Archive of Our Own ^beta

It has been, count, one hundred-two hours, thirty six minutes and seven seconds since Ren left the last loading dock in the system, and began his long, long ride through the asteroid wastes to his drop-off point.

Not only that, but it has been fifty hours, seventeen minutes and twenty three seconds since his freighter ship’s engine buckled down on him, and nearly forty two hours since his naturally replenished oxygen expired without the engine running to turn the generator.

On his long-haul space truck, he has an emergency oxygen reserve large enough to last him for just forty eight hours.

Less than six hours remain.

An S.O.S. signal has been armed and blaring since the generator sputtered to a stop, projecting Ren’s location in the middle of dead cosmos. With how the last forty two hours have gone, it’s easy to suspect that there is not a single functioning receiver in several astronomical units that could hear the ship’s cries. Pulsating frequencies fall on the stagnant waves of the universe.

No one in space could hear him, even if Ren wanted to foolishly waste his last precious hours of oxygen screaming.

A vicious red light illuminates the cockpit ever since the alert at the “12 Hours Remaining” mark activated, and Ren doesn’t know where the switch is to override it. He had to turn off his driving visor to even see at all. On the center console, a bright screen is one of the last things functioning in his cabin, since the power to most of his electronics was severed when the engine gave out. Along with his CB radio, this screen is the only thing on stored backup power, draining away like sand in an hourglass, and is the one thing Ren has for entertainment other than the periodic hum of static when his finger twitches on the radio microphone’s button. Each click is a stone thrown out into the expanse, a chance transmission. He gently swings himself back and forth in his seat, occasionally kicking the empty passenger’s chair. He watches the time tick by.

He ran out of his emergency reserve food three hours ago, and this is a fact that Ren knows, but it is not something that will stop him from getting up and checking his room-temperature fridge again. It is during one of these breaks from the captain’s seat, in Ren’s pursuit of something to pass the stress or to simply pass the time, when his radio frequency trembles.

Static fills the cockpit, an undulating soundtrack to accompany the harsh crimson light. Then the static morphs, forming waves, crests and valleys that twist this way and that. Miscellaneous, nonsense sound bends into words and the radio suddenly speaks in a chipper voice:

   “Well, ‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello! Quite the signal you’re putting out there. Anyone there?"

Ren launches himself back into his seat, diving for the radio mic.

   “Yes, yes!” He cries into it. Hope balloons in his chest and his heart feels like it’s going to burst. He’s going to live. “I hear you loud and clear, dude! This is Ren, I.D. G1C-736364 long haul, at your service! You seriously have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice there, brother, I’m down to– only five hours and thirty five minutes here on my oxygen reserves, over.”

His finger lifts off the transmission button on the microphone, and flat static responds for a beat.

   “Oh. Oh, damn, uh… Oxygen shortage? Where are you right now?”

Ren glances down and to the left, to where his map and radar screen sit. The scanner’s rotating line sweeps all four quadrants around him, and he notices there’s nothing detected other than the usual space debris. Maybe the radar got bumped down a few ranges when his engine gave out; on full power, given that everything was functioning correctly, his radar would be able to reach further than the radio’s signal would. He holds down the receiver. “Looks like I’m not too far off from the Epsilon Cluster. It doesn’t look like I’m picking you up on my radar, over.”

   “Ah, radar. Epsilon. Right, right. I’m not really all that detectable, so that might be giving you a bit of trouble.”

   “Undetectable? Are you in some sort of stealth craft?”

   “...Yeah, yeah. Let’s go with that, shall we?”

Ren blinks. He takes one of his limited amounts of deep breaths, and clears his throat.

   “…What’s your callsign? Over.”

   “Callsign? Oh, like your G1-whatever number?”

   “Yeah, my G1-whatever. Jeez, over.”

   “‘Fraid that might be just a little bit classified, bud. But, if you insist, you can call me Martyn. What did you say your name was– Red? Bit of an odd name.”

Fine. Fine. Ren is no stranger to the people that are out there that fail to adhere to basic space flight laws and travel protocol. No radio etiquette, no call sign. There will always be someone out there, whether he agrees with it or not, that would be straying from everybody else. He sighs through gritted teeth.

   “It’s Ren. Listen, forget the call sign, whatever. I’m down to less than 6 hours of oxygen on my ship, dude, I’m gonna need a freaking ride.”

   “Yeaaa… Sorry about that, mate, but no can do. I can’t say I’m really in the state to take on any passengers or offer a tow.”

Ren’s arms feel heavy, as if his heart is weighing them down as it sinks into the pit of his stomach. His hands thump against the dashboard, but it does not knock the radio mic from his hand. His finger twitches. A stone thrown out.

   “Do you–” He swallows thickly. “Can your transmitter reach further? Is there anyone with you nearby that– that you can call out for?”

   “I’m as alone as you are out here,” Martyn comes through again. “I’m sorry Ren, but there’s not really much I can do for you.”

   He says rigidly, “It’s fine.”

   “Well, not really. What happens after your less-than-six hours?”

   “I don’t think it’s a difficult guess to make, dude.”

He leans back in his chair. The coiled wire that connects the mic to the CB radio stretches out to accommodate, strung down from the heavens of his overhead dashboard. Reaching up, he finds the frequency knob, tweaking it minutely as Martyn’s voice continues to crackle through, eventually smoothing out once Ren has fiddled enough.

   “What are you doing all the way out th- out here, anyways? What brings you to the edge of the Epsilon?”

Through his windshield, Ren watches the slow turning of distant asteroids. The Epsilon Cluster is just beyond the halfway mark between Station Embrosa– Ren’s point A– and the Indignia system– his point B. He doesn’t know what’s contained inside his hundred and sixty meter long trailer, he’s just paid to move it. Point A to Point B.

   “I’m a long-hauler,” Ren says. “I was on one of my regular routes when my engine gave out.”

   “Oh, a fellow traveler! I’m not a trucker, though, I’m.. more on a business trip.”

   “Far from home?”

   “Ehh… I guess you could say that. Are you?”

   “I guess you could say that. Yeah. I haven’t seen home in a long while, brother.”

   “Ah, well.. Same.”

Ren feels a bittersweet pang of connection in his chest. It threatens to close up his throat, but that would be alright. He just lost his appetite.

Apparently, Martyn does odd jobs for his employer all over the universe. He isn’t too keen on talking about the details of what he actually does, other than travel. He travels a lot, Ren learns.

   “Just you, then?” Ren asks, resting his face in one hand. The other twitches on the microphone button absentmindedly. Space cabin jitters.

   “Yeaah, just me. Lone wolf out here. If I was travelling with someone, I probably wouldn’t be here for nearly as long as I have. Boss is gonna be so miffed when I tell him why I’m so late.”

   “My boss probably won’t even know I’m dead,” he utters bluntly. After a beat of silence, he clears his throat. “Well, he’ll be able to guess when the ship port calls complaining.”

   “...Oh, let ‘em complain. You should be more important than some cargo.”

Ren doesn’t say anything.

   “Where were you headed, anyways?”

   “The Indignia System. Have you heard of it?”

   “No, I haven’t. Care to educate me?”

The Indignia System is composed of twelve planets revolving around a contained star. Ren was scheduled to deliver his shipment to the port that was built around the star, a dome and ring shape designed to harness its heat and light to power the station. From there, whatever he delivered would be shipped out to the twelve colony planets by local haulers, and he would take whatever the port needed to a new destination. Several years of Ren’s life, spent criss-crossing the universe. The work’s decent, and so is the pay.

It’s hard to name a place Ren hasn’t been to, but Martyn is there to offer up a few options. The planet he’s from is one: Martyn called it Erf, or maybe it was Urth. There’s no time to waste on asking for the correct spelling when the radio tells him stories about high rise buildings and flat lands that stretch as far as the eye could see. Rolling hills with long grass that Martyn says would cut at his legs when he wore shorts.

The sky was his favourite part, he says. He loved the daytime blue, before it faded into an electric orange. The sunlight was like gaseous gold, he says. Ren always loves a blue sky.

Ren doesn’t have a home planet to talk about, not really. Long-hauling isn’t his only experience with having to move around a lot, but he tells Martyn about what he can. He tells him about cavernous cities, buildings jutting out of canyon walls and needing residential hovercraft to move around. He tells him about pitch black seas that match pitch black beaches. He’s about to detail the space ports he’s been to, with aliens of all shapes, sizes and species bustling about and having to make it through in one dog-shaped piece– but his breath catches. He chokes, clearing his throat as he feels his lungs spasm.

He blinks harshly. The lights of his ship’s cabin burn into the back of his eyes. Flashes of red and white spin throughout his vision before he recovers, gripping his seat’s armrest.

   “...You alright there, mate?”

   “Yeah… Yeah, sorry. I must’ve gotten a little lightheaded there. As I was saying…”

Ren glances apathetically at his dashboard screen.

After enough alarms, they have both learned to pause politely and remember what they were talking about until Ren phones back in. He’ll lift his finger off the receiver, so Martyn doesn’t have to deal with the blaring horn that fills the cabin, and then return with: “Sorry. What were you saying?”

It’s so nonchalant, as if he was distracted by the doorbell, or a phone ringing.

Martyn does not hear the moment the alarm stops. Ren lifts his finger and with his spare hand, reaches to the overhead control panel. There is a switch with a security wire that ties down its cover. He snaps it, and when he flips that switch, the cabin becomes quiet. The alarm still echoes in his ears. He still hasn’t found the switch that turns off the red emergency light.

They won’t be interrupted anymore, not with the override triggered. This last hour, Ren knows, holds the most important conversations of his life. He will not be interrupted.

He’s surprised that the radio is still working. Normally, auxiliary functions are some of the first to go when a ship tries to save itself and its crew to conserve power for more life-sustaining systems. But for whatever reason, it’s still kicking, and Martyn is still here.

Ren takes a deep breath.

He doesn’t have many of those left.

   “I’ve got a theory,” rumbles Ren, lifting his finger off the receiver with a crackle.

   A crackle returns to him. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

Martyn has been speaking more gently to him. He’s lost that cheek he arrived with as the time passed. Has he been counting the minutes too?

   “My theory is– is that you’re not really here.”

Ren gives Martyn the opportunity to interject. He gives Martyn the chance to butt in with a cocky joke or argument or some sort of comment. Anything. Nothing. In the gap of silence, Ren is all too aware of his short, rapid breathing.

   “I mean, er, well… I don’t really know in what way you are here, or how, or whatever… The whole confusion with callsigns and travel etiquette is suspicious. Even pirates know some basic things; if their fake callsign gets checked, then at least they tried, y’know what I mean?

   “Maybe you were never real to begin with,” Ren murmurs. Martyn’s silence feels like it’s giving that part of the theory some substance. He rubs his face. His eyes ache when he shuts them, but he can’t bear the thought of being tired right now. “Maybe you’re oxygen deprivation setting in– my own personal desperation trying to ease my fear of dying alone. In space. My… my ghost of home away from home, or whatever…

   “Or, maybe, heck! Maybe you are here, but somewhere else entirely. Radio frequencies are a mysterious thing, y’know, a–and maybe you caught my distress signal or something, and I just managed to catch your reply. Maybe you are the frequency. You open your mouth and static comes out and my ears make words. Because I’m going crazy.”

The radio mic lifts, and Ren presses the receiver to his forehead. He can’t bear a glance at the center console screen, and thus turns his eyes to his window. The universe outside swells and makes his head ache.

   After an agonizing pause, Martyn comes through: “And what do you intend to do with your theories?”

   He clears his throat. “Well, no time for that, now is there?”

   “No, s’pose not. Right shame, that is.”

Ren takes one of his finite deep breaths. With each one, he can’t get so deep.

He takes another one anyway.

   “Martyn?”

   “Yeah?”

   “Where are you, my dude?”

   “...Where do you want me to be?”

   “Well, I guess… I guess here, with me. Somewhere real. Passenger seat’s empty, but–”

   “Not the best chance.”

   “No. It’s alright. I just want you to stay here at least, on the frequency. I’ll waste my breath if it’s talking to you.”

The silence hangs. Ren feels like his ears are stuffed full of cotton. The furious racing of his heart makes his fingertips feel a little numb, and there’s a pressing weight on the center of his chest that makes him sink into his seat.

The red light on his radio blinks at him, searing its image in the back of his eyes. The radio should be long, long dead.

Ren scoffs, in morbid amusement, at the thought of the radio outlasting him.

   Martyn clears the air. “...Alright. What do you want to talk about?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his spare paw on his forehead to attempt to will away a sudden dizzy spell. “Anything is– anything is fine. Maybe if you tell the story, and I just listen.”

   “Yeah. Right, I can do that. Just– hey, y’know, make sure you say something every now and then. Just so that I know you’re listening, yea? Ren?”

His paw twitches on the microphone. “I’m here,” he says, hoarse. “Mhm. Yeah.”

   “Alright.”

Ren can’t tell you what the story was about.

   Not long ago, Ren had naively credited the calming of his racing heart to Martyn’s storytelling. That was, however, before he realized helplessly that his heart was beginning to slow. Dread thickened his blood to ice and now, Ren has nothing left to do but lay in his resignation to the inevitable.

Martyn’s crackling voice fills the cockpit, more sound than there is air to breathe.

The console blinks brightly, searing its colour into the back of Ren’s eyes as he lays forward, head resting on his crossed arms on the dashboard. It begs for a message. It begs for something to send to no one. A last set of words that will be lost in the files and buried and then left to decay when the company likely goes under a few decades later.

Ren’s finger twitches on the microphone.

   The radio sends through a short blink of interference. Martyn keeps talking, telling his stories about places Ren hasn’t and will never see, but a while ago he lost the filler words to show that he was still listening. Any hums of acknowledgement or murmurs of “Uh-huh. Yeah. I dunno,” died in his throat. He still has the strength to click in on the radio mic, though, and to Martyn that seems to suffice.

   He keeps telling Ren his story.

Meanwhile Ren uses this time to, for once, obey the instructions of the dashboard screen. A blank document burns his tired eyes as he reaches to press the digital keypad. The document title reads:

The body paragraph awaits his command, and Ren types very slowly:

Ren’s ears are ringing, and the sound blends with the radio static near perfectly, isolating the voice cutting through.

For the moment it feels, almost, like Martyn is here with him, and it makes Ren feel just that little bit less alone.

   He smiles.

The loudest sound that Martyn has ever heard was the silence that followed the realisation that the latest click was Ren’s last.

Martyn is several hours late.

The frequencies will spit him out where he needed to be six hours ago and finally, his employer will connect back with him. Martyn will be told about how their entire schedule is destroyed because he got lost in the stream– and he will make no argument about it. He will apathetically shrug, fire some snarky comment like he often does, and get to work.

He should have told Ren that his theory was right.

Martyn couldn’t possibly tell his boss about that stray S.O.S. he caught, and how he had the only hands around to catch it. He wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t tell him about that man, alone and dying in his ship outside of the Epsilon Cluster, and how Martyn made sure he died less alone.

He couldn’t even imply that he felt helpless there, speaking into that rift in the waves. He couldn’t. He wished he could have reached through to close his hand over Ren’s, clutching the radio microphone. He wished he could have continued hitting the receiver button and sending that signal through, steady and rhythmic, as though he was keeping Ren’s heart pumping.

All he had were his words. All he had was the static that filled the otherwise silent cabin.

All he had was Ren’s voice; he didn’t even know what he looked like. Perhaps that’s for the best.

   He’s grateful that he didn’t have to see Ren die.

He doesn’t know what he’d do otherwise. It’s better this way, Martyn tells himself, knowing that he was nothing but the static that cradled Ren, telling him good night, so far from home.

They’re both so far from home.