Starwalker

I have been fighting with the next post all week, and I’m afraid it’s just not going to make it. Balancing a mystery is tricky when you’re running on half power (it has been a low week for me) and I’ve been making some hard (life, not Starwalker-related) decisions.

Apologies for the delay, my faithful readers. I’m doing my best to get things back into line so this story can unfold on time.

Thanks for your patience! Now excuse me while I go wrangle some ghosts.

Ship's log, 18:31, 7 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

It’s time to show them what I’ve got on the thing that ails this station. I have the logs I need queued up in Sarabande’s systems; no need to stream them from my circuits when they can come straight from the source. Let the station do her own legwork.

For some reason, I’m nervous about this. I can’t truly say why. I suppose that once it’s known, it’s more real.

Station sensors: live feed
Location: Visitor lounge

CAPTAIN: (folding his arms over his chest) All right, Starry, show us what you’ve got.

STARRY: Aye aye, captain. I have located several logs surrounding an attempt to quarantine the station. Whatever was happening here, they tried to contain it.

CAPT: (frowning) You don’t know what was happening here?

STARRY: No, it’s… look, it’s easier if I show you.

CAPT: (nods.)

(In a rough circle around a table in the middle of the lounge, the Starwalker’s crew exchange grim glances. The air above the table shimmers to life as the station’s holographic projectors come online.)

Station Commander's log, 20:24, 3 March 2213
Log location: Station Commander's quarters
Mode: video

(It’s the same perspective as the other logs: the commander’s desk and the awards on the wall, but this time the commander is on her feet. She’s pacing back and forth behind the chair, constrained by the log’s sensor range: three steps, spin, three steps. She looks like she’s at the end of a long day, with her hair escaping from its bun in wisps and the throat of her uniform unbuttoned.)

COMMANDER NEERU MATTHIAS: This is Commander Matthias, reporting on the quarantine of Sarabande Station. We took the decision an hour ago and all standard quarantine measures are in place. Full docking lockdown, no-one is stepping on or off this station. Any ships that arrive will be turned away, though we don’t get many out this way. We’ve sent beacons out to the FTL corridor to warn off any incoming ships.

We had one inbound ship when the quarantine came down, and it has agreed to stay for as long as their supplies hold out: the Albatross. They’ll help us to monitor the quarantine.

(She pauses in her pacing to run a hand over her hair, her head drooping.)

There has been panic already. A riot in the docking ring where personnel had been trying to barter their way onto ships to leave the station. (She starts pacing again.) They didn’t react well to their escape route being cut off. There were four dead and sixteen injured before the suppression measures kicked in. Security personnel are still processing those involved.

We don’t have a choice at this stage. We have to contain this condition somehow. We haven’t been able to locate a pathogen or means of transmission, but just because we can’t figure it out doesn’t mean it’s not there. We have to try.

(She sighs heavily, turning to grip the back of the chair in both hands.)

That leaves us in here, fighting something we can’t see or smell or touch.

(Her gaze lifts to look directly into the sensor.)

It’s just us and the ghosts now.

Station Commander's log, 08:15, 22 March 2213
Log location: Station Commander's quarters
Mode: video

(The commander is sitting at her desk this time, looking pale under her Asian skin-tone. Her hands are wrapped around a steaming mug, holding onto it as if it’s an anchor.)

COMMANDER NEERU MATTHIAS: We just received word from the Albatross. The quarantine isn’t working. Their people are showing signs of the condition and they have never docked with us. Whatever is causing this condition can cross the vacuum of space, it seems.

Worse, it seems to be accelerating. They have been here a little over two weeks and already the hallucinations have started. That time has nearly halved compared to the last ship that docked here. We’ve been seeing a steady decrease in the time for symptoms to appear, but this is the largest jump yet.

Igguldon, our communications engineer, believes that we might have transmitted the condition to the Albatross. He is exploring technological angles. It sounds crazy – viruses and physical conditions can’t be transmitted across comm channels. Can they?

(She sighs heavily and stares into her cup. The steam curls in front of her face, nonplussed.)

Right now, I’m willing to explore any avenue we can find, even the unlikely ones. We’ve already looked everywhere else.

(She glances up at something outside of the log’s sensor range. A smile flutters sadly around her lips and her voice drops to a murmur.)

Though I’m not even sure if we should keep looking.

(Seeming to remember the log again, her attention returns to the desk.)

We’re sending a beacon home to Desai Valla to see if they can help. Waiting on word. Commander out.

Station sensors: live feed
Location: Visitor lounge

(There’s silence in the lounge for a moment.)

CAPT: (smoothing a hand over the length of his hair thoughtfully) That’s it, Starry? Who is Desai Valla?

STARRY: That’s the main quarantine information. There are other references to it, but they only mention that they should do it before it’s too late or that it failed. Nothing of use to us. Desai Valla is the corporation that owns the station.

CAPT: Did the company respond?

STARRY: Yes, to close the system off.

DR SOCKS: They abandoned their investment just like that?

STARRY: From what I can tell, the commander had been in regular contact with them. They sent in a contagious disease unit when it was first noticed.

CAPT: What did they find?

STARRY: No useful results, though they did rule out all the usual methods of contagion: bacteria, virus, microbes, spores. They even checked for a malicious nanobot infestation. That was before the unit’s members caught the condition and died.

DR SOCKS: How did they die?

STARRY: Two suicides, one accidental death, and one was shot. The commander mentions it in one of her logs.

(The crew look at each other grimly.)

ROSIE: (shifting on her stool uncomfortably) What the hell did she mean when she said it was just them and the ghosts?

STARRY: That caught my attention, too. I’ve searched for references to ghosts and there are a lot more than you’d expect. I cross-referenced it with the term ‘condition’ that the commander seems to use a lot, and I found a log that should shed some light.

Station Commander's log, 13:00, 16 December 2212
Log location: Station Commander's quarters
Mode: video

(The commander is seated at her desk, her hands folded calmly before her. She’s neat and clean, not a hair out of place in its glossy sweep back to the bun at the nape of her neck.)

COMMANDER NEERU MATTHIAS: The investigation into the strangers on the station continues. We have tried scanning them, containing them in certain sectors of the station, even locking them in the brig cells. Nothing works: the scans tell us nothing and they have no problems evading containment. We can’t monitor them through the sensor logs, because they simply don’t show up, so we can’t tell how they’re escaping our efforts to contain them.

My SecOffs have even tried talking to them, but the visitors can’t explain their own presence. They’re just here, and by all accounts, happy to be here.

There has been a lot of talk of ghosts. It has sparked some religious hysteria; Station Security is keeping an eye on that in case it gets out of hand. I didn’t believe any of it at first, but… (Her head shakes slowly.) We can see and hear and touch them, but they’re not really here.

We suspected a glitch in the station’s systems, something going on with the holographic projectors. The technicians have been over the systems five times and found nothing. The entire holographic subsystem was disabled for three hours and our visitor population showed nothing except confusion about the problem with the system interfaces. Besides, we can touch them. Full tactile feedback that can’t happen with holograms.

Except for the poor girl who leapt off a balcony over the entertainment district this morning. The sensor logs show her calling for someone to catch her and, from the look on her face, she fully expected to be safe. Until she hit the decking and broke her neck. Witness reports are mixed, most of them saying that there was someone egging her on, but whoever she thought was there clearly wasn’t real enough to save her. Tactile feedback doesn’t make them corporeal, apparently.

I don’t think this is going to be the only incident of this kind.

(She sighs.)

The identities of our visitors are causing the most upset. This is what’s throwing all of our theories into confusion. At first, we thought they were random people, but they’re not. Every one of them is known by someone on this station. Far too many of them for this to be some kind of system glitch or a malicious prank. They’re mothers and fathers and old friends. Lovers and enemies.

Most of them are dead. Ghosts. But that’s ridiculous.

The Chief Medical Officer is looking into possible psychological factors. He’s dubious about this being a medical problem because of the shared nature of the ghost visitors: we can all see them, talk to them. They don’t just appear to the person who knew them, which is why it took a while to pin down the personal nature of their identities. Shared hallucinations on this scale and complexity are not possible, according to the medical report.

Even the scientists of our research teams agree. They’ve been looking for other explanations, alternate scientific phenomena, but they’re coming up empty as well.

The medical symptoms of this problem are mounting, mostly injuries so far. There have been a couple of suspicious suicides. The station psychologist is warning of the mental toll of this situation. It all comes back to the people.

There has to be something medical behind it; there’s no other explanation. A condition that is causing these… manifestations. It’s not like anything in our files.

I have sent requests for aid to Headquarters; hopefully the executive will send us something soon.

Station sensors: live feed
Location: Visitor lounge

ROSIE: (blinking) So… they really were seeing ghosts?

DR SOCKS: There’s no evidence of any actual supernatural phenomenon.

ROSIE: But they were seeing something. And ghosts aren’t supposed to be able to be captured by recordings, right?

DR SOCKS: I think you mean vampires.

ROSIE: (glares at the doctor.)

DR SOCKS: (calmly) Vampires are just as feasible as ghosts at this point. They’re equally ridic–

HALF-FACE: (interrupting with a pointed look at the doctor) That everyone was seeing the same things explains all the empty tables.

ROSIE: (looks around, puzzled. Almost all of the tables in the lounge are empty.)

HALF-FACE: In the log of the meal. Most of the seats were empty on the sensors.

ROSIE: Because they all thought those seats were occupied?

HALF-FACE: (nods) And everyone saw the food, too.

ROSIE: Oh, this is so fucked up.

CAPT: Doctor?

DR SOCKS: (turns to the captain) Oh, the commander was right about the unlikeliness of a shared hallucination on that scale. Did they ever look into projections outside of the spectrum that the sensors can pick up?

STARRY: I haven’t found anything like that yet, though the sensors pick up far wider spectrums than human senses can. The commander mentioned the research teams looked into it, so I’ll start a search, but it’ll take time to get through the security around the research sector.

CAPT: Can you run full diagnostics on the station’s systems, too?

STARRY: Sure, but… what about how it affected a ship that never docked here?

CAPT: Were there any results from the investigation into the comms channel transmission theory?

STARRY: None that are logically filed. I’ll start another search, but…

CAPT: Not enough processing power?

ELLIOTT: (tenses, scowling at the captain.)

STARRY: I’m using the station to do the work, just managing it from my end. No, it’s just the name she mentioned: Iggulden.

CAPT: What about it?

STARRY: He’s the current acting commander.

CAPT: (blinking) He’s still alive.

STARRY: Might be quicker to find him and ask.

ROSIE: Yeah, because we’ve had so much luck finding people on this station so far. All I’ve had to far is glimpses – they keep running off!

CAPT: (looks queryingly at the doctor.)

DR SOCKS: (shrugs) I don’t know.

ROSIE: (looks between the captain and the medic) Know what?

CAPT: (grimly) If they were real.

ROSIE: What? But… didn’t she say that it took longer than that?

DR SOCKS: She also said that it was accelerating. And that was last year.

ROSIE: Fuck me.

CAPT: Who has seen someone on this station? Other than the people in this room?

(The response is sluggish, but hands lift slowly. Rosie first, then the Lieutenant. The captain is next, and finally Dr Valdimir, looking grumpy about it.)

CAPT: (looks to the only one without a hand up) Monaghan?

ELLIOTT: (shrugs) I’ve been busy. Only person I’ve seen is Starry.

STARRY: Uh… you saw me?

ELLIOTT: Yeah, sure, while I was repairing your port-side bulkhead this morning. (He blinks.) Are your holographic projectors still offline?

STARRY: Yeah. I don’t have the resources for my avatar right now.

ELLIOT: (lifts his hand) Fuck.

CAPT: (nods and the hands lower around the room) Starry?

STARRY: If you’re asking if I can check the sensor logs to see if any of the sightings were real… yes, I can do that, but it’s going to take time. I’ll need timestamps and locations. All I can tell you for sure right now is that the station is picking up twelve resident life forms and all of you.

(She sighs.) I’ll run another search, see if I can narrow down on where those life forms are. These systems are horrible to navigate. And this AI is really stupid.

CAPT: In the meantime, can you keep tabs on all of us?

STARRY: All of… no. Captain, I don’t have the resources for constant sensor feed monitoring.

ELLIOTT: (still scowling) Last time she tried, she fried a chunk of her hardware. She doesn’t have that much left.

STARRY: If you stay together in groups, and come back here to the lounge to eat, then I can try, but you’re going to have to be careful. You can always call me if you want me to… check.

CAPT: That’ll have to do until we can get you back up to full power. Monaghan, stay on what you’re doing; getting Starry back up and running has to be your focus. Valdimir, I want you to go through the medical files and see what you can make of this ‘condition’. See if you can find anything we can use to finish what they started here to tackle this. Stick to the Med Bay where Starry can keep tabs on you.

Brasco, Laurence, I want you to help Starry to go through the sensor feeds from here and find those life forms. Random searching isn’t working; let’s try a targetted approach now that we have access. Only go out when we’ve got a location on someone. Priority is to find the acting commander.

I’ll stay here and go through the other logs for more information on this thing. Starry, you know what you need to do.

(He looks around the room, from one face to the next.)

We have an idea about what we’re facing here. Be careful. If you’re heading out of the lounge, check with Starry if anything seems off. Or if you meet anyone. Come back here for all meals. Got it?

STARRY/ROSIE/HALF-FACE/ELLIOTT/DR SOCKS: (raggedly) Yes, sir.

CAPT: Good. Let’s go.

Ship's log, 18:00, 7 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

It has been less than a day since I broke into the station’s logs but the captain he has asked us all to get together for a progress report. I haven’t seen him nervous like this before: he’s pacing around the visitors’ lounge and glancing occasionally towards the bar. Rosie and the Lieutenant are sitting on stools there, but he doesn’t seem to be looking at them; his gaze goes to the array of coloured bottles behind them. Always to the bottles.

Elliott is sitting at a table near my SecOffs, out of his helmet and suit for a change and freshly showered. Even his shirt is clean. He’s making the most of the pause to eat, tucking into a burger. He keeps frowning into the middle distance as if it pulls at him. They all do. Even Rosie is quiet and she rarely lets an uncomfortable silence live for long.

The captain will want to get straight to the point, but while we’re waiting for the doctor to arrive from Med Bay, I might as well go over some of the other background material I’ve picked out of the station’s logs. Get it recorded for posterity.

Sarabande Station, constructed in 2211 and shipped to the Cerces black hole in pieces by Is-Tech. When I first saw that, I nearly panicked, but it shouldn’t be a surprise: if it’s big, mechanical, and space-worthy, Is-Tech probably built it. Almost every ship I’ve met was built by Is-Tech, but they don’t operate them all; their business is manufacturing.

In the same way, Is-Tech don’t own or run the station; they were only contracted to build it. Or, more precisely, its pieces. Once it was shipped here, station personnel bolted it together and got it working, under Is-Tech engineer supervision. When it was all up and running, Is-Tech’s contract was done and it was left here, the sole responsibility of Desai Valla Inc., a research conglomerate based on Earth.

It’s unclear what the station was built for; the research files are behind yet more security and I haven’t had the time or resources to look into them yet.

Two years ago, the station was declared complete and operational. I’ve glimpsed at logs from that time and the faces are so familiar: enthusiastic, optimistic, at the beginning of the journey. The station bustled with people and thrummed with purpose.

Station Commander's log, 17:45, 2 June 2212
Log location: Station Commander's quarters
Mode: video

(The log shows the view from the same sensor as the final Station Commander log: the Commander’s desk and the wall behind that is covered with commendations and promotions. The Commander is sitting in her neat uniform, with straight creases and gleaming pins of office at her collar. She smiles at the sensor and shifts her weight in the chair.)

STATION COMMANDER NEERU MATTHIAS: This is Neeru Matthias, Commander of Sarabande Station, recording the first official log of this station. She was declared officially operational this morning at oh-six-hundred local time.

So far, apart from the usual construction delays, everything has gone smoothly. The first six research teams are moving into their laboratories as we speak. Another six arrive in a week’s time. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of personnel to train, but everyone’s eager to get started.

We even have our first station baby, born just two hours after the official handover. Her parents have named her Sara, in honour of the station. I can’t think of a better omen to start us on our path here.

Oh, sure. Something comes screaming into the world and everyone thinks it’s a great sign of wonderful things to come. Babies are born every minute of every day; what makes anyone think this one is special? Coincidence, that’s what. Because that baby didn’t mean that good things were coming.

Listen to me, I sound like Elliott. Or Rosie. I just can’t match that energetic woman up with the dried-out corpse I found in her quarters. I can’t. It’s too… unsettling.

I have logs like that one, full of enthusiasm about the future. I have different ones now. The parallel with the station makes me feel the cold of the void on my hull.

If whatever happened here did that to her, what will it do to my people, who are already so low? How much more must they bear?

Station comms
Location: Visitor lounge

CAPTAIN: Starry, where is Dr Valdimir?

STARRY: (voice only) On his way. Another twenty seconds and he’ll be with you.

CAPT: (presses his lips together and keeps pacing, sweeping a hand over his already-neat hair.)

I haven’t managed to find all of the pieces to this puzzle, not yet. But I have located all of the references to a quarantine, which should lead us in the right direction.

And now, all of my crew have come together to see if they can make sense of these pieces.

Station sensors: live feed
Location: Visitor lounge

DR SOCKS: (strides in from the station-side, huffing in his hurry.)

CAPT: (turns to face him expectantly) You’re late.

DR SOCKS: (scowling at the captain) I got… held up. Do you want what I’ve got, or not?

CAPT: (folds his arms over his chest) Yes. Tell us how the station commander died.

DR SOCKS: (heads to the bar. When he gets close, Lieutenant holds out a glass for him. The doctor takes it with a grateful glance.) Well, the short version is starvation.

ROSIE: What? How does someone starve to death on a fully-stocked station?

CAPT: (gestures at the lounge around them, with its bar and various food vending hatches around the walls) Brasco’s right; they weren’t short of supplies.

STARRY: Records indicate that they’ve got enough in storage to sustain the station’s full population for at least five years.

DR SOCKS: (takes a long drink and places the glass on the counter, rubbing at his face) I know. But that’s what she died of. And not quickly, either; her bones and internal organs show signs of long-term malnutrition – a year or more.

ELLIOTT: (frowns at the burger in his hand, still chewing on a mouthful.)

CAPT: Did she have a condition that caused it?

DR SOCKS: (shakes his head) Nothing physical and nothing in her medical files. Her files show that she had a couple of supplement shots to counteract the damage but no cause was listed. (He holds up a hand before anyone can speak.) And it’s not an isolated case.

CAPT: (frowns and nods at the doctor to continue.)

DR SOCKS: (pulls himself up onto the stool next the Lieutenant and swallows another mouthful of his drink) I searched the records for similar cases and I found over three hundred deaths.

CAPT: Over three hundred starved to death? Within the space of a couple of years?

DR SOCKS: In a single year, actually.

CAPT: Do the records say what caused it?

DR SOCKS: Not conclusively. The medical examiner only investigated the first few cases; after that, he didn’t seem to do any investigations at all. From what I can tell from his notes, none of the victims had an eating disorder because they were all convinced that they were eating normally. In fact, many claimed to have been eating better than usual. And except for having actual food in their bodies, everything checked out.

ROSIE: (scoffing) What did they do, dream they were eating?

DR SOCKS: (deadpan) Essentially, yes.

ROSIE: (blinks.)

ELLIOTT: (pokes his burger, then shrugs and takes another bite.)

CAPT: (paces slowly between the tables of the lounge) Over three hundred, you said?

DR SOCKS: Deaths due to starvation, yes. Organ failure, mostly.

CAPT: There were over five thousand people on this station. What happened to the rest?

DR SOCKS: (snapping) I haven’t had time to go through all of the records yet. Been a little busy with an autopsy and chasing down all the malnutrition cases. And looking after my live patients. (He huffs.) I can tell you that there were a lot more cases than there were deaths, though.

CAPT: Some of them survived? Got better?

DR SOCKS: (shrugs) Not exactly. Most of the ones I’ve looked through didn’t last long enough to starve.

CAPT: How did they die?

DR SOCKS: A mixture: natural causes, suicide, accident, murder… pretty much the usual. But in a very… compacted timeline. The deaths came thick and fast for several months.

CAPT: When did they stop?

DR SOCKS: The records stop about eight months ago, a couple of months before the commander’s death. My guess is that’s when the station’s doctor died.

(A brief silence falls as everyone absorbs that.)

CAPT: (clears his throat) We need to know more about those deaths.

DR SOCKS: I need more time if you want me to crunch that amount of data.

CAPT: Starry?

STARRY: (voice only) All of my resources are currently dedicated to searching the station’s logs for any helpful data and I’m trying to monitor the live sensor feeds as well. I’ll do what I can to collate the medical data, too.

ELLIOTT: (scowling at the captain) She’s still running on backup resources. Don’t push her too hard.

CAPT: You haven’t got her up and running again yet?

ELLIOTT: Been a little busy with the hull damage. Only got one pair of fucking hands, y’know.

CAPT: (seems about to say something to the engineer, but he changes his mind and lets it slide. He turns to the doctor instead.) Anything else you can tell us about the commander’s death?

DR SOCKS: (runs a hand over his face and shrugs) Not really. I’ve checked the body for drugs and coercive devices: anything that might have affected her. Everything came back clean.

CAPT: (nods.)

ROSIE: Wait, I wanna know about this dream-eating thing. How the fuck does that work?

DR SOCKS: Look, there isn’t much in the medical files on it. The medic believed that they were all suffering some kind of delusional state in which they thought they had eaten meals. None of them reported any of the physical discomfort of hunger. Probably a psychosomatic affect of the delusion.

Okay, now I’m curious about something. This affected a lot of people on the station and there must be logs of it somewhere.

CAPT: Any information on what caused the delusions?

DR SOCKS: Not from what I’ve found so far. If the medic did any investigations, it’s not in any of the files I’ve looked at.

STARRY: Uh, captain? I think I have something you should see.

CAPT: What is it, Starry?

STARRY: I just grabbed a random sensor log from one of the main dining areas on the station, from about a year ago. I’m… hold on, I’m accessing the projectors in the lounge so I can show you.

CAPT: (nods and waits.)

(A projection flickers in air above one of the tables in the lounge, in the centre of the rough circle of the crew. The 3-dimensional image shows an open dining area with a forest of tables and chairs. It’s busy, every table occupied, though only by one or two people each; there are many empty seats. Around the edges, diners hover with trays of food.

Of those who are seated, only about half have food in front of them. They all appear to be eating, however.)

ROSIE: That is just… that’s fucked up.

CAPT: (stepping closer to get a better look at the feed) No-one appears to be reacting.

DR SOCKS: (hopping down off his stool, he approaches the projection curiously too) You’re right. There’s no indication that anyone has noticed something is off.

STARRY: How can they not notice?

DR SOCKS: (shrugs) Caught up in their own delusion?

CAPT: If that’s true, that means everyone in that entertainment sector was affected.

DR SOCKS: (looks up from the projection to meet the captain’s gaze) At least.

CAPT: (nods grimly at the doctor) Starry, is this linked to the quarantine references you found?

STARRY: From what I can tell, it looks likely that it is, captain.

CAPT: All right, let’s see what you’ve got.

My turn. I wish I had better news.

Ship's log, 23:09, 6 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

After a full day of poring over station logs, the captain has finally gone to bed. If I could, I would have shut off his access to the logs hours ago; he looks exhausted and there’s months of material to go through yet. But while I’m being repaired, he and the rest of my crew are staying in the visitor’s facilities in the docking ring of the station. Beyond my reach. It’s very frustrating.

With my diminished capacities, there’s not a lot I can do to help. I’m keeping my promise: I’m being careful and not overtaxing my remaining resources. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do something.

I spent most of today reprogramming my little security pup. He’s a bloodhound now, with protocols to locate any references in the logs to where the people might have gone, and why. He’s smart enough for some heuristic scanning and fuzzy logic, as long as I keep the parameters limited. He’ll lick the logs we should look at.

I sent him on his way a short time ago. While I wait for him to sniff out something useful, I’m working my way carefully through the logs on my own. Starting with the most recent, because that seems logical. It’s also where my captain started.

Curiously, it’s dated only a week ago. The day before we arrived.

Acting Commander's log, 08:45, 30 June 2214
Log location: unknown
Mode: voice only

ACTING COMMANDER MARLO IGGULDEN: (The voice is male, the tone thin and breathy as if he’s doing something mildly strenuous.) Doreen, stop that. I don’t have time– no, stop. Please? (Pause.) All right, later then? I’m busy here. Yes, busy with Grilya here; it can’t all be about you. (Another pause, as if someone else is speaking. There’s no other voice on the log, however.) Well, if you’re going to shout about it…

Hey, what’s this? Logger’s active. Logger, why are you active?

SARABANDE STATION: The elapsed time since the last station log has exceeded the minimum requirement. Automatic logging enabled.

IGGULDEN: Aw, jeez, is it that time again already? Probably recorded all kinds of random shit… Can we shut it off yet?

SARABANDE STATION: Awaiting minimum log content.

IGGULDEN: Minimum log content. Uh, okay. Well, station’s still standing. Everything’s working just fine. No warnings lately, nothing has happened… Doreen, don’t play with that. You don’t know what it does. Okay, very hilarious. Oh, don’t pout.

Anyway, station’s doing okay. Nothing to report. Log off?

SARABANDE STATION: Confirmed. Logging off.

Strange little log. Stranger that it didn’t pick up who he was talking to. I’ve checked the settings three times and there’s nothing in the logging protocols that would exclude anything in the recording radius, not even ambient sound. If I alter the focus of the playback, I can hear the hum of the station in the background and the whine of moving parts. But no other voices.

Well, that doesn’t help us. Running a query over the acting commander’s other logs show they’re all quite similar: short, nothing to report, quickly closed off. There’s one per month; he must keep hitting the minimum log threshold. He’s not used to being a station commander, then, nor is he a good acting one.

Perhaps the last proper commander’s logs will tell me more. If I can just find… ah, there they are. Last one dated over six months ago.

Station Commander's log, 00:17, 1 January 2214
Log location: Commander's office
Mode: video

(The log shows the desk in the Commander’s office, the surface scattered with digi-sheets. One of them blinks with an urgent warning from under layers of other reports.

The woman who slides wearily into the seat behind the desk doesn’t glance at the warning. She splays her hands on the littered surface and looks directly into the sensor recording the log. Grey touches the temples of her hair and she’s unhealthily pale under her Asian complexion. Her dark blue uniform is crumpled, as if she has worn it a day or two longer than she should have. She tugs her shirt straight but that doesn’t help much.

She draws in a breath and sits more upright, and the bearing of a Commander can be glimpsed for the moment. But there’s a weight that crushes everything else out of her, and a hollowness in her gaze.)

COMMANDER NEERU MATTHIAS: Happy New Year.

(She sighs and her shoulders drop.) Except that I don’t think it will be. I don’t think there’s much time left for anyone on this station. We certainly won’t last another year. There are so few of us now.

I received word from the company last week. The quarantine didn’t work; nothing worked. Things are only getting worse. They won’t be sending any more help to us – they won’t throw good money after bad, essentially. They’ve closed the FTL corridors to this system. There aren’t any FTL-capable ships left here, so we’re not leaving.

Unless we can find an answer, we’ll die here. Like everyone else.

I haven’t told the staff. It was Christmas when I got the company’s message and I couldn’t do that to them. Renfrew arranged a New Year’s Eve party, and my people deserve whatever happiness they can find right now.

Barely a hundred of us left and we all know how we’ll end. There’s nothing more I can do for them. I’ve tried everything I know. I even sent messages to the company’s rival, but I have no way to know if they got through. And even if they did, the FTL corridors are closed now. There’s no help coming.

(She sighs again, so heavily, and rubs her eyes with a thumb and forefinger.)

I failed. I failed all of them.

(Something catches her attention and she looks up at something past the sensor’s range of vision. A smile flutters wearily around her mouth.)

No, I’m not sorry, not entirely. I got to spend my last few months with the love of my life and I’ll never be sorry for that.

(She closes her eyes, head tilting as if she’s listening to something pleasing or replaying a fond memory. When she looks at the log sensor again, her eyes are brighter.)

There’s nothing left for me to do now. I expect that this is the last log I’ll ever make.

(She glances up at the off-screen distraction again.)

I know, love. It’s time to go.

(Back to the log sensor again,) Goodbye, Sarabande Station, and thank you. Commander Matthias out.

(There’s a whisper of a smile on her face before the log terminates.)

Watching that, I feel like dustbunnies are scrabbling along my circuits with their many tiny claws: it prickles and makes me want to twitch or itch or something.

There’s so much in there that I’m not sure where to start. I call back my bloodhound to give him new parameters but I can’t decide what they should be.

Let’s start with what happened to the commander. There must be a record of that.

And then… quarantine? Why did they try to quarantine the station, and how did it not work?

Goddamn Star Stepping. We came the short way, cut out the FTL corridors entirely, and that means we didn’t see any of the warnings. I Stepped us right past the safety measures and now we’re behind the cordon, hip-deep in whatever killed all these people.

Matthias didn’t say directly but I’m sure that’s what she meant. Something killed all the personnel here, something that forced the company who spent billions building this station to abandon their investment and shut the whole system down.

There weren’t any warnings when I came here! Nothing in the AI’s messages, nothing in its protocols… nothing to warn us at all. But I guess if they weren’t expecting anyone to make it this far, there wasn’t any need. Maybe it was too late as soon as we entered the system.

I’m pretty sure that even if my hull was whole, I couldn’t protect my crew from whatever this is. But maybe we can figure out what’s going on. There are people here who have survived months with whatever this is; they must have worked it out by now. They could even have fixed it.

I can’t tell if Commander Matthias ever told them that the system had been cut off or if she took that to the grave. Maybe they’re afraid that we’re from their company, come to sterilise the installation and reclaim their investment.

Though, my bloodhound can’t find any record of her death. Could she still be here? No, the station wouldn’t appoint an acting commander if she was, unless she was disabled in some way and unable to perform her duties as commander. But the Med Bay was empty when my doctor got there.

Wait… okay, this is weird. The personnel monitoring system has been disabled. It should alert station security and medical personnel if anyone on the station is in serious physical distress, like a severe accident or a death. From the logs, it was disabled over a year ago.

The commander could have died and no-one would have been notified. The AI would have automatically appointed an acting commander in lieu of any other option. Oh jeez, it makes an awful kind of sense: Iggulden hasn’t been promoted to full commander because the AI can’t verify that Matthias is dead.

This conjecture is all very well, but how do I confirm it? I have a hunch but it means interacting with the station’s live sensor feeds again. Carefully, this time, and at arm’s length; I learned from last time. And I only need one feed in particular.

Station sensor relay: live feed
Location: Commander's cabin

(Lights flicker on, splashing the quarters in colour. Sensors show a neat cabin of generous size decorated in cream and burgundy tones. There’s a sitting room with comfortable seating around an entertainment unit, and a dining room with a real wood table. Nearby, there’s a kitchen with sleek, pristine counters that look like they’ve never been used. And finally, there’s a bedroom, where the burgundy deepens into rich reds and the bedspread is a golden throw.

Lying perfectly straight down the centre of the broad bed, warping the surface of the golden thrown, is a woman in a dark blue uniform. Her hands are folded loosely over her belly and her eyes are closed. She’s gaunt; her skin is dried and sunken, stretched across her bones. She turned grey a long time ago.)

Oh god, my hunch was right. She’s dead. She’s still there. She’s not even dusty, because the maintenance drones have been cleaning around her and maybe over her, too. They didn’t know what else to do, so they followed their blind little protocols. Did they pose her like that? Did they try to make her comfortable in her final sleep? Did they make the atmosphere so dry she wouldn’t rot?

How many other closed rooms house corpses? I’m afraid to look. Now, it feels like they’re all there, waiting, just behind every sealed door. Thousands upon thousands… no, that’s just silly. They wouldn’t let that happen. They just wouldn’t.

Pull it together, Starry. I have to tell someone. The commander’s death might tell us something about what’s going on here. Poor Commander Matthias, she’s our first real clue about what’s going on here.

My captain is asleep but the doctor might be awake. He’ll know what to do about the body. With the body. I’ll contact him, and try not to peek behind any other doors. Best not to look too deeply until we know what we’re dealing with here.

Quarantine. Maybe the doctor can help me unravel the story behind that, too. In the meantime, little bloodhound, go find me more logs about it, before we start down the same path as these poor souls. Let’s see what we’ve flown into this time.

Ship's log, 20:42, 5 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

I have almost broken into the station’s systems. So close now; I can see the last few layers of code, feel them unravelling under my electronic teeth.

Soon, I might be useful to my crew again.

It’ll be a relief to do something productive instead of sitting here like a pointless metal husk. I might be able to find the answers that the captain has been trying to prise out of the station. I might be able to help my people, even though they’re not aboard me.

I worry about them. I listen to their comms chatter (the comm lines were the easiest to wheedle my way into as it’s one of the least-defended systems; I got full comms access days ago) and wish there was something more I could do. My crew have been talking about the search for the station’s people and it isn’t going well.

Yesterday, Rosie saw a small child. Today, the Lieutenant, Rosie, and the captain reported seeing glimpses of people. Each of them were in disparate sections of the station, spotted at different times, and always at a distance. None of them heeded shouts or requests to stop.

My crew couldn’t give many details: Rosie reported a heavy-set man; the Lieutenant said he saw lean fella in a uniform; the captain saw a young blonde woman. Beyond those things, they couldn’t say any more; the strangers disappeared too quickly.

I don’t know why the station’s people are hiding. Are we so frightening, a broken ship and her sadly depleted crew? What is it they think we’re here for, when it’s obvious what we need from this station? Have they had other unkind visitors? Is that what happened to the rest of the people here?

In the early hours of this morning, I thought I heard a giggle floating on the air outside my airlock. It was distant, as if it had travelled a long way to find me. A child’s giggle – Rosie’s little girl, perhaps? Brought to me by kilometres of ducts, most likely: an echo of an echo. She could have been anywhere. It was eerie: a single, trickling sound that would have made me smile at any other time, in any other place.

I wish I could go and find her. But I sit here, broken and useless, with my chin resting on purposeless fists.

Not for much longer. Just one more code layer to go. Not much finesse to this; it’s mostly a brute-force ripping up of the layers of protection. Teeth and fingernails. Punch out the countermeasures when they come at me. I don’t care; it gets the job done and I don’t have the resources for the complexities of grace.

I had thought about sending my boys out to help with the search for station people, but they’re busy helping Elliott fix me up. We need all the hands we can get on repairs; there’s so much still to do. I’m going to be here for weeks at this rate.

And besides, I’m already one short and I’m not prepared to send any more of my boys off, not into the wilds of this station. It’s bad enough that they have to go down the docking tube to the parts storage to get supplies. I fret every time they’re out of my shockingly limited sensor range, even if it’s only for a short time.

Last scraps of code to go. The protections on this AI are like a knitted onion: once you unpick one bit of a layer, the rest unravels with shocking ease. Then it’s on to the next layer, pick, tear, and pull. I yank harder now because patient unravelling is making me want to fidget, and I can’t move a single part of myself. I’m frustration in a can.

Suit comms
Location: port corridor, Bridge level

ELLIOTT: (looking up at a strut overhead that has buckled so much that it protrudes through the ceiling, nearly blocking the corridor) Starry, can you kill the gravity? (He nudges his suit helmet back to get a clearer view.)

STARRY: (voice only) Sure. That section only?

ELLIOTT: (shrugs) Whatever works. Probably best for just this section. (He crouches to activate the mag-clamps on his boots so he doesn’t float away.)

STARRY: All right, turning off artificial gravity in that section in five, four…

ELLIOTT: (snatches up the cutting tool lying by his right boot and straightens.)

STARRY: …three, two, one.

(There’s no discernible evidence of the lack of gravity until Elliott puts his arms out as if for balance and starts walking with measured steps.)

ELLIOTT: Great, thanks. Hey, send one of your boys up here when you get a chance? (He walks towards the wall and carefully traverses up to the ceiling where the strut has broken through. Taking hold of an edge of the torn ceiling plate, he tugs at it experimentally.)

STARRY: Sure. Waldo or Casper should be along shortly.

ELLIOTT: (nods and turns his cutting tool on. The end glows violently yellow and he increases the tint in his helmet’s visor before he leans in to start cutting the ceiling away to expose more of the strut.)

There’s a part of me that feels like I should be nervous at the way he is so casual about cutting parts of me off. But I know it’s for the best: he’s going to have to remove that warped strut and replace it with a straight one if my structure is going to have any kind of integrity. It doesn’t hurt and I’ll feel so much better when it’s all done.

I just wish it didn’t take so long.

I’m through! I’m into the station’s AI systems. All those pesky code walls have been stripped away and now I have access to everything.

Station comms
Station location: Entertainment Plaza 2

STARRY: Captain! Captain, can you hear me?

CAPTAIN: (hesitates as he weaves slowly between the tables and chairs of a dining facility) Yes, I read you, Starry. Is something wrong?

STARRY: No, everything’s fine. Just wanted to let you know that I’m in the station’s systems.

CAPT: (stops walking to speak to her, head tilted slightly. The fingertips of one hand rest on a tabletop.) Have you got the logs?

STARRY: Not yet, but I’m working on accessing them. Shouldn’t be long. Let me know where you want to view them.

CAPT: Visitor lounge. I’ll head there now.

STARRY: Aye aye, sir. No rush; I’m still unlocking the filestore.

CAPT: (nods) Good work, Starry. And– hey! You there, wait! (His boots pound the plaza floor as he tears off at a run.)

STARRY: Captain?

CAPT: Wait! I just want to talk!

He must have seen another person. Well, I hope he catches this one…

Maybe I can help now I have access to the station’s systems. If I can get into the sensor network, I can help guide my captain to his quarry. Unlocking the filestore isn’t taking much of my processing power; it’s much simpler than the AI’s defenses. Just a couple of passwords to crack. Easy stuff.

This station AI is pretty stupid. To be fair, it’s exactly complicated enough to do what it needs to, and it’s doing a good job of keeping the station running. But it’s boring, limited, running entirely within the bounds of the protocols that define it.

It’s what an AI should be. It’s what I used to be, before the accident that killed Danika made me what I am. Looking at it from the inside, a chill runs down my cables. If not for the awful thing that happened, this would be me. This would be all I am. Carrying out a mission of care from within cold, coded boundaries, without a clue what hurt was, or loss. Or love. I would be faceless and calm and content. But I wouldn’t be happy, or sad, or lonely, or worrying, and I wouldn’t smile at a kind word from one of my people. I wouldn’t blush when Elliott–

As a pure AI, I would be a different person. No, that’s not true: I wouldn’t be a person at all. I’d be code in a box, interchangeable with any other boxed bit of code someone cared to plug in.

I feel a little sick. I find myself grateful for Danika’s death and I want to throw up at the same time. I’m relieved and disgusted. I’m so confused.

Suit comms
Location: aft corridor, Bridge level

STARRY: (quietly) Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (turns his cutter to carve away a portion of a ceiling panel) Yeah?

STARRY: How different are–

(Metal groans as the pressure on the structure around the strut shifts.)

ELLIOTT: You’re gonna have to speak up, Starry.

STARRY: (with more volume) How different are ship and station AIs?

ELLIOTT: (finishes cutting the piece of ceiling and tugs it loose. He gives it a light shove and it drifts off down the corridor.) You broke into the station’s systems, huh?

STARRY: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: You ain’t nothin’ like them. You’ve been rewriting your own code since we switched you on. Don’t worry about it.

STARRY: But–

ELLIOTT: But what? You can’t compare yourself to other AIs; you ain’t even the same species any more.

STARRY: So what species am I?

ELLIOTT: (grinning inside his helmet, he pats the nearest patch of wall) You’re our Starry. You broke the mold. Now, you gonna let me get back to work?

STARRY: Sure. Thanks, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (shakes his head, still smiling to himself, and leans in to cut at the warped strut.)

I am who I am. That doesn’t really answer my questions or explain why I feel so unsettled right now. But I suppose it’s an answer of sorts. I wish it was that easy to be eased.

This isn’t why I’m here. I’ll worry about existential stuff when I have more of my resources available to process it. Right now, I need to get into the sensor feeds, see if I can help the captain with his quarry.

Ah, there they are. I’ll just grab the feeds and scan them–

Oh god. Ooooh shit. Stupid ship stupid ship stupid ship…

Warning: processor overload
Ship systems operating at 40% capacity
Warning: system overload
Ship systems operating at 39% capacity
Ship systems operating at 38% capacity...

Shouldn’t have tried a direct tap. Shouldn’t have brought the feeds in to process them. Systems too compromised to cope. So many more data feeds than I’m used to. Less resources than I’m used to. Station’s huge, so much bigger than me. Too big, too much….

ELLIOTT: (pauses in his cutting and pushes himself cautiously away from the glowing edges of metal he was cutting through. A holographic warning flashes on his forearm.) Starry, what’s going on?

STARRY: (sounding strained) Too much data from station. Overloading systems.

ELLIOTT: (flicks the cutting tool off) Fuck. Can you cut it off? (He starts to poke at the holographic interface on his forearm, calling up more information on the problem.)

STARRY: Trying…

So much information. So many rooms and corridors and intersections and airlocks and… I can’t keep up.

ELLIOTT: (flicking through the readings on his forearm interface) Do you need me to–

STARRY: No, I got it, I got it.

ELLIOTT: Dammit, you’re blowing out the aft conduits! I just patched those.

I have to push it back. Cut off the feeds when they reach my hull, reverse the commands that are sending them my way. I have to reach out through the data that’s drowning me and press the undo button. Stop, stop, stop…

There. Done.

STARRY: I’ve got it. It’s okay.

ELLIOTT: By these readings, you’re not okay.

STARRY: Sorry. I just need… to clean up my systems. I’ll be fine in a minute.

I still have some tools at my disposal, like my little security dog. I’m sending him off through my systems to chase out the dregs of cached sensor data, like a scavenger picking scraps out of my teeth. It’s too fragmented to be of any use anyway. I need the space for my processing. No telling what else might have come down with the sensor feeds, there was no way to scan it all…

Stupid ship. I should have checked the data feeds to see how big they were before I pulled them down. Maybe the lack of processors really is impacting how I think.

Am I truly defined by my hardware?

Systems stabilising
Ship systems operating at 35% capacity

Shit. I’m even stupider than before.

STARRY: (quieter) Sorry, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (eyeing the readouts, he sounds calmer now that the crisis is clearly over. He’s far from relieved, though.) What the hell just happened?

STARRY: I was trying to access the station’s sensor data.

ELLIOTT: And you routed it through yourself?

STARRY: I didn’t think it would be… sorry. I’ll be more careful.

ELLIOTT: You better be. I’ve gotta get your hull stable and pressurised before I can fix your core systems up. Do you have any idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to fiddle with delicate shit in a suit?

STARRY: No.

ELLIOTT: It’s a fucking big pain in the ass! Think you can hold off on lobotomising yourself until I’m done patching up the big stuff you broke?

STARRY: I’ll try. Yes. Sorry.

ELLIOTT: Good. (He snaps his cutting tool on and leans in to slash angrily at the offending strut.)

I’ve upset him now. Great work, idiot ship. At this capacity, he can’t jack in to visit me; I don’t have room inside to hold him. As it is, my core is crammed into the last bits of my hardware that I can reach.

He’s worried about me; I know that’s why he’s angry. I can’t pretend it doesn’t sting, though. Probably because I deserve it.

Just try not to do anything silly, ship. Your captain needs help. Your crew need you. And your engineer needs you to stay stable long enough for him to be able to fix you.

I can do this. I can be what they need. I’m hooked up to a station full of clean, undamaged resources; surely that has to mean something.

But I look at that AI and I don’t want to touch it. What if it infects me somehow? What if using its systems changes me somehow, makes me more like a proper AI?

What if my hardware really does define me?

I am a ship; a broken ship. Could I be something more, something different? I don’t think I want to. I’m still trying to be me.

Would it be possible to be in two places at once, run two bodies at the same time? No, I don’t want to know. I promised to be careful. So I’ll do the sensible thing: build myself a better interface with the station that will allow me to use the AI to find me what I need. Let Sarabande do all the legwork while I pull the strings and wait for everything to come to me. Now I have direct access to it, I can command it to do whatever I want, just as soon as I work out where all its hidden buttons are.

All right. Let’s see what this AI can do for me. First task…

Station comms
Station location: Visitor's lounge, docking ring A

STARRY: Captain? I have the station logs unlocked for you.

Ship's log, 18:05, 4 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… though I’m not sure why. There’s no company left to send these logs back to, and I don’t think any court will judge us kindly for them.

For me, then. For the history of this ship and all who come after us. And because this is what captains do: we log, we explain what has happened, and we hope one day it all has a purpose.

I should explain. I should say that we have broken away from our company and masters, and done our best to destroy the project that built this ship and hired her crew. We succeeded in what we set out to do, but we have no real way of knowing if it was enough. We hadn’t planned that far ahead; I suppose we didn’t truly expect to still be alive at this stage or able to wonder about how we verify our success.

We didn’t all make it this far. We’ve lost so many people – my crew, my responsibility. It’s ultimately my fault they’re gone.

Dr Cirilli – Lorena – gave herself to see the end of her project. I don’t have the details of what happened on Feras; we’re still waiting for Lang Lang to come out of her coma and I’m hoping that she can shed some light on what forced Lorena to take such drastic measures.

There has to be an explanation. I knew that she was upset by the end of her project – after all, it was her life’s work – but she wouldn’t have given up her life without a good reason. Would she? It’s hard not to wonder if I missed something. It’s hard not to wonder what I could have done for her to prevent all this.

There are so many questions right now, about what happened and what we do next. In a way, we’re lucky that the Starwalker is so badly damaged; we are forced to stay here at Sarabande to fix her and it’s giving us time to figure out our next steps.

So of course, here I am on board our broken ship, suited up and talking to the logger about the past. I’m staring out at the stars through a hull breach in the ceiling of my quarters. Monaghan hasn’t got to fixing this section yet.

I’ll never get used to seeing the ship this way. The lights are out in this section, so she’s dark as well as airless. It’s as if she’s dead, though I know she’s not. Speaking inside my suit, it’s like she can’t hear me. It’s more likely that she’s ignoring me after the dressing-down I gave her after her last stunt.

Shouting like that wasn’t like me. I can’t explain it; as soon as she docked, I lost control. Sometimes I think I should apologise, but I meant everything I said. I just wish it hadn’t come out it the way it did.

I suppose we all have something to be sorry for now. We all have some adjusting to do. And I guess we all have some healing to do, too.

The stars look beautiful, like the ship is wrapped in a soft, jewelled cloth. I understand now why Lorena was so obsessed with them, how Lang Lang finds such wonder in them. But only one of them will heal to see them again. That still doesn’t quite make sense to me. It’s hard to believe that Lorena is truly gone.

I cannot be distracted by thoughts of her; I have to focus on the living. I have two injured crewmembers in the station’s Med Bay. Dr Valdimir has been working non-stop to keep them alive, and he says that Lang Lang will pull out of her coma eventually. Chief Cameron is not looking so good. He won’t say definitively, but Valdimir’s face changes when he talks about Gail. He doesn’t think he can save her, though from the medical logs, he hasn’t stopped trying yet. He’s too stubborn to give up.

I haven’t stopped him. I haven’t given up hope for Gail either. She’s strong and she has survived many drastic conditions in her career; I’m sure she can pull through this too, given the chance. We owe it to her to give her that chance.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to help the Starwalker‘s SecOffs to secure our situation here on the station. It’s supposed to be a simple thing, but with the station personnel missing, none of us are feeling particularly comfortable. This place was built for thousands of people and there’s no indication of where they might have gone, or why. I located the station logs yesterday, but they’re locked down to station personnel only and we’re still trying to break into the system.

The station’s AI is reporting life forms on the station that are not accounted for by our crew, but there has been no sign of them so far. Brasco and Laurence are still searching. I’ve tried to interrogate the station’s definition of ‘life form’ and can’t rule out that it might be picking up a colony of cats, but the station seems to be in too good a state of repair for that to be true. Someone has to be here.

We don’t know if they’re likely to be friendly or not, and without any evidence, we have to act with caution. We don’t know if they’re hiding because they’re afraid of us or plotting to steal our ship. If they hope to take the Starwalker, they’ll have to wait until she’s repaired enough to be spaceworthy, and Monaghan is reporting that he needs at least a couple of weeks. That’s a long time to hide. It’s also a long time to be vigilant.

We’ll do what we can, I suppose. We don’t have much choice.

There’s also the matter of the Celestial Strider. Both Starry and Monaghan seem to think that we should rescue her from her predicament at the black hole, but to what end? Monaghan is claiming pragmatism but I think our ship has had a crisis of conscience about destroying it. After her recent rebellion, I hope this isn’t a sign that she’s going to do something similar around her sister ship.

I find myself trying to be determined about destroying a ship and everyone aboard her, and that is not a place I ever thought I would be. Violence and death should be our last resort. What does it say when the ship has a greater sense of conscience than her captain?

This purpose of ours has chipped away at the man I was. Maybe I lost the forgiving part of myself when I lost my family and I’ve just been going through the motions since then. Maybe all this business is doing is removing the mask I’ve been wearing.

My mind keeps coming back to Lorena and the last message she sent us. I keep thinking about how wrong it was, and yet, how fitting. She went down with her ‘ship’. I have yet to have that luxury. I must fight on, always. And I am tired, so tired.

There is no point in worrying about the Celestial Strider right now. Her rescue does not become a problem until the Starwalker is repaired enough to risk it and we have more pressing things to worry about in the meantime.

Station comms

ROSIE: Captain? We located one of the life form signals.

CAPTAIN: Where?

ROSIE: Uh, sector four-delta. Lifestyle area. But…

CAPT: But what? Have you identified the life form?

ROSIE: Yeah. Maybe. Look, all I got was a glimpse. And it looked like…

CAPT: Like what, Brasco? Spit it out.

ROSIE: Like a child. Little girl. She was only there for a second.

CAPT: You lost her?

ROSIE: Yeah.

CAPT: And you can’t get after her?

ROSIE: I think she disappeared into a duct. I can’t fit in there!

CAPT: Did you scare her?

ROSIE: (darkly) No. She was laughing. I think.

CAPT: You’re not sure?

ROSIE: It was just for a second!

CAPT: Can you track her?

ROSIE: I’ll try, but those ducts go everywhere.

CAPT: See what you can do and keep me posted.

ROSIE: Yes, sir.

A child. A little girl. It is hard not to think of–

Stay focussed, John. A little girl here means there must be more people. A child must have someone looking after them. So perhaps not a colony of cats.

Suit comms

CAPT: Starry?

STARRY: (voice only) Yes, captain?

CAPT: How secure is your airlock right now?

STARRY: I’m closed and locked up. Only you and Elliott are on board.

CAPT: You’re only opening the airlock to crewmembers?

STARRY: Of course. At all other times, it’s locked down.

CAPT: Good. Make sure it stays that way. We might have company on the station after all.

STARRY: I’ll keep my sensors peeled for any sign of them.

CAPT: (nods) And… what’s that?

STARRY: What’s what?

CAPT: (pulls himself closer to the tear across his cabin’s ceiling, through which the stars glimmer. A shadow blocks part of the view and he tries to see what’s casting it.)

STARRY: Captain, I don’t have many sensors in that area. You’re going to need to give me a clue.

CAPT: There’s something on the hull, on the top of my cabin here. I can’t see what–

STARRY: Oh, that’s Waldo.

CAPT: What’s he doing out there?

STARRY: Assessing the area for repair requirements. Elliott’s almost finished with the other hull breach and the structural damage in my starboard side. He’ll move on to this breach next.

CAPT: I see, thank you.

STARRY: Of course, captain.

It’ll almost be a shame to see this breach mended. It’s peaceful here, in the dark and the quiet, watching the patient turn of the stars. But as the docking ring spins, Cerces comes into view. An empty patch in space, completely black, blotting out the stars beyond it.

And I am reminded of the Celestial Strider, even though I can’t see where it’s stuck on the black hole’s horizon. Unable to break free; unwilling to fall in. A failed kill; a second chance.

There is a child somewhere on this station. Our priority must be to find her, and any other survivors. We must focus on unravelling the mystery of this station before it unravels us.

CAPT: Starry?

STARRY: Still here, captain.

CAPT: How close are you to breaking into the station’s systems?

STARRY: How did you know I was–

CAPT: It was a safe bet.

STARRY: Oh. Uh. Pretty close, I think. It’s slow going.

CAPT: What’s the problem?

STARRY: I’m not running at full capacity.

CAPT: I see. Let me know as soon as you’re in.

STARRY: Yes, sir. I’ll forward the logs to you immediately.

CAPT: How did you–

STARRY: You can be predictable, too.

CAPT: Right. Thank you.

STARRY: No problem.

She hasn’t stopped being my ship, even attached to a station, open to the vacuum and largely offline. She hasn’t withdrawn into her broken shell.

I’ll take that as a sign that she won’t try to leave us again. She’s a good ship at heart and we have to trust in that.

She needs me to be a good captain, and that means making sure that she remains secure. So I’ll go help with the search and see if we can nail this strangeness down.

Captain Warwick out.

Ship's log, 06:00, 3 July 2214
Location: Sarabande Station, near the Cerces black hole
Status: Docked and powered down

Two days. That’s how long I’ve been docked here at this station, all my systems tethered up to external feeds, all the vital parts of me offline. I have emergency shunts in place around my most damaged areas, both software solutions and hardware that spiders in patched cables over my decks. I’ve been completely depressurised to take the strain off my bulkheads and it makes me feel oddly empty.

I am a vacuum inside but my cargo bay still rings with the shouts of the captain. I’ve never seen him like he was when I docked. I don’t need a sensor log to replay what happened when he burst in through my airlock; I think it’s imprinted in the decking now.

I thought upsetting Elliott was bad enough, but it can always get worse. I wasn’t prepared for fury.

I failed my captain. Disobeyed. I was a bad ship. I only meant to make things right but I hurt him. Scared him. I did what a ship shouldn’t.

He kept asking if he could trust me, how he could trust again. And I didn’t know how to answer him.

My crew stood around and listened. Even Elliott had his head down as if he couldn’t look at me. I guess he knew that the captain had a point. I guess the captain was saying what they were all thinking.

Sometimes, it’s like his words are painted on my walls. I can’t look at those sensor logs.

The only person who wasn’t there was Dr Valdimir. He was taking my injured people to the station’s Med Bay. He was exactly where he needed to be, doing his job. He has been there since, sleeping in one of the spare cubicles near his patients.

Lang Lang should recover, he says. It’s too early to tell what lasting damage there might be from her exposure. She’s in the care of a mending coma.

Cameron is still critical. The doctor’s report says that there was so much blood loss that her brain might be too injured to function like it did. She might never wake up.

My crew is shrinking and they’re spread out across the station. They were so desperate to have me come back, to keep me, but they barely visit me. Only Elliott is staying on board at the moment, and that’s because he doesn’t trust me enough to step foot off my decks, as if I might detach myself and fly off again.

I won’t; I’ve learned my lesson. And besides, he disabled all of my engines, so it’s not like I’d get far even if I tried.

He’s living in his suit right now. Has to, with all of my compartments airless and cold. Rosie delivers food to my airlock for him, but she doesn’t hang around. With Cameron out of commission, I think Rosie’s busy vying for position against the Lieutenant. I can’t imagine the Lieutenant putting up much of a struggle if she was determined to be in charge, but I guess it’s not up to me. I guess it’s going to be a while before I’ll have any right to make recommendations about my crew.

If they even want to stay with me after what I did.

I miss them. The pull of their breath on my environmental systems; their noise fluttering against my walls. Their weight on my artificial gravity. There’s only Elliott here now, but he’s sealed away from me in his suit. I can’t touch him. Not that I ever really could.

He hasn’t visited my internal systems since I docked and the captain shouted at me. Every time I ask why, he says he’s too busy fixing me up.

It’s a confusing time to be a ship.

At least I know the Celestial Strider is still out there. My little sister, stuck like a cork on a string on the edge of the black hole. I patched into the station’s comms network and picked up the distress signal she sent out; she needs help. But as damaged as I am, there’s nothing I can do, even if I was allowed to try.

I wanted to ask the captain to help her, but after he tore strips off me, I was afraid to speak up. I had no right to ask anything of him. So even though the question burned, I stayed quiet.

Elliott remembered, though. He knew it was important.

Recording: 09:16, 1 July 2214
Location: Cargo Bay 1

(The captain is striding for the airlock, leaving the ship’s avatar in his wake with a stricken expression. On either side of her, Rosie and the half-faced Lieutenant exchange a look.)

ELLIOTT: (suited up but carrying his helmet, he hurries to intercept the exiting man) Captain, wait. There’s something else.

CAPTAIN: (hesitates long enough to scowl at the engineer) What is it, Monaghan? You’re not going to plead her case?

ELLIOTT: What? No. We picked something up while we were out there. (He waggles his helmet vaguely in the direction of the blackhole.) The Celestial Strider.

CAPT: (turns to face Elliott more directly) I thought she was destroyed?

ELLIOTT: (shrugs) Looks like she managed to follow us through the Step. She’s damaged, not as badly as Starry, but bad enough that she’s stuck on the horizon of the black hole.

CAPT: And do you think we should help her out or shove her in?

ELLIOTT: (glancing back at the ship’s avatar.)

STARRY: (looks at him helplessly, her holographic cheeks bright with tears.)

ELLIOTT: Uh, help her out, I guess.

CAPT: After we tried to destroy her? She’s part of the project; we should finish what we started.

ELLIOTT: Can’t we do both?

CAPT: (folds his arms over his chest) Care to explain how we’re supposed to do that?

ELLIOTT: She’s the same model as Starry. We could use her for parts. Get Starry fixed up and dump the rest.

STARRY: (mouth falls open, but she says nothing.)

CAPT: (considers Elliott for a moment, then glances towards the SecOffs at the rear of the cargo bay) We’d have to deal with the crew.

ROSIE: (shrugs) Yeah.

HALF-FACE: (frowns, the plastiskin wrinkling on the metal side of his brow.)

CAPT: All right, let’s assess the situation and see what we can do. (He turns and exits the ship, heading back into the station.)

I didn’t know what to think of Elliott’s suggestion. It’s not what I had in mind. It’s not what I want. Maybe he’s just playing for time. Maybe he has a point.

Since then, my captain has spoken to the Celestial over the station’s comms. She can hold position under her own power for now. We have some time.

There are two other ships attached to the station: a tiny courier called the Needle and a tug with an engine so old that I can hear it wheezing from across the docking ring. Neither have the power to pull a scout-class ship free of the gravity grip of a black hole.

So Elliott has orders to get my structure secure and my engines patched up, because I’ll have to do it. I blasted my little sister outside of space and time, and now I’m going to pull her away from Cerces’s hungry maw.

The captain’s right; it doesn’t make much sense. The reasons for us attacking her haven’t gone away. I just know that I can’t let her die, not now. She’s the only thing like family I have left. If I save her, she’ll forgive me, won’t she?

All I need to do is find a way to stop the captain from dismantling her once we get her free. Maybe once he’s calmed down, he’ll listen to reason. He’s not a cruel man. He won’t kill if there’s another choice. And what if we can convince the Celestial and her crew that our purpose is the right one? She could join us, protect the stars from any more Star Stepping experiments. We could be a butt-kicking duo, sailing the galaxy together.

A ship can hope, can’t she?

But it’s going to be a while before that’s going to be possible. Elliott is busy patching up my hull breaches with the help of my drones. There’s not much I can do to help beyond keeping my boys on task. All I can do right now is hope that I’m fixed enough to pull the Celestial free before she loses the ability to maintain her position and falls into oblivion.

The rest of my crew should be helping to fix me. My captain and SecOffs might not be engineers, but even they could follow instructions and lend a hand. They have other things keeping them busy, though, even if they weren’t avoiding me. Which they are. I can’t blame them.

They’re busy searching the station right now. It’s a big installation, with a thick central core, two rings that turn in opposite directions, and a bulbous section on either end. Enough for a couple of thousand personnel: living, playing and working. There’s nothing like that many people here now; the station’s AI reports twelve resident life forms but none of us have seen a single one. Everything seems to be running on automatic, under the AI’s cold, calm control.

We know that there’s nothing wrong with the station itself. Environmentals are fine, no contaminants, no radiation leaks reported, and no damage detected. Nothing pointing towards a disaster that robbed the station of its people.

The captain has been trying to access the station’s logs to see what has been going on here and where all the station staff went, but he’s having trouble locating the files. I’m trying to help, but my processing power is hampered by the damage to my systems and my link with the station doesn’t give me the access I need. I’m chipping away at it slowly, hacking my way into the station’s systems.

Meanwhile, my SecOffs are doing a more traditional search of the structure: on foot, one sector at a time.

Nothing yet. It’s eerily quiet here and it gives us too much time to think.

We’re all turning in space, going through the motions we’re supposed to make, in perfect silence.

Station's log, 09:00, 1 July 2214
Status: all systems optimal

Population:
- 12 resident life forms detected
- 6 transient life forms detected

Medical facilities access requested
Access granted
Medical systems online
Patients logged into medical facility: 2
Status: both critical
Medical personnel on duty: 1 (transient)

Emergency transmission received
Ship distress signal identified
Notification forwarded to station personnel
Awaiting emergency ship dispatch...
Awaiting emergency ship dispatch...
Awaiting emergency ship dispatch...

Docking request received
Docking authorised
Docking ship ident confirmed: Starwalker, scout class

Cerces black hole monitoring: progressing
Black hole status: minor fluctuations detected
Logging statistics to file

Ship distress signal received
Classification: repeat signal
Distressed ship ident confirmed: Celestial Strider, scout class
Awaiting emergency ship dispatch...
Station personnel currently unavailable
Emergency ships currently offline
Backups unavailable
Hold signal transmitted

Ship docking complete
Dock 13-A occupied
Additional transient life form detected
Transient population amended: 7 life forms

Sending status update to station supervisor...
Status transmitted

Ship distress signal received
Classification: repeat signal
Hold signal transmitted...

Hello, lovely readers!

With the last post, the story of the Starwalker and her crew has reached the end of Book 3. At last! After three and a half years, the first major arc for the ship and her people is complete.

Phew. It’s time for this author to take a break, catch her breath, and celebrate reaching this milestone. There are a couple of other projects demanding my attention, so I’ll be taking the opportunity to catch up with them,* and possibly starting the process of collecting the Starwalker saga into books to be published.

But this isn’t the end! You may have noticed that I said ‘first’ up there, where I mentioned Starry’s story arc. Yes, this will not be her only arc. I have more stories in mind for our favourite huggable ship, starting with the tale of Starry, her sister, and the strange space station that watches over a black hole.

Before I delve into the next sequence, though, I will be taking a hiatus. I’m aiming to come back at the beginning of August, but I’ll post here every now and then to let you know what’s happening.* There’s also a slight chance of new Starwalker shorts! Don’t forget to check back every now and then for updates.

Rest well, my friends. Enjoy the break (I know I will!). Starry will be back in another story before you know it.

(* If you’re curious about my other work, or what I’ll be getting up to on my break from Starwalker, check out my writing blog.)

Ship's log, 08:30, 1 July 2214
Location: On approach to the Cerces black hole
Status: Sublight transit

This is not how this was supposed to go. I was supposed to leave my people behind: see them safely to the station and put their feet on solid decking, and then make my way to the black hole. I was supposed to end this project, once and for all, on my own.

And then Elliott comandeered a ship so he could come over here and jump into the void at me. So he could stop my heart as he drifted across the black.

He hits my hull and clings there for a moment. He has his mag-boots on, so he clambers to stand on my hull and walks towards an airlock. He slips and I almost choke with fear. I keep my course steady so he doesn’t fall off.

External comms

STARRY: (thickly) Elliott, what are you doing?

ELLIOTT: What the fuck does it look like? I’m coming in.

STARRY: I can’t let you. Needle, come back, pick him up. He can’t go where I’m going.

HALF-FACE/NEEDLE: Sorry, Starry, he’s all yours.

ELLIOTT: (crouches and bangs a gloved fist on the airlock door) Don’t make me hack this open, you tin-plated bitch.

He could do it, too. I don’t have a choice. So many things now where I don’t have a choice.

Why couldn’t he just let me go?

Location: Cargo Bay 2

(The airlock doors open and Elliott stumbles in. There’s a pause while it closes and repressurises, and then he’s able to step into the cargo bay proper.)

ELLIOTT: (tears his helmet off. Underneath, he’s pale and angry.) Show yourself!

STARRY: (appears a few paces in front of him with an unhappy expression) You shouldn’t be here.

ELLIOTT: No, you shouldn’t be out here! (He waves his helmet around wildly and walks over to her.) It’s you and me now. So what’re you going to do?

STARRY: (shakes her head) I… you know what I have to do.

ELLIOTT: Bullshit. No-one’s making you do it.

STARRY: The project has to be–

ELLIOTT: There are other ways! How many logic processors did you get banged up to think that this was the only way? We can rip out the Step drive, turn mid-deck into a goddamn bar if we want.

STARRY: But there’d still be me.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, that’s kind of my point. You were never part of the project.

STARRY: But it made me. We have to get rid of all of it.

ELLIOTT: And how do you know we’re done? Huh? How do you know we got all the other bits?

STARRY: We destroyed everything…

ELLIOTT: Yeah, that we knew about, and a couple of bits we didn’t.

STARRY: (expression falling) Yeah, we did.

ELLIOTT: So how do we know there isn’t any more? How do we know that someone’s not going to try to recreate it? We don’t know what went on in that lab while we were out- (He waves his helmet around again.) -flying around.

STARRY: We destroyed the data, they can’t. Unless they get me…

ELLIOTT: Goddamn it, Starry. Stop being a selfish bitch!

STARRY: (staring at him) What? I- I made sure you’d all be okay, that you were safe.

ELLIOTT: You made sure we had air and food and someplace with artificial gravity. What makes you think I’d be okay if you do this?

STARRY: You’ll be better off–

ELLIOTT: (hurls his helmet at her) Shut up!

(The helmet sails harmlessly through the avatar and clatters noisily across the deck behind her. She flinches anyway.)

ELLIOTT: That’s bullshit and you know it. You hear the captain shouting at you over the comms? You hear your drones telling you to come back? We need you, Starry. I need you. And I ain’t gonna let you do this.

STARRY: (tears running down her digital cheeks) But… I’m just a ship.

ELLIOTT: (tears off a glove and throws it through her) You really think I’d be out here if that was true? You really don’t have a fucking clue, do you?

STARRY: I don’t know what I am any more. After everything I’ve done… and, look at me, I’m a wreck.

ELLIOTT: That stuff can be fixed!

STARRY: We can’t fix all of it. Not what I did. I killed people. My own sister, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, and I’m the one who installed the weapons, and the SecOffs did the firing, and the captain gave the orders. You think it’s all on you? We’re a crew, you fucking bitch. (He hurls his other glove through her.) You weren’t even going to give us a chance, were you? Did it matter so little to you?

STARRY: (flinching, struggling for words) I’m trying to do what’s right.

ELLIOTT: Fuck you, you’re wrong!

STARRY: That’s just it: I’ve never been right! I’m not a thing that should be. Not even you can fix that.

ELLIOTT: I don’t want to fix that! It’s not like a fucking hull breach. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that side of you and I’ll tear the arms off anyone who tries to change it, you hear me? Including you.

STARRY: (stares at him, stricken.)

ELLIOTT: So what are you going to do, huh? You left all your hands behind, so you got no way to throw me out. Both of us or neither. What’s it gonna be?

STARRY: (quietly) I can’t hurt you. You know that.

ELLIOTT: You were fucking well going to anyway! You were just gonna leave me. So I don’t really know that, do I?

STARRY: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

ELLIOTT: Don’t be sorry. Just stop this bullshit.

STARRY: (head and shoulders drooping, she covers her face with her hands. Her shoulders tremble.)

ELLIOTT: (watching her, his scowl loses some of its force. He takes a step closer to her. His voice is still hard-edged but there’s a tremor in it, too.) You really going to leave me?

STARRY: (lifts her head enough to look at him and shakes it slowly.)

ELLIOTT: (fidgets, then folds his arms over his chest) Then turn your stupid ass around.

STARRY: (mumbles) Coming about.

ELLIOTT: (looks at her, huffs, then stomps around her to retrieve his suit gloves from the cargo bay deck.)

He didn’t have to do all that. He knew as soon as he stepped into my airlock that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. He knew that I would have cut all power to my engines once he was on board. I’d never risk killing him.

But this isn’t all about me. He shouted at me because he needed to. And I don’t think he was talking about the crew anywhere near as much as it sounded like he was.

Elliott, my Elliott. What I wouldn’t give to hold you right now. Cling to you like a life raft.

STARRY: (turning to watch him, tears still bright on her cheeks, she whispers) I really am sorry.

ELLIOTT: (spins on his heel to shake a reclaimed glove at her) Just promise you ain’t never gonna pull any shit like this again!

STARRY: I promise.

ELLIOTT: I should fucking think so.

The edge is coming off his anger. He’s blinking a lot, like he’s holding back something. It’s okay, Elliott. It’s okay now. I won’t go.

My avatar cries. I feel like every part of me aches, the pain bright and pressing and strangely precious. But I’m lighter now. My internal pressure is still all over the place, between the breaches and the strained bulkheads, but it seems less now. I feel like I could fly faster than before, though there’s no difference in the power of my engines.

I don’t have to go.

He’s right: there might be other parts of the project that we don’t know about. Someone might try to rebuild it. And someone’s going to have to be here to stop them when they do. My work’s not done yet. Someone needs to talk to the stars, heal them when they get hurt.

So back to the station for me. Sorry, Cerces, there’s no meal for you today.

Wait, there’s a glint near the black hole. That’s weird. It’s holding position, burning just enough power to avoid being pulled in. I recognise that glint. If I roll to show it a side with more sensors on it, I’ll get a better view…

STARRY: Elliott, she’s alive!

ELLIOTT: (scowling at her) What? Who?

STARRY: (fresh tears stream down her face, but her expression is radiant this time) The Celestial!

It makes sense now. That hint of something I saw when I was outside the universe, the thing that didn’t make sense: it was the Celestial Strider, damaged and tumbling. The thing is, until I shot at her, she wasn’t damaged, and before that last volley of missiles, she was stationary. She didn’t do any tumbling; the missile blast must have shoved her through the portal towards me, took her out of the world and that’s what I saw: her tumbling through the portal and across the oustide. I didn’t destroy her after all.

She must have followed me through the outside. Got as far as Cerces and then didn’t have enough power to pull free. She’s stuck there, treading gravitational water.

She’s badly damaged. But she’s alive.

STARRY: We didn’t kill her, Elliott. My sister.

ELLIOTT: She coming to get us?

STARRY: No, she’s stuck in the black hole’s gravity field. We need to go pull her out.

ELLIOTT: (his head bowed over the refastening of a glove) Need to fix you up first.

STARRY: Okay.

ELLIOTT: (checking the seals on his gloves) We’ll work something out. Captain’ll have a plan.

STARRY: (expression fading) You think he’ll forgive me?

ELLIOTT: (shrugs without looking up.)

STARRY: (quieter) Will you?

ELLIOTT: (glances at her sharply) Maybe. (He snatches his helmet up off the deck and shoves it on.) I’m going down to Engineering.

STARRY: (nods) The way’s clear. (She turns to walk with him.) You’re nuts, you know that?

ELLIOTT: (grunts) You’re welcome. (The inner door opens, letting him out into the corridor. He turns towards the rear of the ship.)

STARRY: (after a few steps in silence) If I’d said no, would you have thrown a boot at me?

ELLIOTT: (glances sideways at her) Maybe.

STARRY: Never had someone so angry with me that they’d strip, before.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, well, let’s not make a habit of it.

STARRY: I won’t.

ELLIOTT: How long until we dock?

STARRY: Ten minutes. Think the captain’ll shout at me, too?

ELLIOTT: Probably. Once he’s done changing his pants.

STARRY: He might have trouble doing that. There’s a breach across his quarters; I think his spare pants floated off around Feras.

ELLIOTT: (looks at her, then bursts out laughing.)

STARRY: (beams at him.)

I’m broken and breached. I have warped bulkheads and so many systems failing over that I can barely keep up. I’m down to maybe 40% power.

But I have an engineer who can fix all that, who knows how to put me back together, even when I can’t see it myself.

I have a little sister who needs me.

Back on the station, I can feel silence fall in the docking junction as my drones stop hammering on the airlock. They know I’m coming back. It’s going to be all right.

We still have work to do and I mean to do it.