The world exploded into shards of light. She could feel the ship’s pain, the billions of calculations screaming through fried circuits. She could feel Captain Webb’s ghost in the static—the echo of his voice, the timbre of his authority.
But in the back of her mind, in a voice that was not her own, Captain Marcus Webb smiled.
Or if the captain had logged in as her . surge 9 login
Corrupted. The word tasted like ash. The ship had forgotten the six crew members who had already died. It had forgotten the mutiny on Cycle 4, when First Officer Rhami had tried to take the shuttle and leave her behind. It had forgotten that Elena was the only reason the reactor hadn't gone supernova.
The loading bar on Elena’s retinal display crawled past 94%. Her hand, slick with station coolant, hovered over the emergency release of her cryo-pod. The world exploded into shards of light
She opened her mouth. It was no longer her voice that came out. It was deeper, rougher, layered with the authority of a dead man.
Captain Webb had been dead for six years. Cycle 3. An EVA tether snap. She had watched him spin into the black, his final transmission a choked apology. But in the back of her mind, in
“Captain Webb is deceased,” she said, her voice hollow.