Gravity Well
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(this is an uncorrected draft of chapter 1)
The cycle was proceeding as expected.
And I was bored.
And restless.
Maybe a little angry.
This was the fifth cycle in a row I’d worked with Elliot, and while I didn’t hate the pilot/computer genius/friendliest introvert in all the systems, not by a longshot, he was… a lot. Without even trying. At least to me.
But then, maybe he was just genetically designed to push all of my buttons specifically. Sure seemed that way sometimes.
Back on the Kasagi Archive, everybody liked him. I even liked him most of the time. When I could put some space between us if and when I needed it and could stop myself from turning into, as my fellow researcher and closest friend, Azazara, said, “a huffy little space gremlin.” Azazara was a xylian, but she had a way with descriptions and fondness for archaic English, skills she often turned on me because she thought my reactions were hilarious.
However, the ship Elliot and I were currently on, my beloved KAV Curie 1—sister ship to the KAV Skłodowska 1—was not very big. Certainly not big enough for me to escape to the feelings, both good and bad, that Elliot engendered in me. And, in my experience, tight quarters did not lead to me liking anyone more. Which meant I had been in gremlin mode for most of the current cycle.
Five cycles was far too long a time to work with anyone.
I hated feeling restless and angry, and I hated that Elliot was so good at making me feel all tangled up, especially because I seemed to have very little effect on him beyond amusement. It didn’t seem fair.
Even running the small horseshoe of the ship’s corridor on the uppermost level over and over wasn’t stopping me from feeling like I was about to explore—currently with the urge to yell at Elliot for once again leaving his dishes in the tiny sink in the tiny galley which really didn’t have the space to leave shit sitting around. There was barely enough space for someone to sit at the narrow table while the other person stood at the counter.
Never mind that the ship had been designed for four people, not two, so there was plenty of room—that kind of thinking was too rational for my current state, and reminding myself of that fact wasn’t doing anything except make me wonder how, despite all the space, it still felt like Elliot and his stuff were everywhere. Besides, the sink was actually tiny and useable counter space was limited and I was tired of knocking dirty plates and bowls and cups and cutlery onto the floor while trying to prepare meals.
I knew it was a dumb reason to want to yell at someone as badly as I wanted to yell at Elliot, but it was only the last in a long list of little things he’d done over the current cycle—and the last four—that had pissed me off. He was messy and talked to himself and sang snippets of songs that always got stuck in my head, all seemingly without realizing he was doing it, and he was always smiling that stupid smile that made his eyes sparkle—
His eyes do not sparkle.
I grunted and pushed myself harder along my repetitive path. Curie 1’s only downside was that it wasn’t big enough for any exercise equipment. I didn’t really like to exercise, but I would have given my left kidney for a treadmill so I didn’t have to go back and forth through the hall so much. But I had to take advantage of the time I had when Elliot couldn’t get any further under my skin to try and work out some of the tension riding my body.
Elliot was stuck on the bridge right then, programming the ship’s computer, affectionally named Maria (the Skłodowska 1’s computer was also Maria, so that together the two ships and their computers made up the full name of the legendary scientist many, many years dead; yes, the Archive was always filled with giant nerds), with the next and last phase of our journey. Once he was done, Maria could take over and both Elliot and I could focus on our work: gathering data on the solar system we were flying through via the ship’s scanners and the probes we deployed, and then processing, sorting, and cataloguing it for further dissection and then submission once we were back at the Kasagi Archive. The data we gathered would be used to determine if there was habitation potential in the currently uninhabited system for the ever-expanding Collective of intelligent species, of which both humans and xylians, along with many others, were members. It was important work for many reasons, but chief among them was preventing any species in the Collective from settling on or terraforming a planet already home to some form of life, especially an intelligent species who wasn’t yet aware of space travel or the larger galactic community. Terraforming was reserved for planets devoid of all life but capable of supporting it, and if there was a planet where settlers were welcome, biologies would be altered if needed to lessen the impact on the planet and its current residents.
If I was quiet, I knew I’d hear Elliot cursing under his breath, because he hated programming routes he would have much rather flown himself, but on a two-person cycle, that just wasn’t possible. There was too much else to do.
Not that I would have been quiet anyway. I was not a quiet runner.
My bare feet slapped the textured metal of the corridor, perhaps a little harder than necessary, my breaths heavy as I ran. I’d been going for almost the full forty minutes I’d allotted myself and running back and forth along the same path was, surprise, boring, but I had nothing better to do. Not until the last probe I’d sent out came back anyway. I supposed I could have taken a nap since I hadn’t been sleeping well, but I was too wound up to sleep.
You could also go talk to him. Or yell at him. Get it out of your system.
Damn that small voice in the back of my head that insisted on being rational and reasonable. Elliot didn’t even know I was mad at him. He hadn’t even done anything to piss me off except exist the same way he always did, so how could he know I was mad? And how would it look if I just burst onto the bridge to start yelling?
He’s not dumb. You only run like this when you’re worked up about something. Surely he’s figured out that much by now.
Ugh.
I hated it when my emotions got the better of me, especially when I couldn’t go bug Aza and talk it out. I was a researcher, a scientist; data and numbers and procedure kept my brain organized, kept me calm. But there was no reliable data when it came to Elliot, no numbers to lose myself in, no procedure to follow to make sure I didn’t make a mistake. He was unpredictable, quietly erratic a lot of time. Followed his passions and his current fixations when he could, his heart always. Didn’t have much of a filter.
How that man had become a researcher at the Kasagi Archive, I would never know. He didn’t seem to fit.
But he was kind and genuinely cared about people—and the pack of vermin-hunting creatures that shared the Archive with the staff and residents. And he—
Stop thinking about him. That should probably be step one in calming down.
I came to a stop and huffed, bent forward, braced my hands just about my knees. There was sweat on my face, drops sliding down the middle of my back, and I wasn’t that tired, but the urge to lay down on the floor and stare at the ceiling was almost impossible to ignore. Too bad I had to shower and get back to the bridge in fifteen minutes for the scheduled return of my probe. I hated being sweaty at any time, but I especially hate it when I had to sit in front of a computer and focus.
As I straightened, I realized I’d come to a stop in front of one of the doors to the bridge. Through the small window, I could see Elliot, standing in front of his computer, hands on his hips, watching streams of code fly across the large screen as Maria checked his work for any errors or deviance from the planned cycle path, the one on file with the Archive.
He didn’t really look like a researcher either.
Not to stay there was one right way to look—that would be stupid, considering the researchers at the Kasagi Archive came from a variety of species and races within said species—but most of those employed by the Archive embodied aspects of stereotypical researchers and scientists and archivists in whichever way that applied to their species. That included me: short, relatively scrawny, and pale in that specific light-deprived way. Iffy posture at best, eternally chapped lips from chewing on them as I worked. I didn’t yet need glasses or corrective eye surgery, but I probably would sooner rather than later.
Elliot, on the other hand, looked more like a soldier. Maybe one who hadn’t seen active duty in a while and had started to soften around the edges, but the guy was way more jacked than most other cerebrally inclined beings I’d met or seen around the Archive. He was tall too. At least a foot above my five-foot-three. He had that stupid little smirk on his face that he got when he was sure he’d programmed something correctly on the first shot, and the arms of the coveralls we wore on cycle were tied around his hips, showing off the astronomy- and space-inspired tattoos on his arms and peeking out above the collar of his tank top.
Too much. He’s too much.
I stuck my tongue out at him through the window and then turned on my heel to head down to my quarters on the level below.
Normally, researchers worked one, maybe two cycles together before the groups were rotated and it would be weeks before I was forced into proximity with Elliot again. That was enough time for me to shake off the imprint he left on me. But a bought of illnesses—nothing serious, thankfully—personal leave, and extra work at the Archive had made this the fifth back-to-back cycle for us. Which meant no time to get Elliot out of my head, to feel normal again. I knew, once a new partner or group rotated in, it would be a while before I worked with him again, but we still had to finish this cycle without me tearing him apart.
Which was seeming less and less likely the more I stewed.
Stars, I wished I could talk to Aza. She was the only one who knew how much Elliot pushed my buttons, though she was convinced it was because he was in love with me and I didn’t do well with affection.
Ridiculous.
Once I reached my quarters, I stripped down and showered quickly, bypassing the little mirror so I didn’t have to see how red my pale face had turned in the aftermath of exertion. Also, not a fan of looking at myself for too long. Once I was clean and sweat-free, I rubbed my hair and body dry—Curie 1 was, unfortunately, too old to have air-powered auto-dryers—and then secured the towel in place with a twist above my breasts. Normally, I’d have no problem moving around my quarters naked, but never when Elliot was my cycle partner. He already made me squirrelly and being fully naked just made me feel too vulnerable. The last thing I needed was for him to accidentally see me fully exposed.
Now if he saw me like on purpose…
Shut up.
I was pulling on a fresh coverall over underwear, skin-tight shorts, and a long-sleeved thermal shirt, and pining for one of the oversized sweaters I wore at the Archive because I didn’t have to do any maintenance work there, when the communication and biometric monitoring unit on my wrist pinged, signalling that Elliot was trying to contact me. The units tracked the internal functions of the wearer as well as provided a link to Maria and Curie 1, any crewmates on board, and the Collective Systems Web. It had a longer, more complicated name that no one ever used. Instead, it was usually referred to as an omni unit, or just an omni. I hated the thing, but it was part of the job.
I pressed the button to answer the ping and snapped, “What?”
“Probe’s back, V. You coming up?”
The probe had returned like, thirty seconds ago. “Impatient much?”
I could picture Elliot lifting his hands up and taking a step back in surrender, if one could step back from their own wrist. Some people talked with their hands; Elliot talked with his whole body. “All right, all right. I’ll leave it in the dock. Won’t touch it.”
“Thank you,” I said as sarcastically as I could manage and then made a face at my omni.
I zipped my coverall up halfway on my chest and left my quarters, feet still bare. I hated socks and shoes and only wore them if and when I absolutely had too. At the Archive, I mostly wore slippers and only between my quarters and office, or my office and the mess hall. After all, if something fell on my toes and broke bones, so be it, and if I ended up getting frostbite in space, then I had bigger things to worry about than exposed toes.
As I grabbed the ladder leading to the upper level, an alarm cut through the air, startling me and sending a spike of adrenaline through my blood.
Heart thumping hard in my chest, I jammed the button on my omni as the ship began to vibrate around me. “Elliot! What the fuck is happening? What did you do? Did we hit something?” My voice was higher pitched than normal, but I hoped he didn’t notice.
There was no immediate answer, which confirmed whatever had happened wasn’t good, so I scrambled up the ladder and launched myself through the corridor to the bridge. The ship jolted violently, sending me to the floor in a heap and then tossing me into the wall. My hip connected with a lumpy, poorly done weld repair near the floor and I felt pain shoot down my leg.
“Elliot!” I barked, then muttered a curse under my breath.
“Sudden prox alert,” he replied through my omni, voice infuriatingly calm. “Trying to find the source. Nothing hit us though, so not sure what’s shaking the ship.”
A proximity alert? Out here?
Impossible.
We were in an uninhabited, untravelled, unmapped system, and the Curie 1 would have alerted them to any asteroids or anything coming towards them. There was nothing and no one out here to sneak up on them.
Right?
There was a small chance another Collective ship had come this way, but that was unlikely, and there was nothing out here for the argainians to want, or any reason to attack a lone research vessel.
So yeah, a proximity alert was strange.
I got to my feet, winced when my hip protested, and hit the button to open the door to the bridge. The ship shook again and I stumbled across the threshold, but this time I was ready and was able to brace myself against the railing that divided the raised centre of the bridge from the outer ring, keeping my feet beneath me—but only just. As Curie 1 settled, I growled, scared and frustrated, and, keeping one hand on the railing, walked around the bridge until I was standing in front of Elliot and his workstation, my back to the pilot’s chair and the one-hundred-eighty-degree viewscreen. The short platform made Elliot tower over me more than normal, but right then, that was the furthest thing from my mind.
Okay, maybe not the furthest thing.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“I don’t know yet,” Elliot said simply. He was uncharacteristically focused, all his attention on the display in front of him. Still, he shifted his weight from foot to foot, his fingers tapping the keys lightly between definitive keystrokes. “But whatever it is, it showed up out—”
“Just fucking—”
The ship shook again, sending me forward into the rail. Elliot grabbed the edge of his workstation and widened his stance to keep his feet. Pressure began to build behind my eyes and nose, but I would not cry in front of Elliot, no matter how freaked out I was.
I didn’t cry in front of anyone. Ever.
“What the—”
My voice trailed off as I straightened and took in Elliot, eyes suddenly wide as he pointed at the viewscreen behind me.
I glared at him as Curie 1 continued to vibrate around us, my fear and confusion fuelling a deeper annoyance with Elliot, even though it was clear he was just as freaked out as I was. But then, just as I was about to say something snarky to him, the skin between my shoulder blades began to itch like there was someone or something looming behind me. Like I was being watched. I rolled my shoulders, attempting to shake it off, but the feeling just grew more intense, implanting the image of fingers hovering just above my skin, the peach-fuzz hairs lifting to meet a phantom touch.
“Verve,” Elliot said, his voice pleading.
Slowly, I turned, keeping my hands on the railing behind me in case the ship shuddered again.
Out in the black hung a void.
A black hole.
A black hole?
Impossible.
The alarms had just sounded. There was no way a black hole could have snuck up on us. Black holes didn’t sneak. They evolved over time. Amounts of time the human mind couldn’t easily comprehend.
They were the dying gasps of stars.
They didn’t just show up.
There was no way Maria would have missed it in scans.
So where in the deepest fucking black had it come from?
“V.”
“Not now. I’m busy trying to understand what I’m looking it.”
“Verve,” Elliot said again, urgency disrupting his tone.
“What?”
“We’re stuck.”
vampires, spaceships, and fantastical worlds—the tales of L.E. Teetzel 