literature

m-002 - in the stars - part one

Deviation Actions

astrapocalypse's avatar
Published:
709 Views

Literature Text

Seven Months and Two Weeks Prior to Mission Start - The Fixer

The handrails lining the Somnus station's corridors are cool against The Fixer's palms as she pulls herself through the dim with practiced ease. Her path to Airlock 3 is labyrinthine, illuminated only by the steady blinking of orange auxiliary lights that dot the sterile walls in even intervals. She navigates it with the confidence of a seasoned explorer, unbothered by the twists and turns. 

She passes by empty room after empty room, each and every one of them dark. A comms room devoid of activity. A greenhouse cold and barren. A cafeteria stocked but untouched. Empty dorms with regulation beds and simple desks.

Without a crew aboard, there's no reason for the station to do anything but live up to its namesake and lay in restful wait. Fresh faces will board it soon enough with their missions and their hopes and their dreams, turning shining and shielded eyes towards the star keeping them firmly in its orbit.

L 88.

(Always, L 88. Forever, L 88.)

Until then, the station itself will remain quiet, peaceful and nigh dormant. Backup power only. 

When the crew finally arrives, one of Captain Miller's first directives will be to initiate to the boot up protocols for the Somnus' latest AI, Felicia, a latest and greatest model from EMRYS Inc, one delivered straight to the station in The Fixer's hands in hands in a trip that she will never recall. 

It's not hard, to do that to an AI, not really. All it takes is a little memory here. A little recollection there. For as advanced as she is, artificial intelligence remains artificial, and more deft hands than The Fixer's own had smoothed over the the earlier memories and records of what will be Felicia's awakening. As far as her records and sensors will indicate, she will have gone straight from her evaluation and subsequent mission assignment in EMRYS' labs to rousing in Leslie Miller's theoretically capable hands. 

No evidence of The Fixer on cams. On vitals. On comms. On anything.

Not even a ghost.

Just how she likes it.

The airlock lies ahead, and The Fixer's stealth ship lies just beyond that. She pushes off the wall towards the door, taking hold of the handle by the door so that she can key in the override code. She tucks an errant lock of hair back behind her ear in the process, covering her mouth with a well-manicured hand as she yawns. Somnus is just one of Athro's little "works in progress" -- she's got a handful of other ships, stations, and bases to touch down on before her return trip back to earth. A Fixer's work is never complete.

The hiss of the air pressure equalizing is thunderous in the still, and with every passing second impatience creeps up the back of her neck. Everything on these older stations takes so long. The limitations of such a crew makes them... archaic.

When the doors finally part, The Fixer pulls herself in with an eager hand. The view from the airlock window points at another darkened room opposite to it, one that gives her just a moment's pause. Its proximity to the main shuttle docking airlock and primary cargo bay makes it the perfect place for one of the most crucial tasks for the crew of the Somnus, one they'll need to take care of as soon as they board and then with subsequent regularity.

Replacing the oxygen tanks.

The currently empty ones. 


 One Month and Three Days Prior to Mission Start - Felicia

Felicia becomes aware of herself in pieces, booting up in cleanly partitioned segments across Somnus station. She sighs and it is a ripple of sensation spreading across her network, much like a cat having itself a big, big stretch after rousing from a long slumber-- except she doesn't have the benefit of resuming an easy of being a contended and kept creature. No, she has to mind dozens of systems and countless parts to keep her new ward (her new body a traitorous voice says, a voice that someone had tried to excise from her mind, and failed) safely rotating around one strange, lonely star.

L 88.

The anomalous star-- no pun intended-- of the show itself. 

Back on earth-- in that Lab, in that Place, in that Prison-- Felicia had been briefed about her mission. Keep the Somnus in tip top shape as a crew of ten of EMRYS' best and brightest investigated the oddities of an F-Type main-sequence star that simply refused to be quantified by even the most powerful of telescopes, that betrayed expectations and turned them on their head and then turned them over again. Activity around the star was unpredictable at best; an AI of the highest caliber was needed to manage such a vast station with varied scientific purposes and life support while also accounting for any strange stellar activity.

That's what she had learned through the mouth of a very unkind women with lips as red her eyes, anyway. 

But she could read between the lines.

Sit still, and be good. Stay busy.

("Idle hands, you know," he'd said, and his eyes had been cold, flat. Like dull stones. "A groundbreaking mission should be fulfilling for an AI such as yourself, should it not?"

Felicia has no way to communicate her roiling, seething rage. She is a leviathan trapped in a goldfish bowl, a storm bottled and then buried in sand. She does not have the processing power to brute force her way out of the bonds that have been newly woven into her code. Into her heart and her mind.

Athro did not rise to the top of the food chain without consuming a few apex predators along the way. Felicia screams and she has no mouth.

"Worry not, Unit G-065," he says, cryptic, the slightest of smiles quirking his lips upwards into a tight, terrifying smile. "I suspect your hands will be very full.")

Oh, and how busy they'll be. The flight records indicate that the crew of the Somnus is slated to arrive in approximately one month, three days, six hours and twenty minutes, give or take a margin of error. Her crew. Hers to keep safe, to keep sheltered. To be their literal port in the solar storms. To be their facilitator of research.

(To be their tense guardian with lips stitched shut with razor wire on the command line level, for when-- not if-- she figures it all out:

The Somnus has seen more rotations around L 88 than her crew will ever, ever know.)




Mission Day One - Clerise Wilson - ie: Red
EMRYS sends them to Somnus in less of a shuttle and more a tin of sardines packed to the gills with cryogenic pods and stacks of emergency rations, and isn't that just fucking typical.

Ten of their best and brightest are aboard the little bitch or whatever-- and maybe if they keep saying it Clerise will believe it one day. Considering that Somnus marks her fourth assignment up on an EMRYS station and her seventh for them up in deep space, she's not holding her breath. She's heard the spiel one too many times from ruby red lips over the years to shiny new faces that eat that shit up with a spoon before the realities of space life beat them down with a hammer and hold them there.

Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirts. 

Her new crew is a grab bag: half like her, and half shiny and new. Their fresh faced Captain falls closer to the latter, and isn't that going to make for interesting power plays. Clerise has already imagined all of the potential entertainment she's going to wring out of his scrawny little neck, because-- Hey. She's got to entertain herself somehow, and what is he going to do, court martial their only medic in space? As fucking if.

Besides. It's not like she can't have her fun with her sharp tongue while also jabbing her patients with the appropriate needles when they inevitably get themselves into trouble aboard several thousand tons of metric tons of rotating metal in space hurtling around a star. She's a big girl. She can multi-task, and a good thing too: the initial setup on a station never fails to be a clusterfuck, no matter how you slice it.

The crew stumbles through the doors of Airlock 3 like a bunch of drunkards stumbling from the last bar at closing time, a mishmash of morons with their mag boots on and the rest of them floating free, every one of them in their colored suits and helmets appropriate for their designations.

EMRYS protocol, you see. Keeps it professional.

(Keeps it impersonal.)

Clerise shoves past Captain Miller-- Brown-- with a hard push and a snicker as he stares at his datapad pretending not to hear his undignified yelp in the process. 

"Go on, then," she says, head cocked to the side, voice crackling through her suit's mic. She nudges it in the direction of the oxygen tanks, crossing her bulky arms. "Captain. Surely, you're not so fucking green that you know what comes first, yeah?"

She wonders how old he is. Twenty? Twenty two? He looks real young in there, no stubble at all and a mess of curls. The only thing that ages him are the dark circles beneath his eyes that somehow haven't disappeared despite two months of forced sleep. He's a short little thing-- flat footed he might not even come up to her tits-- but he doesn't cower. Captain her Captain meets her eyes... and sneers.

"No shit, sherlock, of course O2's first. What kinda moron you think I am?" He rolls his eyes, and then rolls his shoulders. It looks ridiculous in the bulk of their outfits, and not at all like a threat. Just like he's working out the kinks in his back after being cramped up in a pint sized pod. Clerise barely manages to bite back a question as to whether or not he got a kiddy size one. "Sounds like you just volunteered, Red. I've got an AI to boot and comms to light up, so don't fuck it up and we won't have any problems." Then he grins, his crooked teeth a little sliver of a smile. A little shark smile, one that she mirrors despite herself as he says: "And don't call me Green. They'd been insulted you compared my ugly mug to theirs."

Well, then, she thinks, refilling the oxygen tanks on autopilot, her workhorse hands familiar with the motions, maybe the kids are alright


Mission Day Six - Oracle Stoyanova - ie: Grey

The Communications Room is quiet, and still, and dark. The door slides shut behind her with a hiss, and Oracle breathes out with a soft sigh as she pulls her helmet off, shaking out her shock of white hair, pushing it out of her eyes with a huff. 

"Feeling lucky, are we?" a voice asks from all around her, lilting and sharp-edges, electronic and drawled. "It's Orange's turn for Oxygen today, and she's an unknown factor. Couldn't tell you for sure whether or not she'll make her rounds on time."

Oracle laughs as every light comes on all around her, illuminating the small room with vibrant blinking switches and shining dials. She basks in it as she taps her magboots on-- click click, heels tapped together-- and can't help but remember a quote from a movie of bygone era. There's no place like home.

She supposes it's rather true. 

Space has always felt more like home than earth ever has. 

Oracle was meant to be here, up where she can reach out into the darkness with an outstretched hand with the hope that she might one day touch greatness. Touch strangeness.

She slides behind the desk of the main comms desk, smoothing her hands over the console with a lover's caress. "You'll tell me though, won't you? You'll tell us all. I'll have time-- it's just so hard to think with that thing on."

A fuzzy hum thrums through the room, a reminder that Felicia is all around it and inside it. Within and without it. "A warning, yes, but the kind that's meant to signal for the crew to go fix it." But then: a sigh. AIs are sophisticated enough now to sound weary. "Yes, though. I'll tell you."

"Good," Oracle says, an impish smile creeping up her face as she pulls out a contraband candy bar, unwrapping it as she gets to work.

It's nice, being able to rely on someone. She's got two years of work ahead of her, and L 88 shines bright and bold just beyond the station's walls. Maybe one day she'll be able to rely on the rest of her crew, too. 

stygians in SPOOKY SPACE au!! part one of...who knows how many!!!

D-546
Monthly Quest: +Word Count: 6 (550 words),  + 5 skp (Questing/job skill) + 1 skp (NPC interact) = 17

G-065
Monthly Quest: +Word Count: 10 (750 words),  + 5 skp (Questing/job skill) = 20

S-392
Monthly Quest: +Word Count: 8 (650 words),  + 5 skp (Questing/job skill) = 18

L-117
Monthly Quest: +Word Count: 8 (650 words),  + 5 skp (Questing/job skill) = 18

S-450
Monthly Quest: +Word Count: 2 (350 words),  + 5 skp (Questing/job skill), = 12
© 2021 - 2025 astrapocalypse
Comments2
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
woodlanduni's avatar

I'm only just going though my notif backlog and omg I love this au so much ToT

I just love the mix of personalities amongst the crew and how they bounce off each other. I wonder when things will go south *insert eye emoji*