Vin barely caught a glimpse of Feurtes on the way to the airlock, disappearing through another door as he approached. Sophia had gone earlier to catch the returnee; no luck for her, it seemed. As the door to the changing room slid open, she brushed past him wearing disappointment on her face. Feurtes would have his well-earned rest.

“Later,” he waved her lazily farewell as she retreated back towards her lab. And when she didn’t return the gesture, he added: “I’ll miss you, too.”

Cold. Then again, he wasn’t particularly expecting warmth from her. His first impression of her might have been harsher than warranted, however. If nothing else, she seemed competent and to the point. Even if he didn’t necessarily like her, then at least he could respect that. Still, it’d be nicer if she’d stay out of his head.

He discarded his clothes, stepped into de-cont and T-posed for the showers. As they sprayed him down with cleansing agents, he performed some digital safety measures of his own. With the flip of a mental switch, the net went dark. It was like losing sight, or hearing: suddenly and brutally, an omnipresent part of the world was excised from experience. His sixth sense – if you adhered to the long-dated list of the five basics – gone. It was unavoidable. Airgapping was a major point in standard Derelict safety protocol. Down there, he’d have to rely on cumbersome external tools.

He stepped through into the next chamber, nose stinging as the fluids evaporated off his skin. A wall rack slid out to present him with his suit and helmet. It had two full sleeves – he’d have to talk to someone about getting one customized. He couldn’t use his built-in tools like this, although judging by the list of inventory the others had brought down he wouldn’t need to.

He slipped into the suit feet first and pulled the sleeves over his arms. The fabric did the rest, closing over his chest and merging with itself to form a seamless second skin covering him from neck to toe. The inner layer tightened, smothering the contours of his body from his feet and up as the suit expelled the air within through his collar, until that too tightened into an airtight seal. Thankfully, the thin layers of padding were enough to prevent any extruding features of his from growing too pronounced. 

Lastly, he slipped on the helmet. He felt the suitskin quiver around his neck as they merged and connected with the oxygen pocket on his back. A table of diagnostics lit up in the corner of the visor, dancing momentarily before settling on ‘OK’ and vanishing. Health metrics occupied the vacant spot, informing him that his heart was beating 12% faster than his normal walking rate.

Vin stepped into the airlock, the final buffer between the known and the unknown. The door closed behind him, and the room itself hissed and exhaled like a lung until it reached some pre-ordained level of pressure and unlocked the next door. The shuttle’s interior beckoned from the other side with promises of adventure and alien mysteries. He crossed the divide and left MOS behind.

He sidled up into the pilot’s seat – a redundant position, but the only one with a view – and strapped himself in. From the current angle he could only see the station’s outside wall, speckled with docking ports, guiding lights, and the occasional backlit viewport. Shadows stretched away from each extrusion, darker than black in the absence of Rayleigh scattering. Past the Orbital’s bulk only the void beckoned, somehow even darker.

The control panel was already unlocked before he had to do anything; presumably it read his biometrics from the suit and checked against scheduled flights. But his destination was already locked in, and his only available option was to hit Launch.

He blipped comms – seemingly an entirely separate module from the rest of the shuttle – and tuned in to the ground team.

“Marlowe to surface. I’m coming down now, ETA twelve minutes.” He kept it brief; no telling if anyone might be listening.

A few seconds passed in silence. “Affirmative,” came the reply.

He pressed Launch.

The shuttle lurched, and MOS started drifting out of view. Aside from the initial thrust, it didn’t [i]feel[/i] like he was moving, now that he was free from MOS’ artificial gravity – instead, it seemed like everything else did. The station soon left him, and only the infinite emptiness remained.

In that moment, it felt like he was truly alone in the universe.

It didn’t last, of course. The illusion was dispelled when his eyes adjusted and he started picking up the faint twinkles of distant stars. Space was not empty; only vast.

But soon there was something else: a hole of emptiness crawling in from above, a black abyss from where no light shone. No, he realized as the world rotated around him: a blanket. A sunlit crescent crawled into view, cradling the shadow like a smothering lover. The crimson star itself followed shortly, hovering over the crescent like some watchful parent, blindingly bright until his visor dimmed its glare.

The ship lurched again, and his insides protested as the world stopped turning. The spear was pointed at the shadow’s heart, ready to be thrown. A low hum grew from the back of the shuttle, as if inhaling before exertion. 

As the shuttle roared and kicked him in the back with the force of two and a half Gs, as his heartrate jumped another 20 BPM, he recalled the superstitious Derelicter prayer:

“[i]Sleep, Grand Automaton,[/i]” he mouthed to himself as he shot towards the surface.