Dark Destiny

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

I was tempted to prove the theory wrong as I stared out the view screen at the cold consuming darkness beyond it. The sun had fallen behind us months ago, it’s reassuring light succumbing to the darkness. Time out here seemed to feel unreal as the computer controlled the day and night sequence on the ship to keep the presence of normality for our pitiful human minds to stay sane in the long dark. I looked away from the view screen done at the data pad in my hands. It showed my next goals in a glaring white script against a black background, a cursor blinked ready for me to enter some kind of input. Yes or no were the inputs available, I touched on the yes button and the pad greedily took the input and the cursor slid down to the next available task.

I looked back up at the view screen for a moment, nothing there had changed, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting since it hardly ever changed. I turned away and looked around the bridge of the last human vessel to leave the doomed Earth and sighed as I proceeded to the next task on the pad’s checklist. Status screens embedded in the walls vied for my attention as I walked past them, the slight clinking of the magnetic boots I wore hitting the deck. I stopped at the next station to check on its status, another box marked yes, another task done for the day. The monotony of the job was not lost on me as I started for the next item on the checklist. I was put on the ship for one job and I was going to do it, though they do the say the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same thing over and over and expect different results. Which also ironically, not lost on me either.

The door to the bridge opened with a quick woosh sound as I looked up at the unexpected motion I saw Diana, the only other crew who was awake at this point in the flight, step through the hatchway.

“Hello, Diana,” my voice seemed fill the bridge with a sonic boom after the constant quiet.

Her wide blue eyes looked over at me, her smile brightened the dim room, “Hello, Tyrus, almost done with your checklists?”

I nodded, “Same as always, all yes and not a single thing wrong to report. I knew this job would be boring, but this is…”

Diana interrupted, “Good, because I may have found something back in the engine room.”

I started a bit, “What could you have found back there? That area isn’t even on the checklists.”

“I know, when I was checking the water tanks, I heard a noise back there and went to go look, but the engine room is just too big an area for one person to check out.”

It was a huge area, the ship was huge as well, nearly two kilometers long. It held the remnants of the human race escaping a doomed planet. It had taken nearly all of the remaining resources left on Earth to build the ship and send it on its way to Proxima Centauri b, or as the colonists had come to call it New Terra.

“Well we better go take a look,” I placed the data pad in a cradle next to one of the wall mounted readouts and started towards the hatchway behind Diana. As I passed her she fell in behind me. The corridors beyond were well lit and a little to sterile for my liking. Walking the two kilometers to the engine room was going to take forever though so I released the magnets on my boots and gently pushed of the floor and began to float down the corridor. I used the handhelds every few feet to give my self a little boost of speed, pretty soon I didn’t need to as without gravity or friction I was going to end up going to fast at the end. We passed by a multitude of doors as we went, each leading to a capsule that could house thousands of sleeping humans. Cold sleep had been the only to ensure that there would be enough resources for the flight to New Terra, having to store and lift the amount of food would have stretched the finite resources left on Earth to the point of not being able to even send the colony ship. As it stood, the colonists would have to start growing food immediately upon landing on New Terra and hope that what they brought with them would be enough to survive during the growing period.

The engine room door loomed ahead of me and I slowly turned so that I was feet down to the door and absorbed the impact with my legs against the door. A loud clang sounded through the corridor as I made contact. I reached down and turned the magnets on in my boots again and stepped down off the door onto the corridor floor.

I looked over at Diana, “You ready?”

Diana nodded, her tight bun of black hair not dislodging in the zero gravity environment. I reached over to the door handle, unlatched it and pushed it in to open it. A small woosh of air raced by ear as the pressure equalized between the corridor and the engine room. The thrumming of the engines filled my ears as I stepped into the large room. Screen readouts and buttons gave an ominous glow to the room right before the main lights started to come on.

I could hear a small whistling sound coming from somewhere, “Do you hear that?”

“I do. Could it be a micro puncture?”

I raised an eyebrow, “One way to find out.” I reached into one of the many pockets on my coveralls and produced a small packet of water. I opened up the small spigot and let out a small amount of the water. Water normally forms a sphere in zero gravity and will flow anywhere it wants, but if there is a bit of air moving around, it will follow that flow. The few drops of water began to race towards a section of the engine room high on what could be considered the ceiling of the room. I released the magnets in my boots again and raced after the water droplets and watched them disappear behind a bulkhead.

“Shit, that is going to take a bit to find outside, we are going to have try and seal it from inside the ship for now.” I took out another small packet from another pocket, this one was filled with a sealant for just this kind of task. Usually it was easier if I could actually see the whole so that I could make sure the plug worked, but at this point I got as close to the bulkhead as I could and squeezed the packet. The sealant shot out and followed the exact path of the water, I could hear the whistling started to subside as the sealant did its job. We were going to have to talk a walk on the outside of the ship to see where the leak was, but at least it was plugged for now.

I pushed off the ceiling to lower myself back down to were Diana stood, “We will have to go out to fix it, but that should hold for now.”

“Good thing I heard that noise.” She smiled.

As we left the engine room, the lights went dark again and if I had only known then, what I do now, maybe, just maybe I could have stopped it then. That was the last day of our monotonous journey to New Terra.