The Destruction of Gamma-05 (the birth of laika)

The Destruction of Gamma-05 (the Birth of Laika)

The Gamma-05 research station had been orbiting the Dying Star for just about 7 ½ years. The captain had insisted on timekeeping with earthen years rather than the cosmically accepted galactic time. It was an odd quirk of hers, one that drove the rest of the crew mad. 7 ½ years marked down on a gardening calendar she had found in some terra travel hotspot. She, and the rest of her crew, had never even seen earth outside of the flowers and greenery in its pages. Most were born on space stations. Not small, dinky research vessels like this one (save for the rookie mechanic coming in from an asteroid coring vessel) but large community stations meant to replicate life on earth out among the stars. Thats where most life lived and thrived nowadays. The calendar was set with the year 2068, though the Captain had added a plus mark and tallies for each year that passed on the station. 2068+IIIIIII on each page amongst brilliant lilies and snapdragons. On the day that the Gamma-05 station was destroyed, it was set to the 16th of june, 2068+IIIIIII, under a bush of bright yellow marigolds.

 The small team of 15 were familiar with the Dying star (officially it was called 041503-ii7, but the crew took to a new name they had deemed fitting,) and its odd habits. Its burps and hiccups, dying wheezes of gas from its soon to collapse core. That's what they were here to study after all, a star on its very last legs and the impending explosion to come of it. The Dying Star was doomed to go soon, but soon in celestial terms meant that Gamma-05 was set to orbit it at a close distance for another 15 years, back away for a few more, and ride out its, hopefully, supermassive explosion within the stations 30th year of research. The Dying Star had a different plan in mind. It blew 2 decades too soon. Its early demise was set in stone at the arrival of the Gamma-05 crew. It was nothing they did, of course, not even their presence that did it. Not really. Some infinitesimal celestial hijinks, the fractional gravitational pull of the ship, the one comet set out of place with its travel, the fuel left in the vessel's wake. This act of death and creation was inevitable, unavoidable, and entirely detectable on the part of Gamma-05.

The Dying Stars death was entirely detectable. The crew did in fact see it coming, there was no way to miss it when studying the habits of a star is all you have to do. They knew the star was barreling towards its doom faster than a warp fighter to its prize. Their lack of response was not due to any stupidity on the crews part, but an accident from 15 months ago that left the team of Gamma-05 in disarray and their ship stuck limpintly floating around the Dying Star. Their head engineer had died. Outside of the crew, in the media frenzy that had followed the destruction of Gamma-05 for reasons we will come to learn, nobody knew what had taken the engineer's life. Many assumed botulism or food poisoning, the model and make of Gamma-05 was known to have food preparation issues. Some suspected a space walk gone wrong, the ship was known to have fallen behind on maintenance. A few even suggested something more sinister. A murder. A drama to the situation. Unfortunately. All they could do was speculate. Gamma-05 stored all reports locally. When most of the ship was overtaken by a supernovas brilliance, any and all documentation not already available to the public was lost. All that could be gleamed, was that the head engineer had passed and his inept apprentice was forced to take over. In the disarray and neglect that followed, the ship's controls were lost. Its thrusters had idled and its crew already knew, even without the impending death of the Dying Star, they were long doomed. On course to drift until more systems gave out, stuck with an engineer who had already given up and the ghost of the man he followed in every wire. 

They sent out an SOS. Gamma-05 was leaps away from any response station. It took 2 weeks for their ping to be heard. It was heard, however. 4 weeks for any ship with equipment to tow them out to reach them. Not much faster for just a passenger ship. A rookie with a radio jammer was the quickest response. A tiny ship that was able to hop to their call as soon as it was heard. They were only just too late in their arrival. In time to witness the last lingering moments of the supernova explosion. In time to watch a body, floating in the mess. There wasn't much in the way of debri, most of it was engulfed by the young black hole at the center of all this. The body was an adult, presumably a crew member, presumably dead. But her eyes were wide and awake, and she stared at the rookie. Bright and attentive and alive, by some miracle alive. 

Laika was born then. Of the Dying star. Of the destruction of Gamma-05. She wasnt Laika, not yet. She was new. Young. Fresh. Floating amidst the wreckage, her carnage. Her claim.