[right][sub]location unknown[/sub][/right] Kelsie growled, her fingers clutching the tablet so tight the plastic cover creaked. It was all nonsense, gibberish. A migraine was looming in the back of her head again. Weeks, months of going through the absurd attempts at translating the alien source code. It didn't even matter neither she nor David knew anything about programming. Julianna did and she was as clueless as they were. It seemed that the main problem was the Fritols being so stupidly poetic, to the point it made whatever text they wrote basically indecipherable. Damn, now she was using that stupid name for the aliens as well. Of course Kelsie and the others had no way to know what the original builders of the station they were trapped on called themselves. There were plenty of words without apparent meaning, any of them could have been a name, just as it could have been a swear word. Or pretty much anything else. For quite a while, they were only referred to as "the aliens", or, due to them being about twice as tall as a normal human, "the freakishly tall aliens". Kelsie was quite sure it was David who first came up with the acronym but it was so damn catchy that "the freakishly tall aliens" soon became the Fritols for the two women as well. At least now Kelsie had a name to curse those bastards properly. "[i]The stream flows through the grate but the leaf doesn't unless its name is love.[/i]" Kelsie finished the sentence and stared at the screen, blinking absentmindedly. Seriously? This was a source code. Yes, the whole damn thing was written using natural language programming, a common speech littered with codewords instead of a mess of brackets and nonsensical variables one would expect to see in a source code. But this was so far off it seemed more like a poem than a description of a security system. "What did you just say?" David looked at her in surprise, brushing a long lock of hair out of his face. It has grown almost up to his shoulders in the six months they've been here and he refused to let Kelsie cut it. At least he still kept shaving, otherwise he'd look like some crazy caveman. Kelsie shook her head. "Nothing. Just a wrong translation." It must have been. "Perhaps not. Read it again." His brows furrowed as he swiped over his screen, frantically looking for something. "No." She rested her head against the wall behind her, closing her eyes for a moment. "It's gibberish, David. Any of these words could mean like two or three different things, this was just the first combination that fell out of the translator." They were slowly building a database with a sophisticated search and translate engine so they wouldn't have to actually remember all the symbol combinations and meanings. In other parts of the code, they were actually pretty successful in translating them and taking control of the station's systems. Gravity settings, lighting, water purification and circulation, internal and external sensors of all kinds, logs, storage manifests. They even managed to turn on some sort of a cool force field around the docking areas, allowing them to be repressurized which sped up David's work on repairing the Chimera. But the security system controlling the Big Balls, a brutal automated defense mechanism that destroyed any ship that dared to enter through the Gateway, still resisted their attempts. David obviously found what he was looking for because he stopped moving, narrow eyes watching his screen. “Hey, Julianna?” he spoke into his radio. “Could you stop by for a moment? We need a functioning brain around here.” “Dave, it’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything, none of it.” It was hard to keep up hope after the long months of having no success understanding the bloody thing. He sat down next to her and softly punched her shoulder. “Hey, shouldn’t you be the one encouraging us?” His hair tickled Kelsie’s face as he leaned down to kiss her. “For fuck’s sake, did you call me here to watch you have sex? Again?” Julianna’s annoyed voice sounded from the door. David chuckled. “No. I might have found something. And you were right, Kelsie, you translated it wrong, you missed a preposition.” “I didn't miss it, I just chose to ignore it because it made even less sense with it.” Kelsie rolled her eyes and squinted at the screen again. “[i]The stream flows through the grate but the leaf doesn't unless its name is in love.[/i]” No, the preposition certainly didn’t make it any better. “Its name is [i]in[/i] love? That’s even worse gibberish than before.” “It isn’t! I’ve seen love before!” David sounded excited and the women stared at him, speechless. “See, I told you,” Kelsie turned to Julianna, whispering inconspicuously, “space madness. It’s just a matter of time before he starts chasing us around with a pickaxe.” “I don’t think we have a pickaxe here,” Julianna giggled. “But yes, I agree. He’s lost it.” A quiet sigh escaped David’s lips. “Seriously, women. Shouldn’t you be the ones who understand metaphors better? It’s not love, it’s LOVE. Look.” He sent them a screen with partially translated text. The heading at the top of the text said LOVE. “I came across this a while ago and gave up after a few lines because it made no sense. I mean look at that list. Whispering Wind? Falling Fury? Crouching Darkness? It sounded like a list of some dumb movie titles.” Kelsie had to agree. Just as pointless as this whole conversation. But Julianna’s brows furrowed as she watched the symbols. “You don’t mean…” “Its name is in LOVE.” David nodded. “I mean it’s probably not as simple as a name, but those numbers after them… Couldn’t they be some sort of a unique descriptor?” Julianna’s eyes widened as she stared at David with an open mouth. Kelsie still had no clue what any of it meant. “Guys? Care to share with the rest of the class?” “That dimwit actually figured it out.” Julianna gave David an astonished look and turned to Kelsie. “The leaf can go through the grate if its name is in LOVE.” Kelsie groaned, wishing they would stop repeating that nonsense, but the young scientist continued, “The ship can pass through the defence mechanism if it is on this list! All this time we’ve been trying to shut the whole thing down but what if we don’t have to? I mean how did the Fritols actually leave this place if the Balls destroy anything that moves?” Kelsie blinked, the realization slowly starting to dawn on her. “Their ships were in LOVE?” “Yes! Gods, I’m so stupid, why didn’t I think of that before? It’s just a simple whitelist. If we manage to add Chimera’s signature there…” “...we can go home?” Kelsie finished her sentence, not allowing the tiny seed of hope in her mind to take root just yet. “Can you do it?” Julianna snorted. “If it means getting out of here? I can do anything.” [center][b]~~~~~~~~[/b][/center] [right][sub]location unknown[/sub][/right] It worked. Kelsie almost felt dizzy as she held her breath while David carefully maneuvered the roughly patched Chimera out of the docks. They said a quick prayer to the long-lost Old Earth gods none of them believed in and Julianna flipped the switch on the backup generator. The power slowly went online throughout the crippled ship, all screens turning red with countless warnings and errors. Kelsie stood in the destroyed cargo hold, watching one of the Balls through the huge hole in the side of the hull. If they were going to die, she at least wanted a front-row seat. She drew a shaky breath as the lights went on around her, expecting to see the blue hue around the alien weapon when it started to charge up. But nothing happened. The ball hovered around them for a few moments and then moved away to guard another corner of this dead system. “I think we’re good.” Her voice was trembling. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” David sounded worried and Kelsie slowly headed to the cockpit, the magnetic boots of her spacesuit making no noise in the vacuum. “The propulsion system was damaged by the explosion and it’s only working on a fraction of a capacity. It’s going to get us to the Gateway but… it’s going to take some time.” “More time than we have?” Julianna knew what he meant and so did Kelsie. Their suits only had a couple of hours of air supply and there was no way to replenish it after they left the relative safety of the Fritol base. “It’s going to be very close.” They gathered in the cockpit, sitting in silence trying to conserve as much air as they could, watching the dark emptiness of space in front of them. David had programmed an autopilot to input coordinates and take them through the Gateway just in case they pass out before reaching it. At the very least, the Chimera will bring their bodies back home. Not a very reassuring thought. There was not much left to talk about, they’ve spent the past six months together and debated almost every thinkable topic over and over. Except one. “Hey, Kelsie?” Julianna’s voice was quiet and she sounded nervous. “I think it’s time you finally told us why do you hate your mother so much.” “Fuck off.” That was certainly not something Kelsie would want to waste air on. David turned his head to her. “No, the little smart one is right. We’ve spent half a year dissecting every bit of each other’s lives but you never told us about that. Don’t I deserve to know why I should hate my mother-in-law?” “We’re not married, idiot.” “Hmm, true.” David nodded and reached for Kelsie’s hand. She barely even felt his touch through the thick gloves. “Will you marry me?” Her eyes rolled almost involuntarily. “You are only asking since we are going to die anyway.” “I’m not! I made a ring but I don’t think it would fit on a spacesuit glove. I mean you have huge hands for a woman but still...” They both chuckled over the idea until Julianna stopped them. “You’re blabbering. The CO2 levels are getting high and oxygen is running out. Tell us the story before we pass out.” “Ugh. Fine.” Kelsie wanted to spit on the ground, remembering that she was wearing a spacesuit helmet at the last possible moment. “My mother was a Rejected because she refused to follow orders, always contradicting them, debating over everything. I think the only reason they didn’t put a bullet through her head right away was that she was this young genius. She was never satisfied with how things were, not just with how the Rejected were treated but also with the whole war on the Screechers, how society functioned… Nothing was ever good for her. She kept whispering into the ears of my father for so long until he disobeyed a direct order. It was at the front, he was supposed to lead an attack on a Screecher village, burn it down, kill everyone. He refused and spoke up against it so loudly and passionately they had him executed on the spot. Pawlowski did it. Our Grand General was just a Major back then, the best friend of my father. And his executioner. I was still at the academy and it was hard, but Pawlowski and Hamonga pulled me through, helped me separate my career from my parents’ actions. Claire, well… my mother lost it. She became obsessed with revenge. The last thing I knew she attempted to blow up the Citadel using some doomsday device of her own invention. I assumed they killed her. But no, they just locked her up for twenty years and now she’s back to make my life even more miserable.” Kelsie sighed. “You happy now? Was that the last story you wanted to hear before you die?” “I can’t hate her.” Julianna’s voice was getting weaker. “She made my life better. You did too. I love both of you.” “I can hate her just fine if you want. I don’t really give a shit.” Kelsie laughed, feeling dizzy. “Wow, such support you two are. Huh, what is that?” She pointed out of the cockpit window. The Chimera was getting closer to the Gateway but not fast enough. None of them was most likely going to be conscious when they will pass through. “Was that…” David leaned forward and squinted. “A body?” There was nobody else on board their ship when they arrived so the body couldn’t have come from Chimera. Yet, it was floating there among some wreckage, blackened and dried by the long exposure to the hard vacuum, clearly human, dressed in some casual clothes. “Oh, shit.” Julianna pointed at a chunk of huge pieces of metal flying around, fortunately off their trajectory. “It’s a colony ship, just like the one our people used to get to Ellara. The Old Earthers sent a ship full of people to colonize this system three hundred years ago.” “And the Fritol defense mechanism blew it up as it entered.” Kelsie finished the girl’s thought, barely keeping her eyes open anymore. So many lives lost. Breathing got harder and it didn’t bring the usual relief of fresh air filling the lungs. No, now it was like giving a parched person a single drop of water, expecting it to quench their thirst. The wormhole quietly rotated in space. So close and yet so far.