4. A Static Burden
FOUR
A STATIC BURDEN
Elena
I slump on the seat above the toilet, groaning into my hands. My head spins when I move and there’s a stabbing pain behind my eyes. Smacking my mouth, I lick my lips, cringing against the taste of alcohol on them. Why did I do it? How could I do this to myself?
I whimper before reaching down and sliding my underwear and black pajama shorts back on. Rising from the toilet, I walk out into the larger bathroom, making my way past the doublewide shower unit and to the mirror on the wall next to it.
Opening the panel, I pray my parents have some painkillers stashed on the other side.
Even if they don’t, the small medical field kit in the front will have some.
Finding the compartment empty except for extra toothbrushes and hand towels, I close it with another groan, not wanting to have to put further effort into it.
Leaning over the sink before I see my wretched appearance in the mirror, I turn on the water and splash my face.
Afterward, I fill my water cup twice and chug down as much as my body can take.
And then I begin to remember why I drank excessively in the first place, especially when I hate being hungover, when I usually turn to tea to calm me down.
My parents and everyone else I know are dead. That’s why.
And I have no idea if my sister is alive. I’d been in communication with her until I wasn’t. Now I can’t seem to reach Mateo’s ship. The usual radio channels are… gone.
Once The Dreadnaut started erupting and all the ships had begun fleeing its orbit, I lost contact with everyone, even Jenna. I know she’d been on her boyfriend’s ship but they had only just left.
I fill my cup with one more round of water and force it down despite my belly aching. While I do so, I try not to think of what will happen when my parents’ ship inevitably runs out of it.
I need to ration. The woeful thought pops into my head. It wasn’t a big deal before the loss of The Dreadnaut, but now… it’s life or death.
Luckily, my parents’ ship is fairly high-end and should have enough to last me awhile.
My father was the heir to my grandparents’ unit on The Dreadnaut and all of their accumulated wealth, including luxury units on other colony ships.
My grandfather had been in the business of property retrieval and salvaging.
He would find most of his loot after battles with the Ketts.
He had once hauled in a partially ravaged but still useful freighter ship half the size of The Dreadnaut that had been taken over for a period by the aliens.
Once the Ketts had vacated, he and his team tracked it down and claimed what was left.
They hauled it halfway across a galaxy for an enormous amount of money. It had been a multiyear effort.
Salvaging is a big industry and the money one could make is… a lot. Taking the time to haul something so large as a commercial freighter was worth a fortune. Is still worth a fortune. My grandfather is the sole reason my parents are rich.
Were rich…
He’s also the reason I’m lucky enough to be alive right now. Only wealthy people had the kind of spaceships my parents have. I’ll be stocked until I figure something out.
Still, and despite the finery of my parents’ ship, I wasn’t able to convince either of them to get on it with me, even for a couple of weeks, just until what was happening on The Dreadnaut blew over.
I turn for the door and step into the hallway. My gaze goes straight to the mountain and the trees outside, and I wince as my stomach coils with unease.
It’s light out again, bright even when yesterday, before I fled and hid in my room, it had been getting darker out.
It does that, doesn’t it? Earth rotates, making it light or dark for part of its day.
I’ve never been planetside before. I didn’t see it get dark, having been crying into a bottle in the corner of my room.
I must have missed it when I passed out.
Geography and history have never been my strong suits.
Especially Earth history. I expected I’d live and die on The Dreadnaut, not go wayfaring.
Before things started to get bad on the ancient colony ship, I wanted to open up and own my own tea shop.
I don’t know why I liked the idea so much, but it’s been on my mind since The Dreadnaut left the colony pod.
The only tea shop I know of is on The Apollo.
There wasn’t a single place on The Dreadnaut that served tea, and just tea.
It was one of the things I missed the most after we left…
Now the very thought of getting in touch with suppliers seems like something from a different, distant life.
I walk into the dome part of the ship, still in awe of the view before me. I remember it being terrifying and spectacular yesterday, but it’s… different now. Everything is shrouded in mist.
Squinting at the strange and alien sight, the stress of my situation comes falling back on me. Cringing from the pain in my head, and the sudden influx of emotion, I stumble back to one of the seats on the right and sit down.
I blink and take in the sky, the… birds flying through it, and at the wild array of trees on nearly every side, and then to those beyond the meadow. It’s all so intimidating and overwhelming. There is little I can’t see in my immediate periphery.
Nothing within the dome was allowed to obstruct the view outside.
My parents’ spaceship is a sightseeing one, a vessel to temporarily leave The Dreadnaut to view the unusual space oddities the colony ship sometimes passes.
It’s able to make a landing only on Type A worlds—those that have safe gravitational pulls and atmospheres.
Luckily, the ship’s AI was able to make a landing for me, which I take as a good sign Earth is a Type A world.
Earth’s atmosphere won’t kill me.
Dragging my attention away from the landscape and the enormity of what it all means, I look around my parents’ ship, finding the emptiness suddenly more overwhelming.
Peering down at my hands, I wince when the action causes the ache behind my eyes to grow.
My sister is missing.
The thought jolts me.
I get up and walk to the ship’s control panel. Placing my hand on the reader, the machine scans me and reinitializes the user on the panel to me from my parents. A large holographic screen appears with an AI person on it. Lula is its name, but I never call it that.
If my sister is missing, I need to find her.
“I command the AI to connect to the local radio frequencies,” I say, waiting for the AI to respond. When static fills my ears from the speakers embedded in the upper walls of the ship and those on the control panel, I frown. “I command the AI to slowly go through the channels.”
The static shifts, ebbing and flowing, as the channels change.
If Jenna is out there, I’m going to find her. If she sends out a broadcast, I need to catch it.
Because until I know she’s okay, I’ll never be okay myself. We might be different in every way, but she’s still my sister, and the last family member I might have.
She was on Mateo’s ship when we last spoke. They were leaving The Dreadnaut.
If…
If they got clear of the colony ship in time, she could be here, on Earth.
I couldn’t save my parents but maybe I can find her—save her.
The branches of the trees rustle out front and I face them, narrowing my eyes. Watching as the twigs and leaves eventually settle, I swear I see the outline of a face emerge from the shadows.
But when I blink, it’s gone.