Contrairement à ce que j’ai dit dans mon interview de la semaine dernière, je viens de me mettre à écrire en anglais. Enfin, écrire est un bien grand mot. C’est juste l’ouverture d’une histoire, tout juste quelques lignes pour tenter d’accrocher un lecteur. 

C’était dans le cadre d’un concours, les limites étaient strictes. En anglais et pas plus de 500 mots. Pour le thème, c’était plus large. Début de roman d’horreur avec pour mot clé : Shadows.

Comme toujours en licence libre, Lady of the stars © 2021 by Pierig Vezin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Lady of the stars

Sonia was walking slowly on the hull, mindful to each of her steps. The metal clang of her magnetic boots was resonating in her EVA suit like an echo of her own heartbeat.Above her head, the field of stars, lacking any sun or planet, brought insufficient brightness to light the damaged starship she was clambering on. 

The engine has failed a day ago and despite Bratt’s best efforts, nothing could explain it. Sarah, the navigator, had sent a drone to inspect the exterior of the spacecraft. She had even gone between the containers lying on the hull. They had overcharged the Lady of the Stars to smuggle a little more on this trip with the desire to save enough for a well-deserved vacation on a leisure globe. But the robot had vanished in a flash of static, together with their hope of profit.

During the following crew meeting, Bratt had emphasized that a power cable was probably the cause of the mess. 

‘It must have burst open by a bigger dust impact. It has touched the drone for sure, and burned it.’

‘You should see it on your diagnostic, countered Sonia.’

‘Not sure, with all the redundancy, we may still have a small power line running.’ 

They had voted, and Sonia was now walking down the main body of the ship, labouring each step with the worn-out magnetic boots. She was breathing heavily and sweating profusely while the fan was barely keeping her helmet fog-free. 

I must calm down.

She stopped and looked at the stars around her, trying to find the dwarf sun they passed the previous day. The slow rotation of the Lady of the Stars made the sky spin leisurely in front of her, which had always provided a relaxing effect. Feeling better, Sonia resumed her investigation, using the lights on her helmet to seek for any sign ofan impact. The hull shows the polished and matt appearance of the painting after years of being battered with interstellar dust, but nothing more than a few millimeters. 

She moved around a buttress, reaching the rear part of the starship, closer to the engine, as this was where it was most likely the damage had occurred. 

‘I’m entering the stern area, do you read me?’

‘Yes, 3 over 5, replied Sarah, in a calm voice. You’re doing well, no need to rush.’

‘No need to rush, grumbled Sonia. It’s not her that’s risking her life walking on thousands of volts each step.’

She was moving again, sweeping the hull with her head light when she suddenly saw a naked man tumbling toward her.

‘Sonia! Sonia! shouted Sarah, staring at the blank screen.’