#ramirez: skel

[faytelumos]

Into the Black With a Matchstick, pt5

I have no idea what the word count here is but this feels kinda long. @_@

Also, I am so sorry for all of the exposition; I am trying to make it gentle but it feels like a lot! I think we're at/almost at the hump of this story, though! :0

@c00kieknight, @hypersomnia-insomniac, @jxm-1up, @midnight--architect, @robinparravel

@thepotatoofnopes, @those-damn-snippets

@mr-orion, @tildeathiwillwrite, @thelazywitchphotographer

cw: some peril, descriptions of vertigo and vomiting

first previous

---

Ten minutes.

That was no time at all.

The Skel. What in the name of Creation were the Skel doing in this sector? Paxie was here to monitor smuggling, to discourage unlicensed vessels from flying, to report unusual star activity.

The squad of five ships were not equipped for a skirmish with them.

"All ships!" Paxie ordered across the emergency channel. "Spool FTL drives and make heading for nearest fallback position! Defensive power allocations!" Ten minutes. Ten minutes! If the ships weren't all ready in time, if the Earthlings couldn't get ready in time—

They had no FTL travel—

"Ready automated fighters to scramble!" they added hurriedly.

The Earthlings. What were they going to do about the Earthlings.

Kime was scrambling, and she clamored in a rush through the narrow hallway. Paxie got out of her way as she bumped and clawed her way to the shuttle.

"Admiral!" Klte hissed. They looked back towards the med bay to see it looking at them, its helmet already back on its head. "The Earthlings!"

"I know," Paxie barked affirmatively. They couldn't leave this ship behind. But there was no way for it to possibly travel fast enough to keep up.

"Admiral," Harrison said, stepping into the hall. His eyes were wide, and his skin was pale. Paxie worried for a moment he might faint again. "How do your faster than light engines work?" Paxie blinked. They had no idea. And why was this a question to ask? Surely there was no way for the Earthlings to make an FTL drive in ten minutes with the technology available on this ancient ship. "Do they dematerialize?" he asked. "Do you use wormholes? Is it a space deforming drive?"

"It-it warps the shape of space," Klte hissed. Harrison turned sharply to look at them. Ramirez stepped into the hall.

"Does the space around the ship remain unchanged?" Harrison asked. "Is it distorted inside of the rings?"

What was the Earthling talking about? How did he know how FTL drives worked if Earth didn't have them?

"No," Klte said, their voice almost awed. "No, it's distorted in a bubble through the rings and projectors." Harrison turned sharply to Paxie.

"Admiral, we have to move this ship onto the belly of one of your vessels," Harrison said. "If your ships have ferrous hulls, we can clamp onto you to avoid falling off. But we have to begin maneuvers now."

"That's out of the question," Paxie breathed, blanching. The risk of the ship falling out of alignment and crossing the warp barrier.... "If you fall away, your ship will be smeared across open space."

"And what are the chances of the incoming vessel killing us?" Ramirez asked. She was stoic again. The look in her eyes was... haunting. She had the focus of any Xoixe. Of any apex.

Paxie looked again to Harrison. To Klte.

"Unless you have a ship large enough to dock our vessel, we don't have time to think of another solution," Ramirez said. And Paxie didn't. This mission had been routine, and the Earthling's ship was too large and awkwardly shaped to store on any of the Xoixe craft.

They opened a channel to Captain Eme.

"Captain, prepare The Water's Kiss to align and attach to the Earthling vessel, belly-to-belly."

"A-Admiral?!" Eme choked.

Ramirez and Harrison both sprinted to a different room in the ship.

"They know the risk, Captain, and it was their idea."

"This species is completely suicidal," Eme gasped. Paxie considered the conversation Ramirez and Kime had just had.

"I'm inclined to agree," they breathed. Then they looked up to Klte. "Into the shuttle, we have to get back."

"Aye, sir," it said, already getting down on all eight and running headlong for the airlock.

Adina could hear Paxie making their massive way back to the shuttle from the gear room. John swore again, yanking on the thermal regulation layer, and Adina finally managed to get her damned cryo suit off of her body.

"What a fuckin' day," John gasped, getting the tight-fitting undersuit on and zipped up. Adina just laughed bitterly. She'd barely gotten two minutes with the damn IV before she had to yank it out of her arm again.

John shrugged the top half of his spacesuit on just as Adina heard the low-pitched thump of the outer airlock door sealing. A moment later, there was a deep clang as the alien shuttle detached. "Solstice!" Adina barked, yanking her thermal layer into place. The computer chimed. "Override collision controls and roll ship 180 degrees!"

"Right away, Doctor Adina Ramirez," the computer said in its slow, melodic, feminine voice. The ship immediately began to tilt.

"Shit," John hissed, stumbling as he stood on one leg, stepping into the bottom half of his suit.

Once John finished suiting up, he helped Adina get clamped down. They both waddled to the bridge.

"Which chair do I sit in?" Adina cried.

"How many sim hours did you log?" John asked. Adina stuttered, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to remember.

"Um, uh, uh, th-three hundred and f-forty!"

"You're on comms," John said, pointing to the first chair on the left. He took the one mounted facing forward, and she thanked whatever the fuck was left of God that it wasn't up to her to fly this thing.

There was already a hail request open, and when Adina answered it, she got video of the purpley-green Xoixe.

"Earthlings, you have six minutes before the Skel arrive!" the thing boomed. John swore.

"Adina, are you buckled in?"

"N-no!"

"Get buckled, we have to move!"

Adina stumbled and grasped, her breathing coming loud and hard. The buckle was large, made to be used even with the massive spacesuit gloves, and she was able to get strapped in even as the ship kept spinning.

"I'm in!"

The ship lurched downwards, and Adina squeezed her eyes shut against the vertigo.

"Collision shield disabled!" someone in the room on the alien ship cried.

"Away vessel successfully docked!" another announced.

"FTL fully spooled! Bubble zone partially obstructed!"

"Lieutenant Harrison, you have to move faster!" the alien captain cried. Adina could barely hear them over the sound of her breathing. She kept her eyes closed, trying not to remember how close the helmet was to her face, trying not to think about what would happen if they got stuck here or sliced apart in the warp bubble, trying not to think about how it felt like she was going to throw up again.

"If I hit you too hard, I'll bounce off and lose my alignment!" John yelled back over his shoulder.

"Harrison, we don't have time, I promise you will not bounce off of our hull!" the captain yelled back. "Clear the bubble zone, now!"

John swore loudly and Adina cried out when he punched the maneuvering thrusters. It felt like they were free-falling, the entire ship rushing down faster and faster, flinging her stomach into her lungs, and then they slammed to a stop so fast that Adina's teeth cracked shut.

"Bubble zone clear!"

"Engage drive!"

The entire ship seemed to yank to the right, like some kind of twisted roller coaster and rubber band hybrid. Then everything shuddered all at once, and then there was aching, deafening stillness.

Adina could hear her panicked breathing like it was blasting through an amp right next to her face. Her head was spinning like a top but she knew in her body the cabin was unnaturally still. Her breathing picked up — she heard it more than felt it — and suddenly she was scrambling at the latch of her helmet, her gloved fingers clawing at the bottom of her visor.

She got the helmet off in time, but forgot about the seat buckle. The channel was still open in front of her as she coughed up bile. Her ears were ringing. She didn't feel any better at all.

"Adina?" John said. He held her face in his gloved hands, suddenly standing next to her. "Hey, can you stand?" Adina closed her eyes. She would have shaken her head, but even the thought made her want to wretch again.

"N, hh, n, nn-nn...."

"Stay right here, then," John uttered, letting go of her. "We seem stable, so I'm gonna grab the IV again." Adina couldn't speak, and she couldn't move her head, so she just kept trying to breathe.

---

By the time Paxie got out of their suit, The Water's Kiss was well away from where it had come across the Earth vessel. Once again in open hallways, free of the environment suit, Paxie had abandoned propriety and sprinted for the command room.

They ran full-out, their claws scraping against the decks, their blood rushing. Everything was sharp. Their scales buzzed, and they were keenly aware of how hard their muscles were pumping to move them like this. Their body was alight, electrified. Their mind was focused, the Earthling pair their only thought.

They burst into the command room and slowed, their scales itching. They scraped their claws against the deck, panting hard, eyes snapping to the front of the bridge. There was an open channel, and Captain Ramirez was slumped in the display, breathing hard as Lieutenant Harrison worked around them.

Paxie relaxed, and the weight of fatigue settled over them. They padded heavily to the captain's chair. Eme flinched when they came into view and hurriedly vacated the seat. Paxie laid down in it, their chest heaving, and laid their claws down flat.

The Earthlings survived the initial jump. Good.

"Status report," Paxie huffed.

"The Earthling vessel is secured to the bottom hull, sir," Eme explained. "Our Ghost volunteered to engineer the dampener settings to keep them stable. We've evacuated the bottom two decks to keep our personnel from getting sick, but…." Eme glanced at the screen. Ramirez was trembling, and Harrison was wiping their face with the same thing they had given him earlier.

"She'll be okay," Lieutenant Harrison said. It felt all too familiar, to have Ramirez looking close to death and Harrison dismissing the matter. Perhaps it was another quirk of the species. Another avenue of their… self-destructive attitude. "We didn't suffer any damage during the maneuvers, thankfully," Harrison added. He stooped down to look into the feed from over Ramirez's shoulder. "We didn't hurt anything, did we?"

"N-no," Eme said. He was keeping his voice very proper. "No damage was sustained during maneuvers, and we did not have to scramble any automated fighters to escape." He looked again to Paxie. "All four vessels reported clean spool and initiation. We'll arrive at the fallback position five minutes behind them."

"It's going to be a long five minutes for them," Paxie mused. Maybe it felt closer than it was, but Paxie had been terrified the new aliens were going to get The Water's Kiss killed, or die in the retreat, themselves. If it was them waiting at the fallback position for a ship to arrive, they were sure they'd be inconsolably worried.

"Captain Ramirez, Lieutenant Harrison," Paxie said. Harrison looked up, but Ramirez only grunted. She was clearly in bad shape. And she wasn't getting better the way Harrison had. Paxie swallowed thickly and straightened up taller. "On behalf of the Interstellar Federation of Alliance, I, Admiral Uten Paxie, offer you and your species sanctuary. Under Article six of the Orphaned Body protocol, you all will be afforded medical care, nutrition, and housing without the need to prove citizenship of the Federation."

Harrison was staring at Paxie now. He curled one side of his lips upward, and chuffed softly. Ramirez seemed to be barely lucid. Paxie flattened their ears.

"As the commanding officer of this squadron, and your current head of authority, I'm authorizing an extended rest for the two of you," they went on. Harrison's expression went back to something more neutral. "You are both excused from any further duties for the day, and are not required to check in at a specific time."

Harrison nodded his head. He looked more serious now, more focused, the way Ramirez had earlier. He kept his hand on Ramirez's shoulder the entire time.

"Will do, Admiral," he said. He then gently patted Ramirez's shoulder. "We'll… hail you when we're feeling better."

"See that you do," Paxie said. "Rest well."

Harrison nodded again. Paxie nodded to the communications officer, who cut the feed. Then they took a long, deep breath.

"Announce ship-wide rest," they exhaled. "Keep half again extra medical staff on standby."

"Yes, sir," Eme said, opening the ship-wide channel.

---

Paxie roused with a start when their door chimed. They checked the time. It had been almost seven hours since rest had been announced. They still had another hour left.

They clambered up and out of their low bed, then padded over and hit the floor control for the door. It slid open, revealing a Qomo officer.

"The Earthlings have roused," it announced in the Xoixe language. "They've requested council with you and a highly skilled xenomedic at your convenience." Paxie quirked their jaw.

"Has something gone wrong? Are they injured?"

"No, sir," it said, "Captain Ramirez seems to be fairing better, already. But they wish to discuss the lives of their crew."

That was right. Ramirez and Harrison were the only crew members who had been thawed from their cryonic sleep, but there were more Earthlings than them on board. They would all need to be awoken as soon as possible. Keeping any creature in such a state, let alone for so terribly long, was absurdly inhumane.

"Very well. Rouse Ensign Kime and Lieutenant Tapide."

"Aye, sir."

Once Paxie was refreshed and the two xenomedics were gathered, the three entered the bridge. There was an open channel, already, and the second captain stood and relinquished the chair to Paxie. Paxie nodded their head and padded over, but they watched the feed distractedly.

Nobody was in frame. They could tell they were looking at a part of the ship near the helm station, but all there was to see was metal and wiring.

"Captain Ramirez?" Paxie said. They switched on the translation protocol when their words weren't repeated. "Lieutenant Harrison?"

There was a metal clatter. One of the Earthlings said something too quiet for the translation protocol to pick up. Then Harrison came into view. He looked pinker in the face now, and his eyes seemed clearer. He bore his teeth widely.

"Admiral, hi," he said. He was very close to the screen, and the untranslated version of his voice was loud. "How did you sleep?"

Paxie huffed a laugh.

"I think I should be asking you that," they said. "Is Captain Ramirez okay?"

"She's much better now," Harrison said, looking off-screen in the direction he'd come. Then he looked back to them. "She slept like a rock and got some water in her, so now she actually looks like a scientist."

"I can hear you!" Ramirez's voice shouted from off-screen. She sounded agressive, but Harrison was laughing, baring his teeth. Paxie quirked their ears. He didn't seem to be worried about confrontation or repercussions.

"Anyway, Admiral, we have a few questions," Harrison said, hiding his teeth again. He moved, and seemed to lower himself before the screen. Perhaps resting in that odd chair design. He was serious now. "We have around two hundred people on this vessel, six of which are presumed dead."

Paxie jolted, eyes wide. "What happened?" they demanded. "How long have they been dead?"

"They failed to wake from cryo sleep."

Paxie stared. Eight creatures had been awoken from cryo sleep? And only two of them had survived? They knew cryogenic stasis was cruel, but to be so dangerous?

"What is the state of the six individuals?" Lieutenant Tapide asked. She wasn't Xoixe, but a species with long, bright green and blue feathers across her body, small, delicate hands, and a smaller, more delicate voice.

"Once they fail to wake, the system re-suspends the body," Harrison explained. "The hope there is that they'll be preserved enough to resuscitate, if it's an option."

"Then they haven't been dead long enough to degrade?" Tapide asked. She was already going through information on her tablet beside Kime.

"That's the hope," Harrison said. He lowered his voice now, looking away. "We haven't exactly… checked on them. In person. But the computer says they're still viable."

Paxie felt a pang in their gut. Harrison wasn't looking at the feed now, and he had dropped his voice. Nobody knew the body language of these creatures yet, but this was not what they had observed as Harrison's normal demeanor.

Two hundred Earthlings. And six of them were possibly dead. What may have been a small wound to the Xoixe was a great blow to the Earthlings. No planet, no bearings, no familiar species, hunted in open space, and with barely enough of them left to survive.

Paxie rested their weight further back, dizzied with the idea. They could have very possibly witnessed an extinction event had the Earth ship not made it away with The Water's Kiss, had they not made such a risky and unsound exit plan. Not just the death of intelligent life, but the death of an intelligent species.

It was a difficult prospect to swallow.

"We're unable to dispatch a medpod to you during our jump," Tapide said. Paxie looked to her. She was especially unflappable among her people, they knew this, but it always took Paxie off-guard. "How accessible are your cryogenic compatriots?"

"Uh, well," Harrison said, glancing between Paxie, Kime, and Tapide. Paxie already knew Tapide would fit in the Earthling ship better than they did, but still not as well as the Earthlings. And since their spaces seemed to be made compact on purpose, they could only imagine what the stasis array looked like. "We would probably want to remove the pods from our stasis chamber. We can take them wherever you need to work on them once we've… landed?" Harrison raised his shoulders and twisted his hands to be downside-up, then relaxed again. "I don't know how it works."

"Once our jump is concluded, we can dock properly and shuttle your pods aboard," Paxie explained. "The Water's Kiss should have plenty of resources to evaluate your kin, and determine their revivability."

Harrison nodded, looking down. "Okay," he said. "How long until the jump is over?" Paxie turned and looked to the engineering station, manned by the off-rotation crew member. Eme knew their name, but Paxie didn't.

"We have another six hours," the engineer announced. Paxie didn't let it show how disappointed they were to hear that. They couldn't send or receive any messages while jumping, which meant they weren't going to get any further answers, and couldn't even consult command.

This was probably the worst First Contact in recorded history.

"Alright," Harrison said. He got to his feet again. "I guess we'll see you in six hours, then."

"Very well," Paxie said. "If you have further needs, do not hesitate to hail us again."

"Thanks," Harrison said, and he bore his teeth. He reached for the screen, but then stopped suddenly. "Oh, and before I forget," he said. "Thank you for sending the-the Ghost over."

Paxie tilted their head.

"The Ghost is there?"

Harrison raised the fur patches over his eyes.

"Oh," he said, turning to where he had come onscreen from. "Uh…." He glanced to the screen again.

Paxie heaved a long sigh. They hadn't cleared the Ghost to go aboard the Earthling vessel, but they supposed they hadn't specifically barred it, either. This Ghost wriggled through regulations like water through a leash.

The video feed blurred briefly, and then Harrison moved aside. A transparent, blue-gray mass waved into frame, seeming briefly to obscur the video with a sparse star field.

"Greetings, Admiral," the translation protocol said. Paxie withheld a laugh.

"Hello, Weak Force. You were supposed to wait to be introduced." Paxie couldn't help but notice their words weren't translated to the Earthling language, despite the translation protocol still being active.

"These creatures took my appearance with great grace," the automated voice said. "They understand better than we expected, and did not require coaching to comprehend me."

"Oh, that's good," Paxie said. When Harrison had… fainted, well…. Paxie wasn't worried now, because he seemed fine. But he would have been if Ramirez had been the one on screen, and Harrison remained hidden.

"Admiral," the voice said again. The blur on the video solidified somewhat, obscuring much of the background in a faint haze. "I have been searching through the data on this vessel, and I have discovered two important things." Paxie nodded for it to continue. "Number One: The Earthling vessel, The Solstice, had its course artificially altered, beyond the influence of celestial bodies or the intention of the crew." Paxie blinked, but before they could ask about it— "Number Two: These Earthlings are the species self-designated as Human, currently known as the Five-Fingered Ones, from the planet Areterra."

Areterra? Paxie knew that planet.

"They're from the same planet as the Mauilen," Kime gasped.

Paxie's eyes widened.

"That's excellent news," Paxie said. They looked to Tapide and Kime. "We'll need to adjust for environmental shift, but this should mean we know their chemical biology already."

"Correct, sir," Kime said, typing eagerly on her tablet. "We'll want to run tests first, but we should know then what medicines and foods will work for them."

"Admiral," the voice said. Paxie looked to the screen again. "It would be prudent for the Federation to treat the route alteration of this vessel as sabotage."

Paxie felt almost cold to hear those words. Sabotage. But it seemed as likely as anything else. But if these Humans were from Areterra, then there was more to know here.

Areterra's biological lexicon had no example of a species like the Humans. So there was less hope that their twenty-six million year mission clock was a malfunction. And it would cause some unprecedented administrative strife, assuming it was accurate. Did it mean they were truly an orphaned species then? Perhaps it was up to if they could survive the current climate of their planet? If it truly had been so long as that? Would the Mauilen have any responsibility over them, or would these two species be treated as entirely independent? Did the Maulien have any responsibility to home the remaining Humans and the method by which they rehabilitated their numbers, or was that weight solely on the Federation?

Paxie shook their head subtly. These were not questions for a patrol admiral.

"Thank you, Weak Force," Paxie said.

"Signing off," the voice said. The feed cut, then, leaving the bridge in silence.

"This is exciting," Kime uttered. Paxie wasn't so sure. And they couldn't help but wonder how old the Skel were, and if they were or had ever been capable of sabotage like this.

"Notify Gunnery Sergeant Appi," Paxie said. "When rest is concluded, she will be to meet me in my office."

[lighthouseroleplay]

LETICIA ‘LETTY’ RAMIREZ

                          ( 22 ,  cis woman , she/her )

♪♫ currently listening  ⧸⧸  how long? by vampire weekend

bright colours and a bright smile, calloused fingers, an ever-present guitar pick. a bouquet of wildflowers, doodles in black ink along arms, the warmth of the sun on the summer’s hottest day. round sunglasses, adoring fans, quick hands flicking a pocketknife open and closed. torn jeans, the arch of an eyebrow, the burn of a cigarette. the muffled sound of music through a closed door, a flame burning ever-hotter.

    •  carter was the first person you’d ever met who loved art as much as you did. sure, they were more visual, you were more audio, but you were kindred spirits nonetheless. they designed your first tattoo, back in tenth grade, little doodles of a bonfire accompanied by sparks transforming over time, and you got it the day you turned 18. you weren’t inseparable — both of you had other friends, other groups, and class schedules that differed — but on days where you came together, it felt like no time had passed at all, and catching up on their life, as they were caught up on yours, was the easiest thing in the world.

    •  auclair became a somewhat unlikely friend when he appeared in your class your junior year. you never expected to befriend the exchange student, much less one dripping with wealth and excess like he was, but something made you two click. you didn’t have much more than your music, but he never shied away from listening to a new song or following along on one of your adventures around town. he supported you in a way you never expected, and you soon found your place at his side. even when he returned to france in the summer, snapchat and whatsapp kept you together, with the occasional skype call in between, and while sometimes you half expected him to forget about you in the face of the luxury and popularity he had back home, he never did.

taken by sam  ⧸⧸   zaira gonzalez

The green and white house that sits at 10 Leforge Avenue looks unremarkable on the outside. On the front lawn, the grass is appropriately cropped (with the exception of the occasional dandelion that makes its presence sunnily known) and the vinyl siding is worn but functional. A basketball hoop hangs dutifully over the single car garage-- the mesh of the net has been missing for years now, but it’s been almost that long since anyone has played a game with it. The flowerbed that frames the cracked asphalt of the driveway is planted with perennials that make maintenance easy; echinacea and sage flower in the warm months, and the delicate white blooms of chamomile make the walk up to the front door smell sweet. It’s the curtains that nearly give it away; the flash of vibrant colour that catches the eye of passersby, the smallest glimpse of warmth within the unassuming exterior.

The Ramirez home had always been loud on the inside. The walls were painted as soon as they moved in (white is too depressing, her father declared, gazing around the austere space) and every inch that couldn’t be coated in bright paint was covered in art. Music flowed from one room to the next, voices carried up the stairs as heavy feet thundered down them. The home had four bedrooms, but housed nine people; the five Ramirez children, their parents, uncle José (whose inability to retain a job seemed to have him on their couch, more often than not) and great aunt Maria, whose expertise in creating the perfect tamale was worth room and board all on its own, Letty’s father insisted. Their family was larger than those just living in the home; there was great aunt Yolanda, who lived in Colorado, and her sons and daughters with their families. Two sets of grandparents still lived in Mexico with a handful of other aunts and uncles. The myriad of Ramirez cousins littered all the way up the West Coast. 

The last of five, Leticia was born three years after her youngest brother. Miguel was first, and he always took that role seriously. He had been seven when Letty was born; all of her memories surrounding him are sweet-- a big brother doting on his baby sister. Even as a boy, he’d been adult-like and mature, doling out justice where he saw fit, making decisions for the group. The twins were next, Nando and Rico, double trouble and five years senior. Responsible for half of the rumours about the family, the twins, (identical and both sly as foxes) took their share of beatings for bad behaviour but did so in stride, and continued to be just as wicked. Letty recalls how they’d tug on her hair and steal her toys, finding different ways to torment her for their own amusement. The last of the boys was Rafael, the most beautiful of them all, their mother’s angelito. Even as a child, his shyness had been crippling. It was the rest of the family that brought out his personality, wrangling laughter from the wells deep within him, listening to him speak even though he stammered. 

It was uncle José who taught her how to play the guitar. (He also taught her how to curse, wicked words in Spanish that she delighted in hurling at her brothers when they provoked her). He would spend warm afternoons on the back porch, perched on the railing, instructing Letty as she strummed the same four chords. That’s all you need, mija, the rest comes later, he’d say, and then warble along with some mangled lyrics as she clumsily performed renditions of Love Me Do and Sweet Caroline. It was the performances that really got her hooked: forcing the family to sit down at the table, while she balanced a guitar on her lap that was nearly bigger than she was, then belting out the words to the songs (and whenever she forgot them, simply whatever words came to mind). After she turned ten, her father gifted her a guitar of her own. She learned more, greedily consuming all of the sheet music that she could find, trying to train her fingers to be quick and nimble as they picked at the strings. Letty never actually learned how to read music properly; all her books of sheet music became scribbled over with letters to decode the mysterious symbols. 

She shared a room with her great aunt until she turned twelve and Miguel moved out (rather, he was shoved out in a desperate need to make space). His move shuffled around the whole household; Rafael moved his things in with the twins, leaving Letty the vastness of a room all to herself. The first few weeks were surprisingly lonely. When she slept, she was certain that she could hear her thoughts echoing; her dreams felt twice as vivid. Great aunt Maria said that this was a good thing, that a girl like her needed space for her imagination to grow in. She often said things like this, half-myth and half-truth, pinches of wisdom that were offered without prompting. You mustn’t sweep the house at night, or you’ll sweep away all of your good luck. You can’t make tamales when angry, they’ll never fluff up. La polilla negra means death. Leticia absorbed it all, marvelling at the ways that her family’s superstitions transferred into their ways of living. Her mother always spiced a pot in the shape of a cross. Her father retold every nightmare he had in great detail over the breakfast table, to ensure they never came true. 

It wasn’t hard, being the baby sister to the pack of dogs that were the Ramirez boys. In their youth, they’d achieved a sort of infamy on Leforge Street that made them feel like a gang. Gangly and long-limbed, their knees always skinned, they howled through Tenebrin Port, and might’ve been an ominous group had it not been for little Letty trailing behind them, often gripping Miguel’s lowered hand. As she grew older, she learned how to hold her own amongst them-- all it took was a hard-set jaw and a disinterested look in her eye, gazing at the scrubbed-clean boys and girls that lived in the nice part of town, and it was easy to lean into the Ramirez name. They’d never have the wealth that the kids growing up in Renfrew Heights did, but as they raced through other people’s backyards on the way to the Corner Mart and dominated the best loungers at the public pool, it became apparent that they didn’t want it. They weren’t above the rich, but they were apathetic to them; they were thriving in their own way.  

As her interest in music grew, her appetite for genres became voracious. When the tiny record store in town could no longer satisfy her need for new music, Letty began writing her own. An entire summer was spent getting devoured by mosquitos and letting her fingers grow raw, then calloused, as she tried out every combination of chords to create her own songs. They were truly terrible, at first. Her great aunt compared the sound to a group of tomcats yowling, but it was Letty’s voice that always earned her praise. When the evenings wound down, she would play something traditional for Aunt Maria. La Llorona was her aunt’s favourite; moved by the music, Maria would then retell the ghost story of the beautiful woman who had killed her children out of rage towards her disloyal husband. Drowned them, Aunt Maria would sigh mournfully, her voice quivering as she shook her head, and now she weeps in the night with regret. When Letty went to sleep after she first heard that story, she swore she could hear sobs coming from the waters of the distant ocean.

In school, she’d never been the most dedicated student. She was the girl who was too tall for her age, slumped in the back of the class. Her foot constantly tapped out a beat that her fingers itched to play; the insides of her notebooks were etched with lyrics that she wanted to try out against melodies that she invented during lectures. It was one day that she stretched over to the seat beside her and saw a student in a similar state of distraction; drawing pictures in place of notes. One ruby-painted nail tapped against their sheet. That’s cool, Letty had said, introducing herself shortly after. Thanks, they returned, smiling. I’m Carter. Friendship came quickly after that, steamrolled by a mutual fascination with one another. She asked them often to draw her things, and they never minded her constant need to listen to something. Letty let them design her guitar, turning the blank canvas of blonde wood into a sea of red roses and smiling, Sharpied skulls. Carter had a gift, but better than that-- they understood what it meant to be an artist, to feel possessed by the fervent need to create.

At thirteen, Letty smoked her first cigarette. By the first week of high school, she was smoking weed in her parent’s garage almost every day. Nando and Rico had finally moved out, and with just her and Rafael (and the ever-present extended family members) in the house, the cluttered space felt bigger, emptier, quieter. She considers these years to be the ones where she truly came into her own; the scowling mask of the token Ramirez girl no longer fit, not when she wanted to be seen so badly, not when her music was finally starting to make sense and her scribbled lyrics were becoming full songs. She was still the girl who wore scavenged hand-me-downs and had famously cut her long, glossy hair into blunt bangs with her mother’s fabric scissors, but now she toted her guitar on her back and practiced at school, gathering an audience of anyone who would listen. Her voice had the same smokey quality that she had always loved in her great aunt, but her style was her own. She borrowed from her favourites, The Strokes, St. Vincent, the Arctic Monkeys, and settled into something that fit like a glove. If she was to be anything, Letty knew it was her destiny to capitalize on her talent; she would become an indie rock darling.

She was hotboxing her car the first time that she saw Auclair. The car was a piece of shit-- it had been uncle Jose’s before he sold it to Miguel for five hundred bucks, then he to the twins for half that. They’d rattled the poor thing until it misfired basically every four hundred metres, but it got her to school most of the time, and when it didn’t, it gave her an excuse for being late. Rafael had turned his nose up at inheriting it, so they’d given it to Letty for free. It was the guy’s jacket that caught her eye at first, then the chest-out, confident walk-- she’d sneered as she exhaled, look at that posh motherfucker. He’d been in her class when she’d finally slid into her seat at the back, and she sat behind him, in that beautiful (probably didn’t even have to buy it second hand) leather jacket. When he turned around, she met his gaze with a dark look from under her bangs. What’re you listening to? When he gestured to the earbuds that seemed to be a permanent fixture of her every-day aesthetic, she popped one out, offering it to him. It was when he took it, and immediately grinned at Julian Casablancas’ hoarse vocals, that she decided: they were going to be friends.

Letty remembers the week of Andrea’s death as though it were frozen in time, like something preserved in a drop of amber. She’d stayed up late on Thursday and done a gig in Seattle. The crowd had eaten her up; she’d been swallowed whole by their applause, and milked the adoration for all it was worth with a couple of encores. She’d driven home, buzzing from head to toe, and let her head hit the pillow just as the sun was coming up. It felt surreal, to have her future feel so tangible. Her dream was almost synonymous with reality. When she awoke, the house was silent in mid-afternoon. Her cell phone trilled with a handful of texts from Auclair, then an incoming call as well. Groaning, as she stretched to grab it; Letty pressed it to her ear, grumbling a string of curses about how summertime sleep hours were supposed to be respected. It was his tone that made her sit up, brow creasing. Something’s up with Andy, she’s going to Alderman’s. Come with, I’m worried. She agreed, and dressed quickly, hair still in a cowlick from the way she’d slept on it, pulling on her jeans at the same time that she shot off a text to Jasper, asking them to come as well: if anything was wrong, they’d be the one to talk anyone out of trouble. 

As she hopped around on one foot trying to get her sneakers on (why were high top Converse so challenging in a crisis?), she saw it. A black moth, bold against the scarred floorboards of the Ramirez home’s front entrance. Letty’s head tilted as she tried to recall the name for it in Spanish-- great aunt Maria would’ve known it on sight. Her phone blitzed again with another text from Auclair; she sighed. No time to be humane. Using the free shoe in her hand, she smacked it hard against the floor. She saw black wings, like crumpled velvet, and some dark residue on the bottom of her shoe; feeling strangely queasy, she darted out to her car.

Her car didn’t lock anymore-- a visit home from Rico meant that the door was busted, but today it started on the first try and in minutes, she headed to Alderman’s point. A small crowd had gathered when she arrived. Some faces she knew well; Carter was white as a sheet, Auclair waved her over with a strange look in his eye that she’d never seen before. At the very edge, far out where the lighthouse stood over the surf, there was Andy. Beautiful Andrea, she with a flair for the dramatics. Her hair streamed behind her like a dark banner in the wind. Letty slipped her fingers into Auclair’s, gripping tight. The lightning that tore from the clouds took them all by surprise-- in retrospect, she’s sure that she shrieked-- and then they were all watching, mute and motionless, as the other girl jumped into the water. It was only as she fought, swimming hard against a current that seemed determined to drag her down, that the word came to Letty’s mind. The black moth. La polilla negra. Death. Andrea Clare disappeared under the inky surface, the water frothing in her wake. 

Letty got a tattoo to remind her of the day. It was her way of processing, and making it permanent-- the tattoo sits on her thigh, on the same leg where the bonfire Carter had drawn was inked into her ankle. Andy got a moth, all black, an omen. A warning she had not heeded. She hadn’t really known Andy; Letty tried to rationalize the girl’s death to make it less than it was, but there was still a strange feeling of grief she couldn’t get rid of, simply from having been so close to death, from seeing it up close like that. Tenebrin Port grew solemn and grim in the aftermath. At the funeral, Letty sang Cielito Lindo and the bandage on her fresh tattoo peeked out from under the hem of a too-short black dress (it was all that she had in the appropriate colour). 

Her senior year of highschool was a throw-away year; Letty trained her focus on her craft instead of her studies. The heaviness of Andrea’s death was not easily shrugged off, and senioritis could be triggered by random students crying in the halls just as easily as it was triggered by the futility of trying to grasp Algebra II. There were too many reminders around, too many memorial art-projects done in Andy’s honour still keeping that day fresh. A lot of her last year of highschool was spent smoking weed in her car, listening to CDs. Her parents seemed to leave her alone for the most part. This was something that she had to get through on her own, they figured-- and like a fish swimming upstream, Letty fought through, and scraped towards graduation with grades just barely making the cut. The shackles of high school finally lifted. She was free now to pursue the things she actually wanted. Her parents’ only insistence-- revealing the worry they’d been secretly been harbouring, watching as she cut classes on Fridays to get to gigs, and stumbled home late almost every school night-- was that she still had to go to college. Letty protested this; that had not been a requirement for all the Ramirez children. Miguel had graduated the year before from a technical school, and he was now engaged and working as a craftsman-- almost ready to start his own life. The twins had opted out of education altogether, going into construction immediately after high school; shocking everyone, they were good at what they did, and had started their own company in just a few years time-- they had real employees and everything. Rafael was working hard, studying Spanish. It was his dream to become a translator, but years speaking the language without actually learning grammar had stunted his ability to write it. She looked at her brothers’ experiences, successes, and felt a particular disinterest. She had a good thing going, she argued to her parents-- the gigs were starting to pay more and more, the bookings were coming steadily, her name wasn’t recognizable yet but it would be, soon. But in the end, an obligation to the people who raised her, and the shame that would come with disappointing them, won out. 

Letty applied only to colleges in the state of Washington, all of them relatively nearby, and was accepted to a sparse few (each non-rejection letter was a miracle, given the downward trend of her grades). Whitman became her next chapter. Her first year there, she was an undeclared major; that state of indecision seemed to define her entire college experience from the start. There was nothing grounding her in the vast lecture halls that she slowly stopped showing up to. There was no spark of interest making her care about Critical Thinking 101. She was going through the motions in an institution that seemed indifferent to her, and feeling unspecial, unmoored, Letty felt restless and lost and increasingly desperate for recognition. She became a staple at parties, howling into the microphone on karaoke nights, earning herself a reputation as the girl who was willing to try anything once. Fearless, always smiling that daredevil smile, she leapt into things without ever looking first-- relationships, hook-ups, new drugs, bad ideas that seemed like good ones at 2 a.m., dares to vandalize school property that almost backfired, badly. It garnered respect from those around her, or perhaps a collective curiosity. Leticia Ramirez was a wild woman; Leticia Ramirez faced life like a bullfighter in the ring, or a lion-fighter in a cage. No fear. She was going to be a star one day-- she even gave out her autograph at parties, sealed with the imprint of red lipstick, and promised, one day, that’ll go for thousands on Ebay.

She much preferred carrying her guitar over carrying books, and began to recognize this time away from home as a launchpad for her career, rather than an opportunity to learn. Portland and Seattle were only four hours away from campus; she often made the drive for the weekend, crashing on couches and performing for cash to crowds that were sometimes a little rowdy and drunk, but always loved her material. “She sounds like early Karen O, of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” someone said once, as they left the venue, and Letty took that overheard comparison as the largest compliment, but she wanted to be her own thing too. Instead of studying, she wrote new songs, better songs. She wrote about Andy, about the town with the lighthouse where death could show up in the form of moths on your doorstep, using the folkloric traditions passed down from her great aunt to pay tribute to her heritage, her crooning voice eliciting the feeling of a crackling fire and the stories people told around it. She developed her brand. She hadn’t even completed her first year at Whitman by the time she decided it was time to go-- college had helped her find members for a band, similar-minded people who believed she was good enough to hitch their wagon to, and she’d accumulated enough experiences to have a solid bed of song-writing material. With each gig raking in a little more money than her part-time job at a local coffee shop, her mind was set. Kissing her roommate goodbye on both cheeks, Letty took off for Portland to record an EP.

Five tracks, all original pieces. She’d named it The Seamstress. It was a celebration of her life so far, she explained, twenty, fresh-faced and beaming in her first interview, her bangs framing her face more neatly now that she’d gotten the hang of cutting them. Her mother made money fixing other people’s garments; there wasn’t a time in her life that a prom dress hadn’t sat on the kitchen table, awaiting alterations, or a pair of trousers draped over the chair with the hems pinned up. There was one track called the Lighthouse, a dark, moody ballad with lyrics that she had pulled from fragments of dreams, but she never spoke about what it meant. The EP achieved moderate success-- calls to Auclair confirmed that he’d played it for almost everyone he knew back home, and the first time she heard one of her songs on local radio, Letty rolled down her windows and let it play as loud as her stereo would go, screaming along with the words.

She made a website, got a van, and learned the power of a contract after two of her bassists left her for another up-and-coming singer. This was making it; this was the uphill scramble, fighting for her place in an industry that was already saturated. Letty bore every set-back and defeat with her chin raised, clinging to her victories defiantly, showing up at dingy dive-bars and opening for acts in the backwoods of the Pacific Northwest, performing anywhere that would have her. She made merch, people bought it. She grinned and swapped her old, faded T-shirts with their stretched-out collars and constellations of holes for pristine vintage ones. Her leather jackets were real now, just like the one she’d envied on Auclair the first day they’d met. For the first time in a long time, the calls that she got from her parents weren’t worried; she could finally talk to them about her success, her adventures on tour, and they could hear in her voice how happy she was.

It was right after she found management in Chicago that the dreams started. Inexplicably, her music had resonated more in the Windy City than it did back home. She had a real fanbase there, almost halfway across the country, so she’d stayed there longer than most other stops on her tour, and then never left at all. She didn’t mind packing everything up to make the move permanent; she’d basically been a nomad since college, but it was good to take a break from living out of a van. Still, her arrival in Chicago felt strange for a reason that eluded her, like something constantly slipping out of the periphery, until she remembered Andrea Clare. She was supposed to be here-- the one time she’d gotten cornered into a conversation about colleges while coming over to see Auclair, the other girl had talked on and on about her early acceptance and how excited she was. She’d never made it, though. Letty sat with this thought as she pulled up to her new apartment. Andrea had never gotten this far. Her new place was small, a little drippy where the ceiling met the wall in the bathroom, but it was authentic, and it was hers. Art really thrives in this city, her manager said. New York’s too congested these days. Her first night was kicked-off with a sold-out performance and a few too many celebratory drinks, plus a bump of something her drummer promised was good shit. When she finally fell back against the bare mattress on her apartment floor, closing her eyes to find herself on a dizzying carnival ride, the nightmare came swiftly and blotted out everything else.

Great aunt Maria always said that your dreams couldn’t hurt you as long as they were said aloud. With no friends to be had in a strange new city, she recorded them on her phone. She wasn’t unaccustomed to strange dreams; chaotic sleep patterns had become as normal to her in college as the handful of substance issues she’d picked up along the way. But the dreams felt prophetic. It was upon listening to them again that Letty realized, night after night, in the hazy dim of half-sleep, she was having the same dream. Andrea, Tenebrin Port, her piercing scream. Never one to swallow down a hard gut feeling, she booked a flight back home. Something felt wrong; she’d ignored an omen before, and grief and suffering had followed. To make that mistake again, she’d have to be a fool. 

[faytelumos]

Into the Black With a Matchstick, pt 6

Did I go back to Part 5 and ruthlessly change a pronoun to fit my last-last second change-of-mind on a new character?

Yes. Yes I did.

@c00kieknight, @hypersomnia-insomniac, @infuryborn, @jxm-1up, @kittilumpo

@midnight--architect, @robinparravel, @theo-in-the-toaster, @thepotatoofnopes, @those-damn-snippets

@mr-orion, @rfallfish, @tildeathiwillwrite, @thelazywitchphotographer

first previous

---

When Adina had first woken up after the jump away from the Skel, she had been too confused as to where she was to even stand. She had expected to see the bunkbeds from the training facility, to look around and see blue, concrete walls, to see Patricia in the bed to her left.

Instead, she was in a claustrophobic, cold medbay, with John seemingly dumped over the gurney next to her, facing her, his hand slipped off from the drip control of her IV. It had taken her twenty minutes to climb out of bed, and she'd let John sleep.

She ran ship-wide diagnostics, checked the status and population of the stasis chamber, and was halfway through double-checking inventory when there had been an unsettling, crackling sound over the PA system. For a horrible moment, she expected to see a Xenomorph slowly creeping around the corner towards her.

"Doctor Adina Ramirez," the computer had said. But then it didn't elaborate. Which just creeped her out even more.

"Y-yes?" she'd uttered, looking around, the vacuum-sealed peanut butter and jelly meal in her hand the only weapon she had to defend herself with.

"This is the Ghost from the Arkinu vessel speaking," the computer had said. Adina blinked, looking to the hallways, then behind herself, then at the speaker above the door. "It is nice to meet you."

"Uh," she uttered. "You… too. I didn't realize you could transmit into our PA system."

"I am actually tapped directly into your computer," it said. "I am aboard."

Adina froze. That was the creepiest thing yet.

"Can I show myself to you?" it asked. It spoke in the familiar voice of the computer control, but it didn't match the cadence or word choice. She briefly considered how unwise it was to say yes. But then she was more scared of what would happen if she said no.

"Okay," she uttered, her voice trembling.

She waited. It took her a long moment to notice the hallway was glowing slowly brighter with a faint, blueish light. And then a floating, sheer… blob filled the hallway.

It looked like water with some milk splashed in, just enough to fog it up. But her brain told her that if she touched it, it would feel like chiffon or fine lace. There were tiny sparkles of light suspended in it, like fruit chunks in jello, or like glitter in plastic, and they faded in and out gradually as it moved closer.

"Wow," she breathed, taking a step back. Whatever it was, it was big. It had come into the room now, but it still filled the hallway, too.

"I hope my countenance does not distress you," the computer said. Adina huffed a laugh, smirking, looking up and down and through the thing.

"Be not afraid," she muttered to herself. She leaned forward, trying to peer into it as curiosity started to win out. She couldn't see any organs, or any solid internal structures at all, for that matter. Was this thing like a jellyfish? It seemed a bit more like a huge amoeba. But there was no way something so big — and so intelligent — was single-celled. Or was there? Who was she to say what limits there were on life? She was in outer space traveling faster than the speed of light, and this was the third intelligent species of alien she'd met today, and it was talking to her through her ship's computer in perfect English. "Wow," she breathed.

"Are you well?" it asked. Adina nodded, putting a hand on her cheek.

"I'm good," she said. "I, I actually have a lot of questions."

"Please, ask."

Adina nodded, fidgeting with the meal pack, deciding where to start.

"You're a Ghost?" she asked.

"Yes."

"As in the spirit of a living thing?"

"No," it said. "That is… a translation inconsistency." It shimmered, the little lights suspended in its body rippling in waves. Adina took a slight step away, eyes wide with awe. "You do not have a good word for my kind," it said. "But for your sake, perhaps a better word to use would be, 'robot'."

"A robot?" Adina muttered, touching her fingertips to her lip. Then her eyes blew wide. "So you're not organic?"

"Partially correct," it said. "Technically speaking, my kind are silicate-based lifeforms."

"Woah," Adina breathed. This blew everything she knew out of the water. Theoretically speaking, complex silicon-based molecules like DNA would be more stable at high temperatures, far too high to be standing in the room with the thing right now. Was that part of why it seemed so ephemeral? But then wouldn't that make it even less stable? But clearly, it was fine at this temperature, so maybe her understanding of chemistry was wrong? Or just ignorant. And were they robots because they used silicon instead of carbon like a microchip, or was there more to it? And what was the line it was crossing between robot and lifeform? Did they eat? Reproduce? Were they more like nanite colonies? Was that an ignorant conclusion to draw? What did it mean anyway by robo—

A sliver of shape slipped towards her, like a tiny tentacle pushing out of a thin membrane to reach for her.

"Would you like to touch me?" the computer asked.

Adina looked down at the offered… appendage. It wasn't very dense with the lights, or even very opaque. She rubbed her fingers on her palm, the vacuum-packed meal heavy in her other hand, gauging how clean her skin was.

"I have oils, on my skin," she said. She looked up, but with no eyes, it was difficult for her to find a point to look at it. "Some species, even on our planet, find human touch to be caustic…."

"You will not hurt me," it said, reaching slightly further out. "And I will not hurt you." Adina nodded, then looked again to the appendage, which was easier to focus on than the mass of tiny lights suspended in the hallway and most of the room.

She set the food down, and then slowly reached out with both hands, cupping them together. The Ghost reached down in a smooth arc, and it laid a length of the little tentacle across her palms. It was light as air, almost too light to feel. She carefully held it with one hand, and then caressed the length of the tentacle with her other pointer finger. It was dry and smooth, and she pet it again, trying to figure out its texture. It was difficult to tell. She gently ran the back of her finger over it, but the hairs on her skin didn't help.

"Do you, ah," she uttered, and then she looked up at no part of it in particular, "do you mind if I touch you with my lip? I won't bite you, but there's a chance that I have germs—"

"I cannot contract organic diseases," it assured her. Then it moved, sliding the appendage up along its surface smoothly, until it was level with her mouth. She blinked, then leaned forward and grasped it gently. She rubbed it slowly against her bottom lip.

It was completely and utterly smooth. Moreso than hairless skin, than polished stone, than glass. It almost didn't make sense. She blinked, marveling, and carefully let go.

"Wow," she said again.

"I have questions of you, as well," it said.

---

Rest had concluded, and Paxie considered Gunnery Sergeant Appi's words carefully.

"Popular opinion on my planet would dictate that you do not trust these people," she said in her rasping voice. Her environment suit was thin for casual wear around the ship, and the translation protocol speaker was as crisp and clear as any. "The end of their legacy is nothing but war machines and poisons in the land itself."

"You think these Humans are from that time?" Paxie asked. Appi lowered her nose, her large eyes sharp.

"Based on what I could see of their ship, yes. The construction resembles one of their more formidable weapon-vehicles."

"Do you have any record of an ideological shift?" Paxie asked. They didn't want to believe Ramirez and Harrison were war-like. They seemed nice, despite their self-abuse.

"Their archeological record is full of weapons for thousands of years," Appi rasped. She flexed her claws subtly, but Paxie could see the agitation she was trying to hide. "Admittedly, it is difficult to decompress their legacy. But, Admiral…" Appi looked directly into Paxie's eyes. "This species was the sixth major extinction event of our planet."

Paxie resisted the strong desire to pin their ears. It was their job to know and accept the facts. But this was an ugly revelation. They had hoped the Human people were a miracle, a sample of the past so distant it could only be extraordinary. But according to Appi… they were destruction.

Perhaps Paxie should have expected as much, with the way they treat their own bodies.

"Thank you, Gunnery Sergeant," Paxie uttered with a nod. "Your insight is deeply informative."

"I'm sorry it's so morose," Appi said, nodding back. "I know this is an awkward situation."

And it was. If Humans were going to be harmful to the Federation or any planet they were hosted on, then it would be better not to offer them citizenship. But if they were legally an orphaned species, then the Federation had no choice but to home them.

This was exactly Uten's luck. They were never going to get a second chance at First Contact.

"I appreciate your candor," Paxie uttered. Appi flicked one ear.

"Speaking of…" she said. Paxie perked their ears. "This species, though long extinct, does represent a significant keystone in our planet's behavioral sciences," she said. "If it isn't too bold or unorthadox, I would like to meet them."

Paxie nodded. "I'm sure we can arrange that," they said. "They may be curious of you, as well."

"I'm sure," Appi rasped.

---

There was nothing special to do to prepare for jump to end, apparently. Adina was expecting to have to buckle in, but it seemed all she and John had to do was brace a little bit. After a moment, everything seemed to tug to the left and keep moving, as if they were set down on some slow-moving track. And then it was over. The deafening, unnerving stillness was gone now. It had been so long that Adina had convinced herself it was part of space travel.

John delicately maneuvered the ship to dock properly with The Water's Kiss as Adina went down to decouple the resuspended pods. She… wasn't looking forward to it. But it had to be her. Because John was close friends with one of the unresponsive engineers.

She stepped into the stasis chamber and stopped. She had seen this place before, of course, when she climbed out of her pod earlier. But she wasn't exactly properly aware of her surroundings at that point. And before that, everyone had climbed into their pods in the big research building on Earth. So she'd never gotten the chance to truly familiarize herself with the real thing.

The pods were arranged in a honeycomb pattern, and several motorized platforms could move side-to-side and up or down to handle each pod as they were carefully ejected. Either during wakeup, or during… removal. Adina climbed onto one of the platforms and looked up and across, spotting the six lights that winked a slow, desolate red.

The two xenobiologists happened to be nearer the door. Everyone was arranged alphabetically, but these two both had D names. Adina got the platform in place and locked it with the stiff lever before turning to the first pod.

"RESUSPENDED" it said across the screen at the feet of the pod. It was a polite way of saying, "Died on wakeup, but at least they're frozen again now." Adina really hoped these aliens had tech like Star Trek, and could just revive people with a couple pleasant clicks and beeps. She used the screen to shift the power from ship-side to battery-side, keeping an eye on the switch that would do so manually if the computer had trouble. But there was no issue. A low-pitched beep signaled the change, and another beep declared the systems were running properly off of the new power source.

Adina grabbed the big release lever for the pod and forced it down with a grunt. The pod trembled, but was otherwise fine. She took up the grab bar around the bottom of the control panel and slid the pod out, mindful of the wheels that automatically folded out as it got closer to the end. She locked the wheels once it was in a good position on the platform, then moved on to the next pod.

By the time she had locked the fourth pod in place, John had docked with the Xoixe ship and the xenomedics were on board. She had paused for this pod, reading the name again. This one was John's friend.

Thinking about it… they didn't want to try to revive him first. The first attempt was the most likely to fail. But that also meant they couldn't risk the two xenobiologists. They should probably both go last, in fact. Then there was another engineer, and another biologist. Both of them were better trained and qualified in their fields than Adina and John, which was why the computer had tried to wake them up, first. Adina let out a shaking sigh, bracing her hands on the grab bar.

Raj Joshi. She'd read earlier that his GPA in university had been .2 higher than John's. It was probably why he had been picked first. She didn't want to think about how John could be mentally punishing himself right now, especially if the aliens couldn't revive him….

"Captain Ramirez?"

Adina looked behind herself suddenly. Paxie was in the room with her, standing upright on two thick legs. They looked a bit like a bear, or maybe a tiger, the way they held their arms. Adina hadn't realized their hips could make the adjustment to standing upright. Paxie blinked their four eyes at her, which were currently about level with her shins. She blinked back, marveling at just how big the Xoixe was.

"Yes?" she managed, unimpressively.

"Do you require assistance with this task?" Paxie asked. Their voice was… soft. Still deep and throaty, but gentle. They weren't looking at any of the pods.

She looked to the pod array again. Once she loaded Raj, she'd just have the one left.

"N-no," she said. She turned and met Paxie's eyes. "Thank you."

"Do you require company?" they asked.

She watched them, surprised by their gentle tone and how steadily they held themself on two legs. Faintly, she wondered why the Xoixe bothered walking on all fours if bipedalism was an option.

"That might be nice," she finally said.

---

It took multiple trips to get the pods onto the Water's Kiss. Once they were gathered in a small atrium, Paxie asked John to come out, too. Adina watched him closely as he stood away from the pods. He wasn't looking at any of them, which was probably for the best. He had him arms crossed tightly beside her as he watched Paxie.

"As you know, we were able to locate your planet in our current star maps, accounting for celestial drift," they said. Adina and John nodded. The Ghost had said that much, at least. But they were a bit more tight-lipped about the rest of it. "The planet that you lived on is now known by the name Areterra." Adina felt a swell of relief in her chest. Earth was still okay? Maybe they could get back to it. "However," Paxie said, and Adina almost shied away. It sounded like a very heavily loaded "however." "Areterra was able to produce a second space-fairing species after your kind went extinct."

Oh.

Humans had gone extinct, then.

They were truly the last of their kind?

And she was in charge of them.

26 million years…. It had really been 26 million years.

She felt light-headed. John looked down to her, concerned.

"This complicates the matter," Paxie explained. They were using that soft voice again. "There will need to be a meeting and case to decide which jurisdiction your people fall into, and how any future repopulation will be handled." Adina nodded, trying to take deep breaths. She was tired of fighting against her stomach. "For now," Paxie said, their tone kind as ever, "I wanted to introduce you to Gunnery Sergeant Appi, a Mauilen. I hope you will all find kinship in a shared planet."

Adina took another long breath and looked up to Paxie. Then she looked down, following their gaze to a small alien she hadn't noticed earlier—

Adina gasped, grabbing John's arm suddenly, eliciting a hiss from him. Adina didn't know exactly what sound was trying to escape from her throat right now, but she was sure it was a squeal.

Standing in front of them, at no taller than a two year old, was a big-eyed, wide-pawed, thick-furred cat in an environment suit.

"Oh my God," Adina whispered.

"No way," John breathed.

What kind of cat was it? How did it evolve to still be so recognizable over such a long stretch of time? Its coloring was whitish-gray with heavy black peppering around the eyes and speckled up the forehead - snowmelt camouflage? Its paws were broad like a lynx or a Pallas' cat, or a snow leopard. But with the suit on, Adina couldn't see any details of its morphology.

She realized she was staring. She let go of John and crouched down slowly.

"Sorry," she said, keeping her voice soft. "I just… our people, we.… we called you cats in our day."

Appi moved slightly. Maybe their ears moved under their helmet.

"We existed in your time?" they asked. Adina blinked, thrown off by the rasping, direct tone of voice. It was still high-pitched to her, still clearly from a small throat. But the authority in that voice was unmistakable.

"Uh, er, not you, exactly," she explained. She cleared her throat, aware that she was using a voice she might employ in a conversation with a child. No, she should treat this creature like any other scientist. "We had many species of feline - that is, a Family of carnivores with similar traits." John got down, too, squatting and resting both of his elbows on his knees. Appi looked between the two of them, and Adina caught sight of their pupils contracting and expanding. "The ones most, uh, humans were familiar with were… companions."

"What were they like?" Appi asked. They looked Adina in the eye. It stole her breath a little. Those eyes, they were huge. And there was something deeply, hauntingly intelligent about them. There was something she badly wanted to label as "human" to them.

"They were wonderful," Adina muttered. She blinked slowly. "For a lot of us, their company was more of a comfort than another human's."

Appi considered this with a twitch of their lip. They looked away from Adina, to John.

"You have a different opinion?"

Adina looked at John. He had his lips pursed behind the helmet. Adina widened her eyes, bracing for something awful.

"I… never met a cat I got along with."

Adina scowled. Appi nodded their head, lowering their chin and evaluating John. Their look was decidedly shrewd.

"We'll see if I break your streak, then," they rumbled quietly.

Adina got a chill down her back. She mentally shook herself. It had been millions and millions of years. The fact that this creature even looked like a cat was an anomaly. She should know, as a biologist, that she had no way to predict this animal's — this person's — behavior or thought patterns.

She half-listened as Paxie explained how things would go from this point. To say she was reeling was a gross understatement. Maybe she shouldn't have been. It hadn't been confirmed, but she'd known this was possible. That they were all that was left. That humanity had gone extinct and were every bit as history now as the dinosaurs had been.

They got the resuspended pods into the ship's medbay with the help of several more aliens. Nobody had asked John to help, which Adina was glad for. He stood in the hall as Kime and another alien stood together, likely gathering personal data from the pods.

"How are you doing?" Adina asked softly. John just shook his head.

"I'm not worried about me right now," he sighed, rubbing his forehead. Adina nodded, looking down. She was. But she had to be. She was… wow, she was the matron to all of humanity right now.

"I'll see what I can do to help," she whispered, putting a hand on his arm. He nodded and patted her gloved fingers weakly. She stepped away, reluctant. But he didn't meet her eye, so she turned and went back into the alien medbay.

"Captain Ramirez," Kime asked.

"Yes?"

"Is it possible for us to have some yet-living subjects to study?" Adina blinked. The medbay was already a little crowded with this many. "Seeing their parameters may increase the odds of survival for these six."

"Oh, yes," Adina said, nodding. She blinked harder, frowning, looking down. "Yes, of course. That makes perfect sense." She should have thought of that when she was already in the stasis chamber.

"May I go with you?" a small, raspy voice said. Adina turned and looked down to see Appi standing close behind her. She smiled, and she fought back the urge to bend down and pick Appi up like a baby, or like her cats back home….

"Yes, please," Adina said. "I'd love the company."