There was still something out there. And it was following them.
“Ship log,” the captain said. The small beep indicated that the computer was recording. “It’s been several weeks now since we lost the connection to the shipping lanes. There has been no response from any of the probes we sent out, and we fear the worst. Not just for us, but for the federation. Something bad must have happened for everything to have gone dead.
“The crew is worried, and they are even more worried when I act not worried. I admit, I didnt think this would be how my career ended; surrounded by a mutiny waiting to happen. I think the fact that no one can do anything about our situation is the only reason why it hasnt happened yet.
“Navigation is still drawing a blank. Best case is that, travelling as we are, we find a shipping lane. We re-orient ourselves and head to the centre. Even with our nav out, if we can get to a lane, we will be fine until we find some friendlies to dock at. Worst case. Well, worst case is exactly what everyone is thinking. We drift forever, die out here, and are never found. Im making a very specific point to not think about that.
“Food stores are running low, even with rationing, we will run out at some point. The best case there is still pretty bad. We find a planet, or something, out here with something that is edible. Doesnt have to be pleasant, it just has to not kill us. But Ive run the numbers, Lieutenant Cosgrove has run the numbers, the computer has run the numbers. There is nothing out here. Its not uncharted space either. Theres just nothing. Any planet or whatever would be a rogue body. There would be no star for it to grow things with. Everything out here would be dead. There is a star off in the distance. Its how we are navigating for now. Computer says its a few light years off.
“Which brings me to the unfortunate state of the engines. Theyre fucked. This bucket was not meant to travel for this long without a service. The dual edge of these old boats. Theyre cheap to run, so long as you look after them. Without a pit stop, eventually even the thrusting engines will eventually crap out on us and we’ll be really stuck. And thats before we get to the fuel issue. For that, its the same as the food issue.
“At our current speed, that star will stay a small prick of light for even the most optimistic estimates for how long we’ll survive out here. The crew want to turn around, head back the way we came. But we spun when that wave, or whatever it was, hit us. Without nav, no one can say which way is right. The star is a point, fixed. Its the best we got and I dont want to waste fuel turning around because of -”
“Captain to the bridge,” the voice of the captains second said over the PA. His voice was calm and confident. The man should be captain, the actual captain had thought on many occasions.
“Im on my way,” she replied, tapping the badge on her chest. “Ship log pause,” she added. The beep indicated that it was paused.
The door made that noise that the captain didnt trust as it opened and she stepped out onto the bridge. The door closed quickly behind her, nearly catching the hem of her shirt. She glared at the door as if it could see and would feel any remorse. She turned back to the bridge and strode to her place in the centre.
“What is it?” she asked the room.
Next to her was her vice captain, former colonel, Thierry Fornaud, her second in command, the owner of the voice that had summoned her here. He had been well on his way to his own command when he had run afoul of someone in the centre. He had been stripped of most of his titles and relegated to work on the trawlers, and occasionally, on the cargo ships that ran to and from the rim – the Ta’Lun being one of several thousand running in all directions all the time.
Down from the two of them, sitting at navigation and control, the two lieutenants. Melissa Cosgrove, Chief Navigator. A nervous woman, even a greeting would make her jump. But she was good at what she did. Right now she was buried under the console, stripping wires and trying her damndest to get something – anything – out of the navigation computer. At the con, Lieutenant Sven Alicent alternated between staring at the parts of Cosgrove he could see and out the brightly lit window in front of him. Slightly to the left was the star they had been pointing towards for almost a month now.
Behind her and Fornaud was communications – currently unmanned. Two ensigns, people the captain had brought onboard at their last stop whose names she had not yet remembered worked the seven or eight other systems that the bridge held.
The captain took her seat and waited.
“Show her,” Fornaud said crisply, taking his seat next to the captain.
“Thierry?”
“Just look,” this was unlike him. He always told her what was going on. Making her see before he spoke meant something bad.
The window that allowed the bridge crew to look out ahead of them changed to a viewscreen with a video paused on it. As it filled the window, it started playing.
The video was from an external camera at the rear of the ship. It was for inspections to ensure the outside of the engines were in good condition. She watched as it shook with the motion of the ship through space. Beyond the ship, behind it in space, flashes of light could be seen every so often. Irregular but frequent, they showed on the screen as white dots that came and went randomly. And then, suddenly, stopped. The video ended and the viewscreen was replaced by the window once again.
“You call me to show me something I already know?” she asked.
“Its different,” Fornaud said. “Its not the same one.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because,” Alicent said in his weird accent, “the one thats been following us is there,” he pointed straight ahead out of the window where a similar set of lights had started to blink in a very similar way to the ones from the video.
“It passed us?” the captain shouted, standing. “How? When?”
“We dont know,” Fornaud said, taking the captains arm and guiding her back to her chair. “But the fact that it can is troubling.”
“How do we know the one ahead of us isnt the new one?” she asked. “How do we know that it actually passed us?”
“We do have footage of that too,” Fornaud replied. “It passed us about an hour ago, and the footage you just saw was about twenty minutes ago.”
“Theyre talking to each other,” the captain said.
Fornaud nodded. “Our … friend had given up on trying to communicate with us. But it seems to have attracted another.”
“I have a question,” Cosgrove said, pulling herself out of the navigation console. “If I can,” she added nervously. Cosgrove had been the first to discover the creature following them almost immediately after they had found themselves in their current predicament.
“Go ahead,” the captain said.
“Why did the one following us suddenly rush past us?” she asked. “If theyre the same species, all the way out here, youd think that theyd want to interact with each other,” she blushed slightly.
“Interact?” Alicent asked not so innocently. “What do you mean Mel?”
Cosgrove went an even brighter shade of red and tried to stammer out something.
“Leave it, Lieutenant,” the captain said. “Shes right. Why did they separate from each other like that?”
“Perhaps they arent friendly towards each other?” Fornaud ventured.
“And here we are caught in the middle of their little turf war,” the captain muttered. “Stay the course, Lieutenant,” she said to Alicent who nodded cautiously and went back to his work. “And you, Lieutenant Cosgrove, come with me.”
“Ma’am!” Cosgrove said and followed the captain back to her quarters.
The captain waited for the door to close and collapsed into her armchair, motioning for Cosgrove to do the same.
“Ma’am?”
“Its Talia in here,” the captain said. “Were off the record, etc and whatever. I need to know if you can do something for me.”
“What is it, Ma.. Talia?”
“The lights those creatures give off, its some form of communication. The one that has been following us has been trying to talk to us, thats what we believe, correct?”
“I believe so, yes,” Cosgrove replied, sitting uncomfortably on the other chair.
“Do you think its possible for us to translate whats being said? Not literally, of course. I doubt creatures like that would have a one to one translation with our language. But something. The idea of what theyre saying.”
“I .. I dont know,” Cosgrove replied. Her stammer this time was not from nerves, but from her thinking. As the captain had been speaking, she had already started to consider how they could do something like that.
“This is just between you and I,” the captain said. “There is no reason, yet, to bring anyone else into it, ok?”
“Of course,” Cosgrove nodded.
“Use the ships computer. From in here. Requests from here arent logged. Itll keep anyone from accidentally discovering what youre up to.”
“And if I am able to do this? What are you going to do?”
The captain smiled. “Im going to talk to our friends and get them to tell us which way home is.”
The Ta’Lun, lost in space, was drifting quietly between two sets of flashing bright lights. Two creatures seemingly interacting with each other, or perhaps, two tentacles of the same creature drawing the small ship into its waiting mouth.