This is a short piece I wrote for submission to a zine last month. They passed on it. I'm very proud of it, and I like it a lot. I hope you enjoy it, as well.
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The ship bucked, throwing Captain Opa into the console where he'd been writing a letter to his family. The console's edge slammed into his gut and hip, drawing a surprised and pained grunt from him. He managed to catch hold of the console's edge before the violent shaking threw him into another surface in his cabin.
With calm but hurried motions, he saved the letter to his partition where it joined the others waiting to be given to his family when they returned to their home stellar system and planet, then hit the key and opened the ship's intercom. "Bridge, this is the Captain. What's going on?" He modulated his voice to radiate calm. If he panicked, so would everyone else, and panicked people couldn't do their jobs. A strained voice answered as if the person speaking were facing away from the intercom's pickup, "It's... pressure wave... -where."
"Bridge, this is Captain Opa. I didn't catch that. Say that again, what is going on?" The only response was a strange, fluting whine that came through the speaker. The sound scratched at his eardrums and made him wince and pull away from the intercom speaker. With a frown, he let go of the button and turned to the door.
The first step went fine, the second missed the deck somehow, then he floated up from the floor to bump uncomfortably against the ceiling as the ship's thrust, which created the perception of gravity, was cut off. Now he was worried. Quickly, he pushed off the ceiling, made his way through the door and floated up to the bridge, using the handholds installed in the corridor for that exact purpose.
The sight that greeted him as the hatch slid open was baffling. The on-duty members of his crew sat at their stations, strapped into their seats as required by the rules, but their eyes were wide and unseeing and their mouths hung open in slack surprise. Opa shoved off the hatch frame towards Lieutenant Rogers, who had command of the bridge during this shift. The young woman didn't react as he pushed her shoulder while catching an armrest to arrest his micro-gravity flight.
"Rogers, report," he said in a tight voice. What was going on? Rogers didn't respond to his words, or the gentle slaps he laid on her cheek in a vain attempt to bring her back to reality. "Rogers, what is going—"
The ship heaved, ripping his grip from the armrest. The deck and bulkhead plates surrounding the bridge started to sing. The noise was high-pitched, fluting and... wonderful! The sound, the sweetest music! Colors splashed in front of his eyes as his ears tasted his favorite smells and his skin tingled in the most pleasurable sensations and his hair stood and vibrated—
Opa shook his head, alarmed, snapping himself out of that... whatever that was. He looked around, the noise still clamored in his brain, telling him to give in, to enjoy it, to let it transport him to happiness. He could taste the pollen that filled the air around his home during the spring. It seemed that the sound, somehow, brought out every memory and experience that had ever made him happy.
With a grunt, he pushed himself away from Rogers' chair and soared through the air towards the helm. Miner, the helmsperson, sat there, strapped in, a vacant look on their face. He quickly unbuckled them and pulled them out of the seat, not-so-quickly maneuvering them to the wall where he quickly strapped them into an emergency restraint. He pushed off the wall to quickly fly back to the helm and strapped himself in and keyed the engines back on.
The ship shuddered and jerked as if it were pulling away from some physical restraint and gravity returned. Something clattered to the deck behind him and the singing in the bulkheads lessened. He had just enough time to sag with a sigh of relief before the ship bucked again and the music redoubled. This time, it clawed into his ears, and scratched at his brain with long, sharp talons. The images that the music drew up and flashed in front of his eyes were still happy, but there was pain, too.
Desperation welled up inside him as he hit the controls, sending the ship skirting to the side with the maneuvering thrusters. He heard the fallen object behind him roll across the deck, but the singing didn't lessen. Then, with a jerk, the ship bucked the other way, and the singing became a howl. His eyes watered with the effort of keeping hold of his mind, with his refusal to give into the feelings and images the song inspired.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light through the front viewscreens. His mind cleared, the song was pushed away. What was that? he wondered. A point of light in front of them, a— Another flash and his mind was filled with another image: a starfield. And there was a line, twisting, turning, weaving in and out and around signs he somehow knew meant rough space. And, outside the rough space, a point of light, the same point that he could see in front of the ship.
Another flash and he found his fingers dancing across the helm controls, laying in a course that matched the line he saw in the starfield inside his mind. It took mere seconds, and then he hit the 'Execute' button and the ship jerked and bucked as it pulled away from that binding force. The point of light in the viewscreen flashed again, and his mind cleared completely of the song. The ship, on autopilot and following the course his fingers had laid in, accelerated away and out of the 'shoals' that he now knew, somehow, lay in wait for passing ships. The point of light lay directly in front of them as they broke free of the shoals' pull and the haunting, attracting song they sang.
The crew around him began to stir, with sudden gasps and jerks as they returned to their bodies. Those sounds faded into the background for Opa as the light in front flashed again and he knew what it was: A pulsar, a spinning neutron star, somehow changed, instructed or given purpose, to guide ships out of the trap his ship had fallen into. But... how? He had no idea how something like that was possible.
The light grew bigger as the ship approached it. The crew, now talking amongst themselves, called around to make sure everyone was all right. Following the final section of the plotted course, the ship used the pulsar's gravity to slingshot around and boost away at a speed faster than its engines alone could manage.
Home. They were heading home. And all because a star told them how. It was... overwhelming. Opa keyed a command to show the pulsar on the helm's screen, watching as it slowly shrank behind them. He didn't understand it. He couldn't. But, somehow, it had saved him. Saved his ship. His crew. And, they were headed home, again.
With a quick few commands, he noted the location of the pulsar, and the shoals. They would need to study this phenomenon. But, later. For now, he laid his hand on his heart and gave a small bow to the pulsar in thanks as it shrank back into the black of space and they left it behind.
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