The last thing I expected to hear while helplessly orbiting a black hole, slowly being drawn towards my death, was a knock on the door of my escape pod.

About a week ago, a deep space exploration craft, the ISV Aldrin, was attacked by a Vrekzul warship when it mistakenly drifted too close to their territory. Before we even knew what was happening, Vrekzul troopers were boarding us via short-range teleporters. Seeing the aliens for the first time filled each and every member of the crew with despair.

You see, the Vrekzul are not an aggressive species. They are, however, isolationist and territorial in the most extreme form imaginable. Nobody has seen a Vrekzul’s face and lived to tell the tale, and any foreign ships that enter their territory are never seen again. We have known about them for decades, and yet first contact has not even been established. Every attempt at diplomacy is met with either indifference or violence, depending on the nature and proximity of the attempt.

We were not the first humans to witness the faces of the Vrekzuls, but we would not live to tell anyone about it. Or at least, that’s what was supposed to happen.

I was a part of the crew on board that ship. I was fortunate enough to be on the night shift, performing maintenance on the escape pods. When the alarms sounded and the screams began, I dropped my tools and backed towards the nearest pod, just in case. An inhuman creature suddenly materialized in the middle of the room, in a flash of green and blue light. I got a good look at its face before stumbling back into the pod and slamming the eject button. The creature lunged at me, but the door slammed shut in its face, and my pod was launched into space.

If only things had continued to go well. The warship must have detected the life pod’s signature, and it unleashed a salvo of ballistic warheads at my little pod. The next thing I know, shockwaves rock my escape pod, tossing it around like a tin can in a hurricane. Strapped down in one of the seats, I held on for dear life until the turbulence died down.

I checked the computer for a status update, discovering that my thrusters were in critical condition. Worse yet, the pod was completely off course, and in a matter of hours, it would pass near enough to a black hole to be caught in its orbit. I spent those hours desperately trying to repair the thrusters, or find any other source of thrust to change my course. It was hopeless. I gave up hope long before reaching the black hole.

I knew my time was limited. How limited, I had no idea; I was a mechanic, not a science officer. There were some emergency rations stored under each seat, so I could at least avoid dying of hunger or thirst for a good long while. I spent the next week in a haze between despair and acceptance, mechanically eating and drinking in spite of my doomed fate. Once or twice I considered jettisoning the supplies, or even just overriding the lock on the door and taking a suitless spacewalk. I didn’t do it, of course; there was still a small part of me that hoped beyond hope for an escape.

Which brings us to today, when I heard a knock on my escape pod’s door.

I checked the computer, and couldn’t believe my eyes. Some kind of rescue ship had docked with my escape pod, and it didn’t seem to be affected by the black hole’s gravitational pull at all. In fact, we were moving away from the black hole at a speed I thought was impossible. I worried that it was the Vrekzul, who didn’t want to leave my fate to chance, but they wouldn’t knock. They could simply beam aboard my pod, with or without my permission.

I engaged the intercom, and said, “Hello? Who’s there?”

The voice that responded sounded human, but it seemed to be speaking in a bizarre language that didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before.

“I’m sorry, but does anyone over there speak English?” I asked.

I only heard more of the foreign tongue.

Deciding that this was going nowhere fast, and with the hopeful thought that these people wouldn’t have saved my pod if they wanted me dead, I disengaged the lock on my door. I hear the hiss of decompression as the pod and the ship equalize their pressure, and the door slid open.

I stepped into the empty airlock, and was immediately assaulted by a series of lights that came from strange instruments mounted in the corners of the room. I shielded my eyes for a moment before they all stopped. A mechanical voice said something in the same language I heard before, and the airlock opened to the ship itself.

I saw seven individuals standing in a semicircle, enclosing the door before me. Six of them had their hands up, palms facing towards me with a faint glow emanating from a device grafted into their gloves. Their threatening posture made me think that they were weapons of some kind, so I raised my hands and backed away. The seventh figure, clearly the one in charge here, spoke to me in a commanding tone, still using that same language.

“English?” I asked. “Anyone?”

The group looked at each other, confused. The leader turned to the one on his left and gave a quick command. The armed figure nodded, and the weapon’s glow switched from white to blue. It flashed… and I lost consciousness.

---

I don’t know how long it’s been, but I just woke up in an empty room with no doors or windows. Artificial light floods the room, in spite of the lack of light sources. The walls are covered in a series of symbols, none of which mean anything to me.

“Hello?” I shout. “Is anyone there?”

Suddenly, the wall in front of me parts like a pair of sliding double doors, and a woman enters the room. The wall closes behind her, and she smiles at me.

“Hello.” she says. “How are you?”

Her speech is slow and deliberate, like she’s speaking to a child. Or like she is speaking an unfamiliar language.

“I am doing fine,” I respond. “What is going on?”

“Please, slow your talkings and calm. I have had the studyings of your words, but not the practicing.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to accommodate her. “What is going on? Where am I?”

“Explain me: what year?”

It takes me a moment to parse her broken English, but I think she’s asking me what year it is. A strange question, but I respond, “It’s August 14th, 2097.”

“I was thinking such. Your words are gone. The phrasings… ‘dead language’ mean something?”

I swallow nervously, and ask the dreaded question: “What year is it?”

“The year 7102 is now.”

I reel back at her words. “7102? That’s impossible; it’s only been a week! I can’t… my home… my family…”

“Please, being the calm.” She reaches out and touches one of the symbols on the wall. A section of the wall reassembles itself into a chair, which I fall back into. I lean forward and put my head in my hands, shocked beyond words.

After a moment, the woman asks, “My name… is Celethe. What is… your name?”

I look to her, and can see a mask of concern. At least humanity still exists. “My name is Markus.”

She smiles. “Nice to… meet… you, Markus. Are you okay to answering questions?”

I take a deep breath, lean back in my chair, and say, “I can do that, but you’re going to have to work on your English.”

---

~Stories by Sol