Lucy
A blaring alarm startled Lucy awake, her heart throbbing as she bolted upright. For just a moment, she was back at the station. Another emergency call? Electrical malfunction, maybe, or another wildfire encroaching on city limits. But as her eyes adjusted to the dim bunkroom, reality set in. She was lightyears from home now.
Lucy dragged herself from her cramped bunk and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The overhead lights were flashing wildly - yellow, red, then daylight white. It was the middle of her scheduled sleep cycle, according to her smartband. Something was clearly wrong. She watched the pattern repeat. Yellow, two reds, then a long pulse of white.
Shit. She knew what that sequence meant. It was burned into her brain during orientation.
Lucy didn’t bother changing out of her wrinkled, crew-issue jumpsuit into a fresh one, she just pulled on her boots and hurried to the engineering bay.
In the bay, the other mechanics looked as rumpled and bewildered as she felt. They were mainly untrained colonists, lottery winners who got to embark on the decade-long journey to HD 85512 B: Humanity’s New Frontier. They were the lucky few chosen by the Colony Council, the vidcast always emphasized. The lottery winners who got a fresh start among the starts. A chance to leave behind their dying world.
Really, they were the crew that kept this bucket hurtling through space on the journey while the real colonists — scientists, doctors, nepo-babies — slept in cryo.
The chief engineer was already in the bay, his normally cheerful face grim. “We’ve got a hull breech in sector four. Losing O-2 fast. Had to shut off the hyper-drive.”
The first officer strode in, mouth set in a hard line. “I need someone suited up for EVA repair. Now.”
The chief opened his mouth to protest, but the first officer cut him off. “No time to argue. Every minute we drift, the further we get pushed off course.” His flinty eyes fixed on her, too quick. “Rice, you’re up.”
Lucy’s heart stuttered. “Shouldn’t you send a real engineer, sir?” she asked weakly, but she already knew the answer.
"Can't risk the engineers," he said, and Lucy flinched at the collective intake of breath. He just said what they all knew: they were expendable. He heard it too, because he gave a little shake of his head and tried on a smile. It looked painful on his weathered face. "You’re emergency response, right? I know you can do this."
She took a deep, trembling breath. She wanted to scream. Emergency response, my ass! Lucy was a firefighter for five years back home, but that didn’t make her qualified for spacewalks! But she took another look at the sunken, frightened faces crowded into the engineering bay. They were the lottery winners, like her, and she’d heard many of their stories. A wiry construction worker, a kindly nanny, a personal chef. They’d received the exact same week-long orientation before boarding the Golden Pioneer.
He was right. She was the best candidate, at least out of the B-team he would risk. Supposed if she died, they would send out a real engineer. She thumbed the worn leather band on her wrist, etched with fading letters. Rice, it had spelled a long time ago. These days, it wasn’t legible.
“Rice,” the first officer prompted. The chief engineer swallowed, and then it was silent.
Lucy’s pulse roared in her ears as she took a singular, deep breath. Then, “Yeah, fine, let’s go.”
With a nod, he led her out of the engineering bay. She heard the chief engineer resume dolling out orders, but she tuned it out and soon she couldn’t hear it at all. They walked wordlessly through corridors, down ladders, over catwalks. Her lungs kept time - inhale, two, three four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. The riteway beat back her fear.
Finally, they arrived at the airlock.
One of the astronauts, she recognized him from her training but forgot his name, had materialized behind them. He was talking to her, she realized, but she wasn’t listening.
“Rice,” the first officer’s voice, sharp, dulled the roar in her ears. “Stop panicking.”
The astronaut cut him a meaningful look — the kind that said don’t push this, or perhaps, what are you thinking, you moron — then returned his attention to Lucy. This time, she heard him when he spoke. His voice was soft, cajoling. “You’ve got this. I’ve seen you work, you’re a great mech.”
The EVA suit's visor reflected her hollow eyes at her. The astronaut zipped her in, muted words of encouragement lost over the roaring in her ears. The heavy suit enveloped her like the fireproof turnout gear of her past. When that thought surfaced, she closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about that now. Focus.
But her throat constricted. Fuck, no. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t—
The astronaut stopped and clutched her shoulder. “You can do this,” he repeated, squeezing her gently through the EVA gear. “Remember your training. Your boots will magnetize to the hull, but keep a hand on your tether at all times. Get to the leak, weld it shut. Just like training.”
She swallowed, but the dry lump in her throat wouldn’t go down. She stared into the astronaut's crinkled eyes. It was pity she saw, and desperation. He didn’t want to go out there either.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Finally, she managed a nod.
“Time’s wasting,” the first officer snapped, and the moment was gone.
All too soon, Lucy was suited up and her helmet was locked on. It was so dark, that she could no longer see anything around her except for the bright pinpricks of light that guided her forward. Her hands shook as she hooked up her tether, trying not to think about how hard it was to hold onto the line with her gloved hand, or how she was supposed to operate her welder in the bulky suit.
She heard the hiss of the inner door sliding open and then she was pushed into the depressurization chamber. A red light clicked on.
“Depressurization incoming,” an electronic voice intoned. “To abort, enter your employee identification number.”
She wanted to turn and pound on the door, but she couldn’t look back. She could only look forward, at the outer door surrounded by blinking red lights like a rope of Christmas lights with faulty wiring. The same electronic voice counted down from ten.
Three, two, one... the doors slid open from a horizontal seem and then she was looking into the endless void of space. The stars surrounding her were cold, unwavering, beautiful and terrifying all at once. Her breath caught, amplified by the stutter in her breather.
Somehow, she pushed herself forward. There was a button inside the ring finger of each glove, allowing her to de-magnetize each boot in turn so she could walk forward. She tried not to think about what would happen if she accidentally hit both buttons. That’s what the tether is for.
Out on the hull, it was bright. White steel reflected blinding light from the nearest star, and she was grateful for the darkened helmet. It was like looking through a welding helmet, and somehow it was still not dark enough. She squinted, taking careful steps forward and trying to focus only on the next five minutes.
The first officer’s voice crackled over her suit comm. “You should be approaching the rupture now, Rice. Sending you the coordinates.”
Her helmet display blinked as the data uploaded. She spotted the flashing marker showing the breach location up ahead. Her magnetized boots clipped to the hull with each step, though her grip never loosened on the tether.
Through the thin EVA suit, she could feel the absolute chill of space leaching her body heat. She clicked up the suit’s insulation and focused on her breathing. In, pause. Hold, pause. Out, pause. Almost there.
“I see it,” she radioed back. A plume of crystallizing oxygen was venting from a dinner plate-sized hole. Jagged metal edges poked inward — an impact rupture. But from what? They weren’t meant to pass any asteroid belts for at least a few months, she remembered that from her training. Lucy furrowed her brow even as she unpacked her welding torch and igniter, fumbling to handle them in her suit gloves.
As she was heating the igniter, a glint caught her eye. She paused, squinting into the distance just in time to see when she was plunged into shadow and everything went dark. Rapidly, she adjusted the shade of her visor until her eyes worked again and that’s when she saw it.
Lucy’s heart seized.
“S-sir?” She stammered, she couldn’t get the words out, she couldn’t help it.
Because in front of her had materialized a ship. Rapidly approaching, closing fast. It was sleek, narrow-shaped despite its sheer size. A strange light danced across the dark-metal hull of it, almost twinkling like the stars themselves.
“We see it,” the officer replies, tone urgent. “Work fast, Rice.”
Her brain felt like it had short-circuited. Lucy scrambled to light the torch, not daring to darken her visor and not caring when the brightness of her torch spotted her vision. She could worry about damage later.
Over the comms, panic and garbled shouts. She couldn't breathe, fog coating her visor as she gasped for air. This can’t be happening. She wanted to close her eyes, hoping this was a nightmare she would wake up from, but she had to work.
The unidentified ship neared, growing from simply large to massive and looming until it blotted out the stars. Strange protuberances on its hull began to glow.
A crimson lance of light streaked toward them just as the first officer yelled, "Brace for impact!"
The ship shuddered violently as they were hit. Lucy was torn loose, tether whipping behind her. Spinning uncontrollably, she glimpsed the hull rupturing, precious air leaking out.
She no longer heard the first officer — but through his comm, she could make out the screaming, the alarms. Helplessly, she watched as something — no, she realized with a shudder — someone was sucked through the breach in the hull. They spasmed as a foggy vapor sprayed from their mouth and crystallized even as the body (oh god, please be dead) hurtled into space.
Then there was another, and this time she closed her eyes against the horror. "Oh god, oh fuck, oh please, help me." She was choking, crying, desperately trying to get her panic under control even as she knew she needed to conserve her oxygen. She gripped her tether, thanking god that it had held for this long...
And then she heard a whine, and the unidentified ship fired again. She opened her eyes just in time to see the impact breaking apart the hull of their ship. There was fire in the cracks, dying as quickly as it appeared as the vacuum of space overtook it.
This was it. She knew it — the end of the Golden Pioneer. Something inside her snapped.
Lucy's breath slowed, her panicked brain entering that still place all at once and yet not fast enough. She breathed in. Counted off four. Held it. Exhaled.
Reached down and unclipped her tether.
For a moment, she was suspended in space. Then, another crimson bolt fired and there was an impact wave, pushing her out into space along with the rest of the debris that used to be the Golden Pioneer. She somersaulted, choking back wave after wave of nausea. Then a jolt of pain lanced through her shoulder as she crunched into something hard, unyielding. A piece of the ship, she realized. The collision slowed her spinning, and she was able to get her bearings again.
She almost wished she hadn't. Her heart sank as she saw, now far away, what remained of the Golden Pioneer. Cracks laced through the hull of the huge ship, rounded as if pregnant with the number of colonists dying inside. Bile rose in her throat as she tried to count the escape pods shooting off in all directions, knowing that even if they all ejected it wasn't enough.
So much death.
Tears stinging her eyes, knowing it was pointless, she pressed her comm button. "Can anyone hear me?"
Static. She flipped it to record.
"My name is Lucy Rice. I'm a mechanic on the Golden Pioneer, heading to Colony HD 85512 B. I—" her voice cracked, and she choked back the threatening sob. "We've been attacked. I don't know what it was. I'm spaced. I-I have six hours, maybe less. If anyone can hear me... please, oh God, please just respond."
When she clicked off the recorder, her voice was small. She shut off the comm and waited, praying for a reply, but there was nothing.
Nothing at all.
She was alone.