Luminous

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Not because sounds don’t travel through the void. Rather, the void kills you quicker than sound can travel through it. You lose consciousness within the first fifteen seconds or so, vision turning black. Even if you could hold on to your awareness longer it would be useless. The frigid environment of space causes your body to seize as it freezes solid. You cannot fight the void, cannot bargain, cannot bribe. The void takes all, status and wealth mean nothing to her. She does not care. All are equal in her grasp.

Mila had always found a certain poetic justice in that.

Around her the ship buckles and quakes. The warning song of the klaxons match the pounding beat of her racing heart. Every screen flashes the same dire warning. Destruction imminent. No sane person would remain here. The corps have deserted the bridge, fleeing in the face of death. Through the bridge’s view screen Mila can see a horde of escape pods flying away from the doomed ship.

Mila will not be joining them. Her story ends here. The Aries was the only ship that had carried records with it. His majesty had kept it that way on purpose to control them. They could not leave him without maps, without plans. Could not know which planets were hospitable or what plants would grow under which light. If they are to have a hope of rebuilding, of changing their ways, then they need the library on board.

Her comm chimes again. She sets it down on the communications station. She does not know what to say to them. She had known that she was not going to survive this. There was no way to download the library without bridge access. And no way to access the bridge while his majesty still breathed. Mila watches as the transmission bar creeps upwards. She never imagined that the hope of their survival would come from records. It is a fool's hope but a fool's hope is still hope.

Let it be enough.

Transmission complete flashes on the screen. Mila feels the tension seep from her body. Her people have a chance now. That’s all that matters. She cannot help the sorrow that comes with never getting to know what peace is like. That she will never see a living planet, will never see an ocean. There are a thousand different dreams that she will never see realized. She wants to live but does not regret her sacrifice. She is but one of trillion souls. A single drop in the vast ocean of life, who is she to place herself above them?

It is a weird experience being still like she is, waiting for the void to take her. There had never been the time before to be. Always a task to complete, a battle to fight, a friend to bury. If you were not moving then you were either dead or dying. Space had always been the monster in the dark, waiting to pull them deep into the dark. Now she knows that space was never the monster.

She hopes that people will one day be able to see the void as a thing of beauty.

It is a lovely thought.

_____

Mila is dreaming.

She is floating in the middle of a large circular room. Above her the universe wheels overhead in all its infinite glory. Yet not as she knows it. Between the planets and stars are golden rivers of light.

Ley lines, they call them. The paths they use to traverse space.

She should not be able to see them, yet she does.

She should not be able to feel them, yet she does.

Her eyes catch on two separate points. One is where she is, one is where she must go.

Her focus turns to the line between them, feeling it until it becomes imprinted within her.

Looking down she sees the universe as she knows it beneath her. The universe as she knows it and one golden line connecting her to a planet below.

Following the path in her, she steps into the void and the light carries her down, down, down.

____

Mila opens her eyes.

Around her the ship buckles and quakes. The warning song of the klaxons matches the pounding beat of her racing heart. Every screen flashes the same dire warning. Destruction imminent. No sane person would remain here. Through the cracking viewscreen, Mila can see a glowing river of light calling out to her. It is impossible to travel a ley line as a ship does. It is also impossible to see them.

A fool’s hope is still hope.

Standing, she watches as the cracks across the glass get larger and larger still. In her head, Mila begins a countdown. She will only have one chance at this, she knows and she does not plan to let it pass her by. Breathing deep, Mila takes in as much oxygen as possible. Her helm is in the doorway of the bridge but there is no time to reach for it. She starts to run towards the screen and as it breaks Mila jumps through into the light.

It flows around her, cocooning her within its grasp. Mila almost gets the sense that it is alive somehow. She can feel the urgency it has as it leads her down, down, down. She cannot see, she cannot hear. Everything around her is light, bright, and cold. No, not cold. It is Mila’s body that has grown cold. She does not have long. The light pulses around her, seeming to speak.

Hold on.

Fast, faster and faster still the river flows determined to save her. Mila does not give up hope. What power has given her this chance to live she does not know but she will not let it pass her by. Vision graying Mila prays.

May the favor bless you and keep you safe, until we meet again.

A moment of pressure and then they hit the air. Mila fights the urge to gasp taking slow steady breaths. Her body begins to tingle with warmth, washing over her. She can still feel the light around her but now it is slow and gentle bringing her down. Mila wonders if this is what flying feels like. Down, down, down, she goes until her feet touch down on the solid ground. The light around her fades, leaving her alone in this strange place.

The light has left her in a large overgrown clearing surrounded by a forest. Mila has never seen a living planet before, only ones mined hollow. There is so much to take in. Lessons about living things were rare. She knows birds and trees and grass but not that there were so many different kinds.

There are flowers of every color and trees of a hundred different shapes and sizes.

Mila does think it is odd that forests are so quiet. The hushed stories she had heard always spoke of animals and the odd sounds that they would make. A shadow falls over the clearing and Mila looks up.

A dragon!