Tar Seep (Wikipedia)
SAMSON: So flip mode control on.. like that, okay. This is Samson from Orion station, anyone receiving?
EAGLE STATION: Copy Orion, this is Eagle station receiving. What happened?
SAMSON: I'm not too sure myself, we've got multiple hull breaches. Whole station depressurized while I was in airlock. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one here now.
EAGLE STATION: Where are you now, Samson?
SAMSON: East Wing Comms room. Still in my suit since I haven't found a part of the station that wasn't shot to hell. Need coordinates for evac shuttle ASAP. I'm going to try to link comms with my suit.
EAGLE STATION: Confirm comm link. Sending coordinate data. Are you able to link video feed?
SAMSON: I might have damaged the camera during depressurization. I still can't believe the station didn't blow up from that.
EAGLE STATION: Do you still have access to your research files?
SAMSON: I think that's lost already, Eagle. I'm heading to the East Wing evac shuttles.
EAGLE STATION: Acknowledged.
---
SAMSON: Uh, Eagle station this is Samson.
EAGLE STATION: Receiving.
SAMSON: I, uh, see some kind of black tar coating the East Wing's corridors through the door panel. It's moving around so I think I'm going to evacuate through the hangar's shuttles.
EAGLE STATION: Wait, you're seeing black tar in the East Wing?
SAMSON: Yeah, it looks like it's coagulating or something. Squirms around too, like it's trying to collect together. I'm running low on air though, need to get moving.
---
SAMSON: Eagle station, I'm at the hangar. Boarding the evac shut-
EAGLE STATION: Comms link reestablished. Are you receiving, Samson?
SAMSON: Sorry Eagle, had to get out fast. Didn't have time to link coordinates. The whole place started falling apart, or it started being crushed or something. Had to get out soon though.
EAGLE STATION: Alright Samson, send shuttle trajectory and give us a visual report of Orion's current status if you can.
SAMSON: Holy hell... Orion's surrounded by this stuff!
EAGLE STATION: What 'stuff'?
SAMSON: The tar! The black tar! And... are those tendrils? They're pulling apart the entire station, Jesus!
EAGLE STATION: Samson, do you have any way to visually capture this tar?
SAMSON: God, it's like it's pulling the station towards it... swallowing it...
EAGLE STATION: Samson, we still need you to send your trajectory for resc-
SAMSON: It's gone- the entire station! Oh my god, it's growing! What have w-
EAGLE STATION: Samson, send trajectory now.
EAGLE STATION: Samson, confirm that you're receiving.
EAGLE STATION: Comm link severed. Attempting to reestablish.
Author's Note: This story is very loosely based off of Kumbhakharna. In the Ramayana, Kumbhakarna is the younger brother of Ravana. He's a giant who slept for months at a time due to an accidental curse placed upon him. After waking, he would eat everything around him. As he fought Rama, he was reduced to inches of flesh but kept fighting. This made me think of a kind of ancient alien species. I wanted the species in my story to be kind of like grey goo, in that they're microscopic organisms that gather together into one mass, absorbing everything around it. The story leaves a lot to the imagination but the research project being conducted at the Orion woke this ancient evil and it started consuming the station. As Samson escapes, a tendril reaches him and he's absorbed into the tar as well.
Bibliography: The Ramayana by R. K. Narayan
Bibliography: The Ramayana by R. K. Narayan
I had not thought of taking any of these stories to space, and I think that is a great way to morph a story. The way you wrote the dialogue made it feel like I was reading a transcription of someone's space adventures. I also like your alien creature, it is a creative way of incorporating Kumbhakharna's fate. Cutting out communications was a fun way to end the story.
ReplyDeleteWhat a transcript! This feels like a prologue for seriously thrilling sci fi movie or video game. Using this kind of dialogue forced me to imagine every setting element of the story without needing to describe it (The station, the astronaut, the shock, and especially the silence), and this worked fantastically. Less is sometimes way more.
ReplyDeleteThere are also a ton of stories possible in this universe. What if Hanuman is actually a primate astronaut? The mountain containing the four life-giving herbs could actually be a long-forgotten spaceship of another age (which would explain its remarkable mobility when Hanuman arrives). And, the Brahma-weapon could be (as Robert Oppenheimer famously speculated) an atomic device.
I do love a good space opera, and I had not even considered the Ramayana playing out in a sci-fi setting. This was very fun to read, and I hope you consider returning to this style at some point during the semester! Really great work!
This was a really awesome storytelling style, looking at the communication log between these two stations. Your dialogue kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering if Samson was going to make it out okay. I bet there are a ton of other stories you could tell of The Ramayana in space, I'm excited to see what all you come up with!
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