Derin Edala

126: ASTRONAUTS

Two days later, and after enough failed revivals to convince me that going under chronostasis at such an advanced age did indeed have effects on the crew’s revival chances that the system didn’t pick up, Captain Kae Jin and Asteria are joined by Earl Harriet, a doctor with severe eyes and a gentle voice who immediately declares an intent to take over Captain Kae Jin’s ongoing healthcare as soon as possible. Then there’s Lex Maeryn, a gardener with big ears and a hearty laugh, who does...

125: WIPED

Captain Kae Jin asks that the conversation be recorded. “I’m still sedated,” she points out, “and if the story is half as complicated as you’ve all made it sound, either give me a copy I can refer back to or endure being asked to re-explain things you’ve already explained when I forget them.” The Friend pulls a recorder out of a drawer (we have all kinds of independent monitoring and recording equipment lying around, artefacts of our attempt to monitor the safety of the ship wit...

124: UPDATE

Captain Kae Jin reaches full alertness surprisingly quickly. Her eyes open, drift slowly across the faces of the strangers surrounding her, and immediately focus. She glances between us, then at the IV and oxygen system next to her, then about the room, gaze lingering on the various items that aren’t normally there, that we brought in from the other medbay to expand this one. Her eyes land on the machine next to her displaying her vitals, stay there a moment, and then flick back to our face...

123: SIENNA

The atmosphere around Sienna Kae Jin’s chronostasis pod is… tense. She has a sixty two per cent chance of waking up.

A thirty eight per cent chance that she won’t. A thirty eight per cent chance that we’ll be completing this mission without any trained captains.

“Do it,” Captain Klees says. Lina pokes at the interface, and the pod opens.

Captain Kae Jin isn’t tall. She’s a little bit taller than me, perhaps, with skin nearly black and a significant amount of ...

122: INFORMATION

“Why Dor Delphin?” Lina asks, frowning.

“Because,” the captain explains, “he’s probably got information, and he doesn’t have any authority. When we wake the astronauts, captain Kae Jin is probably going to want to take command of the ship, being easily the most qualified person to do so; good for her, it’s absolutely the right move If we can trust her motivations, and we certainly wouldn’t have grounds to stop her. But I’m sure we don’t need to go over the many, ma...

Behind the Keyboard -- Arborea

121: RESPONSE

I don’t take a nap right away. I take a shower, being careful of my face, then pause to take a good look at myself in the mirror.

The face looks…

Well. A lot better than when it didn’t have skin, that’s for sure.

Strangely, my right eye is the most normal-looking part of the injury. The doctors had determined that the ruined mess of the real eye was more dangerous than helpful and taken it out, replacing it with a glass dummy so that the damaged skin and flesh around...

Patreon ID bonus -- Sam's Javelin ID card

ID chips  were implanted into colonists shortly before stasis for recognition  aboard the ship and new colony, but during the training, accommodation  and boarding process, it was more convenient to use these paper ID  cards.

120: DELIVERY

Tinera snickers. “Sixty five lightyears and you can’t outrun those books, huh, Aspen?” Her snickers turn to giggles and then hysterical, cackling sobs as she gasps for breath, grabbing the back of Tal’s chair for support. “Fucking hell!”

“Tiny?” Denish asks.

She takes a few deep breaths, fighting against her own body, before saying weakly, “I just figured it out. It all makes sense. Everything makes perfect fucking sense.” She tries to rub the tears from her ey...

119: SIGHT

Pale orange steam blasts the right side of my face, burning the skin immediately. I press my mask down over my nose and mouth with one hand, trying to avoid breathing whatever it is, and stumble back, but I can’t see. I back into the opposite wall of the tunnel and pause, disoriented. A hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me back.

As soon as we seem to be out of the immediate cloud of mysterious orange gas, the captain and I stop to check the integrity of our air tanks. Not only do we no...

118: VIEW

“Klees to Denish,” the captain says into his radio, “we’re at the site and starting work. It’s just matching the colours, right? Over.”

“Yes, Captain. Each plug in the same colour socket. They only fit the right way up, cannot go wrong. Over.”

“Roger that. ‘Nish. Over and out.”

The cables themselves aren’t little flimsy shoelace-like things. They’re each about as thick as my wrist. I assume that most of that is shielding and reinforcement, to preven...

Ask Me Anything -- Sam Sareff

Why were you named Sam- was it a religious thing or a family thing or what?

Sort of both! Well, really, it was a family thing – I was named for my grandmother, who was named for her uncle. But she always used to joke that she was named after a god from the Nameless country that predated the Republic of Texas.

Everyone knows that the Nameless Country, being primarily Christian, worshipped Father Christmas (the father of ‘Jesus Christ’) who would bless everyon...

117: TUBE

We all, of course, gather in Engine Ring 1 for the reading. It’s a tense moment. I find myself shifting from foot to foot, holding my breath, exchanging looks with –

“Yep, there’s an ozone layer,” Sam says almost immediately.

I blink.

“That was fast,” Lina says.

Sam shrugs.

“Atmosphere?” Captain Klees asks.

Sam fiddles with some settings. “I can only see information that makes it through the ozone and the magnetic field, so it’s possib...

116: REVIEW

Shortly after Hylara passes the sun, Captain Klees calls a meeting. “Let’s go over what we know about… everything. Everything started with the Antarcticans developing the Kleiner array. This allowed us to view and study exoplanets in much greater detail than previously, and actually make estimates on which ones would be good for colonisation. The public version of the story is that this promoted a natural surge of enthusiasm for interstellar colonisation, and the majority of major natio...

115: SAFE

It’s about 2am on our personal ship schedule, but both the captain and I are awake. I can feel his breathing through his back, measured but not the slow, soft breath of sleep. I reach my arms around him and lay a hand on his hip.

And feel him stiffen, startled, and pull away.

Shit. I wasn’t careful enough. I need to be more careful. Did I do something to remind him of Heli? Am I being pushy? I know he hadn’t been able to say no to her, and yet I keep letting him into my nest...

114: REACTION

The next morning, we assemble around the picnic table, and Lina explains what she and the Friend have spent the past day investigating. “So. We have a hypothesis that may actually answer quite a lot of questions.”

“Great,” Tinera says. “I love things that answer questions.”

“So. As you all know, we’ve been somewhat mystified by the DIVRs’ most recent synnerve scans. The captain and the friend’s don’t show up at all, which would suggest some sort of intoleranc...

113: SENTENCE

By popular agreement and lighting coordination, the whole crew is on the same basic 24 hour schedule, so we tend to have breakfast together unless somebody’s busy or feels like sleeping in. We also tend to have our crew meetings over breakfast, so nobody’s particularly surprised when Captain Klees tells us that we have business to discuss and to all make sure we get to breakfast on time.

What is a little surprising is the platter of tiny cakes on the table, decorated with steamed cr...

Behind the Keyboard: Amy

112: COHERENCE

“What does that mean, a coherent radio message?” Captain Klees asks. “Somebody talking to us? From Earth?”

“Unlikely, with our dish,” Sam says, “although we’re close enough to Hylara that if they were trying to contact us on Hylara, we’d pick it up if the signal were really, really strong. In this case, a coherent signal just means something that the algorithm flagged as probably containing information for someone or something somewhere. Not a random solar flare or oth...

111: SCAN

I’m chopping vegetables and handing them to Captain Klees for a morning omelette when Lina strolls in. “Captain, do you mind retaking some scans? I’ve just about wrapped up your health assessment but we’re getting some strange results. A scanner error, I think.”

Captain Klees’ eyes widen. “Cancer?”

“No. We haven’t found any more indicators of cancer in the genetically engineered crew than in anyone else. I’m pretty sure it’s a problem with the machine or th...

110: GRAVES

“So how’s our new home planet?” I ask Sam as we check the atmosphere in the Habitation Ring.

They shrug. “Still orbiting. Presumably still mysteriously oxygenated. It’s passing in front of the sun right now so we won’t get much in the way of reliable readings for months yet.”

“When it is on the other side of the sun, how well will we be able to see it with the light telescope?”

They look at me out of the corner of their eye and grin. “You want to see if i...

109: NORMAL

When Lina takes my arm to insert the needle, I stiffen automatically. She hesitates. “If you’re uncomfortable with me, the Friend can do this,” she tells me.

I shake my head. “I’m sure you won’t kill me for my organs on a spaceship.” I try to make it sound like a joke, but I don’t think I quite manage it.

Nevertheless, she doesn’t say anything as she slides the needle in and starts to draw blood.

“So,” I say into the awkward silence, “what’s this fo...

108: GROWTH

It’s mostly dark. Dark enough that, as I lay on my back in my sleeper nest and stare up at the branch above, I can’t quite out make the ceiling behind it. The light’s not quite right, but I can almost, almost pretend it’s the open sky (I’m never going to sleep under an open sky again, that hadn’t seemed like nearly so big a deal when I’d left Earth) while I think.

“What are you thinking about?” Tal asks, lying next to me. Deep in thought, I hadn’t realised that ke wa...

Ask Me Anything -- Adin Klees

How did you learn to cook?

Just through experience, I guess? People have got to eat. It’s something you start doing as you grow up and you get better at it over time.

Did you ever want to join Arborea or were you unable to?

Uh… no? I mean, I never really thought about it? I never really wanted to immigrate anywhere and couldn’t afford to if I did, and if I was going to it’d probably be to somewhere more similar to home. Not sure why ...

107: IMPLICATION

The process of explaining the issue takes long enough that the designated time for Movie Night ends partway through. Captain Klees sheds random costume paraphernalia as he paces back and forth in the Engine Ring.

“Everyone stay calm,” he says in a tone that is decidedly not calm. “There are explanations for this that aren’t dramatic and terrifying.”

“Most explanations are dramatic and terrifying, I think,” Denish says.

“Regardless. Possibility one: a measurem...

106: PIRATES

It’s movie night.

It’s Tal’s turn, and ke has insisted on doing some preneek tradition called ‘talk like a pirate day’. This involves adopting some specific vocal affectations that ke has provided instructions for. This also involves, for some reason, dressing like a pirate.

“This is not how pirates dress,” Denish grumbles, adjusting his ostentatious home made hat. At a glare from Tal, he reluctantly adds, “Me hearties.”

“Yarr, this eyepatch be pointless,...

105: DOR

“Antarctica?” I ask. “Our resident fatcat’s family fortune is tied up in research labs in Antarctica?”

“Does this mean that Captain Sand’s nonsense conspiracy theory that you told us about was actually right?” Tinera asks.

“It couldn’t be. It doesn’t make any sense. There’s no reason for a secret space race, there’s no profit in colonisation this far from Earth.”

“Well, something’s going on. This can’t be a coincidence.”

“...

104: SHELL

It’s a special day on the spaceship. We all gather around the little table in the medbay while Lina sets down a small incubator and places three perfect little chicken eggs inside.

“That one’s named Omelette,” Tinera says, pointing. “And that one’s Quiche, and the third one is Meringue.”

“How will you even tell them apart? They’ll look identical when they’re born.”

“No, I’ll know.”

“I can’t wait to eat an omelette,” Sam sighs. At Tiner...

103: SABOTAGE

We all gather at one of the picnic tables, cups of coffee in hand. Denish begins his explanation without preamble.

“The engine was damaged on Day 789. 32 days later, Senior Engineer Ovlo Astur declared it irreparable. This is the first thing that did not make sense.”

“He lied?” Tinera asks.

“No. I also checked the engine. Captain Sands helped design that engine, and he checked it when he woke up, and whatever else can be said about Sands, he definitely wanted this ...

Behind the Keyboard -- Tal