A Spaceship Crew Faces Doom in This Surprisingly Tender Sci-Fi Story

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Final Meal Aboard the Awassa

by Kel Coleman

Gardener ladled dark-purple porridge into her main digestion sac, staring absently out the viewport at black house and the distant smudge of the planet they’d come to check. The straightforward meal and the gesture it represented soothed her after an extended, thorny morning in a bit of the expansion bay that was in full flower and had wanted hand pollinating. Although the opposite crew members across the mess made do with the same old break time assortment, Prepare dinner had steamed and spiced osard grains only for her earlier than going off shift to nap of their rooms.

When the 2 of them joined the crew as a pair, roughly 4 solars in the past, Gardener had frightened the particular therapy proven to her from the kitchen would result in resentment. She had heard it may get lonely on an extended haul in case you made a foul impression, particularly on a tiny ship the place everybody knew one another’s households, had vid night time sleepovers within the observatory, and will depend not less than a handful of birthdays and Infinite Nights aboard. However in contrast to Gardener, this hadn’t been Prepare dinner’s first lengthy haul and he or she’d quickly researched the crew’s residence planets and ports, monitoring down household recipes, fashionable road meals, and competition treats. The crew of the small science vessel had been instantly smitten together with her, and Gardener discovered herself warming to them consequently.

She completed her porridge, scraping the bowl clear, however lingered on the desk to—

The audio system mounted across the mess blared three pressing tones.

The opposite crew members scattered at tables and behind the serving counter dropped what they had been doing and moved to readiness. For Gardener, like many bipeds, this meant standing together with her limbs at her sides. She turned towards the closest display, which had already switched from Union information to video from the bridge.

The captain’s wings had been tucked near their thorax, their 5 eyes reddened and quickly blinking. In all 4 solars of her time aboard, Gardener had by no means earlier than seen them fearful.

“Crew of the Awassa, that is your captain talking.”

Gardener’s delicate listening to picked up all of the ear dots across the room overlaying the phrases with translations. Her personal ear dots not solely translated the captain’s phrases however amplified issues like pitch modifications so she can be much less apt to mistake one tone for an additional. They had been frightened, however with a tinge of anger maybe?

“As a few of it’s possible you’ll already know, we misplaced contact with the workforce despatched to Gulsan-6 two hours in the past. This occurred shortly after they despatched a probe into the gasoline big. Following evaluation of footage, scans, and probe information, we will conclude with excessive certainty that Gulsan-6 is, moderately than a planet, an unknown species. It’s able to surviving and navigating the vacuum of house. And since exiting dormancy, its dimension has develop into incalculable as its form is ever-changing. It’s able to decreasing matter to its smallest items, and I remorse to tell you your crewmates Engineer Ulli and Physicist Andel, together with their shuttle, had been consumed by the alien. With equal remorse, I need to inform you the alien is now on a course to intercept and eat the Awassa as properly.”

As her hearts’ paces fell out of concord, Gardener discovered she may now not type out the feelings behind the phrases. On the faces round her, although, she learn the captain’s pragmatic hopelessness concerning the scenario. As they continued talking, a time-to-intercept countdown appeared within the backside of the display. They ordered three senior crew members to the bridge and instructed everybody else to name their family members. So . . . there was nothing helpful for her to do besides discover Prepare dinner.

• • •

Prepare dinner was within the hydroponics row, pinching leaves off of herbs and dropping them right into a handwoven basket. Her darkish, easy pores and skin was riddled with planet-orange hives and her voluminous whiskers had been drooping.

“Prepare dinner?”

She didn’t cease pacing or lookup.

“Nailo? Did you see the captain’s—”

“After all,” Prepare dinner stated. She gestured on the herbs and fruits tumbling round within the basket like that was clarification sufficient.

And for Gardener, it was. The 2 of them wanted few phrases.

Prepare dinner would do what she beloved till the tip. She was already gliding across the nook to the subsequent row, and if she had been the identical species as Gardener, she would possibly’ve heard her utter a time period of endearment, one which didn’t translate properly to many different fleet languages.

An endearment near that means beloved, one her caretaker had known as her usually. An endearment that had journeyed together with her when she left her lush world for Outpost 9. An endearment that stored her and her seedlings heat regardless of the depressing chilly outdoors the outpost greenhouses. An endearment that had come together with her on a trip the place she bought crater-sloshed with a slick-skinned touring chef within the backroom of a Meat Meet Meat. An endearment that had accompanied the each of them to the Awassa, the place they had been swept up in all of the drama and mutual care of a big household that Prepare dinner had missed and Gardener found she may tolerate when she wasn’t flat-out loving it—the shift-change gossip, the hugs, the too-loud music shoving by way of skinny partitions, her first spacewalk accompanied by Engineer Ulli . . .

Her hearts skipped.

She pulled herself out of her ruminative state and joined Prepare dinner in one other part of the bay, the place she was snipping blue flowers from climbing dewdrops. Gardener gently took the shears from her. “My job,” she stated. “Simply inform me what you want.”

• • •

After they had been completed with harvesting, Prepare dinner agreed to present prep over to uninitiated however enthusiastic crewmates so she may name her household. Gardener lay in mattress, blankets holding down her jumpy limbs, and tried to dam out Prepare dinner’s murmurs two rooms away. She set the updates from the bridge to a quantity excessive sufficient that it induced her some ache.

The bridge crew had discovered quite a bit about “the vapor” and the way it consumed the workforce and the shuttle. They had been in a position to accumulate this information when the vapor altered its course to eat the second probe they despatched to investigate it. They nonetheless couldn’t cease it or outrun it, however they estimated that they might purchase a number of further hours with the remaining probes as decoys.

When she bought off the decision, Prepare dinner was weirdly happy with the information. “Extra time to cook dinner,” she defined. A couple of minutes later, with bottles of one thing clear she’d been “saving for a special day” cradled in her arms and a nuzzle towards Gardener’s cheek, she was off to make a feast for his or her crew, their beloveds.

• • •

Gardener didn’t usually document movies unrelated to her duties. She smoothed down the fur round her eyes and cleared her throat.

“That is Gardener Ketri,” she started. “A hostile member of an unknown species is bearing down on my ship, the Awassa, and I don’t have anybody to say goodbye to who isn’t in the identical boat . . . besides you, I suppose, whoever sees this.”

The dread dripped steadily by way of her bloodstream now, however she imagined the individuals who would watch this, particularly the youthful ones, and he or she didn’t need them to really feel afraid for her.

“As a substitute of goodbye, although, do you thoughts if I let you know what it’s wish to be a gardener on a long-haul science vessel?” She discovered a smile, exhibiting silver-specked herbivore’s enamel. “It’s unimaginable. I really like my job. On daily basis, I coax issues to life. I assist them develop. I spend my shifts with dust beneath my ft and lightweight on my pores and skin. Typically my associate, Prepare dinner Nailo, brings me a germination problem, often a particular request from a crewmate lacking residence cooking, and typically I get the water and lightweight and vitamins excellent on the primary strive. Not usually, however these are good days.”

She may already hear music thumping from the observatory. Scientists that they had been, everybody wished to look at the vapor’s method. It was an undeniably cool technique to die: eaten by an area monster. There can be papers written about it for many years, and so they solely regretted they wouldn’t be those to jot down them.

“If you happen to’re contemplating becoming a member of the fleet, go for it. Don’t let our dangerous luck cease you.”

• • •

By unstated settlement, all of them adopted the costume code for vid nights, which had no necessities however private consolation. A number of crewmates had moved empty crates from the storage bay to make an extended desk for a “family-style” meal. Gardener wasn’t conversant in family-style, nevertheless it appeared to imply an unimaginable quantity of meals being handed round chaotically till everybody proved, beneath risk of extra heaping spoonfuls, that they had been bodily incapable of consuming one other chew.

The meal was a showstopper, after all.

Dewdrop blossoms full of fungus, tied closed with the plant’s delicate vines, and fried to midnight blue. Thick, smoked leaves used as wraps and plates to reinforce taste. A fruit platter with all the pieces from additional bitter, underripe kio to candy, waterlogged berrymelon to bitter, gritty seeds Gardener hadn’t even recognized had been edible earlier than right now. Roasted frog and tomatillos inside corn patties, served with yellow rice. Uncooked tentacles, sliced skinny, alongside a dry dip that was such an indignant pink she knew it could ship her to the med bay if she touched it. A vivid, purple gradient of osard, from the sunshine raw grains nonetheless on the stem—good for digestion—to the steamed variety good for lunch to an almost black pile of pebbly bread rolls. Smoking papers full of calming herbs and tightly hand rolled. And people bottles of suspiciously clear liquid. And extra. And extra. One thing, a present, for every member of the crew.

What adopted was an evening of dancing, imbibing, embracing, some prayer, extra consuming, the revelation of juicy ship secrets and techniques, and 4 rounds of “Lunar Penny” by everybody with the components to sing or stomp or howl.

Midway by way of the night time, they watched the final probe disappear into the vapor. Gardener was at Prepare dinner’s aspect, resting a furred cheek on her easy shoulder, their arms clasped tightly sufficient to chop off circulation.

Somebody cheered awkwardly, intoxicated. A number of extra cheers went across the group like nervous laughter. Then it was silent . . .

Gardener shocked herself by shakily beginning one other spherical of “Lunar Penny.” The crew joined her heartily, turning away from the tip and again to their get together.

In regards to the Writer

Kel Coleman is an Ignyte-nominated writer whose fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in FIYAH, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Solarpunk Journal, The Finest American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 and 2024, and others. Kel is a Marylander at coronary heart, however they at the moment stay in Pennsylvania with their household, a stuffed dragon named Pen, and a group of unusual and frivolous collections. They are often discovered on-line at kelcoleman.com.

Please go to Lightspeed Magazine to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the September 2025 subject, which additionally options quick fiction by Jake Stein, Cadwell Turnbull, Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko, Bogi Takács, C.Z. Tacks, Isabel J. Kim, Stephen S. Energy, and extra. You possibly can anticipate this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should purchase the entire subject proper now in handy e-book format for simply $4.99, or subscribe to the e-book version here.

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