The Further We Drift from Home

“I’m still not entirely sure how the whole, ‘letters through time and space’ thing works,” Aria yelled as she floated through an open bulkhead. Loose bits of her jumpsuit clanged off the metal rungs that lined the hallways. Her hands fumbled to grab her suit’s anchor hook, used to keep a worker close to the ladders. Objects floating in the hallway, alive or otherwise, created potential for injuries. Aria positioned herself to anchor on the rung nearest to the open room to her right. She missed by about ten rungs. Graceful movement in zero gravity was a constant struggle for Aria.
Her job coordinator, Krelik, poked their head through the control room’s open access hatch. Eyes on short stalks rotated to scan the hallway. Seeing Aria, the outermost tendrils above their eyes began to glow. A smile to match Aria’s.
Krelik was an alien — one of many on the ship — and they were as beautiful as they were otherworldly. Aria often wondered how the people back home would have reacted if Krelik was the first to make contact. For decades, the canonical “Earth Alien” was short and grey. An enormous head rested on a tiny, disproportional body. Huge, slanted, dark eyes seemed to stare through you. In reality, aliens varied in size and design based on their home planet, and the star it circled. Krelik was the first to welcome Aria on the ship. It took a while for Aria to adjust, but she decided that Krelik’s unusual appearance was preferable over the kind of aliens that haunted her dreams as a child.
“I told you,” said Krelik. “While we are in the Slip, there’s a pathway that allows messengers to interact with every location at every time in every universe.” Krelik rotated their eyes to follow Aria as she floated past the control room. Their middle tendrils vibrated in laughter as they watched Aria try to get a solid hand-hold. “They are the ones that help us talk to those we left behind,” Krelik said.
“Okay, but,” Aria stumbled over her words as she hooked an arm around the last rung and connected her anchor. “How do they know where to go? When to go?” Aria’s face crinkled. “How to — ”
Krelik stared at her and their tendrils laughed again. “That’s not for us to know, little Aria,” they said. “It is only for us to enjoy while we can. I have been on this ship for 300 cycles, about 25 of your Earth years, and have watched my offspring grow up a countless number of times. It helps to ease the sorrow of regret, and — “
“You watched?!” said Aria. “I was told we could only write letters so that’s what I did. You mean to tell me that I can see my dad again? My mom, and my friends, and everyone I left behind?”
“No, I…I was mistaken,” said Krelik. “Forgive me and forget. I must return to my work. Take some time. No work for you today. Maybe go and write some other letters.” With that, Krelik disappeared into the glowing room of computers. The access door hissed shut, and Aria flinched when the security locks slammed into place.
Aria stared at the control room door. What was Krelik hiding? She unhooked her anchor, rotated around the rung, and aimed herself down the hallway. Pushing her body away from the rung, she prepared to boost down the hall. Previous attempts always led to an injury of some kind. Knowing full well that another injury was in her future, Aria pulled herself towards the rung as fast as she could and let go at the apex of her speed. The hallway ladders became a blur. Doors, bulkheads, and intersections whizzed by. Aria furrowed her brow and focused on the room just past the next intersection. Reila had to have some answers for her, and this was the fastest way to get to her door before she left to start her shift on the bridge.
Aria raced past the hydro-farm’s bulkhead. She didn’t notice a control board floating out of the nearby maintenance hatch. A careless worker let it drift through the door while he finished the rest of his work. Even though it violated safety protocols, he didn’t much care. After all, humans didn’t tend to come flying down hallways at lethal speeds.
Aria caught a glimpse of the panel as she got closer to it, but a glimpse wasn’t enough time. She tried to turn out of the way, but the back of her head cracked against the irrigation control unit. Aria lost consciousness a millisecond after impact. Her mind emptied of all thoughts, and the light grew darker and darker.
Blood floated out of her wound, forming red globules that shimmered in the hallway. A single alarm blasted through the hydro-farm. Blood continued to pool as a hemisphere on the back of her head. Flashing red lights pulsed underneath the ladders on each side of the hallway. Aria’s muscles relaxed and her body went limp. Doors closed and latched shut; the sound of closing locks echoed through the halls.
Emergency response was swift. Automated systems placed a stasis field around Aria’s floating body, and even around the control panel, to prevent further damage. Liquid filtration vents opened to evacuate the blood that remained out of stasis. An ambulance roared towards Aria on an integrated rail-transit system. About the same size of the hallway, it was designed to be deployed rapidly from one of twenty stations surrounding the hallways in each section of the ship. They were a rare sight, especially for situations this serious.
The medical team floated out of the ambulance. One of them, a Rydian named Tra’ana pressed a button on her wrist-mounted controller. Tiny nozzles opened on various spots around her suit. She used these gas-based thrusters to move with more accuracy around the accident. Augmented by the boosters, she moved the control panel to a compartment on the side of the ambulance. It would get a new metal sheath, a fresh coat of paint, and should be back in action within a month. The same couldn’t be said for Aria.
A human named Elan turned on his precision thrusters and removed a life support pod — one of three carried on the ambulance. He guided it over to Aria, then removed a foam coagulator out of the pod. After moving the hemisphere of blood away from her wound, a few sprays was all it took to seal the back of Aria’s head for the trip back to the infirmary. Safely inside the pod, a tiny artificial gravity generator spun up and pulled Aria against the soft cushioning of the pod. Its pale green color started to turn red where her head rested.
Beeps, slow ones, pierced the silence of the hallway. Aria was alive, but her pulse was getting faint. There was no way the on-board medical capabilities were up to saving her life — field medics were woefully unprepared for life-threatening injuries. Only orbital stations have the facilities and the training that Aria needed to survive. As the ambulance returned to the medical station, the emergency cordon lifted. Access to the hall was restored to all passengers. Many of them left their rooms without much care as to what happened. One of them stepped out of her room just past the next intersection from the accident. Reila watched the ambulance speed away and wondered if it was anyone she knew.
The ship’s emergency vehicle arrived at Medical Station 005. It had been three minutes since the accident happened. Elan and Tra’ana removed Aria’s capsule and loaded it in a Slip Ambulatory Vessel — an SAV. They entered the coordinates to the nearest orbital station in the SAV’s computer and prepped it for launch. Over 40,000 light years away, Aria would arrive at Orbital Station SR-387 in under five minutes.
“Slipstream will engage ten seconds after launch,” said the computer. Tra’ana closed her eyes, said a small prayer, and pressed the launch button to eject the SAV clear of the ship. She watched as its thrusters fired, orienting it to enter the Slip. “Three, two, one, Slipstream engaged.” In a blink, the pod was gone and on its way to SR-387.
Elan placed his hand on Tra’ana’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay, I’m sure,” he said. “Has anyone told Reila yet? I know how close they are.”
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Next Chapter: We Will See Each Other
