I
Jessica Sorieta awoke to the familiar, golden haze filtering through the panoramic viewport of her habitation pod on Sunryze, where the grime-streaked poly-crystalline glass warped the light from Sol III into a sickly, jaundiced glow that clawed across the walls like fingers scraping rust old iron. The station was old. Far older than the bloodlines of half of its inhabitants. It’s hull pockmarked with micrometeor scars, patched a thousand times with mismatched plating that wept sealant into the cold. Yet Sunryze pulsed with stubborn vitality. A frontier hive burrowed into the Sol III star system’s lonely fringe, where humanities diaspora had left them adrift amid scattered outposts and light years of silence.
Two millennia since Earths cradle dimmed, colonies bloomed and withered like brief fires, whereas here, shipyards screeched with welders birthing rust bucket freighters from salvaged bones; schools echoed with neural uploads and children’s defiant laughter. Markets hawked vat grown meat skewers amid black market stims and glowing hydro-plants, entertainment dens throbbed with bass-heavy holo-dramas and zero-g dancers twisting in sweat-slicked cages.
Vines crept along bulkheads from illicit gardens, their tendrils prying at oily conduits, roots delving into forgotten vents, a defiant green reclaiming the corrosion, oxygen tangling with machine oil in the air.
But the serenity was a lie that Jessica had long since seen through. A thin veneer over failing seals, flickering dampeners and the ever-present grind for survival with the voids’ patient hunger just beyond the veils. Isolation bit deep, no close neighbors, comms lagging for hours, humanity’s remnants too fractured to be close knit. She lay there a beat too long; the bunks’ threadbare mattress sagging into her hips, stale air thick with the metallic tang of recycled sweat, unwashed linens, and the faint rot of overripe hydro-fruit from last nights half-hearted meal.
The golden light slithered across the pods scarred bulkheads, illuminating dust-caked vents that wheezed faintly, a ration bar wrapper crumpled on the side table like discarded skin. Conduits overhead leaked a slow drip of lubricant that plinked into a makeshift catch basin. Her pod was a coffin of hard-won familiarity: bunk bolted and crooked to one wall after last cycles tremor, the galley unit flickering with age opposite her and the workstation console scarred by decades of elbows and spilled brews. A jade talisman from her grandmother dangled from a hook, it’s once vibrant polish dulled by greasy fingerprints and years of anxious thumbing; beside it, a crumpled holo-print of Sol III’s glittered rings, edges curling like dying leaves, it’s colours faded to ghosts. Nostalgia stabbed sharp, like a knife twist in her gut with memories of her grandmothers stories, hands rough from yard work, spinning tales of lost Earth while vines climbed the walls outside. Envy followed, as bitter as bad brew: those inner-system techs with clean stations, real skies. Why chain herself here? Transfer requests mouldered unanswered in her slate queue, dreams of escape clashing with the iron grip of guilt. Her father had gone under a collapsing gantry in the yards, mother withered by dampener glitches. Leaving meant erasing them and this gritty pulse she called home. Fear coiled too but unacknowledged; what if the void swallowed her out there? Alone, without the Sunryze’s familiar decay.
Groaning, a low frustrated sound that echoed as her bones’ protested, she swung her legs free, bare feet slapping against the cold deck plating, pitted with corrosion spots and streaked with boot grime.
The gravity field stuttered mid-motion, a nauseating 0.89g hiccup that sent bile rising, her stomach lurching as if the station itself shrugged off sleep. Old bitch, she thought, affection warring with resentment. Old station, old tricks, power surges from the core taxing the fields. She shuffled to the galley, slapping the dispensers crusty panel. It coughed, rattled, then spat a mug of dark, viscous caf-brew, laced with chemicals that burned like acid going down but sharpened her fogged senses to a razor’s keenness. Steam curled acrid, chasing melancholy with chemical fire; she gripped the mug tight, knuckles whitening, letting the heat ground her racing thoughts.
Her slate synced with a ping: shift rotation confirmed for Epsilon recyclers and Kael's inevitable lunch-trade please the ending emoji grinning like a fool. On another tab shone a station wide advisory on minor power fluctuations in the outer arrays. It was as routine as breathing, and yet her pulse quickened. A nagging feeling coming from a Gamma glitch yesterday itched at her mind like a fresh scar. Shrugging off the feeling, she dressed in her grey jumpsuit, it’s woven materials frayed at the cuffs from hauling crates. The Sunryze Insignia sat crooked on her right shoulder, threadbare but proud.
She palmed the hatch release; it’s seals gummy from years of lacklustre maintenance. As it opened with a grinding hiss, the corridor beyond assaulted her senses: the humid air heavy with scents of hydroponic loam and frying oils, the cacophony of sound from the markets selling their various wares, and the distant clang of the shipyard that reverberated up the spine like a mechanical heartbeat. The habitat ring curved away into a haze, it’s vast structure scarred by layers of hasty paint and repair foil bubbling at the edges.
As she walked kids darted past in a shrieking pack, their faces smeared with glow-fruit juice as they dodge a vendors drone that brandished stim-pods with excitable motions. An old woman at a stall, wrinkles etched deep as deep cracks called out in an attempt to sell her various wares; scap-metal sculptures twisted into various starships, biolum plants pulsing faint blues from black market pots. The womans eyes were sharp with the canniness of generations surviving the grind
“Lucky charm, girl? Void-eaters hate jade.” She rasped, her voice like gravel over synth-beer. Jessica forced a smile, dropping a credit into a dirty twisted bowl for a vine clipping. Superstition, maybe, but the green felt defiance. Turning away, she felt envy twist again as she watched the children play with reckless joy; her own youth lost to her father’s accident; she ended up hauling scrap while others played.
Traffic thickened as she moved towards the Commons node, boots clanging on the grated floors that were warped by cycles. Public holos flickered fitfully, projecting news in rotating pidgins, cargo hauls unbound from the fringe relays. She scoffed lightly and thought to herself delayed, as always. The biggest news was the preparations for the upcoming Core Anniversary festival with zero-g parades and pit fights. A resonance advisory followed with urgent reports of “mood dips” A laugh boomed across the space and Jessica smiled nodding to Mira from the maintenance crew, her tattoos glowing under UV strips as she wrestled a crate with burly arms, sweat gleaming on her skin. She paused for a few moments, letting old Tomas shuffle by, his cane tapping lightly as he muttered “dampeners slacking again, mark my words.” His eyes scanned the node haunted by losses that no one dared to name.
Logistics kept Jessica in the arteries, unseen but vital, threading supplies through the Sunryze’s body like blood in clogged veins. She felt it all, the throb of the shipyards birthing hulls, the thumb of the bass from the entertainments as it reverberated through the deck plating and walls. Then there were the neural nets that linked crews across decks, flooding her senses with other thoughts and feelings, before they were whisked away in an instant.
Kael waited at the Epsilon recyclers, sprawled over his console like he owned the resting heap, his grease-streaked face splitting a grin that crinkled his crows feet and hid the hollows grief had carved. Inner-system pale against her station tan skin, and broad-shouldered from days spent in the yards before logistics claimed him, he was a brother in all but blood. Loyal to a fault, with a rough laugh that masked the void caused by the death of wife three cycles past.
“Jess! Brew Hit, or are you still scowlin’ at ghosts?” His warm voice echoed in the air, but eyes flicked weary, hand trembling slightly on his mug as he lifted it in greeting, with a shake of her head Jessica dropped into her chair, the seat groaning slightly, and springs poking into her. She linked her slate and watched as it booted the roster for today.
“Ghosts pay better than glitches, Gamma-Nine pinged again” Irritation flared hot and showed on her face in a fleeting moment, loose ends gnawed at her like the ever-constant drip of water on stone. Laughing, Kael clapped her shoulder with a hard brotherly jolt.
“Old arrays, Festival’ll fry ’em proper.” He paused for a breath and then his mouth twisted in a shit-eating grin “Lunch Trade?” Hope sparked in his gaze, a desperate attempt at normalcy; eating alone cracked his façade. Pity knifed at her gut, she knew the shape of his pain, mirrored her own buried losses.
With a sigh she nodded “Fine. Double next, yard rat.” The gentle tease doing it’s best to soften the edge.
Work soon engulfed them: recyclers groaning as they churned biomass slop through it’s rusted tanks, air choking with ferment rot and chem-fumes. Jessica wiped sensor clusters, her fingers click with viscous residue, She looked down and cursed at the seized valve that spat brown sludge on her boots. Kael hauled hose lines, his muscles under the sweat-slick shirt, with a grunt he spoke “Damned thing’s older’n my ma, creakier too” He wiped his forehead quickly with a rag blacker than the void itself, leaving streaks like warpaint. A tech spat angrily nearby over shift overlap as he worked on a humming dampener, his fury dissolving into a mumble.
Jessica felt the slight shift in gravity and heard the curse that followed, before it shifted again, causing her to stumble onto the deck, the sudden change causing a headache to flair into a throbbing pulse that seemed to match the ping from Gamma-Nine.
Lunch was a casual affair, as workers mingled together. Mira skewered a piece of charred spicy, vat-meat. It was tough but flavored fiercely. On the opposite end of the over-scarred table, Kael bantered about the pit fights “You in this year? Drop that Delta brute?” his laugh was hollow, eyes drifting to the empty space where his wife once sat. Jessica chewed, longing surfacing like a fresh wave, for real skies, and escape from the grind.
She leaned back and spoke softly “Ever think about transferring, Kael? Inner systems, clean start?”
He froze, fork mid-air, hurt flashed in his eyes and his voice cracked “Leave this?” he shook his head and lowered his fork before continuing “Yards need me, You too. We’re stuck with each other, like glue and paper” he clapped his hands together in emphasis as he tried to hide the flicker of terror on his face.
Guilt slammed into Jessica, she had prodded a festering wound “That was stupid of me, sorry” She gave him a gentle squeeze on the arm and a slight smile. He nodded shakily; their bond was mended with a fragile tape.
Lunch gave way to the afternoon shift change, Patrol Duty, service ways were choked with vines and roots, the conduits dripping their oily venom as they pushed their way through the maintenance and logistic walkways. A loose grate collapsed, dumping Jessica down onto the deck below, her knee exploding in agony as she let loose a raging torrent of curses before exclaiming into the air “Rust bucket heap” Kael dropped down and immediately started to work on her injury, the stim-patch causing the skin to itch slightly as it loaded her system with anti-bacterial and pain relieving mixtures. As her anger faded the atmosphere changed, the Core thrummed softly before stuttering, the air becoming heavy and dense.
Looking at her slate, she saw the screen flooded with warning notices, flicking through them she found the cause of the disturbance.
Central Alert: Gamma-Nine spike detected. Signal Observed.
As the Core continued to stutter the dampeners whined, and nausea bloomed as gravity began to shift back and forth unevenly. Jessica and Kael hooked themselves against the wall to stop themselves from floating free and then crashing to the deck. Kael was looking at his own slate, his brow furrowed in confusion “Theirs no solar noise, it’s like the void just stopped.” Jessica looked over his shoulder, her own confusion showing on her grease coated face as she scanned the reading. Looking up she found Kael watching her, preparing to speak. He was cut off as the Proximity alarm ripped through the station, it’s sharp, discordant notes shredding the relative calm. Consoles flashed crimson, and the floating holos were replaced by tactical spheres. Panic surged as the neural net could not keep up with the sudden influx of changes.
The feeling of isolation crept into the population, as everyone turned to watch the spheres, their eyes scanning the ever-expanding map. All that was visible was the dark, never-ending, and hungry as it enveloped Sol III.
