Chasing Dreams

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But then I guess they’ve never heard of void banshees. Not that they are supposed to be real—just urban legend. Tales to scare navigators into staying on the sanctioned routes in the outer sectors of the solar system so that bounty hunters like us know where to find them. How were we meant to know there was any truth to the stories?

We should have stayed on the sanctioned route.

It’s too late now.

We'd picked up a job that was too good to turn down. A pirate vessel called The Lucid Dream that’s legging it to an outlier trading hub floating just inside the rings of Saturn. The bounty for their capture, if cargo is still intact, just bounced to ten million Earth Bangers—we could almost retire on that. They shouldn't have flogged that vintage scotch shipment from the Moon Bar, the owner is pissed—barley seed is a rare find nowadays. We were cruising along, about half a day out behind them. Our boosters were helping us gain on them, but there was a chance we wouldn’t make it to them before they reached the hub, and that would have sucked for us. All the pirate crews have security reinforcements at trade hubs. They're something we try to avoid if we can. Our best option was to get them while they were still cruising and before they could enlist support—so we decided to leave the sanctioned routes and take a shortcut around the dark side of Europa, sling-shotting off the moon for an added boost. Everything was going fine until we invaded this void banshee’s personal space.

Another scream echoes through the vacuum of space, filling the vast nothingness with a mournful cry that could probably be heard by the inhabitants of Mars—the terraforming project was a huge success. It reverberates off the walls of the ship, shuddering deep into the core of my being. An uneasiness swells in me at the wrongness of it. Monsters and men—rulebreakers both. I wonder if the only reason the banshees exist is because of some perverted idea that the universe needs to be balanced. Their presence acting as a counterweight to us humans as we expand throughout the solar system. It almost allows their existence to make sense—almost.

How else can you explain giant sentient space blobs that sonic scream in distress whenever another being invades their pocket of space? It's like they have a universal anxiety disorder and can't come to terms with the existence of anything other than themselves. The sound of it’s cry creates vibrations so intense all the particles oscillate with such speed it starts to rattle everything into oblivion.

Only now do I truly understand how they were named, as I stand in the hallway of the ship with my ears covered. My hands block out nothing—the sound excruciatingly loud. The grinding of metal against metal creating a shrieking like the wail of a banshee. It permeates through everything—even the vacuum of space. The scream is uncomfortable, but that’s not the worst part. The vibrations are far worse. I can feel them through my whole body, as if every cell is being tortured individually and crying out in lament. And then watching the fixings slowly working their way loose from the all the oscillation. Until you witness it for yourself, the monsters cannot be real. They’re just stories for children.

Crash.

A wall panel breaks free and smashes against the metal floor. But it might as well be a slap across the face—an awakening. Seeing truly is believing—I just hope it’s not the last thing I ever see. Space is a different kind of frontier. I really need to start learning from other people’s mistakes. At least we reinforced the hull last year—and added that advanced weaponry. We might stand a chance at the ship holding together long enough to think a way out of this mess. If we were on a standard build cruiser, we wouldn’t have lasted a minute in this sonic rage.

As I watch another section of hallway panel break free and tumble to the floor in front of me there is a surreal moment of introspection. I wonder how many people have survived an encounter with one of these space beasts. At least one, because they gave them a name.