Chapter 9: Silence Under Lights
Karl's voice rolled down the corridor and died, swallowed by insulation that had yellowed with age. No echo, no reply—just the soft clatter of a relay resetting somewhere ahead. He clicked his helmet lamp to wide beam. The deck was grid-plate, railings intact, guide stripes faded but readable. Meridian standard—same layout as Folly's spine. That familiarity should have comforted him; instead it felt like walking through his own grave wearing someone else's name.
He advanced meter by meter, tether whispering behind. Every third step he paused, listening. The station's gyro hum was deeper than a ship's, felt more in bones than ears. Air was cold but dry—recyclers still turning. He passed a status panel bolted to the wall. He tapped it; the screen flickered, booted, displayed a simple loop:
HAB-3 LIFE SUPPORT NOMINAL
POPULATION 0000
DOCK STATUS 0001 VESSEL: UNID
Unid. Unidentified. That was him. The panel had been waiting seventeen years for that counter to tick from zero to one.
A junction appeared ahead: six spokes radiating outward like a wheel. Signs overhead read CREW, CARGO, POWER, HYDRO, MED, OPS. LEDs glowed soft amber except MED, which blinked red every three seconds. He chose OPS—if anyone was left, that was where they'd listen. The spoke corridor curved gently upward, following the station's 120-second spin. He let centripetal force settle his boots, weight growing until he felt a ghost of gravity—maybe a tenth g—enough to know which way was down.
Halfway along he found the first body.
It floated chest-high, tether snagged on a hand-rail: a woman in Meridian coveralls, skin dried to leather, eyes gone to parchment behind cracked safety goggles. No trauma he could see—just a clock that had run out of ticks. A lanyard around her neck held a chip-key and a plastic card: T. RIOS, CHIEF ENGINEER. Karl's breath caught. He had spoken to this man's ghost for weeks, borrowed his candle, plotted by his map. Now he met the husk. He closed the corpse's gloved fingers around the key and whispered, "Loan repaid, Chief. I'll take it from here."
He unclipped the tether, let the body drift free, and continued. At the spoke's end a pressure door stood open, iris petals jammed half shut. Beyond lay Operations Centre: a circular room wrapped in consoles, forward windows looking out on the docked Folly. The frigate looked smaller than he remembered—scarred, patched, but whole—riding the station's flank like a sleeping bat. He felt a surge of pride so fierce it hurt.
Inside Ops only one station glowed: MASTER POWER, amber light steady. A chair faced it, back turned. Karl circled, rifle ready. Empty. A headset hung in mid-air, tethered by its own cord. He sat, keyed the channel open, and spoke. "Haven-3 Operations, this is Karl Hasser, captain of Folly. Docking complete. I claim salvage rights under Meridian Maritime Code, section nine, subsection C—distress arrival. Respond if able."
Silence answered, but the console accepted his voice; a log timestamp rolled across the screen. He was being recorded. Good. Paper trail mattered when lawyers were ghosts.
He began a systematic sweep. Life-support: green. Power grid: green. Comms array: red—antenna drive frozen, azimuth motor burnt out. Hydroponics: amber—pumps cycling, but no nutrient flow. He opened a local file tree and found maintenance logs ending abruptly seventeen years prior, same day Rios logged off. Last entry: EVA cancelled, micrometeor risk elevated. After that—nothing. The station had simply… gone to sleep.
He downloaded everything to a spare data-stick and pocketed it. Then he pulled the chip-key Rios had carried. A slot on the master console accepted it with a satisfying click. New options appeared: EMERGENCY WAKE, HAB DECK PRESSURE, DOCK UMBILICAL. He chose UMBILICAL first. Somewhere outside, magnetic clamps engaged; a soft thud vibrated through the hull. Power from station panels began trickling into Folly's batteries—only five amps, but it meant he could shut down his own reactor for the first time in months. He throttled to standby, felt the bottle's hum fade to a lullaby. The silence felt like stepping off a battlefield.
Next he selected HAB DECK PRESSURE. Pumps whirred, valves opened. Air from reserve tanks flooded the spokes and rings. Temperature rose slowly: 8°C, 12°C, 16°C. He lifted his visor fully, breathed deep. The air smelled of cold metal and old plastic, but no rot—life-support filters had done their job even without hands to change them. He whispered thanks to absent machines.
EMERGENCY WAKE was last. He hesitated, finger hovering. Wake what? He pressed it.
Lights snapped to full white, making him squint. Consoles booted in sequence, a soft chorus of beeps. Somewhere aft a big pump spun up, cycling coolant through panels he hadn't yet seen. A status board scrolled:
HYDROPONICS RESUME? Y/N
CREW ROSTER RESET? Y/N
BEACON ACTIVE? Y/N
He chose YES to beacon—might as well shout into the dark that someone was home. He chose NO to crew reset; the dead deserved their names intact. Hydroponics he left on PAUSE; he had food for now, and water loops were closed. Let the garden sleep until he understood what seeds it held.
The windows brightened as external spotters deployed. He saw the full station for the first time: a six-spoked wheel, 200 meters across, solar blankets draped like wings. One blanket was torn, edges flapping gently in tidal micro-gravity, but the others tracked the red dwarf faithfully. The star itself hung beyond the rim, a dull coal glowing ember-orange. Pretty in a lonely way.
A new prompt appeared: EXTERNAL INTRUSION – SECTOR HYDRO.
He frowned. Intrusion meant motion sensors had tripped. He acknowledged the alert; a camera feed popped up: inside the hydroponics dome, rows of LED grow-lights flickered to life. Between the troughs something moved—low, dark, fast. Not human. He leaned closer. The shape vanished behind a tank, reappeared nearer the lens: a dog—no, a construct, joints too sharp, eyes glowing green. Maintenance bot, maybe, gone feral.
He keyed the intercom. "Hydro, identify yourself."
The bot froze, head tilting. Then it loped out of frame. Sensors logged its path toward the central hub—toward him.
He stood, rifle raised, and backed toward the corridor. The idea of shooting a dog—even a mechanical one—turned his stomach, but seventeen years of solitude could breed strange loyalties in machines. He reached the pressure door, slapped the close paddle. Petals began to iris inward. Through the narrowing gap he saw movement at the far end of the spoke: a silhouette, four-legged, metal claws sparking on grid-plate. It paused under the lights, watching him with lenses that glowed like twin candles. For a heartbeat neither moved. Then the door sealed with a sigh, cutting the view.
Intrusion alarm fell silent—door had isolated the sector. He let out a breath he hadn't noticed holding. First contact with station life, and it wasn't even alive. He allowed himself a grim smile. "Good boy," he muttered. "Stay in the garden. I'll bring treats later."
He returned to Ops, reset the alarm, and marked the bot for later inspection. Priority now was air, power, and a place to lay his head without dreaming of fire. He found a crew cabin two rings inboard—walls clean, bunk intact, a small viewport showing Folly docked outside. He laid the rifle on the desk, stripped the suit to the waist, and washed his face with water from the communal tap—cold, metallic, delicious. For the first time in months he wasn't breathing his own recycled sweat. The simple fact felt luxurious enough to bring tears.
He sat on the bunk, opened the paper log, and wrote:
Day 58 – Haven-3 secured. Power, air, pressure restored. Population still zero, but station breathes. One feral bot in hydro—non-hostile for now. External beacon active. Folly on umbilical, reactor asleep. I have a bed, a sink, a window that shows my ship whole. Debt to Rios paid in full. Next tasks: repair comm array, survey hydro, plant something green. Objective unchanged: stay alive, stay moving, stay human. – Karl Hasser, temporary keeper of the wheel.
He closed the book, lay back, and let the station's gentle spin pull him toward the mattress. For the first time since the explosion he felt gravity—however slight—holding him down instead of pushing him under. Outside, the red dwarf dipped behind the solar blankets, plunging the wheel into twilight. Inside, the lights of Haven-3 glowed steady, a small bright circle in the dark. He listened to the hum of awakened machines and, somewhere distant, the soft clank of a four-legged ghost patrolling its garden. Sleep took him quickly, and for once the dream was not fire but a field of green leaves turning toward a candle that refused to go out.