No rest for the Wicked
04 Mar 2019Caffeine Low
Aucold LC-Y b48-0, situated in the Shallows of the Orion Spur, is as desolate, dark place of no import as you could possibly hope to find.It was here that exhaustion finally overcame "Caffeine" Low as the drain from the monotonous cycle of Honk, Scoop, Shift could no longer be defeated by ever increasing levels of his namesake. He'd been flying on the razor's edge for hours & errors were starting to creep into his actions, out here 16000Ly from civilisation, an error could be as deadly as any assassin's blade.
He'd caught himself trying to deactivate the Cold Press's Power Plant, only the fail-safes built into the vessel had prevented what would have been a suicidal act. Then there was the inattention that had caused him to crash out of Supercruise into the gravity well of a G-Class star 40 minutes ago. He'd hit 125% heat trying to escape, and with all his heatsinks long since depleted, he'd dropped the integrity of his internal modules to dangerous levels. All of this indicated it was time to power down, sit in a suspended state and sleep.
Low made one last check of his vessel's state & started hibernating non-essential systems. As the cockpit's lights dimmed, he rotated the Cold press, so that the canopy no-longer faced the red-dwarf that was to be tonight's point of rest.
He was still 26000 light years from his target, Magellan's Star, thus far the most "Eastern" Star reachable by explorers. His dreams were the domain of the dead & too many of the faces that disturbed his dreams contained eyes full of accusation and desperation. His face being the last they'd ever see; a face they'd grown to trust, share a meal or drink with and then at the end had whispered an apology as he consigned them to the Void. There was an ancient legend, shared by many cultures, of an isolated, distant point on the island or land they dwelt, that would be the sending off point of spirits to the afterlife. The point where family members could pay respects, or wandering spirits would finally be at peace. If anywhere in the Milky Way could be considered that place, Low felt it would be Magellan's Star. Maybe there he could leave his burdens & return refreshed to continue his duty.
He slowed his breathing and tried to empty his mind as he consigned himself to sleep and the embrace of those he'd doomed.
Sleep was quick in coming, but so too were the horrors of his past actions.
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A sharp repeating klaxon cut through the haze of sleep. Low rubbed the grittiness from his eyes and searched around the dark expanse for the cause of the warning....
Nothing was obvious, Low halted the vessel's hibernation protocol and waited as the modules came back on line. The sensors showed nothing and so too the navigation pane. Then he saw the flashing icon in the communications panel.
<URGENT COMMS>
It had been so long since he'd received one of these, he'd forgotten the way they cut directly through the ship's protocols demanding immediate attention.
Every time he'd previously received one of these, someone, somewhere needed to die; maybe this time it was finally his turn. He could just save them the effort and vent the ship here and let it all be finally over; deliver himself to whatever purgatory awaited him.
Low steeled himself and opened the communication. A symbol of a bloody hand, four fingers outstretched and thumb tucked in resolved itself onscreen.
A voice file started to play.
"Caffeine" Low smiled thinly, maybe relieving himself of his burdens could wait, there was now a new purpose and undoubtedly the mountain of guilt he carried was about to get infinitely heavier.