Mark Fagan

"I think memory is the most important assets of human beings. It's a kind of fuel, it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest; there are so many drawers in that chest and when I open a certain drawer, I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I could smell the air and I can touch the ground and I could see the green of the trees."That's why I want to write a book."Haruki Murakami

• Reflection on writing from Han Kang, Nobel Prize in Literature 2024

Excerpt from Eyes That Paint The SkyThe world there stays deep-rooted through shifting seasons. It holds the weight of our first steps.A September wind curled over the dry leaves, spinning sycamore seeds through the air like little lost travellers. Snow frosted the dirt and a gentle drift rolled over the Lomond hills. Silver bark glowed under autumn sun. Chaffinch sang. It was sometime in the afternoon.A sunbeam fell on you as if picked out by heaven. By your side, you held a book with a handwritten note marking the page, and I wondered what those pages contained—if we were searching for the same words. We stopped together on the willow bridge and looked into the river. A minute or so passed. The water stayed deep and clear.‘The days are getting shorter now,’ you said, in a soft voice—a voice as soft as the trickling water, as soft as champagne pouring over the edge of a glass. Strands of your hair caught on the breeze and feathered over your cheek, like burnt rose and winter berries—a sigh that danced like butterflies. My words felt coarse in reflection.Across the den, a couple of wood pigeons bobbed lazily on a dry-stone wall, and beyond, over the farmland, deer grazed quietly in the fields. The black swing-coat jacket you wore seemed a soft shield against the wilderness. You wore that same coat the first night we kissed, letting it fall to the fireside before you held me warmly. The same champagne light sparkled in your eyes.

A Galaxy Absent From GraceIt seemed as though humanity had searched every corner of the galaxy, each rocky planet and gas giant, from the tumbling nitrogen falls of Inaara’s third moon to the glimmering quartz forests of Siegler 6, and yet as far as anyone knew, Earth—this small insignificant planet in the Sol system—was the only place life had emerged. A nurturing mother and her firstborn child. A god breathing on the most delicate of sparks.
Kaarina didn’t know whether to feel inspired by that fact or not. In a way, it felt lonely, each exploratory mission filled with hope, with endless possibility, only to be met with another silent solar system—seeing humanity as a songbird chirping out to an empty forest. Or, at least, it felt as lonely as her modulator allowed. Like everything else, there was a medication or hormone to fix that, a chemical to regain equilibrium.
Crowds surged past Kaarina, the spaceport’s dome magnifying the sun’s intensity. Her eyes darted from face to face, searching for something familiar in the blur of motion. She’d forgotten what it was like to feel the world so close—too bright, too loud, after the stillness of the stars.
Transit from Lithor Station to Phaethon had taken a bit over three months. Three months in that cramped cargo hold container, living among the electronics crates and machine parts. Without the modulator delivering sedatives, her mind had grown restless, muscles cramped unable to find a position to rest. She’d wake, covered in heavy sweat, her mind screaming as if there was some emergency before she’d realise there was nothing to do but wait.
Above the rush of the crowd, a hand waved calling her name. Dayao, her contact, was snaking his way through from the main terminal. “It takes a little while to get used to,” he said introducing himself, clearly noticing her squinting against the sunlight. “You could use a little shade, right? This way—a private sedan is waiting.”
The doctor was older than she’d imagined, maybe in his early sixties, and his small stature, dark hair and wrinkled eyes marked him as one from the Gliese system, those planets settled by Southeast Asian expeditions. “Most people arrive here and struggle with the heat,” Dayao said sympathetically. “They say you get used to it, but I’d be screwed without a top-notch recycler. Luckily here at Novo-Corp, we make the best tech. Everyone knows this, right?”
Kaarina wasn’t sure, and if it was sarcasm she didn’t acknowledge it. Phaethon, the first world owned outright by a corporation, grew rich after becoming the sole maker of modulator chips. The planet was one big, incessant factory.
On the shuttle ride—a crisscross of transport tubes that pulsed back and forth like electrons on a circuit board—Kaarina looked out to the giant belt of asteroids that looped around the planet, shimmering ice and shadowy rock. Each asteroid hung there, a reminder of this solar system's violent birth.
It was a hard thing for Kaarina to do, putting her life in the hands of someone she’d only just met. The risk he was taking was just as great, she supposed.
Once in the changing room, Kaarina’s hands trembled as she tied her gown, the fabric allowing a light breeze to brush against her skin. The floor and walls were a cold, clinical white as featureless as the tundra on TOI-c.
Dayao, changing into his scrubs, met her gaze with a mixture of calm and something darker. Doubt? Remorse? She couldn’t tell. The years clearly rested heavily upon him. He knew why she was here—knew what they were about to do—and yet, he showed no sign of allegiance either way.
“I appreciate the risk you’re taking.”
“Please, do not worry. I’m proud of the work I do.” Dayao slowly rinsed his hands under the Photonic Sanitizer’s cold glow. He paused here and Kaarina could see he was struggling, as if he didn’t know if he should continue. Then he walked through the door of the operating room and gestured towards the examination chair in the centre of the room, without saying a word.
Kaarina took her place, settling into the shiny acrylic, keeping her eyes fixed on Dayao, trying to read his quiet expression. She took a deep breath, the kind you take before a plunge into a deep pool. “Will I be awake during the procedure?”
“This isn’t a sleep-through-it kind of thing, I’m afraid. We need your mind active, to map the memories. Are you sure about the sedative?”
“I’m sure,” Kaarina replied, grimacing. Display screens circled the walls of the small room and a mass of wires led from them to the imposing-looking device above her head. The equipment smelled like antiseptic and burned fuses.
“While we access each memory to erase it, you may vividly remember those events. This process is quite extensive. We'll need to delete every interaction you've had with the resistance, which seems to cover most of the past five years. If you feel distressed at any point—well, there’s not much we can do—but please try to stay still.”
Kaarina braced as the cold metal bands clamped around her neck, wrists, and ankles, catching her throat as she gulped air.
“It will be almost like a hallucination, or daydream,” Dayao said.
“A dream I can’t wake up from?”
“Sort of.” Dayao tapped her head. “I hope there are some pleasant memories in there.” Initialising the equipment on the console, he activated the scanner, which up close looked like a CNC laser arm. “It’s located the first associated neural network. Let’s begin.”*Kaarina had never really given things a second thought—her graduation, her career, it was all just part of the trajectory. Being a systems engineer came easily—as natural as the spin of the universe. Relocation on an off-world post seemed like the next logical step, simply the next chapter of life. What exactly did Laera mean by, “Is it what you actually want?” What else should I want?
From the ice plateau, Kaarina watched a shuttle launch out the docking bay in a cloud of exhaust plumes and fire that burned with a tinge of green in TOI-c’s boron-heavy atmosphere. She wondered where it was headed—a pleasure trip to the nitrogen falls of Gamma-Tau, a scientific mission to the newly discovered dwarf worlds of Eridani, or perhaps it was the visiting Earthers making their long voyage back to the Sol system. In only a few weeks she'd be launching on her first off-world placement.
Over the ravine, down the hundred or so metre drop to the brine river that cut a cavernous gorge in the ice cliffs, a breeze whipped up. It sent a chill through Kaarina despite her EVO suit doing its best to compensate. The temp was near minus thirty. She gave a quick flick through the pages of the book stopping at a page she remembered.Whispers in darkness,
Your lips on my eyelids—
I am, briefly, complete.Dawn breaks,
And with it, my mistakes.How tender, this love
That weeps for a sinner like me.She closed the book firmly between flattened hands and then, after only a second’s deliberation, tossed it down into the ravine, watching the pages flutter erratically like a baby bird taking flight. This fledgling would not make it.
I’m sorry, Laera. Why did you even ask me to read that book?
The book finally tumbled out of sight. The stories were interesting and the poetry thought-provoking but it was hardly relevant to their course work. Surely Laera’s time would've been better spent reading another one of the advanced curriculum recommendations. It had been by the narrowest stroke of luck that it had not been discovered.
The evening before, a government enforcement squad had carried out a routine search of the dormitory. They said it was routine anyway, but Kaarina suspected these things never were. The officers made everyone gather in the common room while they searched the entire building top to bottom, through everyone's wardrobes, clothes drawers and all their personal items and even lifted mattresses and searched under beds. All the while, the book had just been sitting in Kaarina's backpack, waiting to be found.
“You’re here?” Laera’s breathless voice came from behind Kaarina. She must have been rushing up the falls.
This was their spot. The plateau overlooked the colony where beyond the giant striated ice sheets jutted like shards of shattered crystal into TOI's perpetually cloudless sky. They took hikes up here, for their stipulated cardio exercise, skirting through the icicle caverns and then scaling the chain walk that protected the ascent up the frozen waterfalls.
“Why didn’t you come for me?” Laera asked.
Kaarina wished she could just stay lost in the peaceful vista a moment longer. “With everyone still on edge—I didn’t know if you were busy.”
“Busy? Kaarina, I’ve been sitting in my room pulling my hair out. I couldn’t wait to come see you. Then you weren’t in your room. I figured this was the only place you could be.”
Kaarina could sense the agitation in Laera’s voice. It’s not me who broke the rules. “What do you suppose those troops were looking for?”
Laera folded her arms, scowling. “We did nothing wrong.”
There in the frozen snow, with her breath fogging up, she looked like a lost child. How could she be so stupid? “What? You know the rules. All that nonsense in that book of yours.”
“Look, I’m sorry. We didn’t get arrested and that’s the main thing.” Laera let out a low breath. “Where did you hide it?”
“The book?” Kaarina could almost feel herself laughing, though nothing about this was funny. “I threw the damn thing in the ravine!”
She noticed Laera clenching her hands by her side. “What? Where?”
Kaarina gestured with an open palm to the ice sheet below. In a sudden fury, Laera leapt at her, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her back. Kaarina braced herself, shoes digging into the snow but Laera shifted weight and sent her reeling, her back hitting the frozen ground hard.
“You don’t get any of it, do you?”
Heat boiled off Laera and her eyes welled with the glimmer of tears. She’d never seen Laera cry before. She’d never seen anyone cry before as far as she could remember.
“Do you care about anyone here?”
“Get off me!”
Laera had a firm grip on a clump of hair, which stung at the roots, as she wedged the other side of Kaarina's face against the ground.
“Stop!”
With a cry of exasperation, Laera let up, her breath fogging in the frozen air. There was something in her expression that Kaarina couldn’t place, and tears filled her eyes now. For a moment, Kaarina could not guess what would come next. Then, with her strength coming back to her, she pushed hard, forcing Laera off, and drove a heel into her side as she did.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” Kaarina said, picking herself back up to her feet.
Laera stayed on the ground, motionless, her face covered by her gloves.
“Don’t bother trying to speak to me again.” Kaarina left in a fury, abandoning her there.*“Are you okay?” Dayao asked, pausing the machine. “No migraine or discomfort? Please tell me if you’re experiencing any pain.”
“No, it’s fine.” Kaarina blinked her eyes. The room flickered in and out of focus. What was now and what was a memory was hard to distinguish. “It’s just, I can’t see how any of that is relevant.”
“I understand it can be confusing. Memory works that way sometimes—it’s the little things that can stick with us the most.” Dayao’s brow furrowed, and he moved his face inches from the screen, searching the flickering data. “The program is running within parameters—98% correlation. You must trust the process and try to relax.”
“And you can’t save the memories somehow?”
“We can save the raw data. But it is rather pointless. Only the brain's hippocampus can transfer memories into long-term storage.” Dayao adjusted something on the screen, pursing his lips. “Hmm, were you experiencing a particularly vivid flashback?”
“Yes. From when I left my home world.” Kaarina noticed her hands tighten. She spread her fingers, trying to relax. “Everyone I’d ever known, was on that planet, and I just left it all behind. I guess I didn’t realise how much they mattered.”
“Try not to get too worked up about it. The system needs you thinking cognitively.” Dayao inputted another command on the keypad and the laser arm twitched a millimetre. “One moment,” he instructed. “Where did you go when you left TOI-c?”
“I never did speak to her before my shuttle left.” Kaarina said, as if only now acknowledging it to herself. “I worked a repair station on TOI-c's moon. Mostly engine repairs for passing cargo ships. All standard stuff. Occasionally I’d be requested to assist as ship engineer in transit. I’d do maintenance and ...”
She heard her words trail away, closing her eyes like shutters against a storm.*On arriving at the Ardessie, she set about some maintenance first, running system checks and realigning the core. The captain, Karter Hartoch, had given her a brief overview of what engine upgrades would be required.
Cargo transport, Ardessie was run by a skeleton crew—five people altogether on a fairly massive ship. Kaarina barely spoke to anyone the first day or so. Not that it mattered. She’d work to do. And the bunk in the crew quarters had all the necessary amenities.
She was in the mess hall having some mush or other when the captain and his first mate approached her.
“It’s been a long time,” a familiar voice said. Kaarina turned to see Laera standing next to the captain, dressed in grey transport worker overalls with her hair pulled tightly into a high ponytail.
It had been a long time—six years, perhaps?
The captain, she assumed it was Karter, stood beside her smirked with thin stupid grin as he let the awkward seconds tick by. “Well, much as I hate to break up the joyful reunion... thought I might take the chance to go over a few things about the mission.”
“I have a solid handle on what the ship's requirements are,” Kaarina said. “The new part we manufactured will need a few tweaks before installation but for the most part, we can keep the engines at full speed. Minimal delays.”
“Fine. One thing, the damn intercom is all messed up again—”
“I can have a look at it,” Kaarina interrupted.
“Not really a priority. I'll be on the bridge, or if not, in my quarters—2nd deck. That’s all. I’ll leave you two to it.”During the next few days, Kaarina spent the time getting familiarised with the ship's systems. It was an old vessel with more than a few of the conduits needing complete board rewiring, so the work kept her busy. Still, she enjoyed break times talking to the small crew in the mess hall, although she never really talked, just watched.
The way Laera joked with the other crew members as they laughed and cut back at her with sarcastic remarks, it seemed so natural to them— it seemed like fun. Kaarina thought about that a lot during her hours working, how she’d never been close to anyone in that way. She had workmates but no one she could call a friend.
While checking the injector coils, an error message flagged—some strange anomaly. Not a fluctuation in the engine or a break in the electrical circuits. No, it was a fault with the mission map somehow, or at least the course projection.
What accounts for this amount of drift?
It was as if an alternative course had been overlaid, calculated and then erased with all the data still in place. Either that or her calculations for the amount of fuel burning in the thrusters were way off.
She transferred the data to her memory and headed straight for the captain's quarters. Not once had she seen him on the bridge. Damned ship cruised on auto-pilot half the time. She ran along the tight corridor that led to his quarters, her heart beating fast oddly fast.
The captain's door was halfway open—stuck on the locking mechanism by the looks of it. She peeked through. What was going on? Laera was straddled atop Captain Hartoch in the tiny bunk. They were naked. The sight of it was carnal—dark skin against Laera's pale body, and the two of them moaning wildly, a sweat-soaked bed sheet wrapped around them like a serpent from Eden.
Laera was moaning, too, a sound containing pleasure and strained exertion, a sound Kaarina could place in the back of her mind from times they played sports together. But here it held a completely different meaning. She thought of shouting, of speaking, of not looking, but she did none of it.
Karter and Laera didn’t even stop to notice. They were so absorbed—together.

Maybe they knew she was watching and were enjoying it.
Where the hell are these ideas coming from?
She felt weakness in her legs, and before it overtook her, she turned and headed back down the corridor, clutching the wall to compose herself.A few hours or so later, now back in the mess, Kaarina leaned her head in her hands against the table, closed her eyes and went over the charts once more. The route plan made no sense.
There was a pounding in her head, a migraine, she thought, not that she’d really ever had one before. She knew where the medical unit was but wasn’t about to take pills without a prescription, and her modulator should be compensating for anything basic like that. She felt hungry, too. Insatiably so.
Laera came into the room full of energy and Kaarina tried to avoid looking at her—too tired to start a conversation. However, Laera took the seat right beside her.
"You okay?" Laera asked, placing a hand on Kaarina's shoulder. The touch felt good, comforting.
"I'm having a little trouble with these charts."
"It's nothing to worry about, I'm sure."
"But it's just—"
“Hey, are you okay? You don’t look so good. Maybe you should lie down for a bit.”
“I don’t need rest—I need someone to answer my questions. I forwarded my concerns to Captain Karter and back to base. Still no response.”
“We're still having a little difficulty with those comms, some ghost or other in the machine. These old ships got a few of them.” Laera touched her hand. “Take it easy. Have the day off.”
"The engine needs remapped and—"
"We're stuck on this transit for another two months. There's plenty of time for that." Laera stood up with her hand still clasped around Kaarinas. “Come with me.”
Back at Kaarina’s quarters, Laera led her to the bed without so much as a peep.
“Did you think about me?” Laera asked. She was looking intensely, in a way that made Kaarina want to say something, anything, to make her stop. She didn’t know what to say. Not really was the truth, but saying that now, that felt unnecessarily cruel. And the more Kaarina considered it the more she wondered why she had never stopped to think about their childhood. They were good friends after all, or at least the closest thing she’d had to a friend.
“Really, nothing? You’re going to say you didn’t have at least one good memory of us?” Laera crossed her arms staring at some invisible point on the ceiling. “I thought about you. Lots. Wondered what you were doing there—that tiny little blue moon amongst the stars.”
“You knew what I was doing, the work—all the system repairs. I had my hands full.”
“It’s not your fault, I guess.” Laera shook her head. “It was a grind, you know? Washing the fuel drums after cycles. Same thing every day. I’d wake on the third or fourth pulse of my modulator, crawl out of bed, slip on my work clothes and jump straight on the work shuttle. Then, get to work scrubbing the containers. The acrid smell of chemical cleaners catching my throat.” She snorted derision. “The real funny thing, I’d wake gasping for air and realise I’d dreamed the whole morning—the shuttle ride, arriving at the launch site, everything. Then I’d go through the whole routine again.”
“People talk of dreams, but I’ve never had one.”
“It’s vivid, let me tell you. Hell, there are still times when I look around and wonder if I’m still dreaming. You get what I’m saying?” Laera burst into a full laugh this time. “Forget it.”
“You should’ve asked for a transfer, got reassigned.”
“Reassigned? To what? Another soul-less job.” Laera combed a hand through her hair, letting it dance off her shoulder. “That’s when Karter found me, cleaning the fuel pods from his ship. He’d struck up a conversation with me and cared to listen to the things I had to say. As simple as that. So, he asked me and I joined his crew.”
“Why’d you do it, Laera? You and Karter. Those acts I saw you in.”
Laera looked straight at her. “Try it. Press your lips to mine. The simplest thing. Then ask yourself—what’s real?”
“Why?” Kaarina couldn’t understand it, the heat that pulsed through her, the feeling of anticipation in that moment. It was almost too intense. “I can’t.”
Laera cradled Kaarina’s chin and raised it to face her. Their lips met in the smallest of touches, which felt like planets colliding.*Kaarina’s eyes blinked open, her focus coming to the sterile operating room. Her body was flushed and sweat dripped down her side under the hospital gown.
“The machine detected a little fluctuation in your respiratory rate. Are you still good to continue?” Dayoa asked.
“Wait, no... sorry, yes, I’m good.” She shifted in the chair feeling a twinge of embarrassment. “There are moments when it's still just... too much.”
Disconnecting the modulator interface had been a slow, gradual process. It had to be done delicately. But every little reconnection ignited with a spark of energy, the world coming sharp and focused, an intensity that stopped her in her tracks, sometimes almost blinding, like a low glacial sun.
A dizziness descended back over Kaarina. Confusion, like being in different places at once—multiple conversations spinning around her head. Who was she talking to? For a moment she was sure that she was back on TOI-c in a blinding frost storm, trapped in an endless whiteout.
Still, the words came out of her. “She kissed me then, ever so slightly, her lips touching my eyelids and for the first time in my life, I knew what it was to reach out to something beyond myself.”*For a week aboard the Ardessie, Kaarina stayed in her bed while occasionally Laera and Karter stopped by to check on her. They brought fresh food packets and rehydrated broth made from real animal bones. She’d thrown a bunch of it back up. Some virus, she suspected, or a bacteria in the ship's oxygen filters she wasn’t accustomed to. It was both crippling and restless, leaving her tossing and turning for hours, her body and mind tender.
“There’s something I need to confess,” Laera said while kneeling beside her. “About the mission.”
“What are you saying? Mission?” It was a struggle, to think above the fever. Despite her condition, she wanted nothing more than Laera to lean in and kiss her again, if nothing, just to prove to herself she could.
“Yes, the course we’re on—you were right, our destination is a planet in the Phaethon system but not the transport docks. We’re headed for the far side. A rescue mission.”
“What’s there?” The scenario was suddenly falling into place. “You mean the rehabilitation camp?”
“Some people we made a promise to.”
“Are you crazy? I need to contact base. I—I can’t be a part of any of this.”
“Sorry, We can’t.”
There was something in Laera’s expression, beyond the betrayal, beyond the false sympathy. “What is this?” Kaarina felt like breaking into tears.
“The last time, in the medical room, we had the doctor disconnect your chip.”
“No, you what?”
“We’ve given you blockers since you came aboard to try to ease the transition.”
“I’m done with this. Let me off this ship.”
“Try to understand, Kaarina. No one is free with those things. You need to see that.”
Kaarina felt the tears come, fully dripping down her cheeks. Fire that welled up like an inferno, like standing on the surface of a sun. “Get the hell away from me!”
“Try to rest.” Laera tried to wipe a tear from Kaarina’s cheek. All she could do was roll to her other side. “You’re free to come and go as you like. The ship's systems are locked though. So don’t try anything, okay?”
The fire inside Kaarina had reached the ends of her nerves, burning with a pain she didn’t think was possible.
“I have something for you.” Laera pulled a book from her overalls pocket and placed it on the pillow beside Kaarina. “Remember this? A few days after you threw it away, I went back to the ravine. I swear, I almost died trying to scale down the ice to get that thing. But there it was, still intact. Please, if you start to feel better, read it again for me.”*The doctor opened a panel on the mechanical arm, swapping out a part. Kaarina thought it looked like he was replacing thulium gas in a resonator chamber or maybe a neural interface. How did I get here?
“Are you back with me?”
She pulled against the restraints—they barely budged. She stilled. Something in the doctor's face was familiar, she knew him, a memory of a wife and child, a memory of loss. “Sorry. Dayao—it is Dayao, right?”
“Yes, yes. It’s quite alright. You were telling me about the mission to Phaethon.”
She wondered for a moment why she was trusting this man. But the members of the organisation back at LIHTOR base had vouched for his integrity. And her life was already in his hands. “It was all fairly simple when everything was said and done.”
“Simple?”
“Yes.” Kaarina supposed it was important—that someone should remember their sacrifice. “We masked the Ardessie's identity as a routine prison transport. All the transfer authorisations had been hacked and altered. Just a matter of pick-up.”
“And you had decided to help?”
“After a few weeks aboard, I began to see things in a new light. It still hurt, but it felt right, you know, like I had so much stuff to discover—so much of myself to offer. Laera and Karter became my family.”
"I understand what you're feeling. Pain like that can shatter your defences. Falling in love can happen in a day, but forgetting can take forever."
“Forgetting?” Laera bit her lip. “I’m losing them all over again?”
“Hold on.” Dayoa said, getting distracted by another message on the display. “The machine is just purging another block of data.”
Kaarina gripped the armrest a little tighter. Her whole body was almost shivering, but dhe focused on her breath, and composed herself. It was there on the tip of her tongue, she wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.
"Good, good," Dayao muttered to himself, adjusting the console. "We're making good progress." He gave a little reassuring smile.
Kaarina stared into the monitors, her eyelids fluttering once, then twice, before falling shut.*Rain thundered like a waterfall against the nano-glass walls, morphing the drowning city lights. There on Taranis, the rain never stopped.
An aquafera as they called it—a world entirely covered in water. Well, almost. The first settlers had landed on what was essentially the top of an ancient volcano. From its modest foundations, the city of Taranis grew vertically into a towering metropolis, metal towers and residential blocks piled one on top of the other, with reinforced shuttle tubes twisting through them all. Unlike on Phaethon, the network of conduits was not to protect against the heavy UV rays but the corroding effects of the acid rain.
“Working on anything interesting?” Laera asked, pouring a tall glass of sugar beet water and placing it on the bar in front of Kaarina.
“Oh, no, I’m finished with the schematics. Picking out some panels for the back wall. This place should feel more homely. Not that it’s bad—for a bar anyway.”
“Who’d have thought, the first-class engineer, Kaarina, picking out decorations.”
“It’s toughened glass—it needs to be ordered in advance.” Kaarina looked up from the display. “For the price, we can’t complain.”
“The guy that runs the shop¬, he was on the prison transport, yeah?”
“Yeah. He’s doing us a favour. Just want the place to look nice for Svea. It’s not right to have a kid hang around a bar all the time.”
“She’s gonna be running this place before too long.” Laera winked as she smiled. “It feels safer now. There’s fewer patrol ships passing orbit. And there’s support out there for us, you know?”
“I think so.” Kaarina took a drink of her Pale Thunder—the bars signature drink. Taranis offered little in the way of food, but the sea kelp could be fermented into a strong liquor. The acidity was sharp and sour, enough to make even the toughest drinker wince.
“Missing Hartoch?” Kaarina asked Laera. “I hope he’s safe up there.”
“It’s set for today. Karter pinged me yesterday through the closed channel. He misses us. Or moreover, he wants some quiet time when he’s home.”
“Not much chance of that with the little hurricane around.”
“She’s a category five, alright,” Laera laughed. “We’ll go down to the VR centre for a while. That always seems to tire her out. Then we can have the evening to ourselves.”
“It’s been a while since we went to the mineral baths—”
Kaarina’s data feed pinged before she could finish what she was saying. A couple of people at the bar set their drinks aside and reached for their comms. Something urgent. The report began, and Kaarina felt the dread coil tight inside her. She reached for a drink of the glass slipped and smashed on the floor.Moments ago, a cargo ship plummeted into the central district of Phaethon City leaving a trail of destruction that has shaken the planet to its core. The incident suspected to be a deliberate act of terror has claimed the lives of at least fifty civilians with many more casualties predicted.
Authorities are calling it one of the most atrocious attacks in recent memory. The cargo ship, Ardessie, which was on a routine freight route, is said to have been hijacked. All that’s been confirmed is that internal systems were overridden, causing the cruiser to veer off its trajectory and enter Phaethon’s atmosphere at a deadly angle.
Witnesses describe the moments leading up to the crash as chaotic. “The sky tore open, and then there was this boom like the world was splitting apart,” said a resident who narrowly escaped the blast radius. “I looked up, and the ship was just ... falling. There was no time to think, only run.”
The impact site, a bustling commercial district, is now a charred wasteland. Emergency response teams are arriving to try and stop the spread of fire although it will be a daunting task sifting through the twisted metal and rubble.The ground felt as if it had given way. Kaarina watched Laera's face drain of colour, go pale as virgin snow.
“How? This wasn’t supposed to—” Laera looked frantically about the room for Svea. “Please. Come over here now.” She picked Svea up onto the bar and sat her on top, the little white dress scrunching around her.
“What’s wrong Mommy? I was only playing with the repair bot.”
“It’s not that.” Laera’s fingers traced the lines of Svea’s thinly braided hair before she pressed her forehead to the warm, tanned skin of her tiny brow. “Just sit here for a bit.”
Kaarina was still trying to make sense of it as more up-to-date information streamed into her comm. “It had to be some malfunction, right? It’s an accident.”
“People died. Innocent people. Someone’s going to be held responsible.” Panic was forming in Laera's voice. “That’s us.”
“You alright, Mommy?” Svea whispered, her voice almost angelic against the ominous atmosphere. “Don’t cry.”
Laera met Kaarina’s eyes straight on, a firm, resolute stare. “All this. It’s over.”*“I don’t want to leave you, Laera—I can’t go back to that emptiness again.”
We talked about this. Make sure Svea is happy. That’s all I want.
“I’ll come back for you—I swear it.”
You need to go. Whatever happens, know I will always love you.*Kaarina arrived at the station on Lithor holding Svea by her hand. It was a bleak place—the air tasted of recycled oxygen, a place that was functional, but not meant to be lived in. She knew this was no place for a child but she also knew it was the safest option they had.
So, Kaarina made their home in a small, windowless room. It was cramped, just a single bunk with a thin mattress and a small table bolted to the floor. The ceiling felt too low like all the metal above them might collapse under the weight of the spin gravity.
Svea was curled up beside her, head resting against her leg. Coolant leaked from a pipe, slow and steady, pooling on the floor like the thaw in an ice cave.
“Do you think Mommy and Daddy will find us?”
Kaarina’s chest tightened. She stroked Svea’s hair but didn’t answer. After the crashing of the Ardessie, the government's retribution was immediate. The raids on Taranis, dragging people out of their homes, without so much as a chance to plead their innocence, were brutal
It’s only a matter of time before they find Laera.

They’d spent a final night in bed together, in each other’s arms, not making love, not even talking, just looking out through the rain to the endless ocean until the first light of morning cut through the gloom. It was a morning that had brought no warmth.
“We’ll figure it out,” Kaarina said to Svea, her voice low. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she needed to say it.
Svea nodded, silent. The girl was good at that—watching the world, trying to make sense of it. Kaarina wondered how much of that was instinct, or how much she had learned from watching Laera.
“Try to sleep.”
Svea climbed onto the bunk, her small body curling into itself like she wanted to disappear.
While Svea slept, Kaarina stepped out into the corridor, letting the door close behind her with a hiss. A friend of Karter’s, a worker aboard one of the maintenance ships was waiting, his back against the wall, his face hollowed out by exhaustion. Somehow Kaarina knew before the man even spoke what he was going to say.
“One night, Laera walked from her shelter and never came back.”
Kaarina could picture it—the black skies over Taranis, the cold, empty air, the relentless downpour decaying everything it touched. Laera had walked into that, knowing she’d never return.*A tremor shook through Kaarina, a pain that rose in caustic waves from her shoulders, neck and through every inch of her skull. Her nails scratched into the metal and she braced herself against the restraints, searching for an escape, but to where, she wasn’t sure.
“You're doing great,” the doctor said. “Just keep taking deep, slow breaths. We're almost done, and everything is going exactly as planned. I’m right here with you.”
Through the burning pain, a soft voice spoke to her. If she could just repeat the words over and over it would stay with her. But like the spiderwebs of hoarfrost that formed on her dormitory window back on TOI-c, the words slowly disappeared with the encroaching light.
“Easy, the worst is over.”
Kaarina fought to compose herself, reeling against the operating chair as her eyes drifted open. The pain was still there in her head, now a dull ache. She recognised the man, the doctor, Dayao, but how the hell she’d got here or what the hell had happened to her was a mystery.
“We're going to take this one step at a time,” Dayao said calmly. Tapping a few things on the monitor, the screen shut down. “There was a little EMP storm on your transit over. The shielding on the shuttle’s been on the blink. Can I ask you just a few quick questions?”
“I passed out? Things are a little muddled.”
“To be expected.” Dayao smiled reassuringly. “You know why you are here?”
“A job—an interview. I applied for the position of mainframe engineer.”
“That’s correct. You arrived from Lithor. And before that?”
Kaarina thought hard. “I was born on TOI-c, then …” It seemed the memories were only now piecing themselves together. “A repair station on our moon and then ships engineer aboard a variety of different haulers and skiffs.”
“Yes, I see that here.” Dayao tapped the side of his temple, making it obvious he was scrolling through logs on his processor. “You went from ship to ship it seems, just keeping your head down and getting on with the repairs at hand. Good.” He nodded. “There was a little girl, three-years-old… Svea. One of your passengers in transit. You know her?”
“Svea? I don’t think so. I can’t recall a little girl.”
“That’s fine. No worries. Most likely she didn’t board at all.” Dayao scratched the top of his head. “And just let me check—you’ve never been to any of the delta-point planets? Taranis for example.”
“No, why are you asking?”
“Just throwing in a curveball, so to speak. Making sure all your faculties are in place for this upcoming interview.”
Apart from a slight apprehension, about the heat, the crowded shuttle tubes and how intense maintaining the servers would be, Kaarina, for the most part, was honoured to be considered for the engineering position at NovoCorp.
“Thanks, I honestly feel fine now.”*The corridors at the mainframe facility stretched on endlessly. A month Kaarina’d toiled there now, going through the motions, a cog in a wheel. Innumerable beeps and whirring servers that just about cancelled each other out.
The NovoCorp building, where she processed data, ate her meals, and slept what few hours her mind would allow, was designed in the shape of a great pyramid. Homage on the desert world of Phaeton to Earth’s ancient wonders—a reminder of the corporation’s power and reach. To Kaarina, it felt like she was walking through a monument to something long dead.
She’d been the best candidate, no doubt about it. A month into the job and she’d already proven herself. The preliminary checks, the neural scan, the battery of technical questions all a breeze. Things went without a glitch—for the most part.One morning she’d woke from a vivid dream. She’d been spinning, out of control, pulled in all directions. It took her a while to focus, to make sense of the metal walls and LED panels whipping around until she realised that she was on a ship, a commercial vessel, in the midst of some sort of accident. A massive hole had been torn in the side of the hull plating, jagged and shredded metal like it’d been crushed in a compactor. The air was venting rapidly and she was being dragged along. There wasn’t even time to reach for a handhold.
Further, she fell away from the ship, at a speed which didn’t seem possible, until it was a dot in the pitch black. She was aware of a strange absence of stars—like this wasn’t deep space but a darkened room with no windows or doors. Despite not having an EV suit, she didn’t feel the shortness of breath or the squeezing of her lungs which should be expected from falling into the vacuum, only a cold so deep it rivalled the bitterest ice-storm back on her home world. She could almost picture herself back there, her younger self, caught in a sudden blizzard searching frantically for shelter.
She tried to move but couldn’t, her hands turned white cold and tingling. Where do you look in an ocean of silent stars? Then, she was aware of someone holding her. Arms around her back, a body pressed strongly against her, and a gentle whisper on her neck. In the cold and the emptiness, the touch felt safe and secure, grounded, like a whole world behind her.
Then, a voice spoke, one she recognised but could not place. “The stars are ours alone to hold.”
She’d woke with a strange sense of isolation.The door to the mainframe room slid open with a soft hiss, into the vast chamber filled with towering racks of servers, their lights blinking. This routine she’d done a dozen times in the last few weeks, monitoring the system, running diagnostics, and ensuring everything was functioning as it should.
Today would be different.
Her neural implant buzzed, pulling her attention to the message that appeared in her vision—a message from an unknown source. Kaarina paused, her entire body tensing. Why is someone from an external line contacting me directly? She allowed the message.
“I’m sorry to be blunt but I don’t know how long this connection will last. You remember me, the doctor, Dayao?”
“Yes,” she replied, hesitantly.
“Good. Then you have to trust me. You’re here to carry out a mission. Please listen to me, Kaarina Vik. In your neural link is a programme, one we need to upload to the main server.”
“This server links all the modulators in nearby systems?”
“We’re counting on that. You are our only hope.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You must. I pray that you can. People deserve better. You feel it in your heart how wrong this is. Look around you, is that life?”
Kaarina didn’t know what to do. Was it some kind of test by her superiors? And if not, then should she report this breach immediately? Her voice was trapped.
“Listen to me,” Dayao continued, “All you have to do is connect to the main data-node and activate the program hidden in your neural-link. The virus will take care of the rest.”
“Listen to me. You have the wrong person. I just work here—a simple engineer.” Kaarina felt disorientated, she needed to grab hold of something, to steady herself.
“You're more than that. Somewhere deep down in your heart, I know you feel it. Do it for all the people we’ve lost. Svea is waiting for you, you know? She’s safe—
“Svea,” Kaarina repeated, the name was somehow familiar.
“Listen, we’ve figured out a way for you to get out of here. Follow my instructions, and you’ll be home soon. There are people waiting for you, people who care about you. You remember what that feels like, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Somewhere deep in her core, a voice was calling out to her. But the enormity of the request? It hit her like an ice tremor. The virus would cripple the modulators, sending the galaxy into chaos. Systems would fail—war, famine and social collapse would follow. “How can you even ask me to do this?”
Dayoa cleared his throat. “I have one more thing for you, from Laera. I know you don’t remember, but she was a person who cared for you a lot. She recorded a final message. I hope you know what this means—”Whispers in darkness,
Your lips on my eyelids—
I am, briefly, complete.Dawn breaks,
And with it, my mistakes.How tender, this love
That weeps for a sinner like me.Kaarina’s fingers hovered over the terminal connection, the command line in her neural-link waiting to be uploaded. She had the power to change everything in that moment, to unleash a cascade of events that would ripple across the stars, cripple them even. She breathed in deeply, sharp and clean, and then she made her choice.Try it. Press your lips to mine. The simplest thing. Then ask yourself—what’s real?