Summary: [NOVELLA.] Thirteen days. Thirteen days Ellie, Santos, and Buckell survived in forgotten space above the winter planet Tau Volantis. In those thirteen days, survival was all that mattered. Ellie-centric. Sequel to Liberation; pre-DS 3. Developed with Ragnarok666. Updated Saturdays and Tuesdays. January story #3.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dead Space.

Rating: M for language and adult themes.

A/N: So I get a PM from Ragnarok666 asking if I was interested in writing Dead Space anytime soon since I've been updating some other older stories. I'm interested in writing. I say, sure, why not? Here is our lovely labor of love for you.

CMS ROANOKE

Chapter 1

No one dared to breathe. The sub-light flyer shuddered, metal whining, as an explosion rocked them. Clenched in her hands, the control yoke resisted her strained guidance as blue-whiteness yawned open into an infinite tunnel. That eternal blueness was shockspace. Ellie only knew that it would spit them out near Tau Volantis, the mysterious planet that was the Marker's signal source.

Santos and Buckell were silent at their stations. Their computers bleeped and responded to their commands as they diverted power to stabilize life support and gravity. She concentrated on keeping the craft centered in the stream. Should their small craft careen into shockspace's lethal walls, if even a flap brushed against the stream walls, they would be incinerated. Nothing would be left to even put into a jewelry box.

"All's clear behind us. Danik and his goons didn't get through," Buckell said. "Norton must've blasted the shockring."

"Oh," said Santos. Ellie heard her voice tremble. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"Feel good about it. We set Danik's plans back. He won't have the data that we have," Buckell told her. "And with our shockpoint beacon, Norton can follow us through when he's shaken off that Unitarded sleaze."

Santos clucked at Buckell. "Norton's got the data, yes, but that data is in Marker symbols. Who else besides Damara could translate it?" Ellie knew Santos and Damara Carver had worked together a few years ago before Santos was culled from EarthGov's ranks to work on Marker Ops.

"Ellie knows a guy, right?"

Cheers, Buckell. She didn't want to get into it, but her crew would notice any reticence. "Yeah, I know a guy. He's the same guy Norton'll go after. Danik, too, if he's smart."

"Yes? He can help?" Santos asked with some relief.

"He can help. That doesn't mean he will." And if Ellie was smart, she'd admit that Isaac was as fanatical about avoiding EarthGov and the Church as they were to kill him. "He has a history with the Markers and won't come easily."

"What difference does have a history make?" asked Buckell. "He could save billions of people by translating that data. The whole human race!"

Ellie rolled her neck, felt the vertebrae pop. "He won't see it that way. He may avoid helping for the simple fact that he despises Norton's and Carver's type."

"Sounds like a real nice fella." Buckell's unforgiving judgment rankled with Ellie, but she couldn't deny it. "Some kinda piece a work to ignore the lives of so many innocent people."

"Who is he?" Santos asked. "This guy you know?"

She closed her tired eyes, imagined his salt and pepper hair, the three-days' stubble, his crow's feet that extended to his hairline. He was a ghost who haunted her; he was a reality that could save them. "Isaac Clarke."

Santos and Buckell let it drop when the ship bucked and swayed with turbulence and their dashboards lit up with a vengeance.

It was just as well. Ellie's arms ached from holding tight on the controls. Her eyes monitored the dancing lights of the various indicators and gauges. She calculated and recalculated and was satisfied with the results. Aside from the initial concussive force, the flyer had evened out. Minimally, she relaxed her grip, not trusting the ship yet. It had been a lucky find, she thought, otherwise they'd be dead in the water. It was this flyer that made the next leg of their mission possible.

"I'll check our supplies," Santos said, when things calmed. "While we don't know where we're going, we can at least know what we have."

"Good thinking."

Santos left for the aft, where supplies would be stashed. Buckell remained, and Ellie heard him whispering to himself. She ignored it for now, intent on keeping the ship on a straight path. Her mind wandered to the cool weight that rested under her shirt. The St. Christopher's medallion was given to her as a final sacrificial gift to protect her always. Isaac, she thought, his name a heartbeat inside her, Isaac, I wish you were here.

She winced from her treachery. Remember how you pried free of him? You left him in his shithole apartment, poverty stricken. You sacrificed your love so you could be free. Isaac isn't yours, she told herself. Robert is. Robert, who told her he loved her with a sense of dignity and nobility. Robert, who killed for her and was a constant shoulder to lean on. Robert, who would move heaven and earth to be at her side. That was who she loved.

The minutes bled into hours and shockspace stretched out ahead of her, never varying, always a luminescent blue-white shimmer. It occurred to Ellie that they could ride this stream for days or weeks before reaching their final destination. And then what? And then whatever we have to do, she replied to that doubt. Having doubt maddened her, distracted her. She found it difficult to shake off.

"Ellie?" Buckell interrupted her thoughts. He had come to stand at her elbow. She'd been too deep in her thoughts, into riding the stream, that she hadn't noticed him.

"What?"

"You've been strapped in for a while. You need a break?"

"No. I'm fine," she told him.

"Santos texted me our supplies. We've got five military MRE's, two water units, four spacesuits with full oxygen, plus a med-kit, engineer's kit, four flashlights, four blankets, and a partridge in a pear tree."

Ellie smiled at Buckell's joke. "Weapons?"

"And those we don't have. I've got my trusty seeker rifle, though. We'll make do with what we find at the other end. We'll manage."

But would they find anything at the other end? What would they do if they de-shocked, and there was the void of space and nothing else? Emptiness as far as forever? They would run out of oxygen, food, and water. Don't think about that yet. You'll figure it out somehow. You can get your team out alive. Her determination would have to suffice.

"Tell Santos to prep that shockpoint beacon. As soon as we de-shock, I want her to deploy it." Her attention was on the sinuous path they hurtled along. "We can't afford to delay in getting out a signal. We don't how long help will be."

Buckell grunted. "We're strong. We'll be fine, don't you worry."

But she did worry. As Buckell turned to contact Santos, Ellie skimmed the oxygen and fuel readouts on the display screen. They had plenty of each, even for a flyer, but the food and water…they would have to scavenge for more. Surely there would be some old derelicts floating around that they could rummage in. She grimaced at the thought of 200 year old supplies. And God knew what else they would find.

Hours later, when Buckell did take over, Ellie's eyes were gummy and scratchy, and she couldn't keep her eyelids from sliding shut. A crick whined in her neck; her leg muscles had atrophied and she needed to piss. She relieved herself in the tiny toilet and stretched out on a bunk attached to the inner wall of the flyer. The mattress was hard, the blanket rough, but it was a bed. Santos snored in the bunk above, and Ellie didn't mind; she was comforted by it. The brilliant white shockspace left an after-image in her retina. It would go away with time.

She rubbed the medallion between two fingers, kissed the cool face, and schooled her thoughts to center on Robert. No doubt he blazed a trail with the Eudora to pick up Isaac. She hoped Isaac would go with Robert willingly and that the two of them could get along in favor of saving humanity. Or if not that, then saving her, Santos, and Buckell. Her thoughts drifted and she tumbled into a deep sleep.

"Ellie? Ellie, we need you." Her heart leapt high in her throat when she heard Isaac's voice in her ear. She struggled against the veil of sleep, fought because she wanted to tell him how relieved she was he was there, but it was Buckell who leaned at the side of her bunk. "We're nearing the end of the stream. You'll have to take us through."

It seemed she'd slept fifteen minutes, but she was upset to discover she'd been asleep for some time. Ellie's stiffness had spread and her joints cracked when she stretched and breathed the flyer's stale air. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it and took her place at the control yoke. Santos and Buckell monitored critical systems.

Buckell had read the calculation correctly. They were twenty-odd minutes away from the end of the shockpoint stream, which would empty them to the coordinates Damara had translated…the coordinates to Tau Volantis. Fear edged into her, her stomach clenching. A flop sweat left film on her skin as she adjusted their course. Her readings bleeped and chirruped at her; the turbulence increased.

"Santos, maximum thrust! We have to punch through." Ellie clenched her jaw. If this went sideways…she didn't think what would happen to them. "De-shock in sixty seconds."

"Will the ship hold?" Santos asked.

Ellie swallowed. "It will." It had to.

Santos increased the thrust to maximum. The flyer's engines whined and rattled the entire vessel. Ellie gripped the controls as the white stream became a pinwheel of stark light. All the readings were green, but she had to keep the flyer level or they'd spiral out of control. Santos counted down in a steady voice that Ellie didn't recognize until they punched through the shockpoint stream into vast, dark space.

Up ahead loomed a massive planet, white as a dead eye sunk half into shadow. A sparkling halo swung out and around the planet. Several ships floated in the mid-distance- -relics of a couple centuries past. Great chunks had been broken out of them and flung in scattered array. There was a dark moon that presided over everything in ominous shadow. She had enough time to wonder at their arrival, when everything in the ship wailed with alarms and blinking lights.

"Oh, hell," Buckell said. "We've got a problem."

Outside her windshield, Ellie could see red lights spread in an even field as far as the largest derelict ship. Automated seeker mines. Whoever had been left had deployed a fleet's worth of them at the de-shock zone and had spread the minefield outwards toward the planet. Once the mines had locked onto the ship considered a threat, they would pursue until the threat had been neutralized. Escape was impossible.

Ellie felt thousands of unblinking red eyes gleam in their direction. They had crossed the threshold.

Beyond them, she could make out the faint letters on the largest, farthest ship: CMS Roanoke.

A/N: I decided to streamline the chapters as much as possible. I was so verbose in "Reconciliation" that I felt it turned off a lot of readers, so hopefully the slimmer chapters will engage more readers. Let me know of any questions or concerns you have. I love discussion with readers! Next chapter post will be Tues. Jan. 21st. See you then!