Language of The Stars

The words mean nothing to me.

The neon purple scrawl may as well be hieroglyphics and I’m blind for all the sense they make.

My eyes ache from the potency of the light that floods the circular room, the mirror-like white panelling enhancing the phosphorescent piping that intersects across the gleaming surfaces. According to Omega43, the aquamarine piping not only illuminates the station but keeps the temperature in check as well.

This room, a space called ‘The Farm’, tracks the biomechanics of the base inhabitants and also houses the resources needed for our survival. We are each required to spend at minimum three hours a day toiling in here for maximum efficiency.

We are told that efficiency is the matriarch of success and that compromise is a map to failure.

I am not one to argue over philosophies beyond my purview, my wisdom sits comfortably with strategy and my skills rest with explosives.

My station mates were rattled the first time I told them I couldn’t read the terminal, they thought it was twisted that I could rig a set in under ten ticks but the script that documented and organised our lives was lost on me.

What they can’t understand is that my hands can speak a language more complex than any that their lips could spit.

I blink away the fog of my musing and go back to work, the fumes of the soldering pen mixing with the scent of my sweat as I assign Omega29 a new function.

“Designation 981, please explain the purpose of this task.”

It was a good thing I'd lost my startle reflex for all the sneaking Omega did.

“Hey, 43, long time no see.” My focus remains on the wiring in the open cavity I am elbow-deep in, but I can hear the whirring coming from the machine over my shoulder.

“Please explain the purp—”

“What is my speciality, 43?”

Click, whir, click, click.

“Designation 981: explosives expert in the division for planetary research and expansion.”

“Exactly, so that is the purpose of this task.”

Click, whir, click, click.

I have come to think of these sounds as contemplative, picturing literal cogs turning in the chamber that acted as Omega’s brain.

I continue working as I wait for the inevitable follow-up question. Omega was never a fan of the non-answers that I provide. They’re an addict for details and I am the warden to their withdrawal.

“Designation 981, please explain why you require such a large quantity of surface surveyance preparation capsules.”

“Because, 43, SSP’s contain TNG. It's in the drugs to help us survive the low nitrogen topside but if you isolate it and set that shit on fire it goes boom.” I imitate the explosion by throwing my hands out and turn to face Omega. “Remind me what my designation is again?”

“Desig—”

“Exactly. Explosives. I'm making explosives, 43. Now leave me alone before I blow us all up.” I return to my task, fusing the last wire in place.

“Designation 981, I must insist that you return those to the pharma pod immediately. Those capsules are required for surveillance of the surface of J9-OQ12.”

The sigh I expel is potent enough to fog my goggles. I flick the soldiering pen off and shift my seat back, cracking my spine as I stand.

“Relax, 43, we still have two months left of the washout. We can't make for the surface until it settles, we are due a supply drop in ten weeks and we have plenty left in the pod.”

I move to the adjacent workbench where parts of Omega29 are all laid out like a skeletal map.

“Besides, with Rowade out for stars know how long, we have his supply to factor in that count too. If we can even get perms to go topside without our Nav, that is.”

Click, whir, click, click.

My thoughts momentarily shift to our injured comrade. He’d been completing routine checks of the Nav units and locking everything down for the Washout before something went wrong. He’d been alone, had seamlessly performed these checks countless times before by himself, but this time shit went wrong.

We had found him knocked-out and bleeding from a head wound next to his machines with no clue as to how he’d gotten there.

That was weeks ago, he was still in stasis recovery and we were losing hope he’d wake up the same, or even at all.

I discard the morbid thoughts, refocus on the things I can control and push away the feeling of inability that plagues me.

I grab the CPU that Khan, our IT guy, had rejigged for me and return to the hull of 29.

“You are always going on about efficiency, right? So, I’m being efficient.”

Click, whir, click, click.

I hear the buzz of the bees going about their business in the harvest domes.

Click, whir, click, click.

I think this is the first time I'd ever known an Omega to be lost for words.

Click, click.

“I will assess the supply and report to Alpha12 the anomaly in the inventory. Do you need me to place a request for more mandated materials listed under the Division for Planetary Research and Expansion, Explosives Initiative?”

I roll my eyes as I click the processor back into its place.

“Nah, we still got stock. You might want to order some more fertiliser though, and log the backup harvester in for repairs. I have a feeling it might need a new spark component.”

Click, whir, click—

I spoke before the query could finish processing. “Efficient explosives, just remember that Omega43, Efficiency is the Matriarch of Success.” The last part was a broken mockery of Omega’s mechanised accent.

“And ain’t nobody wanna be a mother fucker, not even us little fishies hiding in this hell hole!” Dredge hollers from the doorway. “‘Ey brother, what you patching together today?”

His question is followed by a slap on my back and I am thankful the actual explosive components had yet to be fitted into the hull I am still half buried in.

“Dredge, fuck sake, how many times I gotta tell you not to touch me when I’m workin’?”

“Nah, I trust ya, Grim. Never blew us up yet.”

“Not for your lack of fucking trying,” I mutter as he wanders to his station.

Dredge is our horticulturalist and I’d bet a year's rations that he cares more about those plants than us, himself included.

Just yesterday I had caught him chatting away to a patch of root vegetables. I wasn’t sure the purpose it served but as long as I kept being fed I was fine to leave him to his manic ways.

There was a period of near silence where the subtle sounds of the room grew more apparent.

We have been here eight months now, over two hundred forty days. Over seven hundred twenty hours collectively spent in this room.

I knew it well.

Over the incessant buzz of the insects that maintain the ecological balance in the domes, I can hear the readings that continuously scroll across the various terminals in the room, the snicking sound of Dredge trimming plants and Khan and Reidian arguing in the far corner over some integration that bore no interest to me.

I let out a breath, I must have missed something.

I go back to the wires and begin to methodically check each one.

“You ever been to Earth, brother?” Dredge didn’t look up from the foliage he tended to so I returned my focus to my own work as I answered.

“Earth? Nah, I was born in the Outer Quadrants, on a Rover station. My Gran was the last of us to know it but even she left too young to know much. Why’d’ya ask?”

“I was reading up on it, learnt that they had these huge fucking trees like hundreds of feet tall, but you know what Pre-Q data is like. They’re still trying to scrub the bullshit and I didn’t know if I could believe they were real without a humie to tell me so, ya know.”

“Mmm. Yeah, I guess.” I reply, focusing more on finding the missing connection than a conversation about some monolithic trees I'll never see.

“It’s like the generations with access to the internet were too bored for reality before metagalactic travel existed. They clearly didn’t understand the risks of the sheer amount of bullshit they made up” He’d not be the first to say so.

“Wouldn’t that be sick, though? A forest of trees so fucking tall they block out the sky.”

“Mm, you been on C1-IQ4?” I ask.

“Nah, I’ve been in the Outs my whole life. What's it like?”

“I've been once, I was shadowing my mentor when I was training to be a gunner. It’s the closest I’ve come to humanity's birthplace with a seventy-six percent relative comparability. The forest there was beautiful from a distance. Not worth it if you got too close though. Seventy-six percent is not enough when it matters most, I’ll tell you that.”

The memory of C1-IQ4 exists within the vague periphery of my mind. Images of vibrant foliage and the feeling of air that didn't squeeze at my heart mixes with the terror of recalling the beasts who knew that place as home. The beasts were nothing compared to the spores though.

The botanist on assignment had been near bursting with excitement when we brought back the samples, conveniently ignoring that they had been responsible for the deaths of seven men before we knew what had hit their line.

“Life is brutal, don't let that detract from its beauty,” was all he had said before retreating to his lab.

We’d lost another three dozen to that planet before they called it incompatible and moved us on.

Now thirteen years later I was in this coffin of a base, leagues under some brackish ocean where the land was only surveyable a few months of an Earthen year.

I’m not sure if they were desperate, dumb or delusional but there is no fucking way this planet would ever pass.

I am accustomed to wasting time for the Sectionals though. They point, you shoot. They draw a line, you toe it.

They ask you to waste a year blowing shit up on a planet barely compatible for fucking cockroaches and you find new ways to make shit explode.

“Gotcha,” I mutter as I find the loose wire, sliding my goggles back in place over my eyes as I light up the pen again.

There it is, the hum I'd been missing before. The power core in the hull vibrates with a low buzz of power, dormant but now it holds the capacity for activation.

Dredge has disappeared into a harvest dome and the voices from the computers have dissolved into mutters as they work over schematics. Omega43 is at the terminal hub doing whatever it is they did when they’re not asking questions.

I will be undisturbed to complete this next step.

I’ve isolated the most volatile elements within our SSPs and fitted the compound vials into a specialised chamber. Now all I have to do is link it to the internal core and power it up.

Once it is secure I make quick work of refitting the facade of 29 and affixing a temporary battery.

The hum becomes a whir and the joints of the Omega begin to twitch, the LED display showing fields of text until it blinks into a mimicry of a face. 29 looks as close to intoxicated as a machine can as it rights itself to a standing position.

“They're ya go, buddy, better than new,” I mutter, patting the metal chest plate. I try to ignore the nagging thought that I wasn’t any better than Dredge talking to his pot plants and silently arguing that at least mine could respond, before turning to the workbench to start clearing my tools.

#

“Designation 182 is no longer in stasis. Medical attention is advised.” The station terminal overvoice announces to the room.

There is a pause followed by a flurry of movement.

I make it halfway to the door before coming to an abrupt halt.

“Ro?” my concern is evident in that one word. “Ro, you good man? You were beat up pretty bad maybe you should—”

“Nah, nah, fuck man, it’s all fucked.”

Both his eyes are black with bruises and bloodshot, the vissage made worse by his panicked expression

“Whats—”

“Everything, it’s all—Fuck.” He runs his fingers through his hair, the tubes from his IV rattling against his chest from where they are still buried in the veins of his elbow.

“This whole thing, none of it is—it’s all just bullshit.” His laugh is manic, devoid of humour as he gestures to the space around us with the pulse pistol gripped in his fist.

“Hey, Ro, it's alright. You’ve been out for a bit. How ‘bout we head—”

“No, no, no, you don’t fucking get it.” He taps the gun against his temple to emphasise his point, his wide eyes boring into mine. “It’s this place man, it’s this whole fucked up thing.”

I hold my hands out in a gesture of placation.

“Rowade, mate, you gotta chill out,” Dredge calls from the edge of the harvest dome.

“Ro, hey, why don’t you tell us what happened? How’d you end up in stasis?”

He looks at me and shakes his head, brow furrowed.

“It’s this place man, it’s all fucked up.” He mutters more to himself than in answer to my question.

“We found you next to the Grunt unit, Ro. What were you doing in the Yard?”

“The Yard, yeah.” He nods now, but it is like he is trying to dislodge the memory from where it is hiding.

“What happened, Ro? We gotta know so we can help you out.” I take a few tentative steps closer, still wary of the gun he clutches and the fractured expression he wears.

“It was that machine, man, rogue fucking unit, crazy fuck—”

“You’re not making sense, dude,” Dredge calls out. I throw him a look imploring him to understand that he is not helping.

“It’s this fucking AI terminal overlord BULLSHIT—THIS,” He roars as he strides forward, shoulder checking me as he passes. He continues to yell obscenities, his words blending as I take it all in like a flip book of dreaded images.

“NO, ROWADE, DON’T,” I yell as he points the barrel at the chest of Omega.

“This fucking bullshit, manipulative machine.”

“FUCK, RUN!” I scream as I catch Rowade by the collar and tear him backwards out of the room, sprinting as fast as I can as the shots meet their mark, burying themselves into the chest plate of Omega.

I make it out the door on the heels of Khan as a resounding crack-BOOM sounds behind us followed by a rush of heat.

Adrenalin floods me as I pull Rowades' muttering form in front of me.

“What the FUCK man?” spittle coats my lips as I holler in his face.

I toss him towards the other two men, unsure of my ability to refrain from punching the already injured man in my anger.

“Take him to the hold. I’ll assess the damage,” I growl, turning to the blackened doorway.

“No.” The word comes out as a whisper.

“No, no, no, fuck, no. Dredge, brother, hey. Dredge, answer me.”

He is lying limp in the threshold of the doorway, embers continue to consume the shredded clothing that still clung to his back. I roll him over, my heart going haywire like it is trying to beat for the both of us.

“Dredge, open your eyes,” I demand. “Someone get the Med Unit!”

Cough, wheeze, cough, cough.

My hands hover uselessly over him as he groans.

“You did it,” He chokes out. “You fucking blew me up.” His laugh is a hacking broken sound.

“Shit, Dredge, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t,” he cuts me off, his breathing laboured. “Fucking idiot, don’t blame y’self. Ro cracked it.” He hisses a breath through his teeth. “Shit, this sucks.” He coughs again and winces.

I scan his body and the blood leaves my face when I see the scrap of metal embedded in his abdomen.

“That bad huh?” he asks, noting my expression.

“It’s not great, brother, but the Med Unit is on its way, just hold on alright.”

“Course I gotta die on this backward fucking planet.” His words are a wet rattle.

“You’re not dying on me, Dredge.”

“Just do me a favour?” His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him.

“It’s fine, you’re fine—”

“Grim. Go find the biggest fucking trees in this stars-forsaken universe, alright?” he whispers.

I can’t bear to see the tears that fill his eyes.

They never have the chance to fall.

His eyes remain open, staring into me, pinning me with that last request as he journeyed on to whatever comes next.

“For sure, brother. I’ll find them for us,” I whisper, closing his eyes.

#

We spend two months of the washout on strict rations before Alpha12 could send support. Rowade spent the whole time ranting from the hold that they would leave us here to rot, claiming that the system was “compromised” and that no one was coming.

Despite the Med Unit determining that he was suffering from advanced distress neurosis the rest of us started to doubt we’d ever leave J9-OQ12.

With the Farm blown to pieces, Dredge dead and Rowade suffering a psychotic break, we were hardly filled with hope.

Our fears are eased three days after the washout when the ionic waters retreat below the surface to reveal the silt-coated planet crust. Above us, the sound of a descending shuttle can be heard.

“I’ll be right up,” I call to the others who are already part-way up the ramp that led to the belly of the ship.

Walking a short distance away, I kneel in the wet, glittering sands.

Using my bare hands, I begin to dig.

“I know it's no monolith, and there is probably zero chance it will survive out here, but if anyone is stubborn enough to make a tree grow where it shouldn't, it would be you.”

I up-end the pot, freeing the salvaged apple tree from its confines and settling it within the hole I have carved for it.

“Until we meet again in the stars, brother.”

I bury the roots and stand, brushing the sand from my knees as I walk away from the grave of another brother lost to the war of life.

As the belly of the ship seals behind me, I find myself hoping that one day, aeons from now when we are all fossils and dust, someone will come back here and find a whole forest that defies the laws of the universe.