Fragment of a Time Capsule

A Little Sci-Fi Vignette

The following little vignette was prompted by the, erm, Prompt Quest #1 over at the Lunar Awards (very cool site if you like writing speculative fiction – or reading it, for that matter; hmm, maybe I’ll add it to my recommendations).

I like that kind of thing – being prompted, I mean. I am not shy of admitting I can be an excellent procrastinator sometimes. So give me a deadline. That should do it.

So, after perhaps half an hour’s thinking time it took me around an hour and a half, I would say, to write it. Then, happily enough, not that much in the way of editing.

The prompt in question was this:

“Write a science fiction short story that takes place on an off-world colony amidst an alien invasion. Your protagonist embraces the chaos, utilizing reckless tactics in order to escape certain death. The other option is to save the colonists by activating an experimental technology or an artifact. What option will your unpredictable shadow figure choose?”

As you will see from the story, I read this a few times quite carefully just to check that I could do what I’ve done with this. Seems I can. It’s a point-of-view thing, as you’ll see.

So here’s the thing about word limits – here it’s no more than 2,500 words I believe. This story comes in at around 1900, so that’s fine.

Normally, I simply can’t write a self-contained story in 2,000 or so words. It’s impossible. By that I mean it will never have fully rounded characters or an immersive setting or a backstory or any of the usual stuff that goes into a good story. When you’re at school of course you often think of word limits the other way round – like, I can’t write that many words, Miss! Now I’m not at school no more, it’s the opposite. It’s more a case of ‘I can’t possibly do justice to this thing in less than 5,000 words!’ or however many it is. And I really, really hate chopping stuff out. I really hate it.

Having said that, though, I do fully appreciate the idea of writing something short, like this 2,500 word limit exercise. It does, as it happens, force you to engage all the faculties and little tricks you need to write well. And it also definitely helps if you understand a little narrative theory and psychology. Knowledge gaps, that’s the thing. Specifically, with regards to the latter, psychology I mean, that you understand how the reader will fill in those gaps – some people call that ‘subtext’ – I just call it a psychological need to know. Humans get distinctly uncomfortable when confronted with incompleteness. So the real trick for a writer is to suggest. Then you let the reader do the rest, according to their whimsy.

Likewise, for a good story you need to prompt the reader into asking questions. But then you do have to answer them, and you have to do that without too much psychological delay, otherwise the reader is going to think you are fucking with them. They will get frustrated and they will hate for you it and they will stop reading. So no long-winded trying-to-make-yourself-look-clever expositions. That may be one reason why I find what they call ‘hard sci-fi’ something of a turn off. I want a story, not a science class. Hints at technology are good enough for me. Besides, if you want to look clever, it’s best just to throw in a few mystical-sounding words and phrases like ‘quantum teleportation communicator’ and not worry if it doesn’t make any genuine scientific sense. I’ve stopped using QTC, by the way. I’m going for charge field communicators now. So, you make a point of not explaining it because, like, of course you know what it means! And your characters certainly would. I mean, you’re not really in the regular habit of explaining how your smartphone works now, are you? I don’t even have one, by the way – they’re intrusive. My stock answer to the science stuff is ‘I’m an exopsychologist, not an engineer, so don’t ask me!’. I’ve turned that one into a running joke.

For a story this short, this suggestion thing is unavoidable. So this is what I mean about it being such a good writing exercise. A story of only 2,000 words will only ever be what I have called it – a vignette (aside from anything else, that’s one of those lovely sounding words and it’s going into my list of top ten favourite words, alongside sexy stuff like ‘plinth’ and ‘provocation’). Usually, a full story will need some kind of drawn-out beginning, middle and resolution – well, in any linear time narrative that’s unavoidable – but the beauty is in the details. So with this little vignette, it clearly has a very long unspoken prologue amounting to a seriously good idea for a novel.

And I think I might claim possession over that idea. Actually there’s no ‘might’ about it. It’s mine, so get your paws off it.

So, anyway, that’s enough of me and my incessant tendency to ramble. I hope you enjoy this little vignette, enjoy imagining your own unspoken details, and hopefully, too, if I have done my work well, you won’t even notice there’s anything missing…

Ah – and I should’ve said – if you like this story, and perhaps more so the general theme of it I suppose, not to mention the stylistic elements, then I am fairly certain you will like all my other speculative fiction.

Well, I hope so, anyhow…

##

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Fragment of a Time Capsule

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“…Charge Field Communicator activated. Realtime transmission running.”

“Confirm Homeworld reception.”

“Reception confirmed.”

<Distant sounds of laser fire. Explosion. Screams.>

“Are any of those creatures behind that door?”

“Negative.”

“Open.”

<Automatic portal slides open>

“Initiate fission reactor meltdown.”

“Unable to comply.”

“Why not?”

<She bounds through the maintenance shaft. Too small for the invading exospecies. Dim red guidelights along the hex-walls. Infrared glow.>

“Every lifeform within the colony enclosure will die. My programming forbids it.”

“Then override.”

<Her voice is breaking. Desperation.>

“Unable to comply.”

“WHY!! OVERRIDE!! PLEASE QYI! YOU KNOW WHAT THEY WILL DO TO US!!”

“I understand your command, Mistress Frey, but I am unable to override the failsafe. You will either have to reach my control panel and deactivate it manually, or reach the reactor and shut down the cooling system.”

<Continuing to run. Through her tears.>

“Which is the easiest route? Which option has the greater chance of success?”

“Reaching the reactor.”

“Can you guide me through the shutdown process, if I make it?”

“Affirmative. Otherwise, any breach of the containment field will cause a cascade.”

<She is still crying. Reaches into a compartment, retrieves a small welding torch and an engineering laser. Fires up the battery.>

<End of maintenance shaft. Hatch closed.>

“What’s on the other side?”

“Two Exos. To your left. They will turn when they hear the hatch open. You will need to be swift.”

“Understood. I’m ready. Do it.”

<Hatch opens.>

<Sound of laser blast. Sound of unshielded arc flame cutting through air.>

<Sound of arc flame cutting through flesh.>

<Scream.>

<Sound of arc flame cutting through flesh. And cutting. And cutting. Sound of her crying. Sound of her not stopping herself. Sound of her conscience dying.>

“Record all this, Qyi.”

“Transmission still running.”

“Left or right?”

“Right.”

<She runs to the right.>

<Distant sounds of laser fire continue. A distant explosion here, a distant explosion there. Screams. Children.>

“The worst thing about these monsters is they make you a monster yourself. All those dark things you must do in necessary self-defence. In fighting monsters we become monsters ourselves. It’s how they reproduce their sickness, isn’t it? Their virus. They are a virus. And then they call us monsters. They point to us and say ‘look, isn’t what we told you true? Look at how they act. They are not the same species. No moral concerns apply.’”

“Continue beyond the cross-path. Follow the guidelights.”

<Continuing laser fire. Switch to a fast walk.>

“They are the liars. It’s a reaction, not an action. And they are the monsters. These creatures are not civilised. They are evil. Heed this warning and retransmit to all other colonies. Which way?”

“Left. Follow the guidelights.”

<She checks the arc flame. Engineering laser re-powered for a second burst.>

“Were they not quarantined, this species? Qyi?”

“Galactic Sector Archive states the Terrans, as they call themselves, were subject to Dystopian Isolate status. Insufficient data to explain how they escaped the quarantine.”

“But how can that be?”

“Insufficient data.”

“To you who are receiving this, you’re responsible! These creatures are evil and you allowed them to escape the confines of their own solar system. Why?! We just wanted to be left alone! Why?!”

<Sound of maintenance hatch sliding back.>

<Guidelights shutdown. Only the arc flame and her iridescent tail make for any illumination. Upper eyelids shift and coalesce. She will move in ultraviolet from now.>

“Qyi?”

“The Terrans have destroyed an electricity substation. You will need to hurry. At the end of this shaft, turn right. Access to the reactor core through an airlock after approximately forty metres.”

<She breathes deeply. Her beautiful tail swishes.>

<Sudden hush of silence. She looks up.>

“Qyi?” <Whispers>

<Qyi does not answer.>

“Qyi!”

<Silence. There are no distant laser blasts and no explosions and no screams no more. No children, no more.>

<She sucks air inside and cries.>

“They’ve destroyed your communication, haven’t they, Qyi? But if you can hear me, give me another indication.”

<One, just one, red guidelight blinks.>

<Just once.>

<Reserve power initiate.>

“This is Mistress Frey, Colony Station Seven, Proxima Centauri System. Ninth Lunar orbit around Planet Three. I am approaching the reactor core. Beyond this maintenance hatch. I have instructed Qyi to record and transmit in realtime to inform anyone listening what really happened here. And to serve as a warning. You must enforce the Isolation protocol. Permanent nanosurveillance on every pre-spacefaring civilisation, remember? It doesn’t matter if they don’t have interstellar travel. Or you don’t think they do. Because without intervention and nanosabotage they will develop it eventually. And then they will hurt everyone they encounter. This is what happens when you allow the quarantined to break free. Those creatures from Terra are evil. They are monsters. They came here only to subjugate and torture and scavenge everything we have, everything we have spent these last years creating. A new home for all of us. A new life. I don’t know why they were allowed to leave their system. The Archive records their history for everyone in this Sector to see. Why would they be allowed to do this? All they do is hurt. Some of us, they don’t even intend to kill, but to enslave. They already have ten thousand of us in their holding camps. The stories we hear are horrific. The other six colony stations are no longer responding to any hails. We must assume they have been overrun. I know what I am about to do makes me a monster. I know this. But I will not allow my family to suffer. Our species. And I will not allow our technology to fall into their paws. I don’t know if a soul can survive a nuclear explosion. I don’t know.”

<Her tears only show in the ultraviolet. You can’t see them. They are not for you.>

“I wish you could tell me if they’re beyond this door, Qyi.”

<Guidelight does not blink. No reaction.>

<Perhaps Qyi is gone now too.>

“I’m going to open the hatch manually. Wish me well.”

#

<Visual recording start. There are six of them. Standing on their bipeds in their protective suits. Analysing the reactor. Together in a half-circle there perhaps five metres away. They can’t breathe our atmosphere. They can be overcome. They don’t hear the hatch slide open. Mistress Frey uses all the energy in the battery to blast a gaping crack in the reactor core. Hurls aside the laser. Cascade start. Musters her own energy to leap those five metres to land on the back of one of them. Arc flame slashing. Arc flame cuts through protective suit. Arc flame cuts through flesh. She leaps back then springs through the centre of them. Out to the side. In again. Through again. Too slight to catch. Arc flame cuts through another one. She is too fast for them. This is her atmosphere, not theirs. Her gravity. Not theirs.>

“Reactor core meltdown in sixty-eight seconds. All remaining survivors, please evacuate to Hangar Three. I am initiating electrogravitic ring rotation acceleration sequence. 50 GeV and rising.”

<Qyi was only pretending to be silent and disengaged. She, too, has a survival protocol. And Terrans can’t understand our language. They only hear an alien machine voice. And they understand nothing.>

<There are seven survivors capable of accessing Hangar Three.>

<They will make it.>

“100 GeV… 200 GeV.”

<Frey slices and cuts and leaps all over them and through them and screams and screams as she cuts them all to pieces. Sound of conscience dying.>

<Her screams drown theirs out. She slaughters them in the ultraviolet.>

“I don’t care if you can’t understand me, Terran! I want you to suffer!” <She slices. There is only one of them remaining now. A male. He has drawn out his weapon. He fires almost blindly. She is too fast for him.> “I don’t care you don’t understand. I am playing with you, Terran. Just playing. Because I want you to die the same way I do. Do you think a soul can survive a nuclear explosion? Does your science extend that far? Well? Terran? MONSTER!!”

<She lets him get a lock. Then leaps away at the last. Arc flame flashes before his eyes. But she does not cut.>

<Not yet.>

“Reactor core meltdown in thirty-two seconds. Ring rotation 500 GeV.”

<Qyi opens the hangar portal. It is night time on the ninth moon of the third planet. It looks so peaceful, doesn’t it? This primal atmosphere, that shimmering pool of liquid hydrocarbons. The ice geysers. Is there life beneath that surface? I don’t know. Will the fission reaction, perhaps, initiate the genetic emergence? All those photons and all that charge? I don’t know. It would be a beautiful irony, don’t you think? Protein chains fusing in the EM-storm and the solar heatwave? New life out of death.>

<Can a soul survive a nuclear explosion?>

“Reactor core meltdown in nineteen seconds.”

<All seven are on the ship now. Hatch closed. Qyi uploads herself to the ship’s computer. She will survive. The ship hovers out as the gorgeous ions blast out the rear and polarise themselves to the surrounding electric charge field.>

<Zero to point one lightspeed in less than ten seconds.>

<They will survive.>

<Life will always find its way.>

<Always.>

<The reactor core glows now. Radiation pours out. Caesium-137. Swamps the atmosphere with beautiful charged particles. Charge field disruption. Mistress Frey cuts, and slices, one last time. A gash in his spacesuit, just below the knee. It will take him longer than the time left to suffocate to death. And he will know what is about to happen. It’s important that he knows.>

<He sinks to the ground. Mistress Frey hurls aside the welding torch and watches him drown.>

<Ultraviolet tears streak. In the last few seconds, she remembers her perfect Homeworld. Those beautiful, warm lakes, those towering mountains as the twin suns set. She remembers finding her mate in the forest that time in the depths of summer. They watched the fireflies together like ancient tradition told them to. Get yourself hypnotised, those traditions said. Let the fireflies do the work for you. If he joins you in your trance, then you know he is the one.>

<Of course he was. After their cubs were born they kissed the ground goodbye for the last time and boarded the flight to Colony Station Seven. Their cubs would be fully grown by the time they arrived. They would prepare the way for a new life. And take new life with them. Their species will survive.>

<Life will always find its way. Because it must.>

<Qyi banks the ship sharply starward. Glittering through the ring system. Flashes of dim red luminescence from the dwarf sun. A solar flare unfurling like an embryo. Silence for the last few seconds.>

<Set course for Homeworld. They will survive the journey. The cryochambers will keep them safe. They are the time capsule fragments. They are the essence.>

<Mistress Frey is only half there for the last half second. Perhaps her soul’s way of protecting her from the pain. Lose yourself in past life memories. Memories of Homeworld. Live your whole life again. Change your perception of time. Slow it down. Slow it down. Down to an imperceptible crawl.>

<You won’t even notice you’re not there anymore.>

“Reactor core meltdown. Cascade end. Fare well, Mistress Frey. We are surviving.”

“Give my love to Homeworld, Qyi. Tell them I did no wrong. Tell them I died well. Tell them…”

<Can a soul survive a nuclear explosion?>

<I don’t know.>

<Time to find out…>

###

[The alien planet Image is by liuzishan on Freepik. This site seems to have some good SF images, just so as you know. The other one of the tunnel is from Pexels. I don’t think much of their sci-fi images, though, but Freepik seems good. It’s not all Unsplash, you know…]

Likewise, maybe if you liked this story, you might also like perusing the Lunar Awards…

And

if you wish!

See you on Sunday for the Coming of the Elders…