Mornin’
12 Days of Fiction 2019, Day 1
Space was nice. Shaffer loved it. The problem was old vids spread that romantic image of it, full of galaxies and stars and nebulae and whatnot. Shaffer loved space for what it was: empty. Well, mostly empty. Still, they didn’t called them astronomical distances for nothing, and that’s what normal people failed to acknowledge. But that’s what Shaffer liked, the fact that there was nothing out there for millions and millions of cubic kilometers.
Did that mean there was something wrong with her? She dismissed the idea, as she had done so many times before. Perhaps a saner approach for the human mind was to cringe and go mad at the fact that only a thin layer of metal and composites separated yourself from a cruel death in the vacuum. She had indeed heard tales of people going mad. The Sickness, they called it, and left it at that. Perhaps the answer was simpler, that Shaffer had the right brain for her job, and that was it.
I must be sleeping again, she thought, because I never think of these things when I’m awake.
Of course, she didn’t mean real sleep.
Bleep bleep.
Damn. It was indeed cryosleep.
If there was something worse than leaving cryosleep itself, it was waking up under an alarm.
Ok, I’m awake, she said, only she couldn’t say anything yet. Shaffer hated it: the awakening was terrible. You thought you could hear, smell, taste, walk. Think. Only you couldn’t, not yet. But the damned alarms did get to your brain.
Bleep bleep.
The air hissing, is it real? Yes it is. The acrid smell of the ship is as well. And oh yes, the need to puke was all too real.
Shut the alarm off, she tried to say and couldn’t.
Bleep bleep.
“Shaffer, we have a condition red.”
Damned.
One finger up. One quick move. The sound ends. Thanks for that.
“Coffee.” It’s barely more than a croak. And calling the brew coffee was a lie, but it was warm and they loaded it with caffeine. Shaffer was convinced that if an enemy ever attacked, all they had to do was wait for crews to come out of cryosleep.
“Shaffer,” the ship said.
“Coming, coming,” she answered. “Give me a break, you know we don’t work well after awakening.”
“I know, but it’s an emergency.” Who programmed the ships with such a shitty personality?
“What is it?”
“See for yourself.” Shitty. Ship could have just said what it was, but no, Ship had to like mysteries. Shaffer took a look.
“Shee-it.”
“Yes.”
Shaffer checked everything. Position, course, speed. Everything was correct. The planet was down there, spinning placidly. She could even make out its moon in the distance.
But there was nothing else. No lights in the dark side. No transmissions incoming from the surface or any satellites. No cloud of ships surrounding it. It was dead.
Shaffer sat in the pilot seat and started firing up all systems.
“Start crew wake up sequence. I declare an emergency right now. There’s something really wrong here.”
This is my entry for Day 1 of my annual 12 Days of Fiction 2019. This year I’ve decided to use image prompts, and see what happens.
