Planet Trap

Stuck here forever

Apr 23, 2026

It had been over one thousand years since The God-Eternal Emperor approved the Exodus that sent three admirals and a notable crew of the Expansion Galactica Programme to the far reaches of unexplored space to investigate The Edge Signal, which was coming from that desolate region. Specifically, it has been 1,342 Standard Imperial Years since the Imperial Grand Outpost left known space, and as a supposed consequence, lost communications with the Empire.

His grip on His people only strengthened afterwards, squeezing the map of His stars like He was trying to juice a stone for something that it would never give. And amongst His many worlds, was the planet Arogala. Like many others, this planet was a buffer world into His inner Empire, and its surface was practically entirely covered in one massive spaceport. A few Outpost ships orbited the planet as an artificial ring, controlling all of the regulated flights in and out of the world.

One of these such regulated ships carried an incredibly unextraordinary woman named Jess. Aside from her burning desire to see the capital world, Ignopius, there was nothing particularly interesting about her. Like all good Imperial citizens who still held faith to The God-Eternal, she had never even heard of the Edge Signal or of Orlene Welles. She still believed that Humankind was the only true sentience across the stars, and it kept her in the background of society. Overlooked, underappreciated, adequately paid, yet unaware of His chokehold. And yet she was fine with that, it let her get by day after day easily. She thought nothing beyond what she was supposed to.

She buckled her harness as the Shuttle ship docker with Outpost VII, waited patiently while armoured Investigators checked the ship and its passengers for something unbeknownst. She didn’t even pay much heed to the Investigator who gave her an odd glance through the black visored mask that rendered him nothing more than a faceless worker. and then waited readily as the ship began to depart from the Outpost and descend into Arogala’s atmosphere, heading for its scheduled dock on the world. The heatshield of the ship held up as it went through the atmosphere and down at a steep angle towards a little pocket of flat space amongst all of the buildings and towers. As the ship neared its docking space, retroboosters fired and slowed it down further before they angled upwards and landed the boxy ship rather gently. It was just another white shuttle amongst the thousands that came to populate the hive each day, each with its own little nook just for them in the sleek grey and brown city mass.

Unlike the capital Ignopius, Arogala was not exactly a layered city planet. Instead, the natural planet was covered in one ever sprawling and hastily built city, with each building interconnected by tubes and skywalks, with many accidental corridors and hidden rooms from poor planning. Aside from major waterways, there was not much left of what the planet had become. Having claimed their luggage, the passengers stepped off of the Shuttle and onto concrete ground where trees may have once stood, and filed into the waiting lobby with Jess once again lost in the throng of people. There Jess would wait as the Shuttle was cleaned, refuelled, the crew rotated out.

Here in the chair filled lobby for the dock, some of the passengers took seats and read their unabridged copies of Books of His Wisdom, where the God-Eternal Emperor defined Himself as omnipotent and His children unique and perfect.

“Give them a beacon to navigate towards, and they will never falter,” He wrote concerning the worship of His ideology.

While some passengers sought momentary rest in their oddly new chairs, other passengers emptied their systems in the lavatories, or they found themselves attracted to the commercialism that was so oddly and boldly advertised. Jess was one of the passengers from her flight who sought to feed the engine of greed as well as her own stomach. So having at least an hour of time to kill, she got in line for one of the restaurants that she thought had the best looking food, and prepared her order. She was fine with being patient in line since she could not control the Shuttle’s schedule and had nothing better to do, but the man behind her did not share his mindset.

He looked just like everyone else, but what he lacked in individuality, he certainty made up for it in boldness. “They’re going to keep us here, in this line forever, just you wait and see,” he told her frustratedly.

“I’m sure we’ll get to the front eventually,” Jess said optimistically. “See, the line’s moving!” Jess added the latter half as some people took their food trays from the front back to their seats. She inched forwards following the flow of movement.

“Yes, but when it’s our turn, will we be too late?” the man pestered again. “They could keep us here, waiting to spend money for as long as they need before the Shuttle takes off without us.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, losing her kind edge. “We’ll be fine.”

It seemed as if everything was going to turn out to be fine as she got her meal, and so did the man behind her.

“See, it’s alright,” she told him as they walked back to the seating lounge, the man seeming to go in the same direction as her. Looking up at the countdown until boarding would begin, she told him that “there’s still 30 minutes before we have to get on. Plenty of time to eat.”

She took her seat, pushing her bag under her legs and ate her food. The man who had been talking to her sat in the row behind her, two seats to the left, close to the wall-window that overlooked the dock where the ship was being prepared. All seemed well as the timer ticked down until when it was the time to start boarding the Shuttle, until it wasn’t well.

Before the countdown hit zero, only by a few seconds, the timer stopped and a soft voice came through the broadcast systems in the lobby and the connecting areas. “Attention passengers, One of the maintenance crew detected a radiation leak in the FTL Drive. We are sorry for the delay in your flight. We will need to conduct more maintenance. Since this will take a while, we recommend that you check for available rooms in our hotel system. We are sorry for the delay in your flight.”

A murmur went through the waiting crowd, and Jess thought to ask the clerk about a room opening before they filled up.

An older woman who sat next to Jess began to proclaim about modern safety, “and to think, we were probably on the shuttle when it began to leak! Thank The God Eternal Emperor we’re all safe!”

“I’m calling their bluff,” said the aggravated man said just loud enough for Jess to hear. “FTL Drives haven’t had nucleics within them for the past fifty years! We’re much more advanced than that now!”

Jess did what she could to ignore him, but it also felt weird at how right he had seemed earlier. Thoughts began to race through her mind about the credibility of the man’s statements, but then again, she wasn’t a ship mechanic so what would she know about FTL Drives.

She turned to speak to the man but hesitated, holding her tongue before she decided to ask “do you think they could be mistaken? Like maybe there’s a leak elsewhere and they just detected it in the FTl Drive for whatever reason..?” though she was no mechanic, she could feel the fallacies in her own word choice as she trailed off.

“No, there’s definitely something wrong going on here,” the grump said. “A typical radiation leak would have taken maybe about thirty minutes to clean up back when it was still used, but that was when they had equipment on hand to clean it. Who knows what tools they have these days?”

Jess sank into her seat, beginning to let thoughts of doubt into her mind before she drifted off to sleep with her head at an odd angle.

She awoke with a start, some time later when an announcement rang over the speakers claiming that “the radiation leak has been repaired, but to be safe we will need to wait for at least one more hour to be safe. We are sorry for the delay in your flight.”

Groans rose though the crowd, and some passengers went up to the desk to demand a room in the hotel, or to change flights. Those who asked the latter were only directed to ask the former. Jess spent her hour wasting in the shops in this section of the spaceport, looking for some random souvenir to catch her eye and lighten her bank account by a handful of credits. She didn’t find one, but she did also see the upset man seeming to follow the same route as her.

I wonder if he’s a heretic, she thought suddenly to herself. I mean, it fits. Well, mostly. But there’s something else about him I can’t place, it’s like he knows too much.

Back in the waiting lounge, right before boarding was to begin after the radiation leak was deemed repaired and safe, Jess wondered if there was going to be yet another delay, and desperately did not want to rent a hotel room.

“Attention passengers,” a new announcement came to the lobby and Jess’ heart skipped a beat in anticipation, “you are now clear to begin boarding.”

There were additional addresses about safety, baggage responsibility, and whatnot, but Jess did not heed them. She was far too excited to finally get on her way to see the capital and got out onto the dock and into the ship as quickly as she could. She felt sorry for everyone who had rented a room and didn’t need it.

Patience is a virtue she reminded herself as she took her seat, feeling jubilant to finally be on her way.

As if to kill her hopes, yet another demeaning announcement came. “Attention passengers, we are very sorry the delay, but we are unable to get clearance from the Outposts to depart due to the amount of outgoing traffic at this time.”

Yet even more complaints arose from the passengers as they shifted in their seats, unwilling to leave after they had just sat down.

Someone other than the possible heretic who Jess had heard of all too often shouted from their seat, wondering “if they had us board, why didn’t they check for clearance first?”

Nods of agreement arose as they unpacked and started to leave the ship.

Having nothing better to do, Jess went to the lavatories to waste time until the ship was ready for take off. When she was done, after washing her hands, she exited the lavatories and was startled to see the probable heretic leaning up against a nearby wall like he was waiting for someone.

“Waiting for someone?” Jess asked him against her better judgement.

“Yes, actually,” he said, walking towards her. “You.”

What if he wants to rape me? Jess thought alarmingly. Instead of vocalizing her worries, she asked “and why is that?”

“Simple, I want to ask you one question.”

“And what is that?”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that everytime we’re about to leave, there’s some super convenient excuse for keeping us here?”

“Well, why would they want to keep us here?” Jess wondered, attempting to poke holes in his thoughts.

“Why would they build prisons without criminals to put them in?” he said boldly like he had rehearsed it before and was proud to finally say it outloud to someone besides himself.

“But we’re not-” she stuttered “- criminals.”

“Maybe not you and me,” he said, “but I don’t know about everyone else here. Anyone of them could be a plotting heretic.”

“But they couldn't just keep them here forever!” Jess exclaimed. “They’ve got places to be, surely they’ll get rowdy if they stay here too long!”

“But I think that they can keep them here forever. No one ever really leaves this place.”

“That can’t be true! We saw shuttles leaving, so people must go too!” Jess did not want it to be real.

“Yes, we did, but did you see any passengers leaving with them?”

“Well, I-I don’t know.” She couldn't see how she could poke any holes in this logic. “But if they didn't leave on the shuttles, then where would they be now?”

“Still here,” the man said. “Stuck like you and me. I mean, think about it, if the spaceport was as efficient as it was advertised, then why would it constantly be growing all the time? If there is a fixed rate of crew members needed to run the place, and a constant flow of people going in and out, then why would there need to be so many parts to the place? And why is each dock separated from another if not to act as superficial cells?”

“Population increase..?” Jess suggested, not so sure of the idea herself.

“On a galactic scale, yes, but that shouldn’t require all the spaceport world likes this if no one really stays. Each dock section is basically a full city! There’s places to live, to eat, to buy, to shit, and time to kill!”

“But won’t people remember where they were going?”

“You’d be surprised what a little bit of time and a lot of propaganda can accomplish.” He sounded all too knowing.

“But I’ve done nothing wrong, why would I be on a prison planet?” Jess asked, needing answers. “I’m not a heretic.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not one either, and I don’t want to be stuck here forever with a bunch of heretics.”

“But how do we get off?” Jess wondered aloud, forgetting her earlier suspicions of the man.

The man lowered his voice and leaned in closer to Jess to tell her that “while you were waiting, I did some digging and found out that there’s an unregulated flight leaving in less than half an hour. If we can hurry, we can make it there in time.”

“And it’s heading to Ignopius?”

“Yes, but we have to hurry. There’s some forgotten passageways from the shoddy building that’ll bring us to a clearing where the ship will be,” he claimed.

Jess believed and followed him as he beckoned her towards an odd shoulder width nook in the wall where this part of the port was built to a second part. The man went first, his shoulders rubbing up against the walls in some parts. Instead of being flat and unused, the walls seemed oddly worn down, as if many people had come this way before. Eventually the corridor widened and the two were able to move side by side comfortably

The corridor diverged into two gangly sections, and the man said “this way,” beckoning forth as he took the right passageway, which continued into even more hallway expanse while the one on the left did not

“But that way doesn’t look like a clearing!” Jess shouted at the man, as she stood at the intersection. “Look, there’s windows to outside and a door there, and-”

The man stopped running and shouted back to Jess, saying that “That exit is blocked! We’ve got to get to the door on the other side. Now come on!”

The man waited for Jess to catch up, and when they were once again on track, they quickly came to a large room some ceiling windows that revealed a clear and shipless sky, and was filled with many tall grey crates, some of which were stacked upon shelves.

“We’re here,” the man said confidently.

“Wait, this doesn’t look right,” Jess remarked, seeing how the windows looked out towards the dock, and not a clearing as the man advertised.

“You’re right,” the man said. “It’s very wrong, just like you.” He smirked and suddenly many armed Investigators spontaneously appeared, pointing their rifles directly at Jess, their black masks dehumanizing them, and making them seem nothing more than large, bipedal insects.

“What?!” Jess was confused, and panicked as she felt her heart leap into her throat. “I don’t get this, what’s going on?”

It was the man who had lured her here like a deep “You’re under arrest for Heresy, piracy, illegal immigration and sowing disorder in domain.”

The man walked towards her and put brackets around her wrists with a magnetic charge that kept them bound together. Jess was too shocked to resist, and even if she did run away she would get shot far too many times than what she would like to think about.

“But, I didn’t do any of those things…” her voice trailed off, getting weaker and less confident with herself has her thoughts continued to race.

“Oh but you did,” said the man, now looking evil beyond compare. “You committed Heresy when you believed His infrastructure was failing. You were in the act of committing piracy and illegal immigration when we were lucky enough to catch you before you could sow anymore discord.”

“But if I did any of those things, you planted them there!” Jess defended herself draconically.

“Maybe, but every slave must be goaded into working. If I planted them there, then you let them grew. It was a test to see if your mind was capable of holding Heretical beliefs, and it was. You were sifted out, and for good reason.”

Jess looked up and out the windows, she saw the shuttle she was supposed to be on take off and soar off into space before it would ultimately leap away to the world that she had so badly craved to see.

“Then thank the emperor for his loving hand,” Jess spat out vehemently when she realised that she could not win anymore than she could resist being tempted here.

Nine Inch Nails, Boys Noize - Heresy (Nine Inch Noize Version)

Author’s Note

This short, set in the Edge of the Universe world, was inspired by my idea of how everyone on Earth is currently stuck here for the moment.

No planet B, and only heavily trained professionals get to visit space.

But not the ordinary person who only ever dream of a better world.

If you would like to expand the Edge of the Universe story with me, please let me know! The Edge expands for as far as we can see! I would absolutely love to work with other brilliant sci-fi minds on this project!