By Teddi Deppner
Jacob nudged the Joint Venture’s harvesting controls, unable to hide his grin of triumph. “Fifteen. I win!”
“Cheater. Four of those were clustered together.” Seelia’s scowl didn’t hold, and her matching grin prompted a warm glow somewhere between his clavicle and navel. She sprang up from her control chair and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning down to kiss him. “You have all the luck.”
“I really do.” Exploring space a million light years from the solar system, and he got to work among the stars with this woman. That was beyond lucky and more in the realm of the miraculous. Just like the view outside. He switched the collection screen from live view to interpretive scan, and the black of space was replaced with colors almost as stunning as the old modified Hubble Telescope images. While Seelia confirmed their collection pods were secured, Jacob scrolled through scans of the nebulae around them looking for their next target.
“Erbium or neodymium?”
Seelia glanced up from her work. “The next payment on the ship is due in a week. Is there any gadolinium? The Hospital Station Collaborative on Luna Prime is paying fifty thousand credits an ounce.”
“Elyen, can you find us some gadolinium?”
A melodic chime indicated their ship’s Integrated pilot would try. A moment later, a burst of notes sounded, and a corner of the screen lit up.
“She sounds positively excited,” Jacob said.
Seelia shrugged. “They say Integration preserves a person’s personality and awareness of self. She just can’t express it the same way.”
A burble of agreement made both of them smile.
“Elyen, fly us to the gadolinium, please.”
A slight tickle in Jacob’s bones denoted the commencement of the lightslip jump. The tickle stopped, and they were at their destination. But before he could orient himself to the new surroundings, there was a sharp jerk as the artificial gravity failed. Both of them flew out of their chairs and struck the wall, stunned.
Proximity alarms blared, and the lights dimmed to emergency blue. Then the gravity recovered, and they slid to the floor. Jacob scrambled to Seelia’s side.
At his touch, Seelia groaned and rolled onto her hands and knees. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. You check Elyen. I’ll get to the bridge.”
From the bridge, Jacob assessed the damage. A gash fifteen feet long had been ripped in the hull of the ship, breaching two sections and damaging several vital sensors. Whatever had struck the ship was long gone, or obliterated by the collision, and scans of the area were empty of hostiles. But core systems were still offline.
Dread growing, Jacob called Seelia for an update.
“Elyen’s dead.” Her voice over the comm was flat.
“She’s built into the core of the ship, and the breaches aren’t anywhere near you! What happened?”
“It must have been the trauma of being hit. It was too much for her mind.”
A hollow opened up in Jacob’s midsection. Without their Integrated pilot, they had no way to control core systems. Without the lightslip drive…
Seelia continued. “There’s still a chance.”
They were millions of light years from any civilized outpost, any form of oxygen or food resupply. Even a distress call would take too long. “I’m not seeing it.”
She didn’t answer, and a moment later, he realized why.
“No. That’s not an option.”
“But—”
“No! Pilots are bred and trained for Integration their whole lives. That’s the only reason they survive it. Find another way.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I’ve thought it through a dozen times. There’s only one way we make it back to Luna.”
The comm went silent.
She wouldn‘t really try, would she?
Jacob sprinted, but it was a long way to the engine room. He was still running when he felt a clunk as systems came online and the lights switched from blue to yellow. Damn her determination!
He burst into the pilot vault at last and stared down at the still form floating in the waist-high tank. “Oh, Seelia, no…”
A network of biotech threads as fine as human hair sprang from the back wall of the tank and lost themselves in Seelia’s short, dark curls. Her forehead was creased in a frown of concentration, hands clenched into fists at her sides. As Jacob scanned the holo-readouts above the tank, the screens shifted from reds and oranges to yellow and finally to green.
The Integration was stabilizing.
“You brilliant, stupid, amazing woman.” His emotions spun between awe and grief. Integrations were permanent. Now that Seelia was part of the ship…
Then a warning beep accompanied a flashing red message: INTEGRATION REJECTION. Several green screens began turning yellow. If he couldn’t calm her, the freshly connected core systems would act upon Seelia’s inner chaos, causing cascade failure of the lightslip drive. The drive would explode, obliterating the ship and any matter within twenty parsecs. At least that was how the stories about failed Integrations always ended.
Jacob reached into the tank’s warm liquid, taking her hand in his. “Seelia. I’m here. You did it.”
No response.
“Seelia, you hear me?” He squeezed her hand. “We’re going to be okay. It’s our joint venture, remember? You’re really upping the ante, though. I gotta pay off the ship now, don’t I?”
The screens flickered, the colors rippling between yellow and green, red and orange.
“I promise you, Seelia, I will never let you go.” He squeezed again, his tears dripping into the tank. “Everywhere we go, we go together. And with this ship, we can go anywhere.”
There. Yes, there! Her hand was squeezing back!
The screens shifted hues to a brilliant green, and a complex set of melodic notes sounded across the comm, ending with a querulous trill.
Wiping his eyes with his free hand, Jacob took a deep breath. “Yes, take us home now, Seelia. Take us back to Luna.”
Can you guess which song from the 1950's inspired this story? Share in the comments!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Great story! It packs in a lot of convincing detail along with a gripping narrative and strong characterization.
I suspect “Take us back to Luna” = “Fly Me to the Moon” (originally recorded in 1954), but I already guessed that incorrectly for another story involving a moon, so I’m not too confident about this!
You’re correct! If you’re a member of the Havok Horde, you’ll be automatically entered into a drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card.
OH MY HEART. This… this story. 😭 THESE CHARACTERS. Phenomenal job, Teddi!!
Thank you, Lila! So glad you like Jake and Seelia. :-)
Nice, Teddi! I thought, when the new integration was failing, that he was going to jump in with her and they were both going to pilot the ship together – you know, “joint” venture :) But I like your ending better!
So glad you enjoyed it, Dalia!
Nicely done. the bittersweet ending is great.
Thanks, Alex!
Genius and I love it :D
I adore every word you write, Teddi. But you knew that ;)
Fab story!
Aw, thanks, Grace! Every author needs a friend like you. <3
Okay. That was super sad. Brilliantly written. Poignant. But… sniff, sniff.
Waaaahhhh, so sorry, Lisa! I’ve been on a self-sacrificial character story kick lately. *sniff sniff* *wipes eyes*
Your characters touched my heart. Well done!