By Mackenzie Teasdale, Everett Bologna, and Aylilah McConnell
The emptiness of space is an illusion. Despite the endless expanse of shadow, matter exists and theoretically infinite possibilities for what’s out there. The only true thing restraining Lyra from the supernovas in the distance and the flow of odd matter is the layer of glass, thousands of miles, and the straps holding her to her cot. Usually, it is quiet on the ship, save for the occasional stray debris and rocks that will pelt the hull, as the constant machine drone gets tuned out after a while. When she closes her eyes, she can imagine that the droning sound is the pitter-patter of rain on the roof of her childhood home. Upon opening them again, she is confronted once more with the separation from her simple terrestrial responsibilities and is instead faced with an unusual scrap of green something clinging to the porthole in the bunkroom. A prolonged beep echoes throughout the room, and Lyra holds her breath. The station’s automatic homeostasis regulation module’s voice comes online, and the strange robotic sound floods the room, “organic matter detected on the hull.” Beep. Another long piercing notice.
She blinks in confusion, wondering what the patch of fleshy leaf is hitching a ride on their exterior. She raises her wrist level with her chest and clears her throat, her fingertips gently brushing her standard-issue jumpsuit.
“J4N1C3?” Lyra hesitantly asked, “what was that?”
“A remnant from the planet’s biosphere. Nothing to worry about, Assistant.” The artificially generated voice bounces eerily across the walls of the station room.
“Should we,” she shakes her head, “should the human servicing crew be concerned about that?”
“No, Ms. O’telle. It should be cleared in a moment. Please return to your operations”
“Right,” she spoke heavily, turning her attention to her lengthy list of obligations that she was avoiding during the take-off sequence. Her wrist tablet allows her to access her daily communication logs to catalog her experience, and the conditions on the ship. Corporate mandated reports. Another glance at the beautiful colors outside and she kisses her daydreams goodbye in the rain.
“Lyra O’telle, assistant science officer operating on the J-4-N-1-C-3 modus; model B, on the preliminary mission to the Xhosa planetary System,” she pauses gently to collect her thoughts. “Today marks Day 1 on our return journey. I am delighted to affirm that the sample recovery mission was a success, ground control, and we’ll be home soon. We have scheduled a docking on the Intergalactic Space Station in 16 days where we will refuel. From there, we can provide you with an estimated date of arrival.” A short response for sure, while still meeting all requirements. That is how she passed organic chemistry, anyway. A quiet beeping resounds from the wristwatch’s interface, indicating that the digital log has been saved to J4N1C3’s long-term memory. Accompanying the other beeps is another, lighter sound. Then, the same inorganic voice replies “Disturbance resolved.” Good, that meant Lyra wasn’t going to be doing a spacewalk this close to the atmosphere, nor getting blasted by Dr. Azide’s decontamination chamber.
A scientist enters the cabin, immediately identifiable by her green coat, the same green that adorns Lyra’s suit. Dr Marisol Auclair doesn’t bother addressing her inferior as she opens her designated chest. Marisol keeps everything neatly folded, as is mandated protocol. Everything has its place, including the members of the crew. Without looking up from the chest beneath, her voice sounds almost louder than the autopilot with the justified authority it carries with it.
“Have you completed your mission logs.?” Even without addressing her directly, Lyra can recognize the tone in which Marisol addresses her assistant.
“Yes I have. I wasn’t aware it was time to dismount from our takeoff stations?” She satirically comments, remaining in her place strapped into the firm cot. Marisol gives only a curt nod, her hair bouncing to her shoulders as she stalks to the doorway, pausing.
“Mmm, and I suppose you would know something about obligations during take-off? Oh, sorry, you don’t have any, that’s right. Janice will notify all non-essential passengers when it is safe to move about the cabin.” Lyra turns back towards the window of the ship, the outside void blurring, becoming too uniform for her eyes to remain engaged. She feels like a child in a car seat, waiting for her parents to let her out of her polyester prison.
“Hyperspace travel stabilized, precautionary limitations have been lifted.”
With the pre-recorded message delivered, the crew unstrapped themselves, moving stiffly out of their seats or cots. Lyra watches as the rest of the crew mill about the halls. Engineer Jason Mattox enters the lounge, Captain Isa Valentine exits the cockpit and beelines it to her quarters, and Contamination Protector Dr. Azide slides into their booth. Nice and orderly colored suits were on their way. Lyra gathers her tablet into her arms and leisurely follows, turning towards the science corridor. It’s a small ship and it doesn’t take more than five minutes before she finds her way to familiar green doors. Crisp letters on the doors read “Growth Lab”. She pushes them open, depositing loose belongings into a box and standing by in the airlock, the doors seal behind her with a solid click as she punches a code into the wall. With a loud pshhh strong air blasts Lyra in her sides, sanitizing her for entry. The seal opens with a sluggish groan. She juggles her sanitized objects clumsily in her arms, concentrating on the room before her. She stretches her legs and steps inside, taking a deep breath. Dr. Ruman Montgomery is already inside, seated in front of the glass and quietly observing the plant life growing beyond.
“Ah, a merry takeoff to you, Dr. O’telle! Was everything alright for you?” Dr. Montgomery was the official medical sort of doctor on the crew, of course, he’d ask if Lyra was alright. He was always very gentle and thorough with everyone on the crew. So mild was he that no one could have anything against him.
“Yes, everything was alright. The growth lab held up fine?” She asked.
“Yes, yes indeed. My, it is mesmerizing watching them, isn’t it? The way they slowly rotate towards the light, and sway from the AC! Why, it’s just astounding.” Dr. Montgomery had been raised in London, the city of smog. He was always fascinated by the simplicity of natural beauty. Ruman was not as comfortable and serene as he had appeared to be, however. His frame was stiff and he was repeatedly dragging his nails over the same part of his forearm.
“Is your arm ok, Doctor?” Lyra asked, not wanting to be rude.
“Oh, this? It’s nothing more than an eczema flare-up.” Lyra hums.
“Alright,” she says. “Take care of yourself then.” She smiled pleasantly before addressing the room at hand.
The growth lab functions as a mobile greenhouse, a large glass wall dividing the room she is in from the sanitation lock. She surveys the room, and though she has been assured by Jason that the integrity of this room is stable, she can’t help but worry about the stability of the greenhouse during takeoff. Everything in the room holds sweet fragility, countless items of glassware and boxes marked as hazardous line the walls. If something were to happen the clean-up would be exhausting. She checks various boxes on her tablet, looking diligently over every tank, checking for any disturbances. Approaching the newest specimen, Lyra pauses, admiring its otherworldly beauty. Their latest planet contained such vibrant colors of flora. They needed full protection to walk on the surface to avoid contamination. Despite the masks, Lyra’s awe showed through. Behind only panes of glass, the array of shades in the vines rivaled almost every color she had seen, and she swore some were completely new to her human eyes. For a moment she even felt as though she could smell them, so heavily sweet that it was almost sickly, like a chemical buttercream. She quickly realized how close her face was to the glass, and she took a step back, checking the box on her tablet and forcibly turning away from the plant before she could become any more distracted than she was.
Drawn by the scent of freshly poured coffee, Lyra pokes her head into the lounge where Jason Mattox is sipping a hot cup of joe in his lavender engineer’s suit. On his tan and scratched skin, the lavender appears otherworldly. He looks up at her, and avoiding awkwardness, Lyra enters and takes a seat on the bolted metal table adjacent to his. “Good morning,” she says pleasantly.
“Morning? It’s just past 18:00 hours.” His voice carries no judgment, and his smile is friendly and warm.
“Anytime is morning when you’re in the abyss of space and drinking coffee.” She groans out. Jason laughs at this.
“Well, I suppose that’s a way to look at it. It’s not like there’s any real point in keeping time on Earth’s terms when we’re out here.” He takes another sip of his coffee and looks up to find his companion crew member shrugging into the lounge. Calix Sevyn is in communications, which means he has almost as few real responsibilities as Lyra.
“Aww, you didn’t have to dress up for me, sweetheart,” Jason snarkily comments. Calix looked down at his attire; a dirty wife beater and gray sweatpants–decidedly not his mandated orange jumpsuit.
“Ha ha,” Calix spat out dryly. “Don’t flatter yourself. I do this purely in my own self-interest.” He sat down next to Jason and kicked his legs up on the table. The two fit in together in an intimate way, there was an ease in the way Calix took Jason’s mug from his hands and took a swig of the steaming coffee. The eye contact made it feel personal like the smiles being passed were only for the two of them. Lyra averted her eyes and sipped her drink to avoid intruding on the private moment. Allowing his cup to be stolen, Jason took up a different line of questioning.
“So ignoring uniform protocol was a choice then? Tsk tsk tsk, here I was thinking I wouldn’t have to write you up.”
“What are you going to do, report me to myself? Jokes on you, I have access to everything you send to ground control. And besides,” Calix puts the cup down and dramatically slumps back against the seat, “it’s not my fault I don’t want to be in a prison jumpsuit! Just look at the furnishings, I feel like a prisoner enough as is!”
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad. Orange looks nice on you!”
“Orange looks good on no one. That’s exactly why prisoners are forced to wear it. Black and white stripes were just too edgy.”
“Hey, what do you mean ‘orange looks good on no one’?” Lyra interjected, pointing to her curly red hair. Seemingly having forgotten they weren’t the only people in the room, Jason and Calix snapped their heads at the sound of Lyra’s voice.
“Oh! Well- I just meant, uhh.” Calix had no good response to that.
“That’s what I thought.” Lyra said with a smug, triumphant smile on her face at having successfully bantered with her coworkers.
“Forget orange, we should address the elephant in the room,” replied Calix.
“The what?” Jason asked.
“Your purple outfit! How is that supposed to represent engineering?”
“I guess they just ran out of colors. And please,” he scoffed, “ this is lavender.”
“Lavender, mhmm, you look like the sugar plum fairy. Oh, please come save me and cast a spell of a work-free day!”
“Oooh, not how it works, sorry.”
“What? Come on now, I’m your best friend! Can’t you do me a solid, sugar?”
“Hmm, let me think about it” Jason stands and puts his now empty mug on the cleaning rack, a finger on his chin. “Yeah, no. Not gonna happen. Some of us have real work to be getting to.” With that, Jason exits the hall without looking back. Calix stares at the empty doorway for a moment, as if Jason would suddenly reappear to excuse his procrastination.
“Damnit, I was gonna reuse that. Well, guess this means I’m gonna have to make another pot, the old ones definitely too cold by now.”
“OFFICER SEVYN?!” The two jump out of their skin at the echoing shouts of a very angry superior. Lyra locks eyes with Calix, both paralyzed with eyes the size of dinner plates.
Extremely seriously, Calix says “If the Captain asks if I was here, no I wasn’t.” Assured by his own command skills, Calix leaped over his chair and launched himself down the hallway, opposite from the sound’s origin. Lyra sighed and drank the last of her coffee in silence before cleaning up the lounge to protocol.
“Officer Sevyn! I’ve been looking for you.” A crazed look and menacing smile on the Captain’s face is exactly what Calix Sevyn was hoping to avoid when he contorted himself into an unused storage closet.
“Oh! You were? I hadn’t noticed!” The forced nonchalance caused Calix’s shoulder to stab into a pipe attached to the wall. He utterly fails at maintaining the innocent facade and he curses under his breath. The Captain however is unrelenting. Maintaining appearances, she continues.
“Is there a reason you are in the extended storage closet?”
“Huh? Oh, this is just a place I like to hang out sometimes. I come here when I need some time to myself!” Captain Valentine hums at this.
“Oh really? Because for the three months we’ve been stationed together, you haven’t shown any interest in being here once. And I would go even further to say that you were not aware this room existed in the first place!” She shouted. With all appearances dropped Isa pauses her fuming to rub her temples with one hand, shutting her eyes in an attempt to calm herself down. “Just cut the crap and explain this to me.”
“Explain what?” Calix was genuine. He wasn’t sure what he had done this time to warrant being tracked and hunted. Isa looked around to make sure no one was listening and leaned in. “This!” she whisper-shouts, pulling a sealed plastic bag containing a shriveled and charred piece of plant out from her pocket.
“What is that..?” Calix landed hard on the floor trying to escape his self-made prison.
“Calix, this was found in the wirings of the coms system you’re in charge of! Communications are down because the circuits got fried, I refuse to believe you did not know this. This looks like one of the specimens in the lab. Dr. Montgomery is immunocompromised, it could be dangerous for him to even be around these things without protection!” Calix was confused and at an utter loss for words.
“Listen,” Isa continued, showing mercy, “I know you are generally incompetent, but you can not be messing around with things you do not understand. I will let this go if you report to Dr. Auclair that you deliberately came into contact with one of her samples. I will leave it up to her to decide what to do with you. Got it?”
“But I didn’t-? I don’t know what that is!” He was interrupted by the captain,
“No more lies, just go. I have to see Dr. Azide to dispose of this. I am extremely disappointed in you.” Seamlessly she passed him and rounded the corner of the storage room, disappearing into the corridor, leaving before Calix could get in any sort of last word.
He got out of the storage closet and sulked his way down the darkened hall. It was a mostly unused area of the ship, but not by him. The Captain had said to him that she was handing things over to Marisol for any discipline. Calix paused, relief flooding him as he realized how he was going to get out once again. He may not be able to skirt any blame, because yeah he definitely should’ve taken a look at that system by now, but he could get ahead of this. Calix strolled down the hall to Dr. Auclair’s science-lab-thing-a-whatever where she was sitting alone at her desk. Perfect, Calix thought, no one else around. Calix gave a quick rap to the door before he slid inside to talk to Marisol. “Hey there, man, how’s it hanging?” Marisol took her glasses off and sat them on the desk in front of her, knowing that this was not purely a check-in. It never was with Calix.
“What do you want, Officer Sevyn.” It was not a question.
“Ok, straight to business with you, huh? I have something to tell you.”
“Get on with it, you’re wasting not just my time, but your own.”
“One of your specimens grew into the coms switchboard, I’m not sure how but based on my whole track record it’s probably going to be my fault.”
“You- what?” Marisol rose quickly from her desk. “Which specimen?” She demanded with sudden urgency.
Abruptly nervous he replied, “Oh um? Just a little vine? It was burnt to a crisp in the wires though.” Almost as if she didn’t hear him she eyed him over rapidly, “Did you touch it? You must report to the doctor right away.” Waving him swiftly out of the lab with a thinly veiled worry behind her eyes.
Calix finds himself entering the doctor’s office. His eyes began to well with tears out of guilt. Upon seeing the doctor, Calix composes himself. All of Ruman’s exposed left arm was covered in bumps, and sickly-looking welts. Their hue held an abnormal blue that blended into fleshy pink skin. The blemishes stretched up to his neck, where it had begun crawling through his pores. Calix studies the doctor’s face. Puffy eyes secreting clear mucus, running furiously down his cheeks. He watches as Ruman takes a desperate bite of his tuna salad.
“Woah, you uh… you okay there, Doc?” Calix asked, once again trying to mask his guilt.
“Oh, yes, I’m quite alright. It’s just a little allergy flare up. Nothing to worry about!” Ruman coughed out, giving Calix a big smile from underneath his thick mustache. Crumbs of tuna salad clung to the hairs, and Calix winced, hiding it with a nod instead.
“Alright, well. Feel better soon” Calix said awkwardly and having ‘completed his visit’, he sulked out of the lounge and down to where Jason was working on a vent panel in the ceiling.
“Did you feel that?” Jason asked, looking up towards a speaker as he balanced on a small built-in ladder.
“Not quite. Try a little to your left?” J4N1C3 replied.
“Whatcha up to?” Calix asked as he slid up to Jason’s side, trying to get a view of the inside of the panel from below.
“Not much, just cleaning out some air filters that Janice sensed were clogged. Aha!” Jason, having found what he was looking for, pulled a large filter from out of the vent. It was slightly torn on its left border, entirely covered in filth and dust. Calix coughed and shielded his face from the sprinkling of dust.
“Christ, what happened to it?” Calix asked, still in a bad mood.
“Eh, nothing too out of the ordinary for an air filter. Though I will say, I don’t recognize this green splattering around it, do you see that there?” Jason stepped down from the ladder and held the panel out to Calix, who examined it closely. He saw the regular dust settling over it all, but also a Pollock-esque green smatter.
“So just out of curiosity, if there was a vent in one room, how far could it travel? Like how much do these things link up?” Calix cautiously asked.
“Oh, through the whole ship! Save for a few key rooms, the entire vent system has to be unified so it can all link up most efficiently with the air filtration system in the engine room. It’s kind of neat, actually! Back in school, they had us do tests with this and these little slips of pink confetti, and we had to trace it through to-”
“Yeah yeah, that’s great. Thanks for the nerd lesson.”
“You asked me how it works, dude, I’m just giving you an answer!” Jason called after Calix who was fully slumping his way towards his quarters, shoulders up to his ears as he interrogated himself through the hall. Sure, he’s done dumb stuff. Reckless, careless, easily-avoidable-if-he-had-just-read-the-manual stuff, but as he questioned himself all the way into bed, he knew it wasn’t his own negligence that caused this.
Captain Valentine managed a whole day of work before the rash on her hand became unbearable. Never the one to disregard protocol, she begrudgingly made her way to the medical wing, absentmindedly scratching at her arm through the navy jumpsuit. Reaching the airlock to the medical center, she knocked on the door.
No answer.
It was strange for Dr. Ruman to be away from his station at this hour, but perhaps he was under the weather again. It was surprising that he was a doctor due to his vulnerability to illness, but being the best surgeon in the galaxy has to get you somewhere. The captain let herself into the room in hopes of finding a salve that would soothe the rash enough to let her be productive. While picking through cabinets the room was eerily quiet, and as the captain tried to switch on the lights, sparks shot from the lamps in the ceiling, she made a mental note to call Jason down.
“Ruman?” She called out into the dark. Nothing but the ticking of a clock hung high on the wall answers. In a drawer, she found a rash cream with which she could make due. But as she turns to leave, her legs nearly give out upon her discovery. Ruman lays still on the floor, his bolted-down chair unable to keep him propped up. His once-white coat was soaked with various abnormal secretions in deep yellows and soft blues. Her eyes dart around his lifeless body, noticing a twitching finger as a plant-like organism forces its way through his tough skin, blood seeping from the site. His face was unrecognizable. The skin stretched taught with bumps like roots trapped under his swollen cheeks, an unnatural color underneath where the skin is stretched tightest. From each pore leaked a yellowish sap, as well as through his nose, his mouth agape in a cough, the same yellow coating his swollen tongue in a film dripping from his lips. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, and the mushy blood-drenched tissue peeks out from behind them, continuing to ooze foreign juices. The room smells strangely of formaldehyde and sugar.
Panic plummeted into the floor of her stomach as her body stumbled a few steps backward in shock. She couldn’t keep down the bile that exploded from her throat, her head spun and she believed she was close to passing out as she caught herself on the doorframe.
The sound of steel-toed boots clunking down the hallway grounded her into her body for a moment, the clear designation that Dr. Alec Azide was around. She felt relieved when the red jumpsuit labeled ‘CONTAMINATION’ came into view. She lifts herself back into the appropriate posture, her eyes still wide with distress. Dr. Azide was not a social fellow, but she could always count on them to do what had to be done. They wore a gas mask and thick gloves as they hauled a large bag of equipment toward the medical bay.
“Good, you’re here. Dr. Montgomery has been compromised, we’ll need to seal this area off and prevent further exposure.” they said flatly, before pausing, considering the look on her face. “I was just about to call you once I got the preliminary work done. This area is not safe for you to be in, I need you in quarantine, Captain.”
“Quarantine? I’m the captain of this ship, I have duties, this isn’t–”
“Look at your arm, you have already been exposed!” Azide pointed a flat-fan nozzle accusingly at Isa. “Stay in your quarters until I can flush it off you.” Isa stood stunned before she stomped back to her quarters. Behind her, Azide sealed the room off in a plastic-based material and fumigated it.
The ship was now only a few days from the space station, and as time drew on the remaining crew became increasingly paranoid. Dr. Azide had sealed off the entire medical and command corridors, thankfully J4N1C3 can maintain the autopilot to the space station.
It had been two days since they had last had a transmission from the captain, who was sealed in along with the corridors. Most of the crew spent their time in the kitchen and commons area, trying to stick together. They had been systematically sealing off more and more of the ship, as rooms became coated in a thick, porous yellow film, and unnaturally colorful vines crept under airlocks. You could not see them growing, but every time the crew checked they seemed to have spread at an exponential rate, a slow and creeping promise of death.
Once Lyra swore she could hear a steady thumping emanating from the medical bay.
The cramped space became too much for her about four days out of the space station, and in desperate reach for sanity one night, Lyra snuck out to the greenhouse. With a sigh, she breathed air without the presence of others for the first time in days, it was sweeter than she remembered. She drew a hand over the glass containers full of plant specimens from so many planets, before pausing at their most recent addition. She could have sworn that the plant was much smaller only days ago. Once again she was enraptured with its vibrant arrays of color and its sweet sweet scent… but with the grip that anxiety had in her gut the past weeks her eyes finally slid to the side of the glass, where a lengthy crack crept along the width of the panes. Through it the plant had grown roots, Lyra followed them with her eyes, off of the table, up the wall, and into the air vent where they disappeared into the dark, leaving only a faint residue of yellow slime underneath.
Her breath caught in her throat as she rushed out of the room, trying not to breathe in any more of the saccharine odor. She rammed the sanitation button in the airlock twice, blasting herself with the cleansing mist before pounding down the hall into the common rooms. Lyra gripped the shoulders of Marisol, an act she would never have had the guts to do, and shook her violently awake.
“What’s going on!?” Marisol sat up with a start, pushing Lyra off onto the floor.
“It was the plant,” said Lyra panting, “It broke the glass– must have spread through the vents.” Lyra slumped to her knees. “I’m so sorry, it looked perfectly contained when I checked-” Marisol put a hand out in front of her.
“You what?” She asked, groggy and delirious.
“The plant, it broke the glass! It’s in the vents, it’s in the station.” Lyra looked at Marisol in shame.
“How did this happen?” Marisol snapped.
“I don’t know, doctor.” Lyra answered. Marisol sat up and began down the hall with purpose.
“Wait, Marisol, where are you going?” Lyra scrambled up and followed after her.
“There’s a problem, so I am going to solve it.”
“How? The entire lab is contaminated.” Lyra urged.
“Soon enough the entire station will be. Wake the others, I will be back.” And with that Marisol in her green jumpsuit disappeared around a corner.
Lyra did as she was told and the others just as quickly. She herded them like sheep to lounge, lambs to the slaughter. Inevitable doom on their minds, the crew bowed their heads at the weight of it all. They cemented themselves around the table and anxiously awaited Marisol’s return. They were not sure what they would do if she did not return. But just as quickly as she had gone, she was back again, this time with a large syringe in one hand, and a briefcase under her arm. She dropped the case onto the table and opened it, revealing a neatly trimmed clipping of vine.
“What are you doing?” Lyra screamed and backed up to the wall. Marisol shushed her, fumbling with her makeshift vaccination station.
“Listen to me very closely. I know it was Ruman that cured us, but I am assuming control.” She used tongs to feed the plant into a sleek black piece of equipment the size of a water bottle. She clicked a button on the side and it fired to life. A portable machine sounded like a blender as it whirred and juiced the plant into a vile of pea-green liquid which Marisol sucked into her syringe once it was full. She contemplated it for a moment and took a step towards Lyra. When Lyra retreated into her skin, she stopped. “You have to trust me if you want even a sliver of a chance to survive.” Marisol said as she stuck the needle into Lyra’s vein. Lyra flinched and cried out at the intrusion, fire and fury flowing out from the point of contact and through Lyra’s entire body. Marisol attempted to maintain her composure as Lyra grabbed her own arm and struggled to stay still through the pain. The syringe emptied, Marisol delicately removed the needle from her arm, The only sign of the intrusion being a bead of sap on her skin. As Marisol jacked up a new needle, Jason stepped up to the table, stoically offering up his arm. Calix almost reached out to stop him, but Marisol had already plunged the needle into his flesh before Calix could move, and once Jason had gone through it, Calix had no choice but to follow suit. Brothers in life, brothers in death. Marisol patted a hand on his shoulder, and turned to ready a vaccine. Without direction the crew turned their heads, hollow eyes a yellowy glaze, and took a step almost in sync towards her. That was all she needed to see before she whipped herself out of the room, slamming a fist into the circuit board controlling the door. The doors shut with a hiss, seconds before she heard a banging on the other side, and an all too even voice saying,
“Lyra, it’s just one little prick. You will feel so much better.” The voice did not belong to one of her friends, but all of them. And yet there was a tone that she did not recognize even still, like something that knew all the words, but had not yet learned quite how to speak the language.
With a THUD, the ship docked into the multi galactic space station, her layover salvation. A crackle over the intercom system caused Lyra to jump, before a voice she had thought she would never hear again began to speak, even over the speakers Lyra could tell the throat making it was clogged and choking. Captain Isa hung onto life, refusing to relinquish hope. She was a professional. She followed the Protocol. The plants expanded and escaped? They sealed it off and entered quarantine. Ruman died? She dealt with it, she pushed through because she had to. She had to do better. To keep it together. To win. She had come this far, she would not fail. She picked up the CB radio, the only remaining technology she could rely on without the help from Calix, and gave her plea. “This is Captain Isa Valentine of the Resolute 15. We are requesting clearance to dock, MGSS. We await your command. Over.” Silence. Not the silence of space type of silence, but real silence. Like suffocation. Like passing out. “MGSS? This is Resolute 15, cleared from our Mission to XHOSA, requesting clearance to dock. Over.” There was more silence. The pus oozed from her open arm lesions. Her skin crawled with the spores underneath. “MGSS. This is the Resolute 15. Do you copy? I repeat: Do. You. Copy?” The CB radio dropped as Isa tore away at the plastic covering the viewport. When the transmission ended Lyra hurried to the nearest viewport to survery the station. Green. It was just green. Green like the her jumpsuit the first day she dawned her new life in space. She looked up through the space station’s starboard window, and saw green. Curling vines that wrapped themselves around support beams, railings, stairways, doors, desks, people. Oh God, were those people? She could barely make out their faces through the flora, just their expressions, gaping mouths like voids oozing a pus she could already smell the sweet of. At the central desk, a blooming sporous monstrosity. Large colorful fleshy appendages arrayed like a flower, all laid out, weaving with the vines a collective cursive that said ‘we’ve already won.”
