Again and Again

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Her words echoed in my mind. She gave me a smile and pressed her lips to my cheek. I breathed in the scent of her auburn hair.

“So they say” I replied, as was custom. She pulled back to look at me and gave a slight nod. This was not the first time we had gone through this goodbye. There had been hundreds of times before this, though this time felt different. She stood on the deck next to my ship, her hair still in the artificial air of Nuna. The great dome that expanded over the entire aircraft had just turned on for the morning. Instead of looking up into the vast night sky, it was now a faint pink golden, to replicate a sun and sky that only our grandparents had ever seen.

“It’s time to go.” Guardo said from behind me. I gave her one last look and gingerly placed my hand over her stomach. Her hand rested over mine and we held it there for a second before I turned to leave. I climbed onto my ship, The Ohio, a name I had heard my grandfather use many times in my youth. Once I was settled into the captains seat and Guardo was seated next to me, the screen in front of us turned on with a slight hum. I ran through the checks before launch quickly, my mind still on the news I had learned of last night.

“And blast off.” I teased. The Ohio slowly lifted off the ramp. I looked out the window to the vast expanse of our home-base aircraft, Nuna. The only home I had ever known or would know. The aircraft resembled a long forgotten town on Earth. When our grandparents had left their dying planet, they had made sure that this vessel, bound for another galaxy, had felt like home to them. Though they were never meant to reach that galaxy. It would be their children’s, children's, children that finally reached that new planet. And those generations that came after our grandparents never knew the Earth or its green pastures and blue skies. Yet that is what Nuna resembled. Buildings connected by roads and fields of grass under a dome that replicated the Earths sky. There were clouds scattered across it in the day and a moon hanging by itself at night. It was an ode to the past. But not our past. My Grandfather used to tell me stories about his youth, before the plagues and wildfires had taken most of the Earth from him. He told me how they would all pile into his fathers old electric truck and would go on road trips to see all the beautiful places in their country. He told me about a place called the Grand Canyon. It was a canyon so vast and deep and beautiful, it would bring a tear to his eye when he spoke of it. His family went every summer to the Grand Canyon.

“Every time I would see it, it would look different” he would say. He gave me a picture that showed the pinks of the canyon ripping through the earth, juxtaposed within the blue sky. I would stare at that picture when I was young, trying to imagine a world that big and beautiful and trying to fathom how the billions of people who called that place home, had let it die. When they had the chance again and again to save it. That picture is now taped next to my chair on The Ohio. Right next to a picture of my wife with her auburn hair.

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space.” Guardo grunted from next to me as The Ohio began to hover into the airlock chamber.

“Or so they say.” I said quietly. Going from fake gravity to none was tricky, but luckily I had been doing this for 13 years and The Ohio barely even moved when the pressure let out and the door opened, welcoming us into space. I heard Guardo breathe a sigh of relief. He had been my crew member going on 3 years now, and was still nervous every time we left Nuna. I typed in our coordinates on the dash and let The Ohio take over. She quietly glided out into the zero gravity of space.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.” Guardo said quietly from beside me. I glanced over at him.

“What?” I asked “the transfer?”

“No,” He motioned with his hand out the window in front of us. “This. It’s beautiful.”

I looked out the window at the stars shining in front of us. The closest galaxy acting like spiral streaks of light that cut across the deep black. After all these years I had taken it for granted. But his statement made me sit back and admire it like I once had when I was a boy. I glanced at my grandfathers picture next to me. Same beauty, vast and majestic, yet different.

“What’s the job?” Guardo asked.

“Mission control got wind of some unusual activity on the starboard.” I replied, stretching my arms in front of me and rolling my shoulders.

“Probably another glitch. They are getting more and more frequent these days.” Guardo said. I nodded my head in answer. The past few months we had been called out into space multiple times due to sensors going off on the exterior of Nuna. It was a false call each time we went to check. If these sensors continued to go off, that meant something was wrong with the basic mechanics of the spaceship and that would be a serious problem to fix. The Ohio glided around Nuna with ease and before I knew it we were coming upon the coordinates of the signal. I typed into the screen in front of me, a smile playing on my lips when I heard Guardo take in a sharp breath.

“What the hell is that?”

Confused, I looked over at him but he was staring in front of us, at the side of Nuna where the coordinates were taking us. When I turned and saw it, a cold chill ran down my spine. In front of us, no more than 20 feet away, there was —something—on Nuna, as big as a man and it was moving, almost suctioning onto the metal of the ship. It was alive, without a suit, and attached onto our home. Without hesitating I took The Ohio out of auto, pivoted her sharply around, and started to accelerate.

“Go, go, go!” Guardo yelled, turning in his seat to look behind him.

Panic started rising in my throat. I had never seen anything like it before, and deep in my gut I knew we needed to be far away from that thing.

“Is there an issue?” Came a smooth voice from the dash. It was mission control wanting to know why we had turned around. I fumbled for the button on the dash to respond when Guardo let out a yell.

“Doc! Go!”

I glanced behind me and then multiple things happened at once.

That—thing—had jumped off Nuna and was careening through space right towards us.

I pressed the button to respond to mission control.

The thing opened itself up, almost split in half and I realized in horror, that we were not going fast enough.

I opened my mouth to let out a scream and—

I watched The Ohio fly towards the airlock for a second, a smile on my lips. He had been so happy when I had shared the news with him the night before. The look on his face, the pure joy, would be something I would never forget. Once The Ohio was out of my sight, I made my way to mission control, my hand already absentmindedly touching my stomach. When inside I went through my usual greetings, stopping at my chair and smirking at the man seated next to it.

“Rough night, Quinn?” I teased. Quinn groaned in reply. I knew I had left his engagement party and was already asleep hours before he even considered slowing down. “Well lucky for you, this should be fairly routine.” I said, switching on my computer and finding the dot labeled The Ohio on the screen in front of me. I watched as it sailed out of the airlock and into space, making its way to the coordinates we had sent.

“It’s probably another glitch, Captain.” Quinn said with a yawn, “Fourth one this month.”

I nodded, expecting the same and yet worried what that would mean for the future of Nuna. I prayed that it would be something our engineers could fix, unlike our other problem. The power on Nuna had been draining quickly these past few months. It was something they had not yet been able to understand. If it continued on this trajectory, Nuna would never reach her destination. My hand touched my stomach again. I would do whatever it took to make sure she did. Just then my computer pinged with a message.

“I hope it’s a girl. I hope she is just like you.” The message read. I smiled and began to type a response when Quinn said,

“Why is Docson turning around?” I looked up at the dot that was The Ohio on the coordinates and sure enough the screen showed that it had made a sharp turn and was speeding away. I leaned towards the microphone in front of me.

“Is there an issue?” I asked and then sat back, waiting for a reply, eyes glued to The Ohio dot. A few seconds passed and then the audio came through. I heard Doc let out a terrible scream and then just as suddenly as it started, it was cut short.

A feeling of dread washed over me. The dot that represented The Ohio on my screen blipped out and was gone. We all sat stunned, the room utterly silent around me. I became distinctly aware of my hands sitting in my lap, heavy. Of my breathing, in and out. I began a silent mantra in my head. “Anything but that. Anything but that. Anything but that.” I repeated.

Finally I heard myself say, “Quinn, get them back online.” My breathing felt shallow, my voice strained. Quinn began to frantically type on his computer next to me. I became distantly aware of people shouting around me, but my mind was fixated on the spot that The Ohio should have been. My mantra continued. “Anything but that, anything but that, anything.”

“Quinn.” I bit out. This time with force. “Get them back online!”

But Quinn sat back in his chair, a look of disbelief on his face. He looked over at me, staring blankly.

“Anything but that.” I thought.

“I..I can’t.” He whispered.

“Why not?” I asked, the words ripped from me with a sob. I already knew what he was going to say and I already knew it would break my heart.

“They’re…they’re gone. The Ohio. It exploded.”