↑ Beautiful Truth, Strange Charm ↓ - Part Two
By Andrew Akers
“I didn’t like that,” Orlese said from next to me. “I— I’ll need to see if anyone’s had an aneurism.” She didn’t look too great herself; shaking, hands death-gripped on the obsidian railing ahead of us. My knees were wobbly but I felt more euphoria than trepidation. I stroked her back as she checked her comm relay for signs of concern. Several wellness pings had been submitted to the queue but were all now being retracted. Everyone was okay. Below, above, all around, the rest of the colony was shaking off the trip.
The trip. Four-hundred times the distance between our planet and our star, instantaneous from the perspective of the people onboard. Had it really happened?
This time the voice of Cassus Deville boomed from external sources. ♫We have arrived at Thalamax and will begin loading the landing crafts shortly.♫
Orlese and I embraced. It was true! Though it had only felt like moments since we had left Ethrandor, decades had passed in external time. We were here, orbiting the cusp of something new and exciting and utterly alien. Projected in vivid detail on the IC’s cyclops dome before us was a view of the approaching planet, black against black. Its atmosphere — hydrogen, nitrogen, graphitic carbon and lead — shielded the surface from curious eyes (and most radio waves), presenting the planet as a dark orb.
“I can’t wait to be on the other side of the dark,” Orlese said, shaking the last of the psyche-sickness from her mind. I nodded. The images of the planet’s surface had brought us all here for the same reason. Possibility. Somehow, despite its hostile atmosphere and distance from its star, the planet showed signs of primitive life. Excitement of what lay ahead hung like static in the air. We were pioneers, astronaut adventurers on a cosmic frontier, going the farthest anyone had ever gone. For now. Again, I thought of possibility.
Then, in one swift motion, our excitement evaporated. All possible worlds collapsed into a singularity and, like a black hole, bad news swallowed us. Someone had accessed the data queue from back home, and word of our planet’s extinction reached us nine years too late.
Coronal mass ejection. Tongues of plasma like eldritch whips had jettisoned from our parent star, lashing Ethrandor with a significant portion of its mass. All on the planet had cooked alive — every bird, every tree, every person. According to the frenzied rush of data packets transmitted in their final moments, the world had awaited their imminent demise for nearly ten hours.
Ten hours. In retrospect, having had to wait millions, I envy them.
Communication was silent after impact. No mayday. No satellite signal. It was as if a switch had been flipped, extinguishing life, culture, hope and dream like it had never been there to begin with. All that remained of the event was the dark spot in the star where the plasma had been ejected. It resembled an eye, staring unblinking into the abyss.
Staring at us.
Something swept us, then. Something dark and dangerous. Sixty-thousand minds, sympathetic to one another in a way no mind had been before, experienced grief immeasurable. Our shared experience bridged a crucial gap, like a current traveling across open air between two conductors.
The connection reignited.
One of us — all of us — whimpered.
Andrew Akers (He/Him) is a forest ranger and fiction writer from Pennsylvania, USA. His work has appeared in Book XI, Stupefying Stories Magazine, Fabula Argentea, Black Hare Press, and Cloaked Press. When he isn’t working or writing, Andrew is running marathons, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or raising his son with his far more talented half, Kylie. For more information, check out his website:
www.Andrew-Akers.com.
Copyright © 2025 Andrew Akers