Colony of Two - Opening Act

Breathing Through the Void

Colony Of Two: Breathing Through the Void.

The cold, dark reality of the control room. I could smell the rust and the humidity. It felt like I’d catch an infection just by standing there for more than a minute.

The next eclipse is 4 months away. It will be our final blow. I have run this scenario in my head countless times and I cannot pin the fracture point. There was no time and I wish we had more.

Every time I closed my eyes, I wondered if there was anything I should have done.

A loud noise cut through the entire room like a terrible song on a phone speaker as someone behind me knocked on my chair. “She’s calling you,” he noted, sounding annoyed.

“Thanks for the push of confidence,” I whispered, without looking back.

My time was up. I stood up and walked to the front to face everyone, noticing the greenboard ahead was so old. It looked fused to the wall, buried under decades of beige and green paint.

I had absolutely nothing prepared for this session. I simply put this presentation aside like a raw vegetable during a barbecue, and now there was nothing I could do to escape it.

At her desk, the Mission Director was calmly scrolling through a tablet like she had been looking at it all day. “Ah, here you are. Solar Eclipse,” she said, not even looking around. She stood up and extended her arm like she was introducing me at an award ceremony.

“I don’t know if you all knew this, but the last time we had a full solar eclipse was 17 months ago.”

“18 months ago, Director,” I said.

I really don’t know how I knew that. Probably read it somewhere or watched a random clip, but there was an opening and I took it.

“Ah. Well. That’s true, yes.” The Director turned, her attention snapping completely onto me. “Let’s hear everything about the upcoming eclipse. Quiet, everyone.”

I had absolutely nothing. “I have to say, we’ve all heard a lot about the eclipse,” stretched my pronunciation like it was the oxygen I needed to survive.

“Nobody wants another broadcast. I mean, yes! We know that the big blue planet is going to cover the big sun, but even I can do that,” I pointed my thumb toward the window.

“And why is that?” the Director asked, a smile drawing across her entire face.

I immediately realized her crosshairs were locked on me. Nobody had put me there but me. She had all the ammunition needed for a public shaming show. I had cast myself as the main actor.

“Well, you see…” I tried to plug my wrist-pad into the big screen. The rambling bought me five seconds, and that’s when the first sensor went out.. A dot on the screen shifted from an amber blink to a permanent red light. Then another.

“Wait a minute, sensors 7, 5, and… 4 are gone?” I looked around at the blinking red glare.

“Everyone, evac!” the Director yelled.

“Wait, wait, Director.” I stammered, already moving backward, trying to argue my way out of a presentation I no longer had to give.

“To your position, now.”

Progress: 529 of 5,553 words

So what’s the story?

After a catastrophic atmospheric breach on the moon’s surface, a technician is stranded on a lunar outpost with a half-charged suit and a failing grid. Staying put is a death sentence. Survival now depends on an unlikely partnership.

They have two choices: fade away or step into the void to chase the last of their resources. Together, they must learn that despair is not wisdom. As they venture deeper into the brutal gray desert, they realize the fractured base was only the beginning of their problems.

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Colony of Two: Breathing Through the Void (A Short Story)

by Cale Lares

Who’s writing?

Thank you for reading and being here.

I’m Cale Lares, and I write short stories about outliers at the limits of human experience. Born in the Caribbean, shaped by the Andes, and now writing science fiction from the subarctic north.