text: I wrote this in about 3 hours before I had to turn it in for a class. I realize that it's probably consistent in errors, so constructive criticism is very much encouraged. Lunar Base 422 “Mommy, are you there?” Adeline pried her eyes open, a task that was becoming more and more difficult as the night grew older. Of course the recently-full-now-half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting on her station’s desk was not helping. She was really doing her best to make a bed for herself using only her terrible office chair and the aforementioned desk, a real testament to her resourcefulness. She sat leaned all the way back, with her feet propped on the desk next to the whiskey. She wiped her eyes and studied the monitor sitting on the desk. A small, pixilated face inside the monitor stared back at her, awaiting her response. “Yo, Addie, are you even listening?” “Yeah Mark, I’m still here” she sighed, already longing to be back in the dream she had just been pulled out of. “I’m fading fast though, if you have anything remotely important to tell me, now is the time” She dragged her feet off the desk and onto the floor and stood to stretch. After she finished touching her toes and Mark finished rolling his eyes, Mark continued. “Aries Command is on me for your missing fuel log. They are sure that they didn’t get it with the last comm. pack, which means you couldn’t have attached it. I’m not calling you a liar...” Adeline was zoned out again. She stared at a picture on her desk, the only picture she owned. The picture did not fit its frame and was held together by clear-ish tape, having been torn in two on more than one occasion. The picture was of a small six year old boy, wearing the largest grin a person could fit on such a small face. The boy was presenting a flower to whoever was taking the picture, and his grin revealed two nonexistent front teeth. A small smile found its way onto Adeline’s face, only to diminish a moment later, when Mark’s rambling seemed to be coming to an end. "So? What do you think we should do about it?” Prodded Mark. Adeline realized that she didn't want to be having this conversation a second longer. Mark was certainly calling her a liar, and she was even more certainly lying. "I don't know what happened, but I'll get it sorted out. I'll send you what I sent them and you can look it over for yourself. But I’ve got to crash, I have to make a run early tomorrow morning.” Adeline reached down to the keyboard to end the call. She hesitated before she hung up, trying to decide whether not to ask Mark a potentially embarrassing question. “Mark, you wouldn't have called me mommy earlier, would you have?” Mark’s face contorted in disgust and bewilderment. "Mommy, like mother? Why on earth..." Getting the answer she expected, Adeline ended the call. She didn't mean to resent Mark; he was not at fault for being stuck with her on this distant moon on the edge of a distant galaxy. Adeline always understood that she wasn't easy to work with, even before. Four years she had spent living and working on Lunar Base 422, and had only seen Mark in person a total of two times. The first time was her first Christmas, a tradition that they had originally planned to take place every year. Mark had made the two thousand mile journey in his lunar rover, with Adeline promising to take the journey next year. Though the affair had been so bleak and dry that both of them had wordlessly come to the understanding that they were better off separate. Since then it had only been weekly status reports and an instance a couple years back when Mark had to come help make repairs to the space cruiser docked in Adeline’s base. She could still hear Mark whining in her ear as he tinkered with the smashed navigation system. “I might just be an engineer, but I'm also your commanding officer. I don't know what you're doing out there, I'm not a pilot. But we are here to do work, to run tests and report data. If you wanted to fly headfirst into asteroid fields and explore the outer reaches of space, then you should have joined The Corps." Adeline laid down onto her stiff bed to attempt as much sleep as possible before the inevitable head splitting hangover that she was due for. As she began to drift off to sleep, she looked on her nightstand and saw an old open letter. Even though she had the contents memorized, she picked up the envelope and took out the letter. If anything she wanted to touch it, feel it, see handwriting that wasn't her own. Dear Adeline, Commander Hurt just told me that you have made your decision to transfer. I think you actually convinced him that you have a passion for deep space lunar exploration. I know that I cannot talk you out of this decision. Even though you are a necessity here in the research labs, I understand. But Adeline, I don't support you. What you are looking for is a myth, you know that your data is unquantifiable and random; all you have is the testimony of a pilot who is now living in a psych ward. Here I am trying to convince you again, even though I promised I wouldn't. I'm sorry, I don't support you but I do understand. That's all I'm saying I hear they're making you go to pilot training, which I find hilarious because you and I both know you could teach the instructors a thing or two. I wish you the entire best, fly safe. With love, Stan PS: If he's out there, I hope you find him. Adeline closed the letter and put it back in its envelope. She drifted off to sleep, dreaming of Stan, Mark’s contorted and disgusted face, and a small laughing boy handing her a daisy. Adeline woke with a start to the sound of a blaring alarm. This was not the station intercom alarm though; it was one that she had set, one that was only supposed to go off during a specific occurrence. Suspended in a moment disbelief, Adeline sat up straight in her bed, and stared at the monitor on her desk. The screen displayed giant red letters: Detection: ENERGY FIELD CLASS G. LOCATION: QUADRANT 3. APPROX 20 MNUTES UNTILL DISPERSION Adeline’s feet were on the floor and her legs were running seemingly before her brain gave them the order. She burst from her room, into a narrow hallway. She ran to the door at the end of the hallway, and charged through it to find herself in a spacious, open hanger. All of her focus was directed on a large, one person cruiser. Adeline moved quickly to the station consol, frantically pressing each key in precise order. When she finished, the lights and engine on the ship jumped to life, and Adeline moved quickly towards the boarding ladder. As she climbed up, she could already hear her automated computer speaking to her from inside the ship. “Incoming call: Commander Mark Walker. Incoming call: Commander Mark Walker.” Before she could ignore the call, Mark overrided her comm. system. His furious shouting filled the cockpit. “Adeline, I swear on everything that I am, if you are chasing another energy field I will have you court-martialed. If you don't die out there you will come back and be shot, I will make it my mission..." Adeline had used her knife to cut the already exposed comm. wires. She was alone, and she was going to do this alone. As the thrusters began to roar to life, the ship began to lift off the ground and move forward towards the opening hangar doors. The moment the doors gave Adeline the clearance she needed, the ship disappeared from the hanger, rocketing into the black. Adeline was as focused as she could be. Her ship cut through space at 1000MPH, which didn't seem fast enough. The automated computer broke the silence. “Approximately six minutes until you arrive at the selected coordinates. Current velocity not sustainable on current fuel cells. Consider...” Adeline pushed the mute button so hard she thought it might break in half. She reflected to herself that maybe ending conversations in such a manner was a bad habit, but that was a problem for another time. Each minute felt like an hour, and Adeline would be lying to herself if she said she didn't have her own doubts about what she was doing. "I saw her, I talked to her" A shaky but sure voice emerged from Adeline’s memory. "I thought it was all over, I thought the ship would be pulled apart in that energy field, and then she was just there, in the ship with me. Check my psych evals. I've never had a problem before. Even after she died. I would think I was crazy too, if she didn't tell me what I couldn't know." Adeline looked to the newspaper clipping that was taped to the dash of the cruiser. The headline read: “Aries astronaut discovers wife's missing body on abandoned moon.” The common man didn’t understand the implications of such a find. Every person under Aries command could have scoured every planet and moon known to man and still have next to no shot to finding Maria's ship. Most had assumed that she was floating off in space somewhere, with no hope of ever being found. Then one day, after her husband nearly died on his own exploration mission, he informed authorities that her crashed ship was on a baron moon, untouched by humans thus far. “Adeline, everyone thinks I'm crazy. And maybe I am. But I know my wife, I know her soul. And on that day, I met her soul. My only regret is pulling out of that energy field. I know I will never have that opportunity again." Opportunity. The word brought Adeline back into full focus as she steered the ship toward the now visible energy field. The only way the anomaly could be described to a person that had never witnessed such an event would be a thunderstorm in space. Seemingly random, most pilots feared them and avoided them. Adeline feared them, she did not avoid them. This specific energy field came about once every couple years. The last occurrence was Adeline’s near death experience with the asteroids. Today though, her path was clear and unburdened. An emergency signal began to blare through the cockpit Caution: energy field immanent. Change course. Ship unable to withstand heat levels...” Then, total silence. Adeline’s cruiser had entered the field. Though there was some rocking and jostling about, the entrance was smoother than she expected. The emergency signal had turned itself off unprompted, and the only sound left was the creaking of the ship. Then, to Adeline’s surprise, the short range comm. light on her dash came to life. She looked down at the recently cut wires, and knew that no power was actually being directed to the consol. She reached out and hesitated a moment before she pressed the key to answer the call. Though she did and heard only scratching and static. Then a voice, small and quiet, but just loud enough.