The hum of the spacecraft was the only constant sound. Soft. Steady. A mechanical lullaby that never stopped singing its one-note song. It was the kind of sound that either drove you crazy or became your best friend. For the crew of the Odyssey, it was slowly becoming both.
Commander Evans floated near the main window, watching Earth get smaller behind them. On Day 1 it had been huge and breathtaking and emotional. Now it was just a bright blue marble, shrinking into the endless black like a coin dropped into a bottomless well. Space was big. Really big. The kind of big that made your brain feel like it was doing mental gymnastics just to comprehend a fraction of it.
Thorne was nearby, strapped loosely to a wall station, writing furiously in a small notebook. His handwriting was terrible in zero gravity. The pen kept floating away from his fingers every thirty seconds. He kept grabbing it back with increasing frustration.
"You know we haven't landed yet," Evans said to him without turning around.
"I know." Thorne didn't look up from his scribbling. His tongue was sticking out slightly from the corner of his mouth, a sure sign of deep concentration. "But when we do land, I want to be absolutely ready. Every single sample needs a label. Every rock needs a name. Every grain of moon dust needs to be properly documented and categorized and loved."
"You're going to name the rocks?"
"Of course. They deserve names. They've been sitting on the moon for billions of years with no one to appreciate them. It's sad when you think about it."
Evans finally turned to look at him. "Aris. You're a grown man. A doctor. A highly respected geologist. And you're telling me you're going to name moon rocks like they're pets."
Thorne adjusted his glasses, which kept sliding off his nose in zero-G. "Commander, with all due respect, you fly the ship. I study rocks. We both have our skills. Mine just happens to involve emotional attachments to inanimate objects. Don't judge me."
"I'm absolutely judging you."
"That's fair. I would judge me too."
Across the cabin, Chen was at the control panel, checking engine readouts for what had to be the tenth time in the past hour. He tapped screens. He nodded to himself seriously. He tapped again. He squinted at a number. He tapped a third time. He made a small humming sound. He tapped a fourth time just for good measure.
The man could not sit still. Even in zero gravity, where sitting still was literally the easiest thing a human body could do, Mark Chen found creative new ways to fidget.
"Mark." Evans floated over to him. "What exactly are you doing?"
"Checking the engines."
"You checked them ten minutes ago."
"Things change, Commander."
"In ten minutes?"
Chen turned to face him with complete and utter seriousness, like he was about to reveal the secrets of the universe. "Commander, I peed my suit yesterday during launch. My confidence in my own body has been deeply shaken. I need to make sure the ship isn't also having a bad day. If the ship has a bad day, we all have a very bad day. Possibly our last bad day."
Evans stared at him for a long, silent moment. "That's the dumbest logic I have ever heard in my entire career."
"Thank you, Commander."
"It was not a compliment."
"I'm choosing to take it as one. It's called positive thinking. You should try it sometime."
"I will throw you out the airlock."
"That's not positive thinking."
"It's positive for me. I'll feel much better."
Petrova's voice came through the cabin speaker from the cockpit above. She had been quiet for a while, monitoring systems and communicating with Mission Control back on Earth. Her timing was, as always, perfect.
"You boys behaving down there?" Her voice was warm but carried that edge of authority that made you want to sit up straight.
"Define behaving," Evans said back to her.
"That's a hard no, then. I can hear Mark tapping from up here. It's driving me insane."
Chen stopped tapping immediately. His finger hovered frozen over the screen. "You can hear that? From the cockpit?"
"Every. Single. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. For the past hour. I was about to come down there and break your fingers."
"That's... violent. And specific."
"I'm a pilot. We're precise people."
Chen slowly lowered his hand and tucked it under his leg. Or tried to. In zero-G, tucking your hand under your leg just made you spin slightly. "Okay. No more tapping. I'm sorry. Please don't break my fingers. I need those for... finger things."
"Finger things?"
"Important astronaut finger things."
"Wow."
Thorne snorted from his wall station. "Mark, you are literally the least articulate engineer I have ever met."
"I'm articulate! I'm very articulate! I just... words are hard sometimes. Especially when Lena threatens physical violence."
"I didn't threaten," Petrova said sweetly. "I made a promise."
"That's worse. That's so much worse."
Evans stretched his arms above his head, feeling his spine pop in three different places. It was the most satisfying feeling in the universe. Zero gravity did strange things to your joints, but the popping was top-tier entertainment. "Alright. I'm going to try to sleep for a few hours. Wake me if anything explodes or if Mark starts tapping again."
"I will personally wake you for both," Petrova confirmed.
"Thank you, Lena. You're my favorite."
"I know."
Thorne closed his notebook with a satisfying snap. "I should sleep too. My brain feels like it's been through a blender."
"What flavor of smoothie?" Chen asked.
"What?"
"Your brain smoothie. What flavor would it be?"
"I hate you so much, Mark."
"That's not a flavor."
"I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight. Shut up. Leave me alone." Thorne pushed off toward his sleeping station, muttering under his breath. "Brain smoothie. Unbelievable. I work with children. Actual children."
Chen grinned and floated toward his own sleeping bag. "Goodnight, Aris. Sweet dreams about rocks."
"I hope you dream about your bladder."
"Joke's on you. I dream about my bladder every night."
---
Three Hours Later — The Nightmare
Evans didn't remember falling asleep.
One moment he was watching Earth through the window, his eyelids getting heavy. The next moment he was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere wrong.
He was on the moon.
Alone.
The grey surface stretched out forever in every direction. Grey dust. Grey rocks. Grey mountains in the distance that looked like broken teeth. The sky above was black and infinite and deeply, fundamentally wrong. The stars weren't twinkling like they should. They were completely still. Watching him. He could feel their attention like a physical weight on his skin.
"Hello?" he called out.
His voice echoed. That was wrong. There was no air on the moon. No atmosphere. Sound couldn't travel in a vacuum. He knew this. He was a trained pilot. He understood physics. But his voice bounced back to him from the empty grey landscape.
"Evans."
-Will be continued😎
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