The recording eventually permeated Captain Trish Sanders' mind-fog. Like a persistent gnat, the reawakening program had mithered her subconscious for days.
As Trish's brain rebooted from stasis, the hum and gentle reverberation of the shuttle transporting her and her two crewmates to the exomoon Kepler-1708b-I coalesced into familiar white noise.
After travelling at one-quarter lightspeed for 22,400 years, adrenaline urged the Captain to check their status; her training urged caution.
Deliberately, she released the cryogenic chamber's restraint straps whilst listening to an AI-generated status report: they were on track, orbiting gas giant Kepler-1708b, trailing its exomoon; the relief!
After satisfactorily running the shuttle's manual checks, it was time to reanimate the crew.
They looked peaceful, lying there in adjacent chambers. If only!
Bethany, she trusted implicitly. But Patrick? He was the Admiral's nephew. And Bethany's ex. Moreover, a total liability.
No denying it, this mission was all about the Admiral's revenge.
He'd seconded Bethany because she'd unceremoniously dumped Patrick. Trish was there after publicly rejecting the Admiral's advances at a Final Frontier's Christmas party. The Admiral's embarrassment accounted for Patrick's presence. Terrific.
Whilst waiting for her crew to awaken, Trish landed the shuttle, launching the ecodome beneath which they'd conduct the mission's research: was Kepler-1708b-I a viable outpost for humankind?
Unspoken, she'd guessed, could humankind survive such a journey? She'd kept that suspicion to herself.
***
"If you'd paid attention," Bethany admonished, "you'd know this is Kepler-1708 b-I, an exomoon."
"A moon? It's twice the size of Earth, stoopid," Patrick said, trying to be clever.
"Patrick," Trish said, struggling to remain objective, "Since launching, how long have we been cryogenically frozen?"
"100 years?" he shrugged.
The girls looked at each other, gobsmacked.
"Try 22,400, dickhead," Bethany scoffed.
"No wonder I'm starving," Patrick muttered, wandering off further into the ecodome.
"Trish?" Beth asked, "Why didn't we stop and jettison him over Gliese 876d?"
"Hell-lo. Your voices carry inside here," Patrick whinged from behind whatever craggy outcrop he'd gone to bother.
"Rules is rules, kid," Trish whispered. "Unless he puts us in mortal danger, he stays. Especially as he's the Admiral's nephew."
"Privileged posh boy's what he is," Beth added.
"That, too."
"Guys, look what I've found," Patrick panted, shuffling towards them holding something wriggly between his fingers.
"WTF? Like, procedure? Don't move!" Trish yelled, hurrying to fetch a container.
Seconds later, Beth asked Patrick, incredulous, "Are you going to eat that?"
'Fucking! Idiot!' Trish shuddered.
"Mm, Trish?" Beth suddenly ventured, "Don't want to worry you, but…"
The Captain pirouetted: the wriggly thing was suspended over Patrick's open mouth. Worse, behind Patrick loomed an unmistakably-related colossal wriggly thing.
"M-m-mortal danger?" Beth stammered. Trish nodded like her head was on springs; the girls fled towards the shuttle.
They didn't wait to see whether the colossal wriggly thing or exposure upon Trish retracting the ecodome got Patrick first.
/end
© Jason Darrell, 2022
Image: ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Brief:
Thanks for dropping by to read another of my bashes at flash fiction.
This 500-word short story was in response to Secret Attic's call for their Monthly Flash Fiction competition (Dec, 2022).
I'd already submitted it to an earlier competition, the now depricated Weekly Write (details below). It didn't make the cut this time either, so I've updated the story to include the newer version with the 500-Wordcount. Please enjoy.
Details for the original, now-deprecated competiton:
TL;DR:
- choose one from one of three lines of dialogue:
- for the above flash, mine was "Are you going to eat that?";
- use it exactly as per the prompt to create a piece of flash fiction;
- 300 words maximum;
- winning/selected pieces may be published in the subsequent Secret Attic booklet;
- unpublished works only.
On this occasion, this entry didn't make the cut, so I'm happily sharing a tweaked version here.
You can find some of my earlier more successful entries (flash and longer short stories) in Secret Attic booklets:
Buying the booklets helps the site owners/judges (I am neither) maintain it, and provide a voice for indie authors that would otherwise go unheard.
Your support would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a million!
p.s.Fancy using some of my flash fiction in an anthology? Drop me a line at jasond1888 [at] gmail [dot] com to discuss. Thank you.
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