Margot’s Fever I told them no thank you. When they asked me why I would turn down the opportunity to be a part of an historic crew going to the edges of the known universe in search of missing elements from our shared human past, I told them I was petrified of the ship, and the potential to be lost to both time and physical space. Too many unknowns, too many variables to weigh and calculate. It couldn’t be done. I thought better of it, but I told them flat out that the fact we could warp space time, and the fabric of our reality scared me to death. Left me in a state of paralysis that could potentially doom the ship. The empty dull faces staring back at me in the board of directors chamber said those were perfect answers, and they saw no reason that I should not captain the ship out to the edge of oblivion with a full crew compliment of two thousand souls. I wept. Then I threw up. I thought about murder, I thought about suicide. I thought about walking through the nearest airlock with no suit on and embracing a heartless cruel death. Instead I shipped out. Margot’s Fever would become a monument to hubris and human folly. And the weight of it all would rest firmly atop my shoulders to grind my soul to dust. And it all began the evening of the ships launch event.
“Alright helmsman let’s pull about on the starboard side and ignite the in system ion engines. Bathe those media bastards in brilliant blue light!” Seated in my captain’s chair at the center of the bridge, I am surrounded by scores of officers, dutifully buried in their tasks. Noses pressed to screens, tablets and work stations alike. Everyone wants to make The Company happy, and putting on this dog and pony show to hype up the mission goes a long way to accomplishing that. Great video feeds and network coverage can boost The Company on more fronts than they’d ever let us in on. Not just morale, but a moral victory for humanity. To finally be able to send man to the furthest reaches of the eternal abyss and live to tell the tale. What a thrill, or so they thought. Those desk jockeys never did anything real beyond count the zeros in The Company cheque book. Keep in black, we got your back. In the red, you best come back dead. “Pulling about starboard side, captain. Ignition in three… two… one… firing all three engines, we are lit sir.” The helmsman is an androgynous Ceresian individual of moderate height, with an undercut and long violet hair on top. Competent. But no ability for banter. The role of captain is very isolating when your subordinates don’t have the confidence for exuberant banter. Where’s my XO, the commanding officer can really give us all shit right when you need it the most. “Ok, now ease off, and let’s float for fifteen kilometers then we should get the go ahead from transportation for us to make our way out of the system before firing off those Fabric of Reality engines.” affectionately known as FOR E’s, like four ease. Never want to be within one hundred au’s of any habitable system when you kick those fuckers off. They run on something like antimatter, would wipe out everything in the system and create a super massive black hole in its place. More of a devastating weapon than a mode of transport. And to think we have nineteen year old technicians trained on its maintenance like it’s just any old engine. Oh, to be young and stupid. So my I’ll placed regard for technology and personal skill. Some shit just wasn’t meant to be bottled up and used at the whim of mankind.
Wee-ooh, wee-ooh, wah wah wah… warning bells are sounding, proximity alerts are buzzing, hull breach klaxons are blaring. Margot’s Fever is starting to list dangerously toward the Torus station. “Navigation, how far out are we… engineering, status report on the hull damage, are we breached? Medical, are we showing many casualties? Sound off!”
“We’re only point five of a kilometer from the station, we’re falling back along the line. Somethings hit us. Whatever it was, it’s massive. The thrusters aren’t responding. I can’t get the ship to course correct.” The navigator is a pale, bald woman who is only about ninety pounds and four feet tall. She looks puzzled and bewildered at the same time. “Engineering here sir. We have major malfunctions all across the board. Hull breaches, engine failures, and our sensors are getting peppered by biologicals. Jesus, I think those are bodies. Christ all mighty, the Torus is coming apart at the seams…” “ok medical, I’ll assume you’re not in a state to collect any possible survivors from deep space?” “No life signs sir. We’ve got enough problems from within the ship sir. Whole decks have lost atmosphere, suffered catastrophic decompression in the XO’s crew compartments. I’ll get back to you sir.” A second violent shake pushes Margot’s Fever right up against the outer torus of the space station. In the dark recesses behind the moon, the glow of the sun adds a beautiful halo around the torn and rended edges of the outer ring sections. Bursts of flame, and geysers of escaping oxygen can be seen. Bodies, like a hail of bullets are sucked out of the station by the hundreds. Beyond the destruction the only thing visible are the exhaust blooms from other ships that are breaking their acceleration towards the dying station. “We can’t take much more of this abuse. What is our hull integrity like security?” By now everyone is shouting over the alarms, alerts, buzzers and klaxons. It is a cacophonous mess inside the bridge. From behind me a deep voice booms. “Hull integrity at fifty four percent and dropping sir. We need to get out of here now.”
Inside the luxurious suite where HR director Catherine Taylor lives, a live cast is showing the horrific deaths, in gruesome detail of two hundred of the most rich and famous members of the torus station. The dead camera men floating out in the void with the gigantic listing ship Margot’s Fever in frame. Gas and sparks and bits of shrapnel are jettisoning off the massive interstellar ships hull. Save for the timer blinking on the media screen, the room is empty and has been untouched for hours.
“Good evening Catherine, I didn’t think we’d see you back in the med bay for another treatment so soon.” The doctor, dressed from head to toe in blue, is the only person on board the torus station with the cahones to call her by her birth name and not by her hard earned title. “Isn’t tonight the big launch event? What I would give for a chance to dress up and mingle on the observation decks. God, what a sight that must be. I bet the hors d’oeuvres must be spectacular.” “Oh, you have no idea. Succulent culinary delights, to be certain. But with two new unions under my purview I’m exhausted. I can’t even bring myself to watch it. I have it set to record. I’ll skim the feed later on, I’m sure.” “All right then Catherine!strip down and we’ll get you sorted out ok. Do you need me to initiate it for you, or can you handle it now, by yourself?” Without waiting for a response the doctor strides across the brilliantly lit room to her office, a small alcove tucked against the far wall. There are several others just like it scattered about the octagonal med bay. “No, please, do it for me. Bitch.” Catherine steps lightly on the cold metal floor and hops up into the medical pod. Pulling the heavy door closed over the tube, the inner screen jumps to life. The biometrics scan immediately, and a cursor and prompt appear to flash before her eyes. Running through the checklist she decides to set the rejuvenation protocol to the three hour full tissue and fiber recalibration setting. More staff under her means she can take the resources appropriate to her station. With this expanded role, she is now, unofficially in charge of some fifty seven percent of all staff aboard the Torus station. She out ranks every other senior member of the board of directors. With a smirk on her face she triggers the program count down. “This never gets old.” She says out loud, it echoes within the small chamber. Over the med pod pa system the clock counts down. “Rejuvenation protocol four set to commence in five… four… three… two… Ooooo-ooonnne….” with a sudden jolt, the coolant gel spurts out, as the med pod system jitters in the midst of the power grid overloading. A look of shock is frozen upon Catherine’s face, as the med bay goes black, and the doctor is drawn helplessly out into the far reaches of space.
“There’s no time. I don’t know who, or what the fuck those exhaust plooms are, punch the FOR E’s, and get us the fuck out of here, now!” “Fucking hell sir. No. I can’t authorize that. I refuse.” Shouts the helmsman. “You what? We’re all going to die out here. The station. It’s gone. Dead. Totally dark. In thirty seconds, those people.” I’m waving indistinctly at a general direction of what I can only assume are a collection of ships. “Killed about forty thousand people, and critically injured this vessel. We have to assume that they have, or will attack every base, rig, ship and station in this system. We must save ourselves. We were never going to make it back here to this time anyway. Fuck them. Punch it. NOW!” I am absolutely livid. In a panic, and can’t give any thought to anyone who isn’t under my direct supervision. “Forget it. I’ll do it my damn self.” Leaning over my console I punch in my seventeen letter override code, ease back the trigger and squeeze, the vision on screen before us goes entirely black.
Three years later, and I am still unable to come to terms with the choices I made while under extreme pressure. Duress, you might even say. Truth is, I wanted the helmsman to ignite the for ease so that I didn’t have to live with the knowledge that I doomed our home solar system. You can’t just extinguish eight billion human lives and go grab a cuppa with your pals after a long shift. For those who survived the initial attack, and weren’t on the bridge, it was life as per usual. The weird thing about the drive was there was no sudden acceleration or thrust to denote we had moved so far so quickly. We folded the fabric of space and popped out the other side. The computer is still attempting to triangulate where we ended up. Three years and it’s still counting ones and zeros to locate us. I jest, but I think we’d jumped through space and into pure nothingness. There are only a handful of stars in view here. And it is unsettling to say the least. The damage we suffered means we only have one chance to make a successful jump anywhere else in the universe. We have to guard that option with our very lives.
Five years out here and we’ve finally had to put a mutinous insurrection to rest. It cost us dearly. Nearly a full two thirds of the crew were either killed in the fight, or jettisoned off the craft for their part in it. Seems the theory of relativity didn’t occur to some members of staff until we had to float near dead in the water for a year. Some of the younger crew members were desperate to turn around and jump home. But you can’t travel thousands of trillions of miles instantly, and turn around and go that same distance back and expect to find ma and pa waiting at home for you. Life as we know it is gone. We have become a myth, a legend. And the unending darkness in isolation is killing us all. But oh! What a fanciful tomb.
“Captain’s journal, entry date, 3700 days since our initial jump. The ships ai has queried me for an update on our location. There are only a tenth of us left. We set out, ten years ago with a full crew compliment of two thousand souls. The last two hundred are a sad, feral bunch. Life is harsh here, among the living dead.” With a loud ping the ships computer alerts me it has an answer ready on our actual location. Turning from the terminal in the bowels of engineering I stumble over to the ships ai compartment. A tiny room, with a gray box full of pink goo in it. “Captain.” “Good evening Margot.” “I have determined our location, would you care to know more?” “Yes Margot, I would love to know where the fuck we are.” “We are currently less than one one hundred thousandth of one percent of an au from earth, in the sixth dimension. The reason there are so few stars here, is that we are witnessing the final stages of the universe. As the stars wink out, all becomes nothing, until it becomes something once more.” Falling to the floor, dumbfounded. Silence. “If we jump, do we stay put but leap dimensions?” I croak out the question to the ships ai. “Yes captain. Our initial projections for the engine were false. It is only a dimensional shift created, not forward movement.” “Do we… can we… can we go back to where we started?” “Why yes captain. Though I would not advise it. Our reappearance could be violent.” “But if there’s a chance we have to try!” Bolting to my feet, I race headlong through the ships corridors, charging toward the long unused bridge. Scanning my biometrics, retinas and finger prints, I breathe upon the service latch to release the biological locks I had put in place. Darting incoherently for my captain’s chair, I pull down the trigger on the for ease engine ignition override.
Resolving back into our regular third dimension with an incredible crash, not quite here, no longer there, we splice half in half out of reality atop of ourselves and the Torus station. Gutting the observation decks, and slicing off all thrusters on the starboard side of Margot’s Fever.
PART XV
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