Stars and Dark

By Rei Rosenquist

Stars and Dark, a collection of five science-fiction stories, takes you to space in the far-flung future. Silicone-based lifeforms, queer non-binary AI, space stations, and queer trans post-earth humans all populate these pages, each character telling their complex and tangled story of life in a vacuum full of pinpricks of light. Let these hopepunk stories transport you to another time and another place in the great cosmos where love and hope are found in the darkest, strangest corners of the universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rei Rosenquist
• Release date: Feb 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224497102

Rei Rosenquist

Rei Rosenquist first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a nomadic story-teller’s life. Over the years, they have traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. But, some things never change. For them, these are stories, food service, and traveling. These three passions have bloomed from hobbies, studies, and jobs into a way of life. These days, Rei can be found in between Tokyo, Kailua, and Bellingham, Washington pouring beautiful latte art, baking off a batch of famous savory scones, and cozying up with a laptop to obsessively write mountains of dark speculative fiction. You can find Rei’s stories and blog at reirosenquist.com. You can also reach them via email at [e-mail] or connect via Facebook (Rei Rosenquist), Twitter (rylrosenquist) and Instagram (rylrosenquist).

Book preview

Stars and Dark

STARS AND DARK

SHORT STORIES IN SPACE

REI ROSENQUIST

Weathered Ocean Feathered Sky Press

Copyright © 2023 by Rei Rosenquist

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONTENTS

First Contact

An Anti-Scouts Novella

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Dream Trust Test

An Anti-Scouts Novella

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The Starship Who Seeked Lost Gods

Initiate

Remember

Accept

Comms

Need to Free

A Short Sci-Fi

One

Two

Silent Observer

A Short Sci-fi

Silent Observer

About the Author

More Sci-Fi by Rei Rosenquist

Fantasy by Rei Rosenquist

First Contact

CHAPTER 1

A bell shrieked, marking the end of the day.

At the far end of the bunks' hallway, an automatic steel door rattled open. Harsh white lights came on, lighting up a small rectangular room. The beige walls looked worn and faded, as if they needed a day off. A thin shelf-like bed, flattened into an unsightly pancake, sat drenched in the syrup of unwashed flannel sheets. A warped foam pillow crammed in between wall and bed looked utterly forgotten. The room boasted no dresser because that's what jumper printers were for.

I dragged myself into my bunk, ready to fall sleep as soon as I touched down. I breathed in deep the smell of robot cleanliness. A relief from the acrid grease of the work floor. I flopped down against the ruined mattress and hit my spine.

Ow!

Once, this bed had been full and supportive. A comfort at the end of a long day. The lights overhead had been softer somehow. More inviting. The air, pregnant with the spicy smells of another human.

Not just any human.

Lyla. My love. Long gone.

When we first moved in together, the walls had been so new, so glossy and smooth that we could draw pictures on them. And so we did, every night. And each morning, we'd sweep our dreams away with the light flick of our wrists.

Like life was a story we could keep retelling.

We.

Now, this box was just a crash pad with only me in it. Jordy, the lonely, over-worked shipping guy who lived in a bunk that felt more like an escape pod than a home. Matte brown hair, greasy from neglect prickeld the nape of my neck. Rough stubble kept catching on the already snagged pillow case. My flat, sunken-in cheeks ached. Lips that once used to kiss so tenderly burned, cracked and chapped, from frowning all day at the shipping screens. I bet even my eyes were faded from stormy Earth-cloud grey like Lyla used to say. Now, brushed steel. Like everything else.

I twisted on my side, spine aching, feeling like a ghost in my own skin.

Some real strong man I was.

I didn't know about that, being either strong or a man. But anyway.

I needed rest, that was my problem. I was exhausted. A whole week of back-to-back doubles, sending shipments out for twelve hour stretches at a time, leaving one hour of down time on each side before my next shift kicked in. I couldn't even remember the last time I had a decent meal, let alone a whole eight hours of sleep.

I shut my eyes and tried to forget the sore spot in my back.

A bright blue light filled the room. I sat up, grumbling, and picked up the sharp-cornered, bottom-of-the-line rough steel handi-pad. As soon as I touched the screen, the audio self-activated.

Morning, Jordy. This mission is nothing you haven't seen before, Dreg, my superior officer, said in a chipper tone.

I grunted back.

Just like the Scouts Shipper's Manual says: No rest for the diligent.

If I was anything, I was hard working.

I opened the link Dreg had sent without delay and told the attached docs to load. As I waited, I ran my hand down my cheek. My fingers hit my wiry mustache, much longer than it should ever get. I cringed at my lack of self-care, moved my hand away, and focused in on the mission statement at hand.

Despite Dreg's reassurance, I'd never seen an assignment like this one.

[MAKE FIRST CONTACT WITH THE POSTONI ON PLANET DERNEG]

That was my mission statement.

First contact? With the what? On planet where the fuck?

I scanned the steps required of me. Suit up in my official blue jumpsuit, climb into a long distance travel pod with enough supplies to last me three-quarters of a light year, input travel coordinants, and keep an active (if not rudimentary) livefeed log open on my clunky, basic handi-pad communications and computing device.

Sure, I could do that. But.

I'd never heard of the Scouts, a universe-wide collective of diplomatic ambassadors before anything else, ever sending out a scrap like me in this capacity. First Rank Ambassadors like Dreg, or Council Ambassadors the likes of Dreg's superiors, yes. But an average delivery/service level shipper?

Never.

But there it was, in all caps, right before my eyes. As if Dreg knew I wouldn't buy into this mission in any old normal font.

I began drafting an insta.mail response which would appear on Dreg's screen as soon as I hit [complete] on my own, despite the thousands of light years between us. All thanks to alien technology, which had come to the Scouts by way of real successful first contact missions made by real, properly qualified ambassadors.

Dreg, what the actual fuck? How do you expect me to understand what this mission entails, let alone complete it successfully?

I stopped, reread the mission statement. Words weren't exactly my strong suit. I took a deep breath, counted down from ten like my psychiatrist used to tell me to do, deleted everything after Dreg's name, and tried again.

Dreg, this mission seems to lay outside my capacity as a Shipper of the G-level variety. What am I missing?

I sent the message off. And then, I sat on the edge of my collapsed bed, waiting.

Why would the Scouts want to send me to make first contact of all things in the known universe? Surely Dreg had told the Deciding Committee of my less than glamorous glitches. Surely, they'd looked at my track record of frequent medical bay visits. Long hours spent in the infirmary when nothing official was wrong with me. Nothing but anxiety the psychiatrist finally called identity crisis and sent me away with pills that made life less difficult but more grey.

Surely, Dreg had explained everything.

Which left me only one conclusion.

The Scouts were actively getting rid of me.

There wasn't a Planet Derneg. The Postoni didn't even exist. I was nothing special. This was the way all depressed, anxious, under-productive members of Scout society with identity crises got walked out.

With a one way trip to the middle of nowhere with enough supplies to last the journey plus a few more days for personal contemplation?

Why the fuck couldn't they just fire me and let me disappear in my own way into the universe? Better yet, why hadn't I done like Lyla did, ran off and pre-empted this?

Because you never listen, Lyla would say.

My handi-pad dinged.

Jordy, you heard me. Pretty fucking straight forward. Not sure why the delay.

Straight to the point. Head strong, that's what the Scouts liked in a guy. No hee-haw, no soft words. All thrusters on; no take backs.

So, this was it. My big send off.

No sense asking Dreg for anything else, since clearly he'd decided this was it. My exile. No sense appealing with the Scout Living Beings Humane Resources or the Universal Humane Society, either since I had zero contact information for either. Why would a simple shipper living on a basic mining outpost on an asteroid in the middle of deep space ever need such high ranking resources?

They wouldn't.

So, what were my options?

Redirect the faster-than-light dimensional-drive enhanced travel pod?

To do so, I'd have to know how to input a stop command on the pre-loaded series of complicated equations that enabled my pod's d-drive to bend and fold reality around me like a hand crumpling a sheet of paper.

People call d-drives just that. Drives. Like the ship is zooming through space at a speed faster than light. It's not.

I'd been given the scoop on what a d-drive really does by Lyla, who used to machine the specialized screws that hold these tiny but massive computing cubes in place in small pods like the one I was being instructed to board.

A d-drive is more akin to a densely packed black-hole creator than an engine, Lyla had explained. They're controlled by math, not velocity.

I've never been any good at math. I could barely multiply or divide above my 5s.

Redirection was out.

Maybe, if I got lucky, my travel pod would stop near a partially terraformed planet where human communities still lived in open air under pretty glass-like domes. Not that I'd ever seen one. Only 3D images.

More realistically, I might accidentally bop into some other averagely populated asteroid. One with actual connections to the universal interconnected link-web. Or, I could cross paths with an Ambassador Hub or a major Shipping Node where all my low-priority shipments got redistributed. There, I could flag down help and reassess my life.

So, my best bet was to do as Dreg said. Get into the pod and cast off.

I packed a small satchel. I didn't own much -- my handi-pad, a few changes of the same 3D printed blue jumpsuit I wore every day, and a single oddity. A glass dildo with purple glitter that was kind of cheap so it looked more like embedded microchips than proper glitter.

Weird, I know. I had never used it. Never had any intent to use it. I wasn't much of an ass-man myself, so I wasn't even sure why I still had it. But Lyla -- my longest (okay, only) standing partner -- had given it to me with the hopes I'd use it with her one day. We never got around to it before things went sideways. Not even sure why I'd kept it, but it reminded me of something Lyla used to say.

Things come to you that don't always make sense. Keep an open mind.

That was her go-to line, especially toward the end.

Maybe, the dildo was a badge of honor at this point. An affirmation that I was doing my best, regardless of what she thought of me now.

Maybe I just wanted the fucking dildo.

I stuffed it in the bottom of my bag. Open minded, what?

I paused at the door and looked back. It felt like looking at a corrupted image of a place I used to know. I swallowed, trying hard not to imagine Lyla's body laying there, just below the lump of sheets, giggling, waiting for me.

I turned away, hand pressed against my hammering chest.

As the door rattled closed behind me, I felt something deep inside my heart crack. A fine hardly-noticeable line, like a break in a pressure valve you don't see until it's too late. I moved through the empty hallways like a ghost on the haunt.

I entered the small one-seat pod shaped like a round coffin. My gut sank. I had just enough food and water packs to last a day longer than my oxygen count. And my only company for the rest of my foreseeable life would be this glass dildo with clunky purple glitter.

Perfect.

[The pod is cleared for departure] the pod's drive system alerted me.

I slid down into the bucket seat without looking back at the station where I'd spent the greater part of my life. Arrived just after schooling, never left.

Until now.

The hard rubber chair accepted my body with a groan. I hit [activate]. The pod detached from the rest of my life with a surprisingly quiet click.

CHAPTER 2

Deeper than deep space. The unexplored middle of nowhere. I was surrounded by distant galaxies and loads of empty space.

But then, in my tiny smudged up window, something bright slid into my limited view.

I strained against the straps. They dug back, leaving small valleys in both my shoulders and a ravine across the small pouch of my belly. The little floating blue something drifted closer, gained definition.

Water, I was certain, glinting on the surface of a tiny planet in the light of a nearish star.

[Incoming Communication] the pod alerted me in mechanical monotone.

O hai! We see you! Drifter? Need fuel? We've got hot caffeine! Come check out the showering explosion room ;)

I read the oddly casual, humanly colloquial message a dozen times. Reloaded it just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or glitching out on some old link to some old entertainment station.

No. This was the most recent transmission my pod had received.

What was this? Some kind of remote access playground I'd been sent to for vacation? And what, Dreg didn't say so because he knew if he said I was being sent on my vacation, I'd never have taken it?

Truth.

I didn't know how to take a break. Didn't know how to relax. Didn't want to. Call it my nature. Call it fear of the silence. Call it whatever you like. But, if this really was a vacation, then I knew just what to do.

I was turning this pod right around, getting back to my waiting ship, and heading straight into Dreg's office to demand in person my next actual assignment.

[Please dock in the A Stream where you will be greeted by our delightful menagerie of delights!] the asteroid/non-planet reached out again.

In the matter of time it took me to try and figure out what an A Stream even looked like, I received another message.

[O-K! We're pulling you in.]

Wait, what?

No. No, no, no.

I hit every button on the display panel. Not that any of them were activated in post d-drive mode. I just hit them to feel like I had some agency. I didn't. The beam of ultraviolet light screamed toward me. That's not an understatement. Naturally, I couldn't hear it until it hit the hull of my pod, but upon contact, I was rattled with the beam's...moan for lack of a better word.

I inadvertently fingered Lyla's dildo, remembering two things at once. Her beautiful ethereal moans that used to drift above my head during love making, and the way her voice started pitching and ducking below mine once she