Drift

Art by Chris Brock - 2021

The Fractured Glow continued on its path, drifting forward to its elusive destination, its engines sputtering as it burned through its limited fuel.

“We’re approaching the cluster,” Von’s voice echoed through the spacecraft’s speaker systems.

Ketra took a deep breath. She had to focus. She couldn’t panic. No mistakes.

She lifted her helmet over her head, clicking it in place. The sealing system hissed as oxygen began filtering through her breath mask. She tightened the belt around her waist, ensuring the canisters were secured at her hip. Reaching towards her back, she checked on her support cable, running her finger around to the spool mounted on the ejection chamber’s sleek, metal walls. It was her lifeline, her connection from the ethereal to the material.

“You ready?” Von’s voice called out once more.

She could imagine his handsome face staring out the cockpit windows, working at the ship’s controls with careful and calculated ease.

Ketra took in another deep breath and allowed the oxygen from her tank to circulate into her lungs.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

She closed her eyes, focusing for a moment on the rhythmic pulse of her own breaths. Her eyes opened, and she stared out the back window of The Fractured Glow. Ahead of her was the precious cluster they’d been tracking for a while: a collection of crashed ships, scattered spacecraft parts, and orange and pink floating particles that danced around the wreckage, creating wisps of a glowing smoke-like substance.

These wisps were despellium, a valuable resource only created from the aftermath of spacecraft wreckages. When a ship implodes or malfunctions, perhaps due to pirates, natural phenomena, or territorial, tentacled creatures, the mixture of extra fuel, engine fires, and artificial gravitational fields creates a new resource--a resource that recently skyrocketed in value after corporations discovered it could power interdimensional travel.

It was hyperfuel. To Von and Ketra, it was an opportunity to earn a significant amount of units, enough to clear their debts, settle down, and start up a farm on some faraway world.

“Alright,” Von’s voice crackled as The Fractured Glow sputtered to a halt, its hull almost touching up against a floating engine. “I’ll be launching you in just a second. I’m calibrating the sequence.”

Ketra went over her gear one last time. They couldn’t afford any accidents; all safety procedures needed to be followed.

Her gaze darted towards the ceiling of the ejection chamber. She reached up and opened a hidden hatch in the plating and took out the 2-16 beam rifle that had been stashed up there. She methodically loaded it with an energy cartridge before attaching it magnetically to her back. While the rifle matched the white, black, and magenta pattern of her space suit perfectly, it still felt out of place with the rest of her gear.

“You grabbed the rifle, didn’t you?” Von’s voice asked through Ketra’s earpiece.

“Just in case, Von,” Ketra said. “I hate to be paranoid--”

“Which you are.”

“--but I might be needing it,” Ketra ignored his comment. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Sounds good.”

A few seconds passed as Von readied the launch sequence.

“I love you,” she said.

“Love you too,” Von said. “Launching in five…”

Ketra closed her eyes.

“Four!”

She braced herself for impact.

“Three!”

She tightened her harness.

“Two!”

She took in one last breath.

“One!”

The blast slammed Ketra in the back, the ejection hatch burst open, and her cable began to unspool quicker and quicker before she slammed forward, stopping just inches away from a large fracture of wreckage, the cable now taut between her and the ship.

She almost hit it.

“Sorry! So sorry…” Von said. “I--I uh, locked the cable down a little late. Um… you good out there?”

“Uh…”

Ketra focused on her breathing again, trying to align herself as the blast’s inertia wore off and she began to float in the emptiness of space. She could hear each breath she took. It seemed to fill the perpetual silence around her, surrounding her, closing in, tightening, constricting…

“Ketra? Ketra, you alright out there?”

Ketra couldn’t answer. The emptiness closed in around her, consumed her. She felt small, smaller than she had ever felt. The stars in the distance were worlds away, and yet she was here. Despite all of its emptiness, she felt claustrophobic. She felt her breathing grow louder, quicker, heavier, as her body began to go numb with fear.

“Ketra? Ketra!” Von’s voice wasn’t registering.

It was as if he was living in those stars, so far away, his words echoing from another world. Her consciousness began to slip away, her body began to feel heavy, her--

The cable tugged at her back.

“I’m pulling you back in.” Von said.

“Wait!” she managed to call out.

Ketra focused her gaze on the cluster in front of her, forcing her vision to clear. She concentrated on her breathing, slowly inhaling, then exhaling. The rhythm began to return, her surroundings stopped closing in, and the feeling returned to her body.

“I can do this.”

“You sure?” Von said, “If this is too much, we don’t have to do this. We have just enough to make a jump.”

“No,” Ketra said. They needed enough canisters to pay back their debt. “I can do this.”

Silence.

“Ok,” Von replied. “I’m giving you more cable now. Be careful out there. I’ll be right here in your ear, if you need anything.”

The cable loosened, and Ketra clenched her right fist, activating her repulsor boots and allowing them to carry her forward. She spun around the initial pieces of wreckage, making her way towards the center of the cluster. The cable continued to serve as her anchor as she weaved through pieces of metal and scrap before pushing herself off the remains of a wing.

She turned off the repulsor boots for a moment, allowing herself to float through the ring of an engine, then grabbed at one of the canisters on her hip. Ketra was at the center of the cluster, where the wisps of pink and orange despellium had seemed to settle.

“I’m at the center,” Ketra reported. “Loading the first canister now.”

She twisted open the center of the canister, holding it towards a larger burst of the substance. She allowed it to collect for a moment before tightening the canister, allowing it to seal. She watched as tendrils of orange and pink swirled inside.

She hooked the first cansier on the cable, pressed on a button on its side, and watched it boost itself up the line and back towards the ship.

“Loading the second canister now,” Ketra said. “Everything good back there?”

“Um…”

“Um what?” Ketra asked.

“My scanners are detecting an incoming heat signature,” Von said.

“Where?”

Ketra finished tightening the second canister and sent it up the cable.

“The cluster is making it hard to pinpoint,” Von replied. “You need to get out of there.”

“I still have two more canisters. We’ll need all four.”

“You get really cute when you're determined, but I need to reel you in. It looks like--”

The piece of wreckage next to Ketra shattered.

Splinters of metal and fiberglass shattered through the emptiness as Ketra was blasted further into the deposit of despellium.

A large form floated above her, made up of fleshy, red skin. It didn’t appear to have any eyes. Instead, it had openings all along its long, snake-like shape, each of them opening and closing like mouths as they consumed the wreckage and despellium around them, sucking it all into its own gravitational vacuum. It swirled around another piece of wreckage near Ketra, and she activated her boots, barely avoiding the creature as it crashed through another large piece of wreckage.

“Are you seeing that thing?” Von shouted.

“Yes! It’s about to eat me!”

“I’m pulling you in!”

“Just give me more time!” she twisted open another canister. “I can do this!”

“Ketra…”

She pushed herself off of what was once an engine, diving in deeper towards the despellium and closer to the beast. She let her boots give her a small boost of speed, bolting over the creature's gargantuan back. Shards of glass and scrap whizzed past, swirling into the creature's many mouths as it sucked in everything in its path.

Ketra dove below the creature’s body, avoiding an incoming group of larger wreckage, and held the canister out in front of her. She launched herself upwards, collecting the despellium the creature had managed to miss and twisting the canister closed. Ketra took a deep breath and turned herself around. She’d need to backtrack to untangle her cable from around the creature if she wanted to send the canisters and herself back, and it looked like it had already consumed most of the despellium.

“Ketra! Ketra, please tell me you’re still alive!” Von said.

“I’m fine!”

Ketra burst forward with her boosts, twisting herself back up and around the creature.

She turned around, and drew her rifle from her back. She steadied herself with her boots, aiming at one the creature’s mouths, and fired. The bolt of energy imploded in the fleshy opening, sending bits of despellium and scrap out from it. The beast’s form began to turn around--heading right towards her.

Her boots fired up again, and she bolted away just before she felt a violent tug in her back. She turned around. Her cable tied up and around the creature.

“Damnit,” Ketra felt herself panic again. She tried to steady her breathing.

“What? What’s going on?”

“I’m gonna need to cut the cable. It’s caught on the creature,” Ketra blasted upwards, trying to outmaneuver the creature despite being tethered to it.

“That’s fine,” Von said. “You should have enough juice in your boots to head back.”

“That’s the thing,” Ketra twisted around, avoiding one of the creature’s mouths, “I have to go towards the thing first. It’s eaten most of the despellium.”

“Go towards it!?!” Von yelled. “Are you crazy?”

Ketra swung around, allowing her boots to carry her up and over the creature, towards one of its larger mouths.

“Trust me here,” Ketra replied.

“I won’t be able to bring you in if that thing gets you.”

She reached towards her back and hit a button she’d never dared to hit before. The magnetic seal to the cable detached, and Ketra felt her anchor begin to float away.

“I know.”

Ketra dove down towards the beast, aiming her rifle at one of its mouths once again, and she fired. The bolt impacted against the beast’s flesh as bits of despellium burst out from it once more. Ketra burst her boots forward, holding out the final canister on her belt and scooping up what remaining whips of the substance that she could.

She looped upwards, sealing the canister in the process, and turning her attention back to the creature. Her boots sputtered in and out as she steadied herself.

“Von, I got the last of the despellium,” she said.

“Great,” he said sarcastically. “Now get back here!”

Ketra glanced back towards The Fractured Glow through the shards and bits of wreckage, then back to the rope loosely tied around the creature’s form.

“I’m too far out, Von,” Ketra began to panic. “My boots won’t have enough juice.”

She heard Von sigh through her earpiece, “Ketra, I’m bringing the ship in. Get ready to jump on.”

“You won’t make it through the wreckage. I--I…”

She stared at the stars in the distance, then back at the ship, then at the creature writhing and twisting below her. It was still entangled in the cable--what was once her lifeline.

“Ketra, I can’t leave you,” Von’s voice faltered. “You can grab onto the cable and I’ll bring it in, I can--”

“No… no…” Ketra’s breathing was becoming more sporadic, “you’ll bring in the creature too.”

“Ketra…”

“Von, cut the cable from your end,” Ketra’s eyes began to fill with tears. “Make the jump. I’ve already sent up enough canisters for you to pay back your half of the debt.”

“Ketra!”

“You can live the life we’d wanted…”

“It won’t be the life I wanted, Ketra… because… because it won’t be with you…”

Ketra felt the tears begin to fall down her face, “Please, Von. You can still go.”

Von’s voice was quiet, barely a whisper. “There’s got to be another way, any other way. Please, don’t do this… Ketra…”

“Cut the cable, Von.”

“No!”

“Just do it, goddamnit!”

Silence.

Ketra only heard the rapid, unsteady rhythm of her breathing filling the area around her in the suit, closing in. The claustrophobia crept back in. The same panic crawled up her throat.

Then, Von’s voice finally crackled through her earpiece, closer than she’d ever felt it before.

“I love you.”

Ketra closed her eyes, the tears now streaming down from her face.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

The sputtering on her boots stopped, no longer keeping her stable in the emptiness around her. She was drifting off alone, no sense of direction around her.

She turned towards The Fractured Glow, watched as it hovered for just a moment longer, before its engines started up, the cable was detached, and it blasted away in a burst of pink and orange light.

Ketra turned back to the stars in the distance. They almost felt closer than the creature below her. In fact, they were just over the non-existent horizon, just out of reach. She stretched out her hand, as if to reach out to the stars, to that hopeless fantasy beyond.

She closed her eyes, exhaled, and she drifted in the emptiness of space, an insignificant entity in a world of worlds.