Chapter 5

In the far reaches of the void, lightyears away from human civilization, a man floats in space surrounded by the wreckage of his once home. He is clad in dark blue and silver, his face obscured by a dome of glass. This sleek prison keeps him alive, if only barely. All that is left of the fortuna is him, scrap metal, and corpses. The darkness of the void has set to work absorbing the remnants. Steel and bodies drift apart, scattering like leaves on the surface of a lake, slow and aimless. A section of the ship's former bridge drifts by the man, it is coated in blood. The hydroponics lab is spread out in space, the water forming globes that drift like tiny planets in a diorama, the plants withered and dead. Crates and barrels of supplies and equipment are cracked open creating a collage of farming tools and seeds. The smashed hopes of hundreds of humans given form in the smashed remnants of their ship. The man doesn't notice as his future drifts away. He is deep in the depths of his subconscious. Dreaming about a planet with forests, mountains, rivers, and a church. Dreaming a about a man with golden hair and white wings. Dreaming about a woman. 

Gabriel blinked against a bright aquamarine light shining into his face. He lifted up his arms to shield his face from it. He had a splitting headache, and the light didn't help that. He could barely think. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was the monster Xerxis rushing him. Why was he floating in space? Where was Shannon? As he slowly got his bearings, he felt the despair growing inside his chest. The demons had attacked the Fortuna, and now it was destroyed. The corpses floating around him made Gabriel want to throw up, to cry out in anguish, or to go back into his coma. Perhaps all three. Instead, he began looking around frantically. Many of the bodies were unrecognizable, but he would know Shannon if he saw her. He would know. He found Theodore, cut in half by Xaeris's blade, he found Jasmine who had been gunned down. He found various other people he knew, but none of them were her. Gabriel did not allow himself to hope, he knew it would only bring him more pain. Shannon was dead. He told himself. Nothing he could do would change that. What broke him the most was the small notification on the top right side of his helmet. It was a message from her, and he couldn't bear himself to open it. He pushed his pain and grief into a box. He would open it later if there was time. Instead, he focused on what he could do right now, if there was any chance of survival. The greenish blue light that had awakened him, where had it come from? For the first time Gabriel looked for the source of the light and what he found made his eyes grow wide.

It was a spaceship he thought, but it was unlike any that he had ever seen. Instead of metal this one was a tree, or a seed? Its hull was all twisting roots and flowing bark, occasionally broken up by a lens shaped opening that glowed green with life. The front of the ship was a point of wood and bark with branches growing from the sides. The leaves on these branches were as mossy and hid long vines that trailed behind the ship like ribbons on a kite. The aft of the ship was the canopy of a great tree and had shaggy leaves and was covered with shaggy leaves and mossy bushes. More vines trailed behind the aft. From this canopy. The light that had previously woken him up was now illuminating the whole wreck. It was at the end of a branch with a large tulip like flower at the end. This branch wasn't stationary but moved back and forth scanning the wreckage of the fortuna. Where the bridge of a normal spaceship would be Gabriel saw a large band of some membrane, glowing with more green light. Inside the bridge he could make out the silhouette of a figure. 

Gabriel waved his limbs frantically to get the attention of the ship. Hoping to signal to them that he needed help. The thought crossed his mind that maybe these people were also hostiles, but he banished it. The demons that destroyed the fortuna were monsters of flesh and bone, their ship was the same. Something told him that they would not be piloting around a flying arboretum. That didn't preclude these people from being nefarious, but what other choice did he have? He was adrift in the void with no food or water, the nearest habitable planet was a month away at best, but he had no way of getting there. Nefarious or not, these people were his only option. He continued to wave his hands until the ship came close and a from its hull it birthed almost a miniature version of the larger ship that began rocketing towards him. Gabriel wondered what type of fuel these tree-ships used. As they moved, he could see orange flecks escaping from the stern, almost like fireflies on a summer night. As the small shuttle came close, he tried to peer into the cockpit only to find that the membrane was an opaque green that he could not see into. This made him uneasy. 

The shuttle moved over him and let down a long vine. Above him, bark and wood parted to create an opening for him to climb into. Obliging the ship, he grabbed the vine and began to pull himself up. The weightlessness of the void made this more about controlling his trajectory. The vine was stiffer than he had imagined and had the feeling of new and alive tree branches. He navigated himself into the shuttle and the opening grew closed behind him. Inside was what he had expected. The floor and walls were a textured bark occasionally broken by leafy vines that glowed green and blue, giving the space and otherworldly lighting. The sensors on his suit indicated that this space had stable atmosphere and pressure, but he left his helmet on just in case. In front of him there was an archway of wood that was blocked by a wall of vines and branches, but those parted to reveal a figure standing in front of him. The woman was a stark contrast to the verdant surroundings. She was short, with fair skin and dark curly hair. She was wearing tan pants and boots with a cloth poncho covering what looked to be a leather vest. She flashed him a wide smile. 

"Do you speak drifter?" She asked. "Please tell me you speak drifter, because I don't know any other languages." To Gabriels surprise he found that he did speak drifter, but where he came from, they just called it the common tongue.

"I guess I do." He replied. 

"Oh, thank heavens. My name is Tonii. What's your name?" She asked, holding out her hand. She flashed him that wide smile once again. It showed a lot of her teeth and was strangely endearing. Gabriel reached for her arm and grasped her forearm for a greeting. This seemed to shock Tonii, but she quickly recovered and grasped his forearm back. 

"My name is Gabriel." he said removing his helmet so that Tonii could get a good look at him. 

"Oh so you are human then? That is good." she sighed. 

"What else would I be?" He asked.

"How the hell should I know!? We had never seen a ship like yours before. All made of metal and glass. I have so many questions. how does it move? How do you survive inside it? How do you eat..." Tonii trailed off, seeing something in Gabriels eyes. "Anyway, you are lucky we heard that distress signal." 

"Distress signal?" Gabriel asked confused.

"Something out here in the far reaches blasted a crazy powerful signal. We heard it so far away we thought that maybe we would get here too late. Seems like we were right, sorry about your friends." Gabriel said nothing. He didn't, couldn't open that box right now. The signal is what brought them here. The signal that Gabriel had used to find Aureolus. If it had brought Tonii and her crew, perhaps it had also brought the demons. If that was true then the destruction of the Fortuna, was all his fault. Gabriel tried to shove that feeling in the same box has his grief, but it just wouldn't fit. It was something he had to sit with, a bog he had to fester in. 

"Anyway." Tonii said, clearly trying to change the subject. "Did you want to strap yourself in so we can go make it back to Talitha." She gestured to a seat of mossy wood that was grown out of the floor of the ship. He numbly followed her instructions and sat down; a vine grew across his lap acting as a seat belt. Tonii on the other hand walked towards a pillar of vines that connected the celling to the floor. She leaned against it and sank into the wood a fraction. moss and leaves grew around her and her arms disappeared into the bark. Around her face grew a helmet of leaves and Gabriel thought he could see small tendrils poking into her ears. The thought of the sensation made Gabriel shiver. Tonii's muscles tensed and the ship began to move, rocketing towards the main ship that Tonii had called Talitha. As they moved, they flew by the remnants of the fortuna, and Gabriel forced himself to keep looking. He could not forget these people. Whatever came next, he could not forget this. There was an angry part of him that wished revenge on the demons for what they had done, but he knew this was a fool's errand. Even if he could find them again, he was no match for those things. All that he could do now was mourn for those he had lost and be thankful that he had survived. How could he be thankful? Shannon was dead, and it should have been him. 

"You are taking this in stride." Tonii's voice echoed from all surfaces of the ship. Gabriel almost jumped out of his seat. 

"Oh, sorry about that." She said. "I guess it's probably jarring the first time, but you will get used to it. I had thought that since you didn't seem to be phased by a living spaceship, then you probably had ones like this at home." 

"We have nothing like this where I am from. I can make neither heads nor tails of what is happening." He said softly. 

"Oh, then would you like me to explain it to you?" the ship asked. the sound vibrating him to his core. 

"Maybe some other time. I am not having a great day." He said. 

"Oh right. With your entire ship getting destroyed. Can I ask how that happened?" The ship asked him. 

"I would rather not talk about it right now." He replied. The ship went quiet as they rocketed towards their destination.