A Spaceship Crew Faces Doom in This Surprisingly Tender Sci-Fi Story

io9 is proud to current fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. As soon as a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed’s present situation. This month’s choice is “Final Meal Aboard the Awassa” by Kel Coleman. Take pleasure in!

Final Meal Aboard the Awassa

by Kel Coleman

Gardener ladled dark-purple porridge into her major digestion sac, staring absently out the viewport at black house and the distant smudge of the planet they’d come to check. The straightforward meal and the gesture it represented soothed her after a protracted, thorny morning in a bit of the expansion bay that was in full flower and had wanted hand pollinating. Although the opposite crew members across the mess made do with the standard break time assortment, Cook dinner had steamed and spiced osard grains only for her earlier than going off shift to nap of their rooms.

When the 2 of them joined the crew as a pair, roughly 4 solars in the past, Gardener had nervous the particular therapy proven to her from the kitchen would result in resentment. She had heard it might get lonely on a protracted haul when you made a nasty impression, particularly on a tiny ship the place everybody knew one another’s households, had vid night time sleepovers within the observatory, and will depend not less than a handful of birthdays and Limitless Nights aboard. However in contrast to Gardener, this hadn’t been Cook dinner’s first lengthy haul and he or she’d quickly researched the crew’s house planets and ports, monitoring down household recipes, well-liked road meals, and pageant treats. The crew of the small science vessel had been instantly smitten along with her, and Gardener discovered herself warming to them consequently.

She completed her porridge, scraping the bowl clear, however lingered on the desk to—

The audio system mounted across the mess blared three pressing tones.

The opposite crew members scattered at tables and behind the serving counter dropped what they had been doing and moved to readiness. For Gardener, like many bipeds, this meant standing along with her limbs at her sides. She turned towards the closest display, which had already switched from Union information to video from the bridge.

The captain’s wings had been tucked near their thorax, their 5 eyes reddened and quickly blinking. In all 4 solars of her time aboard, Gardener had by no means earlier than seen them fearful.

“Crew of the Awassa, that is your captain talking.”

Gardener’s delicate listening to picked up all of the ear dots across the room overlaying the phrases with translations. Her personal ear dots not solely translated the captain’s phrases however amplified issues like pitch adjustments so she could be much less apt to mistake one tone for an additional. They had been frightened, however with a tinge of anger maybe?

“As a few of you could already know, we misplaced contact with the crew despatched to Gulsan-6 two hours in the past. This occurred shortly after they despatched a probe into the gasoline large. Following evaluate of footage, scans, and probe knowledge, we will conclude with excessive certainty that Gulsan-6 is, somewhat than a planet, an unknown species. It’s able to surviving and navigating the vacuum of house. And since exiting dormancy, its measurement has develop into incalculable as its form is ever-changing. It’s able to lowering matter to its smallest items, and I remorse to tell you your crewmates Engineer Ulli and Physicist Andel, together with their shuttle, had been consumed by the alien. With equal remorse, I have to inform you the alien is now on a course to intercept and devour the Awassa as nicely.”

As her hearts’ paces fell out of concord, Gardener discovered she might not type out the feelings behind the phrases. On the faces round her, although, she learn the captain’s pragmatic hopelessness concerning the scenario. As they continued talking, a time-to-intercept countdown appeared within the backside of the display. They ordered three senior crew members to the bridge and advised everybody else to name their family members. So . . . there was nothing helpful for her to do besides discover Cook dinner.

• • •

Cook dinner was within the hydroponics row, pinching leaves off of herbs and dropping them right into a handwoven basket. Her darkish, easy pores and skin was riddled with planet-orange hives and her voluminous whiskers had been drooping.

“Cook dinner?”

She didn’t cease pacing or search for.

“Nailo? Did you see the captain’s—”

“In fact,” Cook dinner stated. She gestured on the herbs and fruits tumbling round within the basket like that was rationalization sufficient.

And for Gardener, it was. The 2 of them wanted few phrases.

Cook dinner would do what she liked till the tip. She was already gliding across the nook to the subsequent row, and if she had been the identical species as Gardener, she would possibly’ve heard her utter a time period of endearment, one which didn’t translate nicely to many different fleet languages.

An endearment near which means beloved, one her caretaker had known as her typically. An endearment that had journeyed along with her when she left her lush world for Outpost 9. An endearment that saved her and her seedlings heat regardless of the depressing chilly outdoors the outpost greenhouses. An endearment that had come along with her on a trip the place she bought crater-sloshed with a slick-skinned touring chef within the backroom of a Meat Meet Meat. An endearment that had accompanied the each of them to the Awassa, the place they had been swept up in all of the drama and mutual care of a giant household that Cook dinner had missed and Gardener found she might tolerate when she wasn’t flat-out loving it—the shift-change gossip, the hugs, the too-loud music shoving by skinny partitions, her first spacewalk accompanied by Engineer Ulli . . .

Her hearts skipped.

She pulled herself out of her ruminative state and joined Cook dinner in one other part of the bay, the place she was snipping blue flowers from climbing dewdrops. Gardener gently took the shears from her. “My job,” she stated. “Simply inform me what you want.”

• • •

After they had been completed with harvesting, Cook dinner agreed to provide prep over to uninitiated however enthusiastic crewmates so she might name her household. Gardener lay in mattress, blankets holding down her jumpy limbs, and tried to dam out Cook dinner’s murmurs two rooms away. She set the updates from the bridge to a quantity excessive sufficient that it precipitated her some ache.

The bridge crew had discovered so much about “the vapor” and the way it consumed the crew and the shuttle. They had been capable of gather this knowledge when the vapor altered its course to eat the second probe they despatched to investigate it. They nonetheless couldn’t cease it or outrun it, however they estimated that they might purchase a number of extra hours with the remaining probes as decoys.

When she bought off the decision, Cook dinner was weirdly happy with the information. “Extra time to cook dinner,” she defined. A couple of minutes later, with bottles of one thing clear she’d been “saving for a special day” cradled in her arms and a nuzzle towards Gardener’s cheek, she was off to make a feast for his or her crew, their beloveds.

• • •

Gardener didn’t typically document movies unrelated to her duties. She smoothed down the fur round her eyes and cleared her throat.

“That is Gardener Ketri,” she started. “A hostile member of an unknown species is bearing down on my ship, the Awassa, and I don’t have anybody to say goodbye to who isn’t in the identical boat . . . besides you, I suppose, whoever sees this.”

The dread dripped steadily by her bloodstream now, however she imagined the individuals who would watch this, particularly the youthful ones, and he or she didn’t need them to really feel afraid for her.

“As an alternative of goodbye, although, do you thoughts if I let you know what it’s wish to be a gardener on a long-haul science vessel?” She discovered a smile, exhibiting silver-specked herbivore’s tooth. “It’s unbelievable. I really like my job. On daily basis, I coax issues to life. I assist them develop. I spend my shifts with filth below my toes and lightweight on my pores and skin. Typically my accomplice, Cook dinner Nailo, brings me a germination problem, normally a particular request from a crewmate lacking house cooking, and generally I get the water and lightweight and vitamins excellent on the primary strive. Not typically, however these are good days.”

She might already hear music thumping from the observatory. Scientists that they had been, everybody needed to look at the vapor’s method. It was an undeniably cool approach to die: eaten by an area monster. There could be papers written about it for many years, they usually solely regretted they wouldn’t be those to put in writing them.

“In the event you’re contemplating becoming a member of the fleet, go for it. Don’t let our dangerous luck cease you.”

• • •

By unstated settlement, all of them adopted the gown code for vid nights, which had no necessities however private consolation. A number of crewmates had moved empty crates from the storage bay to make a protracted desk for a “family-style” meal. Gardener wasn’t conversant in family-style, but it surely appeared to imply an not possible quantity of meals being handed round chaotically till everybody proved, below menace of extra heaping spoonfuls, that they had been bodily incapable of consuming one other chew.

The meal was a showstopper, after all.

Dewdrop blossoms filled with fungus, tied closed with the plant’s delicate vines, and fried to midnight blue. Thick, smoked leaves used as wraps and plates to reinforce taste. A fruit platter with all the things from further bitter, underripe kio to candy, waterlogged berrymelon to bitter, gritty seeds Gardener hadn’t even recognized had been edible earlier than in the present day. Roasted frog and tomatillos inside corn patties, served with yellow rice. Uncooked tentacles, sliced skinny, alongside a dry dip that was such an indignant purple she knew it might ship her to the med bay if she touched it. A vivid, purple gradient of osard, from the sunshine raw grains nonetheless on the stem—good for digestion—to the steamed variety excellent for lunch to a virtually black pile of pebbly bread rolls. Smoking papers filled with calming herbs and tightly hand rolled. And people bottles of suspiciously clear liquid. And extra. And extra. One thing, a present, for every member of the crew.

What adopted was an evening of dancing, imbibing, embracing, some prayer, extra consuming, the revelation of juicy ship secrets and techniques, and 4 rounds of “Lunar Penny” by everybody with the elements to sing or stomp or howl.

Midway by the night time, they watched the final probe disappear into the vapor. Gardener was at Cook dinner’s facet, resting a furred cheek on her easy shoulder, their fingers clasped tightly sufficient to chop off circulation.

Somebody cheered awkwardly, intoxicated. A couple of extra cheers went across the group like nervous laughter. Then it was silent . . .

Gardener shocked herself by shakily beginning one other spherical of “Lunar Penny.” The crew joined her heartily, turning away from the tip and again to their occasion.

In regards to the Writer

Kel Coleman is an Ignyte-nominated writer whose fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in FIYAH, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Solarpunk Journal, The Finest American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 and 2024, and others. Kel is a Marylander at coronary heart, however they at the moment stay in Pennsylvania with their household, a stuffed dragon named Pen, and a set of unusual and frivolous collections. They are often discovered on-line at kelcoleman.com.

Please go to Lightspeed Magazine to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the September 2025 situation, which additionally options quick fiction by Jake Stein, Cadwell Turnbull, Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko, Bogi Takács, C.Z. Tacks, Isabel J. Kim, Stephen S. Energy, and extra. You’ll be able to look ahead to this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should buy the entire situation proper now in handy book format for simply $4.99, or subscribe to the book version here.

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