We settle into a new routine surprisingly quickly. Lina’s still processing samples from her previous braindead patients (now in the freezer) and the Friend is slowly picking through Captain Kinoshita’s notes to see if we’ve missed anything o...
2023-09-19 23:23:47 +0000 UTC View Post
ID chips were implanted into colonists shortly before stasis for recognition aboard the ship and new colony, but during the training, accommodation and boarding process, it was more convenient to use these paper ID cards.
The structure of a Texan funeral is jarringly unfamiliar to me in practice, but I’m well versed in the theory. Death rites tell you a lot about a culture, and there’s probably no sociologist alive in any society who doesn’t understand how to...
2023-09-16 22:08:49 +0000 UTC View PostWhile I wait for my next client, I grab a notepad and run some numbers.
There are two thousand, nine hundred and eighty six colonists still in chronostasis, out of an original five thousand. That includes the survivors of the original crew. ...
2023-09-12 23:31:31 +0000 UTC View PostWho first started the discussion to deactivate the kill switches amongst the crew?
The Friend brought it up to me while I was still recovering from chronostasis, so I assume it did so with everyone.
Did knowled...
2023-09-11 14:51:53 +0000 UTC View PostThe medbay is empty except for me, Tal, and the two of Lina’s comatose science projects who survived the problems of the computer shutdown and subsequent transfer to this ring. Tal sits on the end of the unoccupied bed, looking at kes hands. Not...
2023-09-09 22:44:01 +0000 UTC View Post“What do you mean, you told her to?” I ask.
“And why now?” Lina asks.
“She did it now because she couldn’t before. I restored her proper environmental controls and she went straight to it.”
“You restor ...
2023-09-05 23:26:11 +0000 UTC View PostI’m still at the keyboard, so Captain Klees turns to me. “Where is everyone? Is anyone in CR5?”
I check. “Nobody’s in CR5. Well, except all the chronostatic colonists, I guess. Denish and Tinera are in HR2 on the other side of CR5,...
2023-09-02 23:16:14 +0000 UTC View PostI wake up in a bright room, littered with IVs and monitoring equipment and with an oxygen mask on my face. I carefully reach back to disconnect the cerebral stimulator from the port in my skull.
But there’s no stimulator there, just a slig...
2023-08-29 23:30:41 +0000 UTC View PostI stare at Tal for a bit, but no further explanation is forthcoming. “I don’t…?”
“You too, Aspen! All of us are so fucking stupid! I have to try something! If this actually works I’m going to be so pissed off at myself!” Ke spi...
2023-08-26 23:21:58 +0000 UTC View PostI wake up in my own bed, and for a moment it seems blatantly obvious that the recent confusing events were a strange nightmare.
Then I look down, and realise I’m still in my clothes. There are little aches all over my body, and when I move...
2023-08-22 23:22:36 +0000 UTC View PostCaptain Sands backs away behind a bed, but I’m faster. He’s almost within reach before Heli shoulder-checks me directly into the metal frame of the bed. Pain blooms in my hip as I drop to the floor, my improvised weapon rolling out of my grip,...
2023-08-19 23:17:16 +0000 UTC View Post“Excellent,” Captain Sands says. “If we’re lucky, we might be able to avoid any further unpleasant business.”
I watch him leave the room. “I think I hate that guy,” I remark.
Celi raises an eyebrow. “I thought you two w...
2023-08-15 23:18:34 +0000 UTC View Post
ID chips were implanted into colonists shortly before stasis for recognition aboard the ship and new colony, but during the training, accommodation and boarding process, it was more convenient to use t...
2023-08-15 09:16:17 +0000 UTC View Post“Heli has been disciplined,” Captain Sands informs Adin in our makeshift interrogation room. “And after we’ve solved this murder, I’ll be able to deal with her more thoroughly.”
“What do you want, Keldin?”
“Just to cl...
2023-08-12 23:41:56 +0000 UTC View PostCaptain Sands listens carefully to my explanation, frowning at the computer. He pulls out a notepad and runs the numbers manually himself. Then he frowns at the computer again.
“It’s a coincidence,” he says.
“A coincidence? Tha...
2023-08-08 23:29:46 +0000 UTC View PostWhat were your initial thoughts upon being woken up and told you're the captain now?
For a solid week, I was dead certain that I was dreaming. I mean. I went to sleep under the assumption I’d be waking up in orbit around H...
2023-08-08 07:24:12 +0000 UTC View PostLina, Denish and I gather at a small table that had been set up near the laundry room for Arborean Trumps. Denish makes the obligatory joke about me having a natural advantage by being Arborean, Lina deals us twelve cards each while explaining tha...
2023-08-05 23:31:53 +0000 UTC View PostI watch the footage several times, as if that will somehow make it make more sense. It doesn’t. There’s no reason for Heli not to be involved, I guess, I just… why? She’d been awake for less than a week at this point! Renn hadn’t even ma...
2023-08-01 23:25:57 +0000 UTC View PostSunset’s eyes widen, and I regret my words immediately. They’re correct, but the immediate aftermath of a murder in a confined space probably isn’t the time to be reminding people not to trust their neighbours. If anyone in Habitation ...
2023-07-29 23:30:00 +0000 UTC View PostWe head for our temporary interrogation room. The Friend collapses onto the bed and puts its head in its hands.
“I’m going to be up-front with you, Friend,” Sands says. “You don’t look to be in a physical state to have killed anyon...
2023-07-25 23:30:55 +0000 UTC View Post“You saw Adin?” Captain Sands asks. “Making his way in the direction of Renn and the Friend, right before the murders?”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t going to NEAR 2,” Tal says. “He was just dipping into Storage Ring 5 to grab more al...
2023-07-22 23:26:58 +0000 UTC View Post“So you guys didn’t find any bloodstained clothing, then?” I ask. “Any signed confessions? Nobody broke down crying and explained why and how they did it?”
“Not yet. They are, very suspiciously, doing a lot of laundry at this exa...
2023-07-18 23:28:23 +0000 UTC View PostThe six of us – Heli, Sunset, Sam, Celi, the captain and I – stare at the scene in Network and Engineering Ring 2. It’s exactly as I’d left it – the Friend (the non-doctor one) sprawled face-first in a pool of blood almost in the doorway...
2023-07-15 23:30:40 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s movie night.
And for once, it’s fairly sparsely populated. Seven of us gather in Network and Engineering Ring 1 to play Sunset’s favourite computer game about twelve hours after my talk with Captain Sands, and it’s not the peopl...
2023-07-14 18:22:34 +0000 UTC View Post“Um,” I say, intelligently, like the seasoned intellectual that I am. “What?”
“Aspen, do you know why the Javelin Program took off in the first place?”
“Of course. With the Kleiner Array, people saw viable exoplanets with...
2023-07-11 23:20:13 +0000 UTC View PostHow did you become a space pirate?
Is family business. We acquire stranded ships, no registration, or follow distress signals where crew in distress does not answer. Very often crew is dead, and if heirs want to inherit ship...
2023-07-09 07:24:54 +0000 UTC View Post