“They don’t tell you how empty space really is.” Those were the first words Jack’s former captain, Joan Marcus, had told him back when he signed up to work on the Excalibur. You look out the window, and all you see is nothing—an all-consuming nothing, stretching out endlessly in every direction. Some people just aren’t built to deal with it. They realize that they’re in a tiny, pressurized tin can, in an incomprehensibly vast ocean of darkness. That there is no up or down, left or right; there is nothing to measure or quantify about it. So their mind breaks trying to process it.
This was never a problem for Jack, or at least it didn’t use to be. Back then, space was just what was in between other places. He’d go on a trip from Magellan to Prosperity, or from Oneida to Svarog Station, and he’d be in the dark for a while, but soon enough he’d emerge back into the real, tangible world. But now, space was the destination. And so he stared out the window, realizing for the first time that the endless black void was his home. And he had to learn to live with it.
“Hey!” a loud, squeaky voice momentarily broke Jack out of his trance. He turned around to see a young boy, probably no older than 18, enter the room, barely holding onto an oversized backpack. There were six bunk beds in his room, but only two roommates so far. Jack had hoped that, given that the ship was nowhere close to its full complement, they’d have a bit more space. Apparently not.
“Looks like we’re going to be living together, huh? I’m Carlito. Well, Carlos.” He grabbed Jack’s hand and shook it, completely oblivious to his annoyance, as he dropped his backpack to the floor with a loud thud.
Making a slight effort to be nice, Jack introduced himself in kind before looking at his wristpad and mumbling some excuse to get out. His other two roommates, Pious and Shepard—Catharist names, instantly recognizable—had entirely exhausted his patience for conversation, and he still had two more hours to kill before his first shift.
He decided to go to the mess hall and drown his frustration in whatever they served that passed for coffee. The room was lively and noisy, filled with assault corps guys with nothing better to do. He grabbed a cup, walked towards the dispenser, and looked at his options. “Caffeine Drink (hot)” and “Caffeine Drink (cold).” Excellent selection. He decided to try the hot one. It was alarmingly gray and had a smell that reminded him of a dentist’s office. With his mystery drink in hand, Jack decided to head towards the engine room. On the Excalibur, that was the place he used to go when he wanted to be alone. There was no reason for anyone to go there unless something broke down, which didn’t happen very often. And if anyone asked, he had a reason to be there; after all, he worked in Engine Operations.
Making his way to the engine room, he was surprised to find that not only was it not empty, but that he recognized the person sitting in it. Lazily lounging against the wall, intently watching the giant machinery hum and vibrate, was none other than the mysterious man who had consoled him the other night.
“Hello.” The man greeted Jack as if he were completely unsurprised to see him.
“I’m sorry, I thought this room would be empty.” Jack excused himself as he turned to leave.
“Don’t leave on my account. I don’t mind sharing the space.” The man paused for a moment to stretch his arms, then continued: “So, you’re a spacer too?”
“I’m not. What makes you think that?”
“This is a spacer habit, listening to the engine. On the smaller ships, back home, you can hear the hum from anywhere on the ship. You learn to get used to it in the background, no matter what you’re doing, because you can’t escape it. For most of your life, it’s just there. But here, on the big ones, you can’t hear it from the other side. The silence unnerves us. It’s unnatural. I’m told that grounders are the same; when they can’t hear insects or any other kind of noise they’re used to, something inside them freaks out. That’s why they have these programs, ‘Sounds of Magellan’ or ‘Sounds of the City,’ to help you fall asleep. For us, that’s just the engine.”
Jack furrowed his brow as he replied, “I thought you said that you were from Gaia?”
“I did.” The man grinned for a moment, then turned his attention back to the engine.
Time passed slowly as the two sat in absolute silence, with only Jack’s occasional quiet sips from the mystery drink breaking the monotony of the constant hum. Jack tried to subtly analyze the stranger, hoping to glean something from his appearance and general demeanor. He could have been anywhere from 25 to 40 years old; his build was athletic but not overly so. He didn’t carry himself like a military man, but his body language was somewhat tense. In short, the mysterious man betrayed nothing about himself. He was, at a glance, uninteresting to an almost interesting degree. Given that it was almost time for his shift, Jack gave up the fruitless endeavor, bid the stranger farewell, and headed to the Engine Control Room.
Upon his arrival, he was stunned to find Eve almost completely unrecognizable. Her bangs, along with the rest of her frazzled and rebellious hair, were tied up in a neat ponytail. She was wearing a spotless, buttoned-up uniform, freshly ironed, and her usual jovial, relaxed demeanor was replaced with stern professionalism. She nodded her head as he approached and gestured for him to stand next to the three other recruits that made up the rest of their shift.
“Welcome to the Engine Operations Division. I’m sure you’re all aware of what we do here, but just in case no one made it clear to you: we’re the ones who keep the ship running.” Eve spoke with a serious, authoritative tone. “That means that for six hours a day, the six of us are the most important people on this ship. Not the captain, not the XO, not whoever else might be on board—us. If you do your jobs well, no one is going to know you exist. If you don’t, this entire ship is going to be out for your blood. Make sure that doesn’t happen.” She absent-mindedly pulled up a chart on the terminal behind her, gave it a glance, and continued in the same tone: “In about 10 minutes, the jump drive will engage, and the main engine will come to a stop. We have half a dozen crucial tasks and about four hours of engine downtime to finish them. Summers, Atanasov, you’re on main exhaust duty. That’s on the outside, so don’t forget your helmets!” She winked and let out a short laugh, the first sign that the Eve Jack was familiar with hadn’t been entirely replaced by some sort of robot.
“Svensson, you’ve got console maintenance and debugging. The manual will be available on your wristpad. That goes for everyone else here as well; better get familiar with it. And finally, Nereus, Windek, you take the auxiliary access ducts.” With a nod, she dismissed the five recruits and walked toward a chair near the back of the room, sitting in it with theatrical rigidity. It was obvious to Jack that this authoritative persona was a façade, but he wondered what the other recruits thought of her. Had she succeeded in coming across as a no-nonsense, hard-ass boss to them? And how long would it last?
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Soon enough, the familiar tone of the jump drive alarm rang throughout the ship, and Jack and his new partner were off to the auxiliary access ducts. Mr. Windek was a man about Jack’s age, slightly plump but with broad shoulders and thick arms. His face was covered in a thick, somewhat clumsily trimmed beard, while his unkempt hair betrayed the early signs of its inevitable demise. He had the stereotypical look of a working-class man, probably from a mining colony or perhaps a high-G construction worker. As they made their way through the first task on their list, inspecting the corridor’s structural integrity, Jack got the nagging feeling that his coworker was dying to ask him something, though he kept it to himself for the time being.
As they prepared for their second task, reformatting the maintenance crawlers, Windek finally broke the silence: “Miss Nakayama, you know her, right? You fought on Daedalus together?” Sensing Jack’s discomfort, he quickly added, “People talk, you know. It’s nothing bad. It’s just that you were the only ones to have seen any real action so far.”
Jack tried his best to be modest. “It’s not like you think. It wasn’t some great heroic thing. I was actually passed out for most of it.” He let out a small, dry laugh.
“Right,” Windek continued, undeterred. “But Miss Nakayama, there’s, well, there’s… rumors.”
Jack’s interest was suddenly piqued. “Rumors?” He tried his best to conceal his excitement. Was he finally getting the first piece of the walking puzzle that was Eve?
“That she’s loaded. Like, trillionaire loaded. That she bought her way into the fleet and can do whatever she wants.” Windek suddenly became hesitant, as if he didn’t really understand the words that came out of his mouth before he said them.
Jack replied, feigning indignation. “You think a trillionaire bought her way into a shift supervisor job? On this hunk of junk?” He tried his best to appear as if he knew more than he was letting on, but in truth, he was blindsided. Was Eve simply some corpo boss’s rebellious daughter? That would certainly be an underwhelming conclusion to the grand mystery he had built up in his mind.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Windek replied, visibly ashamed. “I was just curious, is all.”
The two worked in silence for a time, with Jack watching his counterpart’s efficiency with amazement. In one fluid motion, Windek would tear off all the crawler’s legs and deposit both them and the body into their respective boxes inside the reconstruction matrix, picking up the next one without missing a beat. It was as if he was performing a carefully choreographed routine he’d been practicing for weeks. As he worked, Jack could sense Windek trying to muster the courage to ask another question, though he still seemed somewhat flustered from their earlier interaction.
Finally, Windek gathered his nerve and asked, “The Kharlath, are they… You know, is it true what they say?”
“What do they say?” Jack tried to sound sarcastic, though he had no idea what Windek was hinting at.
“That they’re, well, working with two hoses down there.” Windek instantly regretted his words as soon as they left his lips.
Jack tried to suppress his laughter, but it burst out of him like a dam breaking. “How the hell should I know, man? What do you think happened on that station?” He felt bad for laughing, but he couldn’t stop as Windek’s face turned red. Just when it seemed like Windek was about to cry, he let out a loud, joyous belly laugh, and all his embarrassment seemed to melt away.
“I really don’t know why I asked that,” Windek continued between fits of laughter. “I was just trying to make conversation. I don’t like working in silence.” After they both calmed down, he added in a slightly more serious tone, “I’m not into them or anything. I mean, they don’t even have women, do they? Plus, we’re at war and all that—it really wouldn’t be proper.”
“I didn’t think you were, Windek,” Jack reassured him. “But now that you’re insisting you’re not into them, that’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it?” he added with a teasing tone. The two men shared one final hearty laugh before returning to their work. With his curiosity seemingly satisfied, Windek began humming a tune—one that felt familiar to Jack, yet the name eluded him.
Several hours—and several conversations about food, AR models, and vacation destinations—later, the two men finished their work in the access ducts and began gathering their tools. As they were preparing to leave, Jack tapped Windek on the shoulder, accidentally startling him.
“Care to join me for a cup of grey sludge in the mess hall?” Jack asked, somewhat awkwardly.
“I think I’m taking a nap, actually. You don’t get to look this good without proper daily beauty sleep, you know,” Windek replied with a joking tone.
They entered the main control room, finally able to stand up and stretch their bodies in the now gargantuan-seeming space. As they logged their tasks into the main console, they noticed Eve still seated in her chair, engrossed in something on her wristpad.
“Miss Nakayama,” Jack greeted her, awkwardly.
“Mister Nereus,” Eve replied back, not lifting her eyes from the screen, barely concealing a smirk.
“We’re done with our tasks for the day,” Windek interjected, somewhat sheepishly.
“I suppose you’re expecting to clock out early then? With 40 minutes left on your shift?” Eve replied, this time lifting her head to meet his gaze, her eyebrows furrowed in disapproval. “Suppose we had a reactor meltdown, and no one was around to fix it. What do you think would happen?”
“I apologize, ma’am,” Windek stammered.
Suddenly, Eve’s expression shifted entirely, a devious grin spreading across her face. She continued in a much more playful tone, “Mr. Windek, there’s no such thing as a meltdown in a cold fusion reactor. And we’re not actually in charge of the reactor either. Your shift is over, go relax.”
Windek’s face cycled through a spectrum of emotions before he quickly thanked her and walked out of the control room. Jack finally let loose the quick laugh he’d been holding in throughout the entire conversation.
“Well then, Mr. Nereus,” Eve continued in the same playful tone. “I don’t suppose you’d like to clock out as well?”
“You shouldn’t be so mean to Windek, he’s a nice guy,” Jack replied, his voice tinged with conviction.
“He’s an idiot. I don’t mean that he’s stupid—by all accounts, he’s quite smart—but he’s an idiot,” Eve’s tone suddenly turned venomous. “With the kind of qualifications he has, he should be my boss. Instead, he’s content with scrubbing access ducts. No offense.”
“There are worse things in life than being content, Eve,” Jack retorted.
“You’re not,” Eve shot back, staring at him pointedly. “You’re the opposite, in fact.”
“Well, I wish I wasn’t,” Jack mumbled, mostly to himself.
“I’ve got six beer tickets,” she deftly changed the subject. “Want to meet up with Louise in the mess in about half an hour?”
Jack nodded and left. He wasn’t really in the mood, but he knew how hard beer tickets were to come by for enlisted crew. He wondered how Eve had gotten them, which reminded him of what Windek had said. Was it really true? It would certainly explain a lot about her, but not the whole picture. There was more to Eve than that.
He entered his room, giving a quick nod to Pious (or was it Shepard? He still hadn’t learned to tell them apart), who was lounging in his bed, and hopped in the shower. As he washed the grime and dirt from his pores, he stared intently at his left arm. It was mostly healed, but he could still see where his skin ended and the artificial graft began. It would probably never fade away entirely, but he didn’t mind it. He quickly changed into his one set of spare clothes and headed out.