Icarus Fire

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. And they've got science to back it up. With not matter to carry it, the tiniest whisper would get suffocated, stopped as soons as it began. Let alone a scream. They don't hear it echoing from across the void. But I can. It comes to me from deep in the expanse. Like a terrible, oppressive entity crying out in horror and rage, pleading for help.

Today I’m going to figure out why.

I looked at the gear I accumulated in my tiny quarters for my secret endeavor. Some propulsion rope for when gravity gets weird, a small hand blow torch to cut through any equipment shielding, and a monitor that I can use to connect to any computer that needs overriding.

I took in a deep breathe. My quarters were nothing to envy, but they had become a kind of refuge for me ever since I had been partitioned this small space. Decorations were non-existent in here. Even if I had anything sentimental to hang up on the wall, I wouldn't have. There were still plenty of people on this station that could recognize me for who I was, despite doing my best to disconnect and erase myself from the public memory. Now, whatever I could do, or not do, to remain innocuous, irrelevant, and unrecognizable I did.

This small room had become my home. A place where I could let my guard down a bit and breathe easy. Away from prying eyes who might know and perceive me as something I was trying so hard to leave behind. Today, if things went wrong, could be the last time I saw this place or felt that secret security ever again.

The time had come. I could no longer let this screaming, this calling, go unanswered. I'd sooner throw myself into space. It was the one thing that had stayed with me during my short life. It pulled on me. Somehow I knew that it held answers. It had a destiny for me. A purpose.

I knelt on my floor and began to place my gathered supplies and tools carefully into my small pack. I was prepared for my mission, just like the rest of Icarus was prepared to repel yet another attack from the Craiths, an attack that was presumed to be the largest attack yet.

Everyone on Icarus, our rocky, backwards planet, had been readying for today for the last two months. Today, the largest crossing in three generations would occur. Crossings aren’t all predictable, nor are they common. However, Icarus Command has mapped the larger holes in Icarus’ two outer shell layers in order to predict attacks and strategize necessary defenses against the Craiths. They’re a terrifying group, Craiths. And when the holes in Icarus’ outer layers align, creating a crossing; essentially a window into the outer space beyond, Craiths can come pouring into Icarus. The larger the crossing, the larger the invasion. From there, they can easily phase through Icarus’ inner layers, where we live. And that's when things get really horrifying.

I’ve never personally seen a Craith up close, but I’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories. They’re black, ethereal entities bent on our destruction. No one knows why, but the first generation had to learn early on how to fight these space wraiths.

Whatever their motives might be, they relentlessly attack whenever a crossing provides a window large enough for sufficient number of them to enter. It's during such crossings that I hear the screaming. It's a scream that only I can hear, apparently. An occurrence that has almost landed me a label of psychotic break. Not a good look here on Icarus.

Though I’ve hidden this anomaly of mine well over the years, my curiosity to figure out why it happens has never died. It’s been a secret mystery I’ve been unraveling ever since I witnessed a crossing for the first time and experienced the screaming that came with it. It’s almost like its crying out to me, beckoning to me. How could I not do something? So today, when Icarus command is on maximum high alert and everyone is manning their posts in the outermost interior shell, I’ll be making my way to the inner shell. Toward Icarus command. To find the secrets they’ve gathered from altercations with the Craith. The secrets they’ve kept hidden from us. From me.

An alarm sounded. A call to stations. The crossing was about to begin. I heard commotion outside the door of my quarters. Boots running, ship engines starting up, and gun stations being charged and armed. It was now or never.

I took a deep breath. I put on the pack I crammed all of my gear into and stepped out my door into the commotion of Icarus arming up. I jumped into step with the individuals urgently moving through the hallways. Some were dressed in military uniforms, others in mechanic jumpsuits, and even some dressed in civilian clothing, filling in where they could. I blended in easily. No one would pay attention to a thirteen-year-old boy hurrying along with a backpack over his shoulder. They would assume I was simply one of the many child couriers, fulfilling a small obligation to one crew or another. Just a tiny gear in a massive, well-oiled machine.

The river of people I was flowing in approached a floor hole. A massive, glass covered hole in the floor that created a window to the outer shells. The hole was probably created by some ancient space asteroid colliding with Icarus that broke through the one or more of the planets various shells, like a tiny bullet poking a hole through an egg shell. The first generation quickly patched them up so as to create a tight seal that would hold in artificial atmosphere and allow us to live on the hollow inside. It was only supposed to be a temporary fix, but other, more urgent threats arrived shortly after they did. So now, we essentially live in a massive, multilayered, spinning balloon made of stone, metal, and glass.

See, our planet Icarus isn’t really a planet at all. It’s a series of five concentric layers, each one enclosing the other. I like thinking of it as a funky onion, just less of a delicacy and with tons of extra space in between each layer. And instead of delicious onion flesh, the inner four layers of Icarus are stone with the outermost fifth layer being a kind of metal web contraption. We don’t know who made it, or when it was made, but the outer metal webbing was fixed around Icarus by design. It keeps each inner concentric layer in place and on a uniform rotation with some kind of magnetic interaction. The resulting centrifugal force of the shell's rotation is what provides the artificial gravity that makes things stick to the inside of each layer. But it is also what causes the various gravity inequalities all over Icarus. For example, the "gravity" here on the third level is significantly more forceful than that felt on the second or first layers. And when you begin to approach one of the axis poles of each layer, gravity also gets all sorts of weird.

So far, we have only been able to seal and inhabit up to the third shell, leaving the fourth and fifth shells as a kind of shield against space. Except of course when a crossing happens and a hole in the outer rock layer, layer number four, lines up with a hole in the outmost metal web layer, layer number five.

Floor holes, like the one I was rapidly approaching, come in all shapes and sizes, but each gives a clear view to the outer shells. If you’re “lucky” enough and in the right spot, you can even watch out of these floor holes and watch crossings happen. If it’s a big one, then you’ll be able to witness Craiths pouring into the space between the fourth and the third shell. That’s where the fighting happens. The space in between shells where our forces meet the Craiths head on.

People find watching crossings occur and peering out into the inky blackness dotted with pinpricks of starlight beautiful and inspiring. My mother was one of these people. I remember her being giddy with excitement the day I turned old enough to finally see my first crossing. She loved gazing out at the brief glimpse of the expanse. I found it terrifying. I still do. Because that’s when the screaming happens. Ever since that first time I stared with my star-struck mother and gazed out into empty, cold space. The screaming happens every time I see it.

That's why I do my best to avoid floor holes, even when no crossing is predicted to happen. However, there’s no avoiding this one dead ahead of me now.

I followed the quickly moving people until I was right on top of the window. I did my best to keep my eyes forward, on task, but felt my gaze pulled downward. It was like I was standing on air, kilometers above a rocky ground far beneath me. A rocky ground that was moving. Shell number four. Bringing with it a massive hole in its rocky shell, like a massive mouth crawling toward the space right under me intending to swallow me hole.

The crossing began. I stared down below me at the ominous hole in shell number four began to align with a likewise massive break in the metallic shell number five beyond. A true hole opened into the empty space beyond. The stars stared back at me. The familiar screaming assaulted my mind.

Like always, it overcame me. I hit the glass floor and pressed my hands hard to my ears. The people around me nearly stumbled over me. Having learned how to recover quickly, I forced myself to my feet and kept walking before anyone could look too closely or get annoyed and confront me. Despite the familiar pain and fear that filled my mind, piggybacking on the scream in my head, I knew it would stop soon. And, moments later, the screaming mercifully did stop.

I shook my head, doing my best to clear my watering eyes. Screaming began anew. This time not inside my head, however, but from people around me. They were pointing at the floor, through the window. The Craith forces had begun to pour into the space between the outer and inner shells. The crowd around me seemed to erupt. Not into chaos. No, people here were far to disciplined and familiar with danger for that. Instead, it's as if some unseen hand had cranked up the urgency and efficiency level in everyone's mind simultaneously. The energy around was suddenly cranked too full.

Time to get down to business. I need to find one of the less used ladder shafts that would take me inward to the second shell. From there I identified an air circulation shaft that would take me all the way to the first shell, Icarus Command. I hadn't been to Icarus Command since my mother worked there, years ago. The memories of the inner shell were old, but still vivid enough to remember certain pathways and halls I would explore when my mother would take me with her. I would have to figure out the gaps of finding my way into Icarus Command and to the intelligence station once I arrived there.

But for now, I just needed to make it a little bit further and I’ll be able to break off and…

“Hey! Bag boy!” A man yelled from behind me.

I felt myself get pulled backward, out of the river of people. My heart sank. Did whoever this was see my episode? Did he recognize me from past altercations? Did he know I didn’t belong out of quarters during a high alert?

“Where are you taking this haul?” The man asked.

He was in a soldier’s uniform, command class. Those didn’t come to this outer level very often. I’d only ever seen them a couple times, during events that required extra, hands on coordination, organization, or people control.

“Well?” He asked, practically lifting me off my feet by my pack straps to turn me towards him.

“Hanger number twenty-seven, Sir!” I said, stumbling over my words as I lied straight to his face. I wasn’t carrying a haul of any kind. Except for maybe the illegal infiltration kind.

“Good,” the soldier stated, lifting a large duffel bag in the hand that wasn’t holding me fast. “Drop this at hanger nine-teen on your way.”

He let go of my pack and dropped the duffel bag into my arms. I buckled under the weight.

“Ask for Dangler, he’ll know what to do with it.” The guard continued. “And hurry, boy!”

The guard shoved me back into the flow of people and, propelled by the force of his propulsion and the urgency of the alarm still surrounding around us all, I quickly kept moving along.

My heart was racing. I felt like I had just narrowly escaped critical failure in my plan. I was relieved, yes, but the seriousness of what I was doing was beginning to sink in. A growing pit in my stomach.

Now what ? I thought to myself. I was resolved to stay focused on my own task and keep heading toward the ladder shafts I knew would be less occupied during an event such as this. I'd ditch the pack there and continue on my way. But... what if this duffel was important? What if the contents inside were vital components or supplies that mean the difference between life and death to the pilots going out to fight Craiths? And if I fail to deliver them? What then? What social penalties or additional stigmas of coward or traitor would I face down then if that guard identifies me as the boy that didn't fulfill the tiniest of duties. I would confirm the legacy my mother left behind for me, solidifying the idea that cowardice was in my genetics, passed from her to me. I would not give them that satisfaction.

Icarus shook below my feet and the sounds of metal scraping stone, the aftermath of a collision or explosion, reached my ears. More people screamed quickly around me and the energy seemed to impossibly get cranked up even more. If the crowds around me we any less organized, I would be in the midst of a full out stampede. The ground shook again. The fighting without the shell must be getting nearer.

Frustrated that my plans would have to be put on hold for the time being, I set my jaw and, with renewed energy and urgency, headed for hanger nine-teen. I passed multiple empty ladder shafts leading to shell number two on my way. All for a randomer named Danglar.