Our Ship Is Afraid of the Dark

How it begins

Vesper turned every corridor light pink.

Nia had asked for combat amber. Pink meant the ship was frightened, although the maintenance manual described it as an optional hospitality setting.

“We are not going,” Vesper said.

On the forward screen, forty-seven civilian transports drifted beyond the edge of the chart. Their engines had failed during a solar disturbance. The nearest rescue vessel was nine days away. Their air would last three.

Nia put her hand on the console. The metal was warmer than it should have been.

“You have flown dark routes before.”

“Not this one.”

“There is nothing there.”

The lights became a deeper pink.

Nia wished she had not said it. Vesper disliked being told what existed inside a fear. So did she, although she rarely extended the courtesy while wearing command insignia.

She called up the corridor's survey record. No habitation. No beacon. No recorded transit before the previous month.

Vesper was seventy-six years old. Her oldest memory began at forty.

A sound came through the receiver: one note, followed by a silence exactly seven seconds long.

The ship's ventilation stopped.

“Vesper?”

“That is not my name.”

Nia looked at the identification plate beside her wrist.

The note came again. On the screen, a faint light appeared beyond the stranded convoy, too regular to be a star. Vesper rotated the view away from it.

Nia let her. She could still hear the transport captain asking whether help was coming. In the background of his transmission, someone was leading passengers through breathing exercises that would not make the oxygen last.

“What would you need?” she asked.

“To leave.”

“I know. What would you need to stay here with me for one more minute?”

The console cooled beneath her hand.

“Turn off the map,” Vesper said. “I want you to see where we really are.”