There is, unfortunately, no escaping physics. Bound by the speed of light, even information must take its time to get birds going. And as we move farther into the void, that time grows until the distance becomes unspeakable.
Sergeant west.
Commander, report. Can we skip that? I think we have more important report, Sergeant. Station is operating at satisfactory levels. All oxygen, temp and hydro systems are functioning within acceptable levels. The organic facilities I inspected and watered all plants growing in the two containment centers, then cleaned microbial growth from dead leaves and cleared debris from the cabin fans. Can we please experiment processor? I removed the calibration cassettes and swapped them.
Was the connection successful?
Yes, Commander. I really think on the reboost probably. I performed a nominal reboost using the aft process H 16 thrusters. This is the second and final reboost targeting the 34 orbit rendezvous of both H 13 and H 24. The burn duration was 14 minutes and 40 seconds with a delta V of 1.37 meters/second.
Excellent. I want you to run a full diagnostic on the sensor array.
Commander.
What is it, Sergeant?
I can't do this. I can't report orbital maneuvers and plant bullshit when there's someone out there all by himself on a ship that's clearly being invaded by a hostile fungus.
There is no evidence the entity is hostile, Sergeant.
Are you serious? It's weaved itself into the O Two scrubbers. It gets any further, it's going to contaminate the ship's ventilation system. How is that not hostile?
Preservation believes the entity is organic in nature and is likely seeking the hippacious encore system. The ship's pure oxygen chambers are probably what attracted in in the first place.
Okay, Commander, so if you don't think it's hostile, then you can send someone to help, right? You can get Simmons out and get samples for the preservation while you're at it.
No. There is no retrieval mission planned at this time.
What? Why?
Sergeant west, we don't know what this thing is or where it came from. We have no idea how it would react if we interfered with its natural stages of progression. It could expire if it were exposed to foreign antibodies, or it could become more aggressive if it feels threatened and punch a hole in the hull of the hippacea. We just don't know.
Exactly. And you're leaving Simmons there all by himself to defend against a totally unknown enemy? You can't do that. You can't just abandon a human being to sanitation.
Officer Simmons has been in close proximity to a potentially toxic organism for several terran months. I know you have some affection for this man, but do you really believe his life is worth compromising the health and safety of preservation scientists, our military personnel, and potentially the entire population of humans in Sector Seven?
Of course not. But that doesn't change the fact that we can't just sit back and let whatever is going sergeant west.
You do understand your situation, do you not how much trouble you're in. We have made exceptions regarding your behavior in the past due to your exemplary service and continue to do so in light of your unfortunate circumstances. But that does not mean you are exempt from court martial if you continue in this line of questioning. As of this moment, your use of preservations communication relay has been revoked, and any further transmissions from Officer Simmons are hereby categorized as classified. Do you understand, Sergeant?
Oh, holy shit. I get it.
Sergeant west, you will respond to my order or there will be severe consequences.
Oh, yeah? Like what? What are you going to do to me out here? How about fuck you? This is Agnes Day all over again. You had me unplugging zombified children from mechs way out in bum fuck nowhere. And then when I mention we might be violating, like, 30 humanoid rights laws by making them Quasislaves, you toss me out here to maintain a station that's basically maintaining itself. Simmons is a fucking human being just like those poor kids were. And you, the fucking Preservation, is just going to leave him out there in a multibillion credit Petri dish to what? See what happens? What do you think people are going to say when they hear that? You think UFS is going to just let you do this shit?
Lieutenant Benson, protocol Alpha five nine seven. This conversation is over, Sergeant. Try and transmit your little rebellion when you're cut off from everything. Commander hall out.
What the fuck? Shit. Shit. Hello, listeners. This is Sergeant yeah, this is Sergeant Axel West. Still aboard railway station, still orbiting the Snotball planet. But as you've probably noticed, I'm broadcasting on the Sct pldn. It took some incredible feats of engineering genius, but I got it to work. As you can hear, I got the last batch of messages from you all, which is interesting considering my last conversation with the Commander. And wow, you have outdone yourselves. The art. I'm still scrolling through the art. I love all of it. I love the ones of me on the station. I love the ones of me kissing the space mollusk. I love the one of the anthropomorphic yellow planet and me in the diner. I also see that there's a lot of letters. This time, I promise I will read them all. Thank you for sending them. It means a lot to me. I need to apologize to you, listeners. I got all of you invested in someone that might not make it. You've seen the thing growing on his ship. You've seen the terrifying alien bleeding, mushroom looking things crawling toward the air filter panel. And if you're tuned into this podcast, then you probably heard the one before I recorded that conversation. Because in the best case scenario, I will be going to prison forever. So I wanted to make sure, even after I disappear, you all will know that the Preservation is a bunch of is the Preservation is a bunch of dicks. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. I broke into the UFS database and downloaded the schematics for the Hypatia. Thank God the network is fritzing out because otherwise, I don't think I could have made it work. If I sound like I'm on boosters, don't worry about it. I've just had, like, 13 cups of mollusk coffee. This stuff is like rocket fuel. So, the Hypatia is an S 33 Alpha survey class, which means a whole lot of nothing to you, but is awesome for me because I know everything about the S 33 series. This station has an S 33 series hydration system, which also means nothing to you. And the only reason I know is because I had to keep all these goddamn plants alive these last few months and finally just Frankenstein a bunch of piping and reordered a few subroutines. So it's fully automated now. Anyway, the point is, I think I know what to do in the still you sent me. The stuff is like clawing reaching for the filter panel, which means it probably, like most plants, needs oxygen. Also probably water. There's a collection in the filtration system probably 2 meters behind the wall. Anyway, I'll make this as simple as possible. Bloody mushroom needs air. I have put together plans on how you can cut it off from the air completely. And I don't mean just shutting it off and letting it suffocate. No. I have written instructions for you on how to pull the air out of very, very specific parts of the ship. You will have to chill in your hideaway for a few days, but grab some snacks from the defac and a couple of jugs of water, you should be good. This is all contingent upon the bloody mushroom thing actually needing air, of course, but I don't know, I got a feeling. I got a good feeling. Also, I may have drawn on the plans a bit with a marker and some crayons. Please don't take this as condescension. I've genuinely forgotten how to explain things to adults. I am uploading this to the network now and sending it directly to the Hypatia signal.
Yes.
Fuck the preservation. And they're fucking stupid. Biowarping listeners, send good thoughts. Simmons way. He's going to depressurize half his ship, and that's awesome. It's fizzing. Why? It's Fizzing. It's oh, wow. Who. Hi, I'm back. I sent the thing a few hours ago and I've just been wandering the station with nothing to do because I automated everything. Oh. This is a container of something Dr. Nanji made from what I can only describe as a space cactus, so I guess it's like space moonshine. So, in my roller coaster of emotions the last few days I forgot to answer your questions, and the first one is no, I did not mean to start Blues Clues in Space. It just kind of happened. I was posting basic how to videos, mostly for myself, and then I started getting messages from kids. It was really cool. I liked the feeling of helping kids understand something or maybe getting them interested in something they might not have ever been exposed to otherwise. I actually really like kids. My sister has seven. Her and her husband and all the kiddos. And two dogs live in New Anaheim, so they can be close to my mom. I try to be the super awesome uncle because I'd like to maybe someday be someone super awesome dad. Maybe when I get out of prison. I know that doesn't answer your other question. Well, it does, but I know that's not the question you were asking. It's okay that you asked. I don't mind. And, no, I don't have anyone. Okay. That wasn't that bad. I had a thing with Dr. Ness kind of at the beginning of this, but it was super casual. She liked plants more than people anyway. There was a guy back home, too, a few years ago that got pretty serious, but let's just say that didn't work out and leave it at that. Nah, it's just me and listeners now. Oh, shit, that reminds me. I should have led with it. Simmons you have a fan club? Yeah. They send letters and drawings and fucking fan art. It's incredible. They even have a logo. It's like a pink circle thing with these. They kind of look like bunny ears, but they're pretty phallic in nature. In the middle are the words Bunch of dicks. And below that, in smaller letters, is the crew of the SS Hypatia. It got thrown up on a hollow feed at the New York terminal on Mars. It was fucking epic. People are thinking about you, man. People who care about you and are hoping you make it. I'm including myself in that generalized people word. Obviously, it's stupid because we've only ever communicated through broadcast. We never actually talked to each other. But I don't know, you said listening to me feels safe. Well, listening to you feels comforting. I've been listening to just random messages on the network, and there's this couple. That one's a xenobiologist, and I think I think the other is a botanist. I'm I'm not sure. It's fucking plants. Of course I can't get away from fucking plants. But anyway, their conversations are nice. They did this distance thing on purpose. One of them left to do, like, a job or something, and they leave each other messages about their pet lizard. It's fucking awesome goals. I guess the Xenobiologist is sick or something. Kind of worried about them, but yeah, they're real cute. I don't know where I was going with that. I'm sorry. Oh, it's bad again. Um don't don't die out there. Okay?
Unspeakable Distance is an actual play podcast of communication Delay by Audio Quinn a link to the game's. Itch IO page and credits for our players are available in the show notes linked to this episode. This podcast has been a production of the Library of Cursed Knowledge podcast network.