The shuttle ride was quiet. Darryl just stared out the small viewport, watching the Silo Endurance 15 get smaller and smaller. It looked like a tiny, forgotten piece of junk, floating in the void. He felt numb. John sat at the controls and, thankfully, let the silence hang. He didn’t ask questions. He just let Darryl be.
After about an hour, a new shape grew in the window. It wasn’t one station. It looked like four or five of them, all linked together with a spiderweb of docking tubes and trusses. It was a Frankenstein’s monster of a station, cobbled together from different countries.
“We linked up what was left,” John said, noticing him staring. “US, UK, French. We just… pulled it all together.”
The shuttle slipped into a small docking bay with a metallic clang that vibrated through the hull. As the airlock hissed, equalizing pressure, Darryl tried to stand, but his knees buckled.
“Easy,” John said, grabbing his arm to steady him. “You’ve got cryo-legs and a hangover. Bad combination.”
Darryl nodded, his mouth dry. He wasn’t just a caretaker anymore. He was a witness, a survivor, and—in his own mind—a murderer.
The airlock cycled open. John guided him into the brightly lit corridor. At the end of it, two men were pacing. They stopped the moment they saw him
“You look like hell friend,” Stephen said quietly.
Darryl tried to speak, but his throat clicked. He just nodded. He felt dirty, standing there. He felt like he should explain about the ten people, about the button he almost didn’t un-press. “Stephen, I—”
“John told us,” Stephen cut him off. He didn’t offer forgiveness or a speech. He just reached out and squeezed Darryl’s shoulder, a hard, grounding grip. “You’re here. That’s what counts.”
Billy was leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed. He pushed off and gave Darryl a short, rough nod. “Good to see you, man.”
“Yeah,” Darryl croaked. “You too.”
“Come on, let’s sit down. We’ve got a lot to tell you.” Billy said, motioning Daryll down the hall.
They led him to a small mess hall. It was empty, save for a few coffee mugs. They all sat down, and the three of them just looked at him.
“You’ve got questions,” Stephen said, leaning forward. “Ask. We’ll tell you everything.”
Darryl took a deep breath. “How many? How many of… us… are there?”
“Awake? About fifty,” Stephen said. “Spread out between the stations. We’ve got a rule. We only wake up people we absolutely need. Engineers, doctors, pilots. And anyone we wake up gets a choice. They hear the truth, and they can choose to go back to sleep. Most… most stay awake.”
“How did you all…?” Darryl gestured between Stephen and John. “How did you know to wake up?”
“We got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it,” Stephen said, his face grim. “Me and John, we were on the same silo and it got hit early on by that damn Chinese kamikaze you heard about.”
“The one from the control room?” Darryl asked, looking at John.
“Yeah,” John said. “It slammed into the Odyssey and tore up the comms array. The ship’s AI couldn’t fix it, so it woke Stephen up. Standard protocol. This was all just a couple of months ago, right after it happened.”
Stephen picked up the story. “So I’m awake, I see the comms are dead, and I start trying to figure out why. That’s when I saw the first reports from Earth. Before it all went to hell. I knew… I knew I couldn’t do it alone. So I woke John. Billy, here… we woke him up a few weeks later. We needed the best engineer in the fleet to help us figure out… well, the big project.”
Darryl leaned in. “The big project?”
“The ship, Darryl,” Billy said, a small, tired smile on his face. “The whole reason we’re here. The USS Second Dawn.”
“The… the Second Dawn?”
“It was a big international project,” Stephen explained. “All the countries were pouring money into. It is docked at the US Spaceport and yes, It’s a warp drive ship, Darryl. It had just finished its final tests and was scheduled to go on its first mission right when everything happened.”
Darryl’s mind was reeling. A warp drive. “A mission? A mission to where?”
“To find out where the signal is coming from,” Stephen said.
“The signal?” Darryl looked confused. “What signal?”
“It started about three years ago. A signal, coming from deep space. It’s what the Second Dawn was built for. It’s a signal, on a loop, repeats every twenty hours or so. It’s a recording, we think. But it’s… weird. We can’t make it out. We just know one thing.” Stephen said.
Darryl waited.
“It’s definitely not natural,” Stephen finished.
Darryl sat back, processing it all. A ship. A real, faster-than-light ship. A signal from… who knew who or what. A flicker of something he thought was dead and gone—real, actual hope—was burning in his chest.
“So what now?” Darryl asked.
Stephen looked at John, then at Billy, then back to Darryl.
“We’re already doing it,” Stephen said. “We’re making modifications to the Second Dawn. She needs to hold a larger crew. But first, we’ve got to clear the board. We’re still tracking that damn kamikaze pilot. Once he’s dealt with, and the ship is ready… then we’re going to find out what the deal with that signal is.”
“Damn Chinese kamikaze.” Stephen said as he turned and walked out of the mess hall.