Space-Themed Sci-fi Monologues Vol. 9
Every monologue is an audition for empathy. The actor has to convince us that this person, in this impossible place, is real enough to care about in 1-2 minutes. The ten pieces below pull from corners of a sci-fi setting we have not visited yet: the salvager, the chef, the historian, the kid who stowed away. Find the small choice. Trust the silence.
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The Salvager in the Wreck - Hask Orrin - methodical wary salvager
"Don't touch anything yet. (beat) I know the contract says we get bonuses for speed. I know. I read it twice. But I have been doing this work for twenty-two years and I will tell you what every salvager who lasted more than five years will tell you. The fast ones die. (pause) This was a science vessel. You see the markings on the bulkhead? That symbol means biohazard research. The lights are still on, which means the reactor is still running, which means whatever killed the crew did not kill the ship. (quiet) That is a problem. That is, in fact, the problem. (beat) So we are going to walk slowly. We are going to scan every door before we open it. And if I say back out, you back out, and you do not ask me why until we are off this wreck. Understood?"
The Cook on the Long Shift - Auntie Soo - warm tireless cook
"Sit, sit, sit. (ladles soup) You did not eat lunch. Don't lie to me, the dishwasher told me, and the dishwasher does not lie. (beat) Eat. (pause) I have cooked on this ship for thirty-one years. I have fed four captains, eleven first officers, and approximately two thousand crew across all the rotations. I have made wedding cakes. I have made funeral bread. I have made the same lentil stew on the same Tuesday for three decades because Tuesday is lentil day and the universe will end before I change that. (small laugh) You are too thin. The new ones are always too thin. They come up from the academy with their certificates and their tablets and they forget that the body needs feeding. (soft, firm) Eat the soup. Then the bread. Then we talk about whatever is making your eyes look like that. Eat first."
The Historian on the Dead World - Professor Iren - quiet meticulous historian
"Step where I step. (soft) The floor here is original. Six thousand years old, give or take a century, and we are the first humans to walk on it since the dig opened last spring. (beat) Look up. (pause) See the carving on the lintel? That curve, the one that loops back on itself three times? We do not know what it means. We have three competing theories and none of them are good. My theory, which I have not published yet because my colleagues will laugh, is that it is a name. The name of whoever last closed this door. (quiet) Six thousand years ago, someone stood here and pulled this door shut behind them, and they signed it, the way a child signs a drawing. And then they left and never came back. (beat) That's history. Not battles. Doors."
The Stowaway in the Cargo Hold - Little Finch - scrappy defiant stowaway
"Don't yell. (hands up) Please don't yell, the big man down the corridor will hear and he will tell the captain and the captain will throw me out an airlock, my brother told me they do that, they throw stowaways out airlocks. (beat) I'm Finch. I'm twelve. Almost. (pause) I came on board at Kestrel Station three days ago. I've been eating from the recycler bin behind the galley. I know that's gross. I know. I had options and that was the least gross option. (small voice) I'm not running away from anything bad. My mom is fine. My mom is great. I'm running toward something. There's a school on Polaris Six and they take kids who can fix engines and I can fix engines, mister, I can, I fixed our heater when I was nine. (pleading) Please don't yell."
The Combat Medic After the Battle - Doc Ramirez - exhausted blunt medic
"Sit. Don't argue. Sit. (pushes patient down) You have a piece of shrapnel the size of my thumb in your shoulder and you are talking to me about getting back to your unit. No. The answer is no. (beat) I have been pulling metal out of bodies for nine hours. I have lost four people on this table. Four. Two of them I went to the academy with. So when I tell you to sit, what I am actually saying is, please, please, do not be the fifth, because I do not have it in me today. (pause) Your unit can spare you for forty minutes. The war will still be there. (softer) Look at me. Hey. Look at me. You are going to be fine. You are going to write your husband tonight and tell him you are fine. Now hold still."
The Rival Captain on the Comms - Captain Marquez - smooth competitive rival
"Constance, this is Marquez on the Vesper. Acknowledge. (beat) I see you, you old crook. I see your engine signature and I see the very illegal modifications you've made to your aft thrusters since the last time we crossed paths. (chuckles) Don't pretend the channel's broken. I know you're listening. (pause) The Cygnus run is mine this quarter. You knew that. We agreed at the captains' table over cheap whiskey, and you shook my hand, and now your ship is parked at the same waystation I'm headed to, which is, frankly, an insult to our entire profession. (soft, dangerous) So here is what's going to happen. You are going to undock in the next six hours. You are going to find another route. And the next time we meet, you are going to buy the whiskey. (beat) Marquez out. Love to your wife."
The Grandfather Tells the Story - Old Papa Voss - gentle reminiscing grandfather
"Come here. Sit on the rug. (soft) Yes, with the blanket, the blue one, the one your grandmother made. I know it scratches. It scratched me too when I was your age. (chuckles) Now. You asked me about the homeworld. (beat) The homeworld was blue. That's the first thing. People always forget that part. The sky was blue and the oceans were blue and from the high orbit windows of the evacuation ship, the whole planet looked like a marble somebody had been carrying around in their pocket. (pause) I was eight when we left. Younger than you. I held your great-grandmother's hand the whole way to the shuttle, and she told me not to look back, and I did not look back. (quiet) But I dream of the blue, sometimes. Even now. Even after all the new skies. The blue stays."
The Magistrate on Circuit - Justice Ovaal - severe traveling magistrate
"Order. (gavels) I said order. This is a court of law, not a market stall. (beat) I have been on circuit for fourteen weeks. I have heard ninety-three cases across eleven outposts. I have not slept in my own bed since the spring rotation. I am, in a word, tired. (pause) So I am going to be very clear with both parties. You will speak when I address you. You will not interrupt one another. And you will keep in mind that I have the authority, on this circuit, to settle this dispute in any manner I see fit, including some manners that are technically obsolete but which remain on the books. (small smile) I once sentenced a man to plant trees for a year. He thanked me afterward. (serious) Now. Plaintiff. State your case. Briefly. Or I start improvising."
The Dancer in the Lounge - Sera Vellini - flirty melancholy dancer
"You came back. (soft laugh) Three nights in a row. People will talk. (beat) Sit. The corner booth's better, the lighting is kinder to both of us. (pause) Don't do that. Don't tip me before we've even talked. I am not, contrary to what the manager wants you to think, a vending machine. I am a woman who dances at a lounge on a station nobody important visits, and I am, on most nights, very lonely, and so are you, which is why you keep coming back. (small smile) Don't deny it. I see it in how you hold your glass. (quiet) Tell me your name. Your real name, not the one on your jacket. Tell me where you grew up and what your mother used to make on cold nights. (leans in) We have until the second song. After that, I dance. Talk fast."
The Exile Returns Home - Tarsus Rhen - bitter returning exile
"Twenty-two years. (beat) That is how long I have been gone. Long enough that the trees in the courtyard, which I planted as a boy, are now tall enough to shade the whole western wing. Long enough that my mother is dead, my father is dead, and the cousin who drove me out of this house is, I am told, the head of the family. (pause) Funny. I rehearsed this moment so many times in the camps. What I would say. How I would stand. The cool, dry voice I would use. (small, broken laugh) I forgot about the smell. The hallway still smells like the oil my mother used on the floors. That was not in the rehearsals. (quiet) Tell my cousin I am here. Tell him to come down. Tell him to bring whatever he wants to bring. I'll be in the garden."
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