Thunder shook the world and I woke with a start. I sat up too quickly and cracked my head on the top of the bed nook. I wished that was the first time that had happened. I lay back in bed and groaned.

“Lights,” I said, wondering if we’d hit something or if something had hit us. If there’d been an accident down in the cargo bay, Rip was going to burst a blood vessel and we’d be busy with it all day.

The lights didn’t come on, which was weird. I reached up to touch my head and my hand ran into something smooth like a… helmet.

Oh. Right.

“What was that?”

“Thunder,” Cyrus said. “There’s a storm going on outside. Ai’s cut off again.

“How long was I out?”

“Probably six hours. You good to go or are you going back to sleep?”

I felt like I could sleep for six more days. But another thunderclap shook the ship and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get any real rest if that racket kept going. Since it was the tallest thing around for miles, the ship itself was probably being struck by the blasts of electricity. That wouldn’t do much, if any damage, but lighting was loud all the same and storms could last for literal days on Persephone-4. So instead of going back to sleep I rolled my feet out of the bunk, sat there with my head in my hands while the suit went through the uncomfortable routine of taking care of my teeth. That annoyance completed, I stood and rolled my head around, trying to ease the tension in my muscles from the way I’d fallen asleep. I was sure I hadn’t moved an inch the entire time and now I was paying for it in soreness.

The suit, sensing my attempts to stretch, initiated a yoga routine before I could stop it. After that accidental torture session ended I could feel every muscle in my body like they’d all become loose taffy.

“You did that on purpose right?” Cyrus asked.

“Yeah. Of course. Morning routine,” I said in a grumpy bitter tone that should have communicated my frustration and sarcasm.

“Oh good. Cause I could have shut that off at any time if you’d wanted me to,” Cyrus said, ignoring my clear tone for the sake of the joke.

“Seriously? How?”

“You gave me backdoor access back at the cave when I let you see what was going on behind you. I can do all sorts of things with your suit now if I wanted to.”

“That’s… uncomfortable to know.”

“Nah. It’s harmless. The safety protocols are still on. I couldn’t make it do anything that would hurt you. Just harmless stuff like this.”

My arm began to move by itself, a weird and uncomfortable sensation as my first reaction was to stiffen up to stop it but that only made it hurt as my hand came up in front of my face. I forced myself to relax and allow my arm to move as it waved back and forth.

“See? Nothing sinister.”

“Yeah. Nothing at all. Give me my arm back so I can get on with it?”

“Oh yeah. No problem. Please get back to saving my life at your earliest convenience.”

There was something in his tone there I didn’t like. It wasn’t ugly or cruel. But there was an underlying eagerness. Which should have been completely normal. Anyone would have been eager to be one step closer to getting out of his situation. And still I didn’t like his tone. But it wasn’t worth saying anything about it. I just wanted to get this done.

I left Rip’s room and forced myself not to look back. I might have explained everything to Ai. There was no way I was going to do that for Cyrus. Even if I did, it was doubtful that he would understand. He would probably just crack a joke.

Stolen novel; please report.

Engineering was even further down in the ship than I already was. I wished the power was on so that I could have used the elevators but the stairs did work. Almost no one had ever gone into them for their intended purpose back when the ship was in working order. People had gone there mostly to hide from their bosses on their breaks, or their “extra” breaks. Or to sneak away with a partner for some private activity.

I’d tried to avoid the stairs. Partly because I didn’t want to deal with interrupting anyone doing things they shouldn’t be doing but mostly because it had always been dark, enclosed, and that set off my danger senses. Back before I’d met Rip, when I’d just been a kid on the street with no one to watch out for me but myself, dark places with limited escape routes were the most dangerous places there were. I’d only had to find that out once.

I tongued the broken tooth near the back of my jaw as I went down the stairs, a habit I thought I’d dropped permanently years ago. But my helmet’s light didn’t seem to push back the shadows so much as emphasize them, and even if I knew I had to be alone in the ship, I did not feel alone. There was nothing for it though and so I walked down into the depth of the ship and tried not to imagine the dead silently creeping towards me from the shadows.

“Man this place is just plain eerie,” Cyrus said a few minutes later as I went down what seemed like the three hundredth set of stairs.

“Yeah, looks like something out of a movie.”

“No kidding. I’d expect something to jump out and eat you, but since you’d basically be the only cast member in that movie, it wouldn’t work. I’d have to save myself then and I’m not leading man material.”

“What? Nah, you’re so handsome though,” I said. The large, opaque dome of his head appeared as the video chat window came up so I could see him roll back with laughter at the comment.

“Right now I probably need a shave and some time in the sun before I’m back to my usual ten in good looks. Matter of fact, I might just need a whole new body at this rate.”

“The sun? What’s that?” I asked. He snorted out another laugh.

“Once we get out of this I’ll take you somewhere with a beach as payback. You probably need the tan more than I do.”

Just the idea of real sunlight on my skin was enough to drive me nearly insane with longing.

“That sounds great,” I said, trying my best to sound casual.

I finally came to the floor labeled Engineering One and stepped out. The room was enormous but I had never seen it in complete darkness before. For a moment it felt like I was back in the caves, the time since I’d escaped a hallucination or dream. I closed my eyes for a moment and pushed that idea back before opening them again.

No stalactites hung from the ceiling, though the cranes that dangled powerful magnets and grasping claws could be mistaken for them in the weak light that reached them. The walls were made of metal and flat, not rough stone. Beneath my feet there was a catwalk and on it I was able to walk out to the center of the bay.

The main engine for the ship was here, though parts of it reached out through the entire ship like a skeleton, providing power and support. Standing before it though, it didn’t look like a massive technological achievement to me. It looked like an ancient furnace, ready to devour anything put before it. Vents and panels came together across the enormous collection of metal to create what looked to me like a terrible face, eyes wide, mouth bent in a grimace or a sneer.

Despite that, I couldn’t help but remember the look on Rip’s face whenever he would look up at that engine. The rest of the crew never even glanced at it, treating it like an empty wall or a piece of art they’d seen so many times that it had become a piece of the background. Rip though, he would stop two or three times a day and just look up at that gigantic heart that powered the entire massive ship.

Awe, respect, and admiration mixed together on his face like he just couldn’t believe that the engine was real, that it was something he got to work on. I asked him about it once, why he couldn’t just ignore the engine like everyone else. He said,

“That’s not just an engine, Euclid. That right there is one example of how far the minds of men like you and me have taken us. That thing right there is why humanity will live on for eternity. We started as little more than animals but on cold nights we looked up at the moon, at the stars. Little by little we climbed the mountains and built fires and told stories, each passing the torch to the next generation, always looking up and reaching out. Once we gazed at the stars. Now, we walk among them. Not just the best of us, our giants and geniuses. People like you and me, Euclid. And that, right there, is the ladder we used to climb this high. How could I ever look at that with anything less than wonder?”

I could see his face as he said those words, his bald head covered with a black mark from rubbing it with oily hands, his beard covering his face like tangles of iron wires, and his eyes alight with an inner fire I’d never been able to really understand.

Now that engine lay cold, frozen and dead. Probably just like Rip. Maybe somewhere nearby. It would never carry anyone else into the stars, never let us walk among them again.

As the memory of my mentor washed over me one more time, I decided to change that. The Reliant’s engine couldn’t carry itself or Rip back into space but it was going to give me the power I needed to escape this planet. I couldn’t save Rip but I could finish what he’d started when he’d pushed me into the escape pod. I could save myself and keep carrying the flame that had been lit here.