“Track Two:” The Base
What I draw today, will be recognized as shape, so I circled my light pen around the yellowed map on the wall. Hollister and I were reviewing the distance between our stranded position and the launch point. I pointed again to the vast terrain between us, and where we needed to be.
Where we should have been five months ago.
“I spoke to the base, and the base says we wait.”
Hollister’s been pushing to restart the ship and get to the launch point. To disregard a direct order could be fatal. The coms are clear.
So I smoke an old cigar, while the giant sun fades, and take in the sights through our lone window. “See I spoke to the base, and-”
Hollister, already over it. “The base says we wait. Yeah, I know, I know.”
“The base says we’re safe.” I remind her, but her eyes are laser-focused at the yellowed map on the wall. She knows we’ve been here too long, and she doesn’t trust anything the base has to say anymore.
The emergency rations are nearly gone. Most of the pods functions are failing. We’ve found ways to rig them and made a plan of what we’ll need to do to get the ship mobile.
But it’s all in theory.
Through this in-between, we’ve found ways to pass the time together. In my estimation, we’ve even had some fun.
In fact, if Hollister and I had just one more month together, she’d see what I see.
She just needs time.
“Wells-” I hate when she calls me by my last name. Only twice has she called me Taylor over all these months, but “Wells,” still makes my ears burn.
So I stopped trying to call her Cassie weeks ago. “Hollister?”
“You have to let me in on the coms when the briefings come through.”
“Do you think I’m incompetent at my job, Hollister?”
“I just want to hear it for myself.” She bit her lip, and turns her sad eyes down again. “I don’t want to die up here.”
Her eyes have lost something.
The time in space was aging her, but I love her regardless.
“We’ve been up here too long.” She tried to smile. A poor attempt. “Don’t you want to go home, Taylor?”
My knees went weak beneath my suit. I’d do anything for Cassie. But, the base says we wait. And I don’t know what ‘home’ we’re going back to.
Earth had been torched, flooded, ransacked, and left for dead by nature and her chorus of violent elements. Whatever’s left of home would just be a shell of a house now anyway. ‘Home’ is not the thing we’re going back to.
Hollister wants to believe otherwise, like the Base says… here, we’re safe.
*
’The base says we wait… The base says we’re safe’… and blah, blah, fucking blah. If Wells tries to run his company line on me after another week of useless sit reps, I’m going to murder him just to get court marshaled so I can get off of this fucking rock.
We’ve been here too long. Our supplies are dwindling, and the ship’s so damaged I’m not even sure we can make it back to the launch point. But I do know the longer we wait, every time an asteroid storm hammers the ship’s siding… the less likely it is we’ll make it out when the base does let us leave.
I’ll do whatever it takes to get home. It’s time for drastic measures.
And I know what Wells wants.
After dinner, I encouraged him to sit for a little longer. “Maybe we open up one of those wine bottles I know you’ve got stored away.”
That’s all it took.
One bottle split between us, some extended eye contact, a smile here, and a casual arm touch there…
I waited for his breathing to slow and for his sleep to deepen. Once I knew Wells was good and passed out, I climbed over him carefully, freeing myself from his bunk. It wasn’t kind what I did; the guilt felt thick in my stomach. But being kind wasn’t going to get us home. And I had work to do.
I needed two things; Wells to be sound asleep, and his access card. Wells never took that card off, not under any circumstances.
So I created one to make it worth his while.
By the time he passed out, he forgot his key card was still wrapped around his bunk post.
Within minutes I was in the cramped mission room. Wells reasoned it was too small for both of us, but being in here now and feeling how my slight frame fit into the space… I realized it was a lie.
Just a way to keep me out.
I scrolled through digital logs, one after another, month after month; a stream of reports. And I saw keeping me out of the mission room wasn’t the only lie Taylor Wells had told me.
“FOUR MONTHS!” I had the wide end of a 24-inch wrench in my hands, gripped tight like a baseball bat. I hammered it into the side of Wells bunk.
His eyes flickered open, his dazed face quickly shifted to fear. “Cassie?”
“The atmosphere was deemed safe four months ago. FOUR-”
Wells tried to sit, but was yanked back down to his bunk. I tied his wrists to the metal post with electrical tape and scraps of rubber tubing. The only bits I could spare as I prepared for launch.
“The base said we were safe here-”
“The base thought we died two months ago! The briefings were terminated two months ago because you stopped calling in. Stopped initiating activity!”
“We were so happy at the beginning-” Wells looked as if he might cry.
Or piss himself.
Maybe both.
“I was happy we were alive!”
“But look at tonight. I knew it would only be a matter of time before you saw it too!”
“You- you kept us here on purpose.” I recoiled, fighting to hold back the sick rising in my throat. “And tonight? I only slept with you for access, you psychopath- we’re leaving. Now.”
“We don’t even know if we can fly!”
“AND WHO’S FAULT IS THAT?”
Wells, hands tied and all, did his best to puff up his chest. He made one final attempt to control the situation. “LT. Hollister. I am your commanding officer. Stand down.”
I headed for the door.
“Cassie, please-”
“Fuck you, Taylor.”
Moments later, I was in the launch bay, prepping the pod. I’d never moved through a flight pre-check so quickly… But it still wasn’t fast enough.
When I woke, I was face down on the steel floor of the ship. My mouth was warm and pooled with blood, the taste of iron on my lips. Then the smell of it shot up my nose. I rolled over to find Wells stretching out a piece of electrical tape, preparing to bind my ankles.
Before he could fasten the makeshift straps, I kicked him in the jaw and scrambled out from under him, reaching for the wrench.
“We don’t know if it’s safe out there, Cassie. We can stay!”
He was clawing at my legs. There was no reason in his eyes.
I flung my arm around, weighed with the wrench in my hand.
It sailed right into his temple.
His head snapped into an exposed control panel where metal prongs and pieces protruded everywhere. He fell to the ground instantly, clutching his neck, trying to stop the river pouring from the gash.
…Wells bled out as I finished prepping the pod for launch.
I strapped myself into my seat and tried to calm my breathing. When I fired up the pod, the radio to the base went live. “Base do you copy? This is Lt. Cassie Hollister.”
I trusted him to get us through this, but now? Now and then I can see the truth above the lies, and I have no problem leaving his body behind. He wanted to blind me with what he felt, but even here, so isolated, I knew I’d never feel the same as him. Now and then I can see those beauties that shun my eye.
“Base, this is LT Cassie Hollister, and I am returning to the launch point. Over.”
The radio crackled… “BASE- god damnit!”
“Lt. Hollister?” A voice broke through the hissing. “You’re- alive? But, what happened?”
“It’s Wells! That’s why-” My chest heaved, I tried to slow my breath. “I’ll tell you all of it once I’m home.”