Captain Nova Day was trapped.

It had been a standard transport mission to the shimmering outposts of the Alpha Centauri Binary Star System. He knew not what he was transporting, only that it was very important cargo for the outposts there. He was actually very excited to see what he was carrying when he arrived, but as fate would have it, he did not.

Space is known very well for the debris that is endlessly floating through it. Captain Day soon became acquainted with this disastrous space garbage. Initially, he was able to stabilize the systems of his long, narrow transport ship. The rocky fragments had only breached a small portion of the cargo bay hull, no bigger than a dinner plate. Day had been trained to work such inconveniences, and for a while, he felt confident in his performance.

But he did not do as well as he thought.

Traveling at Sub-luminal speeds is a dangerous enough activity. There is no maneuverability, no changing course. But also, the strain on the body of the ship is also tested, as the accelerating force of the ship moving forward creates an artificial gravity. This gravity was Captain Day’s doom.

Before he could even suspect that something had gone awry, he lost three-quarters of his ship. If he had been any less vigilant, he might have died where he was sitting, but Captain Day is an observant man. He watched the bottom of his ship separate while simultaneously preparing his escape capsule. Just when the cockpit was breached, he launched himself in the opposite direction of Alpha Centauri.

The trip from Earth to Alpha Centauri Outpost B took five years to complete, a feat only matched by the dangers it entailed. For Captain Nova Day, the return trip would take more than twenty-seven years. At his speeds, he would return almost a hundred years after he left.

***

Captain’s Log: 167.2068
This is Captain Nova Day. It is day One-Hundred and Sixty-Seven aboard escape pod one. I have just awoken from my third long sleep. The computer has assured me that our progress is steady, and was even able to shorten the estimated travel time by a year through the sacrifice of a single gallon of oxygen and hydrogen into the engine chambers. I am currently traveling at .5c, a positive change over the .489c I was traveling before.

I have started reading the manual for the escape pod again. I was unable to finish it before I went down for my last long sleep, and over time, the information has become fuzzy. The computer assures me that my body is in working order, but I have felt much more weary than the last time I awoke.

My nutrition pills are well stocked, and if the computer’s calculations are correct, should last well beyond my arrival back on Earth. The water is also well in stock and should last me just until I arrive back as well, though long sleeps will definitely help out in that regard.

I have reopened my beacon and am pinging in all directions again. I should have arrived at the outpost long ago, so there should be some mission to find me being put together. The cargo of my ship was deemed valuable by the SDSC, and if it were to go missing, they would definitely send a search party to find me and question me.

I have still received no word back from anybody in the systems, but I hold out hope. To stave off insanity, the computer has been conversing with me and using its manipulators to hold my hand when I need it, of which I am unendingly grateful.

I will stay awake for another week to study my course and trajectory. I wish to know exactly where I am going so that I can be prepared for anything that may come. After my duties are finished, I will go down for another long sleep, this one to last much longer than the others, upwards of two years. I will also be recording my data so that even if I am not to survive, the long term effects of prolonged stasis will be recorded and analyzed for the SDSC when the capsule returns.

This is Captain Nova Day of the Swiftling. Over and out.

***

Nova Day slept for many months during his twenty-seven year long journey. Most of it was without dreams. He would lie down to sleep and would wake up with no time having passed to him, almost like taking a long blink, the only difference being that usually years had passed between his eyes closing and then reopening.

But the more time that he spent asleep, the more he began to change. For the first six years of his journey, he would simply fall asleep, lay dead for months on end, and then be awoken by the computer. But after his seventh year, he started to dream.

His dreams were often fleeting and intangible, composed of faded images and vast swathes of color. Sometimes he would hear things in these dreams, but more often than not, it was completely silent, his only company the confusing and often slightly-scary images.

During his eighth year, the dreams took a sudden shift.

During a long sleep that lasted exactly nine months, he was trapped in a nightmare of which he had never experienced. He was a small creature, unknown to his memory of rodents, and was locked inside of a small cage. Outside of the cage, there were monstrous, black creatures. Light seemed to pass through them, leaving them dark smudges upon the surface of reality. They were completely featureless save for looking almost human, though their arms and legs stretched far farther than real people. The drifted around slowly, observing other rodents in cages. Sometimes, they would pet the rodents and give them small pieces of food.

But the true terror came when the dark creatures started to laugh.

It was a single, haunting melody that echoed above them all. It was filled with pain and lust, joy and sorrow. When these creatures started to laugh, they became ravenously hungry. Like starving men at a feast, the creatures would reach into the caves and devour the rodents in a gory display of blood and guts. The laughter was accompanied by the sound of crunching bones and soft squeals of terror.

The creatures would crowd around Day’s cage, looking down on him like he was the final course in the meal. But the laughter would stop, then, and they would silently look and converse with one another before going back to petting the rodents.

One of the creatures would pet Day, and he would feel the slimy, cold cruelty of their skin. Then he would wake up from his dream. Panting and terrified for reasons he could not remember.

***

Captains Log: 3066.2078
This is Captain Nova Day. I have awoken from my twentieth long sleep, and this one was much different than the others. For years, I have been dreaming while in stasis, something I was told would not happen. I have recorded my testimonies about the indistinguishable images of these dreams and the complete lack of auditory components of them. The dreams I experienced over this last sleep were much different, and much more disturbing.

I was trapped, in what way I am quickly forgetting, but I know that I was trapped. I was also not human any longer, but a rodent of some sort. Outside of my entrapped space, which I can only assume was a cage, there were these creatures, dark beings that held no solid form. My masters, I mean, these creatures, were incredibly cruel. For many days, they would only pet us and observe us in our small spaces. But eventually they began to eat us. By us, I mean the other rodents trapped in their cages.

In this dream, I would always be spared when the masters, I mean creatures, came to feast. They would always stare at me, silently converse among themselves, and then pet me before departing. I lived in a constant state of fear, as I could feel nothing else.

The dreams are becoming fuzzier the more I speak about them. I am sure that by tomorrow night, I will have forgotten all the details minus what I have just recorded here today. I have consulted the computer, which I have grown to call Sally, in hopes to finding an answer for why these dreams are occurring.

As for everything else about my vessel, everything seems to be in order. Sally has been maintaining the systems perfectly. Again, she has used extra oxygen and hydrogen that I will not be using to help boost the pod along, reducing the journey again by another year.
This time, I will be staying awake for a month before going down for another sleep, though the next sleep will be much shorter than the others before it. This dream situation is intriguing, and if I am to be stuck here for another seventeen years, I may as well conduct some research while I am at it.

This is Captain Nova Day of the Swiftling. Over and out.

***

Captain Day, normally so composed and dutiful, started to unravel. He noticed a dramatic shift in his behavior after his most recent sleep. Though the natural dreams he experienced during his waking periods were normal and as ludicrous as they had always been, his days were perverted by the disturbing images of his stasis dreams.
The first behavior that set off alarms in his head came when he was describing the creatures from his dreams to Sally’s sketch up program. The details were hard to remember, and Sally, as advanced as she seemed, was still only a computer.
During a particularly difficult sketch session, Day decided that they had had enough. In a moment of frustration, he asked Sally, “Why can’t you just get what I am trying to say?”
Sally, being calculating, warm, and a computer, only responded with, “I do not have the proper information to fulfill your request.”

Day’s outburst did not slip by his personal reflections. He had become angry at the machine for not understanding him, a logical folly that did not speak well for his state of mind. Even worse came the moment where he was thinking about the outburst and apologized to Sally. Sally, of course, did not understand what he meant by that, saying nothing in return.

The next week, Day went about his normal business. He started each awake period by exercising for three hours to maintain his muscle strength. Then he would do some basic math, some math that was more advanced, and then the most complex calculus that he knew, which usually took up another three hours. Next, he read for two hours about the Alpha Centauri space missions, refreshing himself with the past deeds of the SDSC, or the Space Discovery Systems Coalition. Next, he conversed with the computer for an hour while receiving his daily physical stimulation. Finally, he had five hours of leisure with which he could do as he wished. He could read, write, draw, play games with Sally, or just contemplate any ideas that came to his mind. Finally, he ended his night by taking a shower in the water reclaiming system and taking his nutrition pills and medicine before going to sleep.

It was a simple life with simple rules. He must train his mind as arduously as possible to stave off the debilitating effects of the stasis chamber. He cannot go outside the pod for the threat of instant death. He must converse with Sally to maintain any semblance of his identity and sanity. Day was no stranger to the concepts of deep space isolation, but that fact did not diminish the loneliness that was starting to well up inside of him.
Combined with the aftershocks of the disturbing stasis dreams, he was not a very happy man.

***

Captain’s Log: 4015.2081
This is Captain Nova Day. It is day four-thousand and fifteen of my return voyage to Earth. Today is the eleventh anniversary of my escape from the destruction of my ship, and I am starting to feel doubts in that decision.

Back on Earth, I was a standard captain with a standard transport ship. I would take a ten year voyage and return twenty-five years later. The thrill of not knowing what I would return to was always exciting to me. Technology had always interested me as a child, and the thought of seeing new machines and technology that I normally would never had been able to see was all I needed to get into this business.

I have seen many things that people would not believe. I remember one time, on my way to the farthest outpost in the Alpha Centauri system, I witnessed a star supernova. Of course, it had supernova’d millions of years ago, but as the light finally reached my eyes, I saw a twinkling star expand into a flaming circle in the night sky. I have seen entire convoys destroyed inside of a dense rock field between two exoplanets, orbiting around one another.

My most prized memory, though, is the destruction of my own ship. As odd as it may seem, considering the fact that the Swiftling being destroyed has placed me in these circumstances, I cannot deny the awe-inspiring beauty of its explosive exit.

The cockpit was small, no bigger than the pod I am in now, but the cargo bay was very, very big. The payload was incredibly secretive, even I do not know what was inside, but whatever it was, it was beautiful. At least, when it was being torn to shreds by carbon steel and aluminum. I watched from the small window that led down into the payload’s hall. Like blue lightning, fire raced across the canvas padding of the floor and ceiling. Each crate, composed of a weak plastic it seemed, exploded in gouts of green fire. Plasma started forming around their decaying corners, the color of a sunset.

I wish I could have stayed in that moment to look upon the chaos longer. But Sally told me of the imminent danger and I dropped down into my escape pod. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t.

The dreams haven’t stopped. I have just awoken from my twenty-sixth sleep, and they are only getting worse. My masters have started to talk now, uttering words I do not understand to one another before laughing and consuming more of my brothers. The memories are becoming clearer now as well, lingering longer than they did before. One of my brothers’ name is Jason. Another is named Codwell. They don’t speak to me of course, as we are all rodents, but I knew their names by heart.

The setting of the dreams has changed as well. Before, all of us were inside of a dark warehouse, all of our cages set upon metal pedestals. There was no order, it seemed random. Now, though, there are only twenty of us left. We are arranged in a circle with our masters in between us. They feast still, but sparingly compared to before. At the beginning of this last dream, there were fifty of us, but only twenty remain. I have fared far better than my brothers, and much better than any of the females, which have all been eradicated and consumed.

When I am in my cage, I live in constant fear, but also have a constant yearning to please my masters. They show me a great kindness over the others, but my brethren do not hold me in contempt because of it. Honestly, it seems that they are happy for me, happy that I have found some favor with the dark creatures we serve.

Sally hasn’t found any answers about the dreams, and from the last few years of research, I doubt we ever will. The stasis chambers aboard my ship are very outdated, meant for short spans of sleep. I was studying the script on the bottom of my chamber before I went to sleep last night, and I discovered something very concerning. It would seem that the chamber I am using is far older than I thought, and it has a max sleep capacity of only two weeks. The rest of the warnings were too old to really read, but one word stood out from the rest of the faded ink: loss.

I have to agree with the stasis chamber on this one. All I can really feel is loss.
This is Nova Day. Over and out.

***

Nova Day awoke from his thirtieth sleep coughing in pain. He quickly pulled himself out of the shallow tube and ran to the small sink inside of the shower. He retched for a good while, nothing of substance coming out, before finally a black liquid splattered across his fingers and onto the white plastic of the floor. Initially, he had no idea what to think. Black liquid is ominous in the most normal of situations, but coughing it up was a matter that Day did not know he could handle.

He grabbed a small sample syringe from the field-science kit under his bed. He tried to get up as much as he could, but the slippery substance was starting to soak into the hard floor and sink.

He placed a small sample on a slide and fed it to Sally’s computer through her examination chamber.

“Sally, identify.” His stomach was roiling now, thrashing around inside of his body. The feeling was peculiar, like nothing he had ever felt before. Back on Earth, he had experienced many times the miserable and debilitating effects of food poisoning. He had been in the hospital more times for digestive disorders than anything else he had endured, but this was much different. The pain was methodical, throbbing quickly though his pulse was only slightly elevated.

For a moment, Sally processed. Her black and blue screen hummed and pulsed gently, analyzing the data he presented her.

In a moment of frustration, he slammed his hand on the casing of the screen. “Today, Sally. I have to know what it is.”

A quiet ding echoed inside of the pod and Sally’s screen turned white. Black print started racing across, and Sally started speaking. “The substance is a mix of saliva, sourced from Captain Nova Day, as well as a complex compound. The compound is composed of various detergent inhibitors, organometallics, ZDDP, anti-oxidation agents, nitrogenous group III mineral oils with a mix of Alkylated Naphthenes synthetic oils. There are also .09% trace particles.”

Nova could only stare at the screen for a moment, silently processing what the data was telling him. “Sally, are you sure that this is what you have analyzed?”

“Yes, Captain Day.”

“Is there a common name for the substance that you have analyzed?” The cold, crippling fingers of doubt started to race their way through Day. He knew what she was going to say before she said it, but the impossibility of the situation was almost too much to grasp.

“There is, Captain Day. On Earth, this compound is most commonly referred to as motor oil.”

***

Captain’s Log: 5694.2085
This is Nova Day. This is the last entry I will be sending through my com unit. I have been pinging for almost fifteen years now, sometimes while I would take a long sleep, and have received no response. My dreams have continued growing in intensity, and the large amounts of time spent in slumber have started to blur what I perceive as reality. I do not know if I am a man or I am a rodent. I know not whether I am in a cage or in a pod, though they are pretty much the same thing.

Sally will transfer all of my data into a storage drive so that anyone who discovers my pod will know what happened. As for me, I will be going back into my stasis chamber, but this time I will set an indefinite waking period. I do not know if I will live, nor do I think that I even want to.

This was Nova Day.

***

When Day awoke, he climbed out of the stasis chamber with a renewed sense of clarity. Though he had dreamed for however long he had been in stasis, he could not remember a single detail. When he was finally out of the stasis chamber, he froze. The room was without light, and none of the humming systems of the pod were running, but that was not what caught his attention.

At the front of the pod, the heavy door was slightly ajar. He stared for a long moment, looking at a scene he never imagine he would look upon again. He was so absorbed with door that he did not notice the two port windows. For fifteen years, they had been his only view into the deep, starry blackness of space. Now, though, they were two flat, grey disks in the half-light. There was nothing beyond them besides the monochromatic surfaces.
He slowly made his way to the front of the pod, thinking that the world had become a dream. When he placed his hand on the handle, ready to swing the door outward, it moved on its own, opening wide.

Nova Day was confused more than elated at the sight of the two people in front of him.
One was a man, mid forties and balding. The other was a woman, about the same age but absolutely stunning. Both wore white coats, and both stared at Nova warily.

Day was the first to speak. “Who are you?”

The two scientists shared a look before the woman started speaking. She placed her hand over her heart. “My name is Melanie Brighton.” She motioned to the man. “This is my colleague, Michael Smith.”

Nova would have smiled at the sound of a human voice, but he was on high alert. The circumstances were too strange to him. He looked around and saw that he was in a big, grey warehouse. It was empty, save for his own pod. “Where am I?”

The man spoke this time. “You are on Earth.”

Nova collapsed to his knees and started to weep. The scientists came to his aid and helped him to his feet. The next hour was a blur as Nova was processed and given new clothes, a white pair of pants and a white tunic. He was laid down on a soft mattress so that he could adjust, but Mrs. Brighton told him that they had questions for him before the day was over.

Three hours later, they collected Nova and brought him to a small, pure white room. He sat on one side of a white table, in a white chair, and they sat across from him. Behind them was a large mirror, which Nova knew other people were behind.

They both smiled at him, a gesture he found comforting, though there was an edge to their looks that made him just a little bit uneasy.

Mrs. Brighton broke the silence. “So, Captain Day, I know that this must be very disorienting to you. Firstly, I would like to apologize for not waking you immediately. We had started receiving your data when we picked up the signal of your vessel, and by the time you were close enough for us to bring you in, we had already read through and listened to a vast majority of your logs. We were… worried about your mental state.”

Nova cut in. “You mean that you didn’t know if I would hurt you or not.”

Mr. Smith nodded and spoke. “Fortunately, you proved that it was not the case.”

Brighton spoke again. “Nova, how long were you in the pod?”

He scratched his head, more out of habit than necessity. “Well, if I am here, I was probably in my pod for a little over twenty-five years. Sally, I mean my computer, was optimizing our speed so that we would arrive earlier than the initial projections.”

Mr. Smith cocked his head. “We?”

Nova took a breath, though something felt off. “I, I mean. After being alone for so long, any companionship, even that of a computer, becomes essential to surviving.”
They both nodded and wrote something down on the clear notepads in front of them.

Brighton looked up again. “Do you know how long you were away from Earth, Captain Day?”

Nova thought for a moment. “I believe that my computer estimated that the time dilation would bring us back almost a hundred years after we departed. I have been asleep for something like six years, so I truly cannot know for sure.”

They both nodded again and wrote down more notes. Mr. Smith asked a question this time. “How are you feeling right now? Physically.”

“Why are you asking me so many questions?” said Nova, feeling wary again.

Brighton’s eyes tightened, but only a little before warming up. “It is standard procedure. The SDSC is very strict about regulations being followed, and unfortunately, we have to ask questions before anything else can be done.”

Nova still felt strange about the amount of questions they were asking him, but decided not to push it further.

“Will you answer my question, please?” Smith said again, adamant.

Nova nodded and thought for a moment. His breathing still felt strange, but the more he observed his own body, the more he realized that everything felt a little off. His stomach, usually grumbling harshly after such a long sleep, was silent and flat, almost nonexistent inside of him. He had felt cold for most of his voyage, but now he felt no heat or warmth, minus that of what was directly touching his skin. Most of all, his brain felt different, in what way he did not know how to describe, but it was there.

He hesitated before speaking. “I would say that I feel strong, but different.”

Brighton looked interested. “Different? In what way?”

Nova shook his head. “I can’t really describe it, but I just feel… different.” A flash of pain shot through him and he doubled over onto the table, laying his face down onto its cold surface.

It persisted for only a moment before completely disappearing. When he straightened himself, he looked at the two scientists. They did not seem phased at all by his sudden outburst of pain.

They both wrote down more notes as another shot of pain raced through is stomach area. He felt like retching, but not wanting to disturb his two saviors, he stood and turned away. He leaned against the wall as black fluid exploded from his mouth and onto the white floor. He remembered vividly the last time that had happened.

He turned to them. “What is happening to me?”

The scientists stood and approached him. Brighton gently laid her hand on his shoulder. “Just as I thought, you are sick, Captain Day. Mr. Smith will take you to our physician to have you checked so that we can find out exactly what is wrong.” She smiled, but as Nova looked into her eyes, he saw a bit of sadness.

Mr. Smith took Nova and led him from the white room. They walked down endless halls, each identical to the last. Finally, they entered the grey warehouse. His pod was still there, but there were men surrounding it. The building echoed with the sound of power tools, and Nova was confused. He looked closer at his pod and saw something that should not have been there. From the corners of the pod were small struts that were bolted to cement blocks on the ground. The men were pulling out long bolts from the blocks, and soon enough, the struts were unbolted from the ground.

Before Nova could comment, they were out of the warehouse and walking down another hallway. Three times while they were walking, Nova collapsed and started coughing up more of the fluid. Mr. Smith was patient each time and helped clean him up after every episode.

Finally, they exited the hallway and entered another warehouse, identical in structure to the last, but this one was far from empty. To their left was the wall of the building, but to his right were hundreds of wooden crates, standing seven to eight feet tall, about four feet wide, and four feet deep. Nova looked at the surfaces, looking for a clue as to what they were. The only markings were numbers. He counted them down, starting at the door. 56, 55, 54, 53, 52, on and on.

Near the end of the row, Mr. Smith stopped him. They were standing in front of a crate with the number six on it. Smith pulled from his labcoat a small device. It looked like a hybrid between a syringe and a handgun.

Nova took a step back, but the pain in his abdomen caused him to fall down. After he was done coughing, black liquid coating his chin and teeth, he looked back to Smith. “What are you doing?”

Smith tapped the glass tube of the syringe portion of the device. “Your condition is too unstable. I am going to give you a sedative to slow down your body systems.”

Before Nova could even react, Smith walked behind him and plunged the needle into the back of Nova’s neck. The pain that had been building in Nova’s stomach receded, and for a moment he was relieved. His relief collapsed as a green border encircled his field of view. His peripheral vision blurred as the green border thickened, and along the top of his view, numbers started floating.

Smith hoisted him up to his feet and plunged the needle into the back of Nova’s skull.
Nova’s body locked into place and everything he had been feeling up until that moment stopped. He could not move his eyes or his hands, could not feel the ground beneath is feet or the steady thumps of Smiths feet on the ground. He heard a board being pried off of the box behind him, but felt no worry or urgency. He felt nothing at all.

He focused on the numbers to the bottom right corner of his vision. They were shifting lazily, and he realized that it was a clock. 1550.3.19.2199.

Before he could decipher the meaning, his body was moved backwards. On both sides of his vision, the wooden walls of a box enclosed around him. Smith grabbed another device from his pocket and placed it against Nova’s forehead.

There was a sharp pain, and everything went black.

***

Brighton sat in the lounge, sipping on a cup of coffee. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice Smith enter the room.

He sat down next to her and leaned back in his chair. “It’s done.”

Brighton started, spilling some of her coffee on her white coat. She looked at it, but didn’t care. “It’s getting harder to do this. I keep looking into their eyes. They think we are here to help them.”

Smith laughed. “You feel bad for them?”

She hesitated, wanting to say yes, but found it wiser to not answer.

Smith continued. “We are almost there, Mel. Subject Five is doing incredibly well, better than any of the others so far.”

She sighed. “I know. I just don’t like it that we have to decommission so many of them.”

Michael looked at her for a moment, pondering her words. He stood, all humor falling away from his face. “Melanie, don’t tell me that you are second guessing our work.”

She stood as well, staring him down. “I’m not. I enjoy the science.”

Michael gave her a hard look. “But?”

“I don’t enjoy the experiments. Not these ones, at least.”

Michael sighed and pointed out the window to the testing field beyond it. There were five pods there, all similar to Nova’s. On the back of the closest one to the window was painted a large number five. “This is our life’s work, Mel. When we succeed, we will be remembered forever. If we succeed, humanity will live forever.”

He looked her over again and saw that his words were having no effect. He turned to leave, but as he exited the room, he paused. He turned back and looked at her. “Besides, it isn’t like they are real people.” And then he was gone.

Melanie Brighton looked out over to the field, sipping up the rest of her coffee. Under her breath, she whispered to herself. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”