Departure

Had the summers shadow not eclipsed the nature of her soul, perhaps they would have been lovers long ago, but now none could know.

On the eve of their anniversary he had taken his leave, it was not uncommon for him to be found wandering alone amongst the tumultuous vents on a crisp morning as frost crystals cascade across the vast horizon of barren territory yet to be claimed by the harvesters roaming authority.

Breathing one last breath of recycled air Trever turns back towards the pod, departure from this place assuring no return. The dreams of paradise await, in suspension his soul will linger unanimated in body but vibrant in dreamscape.

Madison glimpses a delicate shadow beneath the sill of her cove, now etched with texts Trever had shared from eden lore. As puddles splash with delicate drops the reflection of his form can be seen as if hanging in mid air captured within each droplet, kneeling beneath the vast cosmos, edges of his suit starkly contrasting the darkness of space this past memory of him she wills to last.

A meditation in that moment captures her attention, “in the unknown are we known in the shadows of our despair fear reveals for whom our affections care in the last breath of our life we see our beloved free from vice”. His homeland words comfort her in this way, as she gazes one last glimpse before he rises from the contrite position in which he was posed.

A semblance of peace graced both their souls, though life had led them to one another a distance beyond the comprehensible vastness of space would take them away from this brief aside into a place known not for its haste but a drifting as if aimlessly save for the fate of destiny.

She places her arm across her chest lying beside her bed upon the floor with its mechanical hum a doldrum to some but to her a place where she can float in the abyss and for a moment blur the sensations that resonate as pangs of death consume her body she slowly becomes a vacuous tomb sliding into a state of quite composure.

If she had mustered the strength to whisper a prayer she remembered it not, but was captured by peace drifting sweetly into dreams release, a place where near to her were those whose place in her heart had no more presence in physical space.

—

Overtaken by majesty a sweet bloom of golden amber haze raised her mind to a distant place far from memory or imagining. Unfurling the horizon of a long cast shadow who’s form was familiar, her eyes scanning a void rising beyond her grasp, glimpses of distant stars were no longer shrouded by the prenumbral cast of paradise shadow. Here she was enveloped by a light that extended through an eternal night quieting her souls delight with chastened calm that would in her soul burn for eons long. Each memory of childhood dreams came flooding in with depth of understanding. Her place in this space meant nothing but a reason for being, for becoming her true self without need for explaining a thing. Harvesters speckled the landscape now guilted with gold as if prized possessions once alive held as tombs for those who’s lives were lost on their course through the multiverse. A war long waged had paved the way to reveal a path home, one fraught not with frozen dreams half slumbering between waking reality and imagined memory, in here an eclipse gave opportunity for her to see a doorway opening before her. A means to arrive without leaving her memory. 

A cage this place was to some but to her it meant freedom that she had never won.

A great sphere appeared around her having only then realized she was within a porcelain egg as if an unhatched child of the stars preparing her way someday to arrive alive in a place she could never persuade herself too see in long forgotten memories and half remembered dreams. A silenced scream of delight welled up within her chest, surprised to realize she was within a geod shaped like her soul as any place she desired to go would arrive and show her everything she wanted to know, it was more than a repository for memory it was a means of traveling and altering reality. The entirety of everything, the fabric of essential beings bound together by collective histories. She was fascinated to see everyone as a lens for her own story. The journey of every conscious being cast before her as a mosaic like a cloud of creatures teaming with energy vibrantly declaring their individual testimony transparent as destiny until made opaque by a fate given for her to see each living entity composing a pixel as if a note in a symphony their frequencies began vibrating in harmony until a chorus song revealed she was the one directing, as each living thing was breathing a life that was her own narratives ending and beginning sewn into the threads of her body. She wore everybody’s testimony barring the record of history in every sensation she was feeling. A touch lingered for a lifetime telling a tale of mysteries most divine beyond the ability of her mind to grasp in such simple metaphors as time. She became a mirror thin as steel turned to wrapping tin as gentle as silk as soft as glass folding upon her skin as future past made vast. A melting warmth fingers its way through her veins spreading like sunlights grace upon the face as branches form within her bones like crackling leaves upon flaming trees carrying her ashes in heavens breeze, fire forging her soul with songs none have sung but in seasons yet to spring will bring lives that are presently originating in her eternal being as respite for those in need of remembering as in her heart none are forgotten by her eternal dream. 

She is pondering her childhood scene delicately tracing her finger across a stream trickling down her portal window a dense river forming against the exterior face whose glazing repels the sweet beams of reflected rays every luminescent shade of pearlesscence illumining the room she is inhabiting with a rainbow of saturation like a rosen beam. Her hearts penetration arrests her chest with palpitating respiration and in a hasty rotation is awakened from her slumber. Clutching at her flesh like any icy hand clasping beneath her breath a hard rigid floor stiff with a metallic ring. She smells an acrid scent, a sting within her nose forces a pungent punch of memories that precede her dream. The harsh reality that in her room she has remained, all the same she can’t deny her vision is beyond explaining. She tames her heart and paces her breath, shadows cast have long past as mid evening has arrived at last. Pensive to abandon her pose until fully composed, she disrobes and prepares for her evening routine. 

Head now rested upon her bed she wishes for another taste of such a thing. A shower has drenched her body with comforting consultation that her fleshly sensations were real, but still a haunting tingle lingers. Perhaps she was but one of the many dreams she had seen and hers was but a single note in a longer story that was being played symphonically without her realizing. Drifting off into a sedate state she lets her heart gravitate back home feeling less and less alone.

Crystal Moon

Madison grew up on a moon orbiting a peasant planet some knew as paradise but like many places with lustrous names they invite poor souls looking for a fresh start only to find the part they play is disheartening as was the past from which they took their leave.

Crystal moon or crys ”kris” as most settlers called it had been a terraforming test site for the sanctioned sector which was located closer to the warmth of beta prime. A sun that had been infused with artificial matter to make the planets habitable. Madisons father Richard Degaras had settled along with her mother just when they were expecting little Maddie’s arrival, as a k farmer his purpose on crys was to cultivate minerals from the lithium beds that lay on the farthest north region of the central continent an island that sat just on the edge of sunlight for a brief portion of the year but lay in darkness for nine long months. Madison never knew anything different, she dreamed of the radiant summers when they would walk the plateau in the morning and check the automated harvesters. They looked like little metal marbles to her with morning dew beading off their silver shells scintillating with sparkles as crystals formed beneath the collector vents making a rainbow hue that striated down their vesicles; each tenderal of the metal spheres hung beneath like noodles from her chopsticks. Madison adored these early morning walks with her father as they would sit at the edge of crystal bays ledge, as her father called it, gazing out over the vast lithium grove in the stillness of silence until he would offer a few choice words “this is our little piece of paradise,” he would tell her, “and someday it will be yours.” Madison admired her fathers appreciation for their little hunk of this frigid moon even though her friends from the school network would tell her of their worlds, like the beautiful forests on eden prime with lush greenery, their descriptions were nothing like the desolate land that spread out before her on this remote rock. She tried to tell them their moon was beautiful too but few would listen to her stories for everyone knew you only lived on a crys rock if you weren’t allowed within the sanctioned sector.

Her father didn’t speak often of their life before, just that no one believed his testimony and so they had to take this assignment or risk being “put on ice”. She always imagined a frosted face like the story she had heard of the first exploration team to the expansion region. The team was marooned after their ice glider crashed into a sink hole on the oceans surface a title wave beneath the ice had caused a section to give way and only one team member made it far enough to get a message back before he too perished but his suit camera kept recording as his suit filled with hydrogen vapors escaping from beneath the ice, slowly forming a pattern like soft white branches across his skin until his eyes glazed over with a crisp sheen of glass capturing his delicate gaze forever paralyzed with an expression of serene desperation. 

Her parents never knew but she staid up late one night and watched the video from the core feed. She couldn’t sleep for weeks afterwards, every time the air exchange circulated in fresh air from the reclimators she would startle, quietly panting, trying not to wake her parents in the chamber next to hers. 

Life on the farm possessed an unbroken routine but every few cycles they would get a new team member who rotated in, and that was the most change their crew of four ever saw.

They were the only permanent staff and that included Madison and her parents, It was always a thrill when a helping hand was circulated in each season meaning there was finally a fourth fresh face but few stayed for more then a cycle. Most who came to work the farm were on assignment with DSD “deep space discovery” their mission was to search out other systems for expansion. Any first year recruit had to learn harvesting methods and how to repair series one harvesters like the ones they had in the field. Once they learned the basics they were assigned a commission and rushed to the suspension chambers on paradise island the only piece of land that wasn’t covered with ice on the whole planet that hung in the sky just out of reach of their orbiting moon, the island sat right on the equator and had sunlight almost year round. It was marketed as a dream vacation for a brief stint before they were prepped for FTL, some would send a cable home to their families and that was the last they would ever say to their living relatives. Travel to the expansion system was a lifetimes wages but it also meant a life time spent in suspension. 

Madison learned quickly that anyone coming to work on the farm either didn’t have anyone back home or gave everything up because those back home needed help that only a job in DSD could provide for them. She liked the ones that had family, they were much nicer to her and her dad let her spend more time talking with them, most recruits with someone left behind had already signed their wages over in full. DSD had an agreement to render wages to families that recruits had designated, those accounts would be credited as soon as they went into suspension. Just like a will being fulfilled upon death. Madison wondered if parents and siblings had funeral services for anyone that left for the expansion zone, they would never see their faces again only their commission pay and last cable that drifted through the cold vacuum of space a days journey through the system as a final ghostly goodbye. They could respond with a farewell message but those were uploaded to the explorer vessels and only viewed once they exited suspension in orbit around their designated planet which would be decades after their families had passed. 

Madison cried as she heard a mother explain that she had left her adult daughters behind to give them a better life explaining in detail this painfully sterile procedure. It never felt fair every time she watched the DSD shuttle take off from the pad behind their hab pod, she would huddle in the portal window watching the crystal flecks spaying against their home, glowing as the thrusters turned the ice to gas with a pleasant green shimmer like algae wings spreading outward she imagined angels carrying these loved ones away as undertakers claiming the dead. It was a peaceful calm with morose sobriety that left her heart warmed by ambitious aspirations and yet hardened by the harshness of reality. Her own resolve was learned time after time, never missing a single lift off with nose pressed against the cold frosted glass peering outward like it was her solemn duty as overseer of their last departure from a home filled with familiar faces even if they had been strangers just a year before; Madison and her parents were the last family they’d ever know from this soon forgot era. It was like they were time travels trapped in capsules preserved for the future.

She was sometimes jealous of their ability to travel forward in time for a brief lingering moment before she reflected on the cost they endured whisking away the envy like vapor in the wind. 

Chapter 2

The day she found the rock.  

The rock she held warmed thru her glove an unusual sensation for everything on the surface that she had touched had the bitter sting of frost. It reminded her of coolant rods from the reclamator. Last year a reservoir had ruptured and began over heating without thinking she had snatched the rods from their housing and swiftly flung them onto the ice before they fused to the manifold. Sizzling in the salt ridden pools a foggy steam covered her visor before she knew it they had almost melted thru her glove, she had to leave her hand wrapped for a week which meant hers gloves barely fit over the gauze this made separating the crystals that formed between the cultivation lines almost impossible to service. It was so difficult she had to give a few kicks just to break them loose because her grip was weakened by the burns that seared with every grasp.

 As this memory jolted her attention she suddenly dropped the rock out of instinct imagining it suddenly growing hotter like the rods. It steamed in the ice below the harvester that had sucked it up. She stood silently watching the vapor rise beneath the register where she had removed the mysterious stone to release the fluid that was now flowing freely from the pools.

She pondered where it had come from.

The nearest rock formations where a shuttle flight away, their farm sat on an gaseous ice cap nearly a kilometer thick without any hard mineral deposit that’s what made it such an ideal location for harvesting. 

Perhaps it had somehow drifted from the mainland during summers thaw, when the sunny months bring tiny streams of fluid forming in the cracks of ice when particles and debris downstream would get sucked along until they collected in the pools. It was common to find old scraps of cultivator screens and waste from the adjacent refinery that found their way into the reclamator lines but this was the first time anything organic from the land had made it this far.

After observing the rock with a skeptical gaze for a few brief moments Madison decided to pick it up again, delicately bracing it between her index finger and thumb. This time it was pulsating with heat as if it was palpitating like a frightened ground charger whose heart was racing after darting across an ice shelf escaping from a splinter hawk.

She had watched as splinter hawks with their iridescent wings spanned wide would glide for hours, shadow looming over the ice giving warning to the tiny chargers nestled below who would burrow beneath embankments of ice that were left behind from wind storms that howled across the barren landscape until they smashed with thunderous strokes forming drifts that stretched like frozen waves for kilometers in every direction. She enjoyed watching the Chargers dash across from shelf to shelf racing against the splinter hawks until they found a school of glint a sort of krill like fish that mostly lived beneath the ice but would get caught in the streams at summers end and be preserved like ready to eat meals for the chargers to devour. If they spied a teasure of glint they’d abandon their safe harbor in the shadows of a shelf and scurry straight towards their next meal. It was at this moment that the distracted chargers were most vulnerable prey to the splinter hawks, these tiny rodents with crystal dust covering their fur gleamed with each speck stuck to their pelt signaling that the hawks to were in for a meal. The suns reflection just below the horizon most hours of the day meant tiny streams of light would illuminate sections between the shelves with long cast shadows stretching out almost overlapping one another but between those bands of darkness a glimpse of chargers could be spotted hustling about and it was those briefest moments that a splinter would dive and strike an unsuspecting charger. It was only after a kill that a splinter hawk would let out their cry it was a shrill decree but not as spine tingling as the high pitched squeal of a charger caught in their predators talons.

Each cry reminded Madison as she drifted back to sleep that life was fighting for its share even on the surface of this seemingly lifeless ice they called their home. It was as deadly for chargers as it was for splinter hawks though. If they didn’t find their way south by mid winter nothing would be left for them to consume even chargers migrated south and Madison imagined they were blown their by storms that rushed in from the north when polar storms accumulated charge and lightning waves would jet across the ice exploding pockets of methane trapped within the ice. As splinter hawk cries began to wane these silent webs of electricity would give way to a sudden cacophony of sharp pops followed by one convulsive boom. It was with each explosion that Madison and her parents would hope a section of the pools hadn’t blown taking along with it a set of collectors. The worst ”fault” as they called these miniature chasms left in the ice was when she was still to little to help in the fields. It took down nearly a dozen of their hundred some collectors and an extra hand came the following cycle to assist in printing and assembling replacement parts to build a new fleet. Madison remembered that season vividly because the extra hand took her room and she had to stay in her parents chambers each evening, their portal looked out towards the amber glow in the distance it was beautiful at first in comparison to the dark void she saw from her portal looking towards the north but after awhile she found it hard to stay asleep with pearls of light dancing on the ceiling reflecting the shimmer of melting ice from the heat condenser that sat on the roof, thin streams would run down the side of the pod and collect in little pools on the portal sill. She would try to lay still but often bustled about until morning. The day the additional hand departed Madison yelped with joy rushing into her chambers and jumping on her much longed for bed. Her room never felt so sweet to her and from then on she cherished it as her sacred space, even writing a little sign with left over thermal ink that still hangs on the door to this day proudly stating “no recruits allowed”.

Chapter 3

Sign language

Madison never found it satisfying revealing the secret nature of their hand jesters to the recruits. It was a sacred language between her and her father that no one else knew and that made it special enough to never share with anyone else.

In the evening Madisons father would hang his atom suit in the decontamination chamber which served as entrance to their pod as well as storage closet and holding area for waste products before he took the waste containers on the grav sled to a steam crater a few klicks south, he would hang his atom suit in the door way to dry from the bleaching agents and Madison would often sneak inside trying on the oversized gloves and boots, even putting a towel on her head so that she could see out of the helmet, swept away in her imagination she hardly noticed her father standing behind her in the doorway, “one day you’ll be big enough to join me in the field as well my little starship.” She whipped around with a giddy grin on her face heart racing at the thought of working beside her dad in the lithium fields. They seemed like a magical place filled with marvelous floating orbs she someday would learn the interworkings of just like her father.

Wash up now, you don’t want that bleach streaking your beautiful hair my darling. 

Those days seem far behind like distant visions of the past, as she sat their at fifteen in her third gen atom suit, now fitted with better coms then the old versions, they could contact mom all the way on the far side of the farm without surges causing interference, but between her and her dad they never used the coms unless it was absolutely necessary or to comment on something truly incredible. Theirs was a silent language they had built over the past several years, small short gestures that made up an entire vocabulary of words, anything from pointing at the ships taking off and signaling the call numbers to more articulate messages like watch out for a helium vent or pass me a bolt spanner. Anything they did on a regular basis had one maybe two short gestures to describe: a flat hand placed palm down above shoulder swiftly running down the arm until it slid past the fingers tips on the back of the other hand with a sharp chopping motion meant that collector lines needed to be scathed, a clasped fist rotated in a counterclockwise manner with a sudden movement downward meant the coupler lines had to be detached and purged, two fists held arms width apart and pointed upwards then pulled in towards the chest meant the thermal pump had to be removed and ventilated, two fists clasped tightly one over the other pushed down together towards the ground like driving an invisible post into the ice meant the head rods had to be removed for inspection and a gesture in the reverse direction meant they had to be replaced entirely, any emergencies were met with a sharply clasped fist held palm facing outward in front of your helmet and of course a soft open palm on the chest gently flipped towards her dad and extended smoothly meant I love you, always met by a lingering gaze of kindness from her father grasping an invisible cord floating between them he’d clasp his fist closed and cling it to his heart, with a gentle underhand pitch with his other hand she would take a step back like receiving a thrown pass and clutch it with both hands to her chest they would often crack a little smirk and return to servicing reclamators. 

These beastly machines had simple infrastructure devoid of ornate architecture everything in the system was meant to last for decades without replacement but these machines had been syphoning lithium for more then three hundred years when crystal moon was first settled.

It didn’t take much to keep a single reclamator running which is why their team of three and sometimes four if a recruit was staying with them was more then ample for maintaining their fleet of over a hundred units. Each part they replaced Madison had an intimate knowledge of having taken several of them apart in her spare time crafting clever and more durable solutions for the parts that wore thin or were prone to sheering, she even published an article within her schools journal on several improvements that would extend reclamator life and double the span between required service. She received a letter of recommendation from DSD for her contribution but never heard anything further on the potential production and implementation of her design elements. It didn’t stop her from printing her enhanced designs and utilizing them in every future repair they performed even if the protectorate couldn’t recognize the value in implementing these changes across the system she figured she might as well take advantage of the benefits on their farm.

New recruits often had a hard time keeping pace with her swift changes of machine elements and even more adept articulations of their interworking, there was probably no one as well versed in these machines then the engineers who designed them and they had passed at least three great surges ago when the settlers first set foot on this rock. She was trenchantly incisive when she gave instructions to the recruits but that didn’t keep them from being awe struck and somewhat dumbfounded by her breadth of knowledge. As she had learned from her classmates that she synched with through the core school network, few people had respect for outliers and even fewer imagined any potential the likes of Madison. It was difficult for her to describe the passion she felt for her work on Crystal moon as most of her peers were consumed with their planets politics and trends with dramatic luster and vain appeal that Madison never shared. Her ramblings on about technical specs and output ratios were as foreign a language as the ceremony preparations and performance arts that every student in the inner planets was mastering before the next great surge. 

It was the center of conversation for every student except the outliers as they could never afford the jump to Zion for the extravagant processions. She had more in common with “belters” a not so flattering term for settlers on the astroids within the belt. None she had met were as adept or interested in learning as she was but they were amiable enough and shared her sentiments towards the gregarious pomp that seemed like a divisive intrusion in their otherwise sociable class. Madison really didn’t mind being a crystal farmer it meant she was one of the best players in virtual, the most common sport was a low g game similar to squash where the goals was to prevent the opponent from scoring a point by hitting three of the six walls in the cube, she was used to the low gravity environment on the moon so jumping from wall to wall came far more naturally to her then those in the central core. It took time for her to gain the respect she deserved but after several years of being adept and athletic they eventually included her like a central citizen, but it never felt like she was truly part of the group, especially now with the surge impending the lines of division grew ever more obvious that she was not part of the core. 

Chapter 4.

Trever Danes was the last recruit of the harvest season and he was quieter than most recruits. His father had been assigned to a penal colony on the far side of the belt, just within jump distance of crystal moon. Trever had been raised on Eden a lush planet that she always adored and longed to visit one day with her family. Trever was surprisingly well read for being raised in Mecal, they had a reputation for being deeply spiritual luddites that forsook technology and some higher forms of education for a simpler way of life within the rain forest of the eastern most continent. It came as a surprise that he had so much interest and swift aptitude for reclamator maintenance, it struck her as a funny notion a boy whose only use of lithium tech was the holosim at their minor hall of knowledge and the shields that kept their planet safe from the beta primes radiation. She was as intrigued by his fascination with learning about technology as he was her ability to communicate it to him with such precision. Nothing brought her more joy then the night he delved into her publication on reclamator improvements, constantly letting out subtle acknowledgements like yep, mhm mhm mhm, that totally makes sense. Madisons heart filled with affirmation as she watched him pour over her writing, perhaps someone finally appreciated her work as much as she did. 

Their bond grew over the coming cycles and Trever even put in for an extension with DSD deferring his FTL jump for another season in order to spend time on the Degaras farm.  

Trevers charm wasn’t in his charisma or quick wit but a quite contemplation that attracted the world to him in the depths of his meditations. Madison grew entranced with his capacity to become one with anything as time and space were explained away as figments and myths of our past, Madison learned of her true origin and path. His heart was broken unlike any she had felt, it was fractured in a million different ways but each piece was an element as delightful as the last, as his tenderness towards her grew she knew that she could never truly mend his broken wounds though the gentleness of his spirit exuded affection for her she knew his heart would always be his own. Richard regularly eased Madison’s swooning admiration before it devolved into mawkish infatuation by reminding her that some hearts don’t mend in a single life time for the span of such suffering takes generations to heal. She could feel the stone cold honesty that was ripe with truth in her fathers wisdom but affectionate bonds aren’t eased as swiftly as they are formed though she tried her best to be realistic her detachment never became a home for her heart to live in rather her optimistic hope for the future kept her longing that his healing would occur in her lifetime. It wasn’t just for her gain but easing the pangs of ancient tragedy she wished to soothe for lingering in his eyes at times he didn’t realize his essence of life was flickered out. A desperate desire for resolution formed in her a craving to find the balm that would relieve his pain but rarely from such efforts came a fruitful end for reasons she couldn’t explain.

His presence occluded her vision as strangely as gray shadows cast long across the landscape of crystal moon where reclamators loomed draping their shade across the lunar scape with heavy pools of darkness as their form haunted each ice shelf with lengthy bands of overlapping outlines curvaceous like knobby fingers interlaced across the field. Yet, she knew they would never touch as though being so deeply intwined as they were it was their fleeting length of proximity that gave his heart the opportunity to feel again but extend that bond of union for a lifetime and the strain upon his chest would drain more then her breast or breathe could fill his spirit with gulps of love from her lungs. 

His mind was a vapid air lock slowly hissing his life force into the ether for no matter the depths his soul could reach a heart left drained from unexplained pain meant his thoughts ever race with great strain. Complain he might with great frequency in his brain but it never brought satisfaction that relieved the pain.