“Due to its rapid star formation, the NGC-1313 galaxy was earmarked for Exotic Matter prospecting. Unfortunately, the US beat Russia to the punch and set up a larger EM mining and refinery plant at Reticuluum One at the cusp of the EM drive boom. Effectively deadheading Russia’s monopoly on EM drive technology.
“Instead of abandoning the station and to avoid embarrassment the Soviet repurposed it into a multi-faceted deep space R&D centre, building the outer ring and monorail to house various research departments. Even I don’t really know what happened in some of them and inter district relations were kept to a minimal from what I understand.
“Anyhow, by the time I arrived the station had largely ground to a halt having never really taken off. The Deep Space program as a whole was dangerously underfunded. Many of the station districts were unstaffed or running on a skeleton crew and there was some talk that foreign investors were interested in the face of the failing Soviet. We’d been preparing to abandon the station, until…”
Katja shuddered and pulled her knees to her chest, gathering the sackcloth around her. Tears welled in her eyes as her voice died. What little blood that appeared present behind her china white skin, drained away. She teetered on the edge of hysteria as her breathing grew heavy and agonal.
Peralta threw an arm around her as Katja rocked in a paroxysm of fear, her cherubic features twisted. Tor watched paralyzed, unsure if Katja still lay within the waking world. Katja’s mouth fell open as if to scream, but only a quiet mewl drew forth. “I… I have seen. Seen so many bad things.”
The bosun shushed Katja, stanching her cold, gasped words that lanced into Tor. Whatever wrongness lay here, he did not want to encounter it. The pervasive miasma that had surrounded Tor since he’d awoke amid cryosleep, now rushed through him tenfold.
“Captain.” Mihailov said through gritted teeth.
“I know. I know. We need to move.”
Tor wished he’d found relief in his decision, instead he found himself glancing repeatedly at his suits time readout. They’d been aboard Murmansk-13 for fourteen hours, thirty-seven minutes. At least eleven hours of which had been inside the stations morgue. While he no longer struggled with indecision, his nascent plans stumbled in practicality.
It had taken half an hour for Katja to calm down, eventually slipping into a deep sleep Tor hoped was dreamless. She’d slept for four hours, time in which Tor and Mihailov argued about splitting up. The Bulgarian proposed he and Tala alone would scavenge the accommodation block for emergency escape suits, allowing Tor and Peralta to maintain their vigil over the girl. Tor advocated staying together and safety in numbers. If something happened to either party, how would they know. Mihailov acceded, but refused to stand in the morgue any longer, he kept watch at the entranceway and Tor kept watch on him.
Now Peralta and Tala were trying to help Katja regain her feet. Four years abandoned in a cold chamber had atrophied Katja’s musculature. Her body fat and skin hung infirm through her scrubs as she gingerly lowered herself from the autopsy table. Peralta beneath her right shoulder, Tala beneath her left. Immediately her legs buckled at the knees, the two Filipinos taking her body weight.
“My legs feel numb and fuzzy,” Katja said plaintively, a tear streaking her cheek. “I can’t feel my feet.”
“Just take your time,” Tor replied, trying to quell his rising unease.
“But we don’t have time do we?” Katja whined, trying to straighten her pallid legs, mottled dark blue where blood had pooled forming livid bruises. “I can see it in your face and I heard you arguing while I was asleep.”
“We’re all just a little unnerved by this place.” Tor uncrossed his arms and flattened his palms against the stainless steel worktop behind him.
“You should be,” Katja shrugged against Tala who grimaced. “Oh just leave me, do you think you can give me the months of physical rehab I need?”
Tor slammed his hand against the worktop, the metallic report stilling everyone into silence. “I’m not going to leave you in this place. I already lost your father. I’m not going to return to Earth and say it was all in vein.”
“You would have done if I hadn’t have woken up though.” Katja’s response was muted but blazing blue eyes locked with Tor’s; stubborn and helpless.
“You did though, so we’re not leaving you,” Tor replied softly, relieved Katja had turned her attention elsewhere.
Katja now appraised the hospital clipboard hung beside the cold chambers. Her wasted legs limply seeking purchase on the cold tiles of the morgue. She ran her index finger down the board, smearing the marker lines that scored out each name but her own, names of colleagues and friends. Her chin sagged to her breast, her finger falling away from the bottom of the board black with ink. Sobs wracked Katja’s body once again. “I don’t understand.”
Peralta and Tala helped Katja to the little plastic chair. She slumped, ragdoll into the seat, threatening to teeter off to the floor and perhaps the oblivion of her nightmares reawakened.
Tor placed a steadying hand on her shoulder while Peralta and Tala crouched beside her, mutual expressions of disconcerted empathy. Katja felt boneless to the touch as if only her face had retained its youth. The rest of her toneless body quivered as drool glistened her chin and darkened the neckline of her scrubs. Unsure what to say, Tor held her silently until the sobbing subsided.
Katja sat mute and hunched for a long while, eyelids flickering as her brain tried to parse the influx of information. “I don’t understand what happened? These people were my friends.”
“The names on the clipboard?” Tor removed his hand from Katja’s shoulder and traced the cleaved line in the crossed out names her finger had made.
Katja nodded. “We were all due to sign off,” she wiped her chin and cheeks dry with the sleeve of her scrubs. “Before the quarantine.”
“Why was the station under quarantine, Katja?”
Katja shook her head violently, her face clenching, fighting a renewed onset of salty tears. Her round cheeks were already sorely reddened by her weeping. “No,” was all she could say before pitching forward, trying to stand. Tala and Peralta managed to grab her as she lurched forward, her knees providing little resistance or support to the movement. She grasped the handle of one of the cold chambers, her hand appearing small and pale against the brass latch. She pulled it open, utilizing what little reservoirs of strength remained.
“They’re all empty, Katja,” Tor said over the hum of the refrigeration plant. “We’ve checked them all.”
“This one was Arty’s,” she replied. Her breaking voice ringing within the confines of the chamber. Peralta and Tala seized her as she fell limp, returning her to the seat without struggle. Tor silently returned the chamber door to its jam before it had chance to clatter shut in counter rotation.
Mihailov was growing steadily more aggravated at the door. Tor watched the Bulgarian fidget in the corridor while stealing increasingly exasperated glances into the morgue. He paced the six feet expanse of the corridor for the thousandth time and looked at the time readout on his own suit. “Captain, this is taking too long.”
Katja stared lifelessly at the patchwork of cold chambers that had apparently contained her friends, the lustre of life that had returned was gone again. Her eyes dry and stagnant.
“I know,” said Tor, resignedly. Unable to capture Katja’s eye he turned and walked from her into the dark of the morgue. Tor rested his head in his hands, fresh stubble pricking the meat of his palm as he gently kneaded his eyelids. “We’ll tie her to a fucking stretcher if we have to, but I’m done with this place.”