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“PAIMON, close the airlock!” Lumine screamed as she shuffled onboard.
On command, the door to the outside shut, sealing off the horrors that lurked in the darkness. The overhead lights turned on. Lumine winced at the onslaught of light. Kaleidoscope splotches bloomed across her vision. On instinct, she tried to rub at her pained eyes, but her gloved hand collided with the bulky helmet.
“Welcome back, Lumine!” said the cheery voice of the ship’s AI, PAIMON. “Please wait while I begin the decontamination procedure.”
Panting, Lumine leaned against the door locking her out of the cabin. “Skip it.”
“Sanitization is essential. It is not recommended to skip the—"
“I know. Skip it.”
“For safety purposes, bypassing the procedure will require overriding authority—”
“I have it. Override.”
“From at least two individuals.”
“I know. I built you and the rest of the ship. Override.”
“As Lead Engineer, you have one. Another Lead will also need to approve the request. Please wait while I contact—"
“And I’m telling you to override it! There’s no one else left!” Lumine banged her fists on the door.
Dropping her head against the glass, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I have the lead on this mission now. Per the programming I built you, it’s two…unless the crew is less than that.”
PAIMON went silent for a moment before replying, “Apologies, Lumine. The data on the other crew members was just received. Override accepted.”
Once the door opened, Lumine gave a cursory glance back to check the airlock was still engaged before shuffling for the cockpit. Her sprained ankle protested every step, but she pressed onward.
“Dim the lights.” Collapsing into the pilot’s seat, she removed her helmet and gloves, dropping them onto the floor. The crack in her helmet’s visor lengthened. The line stretched across the entire face, bisecting her reflection horizontally.
“Spacesuits are essential for survival on foreign planets, Lumine. You should be careful when handling them. They could very well be the difference between life and death in space.”
“PAIMON,” she sighed, “I know.”
But it hadn’t mattered.
Not when the storm had come ahead of their prediction time, whisking the newest crew member away in the vortex of dust and lightning. Not when debris had taken her subordinate’s head—helmet and all.
“I’m sorry, Lumine.”
She glanced at the pixelated fairy with a coat of constellations—her childhood imagining of PAIMON—floating on the screen in front of her. “Why?”
“I have failed you. You created me to assist you and the others, but I am unable to. In fact, I am worsening your mental state.”
“You haven’t. It’s not you. Please… keep talking to me.”
“Which version of my programming should I use?”
“I like you best when you’re you. I only programmed V2 so you’d sound official for everyone else. …And I could use a friend right about now.”
PAIMON twirled around. “Then, a friend is what I’ll be.”
“Thank you. …Were you able to recover the remaining data from his ship’s log?”
“I…”
“I’d like the truth…please.”
“I don’t know if you’ll want to hear it.”
“I do. I’ve waited this long for a reply.”
“Okay, Lumine. …Okay.”
On the screen, the audio bar appeared, red and ominous, and began to move.
“They say, all you have in space is you, your suit, and your crew,” Aether said, breathing labored. “I never would’ve imagined there’s more than that. …No one would’ve.
“This is not a kind planet. One of the rookies jokingly called it The Abyss when we landed. It’s aptly named… Darkness reigns here. There’s no end to it. Life is snuffed out in an instant. Storms, violent and unforgiving, crop up constantly. It took out a third of the crew. The radar had said it was hours away from—"
Aether’s coughing, wet and hacking, filled the cockpit. Lumine ground the heels of her palms into her eyes, willing away the overlapping images of her brother and the ship’s doctor gasping his last words to her, bloody spittle landing against the inside of his visor.
“The environmental hazards here? Endless. The air? Toxic. Removal of your helmet is guaranteed death within less than three minutes. The water… I’m not sure if water as we know it even exists on this planet. Avoid it. Assume it’s highly corrosive acid.”
The scientist, who had started the flight so enthusiastically with Lumine, had stepped into a puddle that looked like water. His suit went first, eaten so quickly. There was nothing to save. Nothing to even attempt to save. He was there, and then he was gone. Suit and all. Only the screams had survived, echoing through Lumine’s ears, blaring over the panicked comms from the rest of the crew.
“And the monsters… They come in all forms—amorphous, solid, and some that we’ve never seen before. Some appear sentient, even. We… We weren’t prepared for them.”
Humanoid. Canid. Slime. The list was endless. The monsters lurked everywhere—in the caves, above ground, around the ship.
“I don’t have much time left. To everyone on Tevyat, remain there. It was a mistake to come here. Take it from me as Captain. Don’t search past Celestia. Nothing good lies in the stars.
“To my sister, Lumine… I love you. I’m sorry I won’t be home. I wish… I wish for a lot of things. Most of all, I wish we could’ve had one more birthday together."
The audio flatlines.
PAIMON blinks onto the screen, hands laced together. “The audio… ends here.”
Wiping away her tears, Lumine whispered, “PAIMON, do you believe that there’s a chance?”
“For?”
“Our survival.”
“I don’t know if I should give you the probability.”
“It’s low.”
“Yes.”
“But not impossible.”
“You taught me that hope is the missing percentage, the chance for the impossible to become possible.”
“Record my message to Teyvat and send it.” Lumine scooped up her helmet and secured it on. “Let’s hope it makes it home, even if we don’t.”