Orpheus

38

The following minutes passed by Riley in a daze; she'd helped all of them load their incubators into their ships, but she didn't remember any of it. One moment she was standing in disbelief, the next strapped up and ready to be spit into space.

"Comm check." Connor spoke into his earpiece aboard Dorothy.

"Check." Replied Elise's voice through the PA speakers.

"Check." Came Owen's voice; it reminded her of when they'd first gotten aboard the Resilience; a wave of emotions rolled over her.

'No, this isn't right... No person should have to go alone, to take that burden; there's a reason we were sent in pairs! He can't do this; it'll break him!'

'It'll break me...'

'But the mission matters more Riles; the future of humanity is at stake.'

Riley hated to admit it, but Connor was right; they had to think bigger. They had to think of the survival of the species as a whole, not just their own.

Yet still, sitting in the Destiny next to Connor, she couldn't shake off the feeling that it was wrong, all so wrong...

'There was so much I had to tell him, hoped to tell him, and I was waiting for the right moment. But now it's... slipping away...'

'Do I tell him, over the radio? No. Don't be stupid Riles, that's idiotic.'

"Detaching in 3... 2... 1... DETACH!" Riley was jerked back to reality as Destiny detached, floating away from the Resilience.

Space; this was it. Connor fired up the thrusters and Destiny began speeding towards the planet in white. The minutes ticked by in a thickly silence as everything seemed to be enwrapped in it; Riley's own breath was merely a soft whisper. 

She'd thought she'd comprehended the vastness of the infinite, yet with each passing moment of silence it seemed to grow, crushing her, reminding her of her insignificance.

The silence, and the guilt.

An eternity later her earpiece flared with static "Hey, you guys still out there?" Owen's voice crackled to life over the radio.

Riley's heart skipped a beat. She felt terrible, terrible for feeling the way she did: she would at least have Connor by her side; Owen would have to bear the weight of isolation alone.

"Yeah," Riley spoke, trying hardest to not let her voice crack. "We're here."

Owen exhaled; Riley thought it was in relief. "Well this ride's getting reeeeeeal boring; mind if I keep monologuing here like a maniac?"

Owen played it off as a joke, but Riley felt the truth in his words, hiding under the surface. Surely the others felt it too, didn't they?

"Sure." Elise's voice replied.

"Cool. Coolcoolcoolcool..." he muttered, before going back into the silence.

A few seconds ticked by before his voice sparkled back again. "Well, might as well tell you all about the planets again. First, coming up hot is Riley's-" her ears twitched at that. "-white marble over there. Look at it: ice baby! Ice!" He pasued for a second. "I call her Khione."

'The Roman snow queen...' Riley recalled; she'd read about her in some book.

"Khione?" Elise asked.

"Roman snow goddess." Owen explained. "I read about her somewhere. Aaanyways, solid planet: bits of water, hydrocarbons. It has one catch though: it has one hell of a gravity. Also, it's proximity to the exotic matter gives it a rather warping-"

"Time slippage?" Pratham's voice asked meekly.

"Bingo..." Owen replied, before giving a second's pause. "Time will be running much slower to them when compared to us. We'll be growing older faster than you Riles; how trippy is that?"

Riley felt a sick feeling in her stomach.

'They could age faster than us, grow old, and we'd never know.'

"How much?" Riley asked. "The slippage?" her voice was weak.

There was another moment of silence, this time louder. "Can't tell." Owen replied. "We couldn't run any calculations with the new data; power got sucked out before that, sadly." Riley thought his voice sounded somber. "Maybe weeks? Years? We don't know."

The sickening silence crept over Riley as she sat there, comprehending the information; they were humanity's last hope, and they were going in nearly blind.

'We have no clue what to expect.'

She'd been briefed and reminded about the stake time and time again; yet only now did she completely comprehend them. It's easy to fake confidence when the fear's further off; it's much harder when you're staring right at its face.

"Well, l that got somber quiet quick, din'nit?" Owen joked, trying to break the tension, but Riley felt that even he was having creeping revelations of his own. "Now if you see to my left... uhm... There it is! Icarus: that's the planet Pratham and Elise are headed for. We don't know much about it, to be honest, but I gotta say: it is one hell of a beauty."

Riley craned her neck to see out of the window; a swirling blue marble in space. She could faintly make out its two moons, kissing the atmosphere; the air warping around them in two magnificent arcs.

'They look like wings... I can see why Owen named it so.'

'But Icarus fell; fell to his death.'

Riley shuddered; she sometimes wished she wasn't so morbid.

"Well, that leaves me." There was a pause. "If you squint your eyes, just beyond the horizon, you'll see a small, brown dirtball; that's my stop." Riley craned her neck to see, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't see it.

"What shall I call you..." Owen seemed to mutter to himself. "Hmmm... How about... Oz. Yeah... yeah that's what I'll call you."

Despite the sadness of the situation; Owen trying to delay the inevitable isolation, Riley couldn't help but crack a small smile. This was the Owen she liked: the one who tried to make others smile, even in the face of unfavorable odds.

"After Dorothy?" Riley asked, her eyes moist. She didn't mean them to be; they just were.

"Yes..." Owen's grainy voice chuckled. Riley imagined he must hiding tears of his own. "At least somebody'll know why a planet was named after a fairy tale." 

"It wasn't just a fairy tale, dummy." Riley sniffled; her nose was beginning to get runny. 

"Anything's a fairy tale if it's happy enough Riles." his voice cracked a bit.

For some reason, that line struck Riley.

Suddenly, Destiny wobbled a bit. "Entering the upper atmosphere!" Connor announced. Riley snapped her eyes ahead; the planet now a looming wall of white.

'How did I not see this coming?' 

"Good luck guys." Elise's voice spoke over the radio; Riley had quite forgotten about her. "And goodbye!"

"Go with God Elise!" Connor responded; Riley was too chocked up by the sudden change in the situation. "Go with God!"

"Well, this is goodbye, I suppose." Owen spoke, the static intensifying his distress. "I jus-" his voice broke as soon as it began; the atmospheric entry beginning to fracture the connection. "Riles I wan-to tel-you wer-y fairy ta-"

The connection terminated, and the tremor swelling into a crescendo; the deafening bellow silencing Riley as they broke through the atmosphere.