Murder on The Skeld

Chapter 1: Introductions

We went looking for life but it seems we'll return empty-handed.

The Skeld is one of many ships that set out to find other lifeforms in the galaxy - anything between bacteria and a type three civilization, really. We're not picky. The main problem is that the galaxy is really fucking big. Even with warp drive, a trip to the TRAPPIST-1 solar system and back takes over two years and there isn't much to do on the way. You wake up, eat breakfast, check the ship's status, work out, eat lunch, analyse some data, play some games, eat dinner, and go back to sleep. The days have a way of bleeding into each other. It felt like an exciting life at first, going into space, looking for life on other planets. Of course it was exciting. I wouldn't have spent ten years training to become an astronaut if it wasn't. But now... part of me wants to say I wish something exciting would happen, but I really don't. If something went wrong now, we wouldn't just be ten people stranded in the middle of nowhere, we would also have failed our mission. We would have failed earth.

The night sky on Polus looks very different from that on earth but we can still recognize the constellations that lie behind earth. Amidst the sea of lights, I manage to identify Virgo. The brightest star in the constellation is Spica, even though it's over two hundred light years away. But a little bit above it shines the star that we call our sun. That's where we're headed. Home.

I look away from the sky to the metal shed in front of me and start moving, my heavy spacesuit making me walk in slow-motion. In the horizon of this rocky landscape lies the giant white ship that is our current home.

My visor shows an incoming call at the top and I wake from my thoughts. I lift my hand to my helmet and push a button to answer. Pich's face shows up on the screen, her dark hair let down to her shoulders. Her gray indoor-suit is buttoned down to display a purple gemstone on her neck. She had it made from ionite from one of the planets we visited last year.

"Is that you Buck?" she asks, probably having a hard time to see my face in the dark.

"Yeah, it's me," I say. "What's up?"

"We're gathering heads for a board game night. Are you in?"

"Yeah, just gotta finish up here," I say. "Give us an hour."

"Great." Someone in the background says something that I can't hear. Pich looks up, then back at me. "You want coffee too?"

"Sure."

"How do you like it? Milk? Sugar? None?"

"Black."

We end the call and I go back to the work I was supposed to be doing. I open the door to the shed and count six long metal cylinders stacked up on two carts. Those cylinders are filled with plutonium rods. Our ship's startup engines run on plutonium and Polus already has a base with tons of uranium drilled out, so this planet is our refuel station. It takes a few weeks for all of the uranium to turn into plutonium, so for the last month, we've mostly just waited for our fuel to process.

"Hey Charlet," I say into my helmet's microphone.

"Yeah? What's up?"

My speakers simulate the voice as coming from behind me so I turn around. I find the figure of another light gray spacesuit a few meters away.

"Let's get this done," I say. "Board games back on the ship."

"Oh fuck yeah. Owen! Where are you? We need to hurry!"

I find a similar suit to my right, but with orange stripes around the arms. Owen stops admiring the rocky landscape and turns around.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," he says. "Let's just get this over with."