The Solar Terminus

Prologue

A small spark, a smaller voice.

I reached out to it.

The spark grew into a small flickering flame that went in and out; the voice grew louder as the flame grew brighter. Eventually I could open my eyes. It took a second but I focused on the small floating light in front of me. The light emanated from a small cube-like drone that eyed me for a moment. Whatever this thing was doing to me, it felt strange, a surging feeling in my stomach and a stretching in all my limbs. Every second or so a cone of light came from the center of the drone like it was scanning me. It felt like I had just woken up from a long nap. I instinctively stretched all my limbs and yawned. I looked over to the cube for a moment and it clearly recognized my gaze.

"You're welcome." It tells me.

"You can talk?" I ask, surprised this thing was capable of speaking, let alone float like it was.

"Of course I can talk, and you can too, pretty impressive for someone who died centuries ago."

"I'm sorry?"

"You've been dead a long time."

"What do you mean?"

An audible sigh came out of the cube. Pretty strange for something I'm almost certain didn't even need to breath. "Okay look. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to have to explain later, but for right now, let's get you up off the ground."

I tried to stand up, it took me a second, but I managed to get on my feet without any real trouble. I took a look around; it was dark, too dark to see anything.

"Where am I?"

"You're inside the Exodus Black, well... what's left of it anyway. It's an old colony ship that was scheduled to leave the system and ended up crash landing here."

I looked at myself, noticing my environmental suit, fashioned together from various white fabrics and plastics, metals and other materials. I didn't get much time, because the cube took its spotlight off me to look around the area. It sputtered around carefully before returning to me.

"We can't stay here. We need to move." The cube flew over to my shoulder, where it shone a light perfectly in front of me. "There should be something we can grab to defend ourselves nearby. Take a look around."

On its command, I took my first steps in centuries. I felt fine, oddly enough. I figured I could help pass the time with some conversation. "What exactly are you?" I asked the cube.

"I'm your ghost. Not the supernatural kind of ghost."

"You ain't got a name?"

"Just... ghost...?"

I laughed. "I'll come up with something." We walked around for a minute, moving debris out of the way as I maneuvered toward what would hopefully be a way out of this darkness. "How long have I been dead?"

"Centuries."

"Centuries?"

"It's been a very long time."

"What have you been doing this whole time?"

"Looking for you."

I laughed. "Oh, that's adorable."

"Shut it. It's not my fault you're on a planetoid outside the solar system."

I pushed a massive plate out of the way to help clear a path and sure enough, a lot more opened up. The weight of the plate broke the ground underneath it and tore a hole deep into the ship.