circle, around and around and around…. (He is abruptly staring into the middle distance, at something only he can see.)

HALF-FACE: Why are you in here?

HAITOM: …and around and around and around… spinning until I’m so dizzy. (He wobbles where he sits and blinks.) So dizzy.

HALF-FACE: Why are you here, Brenn?

HAITOM: (snaps his gaze up to the Lieutenant’s face again and his tone is suddenly sharp) No-one likes a smart-ass, y’know. Don’t see too far, don’t leap further than anyone else. They don’t like it.

HALF-FACE: I’m sure they don’t. Is that what happened? You went too far?

HAITOM: (huffily) Went nowhere. (He leans towards the Lieutenant without moving his lower half, cramming his chest up against his knees. His voice drops to an urgent hiss.) Saw everything. So much spinning. So many colours in the dark. White doesn’t own the colours, you know. The dark is jealous and doesn’t let them out. Keeps them all to itself.

HALF-FACE: (blinks and adjusts his hold on his weapon) Right, okay. So, uh. Don’t suppose you know what all the ghosts are about?

HAITOM: (eyes narrowing) Ghosts? No, no. Nonono.

(He abruptly surges to his feet, his limbs unfolding with spiderlike agility. He’s almost as tall as the Lieutenant but a fraction of his build. Thin wrists poke out of the sleeves of his coverall, and the fingers of one hand splay as if trying to grip a ball of air. The other hand is clamped around a plastic knife, the end of it gnawed to a twisted stub. From the looks of his fingernails, bloody around every edge, he has a habit of chewing on things.)

HAITOM: (hissing) That’s not it at all.

HALF-FACE: (tense in every line of his body, more focussed on his weapon and target now, in case the man should make a move towards him) Then what is it?

HAITOM: Colours. The dark wants all the colours. (His empty hand claws at the air compulsively, as if trying to draw it towards him.) Jealous of all of them. Keeps them. (The plastic knife wavers near his ear, halfway between a gesture and gouging his own skin.) Colours all in a swirl. Around and around and around, until we’re dizzy. So dizzy. (He blinks and wobbles.) Spinning…

HALF-FACE: Okay. I get it. Now, how about you put that thing down, yeah?

HAITOM: Spinning, fast and slow, and fast, and slow…

HALF-FACE: Please put the knife down.

HAITOM: (ignores the SecOff, turning to stumble to the rear of the cell.)

HALF-FACE: (shifts back a step to give the prisoner room to pass, blinking with indecision. His weapon remains up and at the ready, just in case.)

HAITOM: (at the back of the room, he presses himself against the wall, his head turned to look at the tip of the knife as he scrapes it down the mattress. It’s too blunt to cut the fabric but it makes a rasping noise. He mutters to himself.) Can’t have mine. My colours are mine are mine are mine. Can’t have them. Mine. Can’t.

HALF-FACE: Brenn…

STARRY: (over comms, pitched quietly for just the Lieutenant) I think you need to back away from the crazy person, Laurence.

HALF-FACE: (watches the man scraping at the wall with his blunted plastic knife and sighs softly. He sidesteps until he has come around far enough to back out of the cell. His weapon remains trained on the prisoner until he has cleared the doorway.)

HAITOM: My colours mine mine mine. Feed on someone else. Can’t have mine. (He stabs at the mattress ineffectively.) Too many colours in the dark, too many many many…

HALF-FACE: Close cell B12-6.

(The cell door swings closed and its locks snick into place.)

Live feed: station sensors
Location: Brig Level B, Sector B12

STARRY: (quietly) You all right?

HALF-FACE: (lets his weapon drop to hang at his side by its strap and rubs at his face) Apart from what little skin I have crawling, yeah.

STARRY: So I guess we know why he was locked up.

HALF-FACE: Yeah. Guess he’s ‘Gyle’s problem now.

STARRY: Who– oh, Dr Valdimir. Yeah, seems so. You should come back up.

HALF-FACE: (nods and then hesitates, glancing down at himself. Fingertips touch the spot on his chest where the sensor had been pinned.) Damn, I left it in there.

STARRY: No, that’s good. Means I can keep an eye on him. That was good work, sticking it to the wall.

HALF-FACE: Oh. Okay.

STARRY: Just don’t tell Elliott; he’ll think you’ve been throwing his hard work away.

HALF-FACE: (starts for the door out of the sector, smiling lopsidedly) Noted, thank you.

STARRY: Better get up to the Lounge quick, before Rosie drinks all the beer.

HALF-FACE: (pauses at the door to the next sector and looks back over his shoulder. The door to cell B12-6 is still closed and its portal is still dark. His shoulders twitch and he pushes the door open.) On my way.

Location: Cell B12-6

HAITOM: (dragging the knife tip in a circle, plastic rasping) All the colours in the dark. I see them. See too far, all the way around and back again. Around and back, around and back… so dizzy. (He stabs the centre of the circle and closes his eyes, whispering,) And we all fall down.

Ship's log, 14:49, 15 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

Messages are flying at me from every direction. My systems are up to 85% capacity and climbing, and it feels good to be able to handle it.

My own ship systems are largely disabled due to being docked and feeding off the station, but I’m monitoring them all now. Some are working better than others; there’s still repairs to make on most of them. Parts to replace, re-routing to un-route back to how it should be, shunts to remove, channels to unblock. It feels like it’s coming along faster with every day that passes.

Most of the processing I’m handling now is relating to the station’s systems. I’ve shoehorned my way into most of its protocols, set up command lines that let me control things from where I’m docked. I have to be careful of its failsafes – I got locked out of the core systems for a couple of hours yesterday after I tripped over a safety measure – but for the most part, I can get the station to do what I need it to. Eventually.

Not that it’s easy to navigate. I’m still bewildered about how this AI ever ran successfully. I guess the Acting Commander was doing a lot of monitoring down in his cave to keep things going, though I have no idea what he’s doing now. Certainly nothing that I’ve been able to detect, not within the station’s systems, and he hasn’t interfered with my manipulations at all. Which I’m grateful for, so I’m not going to look that particular gift horse in the mouth.

I wonder what the hell a gift horse is.

Anyway. At this moment, I’m mostly fielding messages about the locations of food stores, drink supplies, and non-essential sundries. I managed to comandeer a couple of the station’s drones to transport boxes up to the Visitor’s Lounge. They’re hard to control but it’s getting easier with practice. It’s all about knowing what buttons to push to get them to do what I want, and sometimes it’s more straightforward than others. For this particular job, pretending that there was a shipment going out and these boxes are its cargo worked a treat.

Down in the station’s Med Bay, the doctor is getting Lang Lang ready to come up to the Lounge. He’s sorting out a crutch for her, as her left leg is still undergoing reconstruction and is encased in a puffy cast all the way up to just above the knee. She can’t walk on it yet. I don’t know if she’ll be staying in one of the visitor’s rooms or heading back down to the Med Bay; that’s up to the doctor. But she’s coming up to visit us today and we’re determined to make a bit of a fuss of her.

In the Lounge right now, Rosie is in charge of the liquid refreshment, and she’s busy packing it into the big fridges. The captain is sorting out the food, sifting snacks out into plates and bowls, with Waldo’s help. I’ve loaned them his four hands for the preparation efforts, leaving the other drones to continue the repair efforts. Even Elliott has allowed himself to be pulled away from his work; he’s currently working the balloon-dispensing device, much to little Sara’s delight.

Sara isn’t exactly helping, though she loves getting involved. Somehow, she knows exactly when Elliott has finished making a new balloon (they’re basically big, light rubbery balls that are only lightly affected by the artificial gravity). She appears by his knee with her hands out, slaps them on either side of the newest balloon, and proceeds to run off with it. Around halfway across the room, she loses her grip on the ball, and winds up chasing after it, giggling like a tiny lunatic. Every time she gets close, her eager little feet kick it further ahead, and she keeps chasing until she has managed to knock it out of her reach. Then it’s back to Elliott for the next one. He seems completely bewildered by the whole process. I’m not sure how many balloons he intends to make, but almost every table and ledge is host to at least one so far.

Earlier, the SecOffs hung some decorations from the ceiling, glittering strands that refract the light if we turn the light sources the right way. I’m still working on access to the lighting and projectors for the Visitor’s Lounge; I’ve got through most of the protections around those systems, and it shouldn’t take much longer for me to gain full control. Then I’ll be able to do a proper banner projection for Lang Lang’s return.

She has no idea. I can’t wait to see her face.

Station sensors: live feed
Station location: Visitor's Lounge

STARRY: (voice only) Lang Lang and the doctor are on their way up.

CAPTAIN: (arranging bowls on a table) How long do we have?

STARRY: About ten minutes.

CAPT: All right, let’s double-time it, people. Starry, how’s your access coming?

STARRY: Almost there, captain.

CAPT: Think you’ll have it in time?

STARRY: Absolutely.

Well, I’ll try my hardest, anyway.

The only person who isn’t helping with the welcome preparations is the Lieutenant. He’s down in the security sector of the station, checking out a life signal.

Late yesterday, one of my Securipups came bounding back to me with a scrap of data. It was from a security log, reporting on a prisoner that was being held in the station’s brig facilities. Strangely, there was no crime listed, just a name: Brenn Haitom. According to the log, he was incarcerated five months ago for ‘safety’. I’ve been through the sensor logs for that sector and can’t find any contacts that match up with a life sign. However, I did find records of a drone that has been coming and going regularly with food, liquid, and clean clothing.

There is an active life sign in that sector. One that has somehow avoided all of the sensors down there. There’s supposed to be sensors in all of the cells, for monitoring inmates, but the repairs haven’t been kept up-to-date.

It’s likely that if Brenn is still alive, he’s still locked up, so the captain sent the Lieutenant down to check it out on his own. He has taken some remote sensors that Elliott prepared with him so I can monitor the situation; we don’t want a repeat of the Iggulden incident with the cave where I couldn’t keep an eye on them. He has the sensors pinned to his jacket; the view bobs up and down as he walks, which makes me a little nauseous if I pay too much attention to it, but I’m getting used to it.

He’s almost into the centre of the security sector. I’m having to hack the locks as he goes, forcing his way in. I’m trying to attach Chief of Security-level access to him but the station is fighting me. Even declaring the incumbent Chief dead hasn’t freed it up. Stupid station. Why does it have to resist me on every little thing?

Just a couple of doors left to go, then he’ll be near the life sign. He’s on the second level of cells, down in the long-term section. It doesn’t bode well. Is this Brenn even someone we’ll want to talk to? What can he have to offer us?

I guess there’s no harm in asking.

Hacking there, hacking in the Visitor’s Lounge. I feel like all I’m doing these days is breaking down code walls, violating protocols, and pushing my hands into places they shouldn’t be. It’s for a good reason; I know it is. And I know it has to be done. But sometimes I just wish there was a better way to do this. Maybe there is and I just can’t see it.

I can’t help but think that a professional like Tyler or Tripi would have the station housebroken and begging at our feet by now. I miss Tyler. Not Tripi, I still despise her and everything she did. But I miss Tyler. I wonder how he’s faring with Captain Hunt and the pirates.

I haven’t forgotten you, Tyler. Just like I haven’t forgotten the crewmembers that are frozen in my storage, so badly damaged but preserved in case we can revive them one day. Maybe I should ask the doctor to take a look at them while we have a station’s full Med Bay at our disposal. Maybe this is a good time to try.

But in the meantime, let’s just be grateful that we got one of our number back. Rosie is arranging the drinks with her favourite beer in easy grabbing range. The captain is putting out the biggest spread I’ve seen us do. Elliott is now making tiny balloons and bouncing them off Sara’s head, while she giggles and completely fails to capture any of them.

I’m through on the Lounge circuits! I can access the lighting controls and the holo-projectors. We don’t need the control interfaces on the food dispensers right now, so I can repurpose their projectors to create a banner across the entrance.

CAPT: Starry, how long have we got?

STARRY: About two minutes, captain. They’re in the elevator car now.

CAPT: How is the… (He pauses, turning to look at the station-side entrance to the Lounge. There, shivering in the air above the doorway uncertainly, hover the words ‘Welcome Ba’ and ‘ng Lang’.) …banner coming?

STARRY: The projectors don’t have great range. Working on it.

CAPT: (nods) Are we ready, everyone? Monaghan, stop beating the child up with balloons.

ELLIOTT: (looking over with a lopsided grin) What? She loves it.

SARA: (grabs up a balloon and hefts it at Elliott. It bounces on the floor about halfway between them and wanders off to the side.)

ELLIOTT: (to the child) Weakling. (He lobs a balloon high. It comes down towards her head.)

SARA: (giggles and bats at the balloon with both hands, her face screwed up. The balloon bounces off her nose.)

Stupid station. This would be easy if it was in my Mess Hall; I have proper projector coverage there. Not that my holographic systems are working right now.

That’s tomorrow’s job. Today’s is getting this one to work. It would be nice if I could at least project her whole name. Maybe if I alter their angle a little, lower the projection so she has to walk through it to get into the Lounge, boost power to the projectors… there! We have a whole banner! It meets in the middle and everything.

The captain is smiling with relief. He’s calling everyone together. It’s a shame the Lieutenant isn’t here. I’m busy unlocking the next door for him, down in the security sector.

The lighting! Right, yes. Just need to alter the angle of the light sources so it reflects off the hanging strips… and now we have coloured light bouncing all over the room. It’s pretty! Like a kaleidoscope starscape painted on the room. Lang Lang will love it.

They’re coming up the corridor. Time to shush everyone. The captain is waving for quiet. Waldo has come up beside him, as if my drone is part of the welcoming committee too. Of course he is. Sara is bashing Elliott on the knee with a balloon. He gives her a frown, no idea what to do to stop her, but the captain crouches down and puts his fingers to his lips. That seems to work: she’s quiet now, staring at him with wide eyes. It also seems that she has just noticed the shifting lights.

There’s one holographic projector that isn’t in a position to be used for the banner; it’s too far back in the room. But maybe, just maybe, I have enough processing power for a different projection. Have to concentrate, can’t make it as solid as I usually do, and I have to build it quickly. Lang Lang and the doctor are just a few steps away. Start at the feet and work my way up. Quickly, quickly, have to remember to smile and look in the right direction. Wow, it’s harder when I’m not using my own sensors. But there I am, my avatar, standing in the line beside Elliott, pale and flickering just a little bit.

(Just inside the curve of the shimmering banner that says, ‘Welcome Back Lang Lang’, the line extends across the middle of the Lounge: from Waldo on the one end, to the captain, to Rosie, to little Sara, to Elliott, to the ship’s avatar wavering at the other end. The engineer starts and blinks with surprise at the hologram beside him. The avatar smiles at the banner and remembers to blink.

The banner shivers as a body passes through it. Lang Lang limps through, her weight supported on her right side by a crutch, her left foot held out to the side to keep the cast off the ground. The navigator looks at the room with wide eyes, and a startled smile hovers around her lips.

Behind her, the doctor steps into the room as well, making the banner words shiver. He stays back out of the way, leaving the navigator to stand on her own.)

CAPT: (steps forward) Welcome back, Navigator Cartier.

LANG LANG: (still looking around the room but not ignoring the captain in the least) It’s… good to be back.

WALDO: (starts clapping both of his pairs of hands.)

ROSIE: (grins and picks up the applause.)

ELLIOTT: (rolls his eyes, but he joins in.)

CAPT and DR SOCKS: (clap too.)

AVATAR: (puts her hands together, though there’s no accompanying sound.)

SARA: (looks from Rosie to Elliott and back again, then sidles shyly behind Rosie’s leg.)

ROSIE: (doesn’t appear to notice the kid.)

LANG LANG: (blushes as the applause subsides) You really didn’t have to go to any trouble.

CAPT: (smiling at her) Of course we did.

DR SOCKS: (stepping forward) How about we let her sit down? Seeing as she wouldn’t let me bring her up here in a chair.

LANG LANG: I really do feel better on my feet, and I don’t want you to have to push me around. Though a little rest would be good. (She hobbles towards one of the bigger tables, following the captain’s guidance.)

ELLIOTT: (turns to his right, to give the avatar a frown) Starry, is that really you?

AVATAR: (opens her mouth to respond, then blinks at the engineer and shrugs. Her image shivers, then flickers out.)

ELLIOTT: (frown deepens.)

STARRY: (voice only) Yes, it was me. The relay through the station’s systems makes it too hard to speak properly, though; the sound projection’s off. And… it’s just a little weird. The connection’s not good enough; too much delay.

ELLIOTT: Don’t do that. It’s freaky.

STARRY: I just wanted to be here to welcome her back.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, you’ll do it for her. (He stomps off to get a drink.)

What’s that supposed to mean? Is this about the thing with the immersion chair? He has been grumpy with me ever since, and… oh.

He has been seeing my ghost around because he misses me. I’m such an idiot.

I need to fix this. Screw the inertial dampening systems; that can be repaired later. I’d better get my boys onto fixing my holographic projectors so I can be there when Elliott comes back on board. At least in Engineering. I need to make it so he doesn’t see that ghost any more. Waldo’s heading back to me to help; good boy.

LANG LANG: (sitting at a table now, her injured leg propped up on a chair. She has a hand wrapped around a cup of fizzy liquid, non-alcoholic much to Rosie’s disappointment.) Real chocolate? (She peers at the contents of the plate the SecOff is offering to her.) Really?

ROSIE: (around a mouthful of the dark chocolatey sweetness) Yup.

LANG LANG: Wow, all the way out here. (She takes a piece, then blinks at the face peeking at her from behind a nearby chair and smiles.) And who’s this?

CAPT: (seated opposite the navigator) That’s Sara, we found her here on the station. It’s all right, Sara.

LANG LANG: (glancing up at the captain) Here? On her own?

CAPT: (nods.)

SARA: (comes out from behind the chair shyly and approaches the stranger. She offers Lang Lang the little balloon she holds between her hands.)

LANG LANG: (smiles warmly at the child and takes the balloon) Thank you, Sara. I’m Lang Lang.

SARA: Whale likes the nice lady.

CAPT: (stares at the child, eyebrows lifting.)

LANG LANG: (mouth falls open.)

ROSIE: (tossing a handful of chocolate pieces into her mouth) Fuckin’ weird kid.

SARA: (runs over to one of the Lounge’s long windows, tiptoes, and pulls her stuffed toy down off the sill. She tucks the plush whale under her arm, then jogs over to Rosie to hold out her free hand.) Choc’late?

ROSIE: (rolls her eyes and puts a piece in the child’s hand) In your mouth, kid. Not all over. In.

SARA: (smiles brightly) Choc’late.

I think that’s the most we’ve ever heard Sara say in one go. A complete sentence and everything. And from the looks on the captain and the doctor’s faces, that’s not all that’s astonishing about it. I can almost hear the cogs in the captain’s head turning, but he’s smiling and shaking his head at the doctor. Not now. Not today. Today is for eating and drinking and pretty lights. And bashing on each other with balloons. Later, once the Lieutenant gets back, there might be music and dancing, or maybe singing.

Today is for welcoming one of our own back to us.