2/17/2178
The Umbra’s reactor hummed calmingly in the back of the ship, keeping the silence at bay and comforting Clara as she lay alone in the starboard side of the dark cabin. The planetoid’s low gravity struggled to keep objects to the floor. She absentmindedly strummed on a guitar to pass the time until her father returned, thinking to herself between notes. This wasn’t the first time a salvage mission was “too dangerous,” but they had been more and more common in the past month. It had been nearly a week since she’d left the ship. Suddenly, the cabin speakers sparked and a voice hurriedly addressed her.
“Clara, start the engine.”
“But you said-”
“Never touch the controls without me, I know. Start the engine.”
His voice held a sharp note of panic she’d never heard before. Wordlessly she complied, pressing buttons in sequence as she’d seen him do countless times before.
“Are you doing it? Is the indicator green?”
“It’s working.”
“Good work, sweetheart. I’ll be right there.”
The reactor roared in a low tone, shuddering the small craft as it gathered strength. Out the left side of the cockpit, a suited figure quickly leapt along the regolith. As the dusty rocks began to hue pink from the ship’s thrusters, her father finally reached the airlock. It thumped loudly as it cycled, hissing and popping as it equalized pressure, and all at once he scrambled out into the cabin, wrenching off his helmet as he did.
“What’s wrong? Was there someone in the wreck?”
He said nothing and slammed down into the pilot’s seat, wrenching the throttle forwards and slamming Clara back into her seat. Wordlessly, they arced gracefully out of orbit. As he primed the jump drive, he finally broke the silence, speaking in an almost incomprehensibly fast clip.
“It was a setup. I should have known, it was way, way too good of a deal. MNI, they baited me and I fucking fell for it, fuck. I’m sorry sweetheart, I should never have brought you this close to something this risky, stupid… fucking stupid.” He slammed the console and held his head in his hands. For a while, the only sound was the ship’s drive charging, and his sharp breaths.
“Who set you up, I don’t understand? Wasn’t this just a regular mission?”
“No, no it wasn’t. It was-”
“Umbral Initiate, CY-6078-A. This is the Staynish Navy Cruiser Regent Dawn. Power down your jump drive and submit to boarding.”
“Shit. Hold on.” He slammed the throttle forward and pitched down instinctively, driving the ship into a wild maneuver to buy time for the engine. Above them, a ship silently appeared, turning to face them. The Umbra leveled facing the cruiser’s underside, streaking towards the space just across its bow as the drive hit 96% charge. Her father suddenly flushed red as a calm voice sounded through the cockpit.
“Avi, you act like I’ve never seen you fly before.”
Before either of them could react, the smaller ship jerked wildly as an ear-splitting crash resounded from the cabin. Fire spilled from the Umbra where a thin carbon tether now extended from their craft to the military ship. The hum of the drive had cut in an instant, the reactor lay silent, and her father struggled to contain his anger. The canopy now featured a massive fissure, and in the silence she could almost hear a menacing hiss.
“You… your arm.” She reached down as he said the words, drawing back red fingertips. He was shaking now.
“I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
“Y-yes?”
He began throwing open containers, finally producing a knife from one, and a bandage from another. He spoke in a mostly steady voice as he hurriedly applied the wrap over her shoulder. “I will be back, but I need- need- you to stay hidden until I come back. I’m going to have my radio open, you can listen and you’ll know what’s going on. Vic- Their captain- might try to use you as leverage against me. I’ll explain everything after this is over, okay?”
“Why did they stop us? What did you find?”
He ignored her, tied off the bandage, and began peeling off the rest of his suit. “You have to put this on, and go lay by the reactor, okay?” He helped her into it, the gloves draping off her arms and her feet landing somewhere in the lower leg. She had to angle her head up just to see out the faceplate.
He put on an almost real grin and held her hands through the suit. “You look great.” After tweaking the backpack’s controls, he helped her push through the mangled cabin to squeeze in below the extinguished powerplant.
She finally managed to push a sentence out, “Are you going to be okay?” Weightless tears formed around her eyes and bobbed as she shivered. He reached out to the handle for the cabin hatch and looked away.
“Of course, sweetheart.”
The cabin door sealed and he disappeared behind the pilot’s seat. The ship jerked again, dislodging the tears from her eyes and sending them spilling slowly down her face. Slowly, through so many windows, the cruiser drew them in, growing until it blotted out the starscape and only its hangar was visible.
The ship creaked and shifted around the tether’s claw as it entered the ship’s gravity field. Her father swore quietly as the Umbra was carefully deposited onto the floor of the navy ship’s hangar with a loud groan and series of cracks. Moments later the airlock caved inward and two officers took him by the arms, dragging him out the way they came.
“Let go, you can’t just shoot me out of the sky like this, stop! I demand to see your superior offi-”
“It’s been a while, Alisander. Too long, really.”
Years of emotion played over Ali’s face. All he could manage was a quiet, “You.”
“Me.” An awkward silence. “Perhaps we should go somewhere a little more private?”
With the coercion of the two guards, Ali accompanied the captain up the halls and into an old Imperial-style room, complete with a large window looking out on the void. Gold encroached on the infinite black from the frame of the window
“How garish.”
“Even as an admiral, you don’t pick the decor. You get used to it.” A quick laugh. “Well, you don’t. I did.”
Neither spoke for a while. Ali finally broke the silence. “I don’t understand why you didn’t go with me.”
The captain motioned for the guards to leave. The door sealed quietly behind them. “I couldn’t. Not after everything I’d built.”
“We could have made a difference.”
“The two kids out of the Bursil ghettos? Taking a stand against the evil Republic? You make it sound so cinematic.”
“You know full well what would have happened if I hadn’t run that day.”
“Sure I do; You would have been a decorated hero. And the Republic would have its secret weapons, but who cares? It’s not like what you’re doing would have helped the Federation. And Tiba? Don’t make me laugh.”
“You know that attitude costs lives.”
“Everything costs lives. Taking a shit in the morning costs lives, somewhere down the line. You used to understand this, I’m never going to understand, never, going to get how you thought it was worth it to throw your life away.”
“You won’t understand if you think it was about being worth it.” Neither met each other’s eyes. The captain stood thoughtfully at the window. “Why am I in your office, Vic?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I thought you would be pining for the simple life again. Running around in that scrap shuttle, I practically did you a favor hooking it like that.”
“You could have killed me doing that shit.”
“Don’t try that with me. We both know I don’t give that much of a shit.” He turned, and immediately continued, “I- I mean, I’m sorry. That was too much…”
“No, that’s-”
“I thought I could convince you to come back.”
Both of them looked at the floor until Ali spoke.
“Then we’ll be in this office for a while.”
“I don’t think we will.”
Out the window, the Umbra drifted in a slow dead spin. The tether extended out from the top of the ship, as though it were some model in a child’s room. The sight of it made Ali go pale. “What the fuck is this.”
“If you’ll follow me.”
The two proceeded through a door on the far side of the room, entering the cruiser’s bridge. A full dozen officers manned stations around the compartment, some talking softly.
“I think you know what I want.”
“What the fuck is this, Victor.”
The captain’s voice practically boomed over the hushed tones that were otherwise weaving throughout the bridge. Most eyes were now on them.
“Coersion, Alisander. The only thing the navy wants from you is the location of the artifact.”
“I don’t know where it is anymore.”
“Bullshit. Who did you give it to? Where was the handoff?”
“It was nameless, why did you dump my ship?”
“I need a name or a place.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Weapons officer Yvonne. Ready the forward battery for a volley.”
“It was anonymous, please don’t do this.”
“I tried to reason with you. I tried negotiation.”
“Why was my ship already spaced?”
“I knew they wouldn’t work. Who did you give the artifact to?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ever get a name. Please bring my ship back inside, I’ll surrender quietly-”
“Battery ready for fire, sir.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Sentimental, Alisander?”
“Don’t.”
“F-”
“Stop! My daughter, my daughter is on that ship. Stop.”
The captain’s face softened for a moment. “You… Ali…”
“Please bring my ship back inside.”
The entire bridge was silent save for the quiet toil of instruments. Shards of hull drifted off the small craft and gleamed as they caught the light from the running beacons of the cruiser.
“Everything.”
“No, no no no no-”
“Everything costs lives. I need a name.”
“No, stop, I never had a contact! Stop!”
“Yvonne.”
“Vic, please don’t do this.”
As Victor opened his mouth to give the order, Ali reached down to his boot. A thin steel knife jumped into his hand, and he flung it into the captain’s shoulder, dropping him to the ground crying out with pain. Two guards rushed Ali, pinning him against the wall and knocking the wind from his lungs.
“You little shit- Yvonne, open fire on that derelict.”
“Captain, I-”
“That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ali threw one guard into the captain, and sent the other spilling across the ground. He sprinted to the other side of the room to reach the tactical console, reaching the center of the bridge just as the cruiser’s main guns ripped open the Umbra.
In a blur, the tactical officer turned to face him with a pistol, leveling it at his heart as he darted right. Each shot rattled the compartment, burying slugs either into control panels or ricocheting across the deck plating. He wrenched the gun from their hand, slamming the officer’s head into the console and turning to aim at the captain, who already pointed a pistol at Ali. Victor quickly plunged two rounds into Ali’s chest.
“I would say I’m sorry, but you’ll never believe me.”
“You fuck. You slimy fucking piece of shit, you killed my-” He cried out in pain as Victor drove a boot into the wounds on his chest. The tactical officer recovered their pistol from the ground, and kept it trained on Ali.
“If you aren’t going to be honest with me, then you aren’t going to live long anyway.” He turned away, ripping the knife out of his shoulder with a wince. “Someone get medical staff up here already. And get this one to the brig.”
Air whistled away from the fracture in the faceplate. Still clinging to one half of the reactor casing, Clara watched at the blasted fragments of the Umbra’s port side splintered out into infinity. The cruiser fired it’s engines and pulled away, disappearing in an instant into nothing as it passed the speed of light. She was alone. Her father’s line stopped transmitting when the Dawn had gone superluminal.
No one else for thousands, millions, billions of kilometers.