A journey to the surface of a planet where something is amiss. Writing this was a clunky but great experience. Like getting that last rep in you couldn’t last time. To extend the metaphor, I tore a lot of fibers on this one, and some still hurt.
Thanks for reading.
Artwork by Leif Heanzo
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0nJ9OK
DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what was done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
A sky of smoke without fire. A sandstorm roiling. A streak of molten atmosphere. Hanging there. Burning there. A scar.
Karlson’s fingertips pound his visor with futile urgency. All he sees has seeped into his helmet, into his head, through his eyes, which burn like nothing he’s felt before. Maybe what he saw had been–
Sitting at the window, then standing when that became boring, Karlson’s toes flexed over the edge of the hemispheric view that might have been beautiful once. No reflection. No fingerprints. He might as well not have been there. He was the only one there. Had been since the sky had rolled in like sand suspended underwater, except there was no water. Anywhere on this moon.
Well, except–Karlson sipped from a thimble-sized container that recycled his sweat and piss. He popped some potassium and sodium for good measure, a little magnesium. It helped him sleep, staved off the hunger for which he had no device to recycle his shit. He’d heard about them.
An illusion. Maybe what he saw was a trick of whatever is in the sky, plus the blips of light from the incoming ship. That must be it. His left hand, the one that doesn’t try to rub his eyes has a gravity all its own, pulling his shoulder down, muscles straining just to keep his spine erect. Guilt is heavy as hell.
Something what’s-his-name-with-the-perpetual sneer had told Karlson, before he set off with that sneer to a new system. Karlson hoped someone had punched it off by now. Anyway, he didn’t have one of those devices. And he’d gotten a six pack for the first time in his life, the hairs on his belly falling into those symmetrical trenches to emphasize the sculpted-putty protrusions. There was no one here but him to admire them. Still no reflection on the glass, so not even him.
That arm, the heavy one–or is it his hand?–drops to his knee, and he lets it. It grew a mind of its own, and it decided it wanted to get the hell away from him but is limited to the fact that it is attached.
“It’s not my fault,” Karlson says.
His hand doesn’t answer, just works on a maneuver that feels like it might detach his shoulder from its socket.
The comm socket crackled. Karlson had smashed it a month ago when the last call he’d received had been the distress signal of a passing cruiser. A one-way communication when he was the one who needed help, him godammit!
He spit in its direction, a mist that forced him to take another drink from his piss thimble.
“Shut up,” he said to it.
It didn’t, and the crackle intensified, almost vocalizing its mutual disdain. Karlson tried to ignore it, folding his only pair of shirt and pants. He mostly walked around naked anymore. The crackle was incessant. He padded over to it.
“I said, shut up.”
The pattern hit him like the ship that had crashlanded him here, so hard he was sure to have a crater in his skull. He leaned closer to make sure, the circuit board throwing sparks at him.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He slammed a palm to the machine, then punched the arming code into the dialpad. He grabbed his shirt and muffled the comm socket and jumped on his bunk, training his ear to the ceiling, waiting for the buzz of extension. Would it be able to handle the storm outside?
Tired of standing, Karlson sits among the wreckage, chunks of his own watchtower smoldering in front and behind him. It paints quite the picture. A lake which, when the breeze is just right, like now, produces waves of flame. Small ones, almost like paper boats burning. Those flames underlight the hull of the cruiser that hangs on life support, along with the storm that never got closer, taunting him from the distance. With what little energy the ship has left, it makes sure Karlson knows it was his fault.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Karlson took his palm to the side of his head, then shook his brain. That made no sense. Carvers didn’t come out this far, and why would they alert him of their existence?
The solar cannons clicked into place. Dust streamed from the ceiling tiles, landing in his eyes. Hand heels in his own sockets, he screamed, “Fuuuuuuuuck!”
The comm socket repeated the message. With his eyes closed, Karlson was sure of it now, their voices, twisted by mutilation were unmistakable.
“It,” Karlson said. “Fuck it.” His right hand busy trying to clear his eyes, he entered the code in with his other, those pads still retaining the grip coating of disuse.
The solar cannons fired, streaks frozen in time until they initiated a bolt of energy not unlike a fault line to split the sky. It was if that storm out there wasn’t a storm at all, but a shell incubating all of his failures, birthing them into one immense tangible force that was enough to take down a ship.
The storm shell divided, the target crashing through, to the ground. A clean nose, flawless hull, layers and shapes complex to a pointless degree, signifying the mark of the House Fleet.
He threw on his suit, still naked, climbed down to the surface to make sure it was real, because it couldn’t be real.
The ship’s final light flickers, then goes dark. The lake of fire ensures Karlson can still see the ship in the murk, since the sky appears to be darkening. Karl’s left hand, which posesses his trigger finger, lets him get to his feet. Maybe it decided there was no hope left, and they were in this together, despite its emergent consciousness, which grew to hate him. Most likely it feels his hatred, too.
Karlson turns his back on his failure and returns to his post where he can remove his helmet and rub the grit from his eyes.
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