“You know what I love the most about being out here?…

The unobstructed view of the galaxy around us. Don’t you just love it!” She says, looking back at me, over her right shoulder. Her orange coveralls tied firmly around her waist. Her socks, and her shirt are a brilliant white, not a speck of dirt on them.

“Hmmm… no, all I keep thinking about is how isolated it is out here, and how far we are from anything, or anyone.” I say, staring down at the now ice cold bulb of mock coffee. It’s inky, black-brown packaging has golden markings all over it. I can’t read it. It was a gift from the Chinese agency, from last Christmas. It smells faintly of roasted cinnamon.

“Well, I really can’t get enough of this view, I mean what a breathtaking vista that is spread out before us.” She says it with that ear to ear grin she always has. It makes her dimples pop, her ice blue eyes twinkle in the brilliant starlight. Every day now, she comes to stand at the same view port, always looking forwards – to the stars. I’m hunched over a tiny table that converts to tuck back into the bulkhead. I stand up, and toss my bulb of frozen black coffee into an incinerator bin. This capsule, the Non Sequitur, was meant for ten, still feels cramped, even with just the four of us. A long cylinder of off white padded curved walls, illuminated in phosphorescent white light that has started to show some wear and tear. I will give them this, The Company does love to recycle. This is my seventh uneventful mission out here with one of the jury rigged crafts. “You know… we… I… hmmm, that first twenty nine week stretch out to Mars was tedious. I didn’t get any worth while readings, and there is no sign of the anomaly.” I am not happy. This line of work was supposed to be cutting edge. For fuck’s sake, it is space travel, and you promised us adventure, aliens, or at the very least a chance to bring about the singularity before the fall of mankind. We ventured out here in search of something, anything, anything at all that could be the key to unlocking our full potential as a species. And all I got was this lousy t-shirt. “I am not looking forward to eighty more weeks of this before we make it out to Pluto.” I have been glum for quite some time. I never could muster the same enthusiasm for these missions. Even with the pressure of the world on my shoulders. I just don’t care anymore.

“Same time tomorrow then darling.” She giggles as she says it. Every time with this same schtick. I’m annoyed, but I chuckle anyway. “Of course babe, say hello to our girls for me.” Jennifer vanishes in the dim light, leaving me all of the sparse, utilitarian room. The bright padding fades away to reveal the gathered filth and blood splatter of neglect. The fabric throughout the cabin is stained jet black in places, it reeks of smoke, and decay. The lights inside the observation pod have not come on in quite some time.

Outside the capsule, sparks continue to fall away from the craft’s hull like a giant rooster tail of cascading embers. A large black burn stretches across the jagged edge of what’s left of the crew quarters. There in the distance are vague forms of a woman and two children, suspended in their bed pods, both flash frozen, and boiled in the vacuum of space. The capsule is half a million miles off course, even though the engines and navigation survived the attack in one piece. Denial, much like the void of space, does not discriminate.

 

PART I

 

*****

And NOW for shits and giggles you can listen to me narrate Chapter One .