Chronicles of the Desolate

🪐Frozen

Lightning crashed and the ship rattled around her, and stars spun outside. Fire streamed from the left flank: a meteoroid strike near the main generator. Flashes. Screams. A howling across the sky.

Below, a tortured landscape of smoke and fire rose toward her. Too fast. Couldn't slow down. Emergency chutes failed.

Darkness for unremembered time.

Gratitude and disbelief at continued existence: the ship should have exploded. Ought to have. Perhaps would have been better. Seven of the crew still alive, seven out of twenty-nine.

Aspen, Ajax, and five others survived. Captain Ray, did not. Jax immediately took charge. Issuing orders to help the three injured.

"Avichii." Aspen snapped to attention.

"Yeah Jax?" During the trip, Aspen sort of befriended Jax and her boyfriend, Dennis, but Aspen got along better with the Ship Mind Gregorovich; connecting with him more on a personal level.

"Check the cryo tubes and report to me their status."

"Yes ma'am!" Aspen turned and walked down to the hall, picking her way over to the cryogenic room, swearing when she stud her toe.

"Language, my lady," Gregorovich chuckled.

"Oh sorry, didn't know you were a non-blasphemer,"

"You'll find I do not care much for bad language, nor quarreling amongst my crew mates,"

"Yeah yeah, I'll try to keep it PG 13 for ya,"

Gregorovich opened the door for her and she waltzed through into the room. On one side of the room, lockers lined the wall, and opposite them, cryogenic tubes lay; cracked, broken. Liquids spilled all over the place. All Twenty-eight of them. Including the three spares. Thirty one broken.

"Gregorovich.... damage report?"

The Ship took a few moments to run an analysis.

"Twenty-nine broken beyond repair, cryo tube number twelve has a slim chance of repair, being only at 49% damage. Cryo tube five has survived unbroken and intact."

Aspen paused. Only one tube working. She walked over to the tube still working. The glass was cracked, but it could still function. Her fingers brushed the surface. "Greg...." Aspen whispered. "What are the chances of getting rescued before we run out of rations?"

The ship mind was silent for a while. Just as Aspen opened her mouth to repeat the question, Gregorovich answered.

"We landed on a volcanic planet. Any passing ships would not see our heat signal, we're invisible. The only chance we have is if someone happens to look out their window as they pass by..." he trailed off.

"Yeah." Aspen's fingers twitched. "I got it, " The girl was silent as she made her way back to the main level where everyone was.

"Avichii." Jax barked. "How are the ice boxes looking?" She asked. Aspen paused for a moment, the feeling— the instinct to live arose like an awakening animal—

"All broken."

Jax narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure?"

Aspen hardened her face, not wanting to betray any emotion. "The chemical storage unit is completely destroyed, and the tubes shattered."

Jax stepped up to Aspen, towering over her.

"Greg."

Aspen's heart stopped for a second. She's been caught out. There was a moment of silence, before Gregorovich's voice echoed everywhere. "There is one cryo tube that can be used but—"

The brunette saw the fist coming from the corner of her eye, but was slow to move.

Thud.

Jax's fist connect with Aspen's cheek and the smaller girl stumbled away.

"Liar!" Jax yelled. "Why did you lie?!" Jax stomped on Aspen's ankle when she tried to get away.

Aspen yelped when a strong hand gripped her hair and pulled her to her feet.

"You're just trying to save yourself! You selfish brat!" A fist connected with the other side of her face and Aspen landed on her back. She scrambled backwards as quickly as possible over rubble and broken pieces of ship.

Gregorovich's shout for Ajax to stop rang out, but the woman advanced slowly. Losing her boyfriend and Captain had her on the edge, and her friend lying, wanting to save herself had pushed her over.

"Greg—!" The barely operating door slammed shut between the two women.

Aspen was gasping loudly, trying to calm her heart. She could hear Ajax's muffled yells and kicks through the door.

"I suggest you get to that tube Miss Avichii," Gregorovich said softly. "I should have kept quiet."

"No, you shouldn't have lied," Aspen realized she'd slit her hip when she was thrown to the ground and attempting to escape. She used a sharp piece of metal to tear the bottom of her button up shirt and pressed it to the wound. Her ankle was throbbing, and she hoped it wasn't broken.

The girl made her way to the only functioning tube, and reluctantly striped to her underclothes. She left the wound to bleed, knowing that the ice would stop the flow.

Just before she climbed in, she said: "Thank you Greg. I'll see you soon, good luck."

The ship mind didn't say anything until the door had swung shut. "Best of luck to you too, my human." He whispered into the hot, humid air.

And for him, something worse than death: isolation. Loneliness, utter and absolute. A King of infinite space, bound within a nutshell, and plagued by such dreams as to make him scream and scream and scream....