Periphery
By Chris Owen
Ellery
studied his image on the screen in front of him and decided
that he looked a little ruffled up but not panicked. He also
decided that he wasn't going to get any less ruffled, and probably
no more panicked, so he hit the record button.
"My name is Ellery Train," he said calmly. "My
shipmate, Greg Peal, and I are the only two people aboard. I
wish I could tell you the name of this little rig but it doesn't
have one, just a serial number." He glanced at the registry
plate to the left of the recorder and had a weird sense of wrongness
as his recorded image looked off at a slightly different angle.
"If it matters to you, it's 34429-NP78. Good luck finding
anything useful in that particular piece of information."
He sighed
and ran his hand over his hair; if he'd let it grow any longer
than his accustomed military length it would have been sticking
up in tufts, but as it was he merely rubbed his scalp. "Our
situation is this," he said, looking back into the recorder.
"Me and Greg are crew for a big company called Tyree. They
do a lot of things that aren't important at the moment, but
part of what they do is run Short Range Transports, which I
fly and Greg navigates. This particular trip was to drop off
a couple of crew members at a station called Point Phoenix,
which is about six days from here, in the second ring off the
alpha planet in the Roge System. And if you don't chart like
we do, then I can't help you much, sorry. We're currently about
five days away from our point of origin on the return lag, but
we're ahead of schedule; no one's going to be looking out for
us for at least that long, and likely not for a week.
"Now,
I know what you're thinking--no way this little SRT can run
anywhere for that long. Thing is, Tyree bought up a whole lot
of SRTs about seven years ago and tricked them out for longer
hauls, made a fleet of them. This baby, though… well, she
ain't so tricked out at the moment. About four hours ago we
lost navigation and thrusters, so we popped the box and tried
to figure out what the hell was wrong. I'm no mechanic, but
Peal's good with things, and he said we were in trouble. I tried
to reach our dispatch ship, but we've apparently lost all communication
as well. I set the distress beacon, but the way our luck is
running, we're not counting on it."
Behind him,
he could hear Greg opening crates that had been stored under
the long passenger seats just behind the tiny bridge. He didn't
even glance back, just said, "How much, Greg?"
"Way
more than we need, by a long shot. Most of them are the warm
kind too, so that's good." Greg sounded as calm as Ellery
did, his voice smooth and unhurried. It hadn't been quite so
smooth when they'd realized what was happening.
"We got lots to eat," Ellery said to his image in
the recorder. "And water. What we don't have is anything
else. Greg watched the box die, one system at a time, and there
wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. We've lost life support.
There's no air being made, and no heat, so it's going to get
damn cold in here sooner rather than later. We have internal
lights but they're flickering, and we're only going on the assumption
that this thing is actually recording. Greg estimates that we
have enough air to live for about a day, but I suspect he's
trying to cheer me up. What he doesn't know is that I'm hoping
the air runs out before we freeze, 'cause I'd rather suffocate
than be that cold."
Greg snorted
and came up behind him, giving Ellery a whap on the head as
he tossed himself into the co-pilot chair. "Warm food,
reflective blankets. You'll be fine, you big baby." He
sucked on one knuckle, the skin split where he'd punched the
bulkhead after life support went. That seemed to be all the
reaction he was going to show for the time being; one punch,
a hoarse curse, and they went back to dealing with the situation.
Ellery grinned
at him and turned back to the screen. "He can say that
because he's got a coat on made of real leather. Actual fucking
cow hide. Or at least that what he says, not that I'd know any
different."
"Says
so on the label," Greg said with a laugh. "I'll share,
if you're polite."
Ellery rolled
his eyes and turned back to the recorder. He had no idea how
much of the cloaked hysteria was coming through, how much of
it the strangers who'd find the recording would see. "Not
sure what else to say. When you find this, try to reach Tyree
if you can. The ship's dead in space, and me and Greg…
well, we don't believe in miracles. I don't have any living
relatives, so don’t bother looking. Greg's recorded a few
personal messages, though, so if you'd be kind enough to try
to pass them along, it would be very much appreciated."
He looked over at Greg, lounging back in his chair with his
feet propped up on the dead console. "Anything else?"
"Not
a thing," Greg said in that same calm voice. "Switch
it off, Ellery."
"That's
it then," Ellery said to the recorder. "Ellery Train
and Greg Peal out." He pushed the disconnect and watched
the screen go black, then leaned back and mirrored Greg, his
boots up and his chair back as far as it would go. In front
of them was an unchanging view of the star field, thousands
of little lights floating in the nothing. Not one of them was
remotely close enough to pick up the distress signal, and Ellery
knew well that they were in an area almost entirely barren of
population centers. The chance of anyone turning up to save
them was about the same as a breeze blowing them home.
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