// LOG 4101.16.14
// USER: -Exobiologist Ve’ran Gazzwelle-
// WARNING: LOG CONTAINS CORRUPTED SECTORS; DATA LOSS: 41%
// LOG BEGINS
// [ExoBio Ve’ran Gazzwelle] <The moss we’ve seen here is not native to this region, and it doesn’t have a clear reproductive process. Normally, we could grow it in the lab from a spore or even a small fragment->
// [Unknown] <indistinct chatter>
I’ve been feeling instru
Mental
About the way I’m being held
Figurehead, like a grand tree, just
Waiting to be felled
When your time is up, timber,
The funeral march drones
Down into soil to grow the next
Regime upon your bones
You’ve got me feeling funda
Mental
With your book of holy text
Warping tales to fit around you
Like the noose around your necks
When you see the face of those outside
Your tidy little group
Do you see the people, lives and dreams,
Or only heathen soup?
Now I’m feeling senti
Mental
For the things I once held close
Shut up in some chest-of-drawers
Away from those that need them most
They tell me “give that up”;
You’re a child no more
But they hand me things no human wants
And try to sell me war
We treat them like they’re orna
Mental
Put the doll upon the dais
Worship at the feet of your idol
Before you burn and raze
If you’re planning out to conquer
All your neighbours and their fields
Reconsider who you pray to and
The power that it wields
This whole song’s experi
Mental
Digging into words and sounds
Playing up on emphasis and
Making sure the meaning pounds
Sometimes the lyrics flow like wine
But often Bacchus is a hog
And out come words that muck and mire
It’s really quite a slog
Listened to “Departure Songs” by We Lost The Sea while hashing this out. I sometimes write lyrics for songs that don’t exist yet.
Hope your Saturday is going well.
Even here, in the deepest void of space, there was comfort in moving through nothing.
The ship’s engines rumbled pleasantly; more than that, the feeling of the engines running, matter being converted to plasma to be ejected through narrow cones, the heat and pressure of it all – these were feelings no person could ever truly feel. The sensation of electricity coursing through the hull; automated drones, each one feeling as if a part of her body; the cold, pressure-less void trying to rupture the skin of her hull.
She felt more and more like a vessel, a Ship, than a physical being every day.
Par’terre. Comms.
“You ever been shot, meddy?”
The medic paused for a breath, surveying the wounds on the soldier’s shoulder and abdomen in an instant, flicking through mental textbooks to adapt to the worsening situation in front of them. “Can’t say I have, L.T.”
The lieutenant grimaced under the medic’s ministrations, their breathing shallow and constant. “It’s funny.”
“Funny.” The medic chuckled distractedly, “what’s funny about a hole dug into you?”
(Warning: This story contains mention of suicide. If this is something you don’t wish to read about, please return to the Archives.)
2193-08-03-10.46 logbegin
door.17 opened. door.17 closed. heat readings identified as human; fourteen(14) prosthetics detected…zero(0) essential cybernetics detected
door.18 opened. door.18 closed. door.18 locked.
logend.
—
The AI slid between pipes and wires, giant transformers latticed between cooling units and fans galore. The deeper it went, the more complex and maze-like it all felt, as though the very core of the planet were nothing more than a quantum collection of endless piping and machinery. It often wondered whether that might one day become the truth.
“Well, there’s a set of them, aren’t there?”
“Answer the question, roadie. Who are they?”
Horace was getting snippy; 15 hours of roundabout, merry-go-round, chase the fucking rabbit, and he’d barely got back to the starting point with this lackey.
“Which?” Came the tart reply.
Tory shot the roadie in the foot. In hindsight, Horace thought as he resisted the ringing in his ears, that should have happened earlier this morning.
“Sometimes, you just need to sit and bask, bake, under an uncaring sun.” He inhaled slowly, as if drawing in the very heat around himself. My ears were so poised for his next words I almost missed them in the background noise.
“Because, daughter mine, the world under your feet, the grass and insects and animals, all that wind and rain and ceaseless molten activity?” He exhaled his breath as if it were smoke from a tasteless cigar; a habit that he’d kicked but that followed him like a stray dog, “It barely notices your passing. Unless you Make it notice.”
The glittering iridescent hide of the beast shimmered in the pulsar’s light, dancing across the thick exoskeleton in waves; an interstellar tide.
The Caretaker was busy diving into the engine manifolds: great, burgeoning nuclear fires, spewing plasma and energetic gouts of flame from an internal nebula of compressing and expanding gases within the host beast. They found themselves awash with the colourful radiation of countless elements, and the sensation was not unpleasant as they inspected the inner workings, looking for cracks in the inner shell or discord among the rampant reactions that ricocheted throughout the light-years large space.
“Fifteen months of service, and where do they put me?” The frustrated voice crackled out of the radio.
Sighing, Ebriette paused in their work, hanging on to the metal latticework of the communication tower with one hand and increasing the volume on the receiver. “Let me guess, Milo. ‘Out in the middle of an ocean’.” Their reply was dripping with as much sarcasm as they could muster through the thin clinging film of the high-altitude-breathing-apparatus; or as the insufferable goon in charge of training had cheerfully explained, HAPA.
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