Meredith’s hand froze halfway to her mouth, the spoonful of macaroni and cheese she was eating for dinner coming dangerously close to falling in her lap. “Your compass is what?” she asked, as if she couldn’t quite believe what Taylor was telling her.

It’s completely useless. I got to the rim of a crater a little way back and decided to just walk its perimeter, but the compass needle didn’t stay pointing north. It just...it spun completely at random, or it didn’t spin at all. It had absolutely nothing to do with the direction I was facing. That is NOT normal compass behaviour – if I know anything at all, I know that much.

“Fuck.” Meredith put her spoon back in the bowl and pushed it all aside. “That really isn’t good.”

Yeah, no shit. I mean, you remember it was acting all weird back in the caravel wreckage, right? I just thought that was a localised event, that whatever’d brought the ship down was playing havoc with my compass’ polarity somehow. And I thought that once I got far enough away, it’d start working again.

“But it’s not.”

Nope. And I don’t have a replacement. This is a disaster.

“So what are you going to do now?”

I could keep heading toward the peak – navigating by sight alone, obviously – but this is more than a bit worrying when I take into consideration the return trip. And the winds have been really calm for the last hour or so – my bootprints haven’t blown away or been filled in yet, so I can still see them. If I wanted to follow them back the way I just came, this would be the time to make that decision.

Meredith didn’t even hesitate. Knowing what she did about where Taylor was stranded – which, admittedly, wasn’t that much – there was absolutely no question. “Turn back while you can,” she said. “It’s too dangerous to go any further right now.”

Yeah, I think that’s the best idea. I mean, given Tau Ceti’s position in the sky, I’ve got less day ahead of me than I do behind. So long as I can still see my bootprints in the sand, I’ll be okay. If and when those disappear, I’ll have to navigate by landmarks – namely, the caravel wreckage and that massive crater.

“Do you think you can make it back to the Varia before dark?”

If my luck holds out, yeah. Once I get there I might see if I can build a compass out of some spare parts. I think I still remember how to do that.

“I’ll cross my fingers.” As if to emphasise what she’d said, even though out of the two of them she was the only one who could see the gesture, she crossed her right index and middle fingers and held her hand up.

Thanks, appreciate it. Anyway, I’m headed back to the caravel. I’ll check in when I get there.

“Please be safe,” she said softly almost at the instant that Taylor’s away message popped up onscreen, and swiped at her eyes. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was start crying in her residence hall’s communal dining room.

No longer hungry, and far too worried to eat anyway, she picked her bowl up and got to her feet. The remainder of the macaroni and cheese went in the rubbish, and she gave the bowl and spoon a quick rinse under the kitchen tap before putting them both in the dishwasher.

It felt like forever before she heard from Taylor again. She’d done her best to be productive while she was waiting for him to check in – doing readings for class and research for her last few assignments of the semester, watching YouTube videos recommended by her class professors, even starting on a draft of the essay that Dr. Adams had set the afternoon before – but her focus kept drifting across the room to where her phone was charging. The second her phone chimed, she was up off her bed and across the room so fast that she nearly tripped on the rug on the floor. “Please be okay, please be okay,” she chanted quietly as she unlocked her phone and got Lifeline open.

I’m back in sight of the caravel wreckage, were the first words she read, and she very nearly collapsed out of sheer relief. He was okay. I never thought I’d be so grateful to see this haunted house of a starship again.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Meredith said as she went back to her bed, taking her phone with her. “How do things look?”

Well, the generator is right where I left it. Which, of course, is exactly where it SHOULD be. Because, I mean, who was gonna take it? I’m all alone here, right? Right.

“Right. How are you feeling?”

Like death warmed up, to be totally honest. The rations I picked up back at the Varia will keep me going, sort of, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t meant to sustain someone going through this sort of thing. I need real food, and I need it soon.

“And for that you need to get rescued.”

Yep. From here, if I remember right, it’s more than a four hour walk back to the Varia. At least, that’s how long it took me to get from there to here earlier on. And that was WITH a working compass. Even worse, my headlamp’s totally dead. I can’t even get a flicker out of it anymore. I’ve still got a bunch of glow rods, though, so I wouldn’t be completely blind if I did decide to keep going.

“So what’s your plan?”

I have two options at this point. First option – I can keep going toward the Varia, and hope like hell I get there before I run out of light. Second option – I make camp here at the caravel, despite how terrifying that prospect is, and start working out how the fuck I’m going to stay warm tonight.

Once again, Meredith didn’t even hesitate. “Make camp where you are. It’s really the best option you have right now.”

Yeah, I think I have to agree with you. How fucked up is that, though – my best chance of surviving until morning is something straight out of my nightmares.

Meredith let out a quiet laugh. “That is pretty fucked up, yeah.”

I thought you might agree with me. So. There’s absolutely no way I can sleep out under the stars tonight – the temperature drop is just going to be too severe. I’ll freeze to death. And just like back at the Varia, I have no way of closing any of the doors or the airlock here – there’s no power because again, no engine. But I think I have a way around that.

“Oh?”

Unlike the Varia, aside from the engine being missing the caravel is wholly intact. There’s only one opening to the outside.

“The airlock,” Meredith realised.

Exactly. And that airlock’s iris is open just barely enough for me to squeeze through – though I can tell you that I didn’t do my banged-up shoulder any favours doing that the last couple of times. Once I’m back inside, I think I can use some of the junk on the floor to seal over the iris from the inside.

“That’s a really good idea. How are you going to keep warm, though?”

I’m going to raid the med bay and the bunks. I saw a few of those aluminium emergency blanket things when I was in the med bay earlier, and I’m sure I can dig up some bedding from somewhere. I’ve still got my sleeping bag from back at the Varia, and I can wear my helmet with the faceplate down. All of that should keep me warm enough.

“Good luck hunting.”

Thanks. He paused for a moment. Cracked a glow rod – got nine left. Here Meredith could almost see him grinning. Time for a good old scavenger hunt.

“I still hate this place. Thought it was worth mentioning.”

The interior of the caravel was just as terrifying as it had been earlier that day. Potentially more so, now that Taylor was fairly sure he knew what was lurking in the dark. A whole lot of scuttling somethings that glowed a sinister green. He shuddered at the thought of encountering those creatures again.

“So I can go back down one of the hallways to the east or the west, or I can try the flight deck. The flight deck feels like a complete waste of time, though, because I can tell from here that the control panels are smashed to bits.”

Try one of the hallways then.

“All right. Everyone loves a good highway excursion.” He aimed his newest glow rod at the rear of the ship and swung it around in a slow arc from left to right. “And seeing as I already explored the west hall, I’m going to head east. I’ll go have another poke around in the med bay after I get done there.”

With those words he began to very carefully pick his way across the floor, mindful with every step where he put his feet. Tripping over wasn’t something he wanted to do twice in the one day. “The side doors down the east hall are all sealed, like they are in the west hall, but the door at the end is open a bit,” he said as he made his way down the east hall. The floor in this part of the wreck wasn’t too deeply buried, so he was able to move a little faster. “And unfortunately,” he added once he’d reached the door at the end of the hall, and had spent a couple of minutes trying to force it open, “it’s not open far enough for me to get through. But I can see into the room – it’s the galley.”

He took his helmet off and leaned as close to the gap between the door and the corridor wall as he could, and stuck the glow rod he was using to light his way into the galley. “It’s a lot smaller than the galley on the Varia, and it is a mess. Looks a bit like a snowglobe in there. Whole bunch of MREs strewn all over the floor and the counters.”

He drew back and straightened up. “I’ve got enough rations in my backpack to last me for a good little while,” he continued. “But it’s honestly a relief knowing that the galley here is pretty well stocked. Because if I get hungry enough, I will find some way of getting through this stuck door. I can promise you that much.”

You’re absolutely sure you can’t get in there?

“Yeah. I even tried working the door using a piece of scrap as a lever, like I did back at the Varia before I pulled my shoulder out of joint. Hasn’t moved so much as an inch. I mean, I can try it again once I’ve had some sleep, but for now I’m going to leave it.”

After a quick detour into the med bay for the emergency blankets he’d spotted earlier, he returned to the caravel’s main hall. “I almost forgot how much a mess the main hall is,” he said. “There’s enough junk in here that I could probably build myself a little robot friend out of spare parts to keep me company until I get picked up. Well, I could if I knew much about building robots,” he amended. “I’m a science student, not a roboticist or an engineer.”

Anywhere else to explore?

“No, not really. I can’t get into any of the closed doors, so there’s just the flight deck left. Or what’s left of it, anyway.” As he spoke, he was very carefully picking his way across the floor to the flight deck. “Like I said earlier, the instrument panels are absolutely trashed. Not that this thing was ever going to take off again, what with the whole ‘missing its engine’ issue, but it looks like it’s all wrecked. Guidance, communications, waldo controls, everything – totally fucked.”

That was when he saw the one part of the flight deck that hadn’t ended up trashed. “Huh. I guess I spoke too soon.”

What did you find?

He didn’t reply until he got closer to the flight deck’s computers. “It looks like a proximity alarm. Panel looks intact, but fuck knows whether or not the rest of the hardware is functional.” He studied it for a little while. “I’m not entirely sure I’m convinced that I need an alarm system, to be honest. Pretty sure I’m all alone out here – weird, scuttling, ‘must have been my mind playing tricks on me’ noises notwithstanding. Plus it means I have to figure out how to hook it up to the generator, never mind that it all depends on if it even works, which as far as I’m concerned is a pretty big if. Still, I might leave this one up to you. What d’you think?”

It can’t hurt to hook it up. Even if only to give yourself peace of mind that there’s really nothing out there.

He blew out a breath that was only marginally less than frustrated. “I can’t help but feel like this is a gigantic waste of time, light and effort. All of which are in really short supply around here. But all right. I’ll give it a go.” The glow rod he’d cracked to light his way in his earlier search for blankets had dimmed to the point where it was just about useless, so he reached into his backpack for another one. “All right, another glow rod cracked,” he said as he snapped it in half and started shaking it. “Only eight left.” He crouched in front of the panel for the proximity alarm and peered at it, holding the glow rod close so he could see it clearly. “Fortunately, the wires for this thing are mostly exposed. Maybe it won’t be that hard to get it patched in to the generator. Gimme a few minutes to mess with it.”

With those words he propped the glow rod against the bank of computers, picked up the generator, and set to work. He worked as quickly as he could, resisting the temptation to take his gloves off – the gloves’ silicone palms and fingers protected his fingertips from sharp points and edges, along with shielding his hands from electrical shocks (something he really didn’t need right at that moment), but at the cost of much-needed dexterity. He bit down on his bottom lip as he carefully connected the wires from the proximity alarm to the generator, pausing whenever a spark jumped out at him, until finally he was rewarded with a bright green light on the alarm and a working monitor. The smile he managed was tired but relieved, maybe even just a tiny bit elated.

“In what I’m calling nothing short of a miracle, I’ve not only got the alarm hooked up but I also got the monitor working. Whatever detection grid this thing projects, it actually appears to be putting out most of it.”

‘Most of it’?

“Yeah, the section of the grid for the rear of the ship says ‘No Readings’. Which is probably because there is no rear of the ship anymore. You know, because the engine’s missing.”

He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his right hand and bit back a yawn. “All right then. I guess nobody’s going to steal my hubcaps while I get some sleep. This ship must’ve been designed for a really small crew. There’s literally a single mission-specialist chair up here. It’s half-uprooted, but whatever – it looks like my most comfortable option as far as sleeping arrangements go. I think it’s about time I called it a night. I’m gonna go seal over the airlock’s iris, then I’m hitting the hay.”

Okay. Sleep well, and stay warm.

Taylor managed another small, tired smile. “Thanks, Meredith. You too.”

It didn’t take him long to seal over the airlock’s iris to keep the worst of the cold out. That done, he returned to the flight deck and took his sleeping bag out of his backpack, unrolled and unzipped it, and draped it over the chair that was set to be his bed for the night. It definitely beat sleeping on the ground again. He lined the sleeping bag with all of the emergency blankets he’d found in the med bay and zipped himself into it, making sure that he wrapped himself in the blankets as tightly as he could, and did his best to get comfortable.

The very last thing he did before attempting to get some sleep was put his helmet back on, slide its faceplate down and lock it into place. A quiet chime sounded in his ear, half a second before the subroutine that controlled his IEVA suit’s oxygen tank kicked into gear. Satisfied that he likely wasn’t going to freeze or suffocate while he slept, he closed his eyes and let himself drift off.

He’d only been asleep for a few hours, dozing on and off, when he heard it.

“Huh?” His eyes shot open, and he blinked a few times in an attempt to focus. “Meredith? You say somethin’?”

There was no answer from his communicator, not even the friendly-sounding beep that told him Meredith had replied to his newest message. He figured she was probably asleep. Even so, he went on talking – he had the feeling she would want to know about this. “I swear I just…no, I definitely heard that weird scuttling sound again. The one I heard when I was in here earlier on. It’s coming from right behind me this time.”

He shifted around in the chair to try and get a better look at whatever it was that had produced the noise. And that was when he saw it. Out in the main corridor of the ship, low to the ground, was a bunch of glowing green lights. The lights were moving over the debris that covered the floor, making a rustling, scuttling sound.

“I, um…I just turned around in the chair, and…I saw it again, Meredith. Those fucking green lights are back.” A ripple of fear went down his back, and he shivered. “That’s just…no. No. I-I’m hallucinating. That’s the only explanation for any of this bullshit. Just my exhausted, terrified mind playing tricks on me. You ever see that really old Ren & Stimpy cartoon, the ‘Space Madness’ bit? Like that.”

He shook his head. “I’m gonna go try and go back to sleep. Pretend that this chair is even remotely comfortable, which it isn’t, and that I’m going to fall right back asleep, which is really fucking unlikely.”

He bit back a yawn. “And…and that when I wake up in the morning, there’ll be a rescue ship waiting for me with a whole buffet breakfast on board. Which seems pretty fucking probable if you ask me.” With these words he shifted back around again and burrowed deeper into his sleeping bag. “G’night again.”

The second time he woke up that night, not even an hour and a half after he’d managed to drift back off to sleep, it was to one of the loudest alarms he had ever heard.

His eyes snapped open again as the high-pitched screeching of the proximity alarm went off, the noise drilling deep into his skull. It was so loud that he could hear it through his helmet, and he swore he could feel his heart stop for a moment or two. “Shit! That fucking alarm’s going off!” He squeezed his eyes shut and resisted the urge to take his helmet off so that he could block his ears. “So this is what it feels like to go into cardiac arrest in deep space!”

Almost as soon as the alarm had started screeching, it fell silent again. He worked his arms out of the sleeping bag, hissing as they were exposed to the frigid air he could feel even through his IEVA suit, and shuffled forward so he could examine the alarm’s monitor screen. “There’s…there’s nothing on the monitor screen. For fuck’s sake…you woke me up for nothing, you bastard of a thing,” he grumbled. He tapped the screen a couple of times. “I mean, obviously there’s nothing there. What’s gonna be there? I’m the only living and conscious thing for who knows how many light years around here.”

He glared at the proximity alarm. “Fuck this noise. I’m unplugging this stupid alarm. I’m regretting hooking it up in the first place.” He shifted off the mission-specialist’s chair and switched the generator off, just barely holding himself back from completely disconnecting it from the alarm. That could wait until morning. “I am gonna go right ahead and say that tonight is definitely not angling for a chance at a place in my ‘Best Sleep Ever’ hall of fame. Not by a long shot.”

Quietly hopeful that he wouldn’t be woken again that night, he went back to the chair and settled himself back into it. “Back to bed, such as it is. And if I’m woken up again before morning, I won’t be happy.”