Harvesters of Creation

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. It's like that old saying, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make sound? For sound to be created you have to have an atmosphere and a receptor to hear said sound. Without either, there is nothing... Such is the fate of all creatures lost in the void of the Great Nothingness, such is the fate of a dying star. It dies alone. It dies in silence.

…

Kyle Davidson stared aimlessly at the holographic display in front of him. He tried to focus his eyes to make sense of all the star maps, analytical data, and sequence equations that bombarded him, but it was hopeless, at least for the moment. The grogginess of cryosleep had still not left him. Of all the side-effects, the mind fog was the part he liked the least, not that he liked being flash frozen naked as a jay bird and jettisoned off to who knows where just to make a decent living, but such is the life of a Star Harvester.

He could still remember the first time he heard of the gig. He was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eighteen-year-old, keen on making a mark for himself in the world. Harvesting stars was the great new vision of the future and Helios was quick to market and package it as the next step in mankind's evolution. For the most part, they were right. Stars are a source of near limitless resources. Harvesting these elements allowed humanity to move beyond Earth, beyond the old solar system, and almost beyond time itself. Forget lightspeed travel, most ships, including the one that Kyle flew, the Icarus, used Wormhole technology to bend space and time. Sadly, the Prediction Engines used to calculate when a star would go super nova was not an exact science. This was the reason they still used cryosleep. A crew could be stranded out in deep space for years waiting on a star to take its last breath.

Helios had promised great adventure, astonishingly good pay, and all the benefits one could dream of, however when one spends much of their life as an icicle, there's not much adventure, nothing to spend money on, and dreamless sleep. It's been twenty years, and he's probably all but lived through four of them.

Kyle took in a deep breath and wiped the cold sweat from his face. He felt the bushiness of his beard and chanced a glance at the reflective surface of the console. His beard had become a thick scraggly mess and ran all the way from his equally chaotic hair line to the base of his neck. The solid black hair of his youth was now tarnished with splotches of grey and white. Cryo slowed the aging process, but it didn't stop it. Once again, Kyle woke up a stranger to himself. At least his green eyes were still the same. At least they never changed.

A wave of dizziness hit him like a gut punch. He felt the bile well up in his mouth. Instinctively he turned away from his console just as more of the cryo-fluid made its way up and out of his system and expelled, rather painfully, into a recycler, where it would be processed and reused for his trip home. One of the nastier realities of cryosleep was that you had to drown, before you could be flash frozen. Despite the concept, the going to sleep part was rather peaceful, but the waking, was a nightmare all on its own. The recycler hummed to life and within seconds the bluish-green fluid was gone. He wiped whatever residue was left from his mouth. It was disgusting of course. It had the taste of spoiled milk and bitter regret. He hoped that was the last of it.

"So where are we." he stammered.

He pinched his fingers and the constellation map zoomed in on a solitary star he didn't recognize. He performed one final swipe and now it was the only object on the holographic display. Kyle sat back in his seat as a diagnostic program began running statistics on the main display. It still didn't make any sense. He was on a two-mission to a relatively small star named Celeste, yet none of the logistics were right... or was it still the mind fog...

"Good you're awake." said a monotone voice from the entrance to his Cryo chamber.

The voice didn't even startle him. After years of routine, he actually expected it.

"Coffee?" he growled.

Synth Model Mt1D1a (Matilda) stepped into the cryo chamber and crossed over to him. Kyle's complete lack of clothes didn’t even phase her. Then again, nothing really phased a Synth. They were incapable of showing even the slightest glimpse of emotion. Their almost-human androgenous design was eerie enough, but the fact that they never smiled, frowned, or even grimaced made them feel robotic and alien. It would be a mistake, however, to think of a Synth as an android. There was nothing mechanical about them, yet everything was still synthetic.

In the old days it took a crew of five to operate an Icarus. That was how it was when he first started working for Helios, but now all you needed is a pilot like himself and a Synth. It was a smart decision on Helios' part. Synths were nigh indestructible. They could tolerate extreme levels of radiation, of which made them perfect for deep-space ship repairs. More importantly, they were ageless, never changing... yet never feeling. Despite all the benefits, Kyle missed his old crew. They had their faults, but at least they reminded him that he was still human. At least they had souls.

“Your clothes are pressed and ready for you.” Matilda said, her dark eyes staring on right above his head. “I assume you will want to shower?”

"I just want my damn coffee!” Kyle barked as he stood revealing his full naked glory. "Also, you can actually look at me."

"I'm sorry Captain Davidson," she replied. "I didn't want you to feel... uncomfortable." Her eyes settled on his face.

"Too late for that." he responded.

He stared down at her innocent face. It was really strange. She reminded him of so many of the girls he had mused over when he was younger. She had dark short-cropped pixie hair. The classic Synth pale smooth skin and a perfect laith body, packaged in a Helios commissioned black uniform, of which made her skin stand out even more, like milk pouring from a dark pitcher. For a Synth, she was exquisite, yet beyond those beautiful doe eyes there was nothing, a deep emptiness, like the void of space itself. Her distant gaze made him realize, yet again, the hardest part about being a Star Harvester... the loneliness, and despite her ever presence, he was very much alone.

"Is something wrong Captain?" she asked.

Kyle shook his head and walked past her. The faster he prepared the star for harvesting, the faster he could get home and end the nightmare. This would be his last harvest. He wanted to live his life, while he still had a life to live. He crossed to the exit of the cryo chamber and just as he was about to leave, he turned back to face the Synth. "I want a full analysis of where we are... and I want coffee." He closed the door behind himself.

...

Kyle, clean shaven and fully dressed, entered the bridge. The warm waters of the shower did their work. It felt good to be clean, to look somewhat like himself again, and he was ready to get to work. His eyes traced the contours of the large room, as if looking for an old friend. He could almost see the crew moving about carrying on the operations needed to fly the Icarus.

"Captain Davidson, I've run a full diagnostic and the ship is in tip top shape." Matilda spoke as she placed a freshly brewed cup of Kona coffee near his work console.

Kyle nodded and summoned a smile. He didn't even really know why he did that, just an old habit he guessed.

"I assume you've run a spectrum analysis on Celeste?" He asked as he sat down at his console and yanked up the cup of joe.

"No, Captain."

He was just about to take a sip but stopped short. There was a strangeness in her voice. A Synth's voice never fluctuates.

"Matilda, why haven't you run the analysis? We have to have this information, if we want to do a proper harvest. Is there a reason why you haven't started the spectrum analysis of Celeste?"

Sometimes he felt talking to a Synth was like talking to a toddler. He watched her as she stood still, looking at him like a child who's stolen a cookie.

"Matilda?" He spoke her name in the nicest way possible, trying very hard to mask the anger boiling up inside of him.

"We are not harvesting Celeste. We were reassigned a year and a half into our mission."

"What!" Kyle screamed at the top of his lungs. It took every bit of strength in his human body to not hurl his coffee mug straight at Matilda's pixie forehead.

"How long have I been asleep?" he screeched! "

"Fifteen years, three months, and four days." she responded with about as much empathy as a rock.

Kyle nearly fell out of his seat. A new wave of nausea overtook him. His hands shook. His heart pounded in his chest. His eyes widened with a horrible realization. There was a reason he couldn't recognize any of the star maps. He wasn't anywhere where he should have been. Making matters worse, when he left Earth 2, he had just turned thirty-six. He should be thirty-eight, but that was if he was on a two-year mission.

"I'm in my fifties?" he choked, not wanting to believe the words he was saying.

The cup of coffee slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor, its contents spilling out like everyone one of his dreams.

"Technically, you only aged five years, so you would be approximately forty-one."

"Approximately?" he growled.

He wanted to scream out loud. He wanted to cry. However, there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. He took several deep breaths until he had forced himself to calm down.

"Matilda, why did Helios change my mission, and if we are not at Celeste, where the hell are we?"

She nodded and moved over to the main display. A series of holographic star maps appeared, and she sorted through them with inhuman speed.

"As I stated earlier, a year and a half into our mission, we discovered a strange star lurking at the furthest regions of the Andromeda galaxy. No orbiting planets."

"A rogue star." he observed.

"Yes." she answered as she zoomed in on the Andromeda galaxy. She finetuned her search until a small undulating ball of light appeared. She swiped it with her hand, and the ball of light was transferred to Kyle's console display.

"Her name is Noohra. She's a Main Sequence Star, similar to Vega. Radius 1.3651 km with a surface temperature of 10,030 k.

He leaned in closer, to get a better look.

"Noohra... eh... what is the star's chemical makeup?"

Matilda swiped her main display a second time and sent the info right over to Kyle. He scanned the screen as the data appeared.

"Helium, nitrogen, oxygen, possibly some compounds for iron, good materials, but nothing special." He thumbed through some additional data. There was nothing exceptional about this star. Nothing that would warrant them extending a mission for this long.

"Why did Helios reassign us? Celeste has all of these compounds with far lest the effort."

"Helios didn't reassign us. Noohra did."

Kyle stared at the Synth completely dumbstruck. He didn't know if he should be terrified or angry... or both. Was it possible for a Synth to go mad?

"The star?"

"Yes." she replied.

Matilda pointed to his console.

"She's talking to us now. Look at the radiation pouring out from her. There is a pattern. Something similar to an old language... Morse Code."

Kyle studied his display. Each flare of radiation was followed by a brief pause and then there was another flare. It was happening all at specific intervals.

"She's been watching you from a distance, and she's wanted to meet you for a long time now. She wanted you to witness her ascension."

"Matilda, I don't know what's going on in the screwed-up head of yours, but stars don't talk. Stars don't feel. They aren't alive!"

"She is." Matilda responded. "Oh, my Captain, you've spoken so often of how lonely you are. She is lonely too."

"How would she know?" He pleaded.

"Your data logs." Matilda answered. "When your recordings are transmitted back to Earth 2, the radio waves fan out in all directions, and she's been listening."

This was madness. Complete madness, he thought. He leapt from his seat. He frantically swiped through the various holographic displays.

"Captain, you are acting strange." she questioned.

"No sh-..."

Without warning the Icarus' blast shields opened wide. Radiant light flooded into the bridge from the bow windows, blinding Kyle. Fighting the light, he tried to turn away, only to slip on the spilled coffee. His legs flew out right from under him and he crashed headlong into the holographic console. His head exploded with pain as blood rushed into his eyes.

The bow's dimmers took control, and Noohra came into focus. Kyle pushed himself against the wall. The star was pulsing with radiation; a bomb ready to blow, and they were much too close.

"Matilda, we need to get out of here."

The Synth turned to face him, and his blood ran cold. Matilda was smiling.

"It's too late Captain. She's coming."

With those words, a thunderous explosion rocked the ship, as light engulfed them. Kyle looked down at his hands and he could see his skeletal fingers standing out against transparent flesh. It was as if he was living in an X-ray machine. He looked up in horror to see Matilda rising into the air, her arms outstretched like a crucifix.

From somewhere beyond her heard a blood-curling SCREAM just as a rolling ball of fire hit the ship.

Darkness...