Call of the Void

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Xander gripped the sides of the airlock doors and stared back into the void, wrestling with the impulsive urge to test that theory. His fingers slickened with sweat, trapped inside the protective skin of his synth-suit like fat little caterpillars sealed in their cocoons. He licked his dry, cracked lips and shifted his gaze down into the ever-dark. But it didn't matter where he looked. Blackness surrounded him, a vast sea of nothingness that yawned across the cosmos as far as the eye could see. Drifting aimlessly in the void of space, the sudden urge to jump flickered across his consciousness. It called to him, intruded on his thoughts, and dared him to take that little step. Come drift along the currents of emptiness, merge with the ocean of stars.

Xander tightened his grip, leaned forward towards the void, and screamed as loud as he could, the pull of his vocal cords primal in their rage against the emptiness without and within. He screamed into the void, challenging it, defying it. He screamed until his throat tightened and his voice cracked. Then he stopped, breathless, and waited for a reply.

***

Xander Solus hadn't felt comfortable in his own skin for a long time. Having a name better suited to some kind of dashing space pirate rather than a lanky, nearsighted psychologist didn't help. In fact, he was certain it played a role in many of his idiosyncrasies. That, and his mother. Thanks for that one, Freud.

Now his mental anguish manifested in a more external fashion. Fidgeting, Xander plucked at the fabric of his space suit, his sweat bonding the protective layer to him like glue. With the asteroid belt drawing near, Hooper ordered them to don their suits and strap in. A simple but irritating precaution. The skin-tight coating hadn’t been crafted with comfort in mind, the tough material a souped-up combination of nylon, Kevlar, and a smart-tech fabric called Betaderm. Beta Derma- literally a second skin. Infused with nanotech, the Betaderm fibers acted just like the body’s nervous system, communicating with the rest of the suit and wearer to track vitals, control and monitor oxygen levels, and wick away moisture. Except the boys in the lab hadn’t really solved the latter as well as they’d hoped. Xander could feel his sweat trapped against his skin, oozing into every crack and crevice, driving him bonkers.

"You’re only making it worse, Doc.”

Xander’s head snapped up, cheeks flushed, and met Hooper’s unamused gaze. He uttered a nervous chuckle and clasped his hands tightly in his lap. “Sorry. You’d think I’d be used to these things by now.”

Hooper stared at him flatly, taking his measure, then nodded curtly and turned back to the console. “Mmhm.”

Xander blew out his cheeks and focused on anything but the front of the ship where the rest of the crew cast back their judgmental stares. He could practically hear their thoughts, their feelings etched perfectly in their captious stares and begrudging smiles. He wasn’t meant to be here, a last-minute add-on made possible only by his mother’s political puppeteering. She was good at that. A mastermind at getting her way, no matter the obstacles. The press called it ambition. Xander called it exploitation. Manipulation. Abuse of power. Take your pick. But he couldn’t very well pass up the opportunity to ditch their dying world behind for the outermost reaches of space, to find something new. It's not like he had anything to hold him back, not even a mother's love. She wanted to get rid of him as much as he wanted to go. Good riddance, you old vampire.

Still, it would have been nice to not be an outcast here, too. But amongst the six-person crew, his merits paled in comparison to the rest, qualifying him to do literally nothing on board. No long-standing career in the Ceres Academy like both Hooper and Anderson, no laurels in engineering and mathematics like Clive and Stanton, or an astrophysics prodigy like Rusk. No years of physical and mental training under his belt. He could barely read a map for god’s sake, let alone the ship’s navipanel. Compared to them, he was utterly useless. Worse than that, he thought bitterly. You’re a shrink, here to make sure they don’t lose their marbles, and they resent you for it.

The worst part about his role onboard was that he wasn’t even qualified to do that. His doctorate was entirely research-based, not practical. But Mother Dearest put forth a surprisingly convincing case for why the crew would need a psychologist. Someone to help stabilize the mental state of the crew, she said. To help unravel complex issues that arise from long-distance space travel and provide a therapeutic outlet. The board ate it up, either ignorant or indifferent to the difference between what she painted and what Xander actually did for a living.

The night before launch, Xander had argued with her at length that he wasn’t a therapist, that some psychologists were, in fact, something else entirely, and that he hadn’t gotten his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology to become a glorified space counselor, but she dismissed him as she always did. “What difference does it make?” she asked, waving her wine glass like some kind of magic wand. “You got the job. Simple as that. Now you just have to fake your way through it without fucking it up. Think you can manage that?”

Yes, Mother. Xander rolled his eyes at the memory, still miffed. But here he was, two months aboard the Aeonian and fucking up on his own accord. Forget professionally, he couldn’t even get them to talk to him personally, at least not beyond the casual niceties. He sighed and sank back further into the stiff back of his chair. Can’t fuck up what you can’t do in the first place, I guess. He closed his eyes and drifted off, recalling the last paper he’d read on information processing and how it affects the perception of self.

A blaring alarm jarred him awake, startling him upright with a soft snort. He blinked rapidly, then set his glasses in his lap and screwed his knuckles into his eyes. “What’s happening? Did we hit something?”

Hooper slammed his fist against the console, knocking the gauges back to center before studying them once more. He shook his head. “Nav for the asteroid guns is on the fritz again. Damn thing couldn’t track a fucking moon if we sat right in front of it. Gotta go down and hit the reset again. Anderson, you’ve got the console. I’ll head-”

“I can do it,” Xander offered, replacing his glasses.

Hooper hovered halfway out of his chair and stared back at him, dismayed. “Doc, I don’t think…”

“It’s just pressing a button, right? I’ve probably seen you do it a hundred times now. I think I can manage that much.”

Hooper rubbed his hand down the length of his face and uttered a heavy sigh. “Doc, I really don’t think…”

“Please,” he pleaded, “let me earn my keep somehow. If I fuck it up, feel free to jettison me through the airlock. You can tell my mother I got lost on my way to the toilet and hit the wrong button. She’d believe you, no questions asked.”

Anderson sniggered, then covered it up with a gentle cough. Clive rolled his eyes while Stanton seemed to evaluate the possibilities of enacting such a plan. Rusk simply looked at him, a small shred of sympathy in the nebulous of her blue-green eyes. Hooper blew out another sigh, then sat back down in his chair and waved him off. “Be quick about it then, Doc. And put your helmet on, so if you do get sucked out of an airlock by mistake, we can go and get you. I’ll be damned if I lose even a single person aboard my ship.”

Xander saluted, feeling stupid and embarrassed the moment his arm flew up to his forehead. “Yes sir!”

“Don’t forget the gravity lock on your suit, Xan,” Rusk reminded him, watching him struggle with unbuckling his seatbelt. “We don’t need to rescue you from getting stuck floating in the middle of the mess again like last time.”

Xander stopped fumbling with his seatbelt, grinned back at her stupidly, then tapped the gravity lock icon on his suit’s display panel on the back of his left forearm. Instantly, his body felt heavier and his feet clamped down to the floor like magnets. “Thank you, Ilene. What would I do without you?”

“Float away, apparently,” Stanton grumbled.

Xander flushed, then slapped the button on his seatbelt harder than he meant to. The lock disengaged finally, the belt instantly floating upwards like a big, fat middle finger. Now that you’ve made a complete fool of yourself once again, you can leave. Nice job, Xan.

Scrambling to get away, Xander slammed his fist against the exit pad, glanced over his shoulder back at the rest of the crew, then squeezed through the doors before they’d fully opened.

“Helmet, Doc,” Hooper called after him over his shoulder.

Damn him, how did he know? Xander spun back and grabbed his helmet, screwed it in place, and knocked the side of it for emphasis. “Be back in a jiff!” Jiff? What are you, eighty? God, you’re an idiot sometimes.

Rusk turned back and offered him a smile. A pity smile, but a smile nonetheless. Feeling more awkward than before, Xander flapped his arm in a pathetic wave, then quickly rushed out the door. He jumped slightly as the command bay doors whooshed shut behind him, the magnetic lock hammering home with a heavy thud. Shake it off. You’ve got an actual job to do.

A so-called marvel of engineering, the Aeonian was crafted with a small crew in mind- the bare minimum needed to investigate the strange anomaly that appeared randomly within the asteroid belt- and divided into three sections, like the body of an insect. At the front of the ship stood the command center, equipped with the brains needed to complete the mission. Flight controls, navigation, communication- all the bells and whistles one would expect from a state-of-the-art spacecraft. The bulky thorax of the metallic bug served as the living quarters, the mess hall, bunks, and oxygen reserves all smooshed together as a veritable lifeboat in the unlikely event something went wrong. And at the back of the ship, the Aeonian’s abdomen functioned as the power center, housing the engineering decks, the ship’s reactor core and dual engines, power supplies, and, of course, the manual controls for the asteroid guns. No doubt installed as an afterthought, Xander liked to imagine the engineers kicking themselves for forgetting to install those controls in the console, then applauding themselves for placing it in perhaps the least convenient place possible. Because at least they managed to fit it in somewhere, right?

Xander rolled his eyes and trudged on. He navigated his way through the Aeonian’s spliced sections as quickly as he could manage, the whoosh and slam of every door keeping time. His feet felt heavy, tromping down hard as the magnetic lock clicked on and off with every rise and fall of his boots. By the time he reached the manual control panel for the asteroid guns, he was huffing, his breath fogging up his helmet screen.

Panting hard, Xander bent over at the waist and tried to catch his breath. “Come on, Xander! Get it together,” he heaved. Blinking past the condensation gathering on his lenses and helmet, Xander sucked in a steadying breath and leaned against the console table.

“You make it, Doc?” Hooper’s voice buzzed in his ear, startling him.

“Uh-ah, yes, I did, thank you.”

“Good. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t walk yourself out the airlock.”

Xander forced a chuckle and rolled his eyes. He studied the confusing array of flashing buttons, toggle switches, and levers, fingering wiggling as he hovered over each one, hunting for the right one. He licked his lips, then found the one he searched for. With a triumphant smile, Xander thumped his finger down against the glowing, red reset and held it for three seconds. “There! Didn’t fuck that up, did I?”

A shrill screech wailed through the ship, followed by a thunderous boom that rocked and yanked the floor out from under Xander’s feet, throwing him up and over the console table and hard against the steel piping beyond. He blinked against the rising black, struggled to keep his consciousness above the void, then fell deep into its clutches.

***

Consciousness returned like a hammer to the back of the head, slamming him back to reality. Xander moaned and rolled onto his back. He squinted up at the ceiling of pipes and steel, flashing red lights filling his vision. Then he noticed the alarms blaring loud enough to wake the dead.

Xander crawled back to his feet, steadied himself on the console table, and rubbed the back of his head. “Oooohh,” he groaned, then tapped the coms button on his display panel. “What happened up there? Please tell me I didn’t do that.”

Dead air buzzed on the other side.

Xander glanced down at his cracked display panel and frowned, tapping the button again. “Hello? Anyone home? You guys ok up there?”

Nothing.

Xander swallowed hard, sweating for a whole new reason. Staggering up the steps, he left the engineering deck behind and fumbled his way through to the living quarters. His head felt like it was splitting apart right down the middle, his back throbbed where he’d inadvertently hugged the steel piping, and he could feel his hip bruising as he limped his way through the ship. All the while, red lights kept flashing overhead, flooding the corridors in a crimson glow.

Rubbing his back, Xander stopped outside the command bay doors and hit the button. A loud buzz responded, the door refusing to budge open. Confused and head pounding, he hit the button again, glaring at the door as the buzzing erred again. After a third time, Xander had the presence of mind to glance through the small window in the door. His breath caught in his throat. Pressing his hands to the door and gawking through the small window, Xander stared back out into total blackness and watched as the command bay, completely severed from the rest of the ship, slowly drifted away on the currents of the void.