Hold fast and let the storm spend itself.

  Feebee, while dying of asphyxiation in J.02.14 airlock

  I am the peace within the storm.

  I am stillness,

  The quiet between waves.

  Without knowing why, she added another line.

  I am The Silent Flame.

  She wasn’t sure if this was another test. Probably not. Although it certainly felt like one. But the entire ‘scenario’ was of her making.

  Assume it’s real.

  The source of the green light in the airlock became clear. It was a small fleck of brightness.

  She knew from old memories, ancient memories that it was a mote. Other motes began to appear, lifting out of nowhere. Blinking into reality. Different colours and shades. But only one green mote that seemed to dominate.

  Assume it’s real.

  She fought to steady her breathing. Focused inwards. Leaned in hard on her training, resisting the urge to tense her hands. They stayed in loose fists on her knees.

  The mote, green and bright, hovered in front of her eyes. Close to her visor. It started to pulse in time with her breathing. The others synced too.

  As she relaxed, they brightened. When fear or uncertainty began to threaten her inner calm, the stillness of the moment, the motes dimmed.

  Feebee closed her eyes. Her breathing reached another level of calm. So slow she hardly took any breath. Stillness within stillness. Instead of speeding up, her heart slowed too, and her inner voice became simple. Quiet. Still.

  Then...silence.

  The green mote dropped slightly, passed through the suit and into her chest. She felt its warmth enter her.

  Motes began to rise from her body. She felt them flow through her, an outflow, a release of backed-up pressure through a tap now open. Others glitching into existence, from nowhere as if called into being.

  I am stillness. The moments of calm between waves.

  The motes were swarming around her, through her. So bright they warmed her whole body, inside and out.

  And in that moment, she became a quiet blaze, set alight by motes, lighting up the airlock.

  Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.

  OBSERVATION: Subject achieved perfect stillness. Assimilation of mote achieved.

  RISK: Unknown.

  QUIETUS PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.

  CURRENT OUTCOME: The Silent Flame has emerged

  STATUS: WATCHFUL

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  And now…

  Some of the motes, glitched into the suit’s power cells.

  The suit's internals lit up. It made her jump. She heard the pump start and felt the steady flow of air across her face.

  She hit the green button again. The external door closed.

  While she had power, Feebee asked Kirr to make a new power cell. She felt the nano-forge start up through the shoulder straps of her backpack.

  As the power cell was cooking, she went back over what had just happened. She'd been lucky. Could have been a lot worse.

  ‘Tell me. Is this real?’

  ‘Real. If you die. We die. For real.’

  ‘How can I be sure?’ there was doubt in Feebee’s voice.

  ‘I can tell old memories from the new ones I make. But this, is it a sim?’

  The AI paused, more for affect. ‘Does it feel the same?’

  ‘As what?’

  ‘As killing Sparky. As repelling the pirates. As now.’

  Kirr was about to continue when the backpack 'Pinged' distracting Feebee.

  She got the new power cell out of her backpack. Checked its telltales. GREEN. Then carefully removed the old power cell and replaced it with the new. As she did, three motes, each a different colour rose out of the old power cell. With a ripple, like three drops of early rain on a pond, they crossed into an invisible plane and were gone. Interesting.

  The suit gave Feebee a SITREP.

  POWER: 100%

  AIR: 95%

  INTERNAL TEMP: 37oC

  WATER: 100%

  FOOD: 0%

  'The suit looks good. This feels real, more dangerous somehow than before. More real.'

  ‘That’s because it is more real than the others.’

  ‘More real than the pirates?’ asked Feebee.

  ‘Did that feel dangerous, real?’

  She thought on that, ‘No. Not real.’

  ‘Correct. And killing Sparky?’

  This time she thought for longer, reaching back into the memory. Analysing it and her feeling at the time. ‘Not real but not unreal. Sorta half and half.’

  The AI laughed, ‘Well done. Sparky was a hard-light avatar. Not a person but an AI.’

  ‘Oh. Ok. Good. But I killed him. Dead?’

  ‘Yes. Sadly your ANG unravelled his code and corpus. He ceased to be. So a real impact, in the real world, but to a sim.’

  Feebee looked sad. “I still killed him. That’s sad.’

  ‘Yes. But it’s good that it felt different. And in the airlock. How did that feel?’

  ‘Scary. Very real.’

  'Yes, we could have died. You did well. Achieved almost perfect stillness.'

  'Almost?' Feebee laughed.

  'Yes, almost. Do you feel the mote?'

  'No.'

  'Try.'

  Feebee listened, trying to hear any chatter at all that could be the green mote. She got frustrated and lost focus, ‘I know its there but that’s it.’

  ‘That’s Ok. Keep trying.’

  She focused again. This time she felt a different pull on her senses, stronger. It was coming from the ship, across from her.

  She walked easily across to the other airlock. Aware now that this was real. No assumptions. It WAS real and she knew it.

  There was a green button on the outside of the airlock, alight. Live. She pressed it. Couldn't help holding her breath. The door opened.

  Feebee stepped inside and closed the door. The airlock cycled fast. There was no pressure on the other side. The light above the door was amber.

  She pressed the green button. The control panel lit up. The pressure was equalised but low or close to zero. It asked her to confirm.

  Once inside the main ship Feebee relaxed. Not because it was any safer, there was still no air, but because it had light and was clean. There was also activity. Droids, going about their business.

  ‘Ask them what’s going on?’

  One of the small loader droids that was trundling down the corridor suddenly stopped. Then moved back and forth in small stuttering movements.

  ‘They say the Orrery commands.’

  ‘The what?’

  Kirr responded, ‘The Orrery.’

  ‘Yes, I heard the first time. What’s the Orrery?’

  Kirr released the droid before its motors burnt out. It scurried away.

  ‘It has energised the ship. Brought it back to life.’

  Feebee shook her head, ‘I hear your words but they’re meaningless.’ Then Feebee laughed, ’You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘Oh. Ok. Good.’ Then after a pause she added, ‘It’s ok to not know stuff.’

  ‘Yes, but not easy to accept.’

  ‘Maybe if you’re an AI. Simple if you’re human.’

  They laughed.

  Then Kirr had an idea. ‘Could your Silent ones find out?’

  ‘What? Wait, hold that thought. Can we see outside?’

  ‘We’re in deep space. It’ll be black. Almost no light.’

  ’Something triggered the Seed-ship.’ Feebee felt a whisper echo through her body. She continued, ‘I haven’t seen windows?’

  ‘Me neither. Better outside.’

  Feebee laughed. Obvious, less to see at a window.

  ‘Back to the airlock.’

  Feebee walked out the airlock and instead of crossing to the SSOCOM section she turned towards the open expanse of the ship’s hull.

  ‘Where we going?’

  ‘I feel… Something’s calling out to me.’

  She quickly found herself on a large flat expanse of the hull. There were tether points regularly spaced. They weren’t necessary, she walked the hull. Her boots sticky from mag-grab.

  ‘It’s getting quieter now.’

  She turned around. Started walking back. Dowsing.

  ‘Here.’ Feebee sat down, shuffled to the nearest tether point. Took a piece of rope from her backpack and tied a stopped knot halfway along its length. This gave her ten yards or so of movement once looped through the tether.

  Feebee lay on her back and looked up at the sky. It was amazingly dark, darker than anything she had seen in her memories.

  She laughed; it was dark because there was so little to see.

  But there were specs, not motes but little stars. They just sat there. No twinkle twinkle. Off to the right and stretching across to almost the middle of what she could see were faint whisps of gas and dust. Colourful, ethereal. She flicked her overlays into the infrared and could see detail in the galaxy above her. It held chaotic, undeveloped structures that would eventually develop into the spirals or ellipticals her memories spoke off.

  The edges of the galaxy flickered. Lensed with light from others more distant.

  ‘You seeing this?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Is that why we’re here? How’s your oxygen?’

  She ignored Kirr. The AI knew the answer.

  An ancient dream came to Feebee as she searched. Of a shadow that does not move as expected, where expected. When expected. The Sha’daru; The Still Shadow.

  She scanned the sky, searching for what? She did not know. She reached deeper inside herself, trying to capture moments of perfect stillness. To touch the green mote.

  A warmth spread through her and the reflection of her face in the suit’s visor glowed bright green.

  I am the Silent Flame.

  Thought became fact, perfect stillness realised, as green light blazed outwards from Feebee into the sky. She gasped as the green mote flowed out of her. It painted the shadowy outline of a solar system within the plasma that erupted, a celestial Orrery. And within all that light a shadow existed. It didn’t move within the plasma streams that enveloped it. Wasn’t consumed but remained still. A still shadow, untouched, unmoving. A dark, black smudge within the light.

  Feebee stood up, un-grabbed her boots and pushed off into space.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Kirr was worried.

  ‘Trust me.’

  As the rope began to tighten, Feebee unclipped the belay and floated into the plasma flows. Impossible flames in the silence of space.