Outer Tera

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I’ve heard it three times. The first time was when we were on our journey to the colony planet of Outer Tera. I was ten and it was the day my dad died. The second time was when I took my first solo space flight off planet when I was twenty. The third time I was twenty-five and it was the first time I encountered the Others. I try to tell people about it, but they just shake their heads and say it was all in my mind.

They are probably right about the day I lost my dad. We were on our way to a new world. The entire trip was an exciting adventure for me as a kid. It was my first long distance space travel, and I couldn’t wait to see the new planet I was going to be living on. My dad was on the maintenance crew of the ship and my mom was the manager of the crew staff. This meant I was allowed certain liberties that other kids weren’t. Liberties like watching repair crews when they were working on the exterior of our ship. That is how I was watching as they were making repairs to our transporter. We were hit by a large amount of space debris that caused some severe damage to our solar panels. Once we were clear of the debris my dad went out with a crew to make the repairs needed so we wouldn’t lose power before we reached Outer Tera. No one saw that we weren’t clear of the debris field before they went out. There was a second wave that wasn’t as big as the first, but it caused so much more damage. I watched as my dad and three of the other repair team members started to get pelted by space rocks. Damaging their space suits, cracking facemasks, and severing safety lines. It was a nightmare come true. As everything unfolded, I raced from window to window to keep an eye on my father. One dark ice-covered lump after another struck the surface of our transporter as the crew tried to make their way back to the entrance port. I barely noticed as the other repair team members were swept away into the cold dark death of space because my eyes were locked on my dad. Somehow, he almost made it back to the port. I was at the window nearest the entry door when he stopped. He knew I was watching, and he knew he couldn’t make it. My dad held his hand over a hole in his suit that was killing him. He turned to look right at the window I was looking out of and screamed to me. As he drifted off, I was looking into his eyes, so there was no way I could have read his lips, but I know what he screamed. I heard him as clearly as if he were in the room with me. He screamed my name and then said “I love you! Take care of your mother!” I banged my fists against the window trying to break it open to grab him and drag him back in. Screaming the entire time I watched him disappearing into the darkness. Someone grabbed me from behind, even though I could still see him off in the distance, and dragged me away from the window.

The next morning, I woke up to a new world. A world of pain, a world of loss, a world without my dad. My hands were bruised and swollen from pounding on the window and my throat was on fire. As I opened my eyes, I saw my mom sitting next to me, holding my aching hand. I looked at her and started to cry again. I told her that I heard him scream. She shook her head and said, “No honey, that’s impossible.” She might have been right, probably was right, but after we made it to Outer Tera, and I graduated from flight school, I know the next two screams I heard in the vacuum of space were not in my head.