Verdant Song

by Mixolydian Grey

In the Shadow of Verdence, pt. I

Lennox remained as still as he could, quieting the rustle of his suit. He held his breath as well, quieting every possible sound, even the trivial static of moving air picked up by the microphone in his helmet.

Kelantos knows, Lennox silently repeated to himself. He always knows.

If there was someone down the hall, he had to hear it first. In zero-g, a griffon could move almost soundlessly, save for the chance of bumping into one of the chunks of debris that hung in the air. But listening for the debris didn’t help much, because he could never be sure if it was just random currents from the air filtration system or if it was actually caused by some unseen threat.

The only sound he heard clearly was the stallion next to him. Solstice dug a hoof into the ruined door controls, prying out a cluster of tangled wires. He held them close to his helmet, trying to distinguish the colors of burnt rubber. “I have another one,” he mumbled into the silence. “An old stallion and a young filly lie unmoving in a puddle. Indoors.”

Even under threat of being found and killed, Solstice still couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Lennox balled his hands into fists, his blunted talons pressing into his palms through the gloves. “What are you talking about?”

“The scenarios,” Solstice said, rolling the wires between his hooves to separate them. “The first aid.”

“Your hypothetical scenarios.” Lennox made each syllable carry the weight of his irritation. He glanced down the hall both ways, watching for motion. If he couldn’t listen, at least he could watch. He stared off to his right, barely able to see the end of the hall even with his avian visual acuity.

“Yes, the ones you gave up on because they became too difficult.” Solstice found the wire he wanted and removed it from the twisted bouquet. He turned his attention to the exposed circuitry, pressing his helmet against the wall so he could look as closely as possible.

“Too difficult,” Lennox muttered. “I stopped playing along because they’re always irrel—”

A sharp clink sounded from somewhere down the hall. Lennox turned and grabbed a support bar on the nearest wall, pulling himself into the recessed area with Solstice. Adrenaline stirred in his chest. He sucked in a breath, holding it, trying to listen despite the pulse thudding through his head.

The sound replayed in his imagination, though it wasn’t a perfect recording. It was more like the blurry impression of a dream fading from memory in the seconds after waking.

But even as his memory faltered and he struggled to recall the sound, he realized what it was: just a shard of metal glancing off the wall. Just a piece of debris drifting through the air.

Even here on the command module, farthest from the impact, there were loose pieces of debris floating around. Here on the command module, he reminded himself, there is nothing left worth scavenging. No reason for anyone else to be here. And even if there was, Solstice still had the gun. They weren’t defenseless.

Solstice blew a puff of air into his helmet mic. Lennox flinched, squeezing the support bar as the hiss came through. Solstice was chuckling at him.

“You're jumpy,” Solstice said.

Lennox clenched his beak. His wings pressed against the inside of his suit, a reflex. “I have a valid excuse,” he growled. He wanted to spread his wings and fly down the hall, double check just to make sure. Perhaps something had moved that piece of metal, caused it to hit the wall.

They had always been careful, always planned everything out as if they were two chess grandmasters working together, but Kelantos was always ten steps ahead. He would know that they were finished repairing the engines. He would know that they were ready to move the ship. He always knew. Maybe the command module had nothing to draw the griffons, but perhaps Lennox and Solstice had drawn their attention.

Lennox breathed slowly, trying to soothe his frantic heartbeat. The restlessness was just adrenaline. Just a simple stress reaction.

There was more noise in the communicator than down the hall. It hissed as Solstice sighed, apparently not able to think of any more banter to harass Lennox with.

That was somewhat discomforting, if only because it marked a shift in Solstice’s personality. Lennox didn’t miss the irritating humor, but the frequency of humorous remarks was not the only thing that had slowed. Solstice should have been able to open this door in two minutes.

Initially, Lennox had thought to attribute it to stress, but that hypothesis didn’t hold up. Solstice had made it several months into this ordeal before the change, surviving through the most traumatic stresses… the asteroid, the rioting, the murder of the command staff…. The two of them had been fixing the ship for months and he had been mostly alright.

They were close to the end goal, now. All they had to do was set the ship on course and make sure it didn’t explode on the way there. Lennox needed his only ally to be focused and alert.

“Solstice,” Lennox whispered, not quite sure what he wanted to say. He should say something, though, perhaps gather more information, deduce the cause of Solstice’s somber mood and formulate some kind of solution. He let the name hang in their helmets for a while as Solstice silently continued to poke at the door controls.

Lennox exhaled slowly, watching little traces of fog cling to the inside of his helmet. His heart rate had slowed down to something much more reasonable, but as he spoke, it threatened to rise again.

“I have observed a change in your demeanor,” Lennox put a string of words together. It was haphazard and uncomfortable, but he continued anyway. “Will this change impair your ability to carry out our remaining tasks?”

Solstice sighed again. “I'm... tired.”

“We don't have much farther to go.”

“I never expected that getting here would be the problem. The problem is where we go next.”

“Yes,” Lennox said. It wasn't very likely that a drifting ship suddenly flaring to life would be easily missed. Even if he theorized with Kelantos completely removed from the situation, that still left about twenty other griffons wandering around who would kill them on sight. And if the ship suddenly flared to life, those griffons would know about Lennox and Solstice.

Solstice ripped out a dead circuit board, tossing it into the hall to join the other pieces of debris. They twirled and drifted through the air, suspended in zero-g like toys above a chick's crib.

That dark corner off to his right became more and more bothersome. Lennox risked a quick scan with his flashlight. There were flashes as the more reflective debris rotated, reflecting the light back for a fraction of a second. The hallways stretched outward like sterile white tubes, marred by soot, ribbed by thin bars for personnel to move in zero-g, and broken by hatches and doors, some sealed, some stuck half-open.

In the event that he and Solstice somehow managed to forget where they were, and in case they missed the first half-dozen signs, several giant orange arrows and accompanying text notified Lennox that he was, in fact, outside the bridge.

When they had first boarded the ship, Solstice had joked about the tactical wisdom of big, bright arrows pointing towards your command center.

“The scenarios helped,” Solstice said.

Lennox flicked off the light. “Elaborate.” The hypothetical scenarios were fantasy, imagination. Planning ahead was helpful, but his scenarios usually had nothing to do with the issue at hand.

“The worst thing you can do in a survival situation is to stop and think.”

“That’s absurd. The opposite is true.”

“Is it?” Solstice asked. “I didn't say it was good to rush into things without planning. Planning keeps focus. I said it was bad to stop. When you stop, you lose focus on the immediate task. You think about the future and how things might turn out in the end, and…”

“Hope is always an illusion, even if it’s likely,” Lennox said. “You can't reach out and touch the future.”

“Maybe. But you can't break the illusion unless you stop and look at it closely.”

That provided a sufficient explanation. The mechanical repair work early on was exhausting and required total concentration. Lately, there had been a lot of waiting as the computers ran lengthy diagnostic tests and calibrations. There had been plenty of time to think.

“Look.” Solstice sighed. “The logic games and hypothetical first aid scenarios help, okay?”

“Noted,” Lennox said, glancing back at Solstice. The stallion’s brow was furrowed, perhaps in concentration, perhaps in frustration. The corner of his mouth was turned down, a sign of any number of thoughts or emotions. There wasn’t enough evidence to form a conclusion.

The stallion’s scowl intensified suddenly. He slammed one of his hooves against the wall.

Lennox flinched as the dull thud echoed down the halls, like a gunshot on a clear night. He was too surprised to scold the stallion. Solstice had never displayed such… undirected aggression.

“Dammit, Lennox.” Solstice squeezed his eyes shut. “We checked the security systems. We're the only ones on the command module. No one followed us. They’re all… hunting. In engineering. We don't need to sit here in complete silence.”

As far as we saw, Lennox silently noted. The cameras don’t see everything. And while they had seen some of the griffons heading down to engineering in preparation for a hunt, Kelantos was unaccounted for. He could be anywhere. “Why risk it?”

“Because I can't… I don't think like you do and I need to talk, okay?” Solstice’s breath rasped in the comms.

Lennox raised an eyebrow. “You are talking.”

“Are you listening?”

“I am listening,” Lennox said, “but I don't understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. Just… humor me, please. The scenarios.” Solstice went back to work on the door control, searching for the power line to the airlock seal.

Lennox mulled over the idea for a minute. Aside from the soft sounds of a mechanic's hooves behind him, there was silence on the command module.

His instincts found this more alarming than comforting, subconsciously urging him towards greater alertness. Muscles tensed of their own accord, his wings pressing against the suit. It took a conscious effort to relax again. Old proverbs about forests quieting in the presence of predators came to mind.

Of course, this was no forest, and the dangers were not the dumb, nonsentient wolves and bears. The dangers here would either be the ship itself — not likely to be offended by conversation — or the other griffons.

“Did you ever think it strange that they never hunted us?” Lennox asked.

“Most of them don’t even know we’re alive.”

“‘Most,’” Lennox repeated.

Solstice seemed to chew on his next thought, trying to decide if he liked the taste of it before he spoke. “Kelantos let us get this far.”

Though the other wouldn’t see it, Lennox nodded. “The flock would rather stay out here than face whatever punishment awaits them back home. He wants to chance it, but can’t oppose the others.”

“Meaning that he won’t stop us until we’ve made the maneuver,” Solstice said.

Lennox thought on that for a moment before responding. “He can’t go against the flock,” Lennox said, thinking out loud. “He has to let us do everything. Then he can act like we were the villains all along, and bring out some kind of ambush or maybe that hunting party we’ve been looking forward to. He’ll be able to oppose their wishes and intensify their loyalty at the same time.”

They were doing the best they could to save the surviving hostages, but still, they were doing exactly what Kelantos wanted. Lennox couldn’t choose between awe or frustration.

“Well, in that case,” Solstice said, “we’re safe until we finish. And even then, he can’t chase us out into space.”

“Yes,” Lennox said. Solstice was right.

That’s what the suits were for. They would finish on the bridge and then traverse the exterior of the ship to find an airlock where they could enter again, somewhere safe and far from the griffons. The griffons didn’t have enough suits to give chase, especially not if they had to go all the way back to their habitat to find them.

“Sooo, how about a scenario?”

Lennox squeezed his eyes shut. “Only if it gets that door open faster.”

“I’m working on it. Old stallion and young filly unmoving in puddle.”

Lennox wanted to cross his arms or duck down or do something to hide, but the suit was so inflexible it was difficult to hold any position with his limbs tucked in. He kept a hand on the support bar.

“Your scenario is unimaginative,” Lennox said, trying to ignore the feeling of discomfort. He pictured the room with the two ponies lying on the floor, in some inexplicable puddle of water. “Even with such a small amount of information, it's easy to deduce the danger as environmental. The chances of them both falling unconscious at the same time for unrelated reasons are low. It was chemical or electrical. I would examine the scene before doing anything further.”

“And in examining the scene, you would find that there are no live electrical wires. The puddle covers the floor from wall to wall. You detect no chemical scents.” Solstice worked on the door as he spoke. He scraped away charred soot from a circuit board.

“Is the room well ventilated? Looking closely at the victims, can I determine if they are breathing?”

“The room isn’t airtight, but there’s no noticeable draft,” Solstice said. “Neither is breathing.”

“I’ll alert emergency services before doing anything else. Assuming that I don’t have to leave the scene to do so, I’ll pay careful attention to see if I feel any dizziness or similar symptoms.”

“Pegamedics are on their way. You feel fine.”

“Electrical, then, and there might still be current.” Lennox paused, searching the hallways once again. There was nothing out there. Kelantos might not come after them right away.

Lennox continued, slowly. Focusing on the scenario could distract him from his… anxiety. “I hypothesize that there is an electrical current in the water, but I can't say where it came from or if it's still there. The puddle itself offers no hints, as there are any number of reasons for water on the floor. I don't suppose that I'm carrying any kind of electromagnetic receiver in this scenario.”

“Do you carry electromagnetic receivers with you to the grocery store?”

Lennox rolled his eyes. “I'll get close to the water, holding out a rear paw just over the surface.”

Solstice smirked. “Don't slip. That's not very smart.”

“Don't have time to be smart. If there's a current in the water, I'll feel tingling. If my paw accidentally touches, the muscles will instantly contract up and away from the water, minimizing the shock. My wings will keep balance. A hand would submerge itself when the muscles spasmed.”

“Power in the controls, no power in the door,” Solstice mumbled.

Lennox glanced out of the corner of his eyes, coming back to the task at hand. Solstice had hardly moved, still holding the same bundle of wires. Lennox sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Have you accomplished anything in the last ten minutes?”

Solstice almost chuckled. “I’ve managed to irritate you. This is surely an accomplishment.”

“Take your flashlight apart and use the battery,” Lennox said, enunciating each word with a slight edge to it.

After a silence, Lennox looked back over his shoulder. Little bits and pieces from Solstice's flashlight tumbled through the air. Solstice already had the battery in one hoof and a mess of wires in the other. The battery wasn't all that strong, but the charge didn't need to open the door, just unlatch the internal locks.

Something grazed Lennox’s back with just enough force to be felt. It was a piece of the flashlight. He managed to resist the involuntary flinch this time.

Solstice was right… he was jumpy. Being this close to the end goal made it seem more stressful. They were going to bring the ship back from the dead after six months in the grave, lightyears from home, millions of kilometers from Verdence and the new colony, without contact or hope of rescue. It had seemed impossible at first, but once that passed from a faint hope to a tangible reality, he realized just how much was depending on them.

He had to remind himself that the only griffons posing a threat were almost a klick down the axis. This was when they had their most dangerous game, assuming their schedule didn’t change. They’d be distracted, exactly as planned. Further, there was a chance that the impending ship-wide disturbance would allow the pony to escape. That would be the first successful rescue.

A low clank signaled Solstice's success. Lennox turned as the stallion grabbed the door and slid it to the side, unlocked for manual control.

Solstice sighed in disappointment. “Another door? Really?” He moved into the small room between the doors, looking over the next obstacle.

Lennox gave a last glance around the halls and joined Solstice. “Perhaps,” he whispered, “if you find the two door system annoying, Equestria can start using airlocks with only one door. I'm sure the Griffon Republic would gladly assist in engineering this new technology.”

It was only after Lennox closed the door behind them that he realized just how small this airlock was. Neither could move very far without brushing against the other.

Solstice smirked. “Lennox, I'm rather uncomfortable with this. I don't think this level of intimacy is appropriate at the moment, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn't pressure me like this.”

Lennox scowled. “Open the door.”

As best he could, the stallion hunched over the next door control. This one was intact. “Locked.”

“Is it the security chief’s lockdown? I may remember that one. If you could—”

Crunch. Solstice had a hoof through the control. He pried off the panel and grabbed a hoof-ful of wires as before. As these were not burnt, it was much easier to find the one he wanted.

“Captain’s lockdown,” Solstice said. “Now then, I believe you were about to be electrocuted.”

Lennox sighed. “I was not about to be electrocuted, I was about to experience a nonfatal shock.”

“Hm. I’m feeling generous, today. You experience neither.”

“If the water is no longer electrified, then the environment is no longer a threat. Unfortunately, the victims have probably suffered irreversible brain damage in the time it took me to stumble upon the scene, so I’m not sure why I’m bothering.”

“Not even going to try?”

“Fine, I’ll try,” Lennox said. “Is there an automatic defibrillator anywhere nearby?”

“Nope. Nowhere. Gotta do things the old fashioned way.”

“The success rate of CPR is dismal.”

“But it’s not zero,” Solstice said.

Lennox rolled his eyes. “Trying to alternate and save both would be futile. You've simply given me a choice between which life to save, but it doesn’t really matter because they’ll probably both die anyway.”

“It’s hypothetical.” Solstice shrugged. “Pretend you have a decent chance of success, and you have a choice to make.”

“I have no other information about either of the victims?”

“Correct.”

“Trying to save both will just get them both killed. I perform CPR and attempt to save the filly.”

“Isn't she a little young for you?” Solstice said without hesitation, snickering, as if he had expected that response.

Lennox closed his eyes and made a sound between a sigh and a growl. “Did you create this whole scenario just for that?”

“Why the filly?” Solstice asked. “Because she has more life ahead of her? More likely to recover?”

Lennox clenched his fist, pressing blunted claws into his palm until it hurt. “No. It has nothing to do with the filly's life. Her future potential is just as uncertain as the stallion’s. The difference in recovery is minor.”

“Why, then?”

“It's the public opinion,” Lennox said. “Try to save the filly, and you’re a hero. If she dies despite your help, you’re a hero and did the best you could. The stallion's death was an unfortunate, inevitable consequence. But if you choose to let a filly die to try and save an old stallion, you might as well be a criminal.”

Solstice laughed. “You're horrible at this! You nearly kill yourself to see if the water is electrified because you want to help, then you decide who to save based on what the public will think of you.”

There wasn’t time for a rebuttal. An electrical spark lit the airlock with a loud snap, and the second door slid open a moment later. Lennox watched the sensors in his helmet pick up a trace of ozone. Solstice glided through the door.

Lennox checked the first door. It wasn’t actually locked, just shut. Anyone could come along and do exactly what he and Solstice had just done. But they could seal both doors later, so it wouldn’t matter.

He made his way in and hit the airlock control from that side, sealing it shut, then turned towards the bridge.

Pale starlight from the windows in the ceiling lit the center of the room. Aside from the metal plates sealing off missing windows in the ceiling, the bridge was undamaged. On the opposite side of the room was another airlock, sealed shut. To his left and right were two sets of stairs, mirrored on the opposite side, all four leading to an upper ring that ran the circumference of the room.

There was no discernible motion on the bridge. No audible sound, either. And since the bridge was still pressurized, any sounds would be quite noticeable.

“Looks clear,” Solstice whispered after scanning the room a few times. He glided to a nearby control panel and reached out a hoof to touch it.

The computer systems greeted them with a crescendo of light. Screens lit up and speakers chirped out audio notifications.

A dozen computer stations came to life around the circumference of the main deck. For each one on the main deck, there was another on the upper ring. In the center of the room was a single massive console unlike any of the others.

Solstice grabbed a railing and pulled himself up to the second level, staring at the ceiling as he drifted up. “Those metal plates slam shut when the windows shatter,” he said, half thinking out loud and half talking to Lennox. “I don’t think there’s a manual override. Might need a new getaway.”

Those windows were their escape route. “I’ll take a look.” Lennox drifted to the center of the room, scanning the environment. He noted the lack of debris on the bridge. When the sapphire panes shattered, atmospheric pressure had scattered the pieces into space.

In emergencies, all bridge crew sealed their helmets and the bridge atmosphere was deliberately evacuated to prevent any pressure issues if the windows were to shatter. But whatever emergency had shattered the panes wasn’t one they saw coming. Lennox shook away memories of the mutiny.

All of the computers were still intact, though they certainly weren’t happy. Bright red and orange warnings flashed across nearly every screen. After satisfying himself that the bridge was safe, Lennox turned his attention to the central computer console.

The first thing on the screen was a warning about the windows. Some had shattered, the emergency systems had sealed them shut, and then the bridge had been repressurized. And just as Solstice feared, only the captain could override those controls and open the bridge to space. “Locked,” Lennox said. “We’ll have to find another way out.”

“See, this is what happens when politicians design emergency response protocols,” Solstice muttered. “The protocols end up making the emergency worse.”

“If we can get everything set before the griffons catch up, we can seal off the bridge, leave, and lose them in the crew quarters.”

Solstice hummed a discontented note. “We’ll be cutting it close. We’ll basically have to run towards the griffons and somehow sneak through them.”

There wasn’t another choice. Lennox suppressed a sigh and tapped the console, bringing up a readout on the ship’s status. The graphical display was a mottled series of red, orange, and yellow. It was supposed to be all green. Hundreds of warnings crawled along the side of the diagram.

“Hey,” Solstice said into the communicator, startling Lennox from his analysis. “What if, instead of the old stallion, there’s an alicorn princess versus the same filly?”

Lennox clenched and unclenched his fists. “Please shut up and let me save our lives.” He tapped a finger on the central console’s screen and brought up a number of diagnostic procedures. They’d already run most of these from computers on the engineering module, but apparently the bridge computers weren’t feeling very trusting. Lennox could understand why.

The stallion floated from station to station on the upper ring, coming into Lennox’s peripheral vision. “We won’t be pressed for time until we actually make the first maneuver,” Solstice said, bringing up more diagnostics on every screen he left. “Kelantos won’t touch us until we’re done, and the others won’t even realize what’s happening until the ship moves. We can relax a little.”

Solstice stopped at security, but instead of diagnostics, he scrolled through camera feeds.

“Time is not a resource to throw away,” Lennox answered.

“We’ve got a few minutes to wait on the computers. A few minutes to pace ourselves. Constant stress makes it hard to think.”

Lennox rolled his eyes. “Triage categorizes them in the same tier, but I must say alicorn because of value to society.”

“Mkay,” Solstice said. “New one. You have two victims… The first will likely survive, but only with treatment, and the second is one you’re personally close to, but is unlikely to survive even with treatment.”

“Personally close to?” Lennox repeated. “Clarify.”

“A family member versus a stranger.” Solstice continued scrolling through the feeds, paused on a view of some dark corner half a kilometer away.

The central computer beeped, commanding Lennox’s attention. The maneuvering thrusters were a mess. Dozens of unhappy warnings popped up under his beak. Damaged nozzles, low fuel, empty fuel… The thrusters that still functioned would be hard-pressed to maneuver the ship on their own and get it pointing the right way, and it wouldn’t do much good to fire the main engines if they weren’t aimed in the right direction.

“Take a look at the attitude controls,” Lennox said. He squeezed the edge of the desk.

The stallion was silent. He stared at one of SecCom’s screens.

It wasn’t a camera feed that had anything to do with attitude thrusters. “Solstice, focus,” Lennox hissed.

Solstice closed his eyes and shut off the feed. He tore himself from SecCom and slid down a few more computer stations. His breath rasped in the comms. He scanned over the helm controls. “It… okay, they’re damaged.”

“Back in engineering, you said they were fine.”

“No, the Kulzer Complex test said they were fine,” Solstice spat back. “The computer. The diagnostics.”

“Can we still work with this?”

“What else would we work with?”

“We could try to fix some of them.”

Solstice shook his head. “No. We would need another month.”

“A slower burn? It would be more stable.”

“No. It would take too long.” It would take too long was a nice way of saying that, by the time they actually got the ship home, the hostages would all be dead.

“It would take too long,” Lennox repeated, opening his eyes and staring at the diagnostic readout. “Then I suppose we must proceed with the original plan.” He rapped his fingers against the edge of the console. “And as for your hypothetical scenario… Two victims: family and stranger, the stranger more likely to survive?”

“Yeah?”

“Optimize the outcome. The stranger has the best chance of survival. The family member is likely to die with or without treatment. Therefore, I choose the stranger. Simply put, one death is better than two.”

It felt like minutes before Solstice spoke. “Well, I guess it is pretty simple to let them die when you’re only looking at numbers.” His voice was hollow.

“What else would you look at?”

Solstice closed his eyes. “That’s the sort of question where… if you have to ask it, you’ll never really understand the answer. You’ve never had a younger sibling, have you?”

“No. Try and explain.”

Solstice shook his head, but answered anyway. “Look at their faces. See the fear.” He grabbed the railing of the upper ring and glared down at Lennox. “Have you ever tried it? It’s traumatizing.”

“Why would I do that? So I can make a decision based on… on empathy?” Lennox said. “If you base decisions on empathy, you get stuck. It always happens. Your only criteria are contradictory. You want to save everyone, so you hesitate and you feel guilty and they all die.”

Solstice clenched his jaw. His chest moved, his breathing visible even through the suit. “They’re hunting right now, just like we expected. On the opposite side of the ship, as far from us as possible.”

The griffons would take a pony down to the engineering crew quarters, one of the darker, more labyrinthine areas of the ship. The pony would be armed and told they could go free if they survived for twenty-four hours. None had. “And?”

Solstice breathed deeply, relaxing as he exhaled. When he spoke, it was in a clear tone, completely calm, sober, devoid of any of the anger he had just shown. “Nothing.”

He was always so bothered by things beyond his control. By all logical assessment, it was an absurd waste of biological resources. The victim of this hunt was irrelevant to their present task, and he could do nothing for their safety from here. Dwelling on those thoughts could only have negative outcomes: distraction, anxiety, internal conflict. There wasn’t any reason to allow this anxiety such a hold over him.

Solstice turned and punched the navigation console. It gave a short countdown for the maneuver. He still carried out the task, but he had hesitated. He had only decreased that pony’s chances of survival through his worry for them.

Why? What was the purpose? The equines thought it such a sacred thing, their friendship, their harmony. But it was such a… a handicap. Solstice couldn’t even survive without talking about nothing, without wasting mental energy considering hypothetical nonsense having no bearing on the mission at hand. He used to chat about home and forests and his friends back on Equus, used to tell stories about his colthood and his time with the ESA. He told stories about Holly, his sister, another crew member on the Song. Crew records listed her as dead, but they also listed Lennox and Solstice as dead, so there was doubt. He could give Solstice credit for pursuing priorities, but the work wasn’t without distractions. Lennox knew damn near his entire life story.

Solstice thought out loud. He used to talk to himself, speaking out loud the steps of mechanical tasks as if mumbling the words of an instruction manual. The words were already in his mind. Why vocalize them? It was almost as if he couldn’t even process the world around himself without regurgitating his observations back into the environment.

But Solstice smiled. At least, he used to. He smiled over stupid things. Silly things. When they weren’t in danger, when they could afford the time, he would just… goof off. He had a uniquely irritating ability to find amusement in the mundane, to violate all known laws of physics and create joy from nothingness.

Lennox didn’t have an algorithm for that.

Comments

[Cynewulf]

Again, I say this: This is fantastic. Amazing. Reading it has been a pleasure these last few days.

[Axan Zenith]

Woah! Rework mode engaged.

Uh. Hm. I dunno. Maybe It's Different And Therefore Bad, but something about the new draft doesn't quite click for me like the old one. The original draft left a lot of the exposition out at first, feeding it to us scrap by scrap as it slowly eased into the world and setting. This one's a bit more straightforward, but it still retains enough of that stylish flare to retain the feel of the original. I'll keep reading and see how it plays out.

[Horizon Runner]

I've had this on my read later list for what feels like a year, now, and I might not ever have read it if it weren't for the recommendation of a certain mutual friend.

I now sincerely regret taking so long to get to reading this, and just as sincerely look forward to reading the rest. Everything about this chapter—tone, tension, characterization, world-building, the list goes on—is awesome, and while it's not much, it's getting my like and favorite.

[TheGrandNil]

This is the good shit