People thought naming us after the biggest ocean would give us a sense of scale. It just gave us the bends. Station Pacific sits in the darkest trench of the local cluster. The pressure outside is absolute zero, but you feel it crushing you anyway.
I run acoustics in Sector 7. We monitor micrometeorite impacts to keep the outer hull intact. Sometimes the sensors pick up a low frequency vibration instead.
"It's just thermal expansion in the struts."
"Metal doesn't sound hungry."
It vibrates right in your teeth. Guys in the outer rings start bleeding from the nose when it happens. We call it the Groan. It feels like something the size of a moon is swimming past us in the dark.
We keep the humidity at a strict thirty percent. It doesn't matter.
"I can't breathe."
"Your O2 is fine. Slow down."
"My lungs are full of water."
Dr. Aris calls it a psychosomatic response to the extreme isolation of deep space. When they cracked open Miller's chest after he choked to death in the mess hall, a gallon of cold saltwater spilled onto the deck. Nobody talks about that.
Freighters come back from the deep drift coated in something. It isn't ice. It is crystalline, sharp, and it spreads over the thruster housings.
"Scrape the hull down to the bare plating."
"We burned out three laser torches trying. It grows back."
Command says they are just mineral deposits from uncharted asteroid fields. If you press your ear against the bulkhead where it grows thickest, you can hear a slow heartbeat. They are feeding on the ship's power grid. Next month, I think they'll start on the crew.