Page 13 of Music of the Ocean

By 07:40, he’d changed into his uniform and was walking the corridor to the Bridge. His body remembered the way, muscle memory taking over as the rest of him drifted. The air in the corridor was so dry it made swallowing hard and the urge to cough hard to resist.

The Bridge was quiet at this time in the morning. Abe and Kira were already there, hunched over their stations, blue light from their screens flickering against the skin. Saxby nodded at both as he slid into his seat.

It was still warm. He wondered who’d had the watch before him, and if they’d ever noticed the oddness, the claustrophobia, the way the ship felt more like a coffin than a vessel.

He paused. He’d never felt that before.

Saxby shoved that random thought off to the side and ran his first diagnostics. He was the youngest Lieutenant Junior Grade starship navigator ever, and his primary task was to be aware of the ship’s position at all times.

His responsibilities included maintaining the ship’s star charts, planetary maps, and navigational equipment, plus planning the journey, advising the captain of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and avoiding hazards.

He wasn’t the chief navigator yet, but it was a position he was working toward, which he needed if he wanted to earn captain rank.

Needing to keep his hands busy, Saxby triple-checked the course plots, cycled through the sublight settings, and even ran a quick test on the comm arrays.

No errors, no hitches. Every system ran clean. He flicked his gaze at the viewport, a streak of nebula and distant, silent stars. It should’ve been comforting. Instead, he had to unclench his jaw and force his shoulders down because all he could see was that damned planet.

He caught Kira glancing over at him.

“Morning,” Kira said.

“Morning. Any word from Command?” Saxby asked, leaning into the routine, easy banter.

Kira shook her head. “Nothing new. Science is still sifting through the samples. Security’s bored out of their minds.”

“Lucky them.” The words tasted bitter, but Saxby kept his tone light. “Anything weird in the logs?”

“Nothing worth lying about,” Kira said.

Saxby almost laughed, but it turned into a cough. He wiped his mouth and caught a glimpse of the medband on his wrist. The little LED pulsed.

Abe swiveled around from his console. “Hey, you want to see something fun?” He tapped a fat finger on the holoscreen. “The planet’s water chemistry? It’s super weird. Chloride and magnesium, sure, but also trace elements that should only exist in deep prefusion reactor cores. It’s like the planet’s ocean is doing its own version of nuclear waste processing.”

“That’s not even the best part,” Kira said, grinning. “There’s organic material in the water. Like, not just plankton. Something with protein chains, and it’s everywhere. It’s like everything is connected.”

Saxby’s scalp crawled. The taste of brine, the memory of the water, the thing at the edge of the dream. He swallowed, the motion catching on the dryness in his throat. “So… What? The planet has, like, a consciousness? Or is sentient?”

“That’s what Abe said, too,” Kira replied. “I think it’s just got a wild ecosystem.”

Abe shook his head. “No, Kira, it’s not just a wild ecosystem. It’s deliberate, not accidental. Like there’s logic to it. A purpose. So, yes, Saxby, I think it is. There’s still debate whether Earth is sentient or not. There’s this massive grove of aspen trees in Colorado that’s believed to be the largest single living organism on Earth. All the trees share a common root system.”

“And?” Saxby asked.

“And that sentience would need to leverage a life-form or forms to act in the role of neurons, sensory cells, etc.”

That was so out of his wheelhouse Saxby didn’t bother to ask any more questions. He focused on the plot ahead, dialing the sublight up a notch just to feel the change in the deck under his feet. “We’re due to break orbit tonight. We leaving on schedule?”

“Unless Captain Mollen says otherwise, yes.” Kira leaned in, voice dropping. “You good, Sax?”

He shrugged. “I’m fine. Vance is keeping an eye on me.”

“I heard.”

Of course she had. Their starship was more of a science vessel, so it only had a crew of about twenty-five hundred souls. Definitely not what you’d find on a battleship.

And it undeniably wasn’t as nice as a battleship. It’d been commissioned in 2369 and was showing signs of aging. As did their captain, frankly.

Saxby wondered if the captain’s liver spot to hair ratio went up with service years. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to focus on the sensor readouts, but the words swam.