Slave Mind

by Rob Dearsley

  “Nervous, Cap’n?” Luc floated next to Dannage in the cargo hold. The big man shot Dannage a smile through the visor of his own suit’s helmet.

  “A bit. Maybe.” He’d never admit that to anyone else on the ship, especially not Arland. But he and Luc went back years, since before the Folly. They’d first met while he was working for Crund, on the old Curie. They’d had a sweet little side-line, selling off ‘unclaimed’ cargo items. Good times.

  He winced at the clunk as the Folly connected with the airlock. Another crunch brought on another wince as the airtight seal locked the two ships together. It never sounded that loud when he was docking.

  Dannage took a deep breath, blowing out his cheeks before letting it out again. He was stalling and he knew it. What if, after everything, this was another bust, something of nothing?

  “Do it, Luc.”

  Luc kicked off the bulkhead, grabbing hold of a hefty manual release lever. Flecks of red paint came away as he pulled it toward him.

  First, came the low grumbling of gears. Then, the doors cracked open. There was a hiss as the pressure equalised, the flow of air gently pulling Dannage toward the opening doors.

  The heavy twin doors slid back inch by inch to reveal the scarred hull of the TDF ship.

  “Looks in alright condition, considerin’ how long it’s been out here,” Luc said.

  “How did it get here anyway?” Dannage asked.

  “Something to do with inertial mass and the rotation of the universe. Jax tried to explain it to me; I didn’t really understand.”

  Dannage could empathise. On a good day, he could only ever understand half of what the engineer said. But she kept the Folly flying, and that was all that really mattered.

  Luc reached the TDF airlock first and began working a jack into the door.

  Dannage steadied himself on one of the handles flanking the airlock. “Need a hand?”

  “Nearly got it.” There was a click and the flat heads of the jack slipped between the doors, breaking the airtight seal and letting the stale air from the ship hiss into the Folly. Luc cracked a detector wand and waved it over the gap. The originally clear liquid turned a murky brown.

  “Air’s heavy on carbon dioxide. We should stay in the suits.”

  Dannage nodded and they began working the jack to pry the doors apart.

  It was a long, hard job, and by the time the doors were wide enough for them to squeeze through, both men were sweating inside their suits.

  The inside of the Terran ship was pitch dark, like the starless night at the end of time. Both men flicked on helmet mounted lights. The white beams cut slashes through the inky blackness. Dust motes, undisturbed for more than half a million years, floated through the beams. The inner airlock doors were easier to get open and disgorged them into a corridor that was wide enough for the pair to walk – or float – side by side. It was higher than a modern ship corridor, maybe an extra half metre of headroom.

  Luc kicked off and drifted down the corridor ahead of Dannage. The show-off had always been better in zero gravity. Luc turned toward him, his helmet lights stabbing into Dannage’s eyes.

  “Stars, man. Are you trying to blind me?” Dannage blinked away the after image of Luc’s lights.

  Luc laughed. “Come on, Cap’.” He twisted and kicked off down the corridor.

  Dannage sighed and followed his friend further into the ancient ship.

  ◊◊

  “Did the captain leave you here on your own?”

  Arland turned to see Doc Vaughn walk onto the bridge. The ship’s medic was a tall, spare man, with narrow spectacles perched on the end of his nose. Arland was fairly sure they were more of a fashion choice than a necessity.

  “Yes, he and Luc went over to the Terran Cruiser,” she replied.

  Vaughn smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure that went over well.”

  “It wouldn’t be so annoying if we had sensors and I could see them.”

  Vaughn slipped into Luc’s usual seat, to the right of the pilot’s chair, and sipped his coffee.

  “What’s she called?” Vaughn asked after a moment, gesturing toward the window and the Terran ship beyond.

  “The Heimdall. I caught sight of a nameplate as we came in.”

  “Ancient Norse god. The guardian of heaven, or so the legend goes.”

  “It’s a good name for a ship.” Arland thumbed the ship-to-shore com open. “Captain, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, Arland, we can hear you. Everything’s fine.”

  “Cap’n, did you see that?”

  Arland snapped bolt upright. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing, Luc’s just jumping at shadows.”

  Arland leaned forward, as though she might be able to see through the Terran hull by sheer force of will. “Are you sure?”

  “There's nothing alive over here. Relax, Arland.” The captain cut the com-link.

  They'd found something. She knew it.

  “Vaughn, can you go down to the hold and close the door, please.”

  “Sure thing.” Vaughn put his coffee cup down on the console and hurried toward the middle of the ship. Arland couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the doc run.

  ◊◊

  Dannage kept his distance as Luc knelt down to get a better look at the corpse.

  “What in the heavens is it?” Dannage asked.

  Luc shook his head, his helmet lights panning back and forth across the wreckage of the creature, the alien. Its outer skin was reddish and rough; it looked almost like weathered sandstone. From what Dannage could make out, the creature was vaguely humanoid, or at least bipedal. The lower half was a shattered mess. Its internal fluids had long ago leaked out and stained the floor.

  “You think this is what they were fighting?” Luc asked.

  “I guess so. Send some shots back to Arland. She’ll get a kick out of it.”

  Luc nodded and stepped back to frame the shot in his shoulder-mounted camera.

  Dannage looked around, his beams panning across the otherwise empty corridor. Their movements stirred dust that hadn’t moved for centuries. There were other signs of a fight: bullet holes in the bulkhead, some so large Dannage could fit his fist through.

  He knelt, stirring the dust with his hand, and felt something hard and cylindrical buried in the grime. He picked up the object, wiping the dust away.

  “What you got there?” Luc asked.

  Dannage held up the object, a bullet casing big enough he could fit two fingers inside it, even with the bulky gloves on.

  Luc let out a low whistle. “That’s a big’un.”

  Dannage agreed. How big would the gun that fired it need to be?

  “Got another one,” Luc said, pointing his lights further down the passage. Dannage followed the other man’s gaze. There were two more of the alien bodies, or what was left of them. Both had been torn apart. He looked back down at the casing. If the Terrans had been using rounds like that, the damage didn’t surprise him. Those massive rounds had to come from some sort of static emplacement. Something like the light artillery that protected corporate worlds. It seemed a bit much for just these aliens.

  Luc knelt, raising a cloud of dust as he searched the floor. Motes drifted through the freefall, listlessly swirling around Luc, almost obscuring him.

  “More shells?” Dannage asked.

  “Yeah, some smaller ones as well, but mostly those big’uns.”

  “Captain?” Arland’s voice crackled in his ear.

  He sighed, thumbing the com-link open. “What?” His voice came out harder and sharper than he’d meant it. Why did she have to keep pestering them? Yes, he should probably have taken her. He’d seen the way she looked at the ships, and it made sense, but still. He’d always taken Luc on salvage missions, and if Recoup showed up he wanted her protecting the Folly.

  “Sir, after what Luc said about seeing something, I’ve asked Vaughn to close Folly’s doors, just to be safe.”

>   “Fine. Has Jax got a list of things to look out for?”

  There was a pause, probably while she checked. “Got it, sir. Sending it to you now?”

  “You know, this would be easier if we could bring Jax along,” Luc chimed in.

  “Like that’s ever going to happen.” Dannage scanned the list of parts scrolling across the flex-screen wrapped around his wrist. “Thanks, Arland.”

  He thumbed the com-link off.

  “Most of this stuff is going to be in the engine room if it’s going to be anywhere,” Luc said, as they headed deeper into the deserted ship.

  The further they went, the more bodies they found, all the reddish-brown of the aliens, all dead.

  “There’s something off about this.” Dannage studied the mostly intact alien. It had two legs and four arms, the second pair coming out from halfway down the torso. The head was elongated, going from a sharp chin point up to a wide, flared top. Eight shiny black eyes were arranged in two columns down either side of the face.

  “Well, yeah. It’s an alien.” Luc rose from where he had been studying the alien’s head.

  “No, more than that. Where are the humans? I mean you don’t honestly believe they held off something like this without casualties.”

  Luc cocked his head, giving the idea a moment’s thought. “Maybe they took their dead with them when they pulled back.”

  “Maybe,” Dannage agreed, but it didn’t strike him as right. Yes, they would take their dead and wounded, but at some point, they must have been overrun, otherwise why not clean up the aliens?

  They came to an intersection. The passage on the right drew Dannage’s attention. It was blocked by a pair of heavy blast doors. The doors were dented and scarred. Dannage ran his hand over a large bullet impact, the metal of the door bowed sharply away from his fingers. It would take a powerful weapon to make a dent like that in metal like this. His hand moved onto another scar, this one more like a long gouge down the door. The force required to do it was unimaginable. Had the aliens done this? Were they that strong?

  “Back of the ship’s this way,” Luc said. “It’ll be our best bet for engineering, and the parts we need.”

  “Yeah, okay, just give me a minute.” Something about the door had piqued his interest. His gloved hands moved over the dented and torn metal, exploring the damage. His fingers tracked along the vertical rent, tracing down its length, from where it started at about his eye level, to its end at about knee height.

  There was a scrape as his fingers touched something sharp. He jerked his hand back, afraid that it had torn his suit.

  He turned his hand over, checking the glove for any damage.

  Nothing, the glove was whole. He let out a breath of relief.

  His own safety assured, he leaned in closer, inspecting the ancient scar in the door. At the bottom, a small, yellow-brown nub had embedded into the reinforced metal.

  “Hey, Luc take a look at this.”

  Luc’s torchlight added to Dannage’s as they inspected the nub.

  After a moment of thoughtful inspection, Luc said, “Looks like the end of whatever did this.”

  “Yeah,” Dannage agreed. “It looks like the aliens – same colour and texture as far as I can see.”

  Luc nodded, his lights bobbing. “Maybe. Could be a claw or somethin’.”

  Dannage tried to remember what the aliens looked like, roughly human in shape, apart from that triangular head and the extra arms. But they had oddly positioned fingers, seven or eight on each hand. He didn’t remember them having claws though. He told Luc as much.

  Luc’s shrug was barely perceptible through the heavy suit. “Maybe not all of them have claws, or there’s more’n one type. We heading for engineering, or not?”

  There was still something about the door. Maybe it was just that it was closed, and the contrary part of his mind wanted to know what was behind it. Maybe this was that final last stand the crew had made, the pile of TDF bodies that were missing from this gruesome scene. He looked around for a release but found nothing. It could have been on the other side, or even remote activated for all he knew.

  With a sigh that momentarily misted his visor, he turned away from the door. Something flitted across the corner of his eye. Movement in the shadows. He whipped his head around, scanning the passageway.

  “Cap’n?” Luc asked.

  “I thought I saw something.” Dannage scanned the darkness. His torch beams darted back and forth, revealing nothing but twining dust motes.

  “Jumping at shadows, Cap’n?” Luc parroted his own words back to him. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Had the dust always been there, disturbed by their movements, or had something else stirred it into motion?

  He thumbed the ship-to-shore com open. “Arland, you got those sensors working yet?”

  Her reply was thick with static. Still clear enough to hear, but noticeably worse than the last time they’d spoken. “Jax is still working on it, sir.” There was a pause. “Hang on. That’s great. So, I can run that from here?” Her voice faded. She was talking to Jax now. “Sir, we can do a density scan and get some sort of floor plan. Two minutes.” She cut the com.

  Luc raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think she’s quite forgiven you for not taking her.”

  “She’ll get over it. In the meantime, let’s get going.”

  They floated down the wide hallway toward the back end of the huge ship, passing door after door, all of them closed. Dannage fancied prying some of them open to see what was inside, but they didn’t have the equipment with them. Once they got the Folly back up and running he’d come back with a full salvage kit, and maybe some extra bodies. He might even get others in on it, bring in more ships. For a price, of course. This was his find and if he was going to share, it was going to be on his terms.

  “Sir.” The com signal was even worse than before. “I’ve got the plans for the ship, I just need to work out where you are, and then I can guide you.”

  Luc started talking Arland through the route they had taken from the airlock. Dannage drifted over toward a pair of double doors. They weren’t fully closed, but the gap wasn’t wide enough for him to get through with the suit. Without it, he might just be able to squeeze through, and for a moment he considered trying anyway. The air wouldn’t be worth crap with such low oxygen levels, but he could hold his breath. His imagination provided an image of him stuck halfway through the door, unable to go forward or back, gasping for breath, suffocating. Of all the ways to go, carbon dioxide suffocation was one of the worst. He’d heard it was like drowning. So, no taking the suit off.

  He shifted down, trying to get a better angle to see what was inside.

  A shaft of light from his helmet’s torches grazed over a long, narrow table. Cloth hung down the sides. Smaller trolleys surrounded the table, their metal frames reflecting the beams of his torch. No, not a table, a bed. He twisted to look up. At the head of the bed was a bank of monitors, screens blank, and something with a lot of tubes coming out of it that looked vaguely medical. He pulled himself higher, trying to see if there was anything on the bed. There was something beneath the sheet. The shape looked humanoid, but it was hard to tell from this angle and at this distance. It had to be one of the aliens though. It was too big to be human; he would have guessed at least seven feet tall.

  “Cap’n?” Luc touched his shoulder.

  He moved aside, gesturing for the other man to take a look. “Maybe some sort of med bay?”

  “Or scientific,” Luc suggested. “Maybe they’re studyin’ the aliens.”

  “Why would they do that on a warship?”

  “Perhaps to find better ways to kill them,” Arland’s static filled voice chimed in. Dannage had forgotten the com was still open.

  “Maybe,” Luc agreed, “come on, Cap’n, Arland’s going to guide us to engineering.”

  Dannage nodded and followed Luc down the corridor.

  “You should reach a T-junction in a hundred metres. Turn
left.”

  He looked back at the open door. The dead aliens, the figure under the sheet, and all this dust shrouding everything.

  Dust.

  Something tugged at the back of his mind, some memory formed years ago, but every time he reached for it, it fled.

  “Come on, Cap’.”

  He complied, following Luc’s burly form toward engineering.

  ◊◊

  “You’re doing great. There should be a doorway ten metres down. Go through that and carry on down the corridor.” Arland hoped she was still on the same page as the captain and Luc and wasn’t getting them both completely lost. Having the plans was all well and good, but she had no way of placing her two superiors besides dead reckoning. She had the computer put an overlay on the “map” showing the proposed positions of the pair. Every time they checked in for new directions, she would have to manually move the blue dots.

  What she wouldn’t give for thermal imaging or spectrographics. Something that would pinpoint the captain and any potential threats. Not that she wasn’t pleased with what the young engineer had managed to get working for her. For now, it was quiet, so she took the opportunity to explore, panning the image around the rest of the ship.

  There was a fairly large empty space at the back, six decks high. This was where she was guiding the captain. With its size and position, it had to be an engineering compartment or a machine shop. She panned forward, admiring the boxy, aggressive lines of the ship. Something amidships caught her attention. She frowned and flipped the com open.

  “Jax, there’s something up with this density scan. There’s a huge anomaly in the middle of the image.”

  “Hang on, I’ll check it out.” The rattle of Jax typing on her old-style keyboard punctuated the pause. “I’ve rerun the scan and I’m getting the same results. There’s nothing wrong with my scanners. If they show a mass at amidships, it’s because it’s there.”

  Arland frowned. “Okay, thanks.”

  She glanced over as Vaughn walked back in.

  “Something wrong?” He picked up the coffee cup.

  She gestured for him to come over.

  “I thought it was just a sensor glitch, but Jax assures me it’s there.”