Logs of Sylvia S. Myles are shown in the order received by Allen Myles. For reasons unknown, the last entry was the first to be sent. Pertinent recordings begin three weeks prior aboard Shuttle Horizons in route to Enceladus.
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Captains Log, Entry 298
FINAL ENTRY
Its done. Its over, all of it. Allen, I… I, I wish you were here to see this with me, I could use one of those foot rubs right about now. I love you you know I love you. Even with everything and, and I know we promised to never say it but, I’m sorr-… …-ove her and I’m thinking of her. You’re the best thing I ever did sweety, I’m so proud of you. now hand the recording back to daddy... Allen please send this part to Jon Stalts if you'd be so kind. And please don't kill him... maybe kick him in the beans though. Jon, you’re a bastard. Truly a one of a kind lying piece of shit. You really are. I've had some time to think up here and I'll accept that I enabled you to fuck me over.... You should have done this yourself if you wanted it so badly. Ahhh, But listen, it’s a broadcast, I found the source, somewhere under the ice. I don’t know where exactly but it’s down there. The broadcast is relaying coordinates to Earth, but I can’t… …t’s our Galaxy, the Milky Way, I can’t explain how, most of my shit’s fucked thanks to Autopilot. Thanks again for that. I’m sending the broadcast information in here with these logs, hopefully someone can put the pieces together. And don’t try and contain this Jon. There’s a reason I’m sending this to Allen first. Then I’m sending the exact same data packet with my logs to a dozen other conta... …nd Jon, I know everything, I did get that out of autopilot. The whole story Jon. What were you expecting? You can control any of this, no one can. You can’t stop it, you can’t reason with it. I doubt any of this makes a difference. but if… …nds this, it came from here, it came from Enceladus.
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The Metal Felt Cold, cold to the touch and cold to the eyes. Its tactile ridges and mechanical precision-made stark contrasts to her organic one. If one piece were out of line, her softly atrophied hands would send a galaxy of red cells adrift. But nothing was out of line. The ship was sound, it had come out of a journey of millions of miles in one piece. As she sailed, she imagined the sea of black surrounding her, imagined the brutality less than a foot away. Back home, back in America, in Palm Bay, her daughter Mia, turns fourteen next month. It’s the first birthday she’s missed, and already she misses it, misses her. She hasn’t touched anyone in eight months, hasn’t smelled hair or kissed brows and it will be another three weeks before she reaches Enceladus. Small bags drift past her head and bounce off the ceiling, clear yellowish fluid sloshes by and her hair looks as if underwater. The soft glow of the sun is pale. Though diminished the light puts a soft hue in her hair as beautiful as any on Earth. The features of her sleeping bag move incongruent and boundless and the small wrinkles exaggerate in the lack of gravity. She sleeps and looks as if youth had never been involved. Like woe and wonder cauterized in an ageless provocation and nothing more; her very nature indifferent to her minds own machinations. It’s what made her a great scientist but also a terrible partner. Perfect for a solo year and a half mission to a snowball, traveling on a piece of metal at over sixty-two thousand miles an hour though.
Beyond the narrow slit of window into oblivion, Saturn grows out of the millions of constellations no human has ever seen before. Out along the furthest ring, where only bits and fragments of long dead planets swirl, a giant disco ball shines hard against the warm pinks of Saturn. Back in the ship, back in her analytical mayhem, something begins to flash from a console next to her. A yellow line crosses her slightly sloping cheek. Her weightless arm rises to meet her masked face. A soft sigh comes from her lips and the water molecules immediately turn to white smoke.
“Radio signal initializing.” some friendly male voice sounds in the distance, even now, its bothering her, the realness in his voice getting, realer. "Ok" she says emphatically, pulling the Velcro of her sleeping bag and drifting to the headset. She still feels weak from waking. 5:00 shines bright on the top right of the screen fastened to her forearm. Time means only the duration of the next task in her constant sun-night. The next thing her eyes see is the temperature gauge on the projection screen. It reads 45 degrees Fahrenheit, next to it is the pressure gauge, the content in the air, velocity, hull integrity, shield integrity, internet signal, orbital trajectory, oxygen levels, power levels, everything. Most everything seems standard, though the shield recorded a few infarctions from pin sized asteroids.
“The damage to the outer shield was nominal last night Capt. Not like last time.” Autopilot, says. It is an AI with control over all ship functions. This isn’t as disconcerting as it should be. She can override any decision it makes with an utterance. Such an action would never actually be left for her to decide alone, even in an emergency. Though she doesn’t know this and while she can override any of autopilot’s decisions, before they take effect, all protocol change are approved by Onni Central Control, and without that approval, Autopilot is in complete control. Often used and often inconsistent the directives for Autopilot tumble like raindrops into the program file labeled Planned Situational Response Protocol, or PSRP. These files are updated regularly to and from Onni headquarters.
“Autopilot?”
“Yes Capt.”
“Begin diagnostics on power supply grid and prepare shields for reboot.”
“Yes Capt., Capt.?”
“Mmm?”
“Have you seen the news yet?”
“Show me news Autopilot.”
“It’s a big day for Onni United isn’t it?”
“Thank you Autopilot.”
“Good-bye.” It turns off with a chime.
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She floated, reading article after article. It was really happening. There were rumors of a merger even before she’d left earth but this was big, bigger than she’d imagined. The first acquisition of a country by a corporation, even for Onni this was appalling. Corporate colonies were one thing but these were lives, citizens, an entire culture, bought out from under their own feet. The other major corporations were already citing international law to get the merger thrown out. The United Nations immediately denounced and at the same time sanctioned the deal pronouncing acquisition a grey area beyond their jurisdiction.
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The Marshall Islands had become The Onni Islands and many of the residents were already being given ultimatums. Onni’s logistics had been fine tuning the operation for over three years now and it had become clear that an Onni base of operations had been set up long before the acquisition had come through. As she read words like blacksite, independent actors, and guerilla tactics she became more and more desensitized to the sixty some odd thousand corporate casualties. That’s how she knew she needed to stop reading. She looked out the window, Earth was simply one more pinprick of light in the sky and all those people were smaller still. She wondered what it made her as she watched an interview with Jon Stalts, head of the Onni board of trustee’s,
“Mr. Stalts what are your plans for the population already on the islands?” a pretty blonde had stood up to ask at the press conference.
“Thanks Jen, Yes, we’ve had our best people on the ground for weeks now. We are putting together a safe and careful relocation operation of over fifteen thousand islanders to the three largest of the islands. Those islands will retain their sovereignty in cooperation with Onni and our specialists. The lives of everyone on the Islands will improve by leaps and bounds under Onni’s careful guidance. That’s a guarantee. But honestly Jen, this is only a part of what we’re working on here and this land acquisition is the type of development that has so many of us here at Onni just so excited about our prospects.”
“We’ve heard reports that Onni teams have had a full scale base of operations here, including military action for over two and a half months? Would you like to comment on the rumors of extrajudicial killings?”
“First off, I assure you those rumors are just that. Our teams have been working around the clock to ensure this process is as fast, safe and painless as possible for everyone involved. While there have been a few disgruntled residents, we would never resort to violence let alone murder. We like to think of ourselves at Onni as careful planners and our commitment to ensuring a safe and orderly procession of our plans is priority number one.”
“What will Onni be using the Marshall Islands for?” Someone else asked without standing.
“Onni is a company of firsts and with that comes a lot of responsibility. This is a big year for us, we’re challenging long held beliefs of what is possible. That’s real growth out there, and real on the ground actionable results. Are there growing pains? Always. But ya know, sometimes you need the hottest fires to forge the toughest metals. Like our mission to Enceladus, which many of you may know, is being spearheaded by Capt. Sylvia Myles and running ahead of schedule I’d like to add. It is sur-“ she closed the webpage in loathing.
She hated the way he lied so superfluously, with all his catchphrases perfectly planned. But, that was Onni, the devil she knew. What she really hated was being his scapegoat. She remained motionless, fuming for a moment and fantasizing about what sly quip she’d have for him at the next meet and greet. She realized she was far behind schedule and said,
“Autopilot”
“yes Capt.?”
“How about those diagnostics”
“All power grids prepped for reboot.”
“Begin system by system reboot.”
“Rebooting systems.” she waited and listened as section by section the ship turned itself off and back on, reloaded its system protocols section by section, finally ending in the control room where she now floated.
“All systems rebooted and nominal capt.”
“Turn on magnetic O rings.”
“Yes Capt. O coupling rings two, four, six, eight, and ten negatively charged. Rotation initiated.”
She began to feel the weight grow. First in her feet then slowly up her body. She sank down to the floor softly, drifting downwards as the magnetic rings began spinning the ship. Finally, she felt the full weight of her body and standing seemed normal again. She walked out the front of the ship down the single hallway towards the back where the exercise equipment was kept. The ship was set up not too unlike a train. Set in quadrants that could be hermetically sealed in case of an emergency. The front of the ship was the control room and personal living quarters and had the only window on the ship. It was best not to look out the window while the gravity was on, the spinning space being too much even for her after a while. The room directly behind the control room was the greenhouse and water filtration. The air was also filtered through the greenhouse where carbon dioxide and oxygen levels were brightly displayed. As she walked by, she made a quick check. Along with all inert gasses, nothing but nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide in any of the compartments. She continued through the Lab. Here hollow thin tubes lined the walls. They would eventually hold the ice samples from Enceladus. The containers were built to house the samples in perfect sterility, ensuring all known extremophiles were accounted for within the containers.
There was a long work bench lining one side of the room with a digital microscope powerful enough to see down to the atomic level on one side. Along the other, was the medical bay where she regularly checked her vitals and ran constant blood tests. It was all part of a routine that never faltered. She also had a blood bank of her own, stored for emergency use as well as all other possible medical supplies one person could need.
She continued on to the first cargo hold. There were two cargo holds on The Horizon. The first held all personal material, foodstuffs, toothpaste, clothing, and a few personal effects. It was here she had found the bottle of vodka the team had smuggled on for her. Sealed in a plastic airtight bottle, one pint of fine clear vodka. She had taken a sip for every planet she had passed and planned to celebrate with the rest on her daughter’s birthday. The exercise equipment was also stored here; it was extremely lightweight, designed to put her physical exertion back into powering the ship. While not much, every watt mattered up here.
While the first cargo hold was barely eight feet long, the second cargo hold was over three times that length. Everything was designed to fit just so. The rover, her space suit, the external drill for the ice, the liquid oxygen tanks and the extra energy cells all barely fit, no room to spare. Even the vodka they’d smuggled on had to be calculated and factored into the final weight of the ship so it probably wasn’t that much of a secret. There was another drill hidden under the belly of the Horizon that could self-assemble should the need arise. Most of her colleagues assumed it would be dead weight, but Sylvia had her doubts. In either case, they’d designed both drills to be detached on Enceladus before Horizons returned. As she began peddling on the bike she said,
“Autopilot?”
“Yes capt.?”
“Continue audio file, Sonnets of Chopin.”
“Resuming audio file Sonnets of Chopin.”
“Thank you Autopilot.”
“Goodbye.”