“Want to hear something funny?” The comm crackled from the interference of the black hole, but the words were clear.
“If you fart, I swear to God…” It was at that point that Captain Ryless’s knees buckled, and she sunk completely to the floor of the communication array, bloody hand slipping off the red emergency self-destruct button and leaving a smear on the metal wall as though the button itself was spaggetifying into nothingness before the rest of the ship.
“Why would I do that?” Captain S’am Bu’lak… Sa? Sam. Captain Sam had chosen a deeper voice for their translator and the low chuckle made Ry grin to herself. “But the question stands… human scum. Do you want to hear something funny?”
“Shoot,” Ry lay down on the cold titanium floor and let the chill seep up and into her bones.
“I can’t,” Sam laughed, devolving into harsh wet coughing that rattled when they dragged in a hard breath. “You disabled our weapons array.”
In their defense, Ry did laugh.
“You started it,” Ry pointed out, still able to breathe better but doomed to die sooner than the other ship gently spiraling to its doom. If Sam had engines, they could probably free themself.
“Well, you dragged us down to- what is it you call it… hell?” Sam was humoring her, the bastard.
“Spaghetti hell,” Ry corrected, thinking of herself as the funniest person on the ship before realizing that it was actually true. “Since we’re being spaghetti-fied.”
“How does it feel?” Sam asked, though Ry got the sense they didn’t care. They hadn’t really had much to say to each other after the first torpedo had released, blinding their long-range scanners.
“Kind of drawn out to be honest,” Ry said, after staring at the ceiling for just a little too long.
Sam was silent.
“That’s a spaghetti joke again,” Ry clarified, just in case they weren’t dead.
“Why did you call me?” Sam asked almost immediately, like it had been on their tongue since Ry sent up the hail. Like they’d been waiting to ask their own question the whole time.
Why indeed.
When the final lieutenant on the Rapid succumbed to the radiation poisoning of the damaged core, Ry went to the communication array and unlocked the self destruct button. She ignored the heat on her skin and the tingle in her feet and the way her vision swam. She was going to take the alien bastards down before the black hole could do it for her. Just for kicks. Because humans went hard like that.
But instead of detonating her ship, Ry hailed the enemy instead.
It felt like an eternity ago already. Maybe it was. Ry had never been spaghettified by a black hole before. Maybe this was just how it would be until she died.
“Anyone left alive on your ship?” Ry used all her remaining strength to sit up, the hot air making her back feel like it was on fire as she rested against the console. Her arms protested holding her weight.
“I’m the last one.” Sam sighed into the comm, the static making it shaky and sad. “Even if the Black Hole wasn’t eating us, I would be the last. You took out enough of us with your initial strike that the telepathic link was damaged. Survival would only be pain.”
“Survival was always pain,” Ry scoffed, and felt immediately how little breath she had left.
“That’s not true.” Sam was offended on her behalf. “And you have not answered my question.”
“Humans are a pack species,” Ry explained. “I’m alone too, now. So.”
“You wanted a link,” Sam realized, pity in their tone. “I understand.”
“Nah.” Ry closed her eyes, hoping it would help the burning sensation stop. “No human ever wants connections. We just can’t live without them.”
“No wonder your people are so violent. What a terrible species philosophy.” Sam snorted, then coughed again. “My people’s greatest hope is to have as many links as possible.”
“See that sounds like hell to me,” Ry shook her head- but it made her dizzy and she let the back of her head hit the console too hard as she straightened. “Just one. Or two, maybe. A pet. You know?”
“I do not.” Sam made a rattling sound in their throat. “I wanted many links. I had twelve. A normal amount.”
“I had like, three, I guess?” Ry glanced over to ensign Thomas, lying in a pool of his own blood. “I probably still have three.”
“None on your ship?!” Sam was definitely outraged that time.
“It’s a job.” Ry shrugged, or tried to and found her body immobile. “I never tried.”
“You tried more with me, than with your own crew?” Sam was outraged into silence, and Ry didn’t humor them with a reply. After a few moments where Ry battled nausea, her comm crackled again. “Do you have to engage in combat to make a connection?”
“Probably. Proves it’s not flimsy,” Ry mumbled, then realized her tongue had become lazy and cleared her throat. “Dunno,” she said instead of elaborating.
“If we connect, the worst of you is accepted.” Sam exhaled noisily like they had solved a great mystery. Ry had never seen was a Taloshan looked like in person. She imagined frills and big almond eyes. Maybe antennae. “You could connect with me because the worst of you is all I have left.”
“It sounds really bad when you say it like that.” Ry opened her eyes, taking in the lights flashing on the far wall. The map of the ship was lit up red, but subsections of the hull were going dark. It wouldn’t be long now. “If you could live you would make more connections,” Ry stared at the ceiling. “I’m not the last woman in the universe.” Then, with a harsh deprecating laugh, “yet.”
“If I lived, I would still be alone here. My propulsion system has been hit. My life support will not last more than another cycle. The gravity of the black hole is taking my ship shortly after yours. My orbit is decaying.” Sam spoke like they were reading off a console, which Ry bet they were.
“Where are you right now?” Ry forced her eyes to focus on the map of the ship, on the yellow blinking light of the main generator overheating around the core. Her eyes still stung something fierce. “Like in your ship. Where are you?”
“What you would call the bridge. At the captain’s station. I have control of the whole ship from here.” Something chimed on Sam’s side of the connection. “If any of my systems were still functioning, that is. I am a rudder with no sail, as you say.”
“My life support’s off,” Ry admitted. “I’m running on fumes. Air’s being leaked faster than the system can correct. It’s getting colder, but the radiation makes it hot.” She laughed, patting a shattered viewscreen with a bloodied hand as it went dark. “And I’ve lost enough blood to end my body’s life support regardless.”
“I could live,” Sam mused, “if I could not be spaghettified. I don’t know if that’s better or worse,” they admitted.
“Worse,” Ry decided for them. “There’s no hope for me, so I’m weirdly at peace with being spaghetified. Wish I could send the data back to Mars though. They’d name a library or telescope after me for that.”
“If you could live, would you want to?” Sam asked quietly, when Ry was sure they were dead.
“Yeah, definitely,” Ry took a deep breath, enjoying the air while it lasted. “As long as you’re alive there are possibilities. But once you’re spaghetti, that’s it.”
“The event horizon is still a ways away,” Sam sounded half asleep. “Maybe you can make it.”
“Don’t die on me yet. You just told me we’re linked now. You can’t leave me alone.” Ry meant to be funny, but she just sounded desperate.
“If that is the case you’ve damned me to be alone again in my final moments.” Sam’s comm was even more staticky than before. Barely recognizable as their voice. Digital, like they’d put reverb on themself. “You’re going to die first anyway. Selfishly, like a human.”
The little yellow light representing Ry’s generator on the ship map turned red. The lights around it turned white.
So time was still passing after all.
“Hey man,” Ry wiped the side of her mouth with the back of her hand and didn’t look to see if it came away with drool or blood. “I don’t think you have to be alone in the end.”
“Are you suggesting I try to alter my ship’s orbit to die with you?” Sam didn’t have the energy to be angry, but they sounded opposed to the idea anyway. “And I am not a “man”.”
“If you lived, would you remember me?” Ry pulled herself with fingertips dug into the grooves between metal plates, hooked her wrist around a coolant pipe and hoisted herself back to the console. “We’re linked, right?”
“I would love to forget you, but no. I will carry you with me for the rest of my incredibly short life.” Sam huffed. “I hope it brings you comfort… human scum.”
“I deeply regret telling you about ‘human scum’.” Ry smiled, her shaky hand fumbling before managing to raise the plexi case off the self-destruct button. “Even if your life is longer, will you remember me?”
The hum of the ship got quieter. Which was actually a bad sign. Ry felt the stillness of the ship like an extension of her heart.
“Well,” she said when Sam didn’t answer, “I hope you do. Your ship is still right above mine, I hope. Might get shot into space by the explosion. Or not. This is probably all for nothing.”
“It’s not for nothing,” Sam said as Ry’s hand hit the self destruct button with all of the force left in her body. “Even if my life only lasts until I’m spaghettified. I’ll remember this until the end.”
“Then I hope you live a long time.” Ry slumped to the floor, “but not because you’re being spaghettified.”
“You want to hear something funny?” Sam asked as the lights turned white closer and closer to the communication array.
“What?”
“I think this is why you called me, Captain Ryless.” Sam took a rattling breath. “To say goodbye.”
“That’s not it,” Ry shook her head, vision dimming at the edges. “I think I understand now.”
“Tell me.” Sam whispered softly.
Ry smiled to herself, then grinned.
Then she farted, and knew nothing more.