Page 2 of Alien Desire
My head spins rapidly, the same old fear engulfing me.
Breathe, I tell myself. Just breathe. But this air feels different in my lungs, tastes different in my mouth, smells different in my nose.
It only reminds me how far I am from home. How far I am from my destination. Stranded between the two, caught in some no-man’s-land.
I force myself to take another deep breath. To put these thoughts from my mind and count to ten. I mustn’t let my imagination run away with me. There is a fuel station here. It’s why we came. To refuel the ship for the final leg of our journey. Someone else will come soon, to fuel up or to rescue me. There is somewhere to stay, somewhere warm with provisions and a communication system. I am not lost. Hope is not lost. The situation is salvageable.
I release Ling’s hand and whisper a goodbye. Then I gather up what I can from the wreckage and walk towards the glinting cube I can see in the distance. As I do, the sun’s rays race outwards, lighting a fire across the ice, white morphing to yellow, red, and then pink. And I get my first view of the landscape: flat and scarred with sharp jabs of rock.
The long trudge is never-ending. Wisps of cloud in the morning sky draw shadows over the surface of the ice, and in my dazed state, it almost appears like dark shapes swimming in the minerals beneath my feet. I shudder and focus on my destination.
The first sliver of doubt infiltrates my bloodstream as I reach the fuel depot. The box of a building, large enough, appears as frozen as the rest of this planet. Frozen and eerily preserved. A building that has clearly not been entered, not visited, in a long, long time.
Our journey through the universe was not a well trodden one, but I’d still expected this depot to be in frequent use. Isn’t that what Georgio had said? I wonder if we deviated from our path somehow, if something went wrong in the navigation. Georgio was an experienced captain. Our crash seems so unlikely. Any minute now I expect to wake in my cabin and find this was all a bad dream.
But I don’t and I chop away ice on the control panel by the door and punch in the universal code. With a sputtering start, the panel whirrs into life, lights flickering on and a generator stirring with a grunt and a groan.
“Initialising atmospheric preparation. Please wait.” The control panel tells me in a clipped, lifeless voice. It means the system is an ancient one. AI voices these days are as expressive and varied as their human counterparts. “Please state your name and ID code.”
“Space Cadet Emma Steele. ID code 74685XTD.”
Lights pulse across the panel as if the computer is digesting this information. Ancient and slow. Terrific.
“Welcome Space Cadet Steele. Doors will open in five Earth minutes.”
I decide to circle the station while I wait. It looks like every other lonely fuel station. Soulless. It could have been taken straight from the desolate stretches of the Americas and dropped straight here.
To one side is the dock with its towering tanks and pumps with pipes snaking into the ground. At the back is a metal shed and through the frosted glass I can see two quad snow vehicles.
These are the only things I find on my circuit, the dull white sun now high above my head and the fiery light now back to its bleached white.
How much time has passed? Are the days and nights shorter here or longer? The midday sun is feeble, though, and I stamp my feet and blow on my numb fingers. This cold is bitter and biting.
“Doors opening,” the computer tells me, and I sigh in relief.
The inside, like the exterior, is ancient and clearly unvisited for some time. Still, it’s warm and working — although the stuttering and groans of the mechanics make me wonder for how long.
I wander through the various rooms. There’s a well stocked medical bay, an equally well-stocked pantry and several cots in a sleeping bay. The vast amounts of dehydrated food packets and tins, rather than bringing relief, cause panic to rise in my throat and I swallow it back down violently. It’s another sign that no one has been here in some time, another clue this place is used rarely.
It doesn’t matter. There is a competent looking communication system housed in the corner of the large communal area. I can make contact with Space Patrol, inform them of the accident, and they’ll send a rescue mission to come collect me. It’ll be a wait, but they’ll come.
I want to head straight there now and send my SOS, but I am no fool. My body may seem unscathed, just a few bruises, scrapes and burns, and everything tender and sore, But I know of the dangers of internal bleeding, a potential unseen death sentence lurking beneath my skin.
The medical scanner in this station resembles an ageing shower cubicle. I read the instructions printed on its glass walls several times to ensure I’m not mistaken and about to be doused in steaming water. Then, when I’m satisfied that this is indeed what I think it is, I strip off my suit, only then realising how strong it stinks of soot and smoke. I discard it on the floor and step into the cubicle.
The tiles are cold on the soles of my feet and I feel strangely exposed as the blue laser beams skim from the top of my head, down my body, to the tips of my toes and back up again.
“Scan complete,” the computer says. “Making medical assessments.” It hums for several minutes then concludes, “No damage detected. Human female in mid twenties. Health very good. Fertility sound, although currently impeded by contraceptive injection.”
“Not sure why I needed to know that but thanks computer.”
“You’re welcome,” she answers, sparkly.
I allow myself a smile and find some bright orange overalls in the supply closets. They are unflattering, swamping my lean frame, but I assume the colour allows the wearer to be easily spotted out there in this world of white. Then I help myself to an energy bar and sit in front of the vast communication system.
The computer is several decades old. I’m unfamiliar with the coding and infrastructure. It’s not like the simple radio processors we have today, ones which will let you speak to any human in the universe — well, just about anyway.
This system won’t connect to any particular channel. It appears to want to route messages down various different webs and intricacies of satellites and space stations. It’s how communications were done in the old days. Messages taking days, weeks, sometimes even years to reach the intended receiver.
