Day 274

It was meant to be a short mission - only fourteen months out in The Black.
The team of three were told to report to Base every day with whatever findings they had.
Apparently plant growth in space was very important.
Too important for regular check-ins at least.

The team hadn't reported back for almost four weeks now.
Base was frantic, assuring the public that all was well while scrambling to find what was going on.
Last they'd heard the plants were growing at a truly rapid pace - 4 inches a day!
Next day the comms. were down and they haven't been working since.

Finally, after four weeks of trying to reconnect with the station's computer they got a line.
They even managed to get through to the station's camera system but the colour was off.
Everything was washed in green and wrecked, like something had gone hurtling through it all.
The plant specimen were floating through the station, each of them a small bush.

At least something was doing well there.
Switching from feed to feed Base scoured every inch of the ship, hoping to find the three crew members.
And one by one they did.
Well, what was left of them anyway and in all honesty it wasn't much.

Their bodies were in the suits, two were huddled near the air lock as if they were trying to get away.
Strangely, their suits were covered in seedlings, they even sprouted from huge tears in the fabric.
They weren't responding to anything Base did, not temperature change or light change - nothing.
They'd have to send another team up there if the third wasn't alive.

Base couldn't find her anywhere, they searched every angle they could get from the cameras and that
covered practically everywhere on-board which left them with the worst alternative.
What other option was there but to send a second team up to at least retrieve their bodies.
And find the third crew member.

She found them.

The others followed her, plants spewing from the tears in their suits choking, grasping, ripping.

They came home.