Issue 32: SPACEFARING AUNTIES

The second largest window of USSS Themis belonged to the commander’s quarters. Major Kit Forester stared out of it as often as she could. Three years of service up above it all and the view never got old. When she looked out into the darkness, she thought about her father and the silly thing he said whenever she felt anxious about being out front, doing something big, or putting herself out there. “Little girl, it’s okay to shoot for the stars. You’ve just gotta be prepared to land on the moon,” he’d say. He didn’t have Lagrange Point Two in mind, of course.

She sent a message to him when she settled into the station, a quick note from daughter to father: “I shot for the stars. I’m looking at the moon. Who knew there was space in between?”

That thought made her laugh to herself as she stared out the window, unfortunately revealing that she wasn’t paying attention to the person floating in front of her.

“Ma’am?”

“Continue.”

“Ma’am, my service under your command proves that I’m competent in the field. I’ve enjoyed my time in orbit, but I think I would do well with a small team monitoring from the ground…”

Kit nodded along, typing notes in an open document. She agreed with that assessment and felt a touch of surprise at his self-awareness. She schooled her face and disciplined her judgement — three years is a long time to spend with anyone in an enclosed space.

They had two weeks left in their deployment. After that, they’d tuck in for thirty days in a capsule heading home, six months of debriefing, acclimation, and rest, and then new assignments. Captain Tyse Bellard floated in front of her, holding on to a strap on the wall because no seating was available. She watched him struggle not to loom, to not fold his arms, to be an unforceful presence. He was a good Guardian. He wasn’t as special as he thought he was, but he was good at his job.

“If I can speak plainly, ma’am, the Space Force infrastructure makes it easy to pass over a Guardian like me. A good word from someone like you will get me attention where I need it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, evaluating his boldness with a hard stare. He stared back, green eyes fully focused, not a hint of blush in the pale skin of his face. He’d been waiting a long time to register his impatience with being the white and male number two to her Black and female number one.

“You look like a supernova threw up on you.”

Of course I did.

I’d only spent the last hour and a half getting ready to impress her.

What did I even try for? I was never going to be enough. It didn’t matter that I’d fallen in love with the purple romper I had on, or that I had spent hours with the holo-teacher this week learning how to apply my makeup, or that I’d spent a solid twenty minutes in the mirror hyping myself up because I thought I actually looked beautiful.

That I had to hype myself up every morning, praying the day would come when I believed my lies.

Years worth of building my confidence, destroyed with five words.

How cruel my mother could be.

But I smiled anyway. Because after three decades of her barbed-wire love, I knew that was the only correct response. I couldn’t falter.

I couldn’t crack.

I couldn’t break.

Because then, why was I so sensitive? She didn’t mean it. It was just her opinion. She’s old-school and her tastes are different. Why was I so upset? I know she loves me. She just wants me to look nice, but I’m grown.

I’m grown.

I can do what I want, but I can’t. I live in a different galaxy now, but I exist in her orbit. And like every other environment, there are rules if I want to survive here. 

“Oh,” I said, forcing out a laugh — not too big, not too small, never wet with tears. “I thought I looked cute.”

“You’re never ugly, sweetie,” she said, returning my smile. “But the purple is a lot. Maybe tone it down a little before we go out?” she suggested, pursing her lips. “I have a black sweater in the closet you can borrow.”

Black.

Like the void between the stars.

The space you travel through, not the destination.

Whether I was thirteen or thirty, she knew exactly how to make me feel as if I wasn’t worthy of being looked at. A constant reminder that I shouldn’t draw attention to myself. But never in those exact words.

I smiled wider.

“Sure,” I said, turning back down the hallway. “Which closet?”

02.09.2237 Sol Standard // Armstrong Monitoring Station, Designation: LEGBA // Employee Report: Dr. Octavia Nichelle Kincaid, Medical Hypersleep Technician.

Hello, dispatch. I am flagging this as urgent because I’m not completely certain what to make of it. I’m sure you’ll agree this situation falls outside my skillset, even with my auxiliary comms training. I’ve done a sweep of the sensor array, and neither I nor my FAMILIAR unit were able to discern any sort of malfunction, so I’m forced to accept the data I possess.

We have detected the transponder signal of the Carcosa.

I’m sure you have a number of questions, most of which can be distilled as to why a long-distance Armstrong sleeper ship, presumed destroyed nearly two centuries ago, is within Legba Station sensor radius — thousands of light years off its projected course. I share your questions and your skepticism, dispatch.

I’ve hailed the Carcosa, but given the distance, it will be another sixteen hours before I have a stable uplink established. I do have beacon data, which my FAMILIAR unit has authenticated. All mechanical reports match Armstrong Trade Authority records and appear to be operating within optimal parameters. Fuel levels suggest that the ship has been in constant flight since its departure in 2084. Life signs indicate that the entire ship’s complement and colonist crew are alive and in relatively good physical condition, all hypersleep chambers operating within acceptable levels.

It is too early to make any definitive evaluations regarding the psychological makeup of the ship’s crew — live cognitive data will need to wait for the live uplink. There is, of course, significant cause for concern. The Carcosa is one of ATA’s first-wave sleeper ships. Its launch predates the discovery of maladaptive rapid eye movement sleep, and thus the presence of dream management in any meaningful capacity. The records of the effects of MalREM on early Armstrong crews are well-documented — the crew of the Carcosa has been in completely unregulated hypersleep for well over triple the duration of any documented voyage. We may be looking at the most severe cases of MalREM ever recorded.

It is my intention to begin emergency cognitive triage via the neural synchronizer as soon as I have a stable uplink to the Carcosa; I understand that this is not precisely the letter of Armstrong protocol, but I feel that given my medical expertise, it would be irresponsible of me not to intervene. I cannot guarantee with one hundred percent certainty that the information I have is accurate; it remains possible that this is a digital attack of some kind, spoofing the Carcosa’s signature as a means of gaining access to the station. I have placed my FAMILIAR unit on stand-by to engage firewall protocols if this proves to be the case. I will report again after my first synchronicity; I acknowledge that given the communication delay, this may well be before I receive any response on your end.

Kincaid out.

“You best not delete those records!” Fayola Sudani, captain of the Witch’s Star said, slowly shaking her brown, crooked forefinger. Docked in a berth inside Mormount Station, Fayola’s patience with her navigator, and life companion, wore thin.

Kamala Pathan’s index finger froze two centimeters above the delete button on the navigation computer.

“Fayola,” Kamala said. “We must delete our flight records.” Her dismissive tone and quick, choppy accent belied the absolute stiffness in her finger.

“You deaf?” Fayola bobbed her gray afro as she swiveled her helmsman chair to face Kamala. “What did I just say?”

Kamala chuckled at Fayola’s humor-tinged bluster, but wisely curled her finger back into the rest of her hand. With her other hand she slicked back the white streak running down the middle of what otherwise was shoulder-length, jet black hair. Lazily, she swung her head to the young Black man sitting at a console behind her.

“Cutty. A little help here.”

Cuthbert ‘Cutty’ Stepan, the ship’s engineer, sat up rail-straight.

“What sway you think I’ve got over Fayola?” he said, almost offended.

Fayola cut Kamala a severe look. “Cutty got no say over my flight records.”

“See?” Cutty said, returning his attention to his engineering console. He pressed colorful diodes which ran simulations for the ship’s hyper-drive and other subsystems.

Kamala bobbed in her seat, giving Fayola a cynical grin.

“Why do you persist in keeping these records?”

“Memories are important. I like to know where I’ve been. Helps keep me on the path to where I need to go.”

“Where we’re going is jail, if we keep these flight records and get caught by Democratic Republic patrols. They’ll see we went to Bellatrix-3 transporting refugees.”

“How will Dem-Rep know we’ve been transporting refugees? We could’ve been transporting water-goats for all they know.”

Kamala rolled her eyes. “With the Neo-Confederates annexing more space in that part of the quadrant, they’ll know.”