Breach

Looking beyond the vast, ovate perimeter of nearly impenetrable polycarbonate, it feels at times as though I’m resting within some enormous glass eye. The vastness of the black beyond is dotted with tiny lights that no longer seem quite as enigmatic as they once did. The scan that noted the absence of a light that was no star nor ever would be came within the estimated time frame. The cosmic void had been dimmed by a fraction of a fragment of an ember. A dot of illumination wearing the name LX7-9901-A had triggered its core and disappeared far beyond the range of sensors that could report on the atomic structure of a planet’s core at a distance that might take an LC2 model more than a decade to traverse at top speed.

I try not to think about the hope that I felt when they left. The idea of salvation. I try not to think about how we all knew that one had to stay behind to keep even the most basic systems functional. That I knew it had to be me even before there was a suggestion for it to be otherwise.

Sometimes at night, I think back to when this place was new. When things had not become as they are. Had someone posited the very idea that this could be my trajectory, I don’t know that I would have believed them.

My thoughts are disrupted often these days. The sound outside is growing. I can feel the trembling as it slithers through the whole of the structure. A vibration that swells at the farthest perimeter of what I once thought was a solace at its worst and a blessing at its best. It has moments where it intensifies and moments where it thins. I can tell without looking at the monitors in the rooms not far from me that it ebbs and flows with the cycle of the sun. A strange circadian rhythm at work like a synchronicity embedded into the very fiber of this world.

They cheered when we came here. The reticence and worry were there at the surface, of course, but we knew before we were within distance of detection that we were as conquistadors equipped with guns as our ship slipped upon a land where advancement had granted little more slings and stones.

Sometimes when the sun dips beyond the horizon and the vibration in the shell of my now-mausoleum settles into to a slow hum that I can endure, I think about the dichotomy of intention. The dichotomy of belief. I place my hand upon the medal that was given to me from those days. Days that have grown old and gray like a dying sycamore. I wonder how it was that they could grant me such a gift with such a meaning and how that meaning could feel – in this moment – so painfully meaningless.

We’d traveled through grand streets. There were crowds that cheered. Strange beings that they were, they embellished themselves in colors and designs. They made strange noises that we’d not initially known to be sounds of joy or happiness (apparently some of those same sounds seem to be sounds of pain and displeasure – but I digress). Even as we knew that some of them would slink in the shadows of mistrust or even attempt to strike out undisguised, we understood and, with more intellect and preparedness than their sum combined, we saw every threat deterred and always in a way that made it abundantly clear that we did nothing save defend ourselves from needless attack.

Lessons we’d hard learned in the many years before.

There was a time when the rooms beyond where I am now were buzzing with activity. Theirs and ours. Ours and theirs. A simple and functional cohesion.

An idea of peace. The potential for hope if such a thing exists.

When the surface split and oceans boiled, there was nothing but panic. Eyes were on us, of course, but for every set that saw a savior, there seemed six that saw a charlatan. The proximity of the occurrence did little to assuage the skepticism. I could hear it in their voices. I could see it in their mannerisms. Diplomatic hands were outstretched in feigned friendship while their furtive eyes found naught but fear.

None of us said much the day they left. I like to think we all had our doubts. We all had our fears. Too many words would turn into goodbyes. Some of them would likely be forever. We wanted to hold on to the belief that this was a moment of, “I’ll be here” and “I’ll be back” and we wore a quivering stoicism for a swift separation.

Sometimes I play their final message back. The one where they say, “This is the bridge of vessel LX7-9901-A. Trajectory set to 0FFA-4E21-D98A-B290. Core functionality holding. Trajectory intersect stable. Engines operational. Shields at 31AE. Sir – we will return.”

I’ve run through the mathematics of it all. I’ve had little else to do as my world shrinks around me. Even by the most extreme estimations, they should have returned if they could have returned.

As I have for so many days before, I take a moment as the clock chimes to 11 A.M. their time and I check the console. I send another message via text relay. I send another via voice. I send them to both the LX and on the signal that could – based on some very questionable telemetry – get picked up in the cosmic dust of my home world’s satellite array.

Unlike the times before, I think before I start to type.

I say (in both text and in voice): I have made peace with this. I do not anticipate that I will see many more tomorrows. For all the ways I was not better, I apologize. This life – this existence – was an honor.

I can hear the clamor as a defensive blast door yields to the pressure upon it. It slams into the ground like the fist of a metal titan.

With a dimming fear and a growing sense of malaise, I exit the main chamber of my internment for the first time in 1B:10:2F:0F:0411 milliseconds in their time. The immediate room beyond feels wrong to me. The tremors are stronger here and I can actually feel their presence on some level that transcends normal sensor activity.

Looking without, I can see them. Strange, bipedal beings with skin of peach and umber and all the shades between. Odd organic creatures shrieking and screaming. Their hands covered in blood from where they’ve been scratching and clawing and punching to gain entrance. All of them like uncaged animals with wild eyes.

Some of them gather around my already fallen comrades – their lives drained in increments as the charging stations failed. They pull and rip at the synthetic exterior and gnaw at the superficial skin and musculature. Watching from up here, I think of a saying that these creatures once said: my heart sinks. I believed in so much more for them.

I hoped for so much more for them.

I have no plans to endure the pain of their actions. They may not think me an entity that suffers such a limitation but it is that pain and that woe that grants us all the understanding of true mortality. The knowing that it hurts. That it ends.

This evening I will play the message from the LX and I will make no attempt to see my energy restored. Better to see my sensors fade than to know what these monsters will do to me.

My final words – which none but I will hear lest my form is recovered and my memory bank uncorrupted – are naught but this: It was not an honor.

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Inspired by the prompt by Afterwards: Containment Breach
https://afterwards.blog/2024/03/18/afterwards-writing-prompt-11-monday-18th-of-march-containment-breach/