The Edge of Oblivion

Chapter 1: The Stowaway

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

Not that screaming ever does anyone any good.

In Isla’s short life, her screams of anger, of agony, of begging for the release of death had all gone unheeded.

Someone had always been watching, listening, observing. The louder she screamed, the less they seemed to care.

Now, however, she strove to be quiet. The slightest noise could give her away as she crept from her hiding spot in the freighter’s cargo hold. She could move silently if she chose to. But her growling stomach was louder than the hum of the ship’s engines.

Soft red lights lit the warehouse-sized cargo hold. Stacked pallets of crates stood in rows at least a dozen feet tall. The lanes between each section of stacks were just wide enough for an automated forklift. It would be easy for someone to get lost among the crates of dry foods, machine parts, and building materials needed to construct a self-contained colony.

A few hours had passed since the bright overhead lights had switched off and the crew had vacated the hold. The small night crew was on duty, increasing her odds of moving about the ship unnoticed.

Isla hurried, her bare feet padding against the steel flooring. She ascended a long staircase leading out of the hold and into the middle of the freighter where the crew quarters were. She stepped with caution, not knowing if anyone was just around a corner.

She couldn’t be seen. She couldn’t be caught. She wouldn’t go back.

She would rather throw herself out an airlock and die in the freezing vacuum of space than go back.

Making it past the dozens of crew apartments unseen, she reached a section of stairs and splitting passageways that led to the various parts of the ship. No signs or labels told her where each path led.

She tried to remember all the schematics she knew for ships currently in service. As best as she could tell, she was aboard a Kovacs 23-Series long haul freighter. However, without knowing which model she was on, she lacked the reference points to accurately navigate the massive ship.

Hunger clawed at her insides, her stomach making a sound like iron girders being bent. She wrapped her arms around her middle, the fine, dark hairs on her exposed arms standing on end.

She headed up the first set of stairs, hoping it would lead her toward a kitchen or pantry. Having been three days since she’d eaten anything, she grew light-headed with the effort. She shivered. She’d barely any meat on her bones to begin with, and her blue cotton shorts and t-shirt did little to keep her warm as the ventilation system circulated cold, filtered air throughout the vessel.

The fear of getting caught made her hands shake. Her empty stomach spurred her forward.

Isla focused as she reached the top of the stairs. Yellow light flooded a short hallway. Several wide doorways lined the hall. She tried each door as she walked, finding all of them locked. She poked her head through the only open door and saw a large, rectangular room. A few short rows of tables lined the interior. At the far end, there was a short window, roughly thirty feet wide, which separated the dining area from the kitchen. She checked to make sure she was alone before she walked across the room and hopped through the open window.

Enough ambient light from the hallway shone through to allow her to see the outline of an industrial refrigerator. Bright white light narrowed her eyes as she pulled open the door to find meats, cheeses, and other foodstuffs.

She wiped saliva from the corners of her mouth and tore into a sealed package of sliced ham. It was the lab-grown stuff, not as good as the real thing due to its grainy texture and approximation of ham flavor, but she didn’t care. She nearly choked, swallowing a half-chewed slice and immediately biting into another. She opened a container of milk as she chewed.

So enraptured was she in her pilfered feast, she jumped when the overhead lights switched on.

“What the…” a man’s deep voice said.

Isla looked to see a large man in jeans and a yellow flannel shirt with rolled up sleeves looking wide-eyed at her.

“Who the hell are you?” he said, more surprised than upset.

She dropped the package of ham and bolted back the way she’d come, nimbly siding through the food service window.

“Hey! Come back!” He chased after her. Despite his size, he was fast and light on his feet.

Adrenaline surged through her, quickening her movements. She leapt from the top of the stairs, landing halfway down before taking another long jump and landing at the bottom.

Heavy boot-steps followed behind her. “Someone wake up Captain Ewan,” the man yelled into a radio. “We have a stowaway.”

Isla sprinted past the crew quarters, her feet aching from pounding against the cold, metal floor. Apartment doors opened and the corridor grew brighter as some of the crew were roused from their beds.

Isla collided with a middle-aged woman stepping out from her apartment. The woman let out a startled cry as Isla crashed into her. They both landed hard on the floor. The older woman yowled and clutched her arm.

“I’m so sorry,” Isla cried out as she scrambled away.

Several people chased her as she entered the cargo hold. Her limbs felt heavy and her lungs burned.

She darted behind the first row of crates. She ran toward the back of the hold to her small hiding space in the housing for the bay door's hydraulics.

Footsteps behind her.

She didn’t look back.

She turned right and slammed into the large man in yellow flannel. The look on his face told her he hadn’t expected the collision either. Unlike the woman in the crew quarters, he didn’t topple. Instead, Isla bounced off him, sprawling backwards. It was like running into an immovable meat wall.

“Take it easy,” he said, his voice kind. “We just need to get this whole thing sorted–”

She got up and ran back the way she’d come.

As she ran, pins and needles prodded the inside of her head. The world began to teeter back and forth as dizziness overtook her.

All sound faded away as if receding behind a thick cotton blanket. As her legs buckled, everything turned to black.

***

Isla’s eyelids felt like they were lined with lead. The light hurt her eyes as she pried them open. She became aware that she was sitting up, her back leaning against something hard. The floor radiated cold through her.

She tried to move and found her wrists had been tied together, as had her ankles. Panic rushed through her as she thrashed against her restraints.

“Let me go!” she shrieked. “Don’t send me back! Please, I can’t go back there!” Her eyes were wild as she fought against her bindings like an animal caught in a trap.

“Easy,” said the man in yellow flannel. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

She continued to struggle as she looked for a means of escape.

“Good lord, Hank, she’s just a kid,” a woman’s voice said from behind the large man. “Did you really have to tie her up?”

Isla looked past him. A woman in her mid-thirties walked toward her. The black pants and forest-green tank top she wore showed her athletic build. Her long red hair was pulled into a braid which rested over the front of a muscular shoulder. The red puffiness around her greyish-blue eyes suggested she just woken up from a deep sleep.

“Just didn’t want her running away again,” Hank said.

The woman put a hand on his thick arm, moving him aside. She knelt on one knee in front of Isla. “Hey, it’s ok,” she said. “No one is going to hurt you. I promise.”

Isla stopped thrashing, but looked back at her with anxious eyes.

“I’m Valerie Ewan, Captain of the Sector’s Edge.” Though she spoke softly, her voice carried the kind of inherent authority that commanded respect. “What’s your name?”

Isla’s eyes drifted to the several crew members gathered in a half-circle around her. Tied up as she was, she calculated her odds of escape at less than one-percent. Her eyes darted from one crew member to the next.

“I found her in the kitchen,” Hank said. “Poor thing was chowing down ham like she hasn’t seen food in a while.”

Valerie kept a soft gaze on the girl. “If you’re hungry, I’d be happy to get you some food. Would you like that?”

Isla stared at her for a long moment before nodding.

The captain glanced over her shoulder at one of her crew. “Go to the kitchen and grab a meal ration and a bottle of water.” She turned back to the girl. “While we’re waiting, how about you tell me your name?”

Isla hesitated. How much could she trust these people? No one had harmed her so far, though they did tie her up. They could have thrown her in a holding cell, but they hadn't. They were giving her food. Maybe a little trust on her part would be rewarded?

“My designation is Isla.”

Captain Ewan raised an eyebrow. “Designation?”

“My primary function.”

The captain's expression was impossible to read. “So…Isla. What does that mean?”

“To what specifically are you referring?” Her voice waivered.

“Let’s start with that whole designation thing,” Valerie said. “What does it mean to be designated as Isla?”

“Information Storage, Logistics, and Analytics is my primary function.”

Captain Ewan’s mouth curled into a half-smile. “You put it like that, it makes you sound like some kind of human computer.”

Isla’s pale green eyes were a mix of fear and sadness as she stared back at the captain without speaking.

Valerie glanced up at Hank, who seemed unsure if he believed what he was hearing, before turning back to the girl in front of her.

“Ok, let’s set all that ‘primary function’ business aside for now. Can you tell me what you’re doing on my ship?” Valerie asked.

“Please, you can’t send me back!” Tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

A long pause.

“Who or what are you running from?” Valerie asked.

“Don’t tell him you found me! The things he’ll do to me…” Her shoulders shook as she began sobbing.

“Who?” Valerie asked.

“Bronson Walsh.”

The crew members exchanged uncertain glances.

“The Director of the Western Trans-Atlantic Protectorate?” the captain asked.

She nodded.

“…can you elaborate on that?”

Isla sucked in a deep breath. Agonizing memories clawed at her mind’s forefront. “Director Walsh has been conducting illegal human experimentation in a facility on the outer reaches of Musk 3B colony on Mars.”

“We were just there,” Valerie said to herself. “That’s a major colony. Seems like that kind of facility would require a lot of resources. Oxygen, food, water, electricity – things that are heavily regulated on Mars. How could anything like that go unnoticed?”

“Falsified records, bribery of public officials, the murder of any whistle-blowers and subsequent cover up of those murders,” Isla said as she wiped at tears with bound hands.

Valerie pulled a face liked she’d swallowed something bitter. “What kind of experimentation goes on there?”

Isla shrank from the question.

Valerie stood up. Hands on her hips, she looked down at the pale, skinny girl tied up on her cargo bay floor as she thought. “Cut her loose,” she said to Hank.

The large man hesitated. “But…what if she takes off?”

Valerie looked at him sideways. “Where’s she gonna go?”

Hank pulled a small work knife from his belt and knelt down.

Isla recoiled, pulling her arms and legs away from him.

“I won’t hurt you.” Hank’s voice had a fatherly quality to it. “Just need you to hold still so I don’t accentually nick you.” He hesitated before reaching for her restrained wrists. “May I?”

Her eyes searched his for a long moment before she extended her arms toward him.

He held her wrists with one hand and cut her bonds with the other. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said with a kind smile.

She slid her ankles toward him and he cut the restraints before helping her to her feet. She wobbled as she stood.

Captain Ewan stood a head taller than Isla. She cast a scrutinous gaze downward at the small girl.

“What you’ve told us…it’s all difficult to believe,” she said.

“Human beings have a long history of conducting illegal research and experiments, often in the names of Science, progress, and National Security.” Her voice was thick with nervous energy. “The illegal cloning experiments and unsanctioned development of sentient artificial intelligence in the early 21st Century, the bioengineering of weaponized viruses of the Third World War, the manipulation of weather systems to–”

Valerie held up a hand, prompting Isla to stop. “Ok, point taken. Still, implicating Director Walsh in illegal human experimentation is a considerable accusation.”

Isla pulled up a fistful of her thick black hair, revealing a scar that ran halfway around her head. “I am proof.”

***

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