A Series of Plot-convenient Misunderstandings

“Tow Alpha-5-009, confirm last report.”

It’s been 19 hours since David’s last sleep shift. 27 hours since Ava threw her life away. Not enough time to process the loss, let alone grieve. He keeps waiting for her voice beside him to respond to the COI ship in orbit around AT-5.

“Tow Alpha-5-009 confirming. There’s a big fucking tree in front of us.”

“Have you recovered the black box?”

David sighs. Fingernails rasp against days of stubble now too long to be anything but a beard.

“Still looking. We’re picking up the signal, but it’s too sporadic to initiate a download.”

“Confirmed. Hold and keep searching.”

“Aye.” David sighs.

The connection clicks closed.

The deck rocks beneath his feet, scarlet foam churning in the glare of search lights.

He never wanted this job, but fuck if he isn’t going to do it.

Fucking Ava. Why did she have to go play hero and leave him with this mess?

The big fucking tree fills the horizon, crimson branches vanishing into the black of the sky. The bark still streams blood, gallons of it pouring back into the ocean that birthed it. David’s body is screaming at him to run, to take his crew back into orbit and get the fuck off of AT-5.

He fights the instinct down. They have to find the black box. He can’t let Ava’s death be for nothing. It holds the answers to questions he can’t even begin to ask.

“Move to the next grid section. I want spotlights two, four, and-”

“Sir!”

David’s head snaps up at the call, hope boiling traitorously in his belly.

“Report! You’d better fucking have something!”

“We found it!”

“Fish it the fuck out then, what are you waiting for?”

The reporting soldier is young, too young to know anything of stars or planets other than their absence. Acne scars pock their cheeks and a wisp of a mustache decorates their upper lip. They flinch at his tone. David tries to force a calm he doesn’t feel.

“What’s the holdup—” He squints at their name patch. “Olsen?”

“Well, sir, uh, you should just see for yourself.” Their voice cracks with anxiety at addressing their captain.

Olsen passes a rusted telescope to David, then points towards the enormous tree sprouting from the crimson ocean. David squints through the cracked glass, following the line of the young soldier’s finger.

Something hangs from the tree branches, the black box dangling from its still form.