The Engine Room Hatch

The light in the Observation Lounge was the color of a dying lemon. It was Spring, or whatever the Aris called Spring this cycle. The vents leaked a synthetic scent of wet grass and lilac. It was too clean. It lacked the rot of actual earth.

Corey sat on the edge of a bolted-down bench, his eyes fixed on the massive viewscreen. The glass was thick, cold, and slightly greasy from a thousand foreheads pressed against it. Outside, the stars were bright. Too bright. They looked like holes poked in a black sheet.

He checked his watch. 03:59:52. He’d been sitting here for three hours and fifty-nine minutes. His neck ached. His eyes were dry, the kind of dry that makes you want to rub them until they bleed. He didn't blink. He watched a specific cluster of three stars—the Orion-ish one, he called it. It was a crooked triangle.

03:59:58.

03:59:59.

04:00:00.

The screen flickered. It was a micro-stutter, the kind of frame-drop you’d ignore if you weren't looking for it. The crooked triangle jumped back to the far left. The entire galaxy reset. The stars began their slow, four-hour crawl across the dark again. It was a gif. A high-resolution, multi-trillion-dollar screensaver.

Corey felt a cold spike go through his chest. He stood up. His legs were heavy. The room felt smaller than it had a minute ago. He looked around. The lounge was empty except for a discarded tablet on a nearby table and a single, wilted synthetic petal from a cherry blossom tree that wasn't there. The ship was full of missing things. Real wind. Real dirt. The feeling of moving.

He left the lounge. The corridors were narrow and smelled of recycled breath. He didn't take the lift. The lifts were tracked. He took the maintenance stairs, his boots clanging on the metal grates. He went down. Past the living quarters where three thousand people slept, dreaming of a New Earth that was supposedly six months away. Past the hydroponics bays where the fake Spring was being manufactured by UV lamps and chemical sprayers. He went into the gut of the ship.

The lower decks were dark. The light here was red and pulsing. It was the color of a headache. Here, the 'Spring' didn't reach. It just smelled of old oil and ozone. Corey reached the access hatch for the external sensor array. It was locked. He didn't use his ID. He pulled a bypass kit from his pocket—a messy tangle of wires and a cracked screen. His hands shook. He clipped the leads to the terminal. The door hissed open.

He didn't find sensors. He found a window. A real window, not a screen. It was a small, reinforced port used for manual docking checks. He wiped away a layer of grime with his sleeve.

Outside, there was no galaxy. There was only grey.

A massive, pockmarked surface loomed just a hundred meters away. It was a dead moon, a hunk of slag floating in a graveyard of dust. And then he saw it. A thick, black cable. A tether. It was as wide as a house, ribbed with carbon fiber, stretching from the belly of the Aris down into the grey dust of the moon. The ship wasn't flying. It was parked. It was a kite tied to a tombstone.

"It’s beautiful in its own way, isn't it?"

Corey spun around. Dr. Gettes stood in the shadow of the bulkhead. He looked tired. His lab coat was stained with coffee, and his hair was a mess of grey spikes. He didn't look like an administrator. He looked like a man who hadn't slept since the launch.

"We aren't moving," Corey said. His voice was a rasp.

"We haven't moved in twelve years," Gettes replied. He stepped into the red light. "The engines failed three years into the jump. We didn't have the parts. We had enough fuel to drift here, to this rock, and anchor."

"People think we're landing in six months," Corey said. He felt like he was going to throw up. "They’re buying seeds. They’re planning houses."

"They’re happy," Gettes said. "Look at the metrics, Corey. Suicide rates are down. Productivity is up. The 'Spring' cycle we just initiated? It’s the most successful one yet. People love the smell of the lilacs."

"It’s a lie. The HUD is just a skin!" Corey shouted. He stepped toward the older man. "You’re gaslighting the whole ship just to keep your job!"

Gettes didn't flinch. He just looked sad. "I’m keeping them alive. If I tell them the truth—that we are tethered to a dead rock in the middle of a literal nowhere—they will tear this ship apart. They will kill each other. Or they will walk into the airlocks. Is that what you want? Authenticity at the cost of extinction?"

"I want the truth," Corey said. "I want to see what’s actually out there."

"There is nothing out there," Gettes whispered. "Just the void. And it’s cold."

Corey didn't answer. He turned and ran. He didn't go back to the stairs. He went to the auxiliary hangar, the one they told everyone was sealed due to radiation. He knew the layout. He’d spent months studying the schematics in the dark.

He burst into the hangar. It was cold. A single escape pod sat in the center of the floor, a white pill-shaped craft covered in dust. It was the only one left. The others had been scavenged for parts to keep the life support running.

He scrambled inside the pod. The air was stale. The console was old, the buttons tactile and clunky. He started the sequence. The HUD in the pod flickered to life. It showed the same fake stars. The same crooked triangle.

"Override," Corey muttered. His fingers flew across the keys. "Delete skin. Show raw feed."

"Warning," the computer spoke. A flat, female voice. "Raw feed may cause psychological distress. Confirm?"

"Confirm," Corey said.

The screen changed. The stars vanished. The 'Spring' light died. The screen showed the truth. The grey moon. The black tether. And beyond that, a vast, terrifying emptiness that seemed to swallow the light. It wasn't a map. It was a hole.

He heard the hangar doors groaning. Gettes was trying to lock him in.

"Too late," Corey said. He slammed his hand onto the launch button.

The pod bucked. The clamps hissed. Corey felt his stomach drop as the magnets retracted. He wasn't just leaving the ship. He was leaving the lie. He was diving into the grey.

As the pod cleared the hangar, he saw the Aris from the outside. It wasn't a majestic starship anymore. It was a rusted, peeling cylinder, huddled against a dead rock, pretending it was a bird in flight.

Corey gripped the controls. He didn't have a map. He didn't have a destination. He just had the void. He looked at the sensor readout. A faint signal pulsed from the dark, miles away from the moon. A beacon? Or just a ghost?

He pushed the throttle forward. The engine roared, a sound he hadn't heard in a decade. It was loud. It was real. It was terrifying.

He was alone in the dark, and for the first time in his life, he could finally breathe.