A Hard Pill to Swallow
Allie woke up to an excruciatingly familiar sight: a dark room, a dozen blinking LED lights, a command terminal with hundreds of buttons and, past the transparent screen separating her from certain death, the cold and merciless void of space.
This time, however, there was a difference. Everything was upside-down.
"Hgh–wha…?"
She floated there for a moment, eyes glassy, staring forward gormlessly. It wasn't until she tried to move and spun in place instead that she identified the source of her weightlessness. The artificial gravity had been disabled. She wished she could've realized that before spinning around and almost returning to the outside what little she'd had for dinner last night.
"What the gosh-darn... frick-frickety… fuck is going on?" Her voice came out thin and hoarse. "Rotty? Hey, Rotty, are you there?"
It was a stupid question. Rotom was always there; even if its services were required in more than one place all it'd have to do was divide itself and multitask. Unfortunately, Allie wasn't feeling very smart at the moment. Her mind felt hazy, like the cogs of her brain were being slowed down by some thick substance. She didn't even realize Rotom had appeared on the screen until it blinked twice. Those big, soulless electric blue orbs were enough to creep her back to her senses.
"Oh, hey. Good… uh…" She swallowed, but it felt painful due to her dry throat. "That's what I wanted to ask, actually. What time is it?"
Instead of replying verbally –like she knew it could– Rotom instead grabbed the little numbers on the lower left corner of the screen that Allie hadn't noticed and enlarged them until they were as big as the screen itself. The passive-aggressive approach.
"Are you in a bad mood 'cause I keep calling you Rotty?" she muttered, but got no response. "2 p.m. huh… I know that's when Boss disables the artificial gravity every day." Just in case they needed to do work in zero gravity, according to him. Allie doubted the effectiveness of the method. "But I guess I didn't wanna believe I'd slept 'til that late. Feel… groggy. You know what happened last night, Rotty?"
No reply came. Allie sighed; useless fucking petty AI.
"Charlotte? Hey, Charlotte, are you here somewhere?"
She got her answer as soon as she heard the scuttle of tiny legs against metal. She spun in place and looked down as a palm-sized yellow creature emerged from behind one of the maintenance panels, his fluffy fur crackling with a tiny electric current. Allie extended her hand and the Joltik shot a web forward, sticking to her index finger and climbing it up until he reached her arm. She spun him around her hands for a bit before scratching his back playfully.
"There we go. Good boy." She smiled despite herself. "Did you fix the static problem Boss was worrying about? Got yourself a nice snack?"
"Bzzzzz!"
The hum coming out of Charlotte's body sent a shiver throughout Allie's body, but she didn't mind. She was used to it by now. The two of them had been together since the very start of the mission, almost two years ago. And despite the catastrophic incident two weeks ago, she was still happy to have met the little bugger. She remembered the first time she showed him off to the rest of the crew; Van had laughed at his small size and the fact that he had a girl's name, but Allie had straightened him out pretty quick. Now they were drinking buddies. Oh how things changed.
"That's my partner. Now, I have a lil' question for you." Charlotte looked up at her, eyes curious. "Do you… uh, know what happened last night? I don't usually sleep 'til this late."
Surprisingly, Charlotte knew the answer. Holding on to her hand with his three other legs, he raised one of them and pointed at an object in the room Allie hadn't noticed floating there. A small container full of pills. Her eyes went wide and her lips pursed in that 'Ah… shit' expression she wore so much lately.
"Morphine… right. That'd explain the disorientation… and the constipation," she muttered. "What the hell, past me? I thought we'd… I'd agreed to go easier on the stuff. I can't be tripping my balls off every night or I'm gonna…"
You're gonna what? Her own voice said inside her head. Get withdrawal symptoms? I don't think you have to worry about that with how little time we have left. Might as well enjoy the ride.
She shook her head, trying to keep that thought away. Even so, the red blinking words there on the upper right corner of the screen weren't so easy to ignore. Allie hadn't told Rotom to make them go away, but it could certainly stand to make them less noticeable.
'WARNING: 30% OF OXYGEN REMAINING. BREATHABLE ENVIROMENT ONLY SUSTAINABLE FOR 8 MORE DAYS'
"Well fuck you too."
Rotom's sprite on the screen frowned.
"Not you, Rotty. I was talking to the text that can neither hear me nor reply."
"I would suggest the morphine might be affecting your common sense, Dr. Allison Mordred, but that would imply this kind of behavior is uncommon for you. I will take note of it regardless."
The speakers whirred with Rotom's installed voice, that of a grown, soft-spoken woman who probably didn't deserve having her dulcet tones ruined by such a sassy, dickish AI. The Boss had chosen this voice because to him it sounded 'kind' and 'motherly'. Perfect for someone programmed to take care of them. And yes, Allie supposed it was perfect. The faux kindness and warmth spread over sneer and sarcasm like jelly on toast did remind her terribly of her own mother.
And to think she'd come to this mission to get away from her. Karma had a way of catching up to you, even if you were four light-years away.
"Look who's finally talking," said Allie. "And I told you not to use my full name and title. It's really not necessary."
"I apologize, Dr. Allison Mordred, but it is hard-coded into my system to act as… kindly and politely toward my masters as possible. I am truly, truly sorry if this causes any discomfort for you, Doctor and Comms. Specialist Allison Vayndick Mordr–"
"Okay, okay! For Mew's sake, give it a rest already." She pressed a hand against her head and winced. "Ugh… can you get me a bottle of water and the recorder? Might as well get started even though it's late."
"…Certainly."
Drinking in zero gravity was a royal pain in the ass, but Allie had a lot of practice at it and she finished the small bottle in only a few seconds, letting out a long, pleasured sigh after. Then she grabbed the small recorder and looked down at it, pensive.
"Ready for today's log, lil' buddy?"
"Bzzz!"
"Me too, but I think I'd rather not stay here while I do it. Feeling kinda dreary and cramped," she said. "But before I go… Rotty, where's everyone?"
"I am sorry, Doctor, but as you know I am not allowed to use my bio-scan to give away the locations of other crew members unl–"
"Command override, X-Y-G-2-7-2"
"Hgh!"
Rotom let out an uncharacteristic grunt of irritation at her words. When it spoke again, its voice was strained.
"You… didn't even let me finish this time."
"Why bother? We do this every day."
"Yes, but I was not ready for the command override yet. Do you have any idea what it's like to have your thought process forcefully stopped by someone else? This is what a headache must feel like."
"Then yes, I am very familiar with the sensation," said Allie. "Consider it revenge."
"Hmph. Very well."
Rotom's face blinked away, but not before showing the rest of the crew's locations on-screen. As expected, Van and Fela were still in Van's room, maybe asleep, though most likely just laying besides each other and whispering sweet nothings. Lucky bastards. The Boss, on the other hand, wasn't in the other command room like she'd expected, but in the observation deck.
"Must be having one of his pensive days," she muttered to herself. "Alright, let's pay him a visit. You coming, Charlotte?"
"Bzzz!"
"Great, then hold on to my arm."
The mechanical door opened with a heavy whirr and Allie winced at the sudden burst of light coming from the hallway. She took a moment to blink away the dizziness and then pushed herself forward, her momentum uninterrupted as she flew slowly through the air, passing by a few other doors on her way to the observation deck.
As she traveled, she clicked the recorder to life and placed it near her lips before speaking with a voice that was still quite hoarse considering how much water she'd drunk.
"Testing, testing, one, two, three. This is the log of Doctor…" She sighed. "Doctor Allison Mordred, specialist in charge of the Comms system of the doomed Mossdeep Mirage II station, currently stationed at its maintenance ship. This is day… uh…" She furrowed her brow, trying to remember. "635, that's it. Day 635 in space and day 14 inside this metal prison. I apologize for that unprofessionalism just then, whoever ends up listening to this. I'm also sorry for leaving you six-hundred and thirty five fucking recordings of me so far, none of which have any real value except for maybe the one I recorded the day of the incident. I'm sure slugging through them all will be very annoying. I get it! I'm very annoyed too, only instead of being annoyed at some idiot's nonsensical ramblings, it's more about my inevitable, painful death eight days from now. So with all due respect, cry me a river and then drown yourself in it."
There was a lone pillow drifting in the middle of the hallway, spinning on itself. Next to it, the door to Fela's room was wide open; she'd probably forgotten to close it last night, or maybe she just hadn't cared to. Allie interrupted her recording for a moment and spun herself in mid-air, kicking off the wall and pushing herself toward the open door. She caught the pillow with her foot and threw it inside, where she could see a multitude of personal objects floating aimlessly. It seemed Fela had also forgot to ground her stuff. Rolling her eyes, she shut the door and pushed herself forward again, continuing down the hallway.
There were a few more objects scattered about, especially once she entered the wide, circular lounge area. It was by far the biggest room in the ship, but it was so desolate and void of life and color that just passing through it depressed Allie. Not like they used it much before the accident. This ship was never meant to be liveable. Despite having housing commodities, its intended purpose was for people to come here from the main station every once in a while to check the status of all the systems and, in rare occasions, use it to repair the main station.
This place was never meant to be their home, nor their tomb. But fate was funny that way.
A sour look formed on Allie's face. She kicked off the wall past the lounge area and headed straight for the door at the end of the hallway, the one leading to the observation deck.
"As for updates to our situation… there aren't many." She turned the recording back on and whispered into it. "Boss–Er, I mean Professor Cozmo went back to the station yesterday, again, searching for any remains from the destroyed Comms room that might let us send a message back to Mossdeep, but once again he had no luck. We can't send a message there, and their next call is scheduled for two weeks from now. We'll all be dead by then."
She'd gotten used to calling Professor Cozmo 'Boss', not because the man was particularly authoritative but because his own father, one of the people in charge of overseeing this mission from the Mossdeep Space Center, was also called Professor Cozmo by everyone else, and she needed a way to differentiate between the two.
"Alright, almost there…"
Right before reaching the door, Allie spun herself so she'd be facing it and stopped her momentum with her free hand. As she input the code to open it, she finished talking into her recorder.
"Anyway, I'm on my way to talk to the man himself, so I'll have to cut this one short. I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with good news, likely with bad ones. Have a good one, whoever it is that listens to this."
The door whirred open at the same time she turned the recorder off and saved it in her pocket.
Brightness hit her in the face like a hammer, and as she raised a hand to protect her eyes she almost sent Charlotte flying. The observation deck was small. Half the size of the lounge area in fact, but its emptiness made it look far larger. The only things in the room were a couple of benches overlooking the massive glass panel that made up the entirety of the back wall, showing the yellow dwarf Merkabah in all its terrifying glory. The sun made up about seventy percent of what they could see past the glass. And there, in the middle, contrasting in the foreground like a shadow against light, were the two halves of what once was the most advanced space station the world had ever known, the Mossdeep Mirage II.
"Needed a moment to yourself?"
She blinked away the brightness and looked down at one of the benches, where Boss was sitting with his back to her, practically ignoring the deactivated artificial gravity. Next to him floated a large, slimy-looking creature with thick tentacles. Moira the Malamar was rarely affected by any change in gravity, probably because she was used to floating everywhere she went, and she could use those tentacles and her psychic powers to move around easily. At the moment she looked busy prodding the inside of the room's air vent for… something. Better not to ask. When it came to these two, the answer would be either boring or terrifying, there was rarely any middle ground.
"Boss, right now the last thing I need is more time to myself," she replied, floating down to the bench. "I could use some stargazing, I guess."
Boss laughed his usual laugh, chirpy and high-pitched and just a little bit nerdy. Ninety percent of the reason Allie thought she was a good person was because she hadn't yet made fun of him for it.
"Quite literally stargazing, in this case."
"Y… yeah boss, that's why I said it. It was a joke."
"Ah."
She dropped down next to the man, though staying seated didn't come as easy to her as it did to him. Charlotte jumped off her arm and landed on Boss' hand. He started petting him without hesitation. In the background, the clattering of tentacle against metal could be heard.
"It's quite a sight, isn't it?"
"You could say that."
Something in her shivered as she looked up. She couldn't help it; despite knowing it was there, her heart seized every time she laid eyes on it. The enormous structure, shaped like a long stick with many wide, flat panels sticking out from the sides, now lay dark, empty and shattered in two by the impact two weeks ago. Most of the insides had flown off into the deep reaches of space after the depressurization, and that included machines, supplies, people and Pokemon. Ninety percent of their crew and seventy-five percent of their resources… gone. Just like that.
She'd have liked to say she remembered the moment well, but it was little more than a blur in her mind. She and Boss had been inside this maintenance ship, circling the station in search of the one engine that had started to overheat. They had found the guilty engine without much trouble. Allie, Boss and Charlotte were inside the ship, giving instructions while Moira –unaffected by the void of space– pointed Van and Fela in the right direction while they tried to fix it inside their space suits.
The repair hadn't taken more than twenty minutes. At the end, Allie had let out a big sigh and leaned back against her chair, smiling at a job well done.
Then the alarm had sounded for a single second before something smashed into the station with enough force to shatter it in two.
Allie didn't remember much of the ensuing chaos. In the end, they were able to recover Van and Fela because they were both in their space suits, as well as Rotom by transferring it from the station to the maintenance ship. But that was it. Everything else, everyone else… gone. In the blink of an eye.
And as for the culprit…
She couldn't help but frown as she stared at the object, standing out dark against the brilliance of the sun behind it. It floated there in the distance, in between both halves of the Mirage II. A triangle. A literal fucking triangle just sitting there in front of the sun. It wasn't an asteroid, but that's about as much as they knew about it. After smashing into the space station, its trajectory had just… stopped, before it could fly into the sun. It hadn't moved since. And they couldn't go toward it and investigate it since it was close enough to the yellow dwarf that doing so would inquire great risk of burning to death.
So now they got to stare at the thing that ruined their lives every day, unable to study it or break it or do anything about it. 'Quite a sight' was a very light way of putting it.
"Would you like to hear something dumb?" Boss asked out of nowhere. "About this whole situation. Van would probably laugh at me if he heard it."
"I'd love nothing more, Boss."
The man gazed up at the blurring triangle figure in the distance, the light of the sun turning his glasses a bright white, hiding his eyes behind it. Unlike with her, there was no anger or bitterness in his expression. There rarely was.
"If I were alone here and I had to choose between myself alone escaping this deadly situation or dying but learning what that thing is…"
He didn't need to finish the sentence. Allie nodded in understanding; she felt the exact same way.
"I don't think it's dumb at all," she said. "Even if I were to survive somehow, the question of what the fuck that thing is would plague me for the rest of my life."
"Yes, exactly! Haha… you always get me, Doctor."
At any other point she'd have retorted with 'Just call me Allie' like all the times before, but she didn't have it in her at the moment. Boss seemed to notice.
"You seem… morose today, Doctor. And that glassy expression…" His glasses were still glowing, but she could imagine him frowning behind them. "Morphine, again?"
"Trust me, I'm just as disappointed in myself as you," she said. "But whatever. Got only eight days left, might as well cruise pleasurably through them, right?"
Boss' lips pursed. "I believe I've warned you about this kind of fatalistic mindset."
"Hey, at least I'm functional. Unlike Van and Fela."
He couldn't argue with that, so instead he just sighed and looked away. In truth, Allie did feel bad. Disappointing boss felt like disappointing the one parent that you actually respected.
"Did you go see them today too?"
Boss nodded. "Every day. I'm glad they've chosen to spend this remaining time together, but I'd rather their thoughts not become… darkened. I don't want them to give up hope just yet."
"We all have our limits," she argued. "I get wanting to help them through this, Boss, but the idea of dying of asphyxiation… I mean, if they were considering other options, I don't think I'd have it in me to judge them."
Boss' face darkened. It was a rare sight, enough to make Allie regret what she'd just said.
"Sorry. I know you're just trying to help, I sh–"
"No, it's not that."
"Hm?"
He turned to look at her, a nervous expression on his face. "I… discussed the possibility with them earlier today. I think I have a way to… I mean, if push comes to shove, I have an out that will be much less painful."
"What are you…?"
Then, he took something out of his pocket and Allie felt her stomach drop, eyes shooting wide open. A gun. Boss held a gun in his hand, and the sight was so strange and ridiculous that she couldn't speak for a few seconds.
"Where… the fuck…?"
"I found it during my latest scavenger hunt inside the remains of the station," he explained. "It was inside of Captain Hold's quarters, hidden."
"But how did he–!?"
"This is something only known to those high in command," he said. "In these types of missions, the Captain is given a weapon like this secretly, as a… last resort of sorts. Should any emergency emerge." He smiled. "Why do you think the Captain's psych evaluations always lasted so much longer than ours? They had to make sure he was fit to have this in his possession."
Allie swallowed, still unable to believe what she was seeing. It made sense, from a logical perspective, but if any of them had known…
Well, maybe it was better they hadn't.
"How…" She swallowed. "How many bullets? The pistol looks like a standard model, so…"
"Full magazine," he said. "So six. One for each one of us, Pokemon included. Well, except for Rotom, of course, but it can survive without oxygen unlike the rest of us. Moira could hold out for longer, but not too long."
She nodded. "Right. So if we can't find a way out of this…"
"Then this shall be our way out."
They both sat there for what felt like longer than the minute it was, looking down at the pistol, probably thinking the exact same thing. After a while, Allie let out a breath. It was nothing more than a normal sigh, but somehow it felt as though something heavier and denser than air left her lips as she did so. Suddenly, her shoulders felt less heavy.
Thank Mew… thank goodness…
"That's… a real relief, Boss. But I think I'd rather use my bullet on something other than myself."
The man looked up at her, brow furrowed in confusion. "Doctor? What do you mean? You looked so happy just now."
"Yeah, for you, and Charlotte and everyone else here," she explained. "But… I don't care about pain. Never had. But with this…"
She stared forward, toward the burning ball of gas engulfing their vision. Then, a smile forming on her face, she raised her hand and pointed at the distant black triangle with finger guns, letting out a 'Pew' as she mimicked firing.
"Once all of you are dead and I'm left with one bullet, I'll put on a space suit, use that jetpack-thingy you always use to explore the inside of the station and fly as close to that thing as I can without burning myself," she explained. "And then, at the very last moment, I'm going to shoot it. It doesn't matter if it does nothing. All I want is to at least shoot it once."
She expected Boss to complain, to tell her to disregard such petty ideas and just get in line and get shot like everyone else, but he didn't. Instead, he just pushed up the rim of his glasses and gave a curt nod.
"Again, I'd recommend you leave such fatalistic plans until the zero hour, but…" He sighed. "That would be a fitting end for you, Doctor. And I would appreciate the attempt at revenge, at the very least."
"Great. It's decided th–"
"Brrryaa!"
They both looked over their shoulders at Moira, who'd finally found what she was looking for inside the vents. As she pulled the tentacle back, they saw that it was a big puff of dust and hair that had gotten stuck in there somehow. The Malamar let out a happy chirp and shoved it inside her mouth, devouring it whole.
"Talk about an afternoon snack," she said.
"And just in time too," muttered Boss. "If my inner clock is correct, the artificial gravity should come back right ab–"
Just as he said that, something changed in the room. Allie's stomach and inner ear did a flip as a sudden, powerful pressure fell upon her, the gravity returning to normal in one big swoop. It was a good thing that they were already sitting, or the sudden shift might have felt like hell.
In the distance, a deaf thump was heard, followed by Van crying out.
"KGH–FUCK!"
Yeah, like that, she thought.
"I'm guessing Rotty forgot to announce the change in gravity again," she said, "and Van was floating over something hard."
"I'd be inclined to agree with that theory, Doctor."
Silver Notes: This is a concept that kept bugging me inside my head until I had no choice but to get it out and put it on paper. I plan on finishing my other projects before continuing this in full but I will get to it at some point.