Fracture - Book One of the Glass Galaxy Trilogy

Chapter 1: The Kindle Ignites

When I opened my mouth to speak, I found myself unable to summon my voice, and I had to spend several moments clearing my throat.

"Alizabeth, what's the status of our food supplies?"

My voice sounded as foreign to me as my image, a scratchy mess after years of little use by me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd spoken.

Alizabeth's voice responded through my ship's speakers, a rich, warm tone in spite of its synthetic nature, "As I've been telling you, we are running very low. You will run out of food in less than a week. We need to resupply, Kalani."

I stared out into the vast void of space, a billion stars illuminating the universe before me. When had I last met a person? I had resupplied my food, what, five months ago? I couldn't even remember where I had done so.

I slid further down my seat, lamenting the thought of having to pause my search.

Alizabeth spoke up, clearly understanding what I was thinking, "You won't be finding anybody if you starve to death. There was a commercial outpost on the last planet we surveyed, we can get a job or two there and then continue on our way."

I sighed, pulling myself upright in my chair, "You're right."

"Of course I am, an artificial intelligence cannot be wrong."

I charted a course back towards the last planet, priming the gravity engine for a short range jump. "You know that's not true," I bantered back, recognizing Alizabeth's socialization programming. "Pilot the ship for a bit, I'm going to go cut my damn hair."

My footsteps echoed softly down the barren hallway as I headed out of the cockpit, passing a few of my Automatic Defense Automatons -or ADAs- on the way. They were tall, humanoid robots, with sleek white armour plating and a kinetic projection carbine built into one of their arms. They possessed sufficient combat prowess to fend off hostile ship boarders and protect the ship in my absence, while also being able to assist me with simple labour tasks.

I passed by one ADA that bore several bullet holes in its armour plating, very near its processing core. Its camera-eyes focused on me as I passed, automatically scanning me for authorization. It took longer than usual; I made a mental note to repair it later.

The door to my bedroom slid open silently as I drew near, and I stepped into the moderately sized space as several painful memories prodded the back of my mind. My room was a simple setup; a two-person bed sat in one corner, its sheets strewn all over while a single pillow sat alone. Next to the bed stood my dresser, three drawers filled with my synthetic fiber clothing, mostly in drab greys, blacks, and whites. The bottom drawer hadn't been opened in decades, but I could remember its contents with excruciating detail even now.

I stopped for a moment, lost in old memories of how stunning she had looked in that marvelous sky blue dress, smiling brightly at me as we walked through the forests of Teracon-18 while on leave from our stations.

I clenched my jaw tight and continued on into the adjoining bathroom, removing my stale clothes and stepping into the shower. I tapped the screen on the wall and it lit up, a display showing a model of me that I could manipulate. I selected from a few options on the side of the display to load a preset, and the model changed to a well-groomed version of myself; my hair trimmed and beard shaven. I confirmed the selection and stepped to the centre of the shower.

Lasers beamed from several points in the shower, carefully burning away the unwanted hair I had selected for removal, while a perfume sprayed to cover up the smell of burnt hair. Once that had finished, hot water began pouring over me from above, soap automatically mixing in with the water. I stood there for an eternity, indulging in the feeling of the water washing over me as I slowly turned the heat higher and higher. Eventually the computer stopped me, both a heat and water usage warning popping up, and the shower automatically turned off.