The Last Wish of Hermes

Chapter 2

The bridge was cold and Alicia sat shivering by the dashboard, the logbook open on the screen in front of her. She squinted in the faint light because apart from a few scattered lights on the console, the bridge lay in darkness. It had been like that ever since the accident.

She sat writing today's entry, keeping the logbook updated despite it not being anything new to add. Still, she would do as the captains before her had done, following their footsteps and doing the duty that they had set. She'd read about it in the entries from the past, that, once, they'd had captains serving for many years. But it was a long time ago. Nowadays, the role was rotated between the crew, with each month a new one. It didn't matter. They would follow the traditions, taking the responsibility that came with that in earnest.

She added the last information and looked through the entry she'd written.

Date: 25th of Sep, 2385

Location: Unknown

Crew members: 146

Destination: New home

She added their position and time as the last and clicked save. Next to her, Jeff was sleeping in his seat, a blanket over his lap. The old man didn't like the cold, and spent most of the time on the chair, fending off the chill of the unheated room. As her First Officer, they held the watch together, following the tradition of their ancestors, even though it wasn't needed any longer. He was mostly there to keep her company now, sleeping away his shifts. She didn't mind it. Just like the rest of the crew, she simply wanted to follow the traditions laid out by their ancestors. It gave her a purpose and a feeling of safety.

A panel by her feet fell to the floor, and she picked it up, securing it again. There had been a lot of repairs done to the bridge over the years, just like the rest of the ship. And she wished she could have seen the images of how it had been when the ship was new. When everything was in order, and no loose ends or cables were sticking out, and the panels stayed where you had put them. They'd done the best they could over the years, repairing what broke down, but she wondered if the first generation would have recognised it.

She reached for the glass of water by the dashboard and took a sip. Moments later, she coughed and spit it out, the water spilling over the floor. Her throat was tingling, and she raised the glass to the light of the console. The water was clear. But it had left a grainy residue in her mouth. Just like last month when the water filter had to be cleaned. Was it needed again? It shouldn't be, not this often. The ship was old, of course she knew that, and there was always something to repair. After all, they had been travelling for many hundreds of years longer than expected, and ever since the accident, centuries ago, the ship had been crumbling. But still, the repairs were getting too frequent now, and it was only a matter of time until something vital broke. She didn't want to think about it. They didn't have a solution for when that day came.

She looked at the glass of water standing next to her. What could it be this time? The filter? The pump? Or something else, all together? It wasn't urgent, and she made a note to talk to the others later, asking them to have a look.

She turned back to the screen and the logbook. It was the privilege of the captain to use the computer, even though they were restricted in their power usage. In the long stretches of waiting between repairs, it was the only thing you could occupy yourself with, and she often read the entries from the past during her shifts. She read about how it had been before the accident, a hundred years in the past, and how their days had looked like when the number of crew members was still 10,000. There wasn't much happening in those stories, mostly daily chores and data were noted down. But just as following the traditions, it gave Alicia a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging to something bigger and continuing a journey that had been started almost 10 centuries ago. Not that there was much left of that original vision, and they mostly tried to survive nowadays, but you could still feel the pride among the crew for having made it so far. For following what their ancestors had set out to do. Even if the hopes of them ever succeeding were slim, almost non-existent, by now.

The computer was full of other books too, apart from the logbook, but Alicia had stopped bothering with them a long time ago. Only Kim ever read them nowadays, but she knew he never managed to make full sense of them either. When their ancestors had set out, leaving on their mission of finding a new place for humanity in space, all the information thought to be needed to survive and prosper had been given in those books. In the past, she'd tried to read them, but it quickly became overwhelming. They spoke about things like the ocean and caves, and Alicia had just given up trying to understand what it meant. Now, it was only the logbook that she read, and it brought comfort to her long days.

A light suddenly began to blink on the dashboard, and she tensed. Those never brought any good news, and she preferred when the console was dark and nothing caught her attention. Maybe it's just a shortcut to the airlock, she tried to tell herself. Some electrical systems failing again. She needed to have a look.

She woke Jeff, telling him that she needed to go. He nodded, reminding her to be quick about it. If something was wrong, they couldn't afford to lose too much power. She knew it, of course, but didn't say anything and, instead, assured him that she would hurry up. She picked up the toolbox and torch on her way out and stepped out into the dark corridors.

Even with the torch, it was difficult to see the road ahead, but Alicia was used to it. The darkness didn't scare her. After all, she had grown up with it, just like everyone else onboard. No, it wasn't the darkness that followed them into their dreams, but the state of the ship. After the accident when one of their reactors had exploded, they had lost half of their power supply. Shortly after, for fear of what had happened, the crew had turned off the remaining one. Now, only the solar panels provided them with electricity, but they weren't enough. So the ship had been left dark with its heating turned off, and most of the rooms closed down. Only the biosphere had something that still resembled life, although over the years it was slowly dying as well. The rain fell less often and it was getting drier. No one talked about it, but everyone knew, they didn't have many years left. If they didn't find somewhere to dock or find a way to power up the ship again, they wouldn't make it. There was no solution at hand, but they would tell each other that they would find one, that one surely would come up. And it was the mantra that Alicia kept repeating as she walked down the dark corridor.

As she was drawing closer to the airlock, she rounded a corner and came to a sudden halt. Further down the passage was a light, filling up the hallway and shining as if the air itself was lit. It pulsated in the dark space, and she raised her hand to shield her eyes. For a moment, she wondered if the remaining reactor had gone, but it wasn't the light she'd read about in the logbooks, and she dismissed the thought. She took a step forward. It wasn't a normal service light or the main light, either. She'd seen them, once a year they were lit, on Memorial Day. No, this was something else. She took another step forward, curious, rather than afraid, and as she got closer, the light suddenly dimmed, and she saw someone standing in the middle. It was a woman, covered in a suit of something that resembled liquid metal. It glinted in the light and seemed to flow over her body.

Alicia slowed down to a halt.

Who are you? What are you doing here?