Titans

[17] Merc

The Genesis [77:58]
Location: The Hermes Starship

"She woke up."

Cal and Lilith spin around to look at me, seated on the long, firm couches that curve across the observation deck. The misty starlight from the massive wall-sized window before them seeps into the room, coating half their faces in a dim, white glow.

Lilith swallows. "Is she okay?"

I don't look at her as I reply, moving instead down the centre of the room and taking a seat near Cal. "She had a little trouble comprehending the fact that she'd been shot. But then again, that's completely understandable. I mean, what kind of girl when meeting someone for the first time shoots them instead of shaking their hand?"

"God, Merc, how many more times do I have to say I'm sorry?"

"Until you mean it."

"Of course I fucking mean it, you–"

"Woah! Okay. That's enough." Between us, Cal raises both hands, signalling us to stop. Lilith finally shuts her mouth. A few moments later, she stands up and walks out of the room, doing nothing to mask the sound of her feet slapping against the metal floor of the ship.

I give Cal a look. He shakes his head. "So how is she?" he asks.

I sigh. "She broke a stitch when she woke but the wound is healing. She's going to be fine."

There's a stretch of silence. The world outside obeys, the wind barely a whistle as it glides over the barren landscape. My breathing, although soft, rings out loudly. There's a feeling that we're the loudest things in the world.

"As soon as you can," Cal says, "you need to take a look at the engines. I think they're broken."

I frown. "What? The ships engines?"

"What other engines would I be talking about?"

"Do I look like I know how to fix an engine?"

"You didn't look like you could patch up a bullet wound but look at Atara now – she's alive and well. I'm hoping your talent for fixing people works on machines as well."

"Bro, I was pumped up on adrenaline. I didn't know what I was doing!"

Cal exhales and stands up. When standing, he towers over me like a skyscraper – tall and thin. "You know what that was the other day? The noise, the earthquake, the bright light in the sky?"

I stand up, unable to cope with the vast height difference. The last thing I want is for him to be able to look down his nose at me. Even standing though, he still rises above me a good inch. "Sure," I say, "a nearby star exploded."

He shakes his head. "It wasn't just exploding. It was being created. The damn thing was being born."

"I'm sorry, I don't follow. What are you trying to say?"

"Well, I did some research. There's a whole library of books about space on this ship – stars, planets, nebulas, black holes, you name it. And in one of them it talked about the birth of stars. When they're formed, they can release shock waves of expanding nebula gas – the kind that rammed into us the other night. My guess is that it did something to the engines."

"And?"

"And now they don't bloody work! Look, mate. If we want to figure out what's going on, we've got to get moving first. We can't do that if our only transportation is out of order."

"Then get down to the engine room and fix it! Don't wait around for me to do something about it. I have other things to worry about."

Cal meets my eyes with a firm, dark-brown gaze. "Atara will be the least of your worries if we don't get this ship operational and off the ground."

"And why would that be?"

He sends me an exasperated look and drags me over to the full-wall window. With his right hand, he points up at the solitary star – too distant to be a sun, but too alone to really be considered anything else. "Since when does the night sky look like this? Where are the constellations? The galaxies? The other planets? There's no sun. No moon. No stars. Nothing except that tiny little dot."

I don't say anything. Above us, the star-sun glows slightly blue, like the bright eye of a God, watching over us.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking, the ground is all rocks and dirt. No plants because no sun, right? And if there's no sun, clearly it hasn't been formed yet. It has to be created, like that star was." He gestures again to the pinprick of light, the star amidst its own personal sea of darkness. "It's been some three days since we first woke. We still haven't seen daylight. Or starlight. If the sky was being obscured by clouds, we wouldn't have been able to witness the birth of that star. Even the fact that it was formed right before us is a pretty big hint as to what's going on here."

"And that is?"

I don't need to ask however. The pieces of the jigsaw are sliding into place. It's crazy. It's impossible. But there are the facts, disguised as a little blue light, literally staring us in the face.

Cal exhales. "This is the beginning."