When Space Dust Gets Personal

Right, so, there was Elara, see? Chief Cargo Specialist, which is a fancy way of saying she was the only human on the Void’s Embrace. This is a ship that, if it had a brochure, would probably describe itself as “formerly a luxury yacht, now bravely hauling space-rocks into the gaping maw of the infinite.” Space-rocks, in this case, being rare-earth elements, which, frankly, are about as exciting as watching paint dry, but in zero-g.

Elara was currently floating in the hydroponics bay, which smelled vaguely of existential dread and glowing algae. This algae, you see, was bioluminescent, genetically modified, and tasted like a slightly fizzy, slightly fishy, green warning light. She was pruning it, which mostly involved trying not to think about the fact that she was eating something that glowed in the dark, in a ship called Void’s Embrace. You’d think someone would have considered the implications.

Now, Elara had started to feel… well, weird. Not “my socks have spontaneously achieved sentience and are demanding better working conditions” weird, but more of a “did I accidentally swallow a small, intergalactic doom-siren?” type of weird. There was this low hum, a sort of internal “wooooooom,” that didn’t quite match the Void’s Embrace‘s usual “ominous drone.”

The ship’s med-bay, which was basically a glorified bread toaster with a screen that displayed unsettling medical diagrams, declared her perfectly normal. “Stress response,” it chirped, with the cheery enthusiasm of a salesdroid trying to sell you a timeshare in a black hole.

Then, things got… interesting. Elara noticed her skin had developed a sort of opalescent sheen, like she’d been lightly dusted with the shimmering residue of forgotten nightmares. Especially around her abdomen. Which, let’s be honest, is never a good sign, especially when you are in the Void’s Embrace.

She ran a scan, using the cargo scanner, which was usually employed for detecting contraband, like smuggled space-squid or illicit packets of vacuum-sealed cosmic horror. The results were disappointing. If they were a restaurant review, they’d be one star. The reviewer would be writing from the bottom of a very deep, very dark trench.

“Unidentified biological anomaly,” the ship’s AI announced. The tone suggested the end of the universe was scheduled for Tuesday. Or maybe Thursday. “Composition… non-terrestrial. Growth pattern… exponential. Like a particularly aggressive tax audit.”

Elara remembered a shimmering, nebula-like cloud she’d encountered earlier. She’d dismissed it as space dust. Space dust, she’d thought. In the Void’s Embrace. How utterly, tragically, void of understanding she’d been.

“Hypothesis: parasitic gestation,” the AI continued, like it was reading a particularly dull prophecy. “Potential for… significant physiological alteration. Possibly involving extra eyes. Or tentacles. Or a sudden, inexplicable urge to write poetry in an alien language. We’re not sure.”

Elara floated there, suspended in zero-g, feeling like she’d just discovered she was starring in a low-budget alien horror movie, and she was playing the role of the rapidly expanding incubator, in the Void’s Embrace. The Void’s Embrace hummed on, oblivious, carrying its cargo of rare-earth elements and one very surprised human towards its destination. The algae in the hydroponics bay swirled, glowing like a particularly psychedelic warning sign. And Elara? Well, she was starting to suspect that her travel insurance didn’t cover this. Probably. It rarely does.