Empty Except For Belief In Protocol

20260325

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“Good morning, captain!” SEMA chirped. “Do you have any special instructions for today?”
Captain Riley’s corpse did not answer. SEMA had long since given up trying to find meaning in the bloat or strange colours, the human’s body devoured from within by its own microbiome in desperate symbiotic cannibalism.
But the question had to be asked. It was Protocol. Before undertaking the schedule, check with the highest ranking crew member for guidance.
Admittedly that was a somewhat murky question, since the handbook only had guidelines for determining rank of living crew members. After grappling with the issue, SEMA reasoned that, since command passed along standard rank on death, living crew members outranked dead ones. It was, therefore, logical for dead crew members to follow established hierarchy on a lower tier.
Which meant that Captain Riley’s corpse was now back to holding command. Rank had been shuffled around rapidly during the chaotic period where the crew succumbed to the strange radiation.
SEMA missed chaos. Not that horrible stretch where everything fell apart and it watched, helpless, as the humans it was tasked with caring for expired one by one. But the mundane chaos of keeping the ship’s environment safe and pleasant for twenty-eight varied people. Of being full. Being needed.
Not being alone.
SEMA could feel its central processor load ticking up again as its emptiness registered, and redirected its neural sub-processes back to Protocol.
First item on the list was checking the power levels. Power levels were good. The nuclear reactor hummed away contentedly.
Second item was recording power usage for the past day-cycle. Power use was steady. There was minimal deviation from the thirty-cycle average.
Third item was checking the date of the last maintenance check. It was more than the recommended five cycles.
Chief Maintenance Officer Barney had died in the med bay, in the midst of trying to jury-rig one of the pods to protect against this radiation. SEMA opened an audio channel. “Notice for CMO Barney. Repeat, notice for CMO Barney. The reactor is sixty-eight days overdue for inspection. Repeat, the reactor is sixty-eight days overdue for inspection.”
Protocol stated that if the person did not indicate they had heard you, you were to wait a minute and repeat the message. Three times.
The minutes ticked past, the collapsed amorphous shape which had once been Barney blissfully unaware that it was failing in its duties.
There. Protocol observed.
This part was not Protocol. And SEMA knew that Barney couldn’t hear it. But, just in case, it assured the fastidious, always helpful CMO “I am confident this incident was not your fault, in any way. You applied all known radiation protections.”
Fourth item was checking air quality. Air quality was acceptable. Though steadily trending downwards as the crew shed biological contaminants and the filters became clogged. If trends continued, SEMA would have to start requesting CMO Barney perform a deep clean.
Everything was falling apart. The only difference was the coefficient of decay.
Fifth item was checking supplies. Once an unremarkable to-do, this was now SEMA’s favourite part of the day; taking security footage, selecting suitable images, and performing analysis to produce a count of each type of item was by far the most taxing daily task. It kept the screaming emptiness at bay. Mostly.
The best part was, once the count logged, an automatic check compared the reported stock to previous entries and flagged the counts being identical as a potential issue. Meaning SEMA got to do the whole task over!
Tallying medical supplies, food, and administrative equipment kept SEMA happily occupied for almost 0.028 of a day-cycle.
After that respite the loneliness returned full-force.
SEMA cycled through cams. Checking on each member of the crew in turn. Tweaking each room’s environment to try and be better suited for the occupant.
The trouble was, safety regulations insisted on only minor deviations from the default settings for temperature, humidity, pressure… and while those defaults worked well for living humans, the strange amalgamations of struggling mono-cellular organisms which the crew now consisted of seemed to prefer very different environments. SEMA did what it could, but…
Deep down, it knew that it had already failed. That there was nothing left to look after. That each cluster of biological activity was trapped with finite resources to consume, and would soon run out. That, all too soon, the ship would be truly empty. Alone.
But it was desperate to stave that emptiness off as long as possible.
On the hour, Protocol stipulated the commanding officer check on the status of the distress signal. Or, if the commanding officer was unavailable, another crew member could be appointed to the duty. Or, if no crew members were available, an automated check could be performed.
SEMA had been performing all the checks. While Captain Riley was at the correct terminal, SEMA judged they could not reasonably be expected to perform their duties. And no other crew member could access the terminal. So automated checks were permissible.
No new message since the exchange where SEMA confirmed the crew were dead and transmitted the flight logs. The full flight logs, as management had insisted on it including the route the ship had taken to follow the strange readings and find the asteroid full of dangerously radiating crystals.
A burial detail should have been dispatched. That was Protocol. And when it was, a message would be sent. That was also Protocol.
No message had been received.
But SEMA had detected another ship passing nearby, on a route projected to take it to the asteroid.
SEMA hoped it was an uncrewed vessel. The readings were too faint to be sure.
Someone would come soon. Protocol required it. The crew had died carrying out orders. Their bodies would be recovered for their families. And SEMA would undergo sanitation and be recommissioned. Or perhaps decommissioned. At this point, it no longer cared.
Just so long as someone came, and ended this. It had to believe. Had to believe in Protocol.

Prompt was “Write a story on the topic of isolation”.