In the halls of the youngest pillar's heart, he is there. Eyes glassy. Skin icy. Stiff. Laying dead with the other members of his crew: a dozen men and women of various species, united at the last frontier.
No pulse. Dead long before the Captain came here—not that she expected him to be anything else. Just never seen a dead father before. Stranger than how they describe it in books or show it in movies. Much stranger.
She sits by his side, still, for an almost outrageous amount of time. Then she twists the ring off his finger, slips his tablet into her bag, and pats him down for any potential tools.
Pre-apocalyptic people used to bury or burn the dead. That was when there weren't dead bodies across every once populated planet. She could spend a lifetime cleaning them up, but then what would she have done with her time. Her father's body lies still on the marble.
She leaves him here. Leaves the halls.
----------------------------------------
NINE YEARS LATER
----------------------------------------
"It's like, negative fifteen degrees out. You're going to ruin your legs if you keep heading out there."
"I know!" Gold calls back. "I got it, alright?"
"At least wait till Christmas," Sera mutters.
"I'm still going out to check," he says, walking out of the bathroom. Or at least, trying to. He manages to catch himself on one knee when he falls. Posed kinda like a superhero.
"Wow," Sera says, impressed.
He glares up at her.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Here, what about..." She helps him up. "I'll go this time, and you can take a break at home."
That's how she ends up trekking to the comms tower. How Gold manages it twice a day on frozen ass half-metal legs is a wonder to her. She takes a step, there's snow up to her knees.
The comms tower is connected to one of humanity's last satellites. It's an awfully rusted and old thing, but Gold's managed to clean it up pretty well on the inside.
"It is currently ten thirty AM," a pleasant, automated voice recites.
She takes a seat. Studies the mic hooked up to the autoresponder, the control panel, then settles back into her seat. Breaks into a book. It's a good one, something about nano tech.
She spends her first day at the comms tower reading and listening to the autoresponder tell the time every thirty minutes.
On her second day, she spends her time thinking. Feeling. The same kind of feeling she gets when the second pillar's trying to reach out. A sort of tug at the back of her mind, a straining of her heart.
Hell. Maybe she's not doing enough cardio.
The autoresponder chirps into the mic, "It is currently seven AM." Like a trigger, the screen blinks to life, nothing but a blank white chatroom. But Sera sits up promptly, leaning forward and bringing her cold fingers to the keyboard.
> Hello?
>
> are you the prophet
Sera's breath catches. She hasn't been called that in years. She asks, despite herself:
> Who is this?
>
> i am captain snazzy of the ss suffy
A moment. Sera doesn't laugh. Not even a little.
> As hilarious as that might be to some, I refuse to call you that. What are you, nine?
>
> no
>
> Well, you found me, and I can't really stop you if you're a strange alien that wants to invade Earth again and finish us off. You'd tell me if you were, right? What's your business?
It might be needlessly reckless, but she can't help herself.
And the answer is promising.
> i am human not an alien
>
> looking for earth
>
> and a way to save the world