Chapter Text
«My name is Roxane, you are here on 4546B, a planet I baptized Llyr, on which I've been living since a little time now. On this beautiful and dangerous planet. This is my last message for my friends and family. I won't come back. I'm way past the breaking point, and if I press on, I'll forget who I were... I will blow those bombs and will forget my humanity. So I will leave Humanity behind me, and leave for another world...
Going sledding with a friend does sound like more fun than taking bomb shards up my ass... I don't mind a good spank every now and then, but bombs ? It's a little too much.
Let's start from the beginning, even if the proper order of things often has been a stranger to me.»
Fifth Diary or Roxane Oak :
I don't know why I keep putting my name in those diaries, I'm the only one who reads them and I know they're mine ! I guess I've seen way too many movies... I've grown on Earth, on one of the rare places where grounds could still support little bits of life. They were even more precious and coveted...
Why do I repeat this again...
I think I'm a bit ashamed.
I don't miss Earth.
Is it wrong to not want to go back home ? To not feel at home... well... home ? I don't fucking know, I should talk to a shrink about it. But for fuck sakes, where I grew up people would tear each others apart for a piece of fertile land ! For a yes or a no they'd go bonkers, jump to each other's throats or kill each others !
I don't mean any harm to anyone, and I don't want to be harmed.
When I was bold enough to say such a thing to someone, they'd call me naive or worse... I don't know what's worse : that they are right or wrong... The only thing I know is that being infantilized for my beliefs does not please me.
So I ran away. I've taken the first job coming my way as a cleaning lady on one of Alterra's ships. Alterra... Pff, what a joke. All companies are claiming Earthian birth. As if it was such a glory...
Alterra is a megacorporation like the others, it doesn't care that I work for it, like I don't care working for it. I'm just a number among them all. Their business profits aren't based on the quality of my work.
I didn't discuss my salary, didn't discuss my shifts. I was assigned a bedroom of 9m² and a collective shower in the locals of the Aurora, a long distance space-ship. Thankfully, my nocturnal nature allows me to shower at night, peacefully, without ever crossing anybody. Not that I'd be so mad being caught naked in the halls at 3am but I don't want people spitting out bullshit about me. So I put on a towel and I don't make waves.
Cleaning lady, that is a fancy word for what I'm doing : cleaning after a bunch of toddlers in their forties that cannot for the love of anything, clean their god damn shoes before jumping on their beds. At least, they're smarter than polite, whilst I've cleaned their labs, I've heard them speak about fascinating projects. Expansion and research in the universe.
If I had the patience, and mostly the money, to go to the university, I'd probably be among them, discussing physics, astrology, biology and above all : xenobiology ! But I'd still know how to scrap my shoes...
To be honest, I don't mind being a cleaning lady. I'm paid well enough to live peacefully, I have my dairy little walk around the ship keeping me fit. And I change postures often enough during the day to not have my back hurting too much by the end of it. I do my job and nobody cares how and when I do it as long as it's well done. So I day dream everyday, music in my ears, stars in my gaze through the infinite space. And once I'm done with the day, I sleep very well after stretching my legs. This job doesn't demand much concentration from me and allows me to think of something else, to philosophize sometimes, to talk to myself.
I'm living off the time of others. I'm not an early rising bird. I wake up when they get ready for lunch, start working when they're done and I clean after them way after they falled asleep.
That's how I met Ericka.
A Night owl biologist, like me, who was still in her lab when I came by to clean it.
She asked me if her presence would be a bother to me, I said no and kept on my duty. I suppose my music was quite loud, or that the silence of the night allowed her to hear it. She recognized what I was listening to and we talked.
She is very clever, very educated but she still has her feets on Earth and didn't take me for a good for nothing like some others of her colleagues. We talked about everything : our travel, her researches, her hopes, mines, we talked philosophy and politics.
Contrary to what I thought when I saw her with her fine perfectly ironed white blouse and the Alterra badge squeaky clean on her chest, she wasn't more of a fan of that corporation than I was. She knew too well how quickly such a giant company could forget its humanity.
I have worked for family businesses and that very small power already had been more than enough to turn the boss's head ! So, a mega corporation with thousands and thousands of people ?
Fucking Hydra.
Luckily, Ericka wasn't as naive as she looked and because the vibe between us was nice, we promised to see each other again for a honey flavored milk the next night.
That will be cool !
Anyway, I'm exhausted tonight. I've started a new friendship, a new life, I've got a call from the other-side and opened a brand new diary.
Enough emotions for today.
* 15 May xx56
We went near a supernova this morning, it was beautiful ! So far, so dangerous ! We were far enough to not be endangered but close enough to admire it !
Shine like diamond and die to an explosion of the purest beauty, I envy that star.
I was the only one to stop what I was doing to admire it. I even got berated by this asshole Brook. Mister crumble fucker not even able to keep his cookie box for his office and makes my job harder by peperring his crumbs all over the place like a fucking Thumbelina !
That prick asked me “ The hell I was doing” I told him that I was admiring the view.
He demanded that I go back to work.
Douchebag.
But I've obeyed, I've put my broom down. Took the windows cleaning supplies and strongly focused on a tiny weeny bit of the glass while admiring the supernova. I was going at it so slow. I did my job ! Two miles an hour ! Ahahahah ! That little prick won't ruin my fun !
He left stomping his heels and calling me an idiot good for nothing.
As if my job holding a broom made me stupider than him. What a buffoon, wipe your ass with your commercial diploma, that'll be a gain of TP.
I'm almost sad to see no one else on this ship marveled like me ! How can you be so bored facing such strength ! Such majesty ?!
It's beyond me.
I never want to be like that.
* 17 May xx56
I'm worried, I've heard some mechanics whisper when I cleaned their area, we derived from our path, secretly. We don't go toward Pecailly 25 like planned. We're going toward the unknown regions.
Ericka confirmed it to me while asking to keep it a secret. But I know now where we are going to : Orion arm, toward a solar system yet to be named. Until then it's called 4546. What a shitty name for the universe's asshole. What the hell are we going to do there ?!
She couldn't tell me more without risking her position, so I asked her to keep quiet and to not worry.
I knew how to get my info.
The only perk of Mister Brook-Crumb is that he's easy to follow. And predictable. He takes his coffee at Ozzy's every evening at the same hour. He cuts down the line because mister is more important and his time more valuable than other people's.
Shitbag.
I've gone all in. I was waiting for him at the exit and ran into him with my dirty water bucket. He flew through the room, spilled his coffee all the way to the windows and face-planted straight on the tile floor. I've apologized thousands times, head low so he couldn't catch me grinning, I begged for him to give me his jacket so I can clean and iron it up for him, it was “ The least I could do Mr Brook ”
I should get an Oscar for that one, but the satisfaction to ruin his evening like he did mine was enough. And he gave it to me, his goddamn jacket, with the pass in his inside pocket.
I already know his code, If I didn't meticulously and daily cleaned the digicode of his safe in his office, anybody could open it by following the greasy prints. And he was dumb enough to have the same code as for his computer...
Frustrated by the loss of his coffee, he left to sleep right away like I thought he would. And I promised that his jacket would be nice and clean, waiting for him in his personal locker right in the morning. My acting was so convincing that people threw me sorry looks for being berated so hard for a simple accident. Ozzy, the coffee's boss, offered me a hot chocolate to “ cheer me up “ along with one of the last pieces of chocolate cake, priceless treasure who survived the incident including the crazy tinker engineers in the cargo hold... Incident that would leave us starved of cakes and obliged to live on dry fruits and nuts as a dessert for the end of the trip, in 34 weeks...
I then took all the time to savor my precious cake and thanked Ozzy.
What a shame that I couldn't tell him it was all a play. But I knew him, had he known, he would have offered me hot chocolate for the rest of the trip !
He cannot stand that guy either.
Ozzy is an awesome guy, always in a good mood, smooth talker and commercial. He's older than me, maybe around his thirties, but he's one of those men aging like fine wine, one of a kind. He is pretty charismatic and also charming ! Usually I'm not fond of the big age gap, it blocks me, but for this gentleman I could see myself doing an exception !
Because while being an excellent cook and barman, he's hella funny, educated, and has this curiosity I hold so dear. Everytime we're together, when it's not too packed, it ends up in dad jokes, puns and other terrible jokes. The lamer will be the winner !
He's a pro of dark humor and I'm of vulgarities, that's probably why we so viciously compete with each other in our respective domains !
After that little pleasing interlude, I pressed on with my day and, at nightfall, waited for the dark of the night to sneak into Mr Brook-crumb's office.
I've meticulously cut a piece on the back of his chair to slip a mike in the stuffing, sewed it back properly and sat to snoop on the last messages in his mailbox while making sure my mic was on and working.
Didn't take me more than 10 minutes. I've got back out. Putted his coat and the pass on his locker and came back to my bedroom.
For fuck's sakes !
We're going toward 4546B, the first discovered planet of the system, there was some mess going on there ! A mongolian first class ship, extremely expensive and above all : armored ! Has been taken down by an unknown remarkable force and its crew is missing, maybe still alive on the planet ! Alterra has very tense relationships with the Mongolian government, and sent our ship on a secret rescue mission...
What could have happened...
“ Unknown force “ what the fuck this means ? If it was a classical weapon, laser, like we all know of, one shot alone wouldn't have been enough to strike down a ship such as the Degasi. He's fucking massive for fuck sakes ! Its shield and armoring are top notch in defensive technology ! Had it been repetitive shoots, they would have had the time to send an SOS, but there wasn't.
They have been shot down. With one fucking hit.
One hit and that absolute titan of a ship crashed there like a goddamn fly !
We don't have any more info on the origin of the catastrophe. The only reason why we know they are on 4546B is thanks to the black box which emitted before “disappearing “.
A black box doesn't “ disappear “ like that, it's crazy ! And why would the Degasi even be here to begin with ? What shot him down ? And why ? From what I have been told : this planet doesn't have any interesting ressources for any company ! There's nothing there for a megacorporation or the Mongolian government !
None of this makes a fucking sense. Why go there ? Chances of survival on a hostile planet are thin especially if such a weapon is close-by and so far away from the regular ship's highways. And that was ten fucking years ago ! It doesn't make any fucking sense... But above all, I'm worried, because we go straight toward 4546B, without any idea of what really happened. Without a clue on how to protect ourselves from this pitiless force that will tear the Aurora apart like it already did the Degasi.
I'm scared.
I don't want to be killed for politics !
I won't let that happen.
