Fiction Fragment Friday
This weeks story hopefully hits hard. I was struggling for inspiration and took a concept prompt and completely turned it on it’s head. It is interesting how far from an initial prompt some of these stories go. This story I feel is one of my stronger concepts and I can only imagine what will become of it after another edit pass or two. There is no way it will not be on Bite Size Tales someday.
“Elana, I am detecting a distress protocol signal.” My ship’s AI announced shortly after we jumped into the system. A system that all records said was supposed to be uninhabited and only explored by an early probe a century ago.
“How is that possible?” I brought up the details of the signal on my console.
“Unknown. The transponder code included in the signal identified the source as Escape Pod 12 from Station Eden-4. I do not have any such station in my databases.”
“Do we have room to bring the escape pod onboard?”
“Yes, the dimensions are within safety margins to bring into our cargo bay.”
I hit the broadcast button to respond. “Escape Pod 12. This is Elana McDaniels aboard the survey vessel Serif. I’m going to bring you onboard.” I waited a few moments, but there was no acknowledgement of my message, and the pod was now within range. “Ok, bring it aboard.”
My AI opened the external cargo ramp and engaged the gravitic guide beam to direct the escape pod onboard. Once the magnetic clamps held it to the bulkhead, the ramp closed, and the cargo bay pressurized. I set the ship to do a deep scan of the system before changing into an environment suit. I didn’t know who or what was inside the escape pod, but there was a risk of contamination.
The pod was a small one-person unit with just enough space for a seat and a computer console. I had seen the type before. Just enough to get clear of a ship experiencing catastrophic failure, but you better hope someone comes along to pick you up quickly. They couldn’t keep anyone alive for over thirty-six hours. As I keyed the commands to open the pod, I found myself doubting that I had arrived in time to save this unlucky soul.
As I expected, the person inside the pod was dead. She was not wearing an environmental suit or even a helmet. This told the story of a rush to get into the escape pod and eject. The readings from my medical scanner were extremely confused. It indicated that she had died weeks before my arrival while also showing my own health readings superimposed. It was like the system couldn’t tell the two of us apart. This matched my confusion, as the emaciated face in front of me was indeed my own. The scanner finally calibrated to show separate results, but noted that DNA signatures were identical except for minor variations that cosmic radiation from space travel could account for.
“Elana, you have never mentioned a sibling and your service records do not reference you having a twin.”
“That’s because I’m an only child.”
“I do not have the frame of reference to understand the readings I’m receiving.” My AI had a very limited vocal range, but it was maxing out its ability to sound confused.
“Yeah, I don’t think I do either. Have the system scans completed?”
“They have. The readings from the third planet do not match what we have on file from the probe. The differences are greater than could be accounted for by one hundred years of natural processes. There also appears to be a space station in a failing orbit with a transponder indicating that it is Eden-4.”
“Well, I think that is where we are going to get some answers.” I closed the pod door, not wanting to see any more of my own dead face. “Set course for that station.” I felt the inertial dampeners adjust to the ship’s acceleration in the pit of my stomach. Newer ships transition so smoothly you can’t even tell that you are moving. The Serif is not a new ship, but personally I prefer being able to feel my ship. I think you lose something when you become so disconnected you can’t feel problems or misalignments. They can say that makes me old-fashioned all they want, but I just like things my way.
Back at my command chair, I started evaluating the data coming in. The station wasn’t in a naturally decaying orbit. Thrusters had pushed it into the optimal orbit for it to break up and mostly disintegrate in the atmosphere. The calculations gave Eden-4 less than a month before complete destruction. I couldn’t be sure about the state of systems onboard, but all analysis pointed to nobody alive and life support being offline.
“Elana the station is not responding to my efforts to interface. I’m afraid I cannot get any additional information without a hard connection to the central computer system.”
“So, I need to go over to the station that my dead doppelgänger called home. Great, that’s not creepy at all.” I felt myself shutter at the thought. All signs pointed to the station being a tomb. I was already on the verge of panic, having found what seemed to be my dead body in an escape pod and wasn’t sure just how much more I could take without breaking down.
“I am sorry. Additionally, the station is not responding to docking requests, so you are going to have to enter through an emergency hatch. I do not recommend putting yourself at that great of risk.”
“Thanks for your concern, but by the time we got to a populated system and convinced someone to come back with us, the station would be gone. This is the only chance to get answers.” I set the ship to match speed and orbit with the station and headed to my air lock. The soft environmental suit was not enough for a spacewalk and didn’t come with any sort of maneuvering propulsion. I hated the bulkier units because of how badly they constrict my motion, but it was a necessity.
I stood in the airlock, staring out the window at Eden-4’s emergency hatch. “What am I doing?” I asked myself as I hit the button to open the outer hatch. I crouched against the inner door and pushed off hard to propel myself from the ship. If you have never gone on a spacewalk before, the experience can only be described as terrifying. Space is huge and you suddenly find yourself out in it with no solid ground under you. It feels like being in a giant directionless void, and if you make the slightest mistake, you could drift away forever. Logically, I can tell myself that the maneuvering thrusters give me control and that my ship’s AI could come to rescue me. Logic can never overpower the sheer natural reaction your body has at being made to feel so small and insignificant. Anyone that tells you they don’t have to fight the panic is lying or insane. Either way, don’t trust them.
I fought to keep my mind under control until the moment I contacted the escape hatch rail and wrapped my gloved hands around it. Being able to grip onto something solid is a relief that words can never fully express. It gives you context again to what had just moments ago been an endless void. Only giving myself a moment to catch my breath, I manually triggered the emergency hatch and climbed aboard. After compressing the airlock, I opened the inner door and got my first look at the station known as Eden-4.
The station hall had a utility look to it with very little effort given to appearance. The only lighting was dim red tinted emergency lights. Artificial gravity was offline, but there was very little floating. They secured all visible tools and other objects to the walls or counters by Velcro as if they expected gravity failures. That was common practice on most space stations I had been on. Using handles built into the walls, I pulled myself along towards the central computer system.
Equipment might not have been floating around, but one thing there was no shortage of floating was dead bodies. My suit’s external environmental analyzers were showing an extremely toxic air mixture. It would be enough to kill me in minutes without my helmet. The first body I found I recognized and felt sick to my stomach. Calvin Chambers had gone through the academy training to be an exploration pilot with me. Dating was strictly prohibited, but that didn’t stop us from having a pretty wild fling before graduation. It was a great way to relieve stress. Last I heard, he had gotten married and settled down on some planet in the core systems. They were expecting a kid. I resisted the urge to vomit, knowing from experience how bad that can be in a helmet.
Before I reached the central computer, I found four more of my graduating class. One of them I knew for a fact had died a few years prior. I attended the funeral. My brain screamed that it couldn’t take much more without breaking. “Serif are you getting this?” I said triggering the communication systems built into my suit.
“Yes, Elana, I am receiving your video and sensor data clearly. I am not sure what to make of it other than concern for your well-being. Please be careful over there.”
I stopped in front of the console and plugged a small communication device from my pocket into it. “I will. Plugging you into the central computer now.”
“Oh my. This is not good.”
“What’s not good? Talk to me Serif.”
“Well, it seems that this station was here to terraform the planet. When it reached a threshold for habitability, the system automatically launched a communication probe to report the results. The same probe returned a month later and triggered a dormant kill program. Poison gas flooded the station, and it began the process of a controlled deorbit.”
“Someone killed them?”
“Not just someone. The Interplanetary Commission on Expansion. Someone in our own organization is responsible for this massacre. I’m still downloading the logs and personal journals from the crew. Elana, I cannot explain it, but you are listed on the roster. According to these files, you have been stations here for the past fifteen years. Since just after graduation. I’m still fighting with the encryption on the station manager’s logs. Perhaps he can provide some context.”
With my mission on the station complete, I wanted off it and back in the safety of my ship. I made my way to the emergency hatch in a rush, trying not to look too long at any of the floating bodies. At the hatch I could see that Serif was still in position with the airlock open and waiting. I launched myself out of the dead station and this time used my maneuvering thrusters to hasten the process.
Once onboard my ship, I ripped my helmet off and immediately vomited in the nearest waste disposal. My knees shook under me, and I felt tears fighting with anger.
“Elana, are you ok?”
“ No, I’m most definitely not ok. I’m going to have nightmares from what I just saw for months. What the hell?”
My ship’s AI stayed quiet for a long time while I recovered. Finally, in a soft tone, it spoke up again. “I have cracked the encryption on the station manager’s personal files. I have answers for you if you are ready. You will not like them.”
“Please, whatever they are, it has to be better than not knowing.”
“Do you remember the health screening they did just before you graduated from the academy? The physical and mental health scans?”
“Of course. Blood tests and a two-hour brain scan.” Memories of the helmet and feeling like static electricity shooting through my brain came to me. It was the weirdest sensation I had experienced in my life.
“The Eden program uses lab grown clones of recent graduates and uploads memories based on those brain scans. The people who died on that station did not know they were clones. They believed they were the originals and knew nothing about the program. Only the station manager knew.”
“Why? Why would they do that? There are plenty of people who would love to work a terraforming project.”
“Perhaps, but would they be comfortable if they found out the planet had life already that the terraforming would eliminate? Would they stay quiet about what they had seen? Would you?”
I tried and failed to speak twice before words finally came. “They knowingly destroyed a living ecosystem?”
“Most of the crew did not know until it was too late. They could not keep the secret forever. Not without eliminating everyone who knew that they could not trust. That is why they create clones. An entire space station crew that will never be missed. Your clone was close to an escape pod when the gas started and overrode the lock to manually eject. She figured it out and had all the proof in the computer systems of the escape pod. She knew she wouldn’t survive but wanted to make sure that someone out there knew what had happened.”
The next month passed in a blur—part staying busy, part drowning in a fog I couldn’t shake. Serif and I compiled the logs, encrypted them, and launched communication probes to multiple systems.
Planetary scans confirmed what the station had died to make real: a world raw, but livable. I kept thinking about all the other planets I’d surveyed. How many of them had been the resting place for previous clone crews?
I had been six months ahead of schedule on my workload. If I had gotten here on time, the station would already have been gone. My clone’s pod would have still been there broadcasting, though. She was a hero in my eyes and deserved better. I buried her on the world that she had unwittingly helped kill. I don’t know if that is what she would have wanted, but it was the best I could do for her.
I didn’t know if it was safe to go home after sending the probes. The assassination attempt a week later answered that for me.
I thought the nightmares would be about the dead. The floating bodies. My own face staring back at me, hollowed out. But those aren’t the dreams that keep me up.
It’s this:
She didn’t know she was a clone.
How do I know I’m not one too?