Aldren’s Abandoned Station

Feldman’s Station was quiet despite it being Elder’s Day. The once-crowded station had, like most of the Central System, cleared out. They hadn’t gone anywhere in particular, but like humanity as a whole began to disappear, falling prey to the beasts humanity had awoken.
Aldren, a matted-haired teenage girl who wore a patched-up jumpsuit that smelled like an algae vat left to grow on its own, had made Feldman’s Station her home.
Or at least the parts of it that hadn’t been sealed up due to breaches in the hulls. Those sectors had lost atmosphere and let in the deathly vacuum of space. Or worse, the things that lingered there.
Aldren couldn’t leave Feldman’s if she wanted to. The last ship had left months ago. It had carried a small crew of nomadic humans who jumped from outpost to outpost looking for surviving humans.
Feldman’s was a common stop on those trips. It’d been famous for ages, popular enough to show up on the most outdated of nav systems.
Aldren was celebrating Elder’s Day in style. She’d booked a table at Sunflower’s Muse, one of the nicest restaurants still in atmo.
It wasn’t hard to get a table.
The difficult part was finding a suitable meal. Anything fresh had molded before Aldren was born. The hydroponic vats still grew plenty of algae, but algae stew, chili, or soup was not a meal fit for Elder’s Day. Most freeze-dried meals had been pillaged by Aldren and others who traveled to the station, leaving the already thin reserves dry.
But residents, former residents, of Feldman’s Station had stashes. Aldren had sorted through countless bedrooms, personal belongings, and prized valuables. Most of which were useless to Aldren, hence why they were still on the station.
But in a nook under a bed, a freeze-dried ration had fallen and been forgotten. Until Aldren rescued it.
The vacuum-sealed zip t’lock foil bag was filled was beef stroganoff. Aldren hadn’t had real beef and didn’t that that’d be changing today. This packet certainly held the vegan beef substitute.
Aldren poured the dried noodles, beef, and sauce flakes into a shallow white bowl. She’d picked this one out because it had the least number of chips in it. She poured hot water over the food to rehydrate it.
The room was immediately filled with the savory smell of beef and rich mushroom and onion sauce. A massive improvement from the salty green vegetable smell of algae chili.
Aldren listened to the Elder Day tunes she’d programmed into the station’s public address system. The songs were upbeat and celebratory And would stick in your head for days after hearing them.
Other tables in the restaurant were set with muted yellow tablecloths and green napkins folded like hats. It’d taken a full day to do that, but Aldren wanted to keep the illusion that she wasn’t alone on Elder’s Day.

A present, wrapped in crinkled but shiny tin foil, sat across from Aldren. It stood out on the yellow tablecloth. She’d found something else useful in her pursuit of a good meal. And wrapped it for herself.
The beef stroganoff would take time to rehydrate. The best way to pass that time was to open the present.
Aldren carefully peeled back the plastic electrical tape, she didn’t have much left. She unfolded the crinkled foil, which likely couldn’t be used for much more in its life, but you don’t survive on an abandoned space station by wasting supplies. The small cardboard box was easy to open. Aldren hadn’t wasted tape keeping it closed.
She pulled out a mismatched pair of neon socks. They were long like a tube. One was pink with a blue patch on its toe and heel, the other was blue with a pink patch on the toe and heel.
The socks were absolutely gorgeous! Exactly what Aldren wanted.
She wrapped her arms around her chest and gave herself a warm hug. Another thing you had to do if you wanted to survive on an abandoned space station.
The stroganoff was as hydrated as it would be. Aldren knew there’d still be crunchy dehydrated bits in it. But that was the charm of freeze-dried meals, algae stew had no texture.
As she stirred the stroganoff around the public address system announced: “New ship docked in sector gamma partition C door 12.”
Aldren had wired the station’s security into the PA to keep from having to go through vacuumed sectors to access the station’s security office. She’d also programmed the security feed to transmit directly to her hand terminal.
Aldren’s heart sank. Unfortunately, she had guests for Elder’s Day.
You don’t survive long on an abandoned space station by getting excited about having company.
Sector gamma was mostly still in atmo. Lucky for the new ship. Some travelers docked into vacuum, no lack of hassle.
On Aldren’s hand terminal, a feed of the sector gamma’s security camera played. The image was focused on the door the ship docked to. The ship itself was ocean blue, not that Aldren had ever seen a real ocean. Harbor Master was painted in blocky white letters on the side. The ship as a whole was sleek like a knife or pair of needle nose pliers.
It was probably designed to land on planets and had to get through the heat of a planet’s atmosphere.
Apparently, the operator of the Harbor Master was also not eager to have company. They hadn’t opened the doors of the dock or made an appearance in the station yet.
Or if they had the cameras had missed it.
Another thing Aldren didn’t appreciate.
An abandoned station had no security team to actively prevent hacking the camera feed. The simple security measures that Aldren could put in place were outdated and easy to bypass.
She took a bite of the stroganoff. She looked around and appreciated the neat grid of tables she’d laid out together in Sunflower’s Muse. Keeping one eye on the terminal and another on her spoon, not wanting to spill a bite, she did her best to enjoy her Elder’s Day meal.
If Aldren’s visitor wasn’t eager to see her, then she wasn’t eager to see them.
Besides, not every human that visited Feldman’s was friendly. But the station’s booby traps would keep them out of Aldren’s living quarters.
A snap rang through the Sunflower’s Muse. It sounded like a circuit breaker blowing. Aldren dropped her spoon and splattered sauce all over the yellow tablecloth.
The smell of ozone, another clear sign of an electrical problem, filled the room.
Aldren grabbed her socks off the table. A fire in her station could be deadly. She knocked her chair over in her haste and turned around to make it to the door.
Unfortunately, a large toothy beast blocked her path.
The Awakening, caused by greedy Central System scientists if you believed the myths, let monsters into this universe through the space between space.
Some monsters were like whales and swam through the void of space swallowing ships whole. There were jellyfish-like creatures orbiting suns and placing their tentacles on the hot stars when they were hungry and casting the whole solar system into darkness once they were full.
The creature in front of Aldren had fur as black as the void of space. It stood on four legs and had triangular feline ears.
It seemed like a jungle cat, maybe a panther. And just like she’d seen in VR videos this panther had a short muzzle, muscular shoulders that reached Aldren’s chest, and four tails that floated behind it.

Except Aldren didn’t think panthers were supposed to have bulbs on the end of their tails. These bulbs, which only existed on three of the four hovering tails, twisted open like a flower blooming. Each was filled with an array of suction cup-like tendrils. Then they closed in the reverse motion, only to repeat the cycle a moment later.
On second thought, Aldren wasn’t sure that panthers were supposed to have four tails at all.
“Hello,” the panther said in a deep voice that seemed to shake the whole station. “What do you have there?”
The panther’s yellow eyes with their inhuman vertical slits gazed at the socks in Aldren’s hands.
Aldren buried the socks in the pocket of her jumpsuit.
“Nothing,” she said rushed.
She had no gun, those were dangerous on a station. A multitool was strapped to the work belt of their jumpsuit, but the small blade would be as useful as the stroganoff-covered spoon.
“It’s Elder’s Day for you humans. Is it not?” the panther asked.
“Mhmm,” Aldren said nervously. She backed away, uneager to get within paw’s reach of the beast.
The beast kept up with Aldren’s retreat. For every few steps back she took the panther caught up with a single stride.
These beasts weren’t considered monsters because they were kind to humans.
“Isn’t it tradition to give gifts to others on Elder’s Day?” the panther asked.
“Of course,” Aldren responded. “You can have…” she looked around the room and snatched a neatly folded green napkin off of a nearby table. “…this,” she said holding the gift out.
The panther frowned, as much as a feline-faced extra-dimensional being could frown.
“There’s no love or warmth in that gift,” the panther complained.
“I folded it myself. For you,” Aldren said. She pinched and pulled the edges making sure the folds were sharp and neat.
“They didn’t want to give me a gift on the Harbor Master either,” the panther said.
Aldren hummed in interest and concern for herself.
“They shot at me, trapped me, lopped off part of my tail.”
The panther lowered the three tails that had pulsing bulbs on the ends. It was clear to Aldren that the fourth one had been cropped a bit short.
“But there was warmth and love in the family’s ship. So I kept that as a gift. And I kept its course. Which led me to this station.”
The panther smiled the kind of cruel smile a pirate would make in VR movies.
“Should I take this station from you?” the panther asked.
“No, no, no. You don’t need to do that.” A nervous laugh was clearly in her voice.
“There’s no warmth in it either,” the panther said sounding resigned.
Aldren agreed, hence why she wanted the socks. She dug them out of her jumpsuit. Sad to see the mismatched pink and blue tubes go.
One of the panther’s tails reached out and grabbed them with the bulbous end.
“Thank you,” the panther said.
With a snap like a circuit breaker and the smell of ozone, the cat disappeared.
Aldren sighed in relief and disappointment.
At least she still had her stroganoff.
And she knew you don’t survive alone on an abandoned space station by arguing with extra-dimensional panthers.