[Log User: Ethan Opplen. Lieutenant of Starpost Paradeus. Entry begins.]
48 hours.
It has been 48 hours since the end. 48 hours since devastation and fire. Since we aboard Starpost Paradeus became the home of the last known humans. We had only realized something was going wrong when the artificial gravity suddenly shut down. There had been no alert of a system failure which meant that the only possible explanation was the failsafe. In the event of a cataclysmic event on Earth or the destruction of the broadcast facility within Planetside Expedition Command, the station's non-critical systems would shut down or cycle to reduced power to aid in the survival of the crew. Artificial gravity fell under non-critical.
Unless the alert system not engaging was part of the system failure and not the failsafe at all.
Either way, it wasn't good. I'd been the closest to the command center so I pulled my way into the room, letting momentum carry me to the primary console. Gripping a handhold, I reached out to engage the main screen. I linked to an orbital surveillance probe, trying to get a view of Earth.
I… I remember my heart plummeting at what I saw. My own dread had drowned out the shouts and cries of horror from the others entering from the other passages.
Hellfire…
Flashes of light tearing open the clouds and scorching the surface. Nukes. Nuclear warheads detonating across the planet. This had to be a prank being transmitted from Planetside Command. The Starpost’s commanding officer, Theodore, was first to reach the communications equipment. “Expedition Command, this is Starpost Paradeus. Respond.”
Static.
“Expedition Command, this is Mission Commander Theodore Armstrong of Starpost Paradeus, Waypoint for Lunar Colony Project Alpha! Respond!”
More static is all that came through. We were watching the annihilation of mankind. The loss of our world. And we were powerless to stop it. Each minute that dragged on brought another burning blast that marred the once shining visage of our little blue marble. I gripped the handhold tighter, as if it would anchor me to reality as long as I held on.
“No… this isn't happening.” A voice muttered from an entryway. Ensign Hetwing. He'd been with us a few months, eager to make himself useful. I and another crewman, Josiah, had surmised he was trying to earn himself a spot on the Lunar Colony. The colony that could have been. Where was Josiah? Floating overhead, near the ‘ceiling’ of the room and gritting his teeth. “It's happening..”
Hetwing was already hyperventilating. “But my family… my dog… all my things back on Earth. No… No!” He thrashed and kicked at the open air around him in a bid to turn himself around.
When a hand found purchase, he yanked himself down the corridor. It took us several seconds… in retrospect, several seconds too long… to realize what he was doing. Kicking off nearby surfaces as safely as we could, we gave chase. A chase that looked ridiculous from an outside perspective, I'd wager.
As we began to close in on him, we found Hetwing at an airlock. He was curling his fingers over the emergency release. If he pulled that, the airlock wouldn't close the inner bulkhead first. It wouldn't depressurize the chamber. He would be opening the station to the vacuum of space. To cold, horrific death.
Josiah was closer, but I was the one to speak. I opened my mouth but only got out two words. “HETWING NO!”
And the lever came down.
I remember his face, that single instant of realization in his eyes as he realized what he'd done. That microsecond of regret, then horror before the exterior hatch’s emergency explosives popped the clamps away and the atmosphere of the station immediately spewed out into space. Hetwing and that hatch were gone before we could even blink. And we were about to follow.
Thank God the emergency system still worked. A backup interior bulkhead slammed down, and most of us were able to grab something or fumble with handholds just enough to slow to a safe drift through the room.
But not Josiah. Josiah had too much momentum. He'd been halfway into the chamber when the bulkhead came down. He'd been feet first, and the swift descending metal cleaved through his waist. He was dead in seconds. Most of us wouldn't have processed it before he was dead a full minute. In his last moment, Josiah’s eyes met mine. I saw a final flicker of fearful realization before he was truly gone.
The moments after that had become a blur. I couldn't recall them if I tried. Truth be told, I rather preferred not to think about it. But I would always see Josiah and Hetwing.
Their faces… their haunting faces. Their final gaze. Seared into my memory.
It's been 48 hours. Two Earth Days interspersed with restless sleep tainted by nightmares of that chaotic moment and the forming hellscape of our homeworld that had caused it.
Theodore has me monitoring the communications equipment today. He and the other survivors are doing inventory. Orville is checking our medical supplies, Merrick is doing rounds to tally the rations, and Old Man Xavier is helping the Commander with everything else. I just have to sit here and listen in case some poor bastard survived Armageddon. It's boring. Boring enough for imaginations to run wild.
I swear, I can almost hear Josiah’s voice on the commline.
[Entry Ends. Cycling To Next Entry]
I’d always be thankful for whoever decided that Starpost Paradeus needed a simulated day and night cycle. Without that, I think that the only thing which would have reminded me that I need to sleep would have been the Commander himself.
It has now been six days since nuclear devastation claimed the surface of Earth and left us stranded between the planet and it's moon. I've been fortunate enough to be stuck with communication duty. As repetitive as it is to send message after message to Earth knowing that there is little to no hope of ever getting a reply, it's leagues above digging through zero gravity storage to maintain inventory logs. I'd also sooner be handcuffed to this console for the rest of my life before I volunteered to suit up and crawl along the exterior for system maintenance.
Why would I sign on for a space mission if the idea of being in a space suit filled me with so much dread? Well, it wasn't the space suit idea. It wasn't the idea of having only a tether line anchoring me to the station. No, what scared me was knowing that if something went wrong, there was nobody left who could be deployed to rescue me.
I queued the main line again, hearing the faint hum of static. “This is Lieutenant Ethan Opplen of Starpost Paradeus… Again… calling out to anyone who can receive this signal. Please respond.” Leaning back in my chair, I once more began the grueling task of waiting for nothing. Deciding that I didn't actually meet to be in the chair, I stood and wandered that cozy corner of the command room.
I approached one of the security consoles and began flicking through the exterior cameras. Maybe I could get a head start on identifying any problem areas for those given the task of stepping outside.
Cameras watching over hand grips, stabilizing thrusters, The few remaining airlocks…. Now three from what was once four, after that damn fool Hetwing had his breakdown that resulted in the deaths of him and Josiah. The only upside to it that any of us could find the most miniscule bit of solace in was that we now had two less people drawing from the life support.
Foolish, Foolish Hetwing… Who had just drifted by the camera focused on the solar panels of Section C.
I paused, damn near freezing where I stood. That was impossible. There was absolutely no way he could have circled around to pass the station. I isolated that camera, cycling the footage back 10 seconds and playing it again.
Nothing. Just the solar panels and the viewport nearest the camera that gave a peak into the botany labs within that section. Not a single sign that the vacuum-ravaged corpse of our late crewman had spontaneously manifested on camera.
Must have been a trick of grief. A lack of sleep? I didn't have long to think about it before I heard Theodore's voice.
“Getting bored?” He asked.
I swung my head around, and he could clearly see the panic on my face, because his expression soured instantly. “The hell is wrong with you?” He asked.
I couldn't explain what I'd just seen. There was no evidence, and it couldn't have been real. There was no point in recounting a subconscious daydream as fact.
“Nothing. Just zoned out and my imagination played a trick.” I waved a hand. “Made me a bit jumpy.” Jumpy was an understatement. I hadn't felt my stomach twist like that in a few days.
He narrowed his eyes but asked no more questions. “Switch the feeds over to section D. Xavier is coming back from inspecting the exterior access panels.”
Section D. The medical section. We rarely ever used it. Nobody had so much as a strange shoulder since our deployment to the station. With a nod, I tapped the controls until the angled view of Section D was on the big screen. There was the bulky outline of the environmental suit that contained the eldest of our crew.
Xavier had been part of the whole ‘colony on the Moon’ thing since before Starpost Paradeus had been fully completed. Some say it had been his convictions and his presence alone that had kept everything going.
He was sliding an access panel open with the awkward movements that were all his suit would allow. The things were clumsy But it was a small price to pay for the vacuum protection. They were built to withstand the vacuum of space, minor shrapnel damage, electricity, and maybe even raging infernos.
Normally, we would have had the suits expected and damn near turned inside out every week. But their last day of inspection had been the day the Earth died. Since then, it had been one of the last things on our minds.
Even now, that thought stayed in the back of my mind, no sense of urgency rushing it to the forefront. We'd wind up regretting that.
I reach out and press the button to link to his suit's commlink. “Xavier, it's Ethan. How's it going?”
“Last panel, Lieutenant.” Xavier replied, delicately using one of the tools on his belt temporarily shut off the magnetic seals holding the panel in place. He took it and allowed it to attach to the small magnet resting on the outer thigh of the suit. It was to ensure that the panel didn't just go flying off into nothing forever. “Just got to make sure this power junction isn't in danger of giving out on us. Wouldn't want things to go dark in there, would we?”
I managed a chuckle. “Can't get much darker than the mood, right?” The joke felt… hollow. I wasn't even sure why I'd said it. Even if I truly felt that humor could ease the situation, I couldn't think of any possible joke that would alleviate our doomed struggle to delay what would inevitably come to pass.
Xavier grunted. “You'd be surprised just how fucking shitty things can get even when it looks it's worst. Trust me on that. It can always get better, and it can also always get wor-”
He was cut off as his hand made contact with the conduit. Several things happened in that moment. We caught a microsecond of his body convulsing backwards, the camera watching him cut to static, and an alert of a momentary power surge pinged from an Operations console.
“Xavier?!” I shouted into the microphone.
Theodore hurled himself through the room, limbs out to catch himself so he'd not go sailing past the security controls. He mashed several buttons, finally managing to restore the feed.
Xavier was drifting away from the exterior hull, The only thing keeping him close was his tether. We couldn't get his commlink restored. We couldn't get any signal from his suit at all. I pushed myself away from the consoles and towards one of the corridors leading towards Airlock Two. There would be a switch near the airlock That would allow us to retract the tether until he was near the airlock and we could pull him inside.
Orville was there by the time I arrived, suiting up and preparing to step into the pressure chamber. He met my gaze as I floated towards him.
He grimaced. “Commander called me up from the storage bay in Section B. How bad is it?”
I shook my head. “No idea. Only know is there was a power surge, lost the feed for a moment, and now we're not getting any signals from his suit at all.”
Orville’s grimace deepened. “Fuck… that's not good. I better get out there. Hit the lever.” With that, he stepped into the chamber and properly sealed the inner bulkhead. Through my panic and worry I couldn't help but remember the absolute riot act the Commander had drilled into us after the incident with the ensign about proper airlock procedure. Of course, everyone knew the proper procedure, but even then we'd all know that it was the Commander's way of processing the deaths of two people under his command in the wake of losing our home.
I opened the emergency panel near the airlock, before finding the lever for Xavier’s tether. Yanking it down, I leaned against the wall, hissing softly when my forehead met cool metal.
Minutes passed, maybe more than I thought, before I heard the sound of the pressure chamber. Atmosphere being restored. When it was safe, I wrenched the hatch open as the others arrived. Orville pushed Xavier in as he began to take his suit off. I grabbed Xavier first, hands frantically searching for releases with Merrick’s help. Theodore was moving to aid Orville.
With rising frustration, I finally got the seal on the helmet undone. I pull it free and-
He was dead. Dead before we'd even begun the rescue effort. His face was frozen in pain. The shock must have sent him into cardiac arrest… shit.
“Son of a bitch!” Merrick pushed himself away from the body, which pushed it into me. I couldn't draw my eyes off of his face. Hollow eyes, which it once held so much wisdom and experience. All of it meant nothing now. None of it saved him from one faulty suit. He was gone. Another body.
Three. Three dead. The last sliver of humanity was whittling away.
Theodore was barking orders at us. He was trying to snap us back to reality. I couldn't hear him. Everything was a buzz.
Had the damn hallucination been an omen? Ensign Hetwing’s visage coming to claim Xavier? No. That was stupid. But maybe it was-
Theodore dragged me back to reality by grabbing me with a shout. “LIEUTENANT!” He shook me. “Get your head together! We need to handle the body and focus on those of us that are still alive!”
Ever the sensible one, Theodore was. Guess he had to be. Some would say he was cold. Maybe we needed to be cold. Realistic, he'd call it.
One more body for the morgue, One faulty suit to be dismantled and left for the trash chute.
I quickly volunteered to help dismantle the suit. I couldn't be near Xavier's body anymore. I couldn't look at that face. It was already burned into my memory alongside Hetwing and Josiah… I didn't need any more time memorizing the wrinkles in his face or that frozen agony in his eyes.
We were silent as we took the suit apart, pushing the pieces towards an open, anchored crate.
When we finally removed the visor from the helmet and pushed the empty shell towards the crate, I couldn't bear to look. I was worried, stupidly so, that I'd turn and see Xavier's face staring out at me. I instead looked down at the visor. My own visage stared back at me. I felt like if I dared blink, I'd see their faces looking back at me.
“Hey.” Merrick said with a grunt. “You alright, Opplen?”
I jerked up at that, blinking a few times. “I'm…. It's just a lot. Last humans, you know. And we're down three people in less than a goddamn month. It's scary.”
Merrick shook his head. “You need to focus on your work. Takes your mind off that mortality shit.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “Our crewmate just fucking died, and you can just take your mind off it?!”
Merrick shot me a look. “Damn right. Because losing our fucking minds is gonna kill us all a lot faster than mourning an old man who was a complete idiot with his suit.”
I wanted to punch him. Smash the visor over his face. But I kept it in and pushed the visor into the crate. Once it was all in, we sealed the crate and made our way out of the room.
Four of us left. Seven down to four. Seven. Four…. We lost three. If that happened again, I'd be alone…
But that was stupid. We just needed to be careful, stick to protocols, and we'd be fine.
We would all be fine.
Nothing wrong with lying to myself a little bit. Right?
[Entry Ends. Cycling to Next Entry. Warning, Entry corrupted. Initiating Memory Restoration. Restoration Complete. Beginning Playback.]
Things haven't been going well. We jettisoned Xavier’s remains through one of the intact airlocks, like we did with Josiah, seven days ago. I haven't spoken to Merrick since then. I fear he'll be callous to the point I'll want to swing at him. If violence breaks out… there's a chance it'll never stop until we're all dead.
Well, I suppose there's no point in lying here. The reason I haven't been speaking to Merrick since we jettisoned Xavier's remains is because shortly after, we got into another argument about what he called the futility of mourning in a disaster situation. I'd shouted at him, called him a heartless piece of shit. He'd called me a pussy who shouldn't have ever been assigned to the hard work they were doing in the first place. It probably would have come to blows if Theodore hadn't stepped in.
We don't use the communications console for more than an hour a day anymore. What's the point of extended effort on a venture that'll yield no results? Of course, Theodore’s reasoning was that we needed to conserve power, but we all knew the truth. We were alone… and our numbers were already beginning to dwindle. Humanity would be extinct before long, I just knew it. But I kept it to myself. I wasn't going to spend my last days confined to quarters for…. Well…. Embracing the inevitable. A man could only lie to himself for so long before that lie stopped being strong enough to push away nightmares of dead colleagues faces floating in murky darkness as their clammy, blood-stained hands reached for me in my slumber.
Slumber that was becoming extremely rare. I couldn't keep my eyes closed for more than a couple hours at a time. It was eating away at me, I could feel it. It didn't help that with each nightmare, they were getting closer to grabbing me and dragging me into that abyss…
Now, we couldn't spend all day performing system checks, exterior inspections, and documentations of inventory. This wasn't anything new. We had been graced with plenty of downtime between tasks before the cataclysm, but now? With the grim knowledge and the haunting memories that all but clawed at our minds? We dreaded downtime.
Today? I was 7 moves deep into a chess game with Orville. 3 years younger, looked like he had still just turned 18. Hell, Hetwing had looked older than this smug little bastard who was kicking my ass. Seven moves in, and he had already claimed three of my pieces in the last four moves. “Who the hell taught you to play like this?” I asked.
Orville raised a brow. “Taught myself. I looked up the rules, taught myself to play, and then found out I had a real skill for it.” His answer carried a tone of disconnect, as if he wasn't even really thinking about the words that left his mouth as he made another move and took yet another one of my pieces. I couldn't make the excuse that my mind just wasn't in it, that I was distracted about all the things we had been forced to endure. The truth is that I just suck at chess.
With a grimace I moved to claim the piece he had just used. His Bishop, which apparently had been a sacrifice so that he could move one of his knights to claim that rook. Fucking hell. I didn't even notice!
Merrick laughed from across the room. Smug, arrogant, prick Merrick. Merrick floated over, looking at the metal board and the magnetic pieces. “Good thing you were never a squad leader for troops, Opplen!” He mocked, reaching out to jostle my shoulder.
The board was disconnected and smashed across that smug asshole’s face before he, Orville, or I knew what was happening. I kept swinging, snarling and bashing his skull in as Orville shouted and screamed. Blood everywhere, bone and brains visible. I was killing Merrick, I was-
“Hey!”
The snap of fingers brought me back to reality. An intrusive fantasy… it hadn't happened. Merrick hadn't left his seat, and I hadn't pulled the board off it's magnet anchor. But I was glaring at Merrick, and the look on my face was clearly making him uncomfortable. Orville too, given the fingers being snapped in my face. “Ethan. Hey!” He waved a hand. “You okay?”
I turned my gaze from Merrick and back to the board. “Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Just spaced out. Trying to figure out how to delay losing another round of chess.” I attempted a weak joke.
Orville was quiet, clearly concerned. Merrick was leaving the room, casting one last dirty look my way.
“Maybe we need to put the game on hold?” Orville suggested.
I take a breath and nod. “I… I need to do the comm check anyway. Next time, Orville. I'll win next time.” I give him a feeble smirk and begin floating my way through the corridors to the command center. I wasn't looking forward to when Theodore caught word of my glaring at Merrick like I was gonna hurt him. Though, to be fair, I'd wanted to hurt him. To kill him.
That wasn't normal. I know that. But so much has happened. So much was lost so quickly. How can anyone not become a little off kilter after that?
I flick the communication beacon to life with a single switch turn. I begin my hour of pointless repetition, saying the same line into the microphone every 3 minutes. My name, rank, the name of the station, and begging for a response. Response that wasn't going to come. Why were we bothering with this? Why were we bothering with anything? I was musing over this after my 16th repetition when I heard the crackle. Not the static that usually greeted my responses. A momentary, almost imperceptible crackle. I sat up straight, trying to backtrack to whatever frequency I had been on when the crackle came through. I hadn't been keeping track. Damn it.
I did my best to narrow it down, to bring that crackle back to the speakers. A noise like that couldn't have just happened. It couldn't just be dead noise. Somebody had to have tried to respond. It's the only possible explanation.
When the hour mark came, I didn't power down the equipment. I couldn't just shut a console down and there was a chance we had made contact with a survivor.
I made one last adjustment, hearing the crackle of noise. And a second later it was gone. The entire console had just lost power. No, it hadn't lost it. Someone had remotely shut it off from one of the power junctions. I cursed and moved to the security console, pressing firmly down on a button. “This is Opplen. Did anyone just use a junction box to cut power to the communications console?”
The voice that responded sent a fresh wave of anger through me. “Merrick here. I shut it down because the hour passed, Lieutenant.” it had nothing to do with the fact that the hour had passed. He must have known that I had made contact so he cut the power. Probably waiting for me to leave so that he could swoop in and take it for himself. Try to make me look out to be incompetent.
“If your hour is up, Lieutenant, finish up in there and get to something else.” Theodore spoke up over the intercom.
“Sir, I need just a few more minutes. I'm sure I heard something.” I insisted.
I could hear Theodore audibly scoff. “Unless it was a voice, what came through was probably a glitch. We're not wasting any more power on the comms than absolutely necessary. Now get to doing something else. That's an order.”
As they both shut their ends of the line off, I swear I heard Merrick snickering. I needed to find a way to prove I was right. Maybe once they slept, I could restore power to the console and work until I had to sneak back to my bunk. Or I could just restore it now and tune to the frequency…
That frequency. I'd been so angry at Merrick that I'd already forgotten the frequency. Shit.
I grit my teeth and made my way out of the command center, drifting along passageways until I reached the medbay. I'd do inventory on our supplies here, then. It was close enough to the command center that if Merrick tried to sneak over there to steal my finding, I'd hear him.
I'd hear him.
I occupied myself with opening compartments, checking their contents and confirming it on the primary medical computer. This was normal, up until the fifth compartment. Sedative storage, primarily, with a few high strength pain suppressants. We were supposed to have twenty counts of sedative. We had seventeen. Three counts worth is missing. I made the necessary documentation for the log and hit an intercom button on the wall. “Commander Armstrong…”
Theodore spoke a moment later. “Lieutenant? What is it this time?”
“Can you come down to the medical wing for a second? I have a minor issue.” I said softly. I then switched off the intercom before drifting listlessly as I waited. When he finally arrived, he looked agitated. I wasted no time in showing him the log, and then the storage compartment itself.
“You called me down from helping Orville calibrate the power grid… for a minor stock inconsistency?” He grumbled behind me.
I blinked. Once. Then twice. Was he chewing me out for doing my job? “I'm sorry, sir?”
Theodore raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You just said-”
“I haven't said anything, Lieutenant. I think you need to cut your duties short and go to bed if you're hearing things. That was probably what happened at the console.” He shook his head. “Now get going. That's an order. I'll take over here.”
I stared for a moment, but did as ordered.
I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Trying had brought a new nightmare. Until now, they'd been the horrible deaths of my colleagues from an outsider's point of view. Not now… No, this was worse. Moments after my eyes had closed, I was met with the visage of my hands wrapping around the airlock’s emergency release. No… not my hands. Hetwing’s hands.
I was watching Hetwing through his own eyes as my own voice tore through a haze of panic and desperation. But those hands were moving. I saw everyone. Orville, Josiah, Xavier, Merrick, the Commander…. And myself… before space claimed me.
The dreamscape altered instantly, a brief haze of the station around me speeding by as metal sped down towards me, staring into my own eyes.
And then it was cold. Cramped and cold, and I could only surmise that I was peering through Xavier's lifeless eyes. Then came hands across the visor of his spacesuit. Muffled yelling accompanied the helmet's hiss as it came free. Merrick screamed and I felt the body jostle before I was once more meeting my own gaze.
Then the visions marred and blurred before tearing themselves into an ethereal sea of nothing. Had my mind run itself ragged?
It didn't matter. I was finally asleep. I only woke up once, in the middle of the night. I'd heard tapping outside my quarters. But when I went to check? There was nobody there.
I think I'll try to recapture that fleeting sleep. There's nobody but us four on the station. Merrick was probably just being a prick.
I can't let him get to me. In these moments, I wish-
[Warning. File Corruption Present. Unable to complete log. Cycling to Next Log.]
I've been neglecting making these entries after rereading the last one. Was I really that unraveled already? Am I so easily toppled?
It kept me away from this log for two months. But I needed to make this one. Especially after what happened yesterday. Two major events, which have altered our situation for the worse.
Commander Theodore Armstrong is dead. This is what happened.
It was time for that damnable hour of transmissions. Nothing but static, yet again. I wasn't even graced with the softest crackle. We'd likely lost our window to make contact. If it had been somebody, they were most likely dead now and we were all alone again.
I remember mentally cursing Merrick’s name before the security console began issuing a shrill, repeating beep.
Leaving the communication console running, I floated over to the security controls and checked for the cause. A transport ship. One of the automated craft from Earth.
When the Starpost was under construction, those involved with the project decided that automation would save time, manpower, resource… you name it. A network of satellites and automated supply docks orbited closer to the planet. Whenever we ran inventory, we would document how long our current supplies would last and would then transmit a supply request to that network. Supplies would then come up from Earth, be loaded by automatons onto the transports, and one would be sent our way.
Our last request had been months ago….
The day before Earth died. Well, this would extend our estimated survival time. I tap the intercom. “Commander, seems we have an incoming cargo ship.”
Theodore didn't reply for a minute. When he did, it was clear he was surprised. “Forgot we called for that… I'm going to the docking bay in Section A, and I'll send Merrick and Orville to help you run the docking protocols from there.”
I nodded. “Got it, Commander.” As I switched the connection off, I realized I probably wasn't as excited about this arrival as I should have been. I didn't know what I felt. Well, not at first. The strange feeling or lack thereof was quickly replaced by a growing concern when I checked the radar. That transport was approaching way too fast, and it's course was… off.
It was going to crash into Section A. Shit.
Orville was entering at that moment. “Commander said something about a ship coming in?” He asked.
I turn to him. “Ping the transport, tell it to slow down and change course! It's going to plow through Section A if we don't stop it!”
Orville paled, but thankfully quickly composed himself and made his way over to the communications console. “Incoming craft, your course and speed are incorrect. Correct your course and decelerate to avoid collision. Comply.”
The order at the end was hollow. Our orders would process as a request, which the transport would then relay to Earth, to Command.
A Command which would never receive the signal. The thought dawned on me and that growing concern was transformed just like the emptiness before it. Now it was panic.
And the panic intensified when the robotic voice of the transport filtered through.
_Course correction request received._
_Synchronizing with Central Control._
_ERROR: Connection timeout._
_ERROR: Connection timeout._
_ERROR: Connection timeout._
_Connection to Central Control failed._
_Maintaining course._
Dread. Dread sank into every nerve as my shaking fingers hit the intercom. “Commander, the transport is coming in way too fast and off course! It's going to hit Section A!”
I heard Theodore cursing. “I'm on my way out! I'll hit the emergency seal when I'm back in the central structure! Keep trying to get that thing to fix it's shit!”
That was when Merrick arrived. “The fuck is going on?”
Orville was barking orders, demanding the transport change it's course. It kept responding with the same failures. He was frantic, bordering on begging the automated projectile not to collide. This was all Merrick needed to hear. “Is the Commander back yet?”
“Still in Section A.” I replied, watching him on the cameras, eyes flicking to the radar over and over. It was too close. It would hit, the station would be open to vacuum, it would spin itself to devastation…
My gaze fell upon the emergency bulkhead controls. I could seal off the entire Section. I could give us a chance to halt the spin once it started. A slim chance but a chance. All I would have to do is seal the bulkhead.
Seal the Bulkhead… and kill Theodore.
I don't remember what course of thought led to my decision. But I hit that button hard. The alert of the bulkhead went off a second later. Merrick was the one to speak, his harsh tone snapping Orville out of the loop of pleading he'd sunk into. “What the fuck did you just do?!”
I clutched the edges of the console. “Saved us. Get ready to correct our spin.” I said in a monotone.
“No, fuck you, what the fuck did you just do, you lunatic?” Merrick began to pull himself toward me.
I didn't look at him. My attention was drawn instead to one of the security console’s screens. Theodore had reached the bulkhead. He hammered it, looking to the camera and screaming at me to ‘open the damn thing’.
He'd made it. There had been time.
And as that realization set in, all hell broke loose.
The noise of metal shredding, though muffled by the station itself, nearly deafened us as everything around us went spinning. My hands scrambled and feet kicked, Orville screamed, and Merrick howled curses. The station was in a death spiral. The momentum would tear it apart. We were going to die. Hetwing, Josiah, Xavier, Theodore…. We'd join them.
I finally caught something. A console. We could fix this. We had to stop it. I tried to pull myself closer with a grunt. “The retros!” I screamed over the alarms blaring in our ears. Orville seemed to have heard, given he was desperately trying to get into a chair as the world tore itself apart around us.
Merrick was still tumbling. As we tried to fire off the boosters, I heard Orville shout in pain. “Merrick, you left those fucking pens out!” He shouted. Had it been any other situation, I'd have laughed at that. Not right now. Right now, I was focusing on not dying.
It felt impossibly too long before Paradeus finally slowed it's spin. We all clung to our handholds as our knuckles turned white. Orville was the first to weakly speak. “That… we survived? We actually survived that?”
“Most of us did.” Merrick said, his tone heavy with accusation. “Somebody let the Commander die.”
I felt anger boil anew under my skin. “I didn't know he had time. I was thinking of the group.” Half true. I didn't know he had time. But when it came to thinking of survival, I'd only thought of Hetwing and Josiah, and sharing one of their fates. Orville and Merrick had not been on my mind at all beyond what use they would have been to aid in stabilizing the station. But I wasn't going to admit that. He'd take that, use it to justify his claim. I hated him. I hated Merrick so deeply. Maybe I'd always hated him and just hadn't realized it until the day Xavier died.
“Bullshit, you're just a goddamn lunatic who's looking for ways to kill people! I saw the way you looked at me in the lounge.” Merrick snapped.
“Guys…” Orville spoke up.
I clenched a fist, Orville’s word falling on a deaf ear. “Maybe I just looked at you the way somebody looks at a person they can't stand because he's a prick!”
“GUYS!” Orville screamed, snapping our attention away from one another as he rested a hand on one of the monitors. “Look…”
We both made our way over, and I felt ice across my skin as I observed the display. Starpost Paradeus had been knocked out of orbit. We were slowly going to drift further and further away from Earth until the void of open space claimed us. And we'd used up too much fuel correcting the spin.
We were going to float away… and nobody was going to come and save us. These logs… our inventory checks… nothing matters anymore. We're dead men floating. We're going to die.
We… are going… to die…
[Entry Ends. Cycling to Next Entry.]
It's been 3 months.
Three. Entire. Months. When it had whittled down to three of us, rationing out the rest of our supplies became a lot easier. We could probably last until an entire year passed. The realization that we were drifting off into empty space didn't really bother us after the first few days. Sure, knowing you were about to drift away from home is terrifying, but once you start reminding yourself that the home you're thinking of doesn't really exist beyond scorched ruins? Becomes a lot easier to process.
Hadn't stopped the nightmares, though. The faces of the dead, the tapping, my mind replaying Theodore's screams, and even seeing the lost souls when I turned corners for only a moment.
I'd even had a few more hallucinatory murder fantasies between then and now. And on that note, I think I should stop stalling and get to the reason I'm making this log entry after so much time has passed.
I phrased it as ‘when it had’ instead of ‘since it had’ because it's not the three of us anymore.
Four hours ago, I was with Merrick and Orville in the command center. We had taken to spending most of our time there, looking over reports and seeing where we could go before heading outside to do even the smallest amount of damage control.
“This would be easier with the Commander here to decide where it would be best to work.” Merrick had remarked coldly.
“If you have something to say, Merrick…” I shouldn't have taken the bait, but when you hate somebody, it doesn't take a lot to get under your skin. “Then fucking say it.”
Orville sighed. “Not again…”
“If you'd been a sane person, and waited for the Commander, he'd still be alive.” Merrick snarled at me, lips bared in a hateful sneer. “You've been unhinged since this began!”
I took a deep breath, clenching a fist. I was not unhinged. Sleep deprivation did not equal instability! I was fine! I am fine! “I am not unhinged. I thought that we didn't have time, so I made a split second-”
He cut me off.
“Don't give me that. You probably just wanted to see what it would be like when a man died because of you.” He was sneering now, and I could have sworn there was a glint in his eye as if trying to antagonize me was a joy for him. Though a voice in the back of my head was shouting at me to reel myself in, I wanted him dead. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to silence that judgmental, mocking voice of his. We've been isolated, stuck together, and I couldn't tolerate it one moment longer.
I turned fully to him. “You do not know me, Merrick, so stop acting like you do before you regret it.” I warned him. I didn't know what I meant by that. Would I hurt him? Would I kill him?
He pushed towards me, arms out. “Do something, Opplen. Fucking do something, prove me right.”
I stared him down. I could dig my thumbs into his eyes, wrap my fingers around his throat. The urge was there… it would be easy to kill this scumbag who'd been a constant source of torment.
I hesitated long enough that Merrick thought I was backing down. He sneered again. “Hm… that's what I thought.”
He began to turn away when something flew past my head. I'd only find out later that it had been one of Merrick’s loose pens. It had coasted into Orville’s personal space and he'd grabbed it, throwing it away from him. Guess our arguing had been getting to him more than he'd shown.
It hit Merrick in the back of the head. He grabbed the closest console and spun himself around to lunge at me. “Fucking prick!” He screamed. He must have thought it was me. Regardless of what he thought, he was attacking me. I had to defend myself. He swung at my head, and I barely got an arm up to defend myself. We swung and kicked at each other. With how ferociously he was fighting, it stood to reason he'd been coming undone faster than any of us. Or he just wanted an excuse to hurt me. Either way, I had a feeling he wasn't going to stop until he killed me.
A fist met my jaw and I spun. He gave me a kick to the back and I found myself hitting a console.
“Hey, enough!” Orville tried to get involved, only to receive an elbow to the face from Merrick, who immediately returned to coming after me.
He wasn't going to stop. I had to stop him. I needed to stop him. I managed to move out of the way of his next swing before managing to get my arms around his head. The headlock did little to subdue his shouts of anger and his flailing limbs.
“I'll fucking kill you, Opplen! You sadistic sack of shit!” A powder keg has ruptured. There wasn't any going back. No calming him down. None of that.
As we tumbled, I finally got a proper position of leverage. I tightened my hold and with one firm shift-
The snap was loud in the confined space. His body fell limp instantly. I'd killed him. I killed Merrick. My ears rang, and I just stared down at his lifeless face. Another face of death that would haunt my nightmares.
“I had to…” I muttered.
Orville was staring at me.
“I had to…. I had to..” I kept muttering.
I don't apologize. I don't. I killed him because I had to. I'd do it again. It's just Orville and me now. Drifting into nothing. At least we're safe.
Safe…
Orville won't look at me. Won't talk to me. His eye is swollen from Merrick's elbow, but he isn't calling me a murderer, blaming me for any deaths or any of the things Merrick had been doing.
I think we're going to be able to figure out some way past this and keep working together.
[Entry Ends. Cycling to Next Entry… Unable to locate. Retrying. Unable to locate. Retrying. Unable to- Entry Located. Recompiling.]
Six months… six months.
I haven't made an entry in six months. Things have gotten worse. They're back for us… and that's not the worst of it. The ones from beyond got Orville and almost got me!
I've been taking to slowly creeping around corners, peeking to make sure I'm not running into the dead. Is it my mind? Or something more? Like what got Orville…
It might still be out there hiding from the cameras. It learned after the first time. It started 2 weeks after we used one of the airlocks to get rid of that bastard Merrick.
I had been cleaning one of the tables in the lounge room. It hadn't been visibly dirty, it wasn't even really on the rotation of duties. I just needed something to do. I had just finished and was about to move on to the next table…
The table where Theodore’s frozen body sat, face stuck in an angry scream. None of his body was moving but his eyes… his… his bloodshot, near-burst eyes… they were trained on me.
I'd recoiled and screamed, turning to try and get away. I got halfway across the room, turning to see if it was following, but it was gone. Gone? How the hell was that possible? Was I crazy?
No. I was fine. I'm not losing my mind. I was not crazy. That would mean Merrick was right. I would not let him be right.
As time went on, I'd see the others too. Standing in corridors. Not hovering, standing, as if the lack of gravity meant nothing to them. They would stare at me. No movement, no words, just their eyes tracking me.
Josiah would stand over my shoulder when I used any of the consoles in the command center. Hetwing hung around the medbay. Xavier began photobombing the external cameras. Merrick… Merrick was in my fucking room. His face was blank but his eyes held rage and hatred. I had taken to bringing a small anchor belt to hook myself to certain areas so I could sleep anywhere but my room. I refuse to look at his stupid face. I refused to meet the eyes that judged me for taking an action that he forced me to take.
I'd learned to keep an eye out at the four month mark. How to navigate around them and ignore the accusatory stares.
But what came two nights ago… it threw every plan to the void.
I woke up in the middle of a fitful slumber, anchored near a viewport. I had a few moments to clear my mind, blink the sleep away, and thankfully was not confronted by any of my dead crewmates. I had a reprieve. A reprieve that was shattered the moment I looked out the viewport.
A tendril. A thin, coiling tendril. Some drifting cosmic horror had found us. I had to warn Orville. I unhooked the anchor and began clamoring around the station, screaming Orville's name. No answer. It got him. It must have lured him outside. I was alone. It killed him and it was gonna kill me. I had to reach the control room. Maybe the external robotic arms could give me a few more moments of survival.
I reached the control room, sweating and breathing hard as I scrambled weightless and frantic until I found the console.
My hands were shaking as I called up the first of the six arms. It had been eight before the transport had cleaved through Section A.
There was nothing on the camera nestled into a port on the end of the arm. Cursing, I flicked over until I found something. The tendril… it's end branching out into a monstrous extremity that spotted one large eye and disjoined, sluggish digits. It was peering around the edge of the torn hull where Section A had once been attached to the Main Node.
It was trying to find a weakness. It was trying to get inside.
I took control of the mechanical arm and manuevered it in.
Noise was coming in over the comms, that console on the far side of the room. I wasn't listening. I refused to be tricked or taunted! I'll wound this thing, or kill it, whichever I could manage!
The arm’s clamps clenched down on the tendril.
I yanked and spun the arm, aggressively manipulating the controls. The noise over the comm console grew louder. Much louder. It was trying to get in my head. No. Not today.
“JUST DIE ALREADY!” I screamed before giving a harsh pull of the controls. The arm spun abruptly and the tendril ripped, the extremity flailing as it was sent spinning away. Again, the communications noise grew ever louder.
Relishing my victory, I pushed my way across the room and practically punched the switch to turn the console off. It's last desperate attempt to assault my mind in its death throes was foiled.
I cheered. I beat a cosmic horror. I had avenged Orville.
Or so I thought.
It was then that I heard an alert from one of the maintenance consoles. At first I thought it was something the being had done. That it had managed to damage the station before I chucked it away. My heart still hasn't pulled itself out of the chasm it sank into when I read the notification on the consoles screen.
Tether 5 was damaged. The damage had been detected…. 45 seconds ago.
Reality slammed into me as hard as the transport had slammed into us so long ago now. That hadn't been an alien tendril. That hadn't been some monstrous extremity at the end of it. It had been a tether… keeping Orville attached to the station… And I had just sent him spinning into the abyss. The packs on the suits came with their own small maneuvering thrusters, but they weren't powerful enough correct the amount of force with which I had thrown him using the station's arm.
One moment was all that it taken. One hallucination was all that was needed for me to ensure my solitude and condemn an innocent man to a slow, agonizing death.
I couldn't switch the console back on. As much as I wanted to apologize, it wouldn't do him or me any good. I couldn't maneuver the station to go grab him, and he couldn't maneuver back.
No, I'm lying. I'm not turning the console back on, but not because it's hopeless, but because I don't want to hear his condemnations of my actions. Or worse, any forgiveness that I should never in a million years expect to receive.
I'm all alone now. Alone with the dead…
Perhaps Orville will be joining their ranks soon.
[Entry Ends. One Log Remaining. Decrypting. Decrypting. Decryption complete. Beginning Playback.]
My name is Ethan Opplin. I am a Lieutenant. I am an Operations Officer stationed aboard Starpost Paradeus.
I am the last living member of the station's crew. But I am not the station's only occupant.
It has been approximately 37 days past a year since The planet Earth was lost to Nuclear Armageddon. I only know this because of the primary computer. Strict rationing of the remaining resources onboard has kept me alive. But it will run out soon. I have at least another 2 months.
The visitations upon me by my dead crewmates have increased in occurrence and aggression. Reaching towards me, mouths open with teeth bared. Eyes full of rage. It took a week after his death, but Orville joined them.
I remember the first time. The others had been absent. Quiet. No howling screams of hate or accusations of murder. Not even a brief flicker of Merrick’s form over my bed. I'd almost thought I was finally waking up from this abominable nightmare. Until I felt the fatigue of sleep deprivation, the aching muscles and bones that were sure to atrophy due to no gravity, and saw my unshaven face and dirty uniform in the mirror.
It was only when I floated to the corridor that I discovered the source of my reprieve. A spacesuit. Whatever was in it made sure it's feet clung to the deck plating. I couldn't move. I stayed there, transfixed. There were tears in the seams, from which a black ichor oozed.
It's hands lifted towards it's helmet. It's seals corroded before my very eyes, and when the helmet began to lift, I heard the noise. The same noise that had assailed me during my hallucinations that resulted in my murder of Orville. Only now… my fractured mind finally filtered the noise into something I could understand.
Orville’s voice, shrieking and screaming in panic as he pleaded with me to stop. As he begged for his life.
The helmet was removed, and I saw his face. No… what was left. His jaw was severed at one side, dangling at an angle. Coiled around it was a tendril of muted silver that came from within the suit.
Another tendril rested along the side of his head, plunged into his eye socket. His remaining socket was home to the eye of the cosmic beast I’d envisioned.
I wanted to be sick. I wanted to cry. To scream.
A second later, the specter lunged at me with a scream. I howled in terror and shielded myself with my limbs. But nothing came.
After that, I would see him every other week. And each time, he got more bold, attacking me in the control room, lounge, even my room.
As it drew on, even the others got more bold, attacking me themselves! They were closing in because they knew I was getting weaker!
Two weeks ago, I began to move more and more supplies into the command center. I had to contend with the others trying to hurt and stop me, but I was getting it done. While raiding the other crew members’ rooms, I came across something. Hidden cases of sedative in Merrick’s room. He'd been stealing it! That's why there was less than documented! I'd done the right thing killing him. He hadn't been trustworthy!
But that didn't really matter anymore. I finished moving everything I would need to survive until the rations ran out yesterday. It's all here, in the command center. Two hours ago, I breached the remaining airlocks via the maintenance console, making sure to override failsafes. I sealed off the Command Center. Now it's the only place with atmosphere and air.
I hear them beating on the bulkheads. I see them staring at the only cameras I keep running, positioned outside each sealed entrance to the center.
They want me to join them. They want me to end my solitude and join them. I won't. I am the last human alive! I have a duty to preserve our species for as long as I can.
The communications console keeps beeping. There's garbled crackling coming through. Can't remember whether or not I turned it on. I don't think I should answer it. Even if it is real, and it could be my last chance talk to a survivor, it could also be a trap by the ones screaming outside my safe haven. Screaming for me to die. I have to stay here. I have to stay alive…
My name is Ethan Opplen, and I will not submit to the dead crew of Starpost Paradeus.
Godspeed.
[Log Filing Complete. Warning. Data corruption detected. Multiple system failures in progress. Loss of Logs imminent. Beginning Probe Upload. Probe launch to initiate immediately upon full upload.]
Written by CaptainCreepyPastaOG
Content is available under CC BY-SA