Bored in deep space - Novelisation -
Chapter 22 - Emerald Sky Marauders (1)
The transition from the bustling, chaotic energy of the promenade to the serene sanctuary of our private room was like stepping through a portal into another dimension. An orderly, kimono-clad attendant slid a shoji screen door aside, bowing with a deep, effortless grace. The space beyond was an ode to minimalist tranquility, a stark counterpoint to the sensory overload of the station. The floor was covered in polished, golden-hued tatami mats, their grassy scent mingling with the subtle aroma of sandalwood from a hidden incense burner. We were guided to a low, dark-wood table set into a sunken section of the floor. Cushions were placed for us to sit on.
And the wall that dominated the room wasn't a wall at all. It was a single, seamless sheet of crystal-clear plating, a breathtaking window framing Tau Ceti Prime like a priceless painting. The planet filled our entire view. It was a masterpiece of cobalt blue oceans, spiralling clouds of cotton-white, and vast continents draped in an impossible shade of emerald green.
Tiberius ushered Marissa and I to the inner seats, the ones with the most commanding view, and act of quiet hospitality that felt profoundly ingrained. His wife, Elaina, and their daughter, Patricia, took the seats opposite, creating a small, intimate circle around the table. The moment the screen door slid shut, a subtle but pervasive hush fell over the room. The cacophony of the promenade vanished completely, replaced by a gentle, meditative silence. Even my ears popped a bit, and an instant feeling of relief washed over me, like I'd just put down a heavy backpack. The isolation of it was a gift, a chance for me to breathe and gather my scattered thoughts.
A thin, almost invisible sheet of dark glass unfolded from the centre of the table. As if sensing and approaching, it glowed to life, revealing a vibrant menu that shimmered with holographic images of exquisitely prepared dishes. My stomach, which had been a tight knot of anxiety, suddenly growled with a forgotten, primal hunger. It slipped my mind, but three years was a long time to not eat. The silver clip kept me nourished and healthy throughout that awfully long descent down the old machine's superstructure of Astellion. It was great. Convenient. But in all their magically impossible tech, the Silent Architects forgot the simple joy and soulful healing the act of eating provides the mind.
Without a word, Tiberius picked up the glowing pane and tapped through the menu, his finger moving with the easy authority of someone who was no stranger to places like this. He didn't ask what anyone wanted. He just began selecting, one by one. A plate of sizzling grilled fish from a planet called Khazaraak, the fillets shimmering with an iridescent silver sheen. A bowl of steaming, emerald-green noodles swimming in a fragrant broth that the menu claimed was enhanced with something called Restor-X amino compounds. Crispy-fried crustaceans from the icy seas of some planet I couldn't even hope to pronounce, arranged like a sculpture on a bed of dark seaweed. He ordered carafe after carafe of a sparkling amber liquid described as Mead-Blossom Nectar, its aroma sweet and floral. He ordered and ordered, not with the carefree extravagance of a tourist, but with the grim determination of a man trying to buy back three of starvation for a nephew he had lost.
My anxiety to speak, to unload the mountain of half-truths and sanitised history we'd concocted, finally bubbled over. "Uncle Tib," I began, my voice a little raspy in the quiet room. "Before we eat, I think I should start—"
"No," he said firmly, cutting me off gently. The tone was paternal, an absolute command softened by years of affection. He tapped a final icon on the datapad; the menu went dark and retracted smoothly back into the table. He leaned forward, his hands resting flat on the dark wood table. "You don't talk yet. First, you eat."
His eyes scanned my face, a slow, deliberate inventory of my features. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, son. A lot of… lost ground to make up for. And I don't want your stories, or my questions, getting in the way of putting some decent food in your stomach. We're going to sit here, and we're going to eat. And then, when you're good and full… then you can talk."
Across the table, Elaina's gaze, still shimmering with unshed tears, mirrored her husband's sentiments. Patricia, however, remained an island of cool indifference. She pulled out a small, sleek device from one of the pockets of her black jacket and began idly scrolling through it, though I could tell she was stealing glimpses whenever she thought I wasn't paying attention.
An attendant, moving with the same quiet competence as the one who guided us, arrived and began to place the dishes on the table, the arrangement an art form in itself. The sizzle from the Khazaraak fish was the first sound that truly broke the room's awkward tension. A plume of steam rose from the emerald noodles, carrying with it a complex aroma of broth, salt, and something vaguely like vinegar.
Tiberius gestured towards the feast. "Go on, kid."
I hesitantly picked up the pair of sleek, metal chopsticks. I was familiar with them, but the memories and sensations of my old life were slowly becoming a blur -- another lifetime's memory. I fumbled slightly at first, before managing to clamp down on a piece of the sizzling, silver fish. The moment it touched my tongues, I felt… alive. It was hot and delicate and flaky, melting away in a burst of savoury, buttery flavour that was so vibrant and immediate. After three years of not eating, this wasn't just food. It was a raw, primal scream of life. The kind humans were always meant to live. The flavour coated my entire palette. And that was it, a switch somewhere in my brain flicked on. I was ravenous. I was a predator who'd stumbled upon its first real meal after hibernation. I abandoned all pretense of civility, the awkward tension, and social expectations. The noodles were next, slippery and chewy, the broth a warm, comforting embrace that soothed a deep, spiritual ache in my chest. The crispy crustaceans had a satisfying crunch that echoed off the soundproof walls. I devoured everything on my plate with an intensity that bordered on a religious or spiritual experience. I wasn't thinking about anything; the reunion, Tama, my future, nothing. My entire world was reduced to the simple, profound act of nourishing myself after a long, long famine.
Through it all, Tiberius watched. He didn't eat much himself, just took small, measured sips from a cup of the amber nectar. There was a small, tired smile playing on his lips, a look of tearful satisfaction. It was the smile of a man who had tended a dying garden for three years and was finally seeing a single, stubborn green shoot emerge from a barren soil. Every bite I took seemed to heal a part of him, every swallow a prayer answered in the most tangible way possible.
Beside him, Elaina mimicked his quiet satisfaction. She picked at her food, her movements slow and careful, but her eyes were locked onto my figure. Each successful bite I managed was met with a slow, deliberate nod. Tears occasionally welled up in her eyes, but this wasn't the grief from the promenade. These were tears of pure, unadulterated relief. The trembling, maternal joy at the satisfying sight of her lost boy finally eating.
It was Patricia who jolted me from my feeding frenzy with a deadpan observation. "He's like a Gorgarian Maw," she said, not looking up from her own datapad. I paused, a half-eaten crustacean halfway to my mouth, and blinked at her. I had no idea what a Gorgarian Maw was, but from the tone, I gathered it wasn't a compliment. This earned her a sharp, admonishing look from her father. She just rolled her golden eyes, but I had seen it now, the flash of amusement beneath the armour of gothic indifference.
It was only when I came up for air, my stomach finally started to send signals of satiety to my brain. I finally noticed Marissa. She sat perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap. In front of her, the plate of fish I hadn't yet devoured was untouched, the steam rising from it like a ghost. Her presence was a conspicuous hole in the scene of familial reunion. Tiberius's gaze followed mine. He gestured towards Marissa's plate with his cup. "You're not eating?" he asked, his voice still gruff but now threaded with a hint of social embarrassment. "Is something wrong? Not hungry?"
He stared at her for a moment, a flicker of something -- a dawning realisation -- crossing his face. He suddenly had the look of a host who, in the thrill of greeting a long-lost guest, had utterly forgotten about the guest's companion. He placed the cup back down on the table with a soft click, turning to me with an apologetic, somewhat self-deprecating frown. "Noah, my apologies," he said. "I've been a terrible host. I've been so focused on… well, this. I haven't even had the decency to ask. Introduce us. This beautiful young lady is…?" A slow, knowing smile crept onto his face, a tired father's amusement. "Don't tell me you found yourself a girlfriend on a rock in the middle of being stranded."
I almost choked on a piece of fish. Before I could even form a word of protest, let alone the elaborate explanation about corporate medical contracts, Marissa was already speaking. She placed her chopstick neatly on her plate. "My name is Marissa Shirley," she introduced herself with a calm, perfectly modulated alto. She looked directly to Tiberius, her expression polite and open. "And you are correct, I am Captain Noah's girlfriend."
I froze. My fork, halfway to my mouth, clattered onto my plate. All conversation stopped -- my breath stopped. Patricia even looked up from her device, a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised in what looked like genuine, utter surprise. I shot Marissa a look that I hoped conveyed a blend of pure shock, betrayal, and a quiet plea for sanity.
Marissa met my stern glare for a fraction of a second, then she placed a delicate hand to her lips and gave a small, convincing chuckle, as if to play it off as a joke. "My apologies," she said, turning back to my uncle and aunt. Her tone shifted subtly, losing the intimate warmth of her initial introduction and adopting a more clinical, professional demeanor. "That was a poorly phrased jest. The emotional intensity of this reunion appears to have temporarily compromised my linguistics. I simply wished to lower the emotional temperature a little." She picked up the explanation flawlessly, her story seamless and logical. The improvisation was so smooth it was terrifying. "As stated, my name is Doctor Marissa Shirley. I am the lead recovery specialist who responded to the SV-Eclipse's distress beacon approximately ten cycles ago. The ship, and Captain Lee, had miraculously made it back to a peripheral shipping lane. My initial brief was to evaluate and stabilise the Captain for a long-range transport to a proper medical facility."
My Uncle and aunt were leaning forward now, completely captivated, their initial shock replaced by a rapt attention. Marissa continued, her narrative painting a clear, believable picture. "As it happened, the conclusion of my duties on a separate case required me to make a stop here at Tau Ceti Prime anyway. Given the Captain's… prolonged period of isolation and the acute trauma he endured, I deemed it medically necessary for him to not be left alone during this initial, vulnerable phase of recovery. So, I accompanied him. Consider me a… very extended professional courtesy." She offered a small, professional smile. "I am responsible for ensuring he makes a full psychological, as well as physical, recovery."
There was a quiet, reverent pause. Elaina was the first to break it, reaching across the table and placing her hand gently over Marissa's "Oh, Doctor…" she whispered, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and gratitude. "Thank you. Thank you for bringing him back to us."
"You have our deepest gratitude, Doctor," Tiberius echoed, his voice thick with emotions. He looked at Marissa, not with the suspicion he might have for a supposed girlfriend that had magically appeared, but with the sincere respect of a man whose son has just been brought back from the dead by the grace of a competent doctor. "For everything."
I let out a slight, subtle grimace. I was getting worried they weren't even questioning it. Like, why would a female doctor accompany a delirious male patient in a cramped starship, alone? I was both grateful and terribly concerned. It was a perfectly acted lie. So logical, so noble, so utterly devoid of the messy, unexplainable emotional bond that had been my primary fear. Tama hadn't just told the story; she had rewritten the script mid-performance, adlibbing with a joke to draft a version far more compelling and personable.
But uncle… Aunt… please beware of scammers.
Patricia, however, remained unmoved by the wave of emotion. She leaned back on her cushion, crossing her arms again. "So you're his shrink, then?"
Marissa turned her gaze to the younger woman -- my cousin. She smiled back cordially. "My professional designation is Integrated Trauma Recovery Specialist," she replied with an impassive calm. "But that is an acceptably informal summary, yes."
Patricia gave a single, short nod. "Cool." she said, trying to play it off subtly, but there was a glimmer in her eyes. Not towards me, but at the professional and cool facade of Marissa Shirley.
The last sparkling amber nectar had been poured and the vibrant platters of food reduced to a few glistening sauce-streaked remnants. The frantic energy of the reunion and the initial need for sustenance had subsided. In its place, a heavy, contemplative silence settled over the room. Outside the crystal viewport, the planet rotated silently, its swirling cloud patterns a hypnotic backdrop. The food, the drinks, the relief of being together had created a safe atmosphere, a quiet lagoon in the stormy sea of the past three years for my uncle and his family. The questions were no longer a pressing danger, but a natural, inevitable progression.
I took a slow breath. I could feel their expectant gazes on me, not demanding, but waiting. The story belonged to me now, and it was time to tell it. "There isn't an… easy way to explain it," I began, my voice lower, more measured than it had been before. "It started with a delivery. The one you sent me, Uncle Tib. I remember your message. A loud of refined Titan Ore, high priority. A straight run to the Mid-Rim. Along with a bunch of miscellaneous colony supplies."
Tiberius's gaze sharpened at the specific detail. His expression was no longer just one of relief, but of an uncle listening to a story he already knew the beginning of. "I remember that. A tight schedule, but the pay was good. One of the last I arranged for you before…" he trailed off, the unspoken memory hanging in the air between us.
"Everything was routine for the first few cycles. I was on a direct approach vector. I'd even initiated the Fold Jump sequence," I continued, choosing my words carefully, building the foundation of our constructed reality. "And then… it happened. There wasn't any explosion, no warning siren. Just a cascade of red lights across every console. The Fold Drive matrix destabilised. Calliope… the ship's AI… told me we had been thrown. Sabotaged, most likely, but there was no way to prove it. Just.. gone."
I paused, letting the weight of that moment sink in -- the moment the 21st century corporate drone arrived in this world. "One second, I was in a busy shipping lane, the next… I was staring at empty space. I pulled up the starcharts. Nothing matched. The constellations were all wrong. No familiar buoys, no known systems. Just… I guess, adrift."
The silence in the room was different now. It was thick with the horror of isolation. Elaina's hands were clasped tightly in her lap. Even Patricia put her datapad down, her full attention fixed on me.
"There was only one landmark. A single, bright sun that didn't have a name. And around it was only a single planet," I said, gesturing vaguely towards the outside window. "The atmosphere read as breathable, so I didn't have much of a choice… or resources for that matter. I either stayed on the ship and waited to run out of power or I took a gamble and went down." My gaze drifted past them, into my mind's eye replaying the memory of that chaotic descent down Astellion when I still only knew it as Turn Seven. "The landing…" I paused, squinting. "... Wasn't a landing at all. The planet's magnetosphere was insane. Some sort of massive magnetic storm erupted from the surface the second I hit the upper atmosphere. It fried every primary system on the ship at once. No thrusters, no navigation, no shields. The Eclipse became a four-thousand-ton rock. All I could do was hold on and pray. We came down hard."
A wince from Tiberius. A small, indrawn breath from Elaina. I could only hope the story was a fraction of as vivid as my recount of that crash landing where I thought it was all over.
"On the ground the ship was a mess. A breach in the hull. Mangled systems. Calliope's initial diagnostics beforehand was hopeful. With the backup fabrication units, she said I could probably get a Fold Drive working in maybe 45 cycles. A rough couple of months, but doable. I had a crate full of supplies. I could've survived."
"Of course, son," Tiberius said. "You were always good at thinking on your feet."
"But the crash made everything so much worse," I admitted. "I found the drive wasn't just damaged. The cascade failure fused the critical components that couldn't be fabricated from scratch. Not without rare isotopes I didn't have. I couldn't fix the core. I had to repair the entire ship around it, just to get to the point where I could think about fixing the drive itself."
"How… how did you even begin?" Elaina asked, her voice a fragile whisper.
"Slowly," I answered. "Calliope managed to back herself up into a peripheral device. The Lighthouse. With her help and the four maintenance rovers. Every single day for three years. We'd go out, strip the ship for raw materials, run the fabricators for cycles on end to build new parts. We mined the rock nearby for what we needed. We recycled the air, the water. I slept in my quarters, ate the emergency nutrient bars, and when that ran out I had to rely on whatever I could find on that planet. I spent every other waking hour covered in grease and dust. It just… became life at some point. The work was the only thing. Day and night felt arbitrary after the first few months. I didn't even know how many weeks or months or even years passed after a while.
Patricia, who'd been so aloof, now leaned forward, her forearms resting on the table. "You were alone for a thousand cycles…" she said solemnly, not as a question, but as a fact.
"Not completely alone," I corrected. "I had Calliope. And the rovers. We were a team." I felt a small chuckle bubble up as I stared at the empty food plates before me. "I even gave them names, you know? Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopey, and Doc… Along with Calliope, they were the closest thing I had to friends."
I straightened my posture and glanced back up. It felt… good to tell them. It wasn't the full truth, but this filtered, plausible version was a story I could live with. "Finally, a few weeks ago, I finished the last piece. The recalibration sequence for the Fold matrix. The entire ship was basically rebuilt from the inside out. I punched in the coordinates to a place that Calliope registered as the most powerful energy signal she could detect, and I jumped. It was blind. No way of knowing where I'd end up." I looked from Tiberius to Elaina, then to Marissa, who sat in silent affirmation of my story. "Thankfully, it was a populated system," I concluded. "One of the outer lanes. I had to re-boot all of my comms from scratch to get a distress signal working. That signal was answered by Doctor Shirley, here. And now, I'm home." I looked at them, at their raw, grief-stricken, hopeful faces. "The rest, as you say, is history."
The story settled. It was solid, cohesive, and believable. An epic tale of survival that explained my long absence, my gauntness, and the presence of a professional. There was a long, charged silence, the quiet of a family finally having the most important question of their lives answered. It was Tiberius who broke it, his voice thick with a mixture of pride and a sorrow that would take a while longer to fade.
"You survived," he said. "My boy… you survived."
"Yeah…" I said. A weary smile slowly formed on my face. "I did. I really did."
I could finally see the pieces clicking into place for them, filling in the jagged, three-year hole with a neat, if harrowing, narrative of survival. The grief on their faces hadn't vanished, but it'd been tempered. Now it was a sorrow for what I'd endured, not for what they lost. It was manageable; it was an ending.
Tiberius stared down into his cup of the amber nectar, swirling the liquid with a slow, thoughtful motion. He grumbled under his breath, a gravelly sound that was half-contemplation, half-rage. He took a long swig, the muscles in his jaw working like he was chewing on a piece of tough gristle. When he finally looked back up at the table, the relief in his eyes had been replaced by a new, chilling resolve. I recognised that look. In the old world, in my former corporate life, it was the expression of an executive when he'd discovered who'd been siphoning funds from the budget. It was a hunter's focus.
"This wasn't a random incident, Noah," he said, his voice now a low, intense rumble that cut through the room's tranquility. "This wasn't a glitch or cosmic accident. I'm almost certain of it."
My pulse, which had just begun to settle, gave a sudden, nervous thud. "Uncle Tib?"
"The second the Guild declared the SV-Eclipse overdue and presumed lost, I didn't just wait around for three years, son. I hired people. Good people. Private investigators… with connections. They went back over your ship's last known trajectory, pulled all the port security footage from the last station you docked at. Looked into your comms, your credit transfers. Everything," he explained. "The report was confusing at first. A few inconsistencies, but nothing that screamed foul play to a Guild arbitrator. Nothing that they'd waste resources investigating. But I kept digging."
There was a newfound tension in the air as he spoke. Elaina's eyes focused on her husband's face. Patricia's hands grasped tight around her cup. Tiberius searched for the next set of words in his mind, deliberating on whether he should say it or not, but it was already half-spilled. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, his gaze locking onto mine with a fierce intensity. "The one thing the investigators latched onto. Right before you picked up that Titan Ore cargo, you had a disagreement with some people. At a dockside cantina on Port Geranium. Do you remember that? Anything at all?"
I stared at him, my mind a complete and utter blank. Port Geranium. A disagreement. My memory before the Fold Drive incident was almost non-existent. The only event that lasted in my mind was the raw trauma that was Astellion. Perhaps the old Noah did those things. Docked at Port Geranium, had an argument at a cantina, but that wasn't me. I sifted through what little I had on the original Noah's life when I first came to this world, but aside from a brief summary of his childhood and adulthood, there wasn't anything notable. A perfect C-grade life. I didn't even know what kind of social circles he hung out with or if he even had any friends.
I shook my head slowly. "No, I… I don't remember that. The three years on the planet are… it's all a bit of a blur. Anything before that is even worse."
Before Tiberius's face could fall with disappointment, Marissa spoke. Her timing was an impeccable save. "That's to be expected," she said, her tone a perfect blend of professional sympathy, and more importantly, clinical authority. She addressed him as if she'd been doing it for years, a familiar, trusted medical consultant. "Anterograde and retrograde amnesia are exceptionally common side effects of prolonged exposure to high-energy particle storms and the acute psychological stress of isolation. The human brain often compartmentalises or outright prunes memories from the period preceding a traumatic event. It's a defense mechanism. The fact that he can recall his three-year survival narrative so coherently is, frankly, a medical miracle."
Tiberius absorbed her explanation with a grateful nod, the expert diagnosis smoothing over my inconvenient memory gap. He wasn't talking to a victim; he was conferring with a doctor about a patient's prognosis. "I see," he said, turning back to me. "Don't you worry about it, son. It'll come back. Or it won't. What matters is that I remember."
He took another slow breath, the hunter's focus returning to his eyes. "The people you got into that scrap with… they weren't just space truckers on a bender. The people my investigators identified? They were notorious pirates. Low-level scum from an outfit called the Emerald Sky Marauders."