The End to Come Episode 30 3D Render, Digital Artwork by emarukk

! REPORT

The End to Come Episode 30

3D Render by emarukk

The chatter of distant transponder signals echoed as if muffled by a thick wall, a rhythmic symphony of beeps and blips reverberating through the vessel's metallic bulkheads. The system sounds punctuated the air with response pings as the ship strained to comprehend the trajectories of nearby objects. Sleep held Olivia in its embrace, but it was an unkind cradle. Her body had capitulated to exhaustion, yet her mind drifted in a nebulous haze where boundaries blurred and faded. It wasn't a dream, not entirely. It was a memory distorted by fatigue, softened by a yearning that whispered of home.

In her mind's eye, she lay in her bed back on Verdantia, cocooned in the familiar warmth of home. The gentle hum of the habitat's filtration system purred overhead, a comforting lullaby of mechanical cadence, but stranger sounds of systems penetrated her dream, and they echoed over familiar sounds. Her father's low, rumbling voice murmured from another room, mingling with the faint, tantalizing aroma of her mother's cooking, spiced roots, and soy broth that lingered in the air like an ancient melody. She reached instinctively for the blanket, but it wasn't there. The mattress beneath her felt unforgivingly hard, and the light too harsh, like a stark reminder of her reality. Somewhere in the distance, the low mechanical growl of something turning, yawning, and realigning itself resonated, as though the universe itself was poised to shift. A new set of beeps and blips followed the movement.

In her slumber, Olivia stirred. She was aware of her sleep but also of the inevitable truth that she would not awaken in Verdantia. Suspended in the liminal space between consciousness and unconsciousness, she floated. Her mind yearned to reconstruct the comforting illusion of safety, thick, protective walls, the pull of real station gravity, the moist embrace of garden humidity, and the incessant buzz of insect drones. She yearned to believe in this illusion with all her heart. Perhaps, she thought, if she desired it fervently enough, she might awaken in her childhood bed, under the gentle glow of artificial sunlight filtering through the poly glass, with dew glistening on the glassine wall and the earthy scent of soil rising to greet her. Yet her stomach whispered the undeniable truth. So did the persistent ache in her spine and the strap pressing insistently across her collarbone. The bitter aftertaste of bile clung to her mouth like smoke lingering after a fire. Then, there were signals from the void. Navigation computers talk to each other with delayed reports of position and trajectory. Her body shifted ever so slightly, one leg twitching involuntarily. She mumbled something into the void, a name perhaps, Selena? Hans? Her mother? The ship offered a gentle creak in response as if acknowledging her restless plea.

A subtle, nearly imperceptible hum began its slow crescendo behind the thick, protective walls. It was soon followed by a soft resonance that rippled through the shuttle, much like a pulse traveling along the fragile bone. The Alimony Express executed its interstellar jump with quiet precision. It was a gentle slip rather than a violent rupture, a smooth decoupling from the familiar fabric of known space. There was no blinding flash, no booming thunderclap, only the enigmatic sensation of transitioning from a place of existence into a realm of nothingness. In the infinite emptiness of interstellar space, distances dissolved into meaningless abstractions. The distant chatter of repeating transponder signals faded away, much like a glittering cityscape dissolving into the thick, enveloping fog. The once clear voices of disoriented ice haulers and lost miners vanished. In their place, only the persistent, almost meditative thrum of the ship's systems remained, and even the stars seemed to dim as they melted into the oppressive blackness.

While Olivia slept, Aldo sat quietly in the cockpit, ensconced in his reverie. Rather than tuning in to the navigation systems, he listened intently to the silence where once the voices had thrived. Certain habits were stubborn, and he clung to his ritual of constant vigilance. To him, the transponder channels were much more than mere data conduits. Each signal was a heartbeat in the vast darkness, a reminder that somewhere among the cosmic expanse, other souls lived, breathed, and struggled. While most pilots opted to mute these channels, dismissing their incessant noise and the grief they carried, Aldo kept them softly alive in the background, a comforting constant amid the isolation. He wasn't actively searching for conversation, but in that profound silence, he meticulously recorded the distress signals of panicked ice haulers trapped in confusion, and the fragile, desperate cries of tugboats too feeble to make the interstellar leap. He knew he couldn't rescue them, and he never pretended otherwise. Yet, he became a silent, unseen savior in delivering messages across the nothingness. Occasionally, he would muster a response, a quiet, whispered reply that emerged only as the signal strength dwindled into near silence, fading along with the last echo of a ship's ephemeral ping.

"Hope someone finds your memory," his words seemed to intone, a prayer carried on the delicate tendrils of transmitted signal through the yawning void.

He reached over and adjusted a dial with measured care, lowering the volume just as the scattered stars dissolved into darkness. At that moment, there was nothing left to listen to. The Interstellar jump had been immaculate, leaving them stranded alone between the realms of nothingness and life. Remembering life, he cast one lingering glance back toward Olivia. He saw her small, sleeping form curled in her harness, much like a fragile, broken wing. Then, his eyes turned resolutely forward. Ahead lay only the inky expanse of darkness; behind, the weight of too many memories. Allowing his artificial eyes to close, Aldo surrendered to a memory of the majestic warships, cathedrals of war, phantom vessels adrift in frozen belts, their lights blinking like the final, fading thoughts of ancient machines, forgotten yet not entirely forsaken. He let the encompassing silence seep deep into his mind with a slow, deliberate exhale. At the same time, the ship, though motionless, drifted endlessly onward through the vast, unyielding nothingness.