Leon looked down at his left hand again as he sat in the mess hall eating breakfast. It was a perfectly normal hand, his left hand was not a cybernetic prosthesis like his right. His left hand was lightly scared, covered in numerous small points of past injury from a rough life and many years of service to the United Nations Peace Corps. It wasn’t that that still marveled him however, it was the color. His skin was a light tan, a bit rosy on the back and whiter near his calluses.
He smiled. It had been almost two months since their encounter with the grey star, he shivered slightly at the thought of the events that transpired after. After Samuel had been taken away in critical condition Dr. Kimathi had been forced to give him a blood transfusion. She had been the first to notice the immediate effects of the fresh blood on his system. She had ordered a full dialysis of Samuel’s system and within a mere three days his body was nearly free of the Wash radiation. All that remained was of little consequence. The levels were far too low to cause harm or even make him look colorless. In fact his skin began to regain its color just twelve hours later.
Leon had been hooked up to the machines as well and had his blood filtered and recycled through a series of scrubbers and anti-radiation chemicals. In a few days he had found himself largely cured of the terrible scourge that was radiation poisoning.
He blinked. And yet, part of him still thought his skin looked just a teensy touch off, as if something unnoticeable had been permanently changed by the experience. Shadows seemed to linger on his skin a moment too long, the light almost looked too dim on his flesh. But it didn’t do well for his mind to dwell on such improbabilities, his imagination was just running wild. Instead it was a great time to think of the future.
Specifically the near future. They were nearing yet another warm yellow sun, this time one of their own choice as Leon wasn’t really happy with the options the Aori catalog had shown them nearby. One military outpost on a barren moon in an uninhabited system, and the only other showed it had been destroyed even before the Ruiners had come to clear them out.
It was a far cry from a guaranteed find, but at least they had a chance to find something living on random worlds. Every planet they seemed to find that was in the Aori catalog seemed to be dead or worse, a trap of some kind.
He finished his plate and wiped his mouth before taking his dishes to the bin. The room was empty save for himself. Leon had woken later than was usual for him, late enough that Natalia had already been gone and the mess hall had been empty. He hated eating alone, it made the ship feel like a vast empty tomb to him. Here they were, not even three years into their twenty year mission and they had already almost died on no less than three separate occasions. Nearly lost a member of the crew on at least five. Leon paused by the exit of the mess hall and looked back. The small room was sparse, a few tables with fold down benches and tall walls. The ceiling was an unadorned white and the only color in the room was the row of coolers that dominated the right wall. The far wall had a countertop and windowless opening next to the double doors that led into the kitchen area.
It was all as it should be, so why did it make him feel such apprehension? He might never know, things had just felt off lately as if he was seeing things he hadn’t been able to before. Leon stepped out of the room and into the upwards curving hall of the main corridor. The large one-hundred-and-twenty-meter habitat rings of the UNSS Leif Erikson had been designed to rotate and generate about seventy percent of Earth’s gravity. This was enough to stem the degradation of their muscles with a little exercise, but not so much that the machinery of the ship was heavy under stress.
After so many hundreds of days on the ship, walking up the gently curving floor felt as natural to him as breathing. But today of all days he really took a moment to appreciate the tiny artificial world that they lived in. One microscopic speck in an infinite nothing that wanted them dead.
Leon shook his head slightly and chuckled. The universe was vast beyond belief, they were traveling hundreds of times the speed of light and yet it still took them weeks to jump between star systems. There were hundreds of billions of such stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. It was truly a mind-boggling experience and not a day went by without something on the ship fascinating him in some manner or another. Whether it was the complex magnetic dynamos that held the rings stable or the ingenious linkages that allowed for water to flow between rings and the non-rotating core of the ship.
It was all so much. And he was technically in charge of keeping it running, though he didn’t really feel in charge. Instead on most days he felt more like some kind of cork in the throat of a bottle that was under pressure. Less of a crown and more of a stopgap, but it was his burden to bear and so he bore it with all the pride he could muster.
He instinctively rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand, the cybernetic arm he bore looked and felt real on the outside, but inside it was a different matter. It was cold, the slight tingle of it a near constant low-level pain that he had long learned to ignore. But since his incarceration and bout of Wash radiation sickness the arm had been feeling strange. Pulses of heat would come from it on rare occasions, not real heat. But a kind of false imaginary heat that he could not explain but seemed to momentarily paralyze the limb.
It was an annoyance for the moment, but he feared that if the time came where he was in dire need of its strength, it could fail him. That caused him to falter in his stride, the misstep almost costing him his balance as he stumbled. Catching himself with his right hand, Leon looked at the limb. It seemed perfectly alright to his eyes, but inside was another matter.
It passed, that small fluttering feeling. But the idea of it lingered like a bad smell and Leon couldn't help but grimace as he stood ramrod straight once more.
From behind him came a subtle noise and before he could so much as turn a pair of fingers poked into his sides just above his waist as somebody squealed, “Aha!”
The ribbing accompanied with the startling sound did indeed give him cause to jump. “Ouuaaghh!” he shouted and jumped forwards at a pace before whirling around. The tension left him immediately as soon as he saw its source. “Sabine, wh-hat the hell. You could have given me a heart attack..”
“And you look like you could have used a pick me up. I was just testing your reflexes, and I must say.. They are pretty good, for an old man.” She giggled at his grumpy features.
Leon straightened and shuffled his feet. “I'm not that old.”
His pouting seemed to only give the young woman more joy as her smile widened and she muttered a platitude that sounded a lot like ‘Sure thing grandpa’ to his ears. He just nodded to her comment as if he was oblivious to the underlying teasing. He had things to do.
Sabine pranced over to him. “So? What's the plan? Going to see Samuel again, do you mind if I come?” she smiled sweetly. Leon narrowed his eyes. Sabine was as good as a daughter to him, but she rarely strayed this close to his personal affairs. No, she must have been put up to it by somebody else.
Leon asked, “Who put you up to this? Was it Joice? Natalia.. Dr. Kimathi perhaps?” Sabine’s smile almost instantly reversed into a frown. She opened her mouth to reply and he waved her off. “Nevermind, I don't really want to know. I'm fine, I don't need an escort..” as soon as he said it he felt bad about it. A hurt look crossed her features before her eyes hardened.
Leon mentally swore as he realised that he had just activated her stubbornness and now would likely not be able to say anything to get rid of her.
Indeed as he stood there, hands raised in an apologetic fashion, she retorted. “Leon Muikman.. You don’t have the authority to tell me where I can and cannot go on this ship in my downtime. I have decided to go and visit Samuel whether you are going or not.” and with a haughty breath she strode off without him.
“For fucks sa…” He gasped in disbelief. He should have kept his stupid mouth shut and just played along. Now she was likely going to give him the cold shoulder all day long. With a slightly heavy heart he followed her towards the nearest ladder rung. It was going to be a long day indeed.
The trek to the medical wing of the ship wasn’t difficult, but he did experience slightly more difficulty climbing the ladder spokes than he normally did. He blamed it on nerves and ignored it, the creeping numbness quashed by iron will. Soon he found himself standing behind Sabine as she argued with Dr. Kimathi in the clean white medical suite. The dark skinned Chaddian woman was shaking her head at Sabine.
“No, you can’t go in and see him right now.” Dr. Kimathi noticed Leon entering and seemed to sigh silently as she rolled her eyes. “Oh, not you too..”
Sabine glanced at him and then crossed her arms. “Uhg. Well why not?”
Leon wanted to offer some help, but then thought better of it. He knew better than to jump in between the two women, it generally just made any argument they were involved in worse. The two didn't dislike each other exactly, but for some fundamental reason their personalities clashed. Dr. Kimathi was a very analytical person, and she took everything seriously. Sabine was the opposite, she could be serious but preferred to look at the world through different lenses. She constantly joked and made light of situations, not out of any malice but more from some inherent need to laugh away the pain.
Leon could well understand her need to humourise the world around her. What with her childhood being so dark, she had never really gotten the choice to be a kid. Instead she had been forced to mature incredibly rapidly, her child mind pushed into the real world at far too young an age. When he had first met her she had been nearly incapable of taking things seriously, but with some time and mentoring she had grown into an incredibly brilliant young woman, although one that was a bit compelled to be less than fully serious.
Leon raised a hand to get Dr. Kimathi’s attention without interrupting their conversation.
“..and that's final Sabine. What is it Leon?” she asked, tearing her gaze from Sabine’s annoyed features.
He shrugged. “I was just dropping by to check on Samuel, if he is awake would you please ask him if wants to see me?” he paused and after a second added, “And Sabine.”
Dr. Kimathi paused then nodded before shooting an annoyed look at Sabine. As she walked off further into the medical wing Sabine turned to him. “You didn’t have to beg for me. I could have gotten by her.”
“Yes, and fouled her mood as well as yours in the process. Trust me Sabine, I love you and am sorry for the way I spoke to you. Can we please not take this to Samuel, I really don’t think he needs our bullshit right now.” Leon spoke in a blunt manner. He wasn’t trying to be hurtful but he knew that if he spoke truthfully she would understand.
Her face remained scrunched for a few moments before she nodded. “Yea okay. But I still don’t like the accusation that I only hang out with you when Joice asks me to.”
Leon smiled. “So it WAS Joice huh?”
Sabine threw her arms up and huffed. He just smacked her shoulder gently and chuckled. “I was an officer for a decade, I know how to get to people, Sabine. And it’s okay, I would have figured it out anyways in a few days. I’m happy you’re here, always.”
Sabine just huffed again and then shot him a small smile. He smiled back, he knew that she wouldn't stay angry for long. It wasn't in her character.
Dr. Kimathi walked back into the small chamber and nodded. “Alright, he says you are fine. But you only get to stay for fifteen minutes and if he becomes agitated in any way you are to call for me immediately.”
Leon gave her a thumbs up and a grin. “I know the procedure Doc.” She shot him a serious look that he countered with an even wider grin. She liked things to be exactly as she liked them, and the whole situation with Samuel had so nearly gotten out of hand that she still wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He honestly couldn't blame her. She loved Samuel, the young man and Oliver having become very close over the last few years of the mission.
So it wasn't any real surprise to him when they entered the medical suite and saw Oliver sitting next to Samuel’s bedside, a book in hand. Samuel was sitting upright and looking much better than the last time Leon had visited, the brightness was back in his eyes and he was laughing as Max gave tiny snake-like kisses to his ear. Her tiny, forked tongue tasting his skin as she looked curiously into the young man’s ears.
As the two of them walked in Samuel noticed them and smiled even wider. He called to them, his voice a horse whisper that made Leon wince internally. “Leon! Sabine! Oh this day just keeps getting better. Acckkpt, Max what are you doing you goofball?” he spluttered as Max poked her head curiously into his open mouth.
Oliver laughed, his coarse voice matching his somewhat roughened appearance. “Hello Leon, Sabine, it’s good to have more company.” He stood and strode over to them, throwing an arm around Sabine’s shoulder and shaking Leon’s hand firmly. “It’s been a bit slow today, so I decided to come and bring Max by for a bit of a pick me up.” he was whispering now, but not doing a very convincing job of it. If Samuel could hear him he pretended not to though.
Sabine nodded and moved away to go and chat with the younger man as Leon turned to Oliver and motioned with his head towards Samuel. “How has he been?” Oliver went to shrug but he continued. “Not good enough Oliver, I know you have been in here nearly six hours a day ever since he woke up. What is your assessment of his condition?”
Oliver shuffled his feet and looked up at the ceiling. After a moment he locked eyes with Leon and shook a single hand nervously. “I’m not really sure Leon. One moment he is fine, smiling and chatty, a bit more than normal in fact. And then the next moment he..” Oliver faltered, a dark look creeping into his eyes, a haunted look.
Leon prompted the man gently, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder in a supportive fashion. “Oliver, it’s me, you can tell me anything right?”
Oliver nodded and then whispered, much quieter this time. “He was talking about the darkness, the one that involved Aden? Whenever he mentions it he gets real quiet-like. As if.. as if he’s afraid that talking about it it's going to happen again?” He paused. “I don’t know. I'm worried about the mission, this ship is cursed, Leon. There is something here on the ship with us..”
Leon waved a hand. “There is nothing to worry about Oliver. I mean it, Aden is fine now and Samuel will be too. I won’t deny that there seems to be strange things happening around the ship from time to time. But I don’t think we have any reason to worry.” Oliver frowned but nodded at his reassurance and Leon felt a twisting in his gut. He hated lying to his crew, but for the sake of the many he needed to quell talk of dark spirits and superstition immediately before it had a chance to take root. And he was indeed lying, he was alarmed by the news. Very alarmed.
He patted Oliver on the back and mused over the man’s words. If the dark entity was branching out from him now to other members of the ship. What did that mean? Leon wanted to stop worrying about it, but he couldn't. And so he did the next best thing, he pushed the worry far into the dusty corner of his mind and ignored it, burying it under years of unconfronted battle trauma and lingering self doubts.
He shook his head and walked over to Sameul and the others. Before he had even reached them he heard an excited sounding hiss before a bluegreen flash leapt towards him. He gave a yell of surprise and then hunched slightly in embarrassment as he realised it was just Max. The snake-like alien creature that Oliver had adopted from a past expedition. For whatever reason the small alien serpent had seemed to change its little mind about him and now treated him as some sort of human playground whenever she saw him.
He raised his hands in a nonthreatening way, still not entirely trusting of the animal in the way that Oliver did. “H-hey there.. Max. Good snake. Nice snake.” her little shiny green eyes fixed on his own and her thin tongue darted from her mouth. Tasting the air in a manner disturbingly similar to earthly snakes. He reached out towards her and she cocked her head a little as his fingers got closer to her body.
Slowly he gave her the tiniest of head stitches, trying not to startle the venomous creature. But he might as well have been petting a kitten for all the harm she meant him. She coiled around his neck in a loose bunch after a second and settled her head in the nape of his neck. He could see her out of the corner of his eye as she seemed to yawn and then close her eyes. A strange noise almost like a sigh escaped her tiny mouth as she settled down.
Looking up to the others he smiled weakly as he noticed they were all laughing at his less than manly reactions to the funny little creature.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Ha ha ah, I want to see you all acting brave the next time a deadly animal decides to use you as a pillow, huh?” They just laughed harder and he shook his head slowly so as not to wake Max. It was going to be an interesting day it seemed.
**********
It was dark, no, not dark. It was nothing, the outer sensors of the ship could not detect anything at all. No incoming radiation, no light or heat, not even electrical fields or gravity disturbances.
Leon wasn’t worried though. The Leif Erikson was still at full warp, the artificial event horizon that surrounded the ship blocked out everything. It was like they were traveling in their own tiny little universe, everything they could interact with stuck to a small sphere barely larger than the ship itself.
Leon sat back in his padded chair, the microgravity restraints on his chest holding him in place as he sat in the command throne of the bridge. They were almost on top of their next stop and he wanted to make sure that he was here. Samuel had only been discharged from the medical wing three days prior. He seemed to be alright, but Leon wasn’t taking any chances. He had Dr. Kimathi on standby if anything happened.
Samuel himself didn’t seem to notice the tension at all, he tapped away on his console without a worry on his features. The angry red scar that cut across his throat was stark, Samuel had quickly decided not to cover it up or avoid the topic. He had talked to Leon about it on several occasions.
Leon remembered the first time he had asked the boy. He had asked Samuel what he remembered and he had answered him that he remembered nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. He remembered a fire, or flames. Deep and angry, and a darkness surrounding them that hurt to look at. As soon as he had said it Leon’s blood had frozen. That sounded disturbingly close to the dark thing that haunted his own dreams.
Leon shook his head as something broke his concentration. “Hmm? What?”
Joice shook her head from the chair next to him. “Off in Leonland again were we? Well, when you decide to join us I was just mentioning that the system we are about to drop into has an anomaly that we detected in the data last week, if you remember?”
He nodded. “Yes, the unexplained brightening that happens periodically every few days. Terry mentioned it, I remember.”
Joice continued to stare at him for a moment, as if making sure he was paying real attention now before turning back to her own console. He sighed internally. She was a great second in command, but she took her duties incredibly seriously and it could be a bit of a stressor at times. But he was happy with his decision, and never in a million years would he take it back.
He looked at the data they had on the system, it was an unnamed one. Well, technically it was categorised as some random assortment of numbers and the year 2005 AD, but other than that it seemed to be just another one out of hundreds of millions. Nothing special had been noted about it other than the somewhat curious fluctuating luminosity it had exhibited when they observed it. The only issue was that they were only able to directly observe the star when out of warp, and so any data they had on it was likely decades out of date. For all they knew it might not even exist anymore when they arrived.
Leon frowned, it might not exist. The thought struck a chord in his mind. The mission had been slated to last for twenty years, ten years out and ten years back. What would have changed on their home world by the time they returned? Their ship traveled faster than the speed of light but did so insulated from the time warping effects of relativity. This meant that their twenty years would be nearly identical to twenty years back on earth, give or take a bit from their close encounter with a black hole that might have shaved a few hours off that total.
No, their journey was not one through time as many science fiction writers had speculated throughout history. Their journey was one of personal commitment and the endurance of the human spirit. The ship had been designed to run for at least fifty years before needing to refuel its nuclear power plants; the hydroponics could sustain themselves for even longer if they had access to light and warmth. The weakest link on board the ship by far, was them. Bags of meat and blood and bone that required the most stable conditions in the galaxy in order to function.
What would become of their mission should they all die before it was over? Would Henry take their corpses home? Or would the ship be hurled out into that great inky abyss, never to be seen or heard from again.
These dark thoughts were interrupted by the yellow alert lights flashing on. Samuel announced, “Warp translation in five minutes. Please secure yourselves and enjoy the ride.” He spoke with confidence, but his voice was still little more than a horse rasp. The damage that had been done to his throat was likely permanent, Dr. Kimathi had explained to him. It would forever be a reminder to him and others of the consequences of madness.
Joice and the other members of the bridge crew continued working in the silence that followed Samuel’s announcement. The occasional clicking of harnesses the only sound that disturbed the quiet.
Leon shuddered. He hated this part, the waiting. The anticipation of a warp translation. It was always uncomfortable, always a mind rupturing experience. Sometimes more so than others.
The yellow lights continued to flash at him, silent for the moment in their steady mocking. He gritted his teeth as the amber lights flashed faster accompanied with a short alarm that pulsed every five seconds. He understood the importance of the procedure, you really didn’t want to get caught out and unawares by a warp jump. It seemed that the only place one was free of its negative effects was if they were asleep.
Leon wished he was asleep.
Far too fast for Leon’s liking the ship reached the point of translation with Samuel counting it down. “Translation in ten. Brace. Five.. Four.. Three.. Two.. Onn..e…”
Leon cocked his head. Nothing had happened. Curiously he looked around and noticed in alarm that he was surrounded by nothing. No, not nothing, but an infinite plane of pure white light.
“Well.. this is a new one.” he muttered aloud. As soon as he finished the sentence the space around him rippled and he frowned.
Leon looked around, his body seeming to float in this endless place. “Hello? Is anyone.. anything there?”
The space seemed to react to his voice, the walls of eternity crashing down and compressing the space. The sound of rushing wind filled his ears for a minute as the weight of everything pushed towards him in an instant. He gasped in shock and the sound ceased.
Leon was a bit more than apprehensive now, he wasn’t really scared. There was nothing in the strange place to be scared of. He looked around and then asked “Uh, how do I leave.”
As he asked the question he began to notice a noise. A kind of a groaning sound that came from all directions. He thought harder about wanting to get the hell out of there as the noise continued to grow in volume. He blinked, in front of him was a doorway, it had not been there before. He would have certainly noticed it if it had. It looked severely out of place, it was not some high tech or even magical looking portal. Instead it was a simple wooden door, rough in its construction with a simple brass hoop and no lock.
He couldn't exactly explain why, but the door looked incredibly familiar. Not like any he could remember seeing in his life, but almost like the echo of a memory. He reached for the door and the space shuddered again, this time seeming to close in on all sides.
Leon gave a shout of alarm and tore the door open, it was full of stars. Well, not exactly, but that was the impression his mind gave him as he debated what to do for a moment. A screech echoing through the now deafening wind made up his mind for him.
Leon threw himself through the open door into the sea of lights. As the door slammed behind him he could have sworn the wind resolved itself into words as some incomprehensible voice shouted for him to come back. He shook his head as he tumbled through the endless seeming abyss. Or was he floating motionlessly? It was impossible to tell.
There was no air, no light or sound other than the pinpricks and himself. He opened his mouth to yell and blinked.
“What the fff…!” He cut himself off as he realised he was sitting on the bridge of the ship, the yellow alert lights were off and everyone looked little the worse for wear.
Joice glanced at him as she rubbed her head. “You too huh? I hate warp jumps.” she muttered loud enough for him to hear.
“I was just, but what was..” he muttered to himself.
Samuel spoke up, “Warp translation was successful. They always are..” He muttered, loud enough for Leon to hear his rough whisper. “We are now in system of.. Well, whatever that is.” He gestured towards the main viewscreen. The main shutters of the bridge windows were closed, as was standard procedure.
The screen showed a clearly magnified view of the inner system, one that almost immediately grabbed Leon’s attention. The small child inside of him bounced up and out of its hiding place as he couldn't help but exclaim in his excitement. “Oh wow! That’s a cataclysmic variable binary!”
Terry nodded but Sabine seemed a bit more confused by the statement. “Ok, what’s that?”
Terry patted her husband on the back, Taylor looking miserable as he almost always did after warp jumps. She turned on the second main viewscreen and focused it on the smaller whiter dot that was next to the main star. “A cataclysmic variable star is a white dwarf that orbits so close to its binary partner that its considerable gravitational pull is able to lift matter directly off its larger companion. Unchecked this will almost always result in a class 1A supernova detonation and sometimes the destruction of the entire solar system.”
Sabine just nodded. “Okay, so it's bad then?”
Leon shook his head. “No, not really. I mean, the chances of a detonation are astronomically small.”
“But not zero?” Leon cocked his head at Sabine’s question.
“What?” He couldn't help but ask what she meant.
“I mean, a near zero chance is still infinitely higher than zero. Right?” Sabine pointed out.
Terry shrugged, the movement causing the harness she wore to clatter in the microgravity of the bridge. “I mean, yes technically. But we are talking about a truly astronomically small chance of it happening while we are here to witness it.”
Leon nodded. It was true, but a small part of him remembered his thoughts from earlier. What if their mission was cursed to fail all along. A random supernova was just the kind of unpredictable event to do it. A tiny chance at catastrophe.
It wasn't technically off the table that something terrible could happen, but he didn’t realistically think it was worth worrying about. “I can’t foresee anything happening while we are here Sabine. On the off chance that it does, well we will have more than enough time to detect the buildup I'm sure.”
Terry nodded. “Evidence suggests that at least one hour preceding the detonation the white dwarf will suddenly increase in brightness as activity sparks back to life on its surface. This activity will continue to ramp up till this new runaway reaction rips the star apart in a brilliant explosion. Once the blast begins to propagate then it's already too late to escape as the flood of high density light would burn us to ash at this range.” She explained in a rush.
Leon gestured to the screen. “See, no light buildup, we are perfectly safe.” Sabine didn’t look entirely convinced but he wasn’t terribly worried. They had a rare opportunity to study a siphoning binary pair, he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Especially since the beautiful spectacle gave him another idea.
Putting the emerging thoughts to the side, Leon set about making sure the bridge crew were all working on their assigned duties with Joice’s help.
Taylor began testing the system for any artificial signals, Leon wasn’t expecting to find any but it never hurt to make absolutely sure. What would life in such a chaotic system even look like? He had to wonder, would they look like them or some gross amalgamation of anatomy? Well, it was impossible to know, unless the system did turn out to be inhabited.
Leon continued to monitor the situation for a while, it soon became relatively clear that the only point of interest in the system was the binary pair. There were not even any detectable planets in the system, they had likely been thrown out of the inner system when the white dwarf had taken up permanent residence to begin cannibalizing its larger sibling. Zombie stars they were sometimes called. And looking at the view he could see why. A huge plume of glowing plasma was being lifted off the surface of the larger yellow star, the plume must have been one-hundred-thousand kilometers in diameter. Such a mind boggling number that he had a hard time grasping the concept even as it played out before his own eye.
The expansive clouds of plasma that roiled off the surface of the yellow sun were siphoned towards that tiny white speck that orbited near it. The small point of the white dwarf was tiny, the small sphere of dense matter only about the size of Earth, maybe slightly larger. But even with its incredible difference in scale, the star being more than one-hundred times its diameter, the white dwarf bullied the star. Throwing it around such was the influence of its gravitational pull. It must have been at least half the mass of the larger star, compressed into such a dense sphere.
Leon couldn't help but be impressed by the streamer of matter that spiraled down into that white hot ball. It looked for all the world like a piece of pasta being slurped down a drain.
The approximation made him smile a bit, it was a funny way of looking at it. The small hot stellar corpse was just hungry, gorging itself on the relatively cool outer layers of its host. It was akin to some great cosmic parasite.
It was less cute when he thought about it that way and so he tried to change his mind. Instead focusing on the other matter that needed attending too. Principally his engagement to Natalia.
Leon sat back into his chair, the restraints clattering as the harnesses jangled together. He had all the arrangements made, the rings set and even the people who he wanted involved. He figured now was as good a place as any, though he might have the ship move further in system before the ceremony. It would make for a better view after all.
He smiled. Yes, it was time to do what he should have done months ago, maybe this would finally plug that sense of emptiness in his heart. Only time would tell.
**********
Leon stood as best he could in the observation deck. His magboots were locked to the metal plate at the base of the podium that Oliver drifted behind. The very same one that Terry and Taylor had used for their own marriage ceremony. While not required legally on their small world that was the ship, the ceremony was deemed an important part of their preserved culture. A way for them to connect and revisit memories from home, plus Joice had baked another cake. The rare occurrence was made possible by the incredibly limited amount of flour and pure sugar they had on board. Technically they had several tons of each, but over the course of two decades that would go fast if not rationed.
The observation deck was brightly lit, the radiance of twin stars making the room shine like it was under the noon day sun back home. The warm yellow light was a great comfort to him after years of the clinical white lights of the ship. He spared a glance out the side window, the small white dwarf was still busy cannibalising its larger twin, the long streamer of hot gasses looked almost cartoonish from this distance. They were close enough for the stars to be more than simple pinpricks of light, but Leon had not wanted to stray too close to the dying behemoth. It might not be dangerous, but neither was it exactly safe.
Leon smiled as he felt Oliver pat his shoulder. The man had that damn snake with him still, Max sat calmly on the man's shoulders. Her mosaic body coiled loosely around his neck, her fins waving gently in the microgravity as she maintained her precarious positioning. She seemed to understand that some matter of import was happening, or was he humanising the alien too much? Perhaps she was simply calm because of a large breakfast.
He shook his head slightly. Oliver must have taken it for nerves as the man whispered to him suddenly. “Hey, take a deep breath mate. I know it’s a big step, but it is the right one. A real ripsnorter.” The man’s confidence did help him a little and he did as instructed, taking a deep breath.
Before he had the chance to let it out, music started to play. The age-old customary tune ‘Here comes the bride’ caused him to look towards the airlock. What he saw caused him to let out the breath explosively, his snort getting a chuckle from Oliver as the assembled crew collectively turned to look back towards the door.
It was Natalia and Myung. The two were wearing their standard grey Coveralls, pretty much the only clothing that was on board besides undershirts and garments. But she managed to make it look stunning all the same.
Natalia’s face was radiant, her dark brown hair was pinned back to keep it out of her face, but even still it fanned out behind her head like the feathers of some showy bird. He watched, transfixed, as she slowly pulled her way through the microgravity to the podium.
As she took her place across from him, he felt the hollowness inside him fill with love. She was the fire that burned his soul, the light that blinded his eyes. She was his sun and his moon. These were the thoughts that trundled through his mind, soon he found himself being prompted by Oliver to speak. He hesitated for the slightest second, all the worries in his mind reaching out like skeletal hands, threatening to drag him under. But he shook them off, his resolve hardening like the point of a forged spear dipped in the quenching oil.
“I do.” he spoke loudly and clearly.
She responded the same after the next prompting. “I do.”
He smiled as he presented her the ring he had chosen. He saw her gasp slightly at the remarkable craftsmanship of it, the sparkle of the gem matching the lustre of her eyes. She in turn slipped his dense ring onto his hand before grabbing his lapels and pulling him in for a deeply salacious kiss that drew laughter and a couple whistles from the amassed crew.
Leon felt himself blush like a schoolboy as she released him and smiled. Oliver chuckled and said, “Well, I was going to say kiss the bride, but I see she has it well covered already.” This drew another round of laughter from the others and a chuckle from himself.
The ceremony was over, now it was time to retire to the mess hall for a wedding dinner and cake. As the room was vacated loudly, Natalia pulled him to the side and hugged him. He held her back, the two of them drifting through the air slowly before Leon reached out to steady them on a nearby chair.
“I love you.” Natalia blinked at him, the slow bounce of her lashed as pretty as could be.
He brushed a few stray hairs from her face and motioned towards the door with his head. “I love you too, more than words can express. But I think we would be greatly missed at the celebrations seeing as how they are in our honor.” she giggled and whispered into his ear.
“Oh yeah, but I can think of a few reasons to make them wait.” Leon smiled and shook his head.
“My my, you are a fast mover. How could I possibly resist such charm? Oh I know, with cake.” She snorted and poked him in the gut.
He pretended to be injured, letting out a wheeze as she laughed again. “Oh knock it off you great big baby. My big strong military man wants some cake huh? Well it just so happens that I was thinking the same thing, besides, if we don't get up there now there won't be any cake left. You know how much Oliver loves Joice’s cooking.” he just chuckled and nodded.
They detangled themselves and moved towards the exit. Leon entered the airlock and turned around. His eyes narrowed as he looked back towards the observation window, for a second he thought he had seen a shadow move outside the ship near the corner of the glass. Before he could dwell on it more the doors closed and Natalia started talking rapidly about how nice the ceremony was and the rings and Oliver being in charge of the vows.
Before he knew it the brief glimpse was out of mind, his focus entirely on her and the passion with which she spoke. He smiled again, knowing that in all the universe there was no place he would have rather been than with her at this moment. On a tiny mote of dust drifting in an uncaring cosmos full of dangers and mystery.