Copyright © 2021 Noah Gallagher
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design and logo by: Marina Ovchinnikova
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
For my family, who kept me going.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
1
2
3
4
5
6
PART TWO
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
PART THREE
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
EPILOGUE
About The Author
PROLOGUE
The video stuttered, playback quality hindered by glitches. Frames were choppy and there were distracting cracks and beeps in the audio now and then. The image of Rosalyn sitting in front of the computer in low light was clearly lacking in quality, but the point of the message came across nonetheless. Rosalyn herself was at medium weight and height, with simple-looking glasses, a disheveled dark brown ponytail, and a soft-looking face and brown eyes, all clad in her bulky-looking brown leather coat.
She looked into the camera with sobriety, soft face clashing with her tense body language. “My name is Rosalyn Pulman, crew member of the Novara. The date of recording is April 29th, 2078. We’re about to leave the atmosphere for an estimated eighteen to twenty-four-month journey. I’m recording this message for my family in the event that I am not able to return.” She cleared her throat for a moment before continuing, her words coming together only with great effort. “I don’t expect you’ll ever see this video. …I hope you don’t. If you are, I just want to say I’m sorry, and I miss you and I’ve been missing you.”
Her eyes glimmered a bit with moisture. When she mustered the strength to speak again, it was sharp and quick, with momentary breaks between each sentence. “Just remember that there’s nothing you could have done. It’s okay. This is where I wanted to be.”
That woman hadn’t changed much since she’d last seen her family, and she didn’t feel much of a desire to make this trip any different.
On screen, Rosalyn reached forward to turn off the video.
PART ONE
THE PRIZE
1
Quiet and darkness marked an artificial night on the Novara.
The crewmates were fairly certain that the days and nights were attuned to the time-zone they had set off from, but who could be certain anymore? Would any of them have noticed if the computer had glitched and bounced ahead a few minutes day by day, and they now unknowingly slept during the days and woke during the nights? It didn’t matter out here, with the Novara perched weightlessly in the inky, infinite blackness of outer space far, far away from planet Earth.
Most of them just marched to their own beats anyway, especially while on one of these long ventures from place to place, and interacted with each other somewhat minimally when they weren’t working. With the exciting job just ahead, however, most of them had gone to bed this night at around the same time and now slept soundly in their bunks.
The grayish-blue ship was bulky and boxy, little resembling the old rockets that paved the way for the exploration being commonly done now. Less like a needle-like dart and more of a wide and angular box, it was close to 175 feet wide, twice that much in length, and about ninety feet high. The bow of the ship pinched inward sharply to a thinner head, where a glass window overlaid the main Bridge. Across the port side of the ship was printed in thick white letters the word “NOVARA”, and underneath that in smaller, darker letters, “Foundation for Astronautical and Extraterrestrial Research”. The boxy ship had a V-shaped underside with sturdy, folded-up landing gear close to the bow. The V-shape extended out along the bottom near to the stern but cut off where it touched the overhanging body of the stern-ward section of the ship. The stern’s main body was flanked by two large engines with cylindrical rocket thrusters blazing brightly with bluish-white fire in the blackness. Although not the most massive ship in the world, it was a thick, impressive piece of machinery.
The ship wasn’t built to be roomy for its passengers, however; most of that extra space was reserved for mining tools and especially the loads and loads of minerals they would uncover and store for the trip homeward. That was to maximize the profits, which benefited all parties in the end, though there were certain desires for comfort that the crewmates had to sacrifice. But soon that wouldn’t be a concern any longer; they had only one more stop on their route before they would begin the long journey homeward to deliver their haul and refuel.
That stop was a planetoid called 730-X Zacuali.
Sensors had indicated that by this afternoon, they would approach the unclassified minor planet as the first humans to set foot upon it or even get a good look at it. It was an exciting time.
Here in the sleeping quarters, very economical in size, seven cozy crewmates lay in their bunks, three women in one room and four men in the other. Each slept with soundness, prepared for what the day ahead of them would bring.
Like many of the Novara’s rooms, there were no windows in these, just whitish walls and economically-designed essentials like shelves, drawers, and bathrooms with two sinks all built into the frame of the ship itself and made from the highest quality plastic and metal. Digital clocks above the doors in either room each read “5:59”. Before long they switched to “6:00” and the ceiling lights came softly on, gradually illuminating the rooms in white light. Following the light, both rooms slowly came alive as the crew members sat up, stretched, and headed off to start their days.
“Today is the day, boys and girls,” one of the engineers, Mitchell, said with a stifled yawn, sitting up in his top bunk.
“Mmmph,” Al, another engineer, mumbled as he rubbed his face with two burly hands. There was genuine excitement there, buried underneath exhaustion.
“Today we reach nirvana,” said Randy as he jumped down from his top bunk.
“Actually, we passed nirvana yesterday. Today’s stop is the ninth circle of Hell,” chimed in the flight engineer, Sam, reaching for his toes with a smile on his tired face. The other guys laughed.
With a smile Randy said, “As long as there’s minerals to mine, I’m giddy.”
The lively chatter continued. On the opposite side of the wall of the men’s bedroom, closer to the bow of the ship, Rosalyn took a deep breath and sat up in bed, hers being the top of the set of two bunks. Dr. Terri Jones, a thicker woman with dark skin, braided hair, and a frown on her face had stepped into the bathroom to use the showers, leaving Rosalyn and Shauna at their bunks sitting up and stretching.
“Swear there’s something wrong with the time on this ship. Feels like four in the morning,” Terri grumbled exhaustedly. But almost immediately after stepping into the warm shower, she brightened up and could be heard sighing or humming pleasantly.
It was cold here. But not the kind of cold one could feel on earth; here was something different. No matter what Rosalyn wore,
she always felt that powerful cold here in the deep of space. It was an unnatural and unavoidable sensation, somewhat as if they had gone deep underground on the earth searching for things no one dared search for, where they could technically survive, but without feeling the ubiquitous warmth of sunlight or fresh air. Astronauts all got used to that in a strange way after being in space for so long, and yet Rosalyn could always tell something didn’t feel quite right. Maybe she was the only one who felt that way, but it seemed to her that missing the warmth of the Earth and its atmosphere and sunshine took an unseen toll on the human body. But at any rate it didn’t matter—the payment of space travel, both in money and excitement factor, was more than worth the price to her.
Rosalyn looked at the bedroom door opposite the swinging bathroom door. Outside was a small hallway connecting with one of the ship’s main hallways as well as the door to the men’s quarters. There within, Sam was brushing his teeth and Randy, Al, and Mitchell were heading to the common room to exercise. Rosalyn glanced back to see Shauna still sitting up in her bunk. Shauna’s bleached-blonde hair was extremely short, cropped almost to the head on all sides. She was younger and her figure larger than Rosalyn’s, her skin a tanner shade and her eyes blue. She opened up a smart device and seemed to be browsing through some images. She had a face that wasn’t unattractive, but wasn’t cared for to look attractive either. Rosalyn had never asked her, but evidently she felt there wasn’t much point to prettying up while digging for space rocks. By her own actions, Terri seemed to disagree, while Rosalyn had no real opinion on the matter.
Feeling more energized than she had upon first awakening, she stepped down from her bunk, put on her glasses, and engaged in her own personal workout regimen. Pushups and sit-ups on the floor, and pull ups on the frame of the bunk bed. By the time that was done, she was gasping for air and ready for a shower. She stepped inside the booth to a warm cascade, breathing in the familiar, sterile scent that seemed to be ever-present on every spaceship she had ever been on.
It had been a decently peaceful, quiet night. Only a relative quiet could ever really be reached on the ship, she noticed. Always there was some humming going on, some sound of the billion-dollar equipment doing its job to get them places and do it in safety more so than in comfort. It was especially prevalent when all four of the showers were running at once, as they were now.
Regular as clockwork, she heard a pinging noise somewhere in the walls that always went off in the mornings for about ten or fifteen seconds. Was it getting louder? She stopped and thought, imagining unconsciously the ship’s support systems all failing suddenly. The Novara was kaput and the cold of space suddenly crushed upon them, their bodies being assaulted by unearthly forces of nature science barely understood. A feeling that they weren’t supposed to be here: that they weren’t fully equipped for this journey.
There was always that small but anxious part of her, fearing that the ship’s systems, the things she was partly responsible for as command pilot, would spontaneously fail. A fear she didn’t take too seriously, but couldn’t deny was there, always there, somewhere.
She felt a wave of peace settle upon her as she focused on the warmth of the water on her body.
Dressed in their individualized reddish-tan uniform shirts, crew members with damp, drying hair gradually filed through the hallway and into the dining area, where a large, hexagonal table with attached, plastic-and-metal seats centered the room. Warm yellow lights lit the area from all across the ceiling, and the smell of eggs and sausage filled the place. Posters listing safety procedures or of maps of the Novara or advertising FAER’s exciting and bold space initiatives were posted about the walls. A closed-off hallway leading to the Bridge was at the back of the room. Rosalyn and others sat down and ate their packaged, re-hydrated eggs and similarly unnaturally-cooked sausage set in beige plastic trays. Some had already finished with their breakfast and merely waited for their ship captain, Shauna, to be ready to brief them on the day’s procedures. Shauna herself was finishing up breakfast, a look of contemplation on her face as she ran through the daily itinerary on her smart device. Rosalyn kept her heavy brown coat on while she ate, always trying to keep warm, her slightly-damp hair tied back in a practical ponytail. She wore FAER’s black uniform pants, unlike a few of the others who wore their own, and humble blue and white sneakers on her feet.
Randy White, a heftier man in his late thirties with a thin beard on his chin, slim glasses on his nose, and reddish-brown hair on his head spiked up a bit in the front, led the conversation with an energetic demeanor. Wearing an older-edition reddish-orange FAER uniform—a polo style—Randy looked (and sounded) like a classic FAER employee.
“I don’t think it really matters so much what we find there,” Randy said, leaning back in his chair, “we’re going to make headlines just by reaching a new minor planet this far out.” He was a pilot, but considered himself a jack-of-all-trades when it came to space travel.
“Yeah, I’d still prefer a good load of rare minerals,” Al said frankly, a subtle smirk on his square face.
Sam heckled Randy next. “Hey, maybe we’ll be the first people anywhere to find absolutely nothing there.”
“Ooh, doin’ it NASA style,” joked Mitchell.
Sam smiled and laughed with his whole upper body, tossing back his black hair and his loose-fitting jacket in the gesture.
Randy scoffed, and his glasses slid down his nose about halfway. “No seriously, I was thinking we should dump out all the minerals to lighten the ship’s load and get us even farther. C’mon! Obviously we want to find something. All I’m saying is this is already a big win for us no matter what. Which is pretty rare. It’s nice to know whatever happens, it won’t be a waste of time, you know?” He pushed the rims back up.
A white cat jumped up onto Mitchell’s lap, and he had to set down his fork, mouth full, and grab him and set him down.
“I’ll feed you later, Brady,” he whispered. Scraggly brown hair adorned Mitchell’s head, and he had a general look on his face of being lost in his own thoughts.
His feline purred and raced off, white coat blending into the well-lit walls.
“Glad to hear we’re feeling optimistic. Let’s use that to work hard and make our bosses happy,” Shauna said with neutral expression. Seemed like she wasn’t listening to the conversation, but she was. She wore a slick-looking, jet-black coat with her name and title stitched upon the breast pocket: “CAPT. BEELE”, a belt, blue jeans, and burnished brown boots. It all served to make her look like someone with rugged authority, but who was down-to-earth also, all in spite of her being the youngest of the crew members.
Rosalyn appreciated her, and felt a kinship in their attitudes about their mission. The wonder of space travel was something she appreciated greatly, but did not necessarily revel in the glory of like a couple of the men seemed to. She considered herself one capable of keeping things running smoothly and obligated to do her small part in the continuation of the space age. What more could someone want? Whatever happened, she did her best to be one of the good ones.
She wanted to get what they came for and make it back home safely.
“When FAER actually notices us again, can we complain to them about this dehydrated crap they send us with?” Mitchell said, suddenly speaking up. He had a tendency to disappear and reappear, so to speak, in conversations. He was the largest of the crew members, in spite of regular efforts to get fit in the exercise room when he wasn’t bonding with Brady. He wore a slightly-dirty uniform of reddish-tan, and a short-sleeved shirt and black pants; he looked around with big, blue eyes, and had nicely-trimmed but uncombed brown hair on his head. “They’ve been toying with the idea of getting real stuff on board these ships for years. Sounds like they might need a reminder from the guys who actually have to eat it.”
Al looked up, square-looking face lined and clean-shaven. “Yeah, I’m with Mitchell. I ate better at the old diner I worked at when I was fifteen and making minimum wage.”
Sam smiled again, his narrow eyes exuding an attitude of levity. “Hey, just think of it like being a pioneer out on the western prairies in the nineteenth century, exploring the unknown, scraping by with whatever you can find. That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, except instead of hunting buffalo, we eat re-hydrated eggs and dig space rocks,” Mitchell responded as he stared blankly at his tray, half annoyed and half amused.
Sam slumped back in his chair wearing his trademark, thin blue jacket over his uniform, only zipped up part of the way. “Eh, what we’re really missing on this ship is alcohol.”
Laying comfortably back in her chair, Terri eyed him accusingly. “And whose fault is that? You’re probably still peeing that stuff out.”
A round of laughter came, and Al spit out a few drops of orange juice he’d happened to sip at that moment. Even Shauna smiled, in spite of not losing her concentration on her smart device screen. Even outed as a heavy drinker, Sam just kept grinning.
Shauna spared a moment to look at him and joke, “I’ll put in a word with them to let you bring your own next time.”
Rosalyn gestured to the orange juice spill in front of Al, corners of her lips curled. “There’s plenty of orange juice.”
Shauna continued to stare at her smart device screen, running through some information she kept there. She suddenly spoke to nobody in particular. “SNTNL, what’s our ETA?”
A voice came over the intercom: “SNTNL”, the ship’s guidance system and all-around crew support A.I., their collective “sentinel”. It had a male voice that sounded fairly smooth and human-like, reflecting the latest technology. “We will arrive at our destination in approximately one hour, Captain Beele. The temperature on 730-X Zacuali is currently negative fifty-nine degrees Celsius with average winds of roughly one hundred and twenty-one kilometers per hour.”
Seclurm: Devolution Page 1