This story is written from an IC perspective, sort of like in-universe horror fiction. It is an entry for the SFRIM writing contest. Be nice, be abusive, but let me know what you think!
Smuggled
“Captain’s Log, Captain Nathaniel of the Endanleg Flugið, We’ve lost two more crewman today.” He paused. Captain Nathaniel was only in his fifties. By modern standards, he was in his prime, but his face was wrinkled and scored by stress and combat. He breathed in. “There was a containment breach in the cargo hold. We were hauling a brokered cargo container from the drone lands. Marked confidential, do not open. The client was adamant that we do not get caught, that it was to be smuggled to Amarr before the coronation.” He scratched his cheek, pausing again. “We’ve missed that mark. The breach happened four days ago, before we lost access to our warp drive. We’ve taken up in a deadspace zone to initiate repairs. We still don’t know what was in the container, but the crew are vanishing. We hope to have the warp drive repaired within two hours, jettison the remaining containers, and leave. End log.”
He sighed, standing from in front of the small computer terminal. With the warp drive down, the ship was on emergency power. The small, Wreathe-class hauler had seen better days, that was for sure. Nano-decay, typically seen on century-old stations, had appeared on the walls, looking like rotting organic material. The lights flickered ominously, and the doors groaned as they opened slowly. He made his way from his quarters to the bridge, where the officers were gathered, monitoring internal and external sensor data. A tall Brutor man stood at attention, saluting.
“Sir! We still don’t know where the missing crew are.” Scott’s console had a variety of scan results on it. “Its as if they were never on the ship to begin with.” His voice was tinged with the faint whine of fear.
“Find them, dammit. The ship’s not that big! Engineering!” Nathaniel slammed his fist on the door frame. Scott nodded, turning back to the scanning console and taking a seat. A small, raven-haired Achuran woman turned in her seat, cutting off an angry voice from the console.
“They still do not know what happened with the warp drive. The entire system suffered a catastrophic failure. They are saying we are fortunate that the entire system did not fail. The actual system seems to be fine but the computer refuses to report that, instead saying that it is all crashing down.” Akari spoke in stilted, practiced syllables. “They are currently reinstalling firmware in all components as well as updating the main system itself.” She stared straight into Nathaniel’s eyes, as if daring him to show another outburst of anger.
“Fuc-” he stopped himself, put off by her steely gaze. “Tell them to hurry.” He fumed. Their tactical officer was one of the missing. The ensign who had replaced him cowered in his seat and shook his head. Nathaniel stared the man down. “How many security teams do we have left?”
“T-two sir. Three crew each.”
“Remind them not to go alone.”
Sarah hefted the projectile assault rifle to her shoulder. The rifle’s light shone down the dark hall. The two other security guards with her pointed the guns back behind them. “Sarah to bridge.” No response. “Security to bridge.” The communications systems had gone dead ten minutes prior, just before the lights had gone out. Something clanked, but none of them saw movement. “Security to engineering.” Engineering was supposed to be down the corridor, but they felt like they’d been walking for hours. “Move!” Her sharp voice broke the dank, musty air. They broke into a brisk, unified pace down the hall.
She hadn’t signed up for this when she took the civilian job onboard the hauler, and she sure as hell was quitting after this. The walls were rippled slightly, dripping with decaying metal alloys. For some reason, it reminded her of the itch on her side. A light ahead flickered on, revealing the door to engineering. In front of it were three bodies on the ground.
“Slow!” She trained her rifle on the bodies, which were wearing the gold security uniforms of the ship’s internal teams. The captain had a thing for color-coded uniforms. One of the guards had a short, blonde ponytail, like hers. Sarah’s brow furrowed in confusion. Breaking formation, she sprinted the last few meters, dropping to her knees and rolling the body face-up. Sarah’s eyes stared up into her own, her face cold and still. For a few brief moments, she felt like she was having an out of body experience. The universe shifted and swayed, and she was looking down at herself from above.
There was a steady drip of water somewhere. The humidity in engineering was getting unbearable at this point. Despite four days of work, there was still nothing to report to the captain. One panel near the humming warp drive itself was showing signs of the same slow corruption eating away at the rest of the ship. Fredericks grumbled to himself, then yelled to one of his tireless team. “What the hell is taking so long? It’s a firmware install, for fuck’s sake.” Nobody responded- everybody was busy downloading new files into consoles and chipsets. He scratched an itching spot just below his eye, looking back down at his own display. The console was reinstalling the entire drive operating system, but it kept crashing at the very end. This attempt was no different. “FUCK!” He got up, fuming. His crew didn’t look up at all. He stormed out of the main blast doors and into the cargo corridors.
The lights along the passage, stretching all the way from fore to aft, were all crimson. Blast doors had sealed off all of the cargo rooms, quarantining the holds from the ship’s main atmosphere and access. He began to yell expletives, kicking a nearby panel. His tritanium-toed boot clanged against the bulkhead again and again, until it warped slightly under the abuse. His comms system barked to life abruptly, Akari’s voice cutting through his angry haze like a razor.
“Fredericks. Report.”
“Still nothing. Total system crash during the OS reinstall.”
“Has your team attempted a complete re-”
“YES, for God’s sake!” He cut her off mid-sentence.
“Reboot the system,” was the deadly-cold response. He hated her. He truly did. She had the insufferable ability to remain calm, and the ability to make him feel utterly incompetent, like a petulant child, if he interrupted her. “Reboot the system. Run through a full diagnostics. Physically disconnect the computers and the core, reconnect them, and call me in the bridge when it is done.”
Nathaniel was pacing at the back of the bridge. He had heard the entire exchange, though Akari’s demeanour suggested that nothing of importance had happened. She continued punching in commands and calculations to the computer. The ensign, whose name he hadn’t even learned, spoke up this time.
“The second security team hasn’t moved in an hour. They’ve been outside the auxiliary bridge and won’t report in.” Nathan felt his white-hot rage resurfacing. Akari sensed it, too, looking up just long enough to give him a warning glance. He suppressed it.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“They’d been reporting in until three minutes ago. They were trying to gain access.”
“Why the fraggin’ hell wasn’t I informed?” This time, he let his rage show. “They were supposed to be on their way to engineering!” The young ensign flinched, not looking up. Abruptly, the lights went out entirely. There was a clattering chair as someone, likely the ensign, bolted. Akari’s voice was the next sound.
“Power is down.” He felt a cold, hard object pressed into his hand. The emergency lantern clicked on. He stared down at her, reminded of how silently and quickly she could move. Her eyes stared up at him. “Go check engineering. I will try to restore it from here.” Her hand pressed a small blaster pistol into his grip. He resisted the impulse to rebuke her for giving him an order. Instead, he nodded. He glanced down at the security console. The seat was on the floor. He decided not to look for the young man, instead stepping out of the bridge and into the main corridor.
The red emergency lights pulsed slowly, despite power going out. At least their internal batteries weren’t gone yet. The walls looked like they dripped blood in the light, the organic corrosion taking on a gory appearance. Nathaniel held the pistol ahead with a firm grip, keeping the lantern lifted. Walking quickly, he eye-checked each hold door for signs of a breach. They were all sealed. For some reason, the decay attacking the rest of the ship hadn’t touched them. Reaching engineering, he activated the door’s emergency release. He set the lantern down, and stuck the pistol in his belt, hoisting the hydraulic handle open. The door slid upwards slowly, with a groan, revealing a darkened room. He picked up the lantern, and entered.
The red-haired Fredericks was working at a darkened console. Nobody else could be seen. “Fredericks?” No response. He entered slowly. At the edge of his light’s radius, he thought he could see the shapes of other crew, but they weren’t moving. “Fredericks!” He was nearly upon the man now, who was breathing but not otherwise responding. Nathaniel moved around to his side, shaking his shoulder. The shoulder was hot and pliant, moving without resistance, but as soon as he stopped, returning to the hunched over look. Nathaniel moved the light to see his face.
Nathaniel recoiled almost immediately, dropping his gun and covering his mouth. His vomit reflex kicked in, anger immediately evaporating to terror. Fleshy tubes had erupted from the man’s cheek, arcing from there to the pulpy remains of his nose. His teeth were hanging from pale gums. There was a glimmering from his eyes. Nathaniel fought his instincts, and leaned closer. There were small, glowing motes in the being’s eyes, clearly electronic in nature. “Akari. Come in.” Fredericks moved slightly, and Nathaniel screamed, backing up. Fredericks, or the thing that used to be him, was trying to lift its hands. The fingers were gone, instead devolving into thick, plastic-like tubes that extended through the display he had been using. His sanity fleeing, Nathaniel backed away, and sprinted toward the exit. He hit something solid, knocking Sarah over. “FUCK! FUCK!” She stood up quickly, pointing the rifle at his head.
“SIR! Calm down!” The empty, black barrel sobered him up quick. Her uniform was soiled with what looked like some kind of thick, dark oil. She scratched her side before continuing, “We need to abandon ship. We have to reach the escape pods.”
“But the crew…”
“Are all dead or missing,” She finished.
“Akari. We have to get her.” Sarah nodded.
“Right. I’ll cover our rear,” she quipped. Nathaniel nodded, making sure he had his light, and heading toward the main corridor. She grasped his hand.
“Captain…” He turned toward her. Her eyes were wild, full of fear. “I think it might be too late.”
She waited for nearly two hours after the initial scream. Scott had bolted immediately, leaving her alone in the dark. Her antimatter blaster was in her hands, pointed at the door. Akari waited, as she had for much of her life, for death. It did not come. Eventually, patiently, she stood up, smoothing her black coat. The outlaw coats were great masterpieces of hidden armor plates, seams, and protection. She had great confidence it’d protect her from whatever had attacked Nathaniel. Not that it mattered, he was largely incompetent anyway.
The main corridor was empty. A faint whisper called to her from the darkness. Akari! Her nerve did not falter. She proceeded carefully, stopping every few meters to listen for noise. Beyond a wet dripping, there was nothing. She scratched her scalp, trying to satisfy an itch. Halfway to engineering, she stopped, sweeping her weaponlight left, then right. The corridor was clear. AKARI! She ducked into a side passage, careful not to touch the decaying walls. Something shuffled behind her. Join us...
There was no scream. No stranger to fights for survival, Akari swiveled on her heel, blaster ready, and fired once. The white-hot bolt melted through the face of a display panel. The human shape next to it started, then shuffled again, into the light. Whatever they were now, Nathaniel and Sarah were no longer wholly human. Fleshy tendrils stretched from her side, having exploded out of her uniform, and into his shoulder and hip, replacing his arm entirely. His cheek had similarly ceased to exist. Instead, a cluster of electronic sensors and antenna had emerged, making quiet noises. Its flesh was pale, and the breaths it took were ragged, full of phlegm and fluid. She backed up, firing again. The impossible heat of the impact caused their body fluids to evaporate, exploding the combined being instantaneously. Thick chunks of pale, white flesh and dark, machine-like fluid spattered the walls, where the decay seemed to shift, undulate, and absorb the new matter.
For the first time in three decades, Akari felt a spark of fear. Run. She didn’t stop to question the whisper, backing quickly toward the escape pod. Finally, she turned the light, and sprinted. The hatch slammed shut behind her as she hit the ‘eject’ button over and over. The lights came on, and she felt the jolt as the explosive bolts activated, shoving her back against the bulkhead. The last thing she felt was a sharp pain at the top of her head.
She was floating in a dark place. There was no light, no sound, no smell, no scent. It was just her. Akari struggled to wake herself, but couldn’t. Somewhere, an image came to her. Her body, lying flat in the pod. She was looking cross the pod at herself. Dark, oily fluid was leaking from a gash in her head. A growth, a tumor, was growing from her into the hull of the escape pod, merging with the rusting, decaying bulkhead behind her. Her body twitched slowly. Something tugged at her conscious. Revulsion, first, then fear, as she realized she was looking at her body, and not just imagining it. But the thing tugged again at her mind.
She tried to remember her name, but that danced and flirted with her train of thought. Memories floated past her conscious, but they were fading fast, too. She forced herself to turn, but it was slow. The realization that she was moving the escape pod came to her in an abstract way, but then that was gone, too. The pod hadn’t left the ship. A thick conduit of organic metal had attached to the pod like an umbilical cable. She struggled to remember why she’d looked, but even that was being taken from her. A single moment of terror entered her mind before it stopped to exist.
The rogue drone entity examined the knowledge and memories of the crew it had absorbed. The corrupted ship slowly came back to life, all systems operational. Merged into the walls, the former occupants part of the ship now. One of the organics pushed against its mental facilities. It examined the memories. Akari, she had been. It squelched the personality for good, a surge of information clearing her brain’s memory banks. The ship moved ponderously, pointing at a stargate to Teonusude, and engaged the warp drive.
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Topic: Smuggled (Read 915 times)