393 A.A.
Suraj leaned against the wall, angling himself so he could watch everyone at once. To him, this—computer program?—hadn’t offered anything useful yet, just a string of broken facts: crash cause unknown, external comms damaged. The smallest of his headaches, Arthur, still looked rattled at the idea they’d been on ice a full century. Suraj thought that much had been obvious the moment they found the corpses.
He was reminded of a saying about leading horses to water, only to have them not drink. They practically ignored him, though they were in need of direction.
“Your situation is precarious.” Hitori said.
Dozens of pixels that made up his body separated, as though from a gust of wind, leaving his outline blurred. They re-formed into a replica of the coms room screen they’d seen earlier, crack included.
“Food stores are nearly empty, and while the cistern is full, the hydration system is beyond repair. Atmospheric pressure began production 6 hours before you all awoke. It’s stable, but due to the deterioration of the ocxellerator and gravwells, you only have around thirty more hours.”
That wasn’t the worst situation Suraj Murphy had been in. He squeezed his hands, grateful that the cybernetics were organic, and considered the pilgrimage expeditions—expirements as Alexi called them—to distant planets but Suraj didn’t know any who had reported back.
“So we’re going to run out of food, water, and air tomorrow,” Mina said, “that was my dad’s plan? Wake up and die?”
So far Mina had been Hitori’s biggest antagonist. Suraj might have felt empathy for her if she wasn’t bogging down the conversation in this interrogation. They should be actually doing something about this.
He looked up and pictured Alexi somewhere peaceful, laughing at all of this. Arms crossed, Suraj squeezed his biceps with their unnatural strength until the discomfort passed.
“That can’t be,” Arthur muttered.
“No? Look at this place,” Cenn said to Arthur, then turned to Mina, “your old man was busy… Gods, ninety-six years…”
“Well, he was only alive for half that right?” Val was plugging various cables into a generator, pausing before trying another. “It’s not like he was alive that whole time.”
“Don’t say it that way,” Roman said. The Martian was distressed, though not in the same way as the others. Suraj couldn’t put his finger on why exactly.
Val didn’t even look up. “Just saying he did all this in forty-five years, not ninety-six. Imagine what he could’ve done in twice the time.”
“Can we get on with it?” Suraj cut in. “We’re going to run out of resources soon, correct? It seems to me the timing of all of this was intentional.”
“Affirmative. Your expulsion from cryo sleep wasn’t an accident. It was planned decades earlier to give you the best chance at survival.”
The pixels that made the coms room screen dissolved and re-formed again—thanks to more fragments from Hitori’s body—and into an image of the asteroid beneath them. It was unmistakable for the Razorback perched on its surface.“Essential life functions, save for the cryo pods themselves, laid dormant so you could capitalize on the chance to escape.”
The projection expanded, revealing their asteroid to be located at the center of a cluster of a dozen or so other asteroids. A faint green orb pulsed on the very edge of the projection opposite of the asteroid cluster.
“In thirty hours, the Jupiter’s satellite outpost, Quay, will reach apogee, and be at its closest proximity to DK94-2002. From there, it will begin its expeditious and elliptical orbit toward Jupiter.
The projection now traced a dotted green line arcing from the asteroid and intersecting with Quay’s orbit.
“The plan is simple: rendezvous with Quay at this point and complete the voyage you began a century ago.”
“Simple.” Roman said, and Hitori stared at him with something Suraj could recognize as an officer’s glare.
“I didn’t say it wouldn’t be difficult.”
Suraj eyed the Razorback’s hull. Sturdy enough to keep the vacuum of space out, but with what they’d just learned about its condition, he doubted it would be flying anywhere soon.
The mute rapped on the table and signed something in his personal and infuriating shorthand.
“I agree,” Val said immediately, Suraj squeezed his arms again as she translated. “You said it yourself, this ship’s on its last legs. How’s it supposed to fly?”
“The Razorback is dying—true—but you’ll be flying its successor: the Razor.” The pixels scattered and drew back into Hitori’s body, sharpening his edges. “The meck pod that left Dearth has been rebuilt from the Razorback’s bones. The name is, in part, an ode to a Greek debate about the Ship of Theseus. The other part—”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Daiko built a spaceship?” Cenn cut in, running her hand across the pod’s gunmetal skin.
Val walked up and knocked on it. “Well, the pod already had an onboard gravwell and was vacuum sealed for the ride, right? All Daiko had to do was coat the exterior polymer, account for degradation, and supe up the engines.” Val’s face twitched with curiosity, “how’d you do that—the engines, I mean?”
“Daiko repurposed the nuclear cells from the Razorback’s engine supply. He transplanted them into the Razor.”
Cenn yanked her hand back as if burned.
“It’s nuclear? What the hell.”
“Most ships are nuclear,” Suraj said, “you didn’t object when you boarded.”
“Sure, but that was different. A bunch of people built it—with plans. Daiko was smart but he wasn’t that kind of smart. Was he?”
She looked at Mina, who was inspecting the pod without Cenn’s trepidation, nor Val’s wonder.
“He made this?” She asked, then when no one responded, she turned toward Hitori. “My dad made this engine? Why?”
“To make the journey to Quay, and to power the—”
“No, I mean why did he think it was necessary? Why not wake us up? We could’ve helped, or come up with a different plan.
“As I’ve said, the resources available when Daiko Hitori was expelled from cryo would have drastically reduced your chance of survival.”
“And no communications this whole time?” Roman asked. “No search parties, no contact with anyone at all? What about belt miners?”
Suraj had been thinking the same thing—the mining coalition conducted expeditions through the belt all the time.
“No messages ever made it out,” Hitori said, “Daiko Hitori broadcasted daily until the day he died. I’ve continued to do so in his stead.”
“And the war?” The voice came from Arthur, hunched against a workbench, but hope flashed across his young face, “Is it over? Did we win?”
Hitori paused, studying them. “Transmissions are intermittent at best. Only by piecing together dozens of fragments over the years can I say this with certainty: the Everwar persists.”
Arthur leaned heavily on his crutch to stand. He appeared as though he was going to say more but hesitated. Suraj was struck with such resentment he felt it crack his face. Of all the people to survive…
“Quay was a retired outpost way back,” Cenn said, “how do we know it’s even still there? If we’re short on resources here, and use everything we have to get there, only to find it’s empty too, then we’re still screwed.”
“Quay was retired,” Suraj knew this much at least, “but if the war is still going on, it wouldn’t be abandoned. So long as there are asteroids to Mine there will be people on Quay.”
Blessed silence followed while everyone weighed the revelation of war. Suraj knew it meant there was a chain of command at the very least, and at best a communications network linking core and rim. They might be stranded, but at least they were still somewhere relative.
“Okay, looks simple enough to me,” Cenn said. “Let’s hop aboard. You said we have thirty hours? Let’s leave now.”
“You cannot leave yet. Thirty hours marks the launch window—but to launch, one of you must be trained.”
“Snake, that’s you,” Val said, “he does all the driving.”
“I’m not talking about piloting the Razor. As you noted, the issue is the lack of propulsion. Someone will have to guide it from the outside using the meck.”
“The meck Daiko built? He finished it?” Cenn gave an exaggerated wipe of her forehead. “Thought you were about to dump worse news on us. If that’s all, I’ll do it. Pop the hood, let me take a look.”
“One of you’ll have to complete the trial first.”
“Like I said, I’ll do it.”
“Why you?” Mina stared imperiously at Cenn with arms crossed, as though her tone couldn’t possibly misunderstood as anything but fact.
“Why me?” Cenn looked around, looking for support, but everyone seemed to be bracing themselves. “Because I’m the only pilot.”
Mina looked back at the pod dismissively, “then we should consider our options. We have thirty hours.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The lot of them began to argue, and Suraj let them spin out. Perhaps then they’ll listen to sense.
A skitter ran through the walls, something between a draft and rats clawing through the insulation. Suraj scanned their surroundings but couldn’t find the source, though Arthur seemed paralyzed by their circumstances.
Suraj wasn’t a spiritual man by any measure, but in that moment, a part of him believed the sound belonged to Alexi. Somewhere beyond the aether, his old partner was laughing himself hoarse.
Arthur was drawn away from the crew’s arguments at the sound. A section of the Razor slid back, revealing a vertical bar of shadow, at the head of a narrow stairwell. Hitori hovered just to the side of the entryway, a gatekeeper made of light but still as stone.
A trial?
The railing was suddenly cold beneath his hand.
People had been telling him no for so long… Not asking permission to prove himself felt freeing—meaningful in a way he couldn’t describe.
And if he failed the trial? Well, then no one would think any differently of him would they…
And if I pass…
The thought hung sweet in the air like nectar.
Arthur leaned his crutch against the entryway leading into the Razor. Distracted as he was, he didn’t notice it slip and tumble end over end down the stairwell without a sound, nor the commotion stirring because of it—he couldn’t be.
A phantom wind pressed against his back as he stepped into the darkness.
And the darkness took him.
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