Omega Station Part 3 of 3

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My sister and I didn't speak much,

which was hilarious when you consider we were two of 50 astronauts on the NASA roster back then.

If you had the privilege of being in the same room during one of the three times we interacted over seven years, you may have heard her call me Flyer.

That was her nickname for me.

I don't think she ever called me Ruby.

It was always Flyer.

Was that because I was a pilot in the Command Corps?

No.

It was because when we were kids, I would follow her around and she would joke that it was like pulling a little red radio flyer around wherever she went.

So it was no surprise to her when I followed her right into the astronaut program.

When the assignments came down and I was given gamma station command and she was given Omega, I thought to myself, damn, she finally got away from me.

But that's problematic thinking.

She didn't get away.

She was never on Earth to begin with.

Eyes pointed straight up all the time.

I followed her around as if she wasn't already gone.

I was holding on to something that wasn't there.

I feel like I don't need this story, Ruby.

I just need the point.

Earth is gone.

At least the Earth we knew is gone.

There'll be pockets of survivors in the end, but God knows what kind of life it will be.

There's no more central command.

There's no more help.

It's just us, which means if one of us is in trouble, we need to help.

This is about Europa.

We believe they're still alive.

on that issue are irrelevant.

Not only do we believe it, we think it's entirely plausible.

According to whom?

According to Sve.

Hello, Lieutenant Kowalchik.

Europa has lowest energy signature of all of us.

Atmosphere is oxygen.

Even if they are down to one good compressor, they can still be alive.

Okay, stop.

I know that you've briefed me on this contraption we are currently speaking through, but I'm going to need a moment here.

Can

any of you shed some light on why the lead colony in this mission was not informed of this secret experiment?

They don't think it would have been helpful for us to know on Mars?

I have a theory about that.

Lieutenant Lascom.

Ruby, did you just open a party line across the entire system?

Who else is on this line?

Oh, hi.

I'm Jill.

I think that they thought to test it on me because who am I going to tell?

It's just me out there.

And at what point did you decide to seize control of government property, Lieutenant?

Well, I didn't seize control.

I'm not a pirate.

You seized control by getting consistently drunk.

How is that not like a pirate?

Okay, it's pirate-ish, but I had a plan.

Pirates don't make plans.

What was that plan?

The plan was for us to stick together.

In light of everything, I think we should stick together.

Ready ironic coming from you.

Yes, coming from me.

Oh, the irony.

Fine.

Am I wrong?

I

don't suppose you're wrong in that.

Certainly being able to communicate in real time with each other, or at all, will be good news for all three colonies.

Four colonies.

Three colonies, Ruby.

You need to let Europa go.

It's too late for that.

I.

What

exactly does that mean?

What do you mean it's too late?

Yesterday, I instructed Svi to spin off our orbiter.

Our satellite made two rotations around Saturn and then made course for Europa.

It will be there in a month.

You were not authorized to do that.

There is no more authorization.

I did not authorize it.

Me, Ruby.

Mars is the lead colony, and I make the decisions decisions about asset allocation.

Well, you can't turn it back now.

It's already headed there.

And when it gets there, and we make contact with Europa, you are going to tell them that help is on the way.

Am I?

What kind of help exactly am I sending them?

I'm a colony, just like you are.

My resources are just as finite.

Seriously?

Yes.

Seriously.

Remember those stories after World War II?

Islands in the Pacific with Japanese soldiers on them who were never told that the war war was over.

Could you just be direct with me, Ruby?

You have five colony packages on Mars.

Whoa.

What?

Five?

That's classified information.

Uh-oh, Svi.

Did you hear that?

It's classified information.

Oopsies.

Is five a lot?

Five packages.

That's...

You could support a small town with it.

You know where my favorite place was at the old training compound back on Earth?

The roof of Building 3.

You see, I had a system down.

I knew how much time there was between urine tests.

So, if I climbed up to the roof of building three right after a test and had a cigarette, I knew there would be just enough time for me to get it out of my system before my next test.

And that was a special time just for me.

Up there on the roof at night with a single palm maul, just my own little world.

And occasionally, when I was up there in my secret hideaway, I would see things.

Things like long black cars pulling up to the compound under cover of darkness.

Sometimes it was a limo, sometimes it was a suburban, sometimes an Italian sports car.

And inside them all, someone very, very

important.

And there to meet them all, the NASA director himself.

I didn't make much of it at the time, but then one day Sve went poking around in a data package that was not meant for him, and he discovered that Mars, the lead colony, was curiously overstocked.

It's a weird plan, but it's not a bad one.

Create a hideout on Mars for everyone rich or powerful enough to afford it.

Wait for the pandemic to die out, and then return to a new world.

Just think of all the exploitable real estate that will suddenly be freed up.

It'll be the colonial age all over again.

Jesus Christ, Henry.

Don't be naive.

Four outposts launched simultaneously from Earth?

Do you have any idea the amount of capital they had to raise to make that happen?

The world was fighting off a pandemic.

World governments weren't exactly flush with cash.

So you set up Epstein's fucking island on Mars?

You think I was part of the decision?

Don't be ridiculous.

I didn't care what got us into orbit as long as we got there.

Pick up a book from time to time, Lieutenant.

People have been swirling cognac while the world burns for longer than you or I have been alive.

Oh, for fuck's sake, judge Dredd over here.

Let's stay focused, please.

We were supposed to be explorers, not stormtroopers on the fucking Death Star.

I don't expect you to understand the big picture, Lieutenant.

It's not what you're valued for.

You've never had a command of your own, and you don't know what it's like to make these decisions.

Is the American flag flapping behind you when you're saying that?

People like you are the problem.

You know that, Lieutenant?

As soon as anything goes south, you throw protocol out the window and start making up your own rules.

Because who could know better than you, right?

You're the king of your own personal universe.

I think it's good that you're three billion kilometers from Earth all by yourself because now you can just sit there on your own private shitty little planet and be right about everything while the rest of us get on with things in the real world.

So you're saying I'm right.

They put you on the rocket that was doomed to fail.

How does that feel?

And I don't mean doomed to fail like the dirty dozen.

I mean doomed to fail like we don't give a shit about this rocket and we're only launching it because the president said he wanted four launches.

You were on the short bus, Lieutenant.

Want to lecture me?

I suggest you sit there on the edge of the Tomba Regio and shut the fuck up.

I'd order you to, but I know how you are with that.

So the two of you can have a real housewives moment.

Captain, whoever those colony packages were meant for, they ain't coming.

The wedding's been canceled and the food is going bad, and there are people starving right around the corner.

You have zero authority regarding my station's resources.

I don't know why you're talking like you do.

So you're just gonna sit there on your pile of gold and just be the king of Mars?

Is that it?

I'm doing nothing of the kind.

I'm doing what all of us should be doing: I'm awaiting further orders.

They aren't coming.

No one has established that.

So, my orbiter reaches Europa, and we make contact and we say what?

Just call to let you know you're fucked?

I'm not going to be held hostage by your idiotic actions.

You miserable piece of shit.

Okay, how about we all just step back from the ledge here?

Who is this?

Is this the liaison?

Yes, hello, Captain.

I'm Lieutenant Joe.

Let me ask you something.

If this is such a high-profile top-secret project, why did they give us such an unserious liaison?

I'm sorry.

You're a shrike.

Is that correct?

Well,

I'm a decorated naval officer, for one thing.

Also, I have a PhD.

In psychiatry.

For a top-secret intelligence project.

Can you explain that to me?

I don't know.

Maybe they thought you'd all be going crazy and yelling at each other?

Well,

since I've got you here, as a resource, can you explain the mindset that has gripped these officers?

What has possessed them to throw years of training out the window when the shit hits the fan?

I think everyone's pretty scared right now, myself included.

They all have different ways of addressing that fear.

They have protocols and training that supersedes all that.

I've spoken to a lot of soldiers over the years, and honestly, for all our talk of duty, I have never encountered a training regimen that can overpower the human psyche.

I seem to be doing just fine.

No, you're not.

I mean, you're keeping to your duties, but you're doing so because it fits perfectly within your psychological profile.

In fact, despite the chaos right now, everyone in this conversation is performing well within their behavioral expectations.

I don't see how that could possibly be true.

NASA grouped certain personality types with certain stations.

The Pluto team needed to be candidates who could withstand long periods of isolation.

Enceladus was expected to be a promising station, but unpredictable.

So they sent people like Ruby and Sve who prefer improvisation rather than long protracted plans of action.

And then there was Mars.

We've all read our profiles, Doctor.

Lars told me.

Yes, you all got drunk and hacked into the psych profiles before liftoff.

But here's the thing.

Reading your own psych profile is pretty pointless unless you are an unserious liaison like me.

And by unserious liaison, I of course mean doctor of medicine.

If you read your own profile, you ignore the things that are inconvenient and the things you don't understand.

And what am I not understanding about this moment, doctor?

So many things, Captain.

But honestly, these days things have been a bit outside the DSM-5, if you know what I mean.

So there's a lot of things I don't know either.

Not knowing things makes people crazy, and everyone handles it in different ways.

For the most part, people cling to the things that they know and wait for something to happen.

But every so often, people decide to not wait and instead take action in uncertain times.

That's what Ruby, Lars, and Sve are doing.

Well, I think that's rash of them.

I know you do.

You're sticking with what you know, and it's a completely understandable reaction.

The problem is, the thing you are clinging to for assurance has stopped functioning.

You and I both are sitting inside military bases, and neither you or I have gotten new orders for months.

Taking that into account, doing one's duty becomes about something else, doesn't it?

You're still at your post, aren't you?

Yes.

But the difference between you and I is that I don't have much else to do except sit here in this weird little pod and talk to people in the sky.

If I wanted to help Europa, I couldn't.

You, on the other hand, are sitting on resources you don't need while someone else may be starving.

I love how we're talking about Europa as if we know they're waiting for us.

What if it's a dead station and I've launched resources at it?

If no one is on Europa, perform two orbital maneuvers, burn for home, return resources to Mars.

Only thing you lose is fuel.

Fuel can be made on Mars.

That sounds like a pretty safe bet to me, Captain.

But you and I both know it's not about the risk.

It's about disobeying orders.

It's about the things we cling to when the ground beneath our feet disappears.

Captain,

I need to tell you something about the Mars mission.

Something that didn't make sense until now.

In those psych profiles, the ones you all read but didn't understand,

there was something peculiar in profiles of the Mars candidates that wasn't there with the others.

What are you talking about?

You are all ranked on something called the F-scale.

I hadn't seen one in a long time, not since grad school.

You are all ranked based on certain personality traits:

Conventionalism,

destructiveness, cynicism,

intraception,

authoritarian submission.

The F

in the F scale stands for fascism.

I don't understand what the fuck.

They were looking for a team that would follow orders even if they were doing something most people would find repulsive.

Maybe something like safeguarding powerful people while everyone else dies.

Is this your attempt to rock my world or something?

This is my attempt at saying I think you're a good person who believes in what he does and that you are being used by people who saw you as disposable.

Doctor,

I joined the military to fight against things like fascism.

I know.

But I'm not a doctor of ironic twists.

I'm a doctor of clinical psychology, so I can't help you with that one.

I don't think clinical psychologists talk to people this way.

They don't, really.

What I'm supposed to do is talk to you for a couple of years until you come to these realizations yourself.

But recent events have really put me in the fast lane, and I have to say, I am loving it.

I am really getting a lot of work done.

I was actually kidding about the stormtrooper thing.

Turns out it nailed it.

This conversation is over.

No, it's not.

Ruby, you've obviously gone rogue and will suffer the consequences for doing so.

You will be getting no help from Mars.

Goodbye.

What the hell?

Still here.

How the hell do you shut this off?

You can't.

That's clever.

Then I'll just shut down my comms altogether.

Goodbye, Ruby.

For those of you listening at home, the sound you're hearing is Henry trying to shut off his comms ray and realizing he can't.

What's happening?

I'm in your systems, Captain.

There's a data stream attached to this radio signal.

Sve has been hacking you.

Sve, cut off his lights for a bit.

What

the

fuck?

This entire conversation was bullshit, wasn't it?

Yes, sorry about that.

I know you too well, Henry.

You don't spend seven years training alongside someone without getting a little predictive of their behavior.

I'm going to make sure you're court-martialed for this.

Yeah, but you were gonna do that anyway.

Once you're court-martialed, you can't be more court-martialed.

I tried to warn them it was a mistake to give you your own command.

Sure, sure, Henry.

Whatever makes you feel better in this moment.

You're gonna load up a rocket with a DSA and provisions, and then you're gonna launch that rocket for Europa.

I can cut your comms.

I can cut your lights.

I can cut your air.

You really think I'm going to respond to these tactics?

According to the doctor, you respond really well to fascism.

Who's your dear leader now?

Sve, cut the feed.

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this is omega station

jill are you out there

yeah i guess not hey hey hi I'm right here.

Hey, I didn't think you'd be around.

It's late there, isn't it?

It's 2 a.m.

What are you doing in the bubble?

Uh,

embarrassingly, I've taken to sleeping here.

There in the chair?

It's very comfortable.

It's that or an army cot, so.

What's going on there?

I'm a little light on duties out here, so Ruby's got me piloting the landing on Europa.

I was just doing simulations.

We're 48 hours away from being in comms range.

45.

Ruby's got me doing the first contact.

She's really taken over this operation, hasn't she?

Yes, thank God.

You know how I kept saying I had a plan?

You didn't have a plan?

I did not.

I had no plan.

My plan was to find someone with a plan.

Well, it looks like it worked out.

So you're doing first contact.

Yeah, I think it's for the best.

If there's anyone left down there, they're gonna be in a pretty bad state.

Maybe the worst I've ever seen.

For all the horrors of man, isolation is probably the worst thing you can do to someone.

You're preaching to the choir there, Doctor.

This will be worse than Pluto, Lars.

They've had zero communication with the outside world for nearly a year

in a malfunctioning station with low oxygen.

Anyone down there, it might take a while before they're even connected with reality again.

It's gonna be tough.

Be honest with me.

Was this all just a project in not going crazy?

I know that when things look dark, it helps to have a task to focus on, to have a job.

Is that all this was, you think?

We focus on a fool's errand so we don't have to think about everything unraveling right in front of us?

I'm not sure.

Maybe.

But remember how every station has a personality profile?

The people they sent to Europa all had immense patience and strong belief systems.

So, if there's anyone still alive there, they are waiting patiently and they believe in us.

Okay.

Tell me something that's happening out there.

Sunset.

Oh, yeah?

What's it like?

It's gray.

And very, very small.

Everything seemed a little smaller lately.

Is that odd?

No, it means you're lonely.

Really?

Is that what that feels like?

It's a terrible thing to get what you want.

I bet you became an astronaut because you discovered that the higher up you went, the less people you had to deal with.

And now there you are, all alone, and it's not all it's cracked up to be.

What do you want?

Me?

Little old me?

Yes.

It's kind of hard to think about that these days.

But what did you want?

Back in the day?

Not much.

I became a head shrinker because I think it's a terrible thing to not know yourself, not know others.

I think that's a tragedy.

So, when everything started going to hell, I just focused on that.

Which makes me feel like I am really crushing the apocalypse right now.

How so?

How many people can say that when the end was near, they were doing what they loved?

I'm worried about something.

Well, you're calling me at two in the morning, so I figured you were either worried about something or you'd gotten drunk again.

Ruby's sending me the news feeds now.

What's left of the news feeds?

Yeah, I wish she hadn't done that.

Power grids are failing all over the planet.

Half of India just went dark.

What if you lose power and just you're just gone all of a sudden?

Just boom.

And we're suddenly all floating out here with our heads up our asses again.

What if that happens?

That's not going to happen.

It could happen.

Remember what Svi said?

You dig a hole in the fabric of space and it stays there.

At the very least, you'll maintain contact with Enceladus and Mars.

I don't think we can do this without you.

And I take a pill every morning.

What?

I don't.

I hate it when you disarm me with a non-sequitur.

They were giving me this mystery pill every morning, and they wouldn't tell me what it was.

Eventually, I found out it's

an iodine pill.

Wait, seriously?

You have a nuclear reactor there?

A small one, deep underground.

We're not connected to the power grid.

Oh, that is...

Jesus.

Yeah.

Turns out, this top-secret project is a lot older and a lot more complicated than I first thought.

But then everything collapsed, so now it's not much more complicated than me sitting on a nuke talking to you.

So, assuming there's not some sort of meltdown, you're not getting rid of me anytime soon.

Well, I never thought I'd find a decaying nuclear isotope so comforting.

Think of it as the warm fires of home, but green and glowing and probably altering my DNA somehow.

Okay,

okay, I feel better.

Lars?

Until you called me that first time,

I didn't know how much longer I had.

I was losing it.

That's okay.

I don't want.

I don't want to die alone out here.

I don't want to be alone.

You're not.

I'm right here.

And I can't promise that I'm gonna build a rocket ship, but I can promise that I'll be in your ear through everything.

Okay?

Okay.

Okay.

What is that sound?

It's a hailstorm.

There's no hailstorms on Pluto.

I've been reading up.

No, uh, but I'm at the bottom of a ridge.

And about 7,000 feet up, there are winds about 200 miles per hour.

They blow bits of frozen nitrogen onto the station.

It sounds like hail.

Is that dangerous?

Yes.

But so is waking up in the morning,

going to sleep at night, and everything in between, so.

I think it's time for

our professional relationship to transition into a personal one.

We didn't do that already?

No.

Oh.

Now I feel kind of dumb.

Don't feel dumb.

And why are we

making this transition now?

Because you called me at two in the morning.

Okay.

And because I want to tell you

that I'm scared too.

And I want to tell you that

it's hard to hold it together sometimes.

And I want to tell you that the reason I sleep in this chair at night

is because

I think that if I sleep here,

nothing bad will happen.

Which isn't true.

But

I do it anyway.

Okay.

Okay,

I get it.

Everything here is dangerous, too.

It's supposed to be a safe place, and I'm scared of doorknobs, and public bathrooms, and the air.

I'm not supposed to be scared of the air, Lars.

No, you're not.

So you give me some advice.

What's the astronaut thing to do?

When you're surrounded by a hostile environment, what's my next step?

Honestly,

focus on the mission.

Right.

Okay.

Okay, I'll do that then.

I'm doing this prep for first contact with Europa, and I've read all the files, but can you tell me something about them?

Maybe

something that wouldn't be in psych profiles or mission briefings?

Uh, yeah, sure.

Um,

oh.

Ha!

Yeah, I can think of something.

What?

Okay.

The team leader, Amanda Holiday.

Yes.

She had this random and completely bonkers fantasy that she was going to be the first DJ

for the solar system.

A DJ, like with turntables?

No, I I mean, she had this 1970s radio disc jockey alter ego, and she had this dream that one day she would be broadcasting to the entire solar system and playing old-school jams and taking calls from people on Callisto or whatever.

Oh, my God.

So, all our rockets

were all in the air.

We had all broken orbit, and we were headed for our individual stations.

We had all begun the longest trip of our lives, cruising through the darkness.

And after a few weeks, we all start finding this mysterious file attached to our data packet from NASA.

So you open your data packet, and there's orders and schematics,

and then at the bottom was this mysterious audio file.

She had somehow found a way to record her DJ sets on board her ship and attach them to the data package from NASA without them knowing.

It was ridiculous.

Do you still have them?

I'm looking for one right now.

Hang on.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, this is the last one she sent.

Okay.

Europa had just gotten set up.

They hadn't gone dark yet.

And then one day, we all get this file in our data packet.

Hello, baby girls.

Hello, baby boys.

This is your favorite celestial body.

This is the voice of the starways.

This is your main squeeze in the solar breeze.

This is DJ IC Comet.

How are we doing out there space cowboys?

By this time in the great rotation of things so many of us have touched down in our new homes.

How are you doing Mars my kings of the desert?

Enceladus, how about you?

How are things in the land of the mile high geysers?

All's quiet here on Europa, but you know what they say about the quiet ones.

15 miles below the ice, there is a salty sea and a red, hot, molten core.

Just like you, Ruby.

Now.

I don't want to get too preachy here, you all, but I read the news today and, oh boy

things back home are not looking good and we, like cottony seeds from a burning bush, have been cast to the winds to look for safer ground to find purchase.

And though we do not know what lies ahead, let us find comfort in our history.

For in this meandering history of our species, one thing has held true from the beginning.

As soon as you get comfortable, it's time to pack your shit.

Plague, famine, war, and pestilence, the backup singers of destruction, have forever pushed us onward.

Across land bridges and across deserts and across vast oceans and now,

straight up into the sky.

But as we start unpacking, let us not forget our compatriots who are still somewhere out there in that black sea.

I'm talking about the outcasts,

the outriders,

the last stop before nothing at all.

I'm talking to you, Omega Station.

Well, we have all found a place called home.

You're only halfway there.

And every time we put our feet on the ground, every time we feel just a sliver of gravity, we will be thankful and we will think of you.

out there somewhere past Neptune, out there somewhere in the big mystery.

Keep your hard drives fragmented, Omega.

In this brave new world on the celestial highway, everybody gets a place to land.

May you find yours sooner than later.

May your itchy feet finally touch that sweet Plutonian ground.

This song goes out to you, my lovely, lonely wanderers.

Beta station, this is Iris Actual.

Do you read me?

Beta station, do you read me?

I've got two minutes of this trajectory before I have to head back home.

Beta station, do you read me?

Beta station, this is Earth.

This is home.

Are you there?

Amanda?

Amanda, are you there?

My name is Jill, and I'm talking to you through.

Well, honestly, you wouldn't believe me if I told you what I was talking through.

I've met a lot of your friends, Amanda, and they couldn't let you die.

I've got an aid package that's coming in for a landing, but it won't land unless I know that you're there.

I'm going to take a chance here.

I think it's possible.

You may be standing right there looking at your comms panel and thinking that this isn't real.

You know know what?

Maybe it's not.

Maybe you're hallucinating.

How about you reach out anyway?

How about you push that button?

What's the worst that could happen?

Nothing happens if you don't reach out.

30 seconds.

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