by J Porteous
Carl mumbled something and nodded.
Hawke grabbed Carl firmly by the shoulders. 'I'm going to need something more solid than that, Goban.'
Carl sucked in a breath and nodded nervously. 'Sure. Okay. Let's go.' His wide eyes betrayed the false bravado.
Hawke held his shoulders for a moment, staring back grimly. It'll have to do. 'On my mark, you open the door then charge in behind me, got that?'
'Yeah.'
Hawke brought his blade up, ready to drive it into whoever was lurking on the other side. He caught Carl's attention. 'Go.'
Carl pulled down firmly on the door lever. The door did not move. 'It's not opening,' he shouted back.
Dull thuds resonated through the floor, getting closer and louder. 'We need to move this along,' Hawke said. He nodded to a switch on the wall. 'Hit the override.'
Carl nodded and slammed his fist into the override console. The emergency clamps released and the door shot open in front of him. His eyes widened in disbelief, his mouth falling open.
Hawke tore his eyes away Carl's terrified face and turned to look for himself. His knees went weak.
A large reptilian creature barrelled down the corridor towards them, powerful muscles rippling under its skin. With an almighty crunch, it slammed into Hawke, throwing him against the wall with an agonising crack. He dropped his knife with a yelp.
The creature reached down, effortlessly picking Hawke up, and crushed him against the wall with its mass. Thick claw-like fingers pushed against Hawke's face, driving his skull harder against the wall, the pressure becoming unbearable as he yelled in pain. Come on, Rookie, do something.
Something was happening. The creature's fingers began to burn where they touched his face, the pain blasting through Hawke's nerves like lightning. He screamed through gritted teeth. A voice forced its way inside his head.
Submit.
The smell of burning flesh filled the air. Hawke writhed in agony. He threw his legs forward, driving his combat boots into the creature. It was an immovable object. Do something, Rookie. Do something, anything, for fucks sake.
The dull glint of the knife flashed through the darkness. The blade plunged somewhere into the creature's back. Hawke stared directly into the creature's dark and empty eyes. It did not flinch at the eight-inch blade that had been driven into it. The blade flashed through the air again, lodging higher into the creature's back. This time it became distracted. The creature dropped Hawke, turning to face whoever had the audacity to attack it. Hawke moaned in pain as he slumped down against the wall, drained of any drive he had.
The same voice forced its way deep into his brain again. Submit.
Hawke gritted his teeth, failing to force his limbs to move. Energy drained from him with each second, and darkness closed in around him.
Submit.
One last desperate push. Nothing. Come on, fight it. Fight it. He forced his gaze to Carl. The creature stood over him, the blade still wedged up to the hilt in its spine. He watched Carl's eyes widen in terror as the creature's hand grabbed him and effortlessly plucked him up from the floor.
Submit.
A piercing screech echoed through the corridor. It was high. Very high. It rattled Hawke's brain. The creature dropped Carl, letting him fall to his knees. It turned and marched back through the doorway, as if neither of them existed.
The world was still getting darker, drowning Hawke in a void of nothing. He could see Carl crawling over to him, calling to him, his voice weakening before it could reach him. It was faint, as if down the end of a long tunnel. His eyelids grew heavy, energy bleeding from his body.
Submit.
Darkness came for him.
Chapter Five
Carl
Darkness. Purest, deepest darkness. No thoughts, no dreams, just an endless nothing.
Am I dead?
Everything was so still, everything was so peaceful. The religious minority that lived in exile in the outer systems had an almost pleasant outlook on death. They believed that, once the body died, the spirit lived on. Not in the way that you would not have any control over your soul, you could not visit your loved ones as you pleased, but you were simply rejoined with all of the souls that had passed before you. You would become part of a large, infinite consciousness.
That was not what Carl found here. Here there was only eternal darkness, bleaker than the most lifeless and forgotten corners of the universe. They were wrong.
'Rookie?'
A voice somewhere in the darkness. Faint. Weak.
'Rookie?'
Carl's eyes flickered open. He squinted as the painful light breached his senses. The fuzzy figure above him slowly came into focus. Justinia looked down at him with a grim expression, her face bloodied. He groaned a response.
'Come on, Rook,' Justinia said. She grabbed hold of Carl and heaved him upright.
He looked around dazed. He propped himself up against the wall where that thing had thrown him. Hawke was gone, but the stench of burnt flesh was not.
'He's in his room,' Justinia said, following his gaze. 'Unconscious, but breathing.'
The last Carl had seen of Hawke he had been lying motionless on the floor. He let himself breathe a sigh of relief. Hawke's alive at least. The last thing that Carl needed was his new crew blaming him for the death of their captain. Other names suddenly hit him. 'Watts? Sherlock?'
'Watts is keeping an eye on Hawke,' Justinia said. Her eyes lowered and she sucked in a sharp breath. 'Sherlock was in the drop bay when the breach happened.' She swallowed the lump in her throat. 'Got spaced instantly.'
Spaced? Carl thought with dread. At least it was quick. He struggled to find the words he wanted to say. 'Shit, I-'
'Don't,' she said, holding a hand up to silence him. She held his gaze evenly. 'We all know what we signed up for with the Bastards.'
Carl faltered at her stare. 'At least it was quick,' he repeated aloud.
Justinia nodded. 'He didn't know what hit him,' she said. 'That's something, I suppose.'
It had to happen at some point, Carl thought to himself. Signing up with the Space Bastards was known by many to be a one way trip, the only thing that differed was how long the ride was.
Carl had not expected to become attached to any of them, but there was something about Sherlock that he had found endearing. The Byracinth had not been the biggest talker, but when he did speak there were no false pretences, no lost words. He was straightforward, unlike so many people Carl had met in his life. Mainly it was the fact that he had been kind to Carl in his time on board, and that was what mattered.
'Come on, Rookie,' Justinia said. 'Can't hang around all day.' She draped Carl's arm over her shoulder and walked him through to the cockpit, before dropping him into the pilot seat.
Carl's senses slowly came back to him. His body ached as his pains caught up with him. The huge creature returned to the front of his thoughts, its bristling muscles and dead eyes forcing him to think of the moments before darkness took him. 'What the fuck was that thing?'
Justinia shook her head. 'Honestly? I don't know. Never seen anything like that before. Big fucker for sure. It threw me and Watts into the armoury and buckled the door in place.'
'How long was I out of it?'
'It took us about half hour to break the door open. We found Sherlock, well, what was left of him, first. We came up when we couldn't get any response on the intercom.'
Footsteps echoed in the corridor ahead of them. Watts' wiry silhouette appeared in the doorway. His face was gaunt and whitened with strain, the usual eccentric spark in his eye deadened to stone. 'He's stable,' Watts said, as he wiped away the blood that mingled with the grease which stained his hands. 'The ship, not so much.'
Carl glanced at Justinia. She did not need to speak, the distant stare and chewing of her lip said it all. He asked the question for her. 'What does that mean? Not stable?'
'Exactly what you think it does,' Watts grunted. He propped himself up against the doorway,
absent-mindedly playing with the dirty rag in his hand. 'The catastrophic hull breach means that this ship is slowly sinking. The vacuum doors can hold space back for a while, but she will give in.' He pointed past them, to a console covered in flashing red lights. 'There's a flashing light over there telling us that the power that the vacuum doors need has knocked out our warp drive.' He paused, lips hesitantly moving. 'All of our comms are fucked. Sherlock's insides are now his outsides. Hawke is out of action for the time being, and he needs medical attention for whatever that...mark is on his face. All in all, we're pretty fucked, and only one step away from being completely fucked.'
Carl glanced away, thinking of the position of the War Goddess against the the star chart. 'We are light years away from the nearest planet or station. Without warp drive, we are looking to reach the nearest station in a week, and that's the earliest.'
'Hawke doesn't have that long,' Justinia said. 'We don't have that long.'
Watts stood upright and pushed between the two of them, a brief flash of his previous self returning to his eyes. He quickly tapped at some buttons on the star map. 'There is somewhere closer,' he said. The star map juddered into life, pulling through scraps of information.
Carl caught Justinia's quizzical look and sat silently watching the engineer work. He arched an eyebrow at what Watts had just said. Ahead of him, through the view-port of the cockpit, the vast emptiness of space looked uninviting and cold. A fine a grave as there has ever been. 'There's nothing here, Watts. The star chart doesn't document-'
'The star chart only documents habitable planets and areas of interest,' Watts said over his shoulder. He brought up the star chart and pressed a finger against the screen, leaving an oily fingerprint. 'What we're looking for is a trash planet.'
Carl looked back through the view-port, an endless inky blackness stretched out before him. 'How do you know it's there? I can't even see it.'
'The nearest star is over two hundred light years away,' Watts said. 'No way the light can find it out here.'
Carl shrugged, none the wiser. 'So? What's the trash planet got to do with anything?'
'Trash planets tend to be full of last gen tech.' He looked up at Carl from the star chart. 'Where do you think I get the majority of my parts from? It's not the kind of place I'd want to touch down on, sure, but it doesn't mean I haven't paid others to go there to get what I want.' He pointed to a panel next to Carl. 'Hit up the geo-metrics.'
Carl flicked a dial, the green screen flickering into life. He brought a few dials into position, steadying the UHF frequency outputs. As the radar pulses penetrated through the darkness, a shape etched itself into the screen. A haphazard, but mostly spherical, object lurked out of sight in the murk of space like a leviathan in the deep. Carl looked back to the view-port then back to the screen, not quite believing what the instrument said.
'You're kidding me, Watts?' Justinia said. 'What the hell are a bunch of Junkers going to do?'
'They've got old tech,' Watts said excitedly. 'A whole planet of it. We fly old tech. Put two and two together...' A big grin spread over his face as he tapped his temple.
'Do we even have a choice?' she said.
Carl looked at the both of them in confusion, their terminology unfamiliar to him. 'I'm sorry, Junkers?'
'Something you pretty boys in the military don't get to see, much less get told about,' Justinia smirked. 'You know those ship roaches you used to stamp on as a child?' She waited for his quick nod and continued. 'And your mother would tell you that their bigger, more bad-ass brothers would come and take you away to their nest while you slept?'
Carl nodded nervously. The stories were something of a classic scare story to keep bored children on ships in order. He thought back to the times he had quickly scurried past the ventilation shafts of the New England, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that they did not snatch him and pull him into the depths. 'They are just stories.'
Justinia let out a sharp laugh. A wicked grin cut across her face. 'All stories are based on some grain of truth, Rookie. Don't worry, they shouldn't eat us. Not on sight, anyway.'
Watts cleared his throat. 'I hate to be that guy, but we need to get this started.' The ship groaned loudly, as if on cue. 'We don't have much more time.'
Carl nodded. 'I'm going to need to take her in slow. Without any of the back-up systems running I'll need to touch down manually with the geo-metric scanner.'
Justinia looked up at him. 'Do what you need to get it done, Rookie.' She clapped a firm hand on his shoulder. 'You're a Space Bastard now. Don't forget it.' She looked up and out of the view-port for a moment. 'I'm going to head down to the drop bay. Someone's got to clean up the mess, and there is no way we are hitting the ground unprepared.”
'I'll let you know timings when we hit the descent,' Carl said.
Justinia nodded silently and left.
Watts stood next to Carl, not taking his eyes off of the darkness ahead of them. 'You think you got this, Goban?'
'Yeah,' Carl said. He sucked on his bottom lip. 'Watts, about Sherlock. I know you were close...'
Watts smiled slightly. 'He was a good guy. You know, for a Byracinth. Not just good for cracking skulls either. You know much about them, Goban?'
Carl shook his head. 'Not a lot,' he said. 'I've only seen five of them in my lifetime.'
Watts nodded solemnly. 'I'm not surprised,' he said. 'They are a dying species. Completely infertile these days. Been in decline for a good few millennia now.' He sat back heavily on a console. 'They are thinkers. I suppose that's what you become when you realise that your species will be long forgotten in the years to come.'
'Sherlock didn't think they would be forgotten.'
Watts nodded at Carl's words. 'You're right there. None of the Byracinths do. That's what their great libraries are for.' He shrugged at the thought of it. 'Don't see the point of it myself, you're just prolonging the inevitable. Everyone gets forgotten eventually, when there is no one left to remember.'
Carl shook off that cold thought. 'What was Sherlock doing here, on the War Goddess?'
Watts smiled at that. 'Just because they are a different species, it doesn't mean they don't experience the recklessness of youth.' He chuckled quietly. 'He told me that his father had a position for him at one of their species memoriam centres, processing the names and data of the deceased. A great honour, from what I understand.'
'And he didn't want that?' Carl said. 'Even though it was a great honour?'
'What do your parents do, Goban?'
Carl was taken aback by the question. 'My parents?' he said. 'They work on a mining ship, the New England.'
'Let's say that mining was a prestigious thing, and you're parents said you could have a place doing it. Would you take it? Or would you rather get out and see the universe, maybe do something that doesn't sap your will to live? I'm sure there's a reason you chose to go to the academy rather than stay on the mining ship.'
The New England had been Carl's home for all of his young life, but he had found little excitement in the prospect of mineral mining. 'I see your point,' he said.
Watts smiled warmly. 'He was the same, in his own way. He craved the adventure, the danger. I remember him telling me that he would go out and find his death, rather than sit festering, waiting for it to find him.' The smile left his face. 'I suppose he got what he wanted in the end.'
Carl nodded grimly at that sentiment. 'It's better to blaze your own trail than to trudge the well worn one.'
'Sometimes,' Watts said, more to himself than as part of the conversation. He looked back at Carl. 'Your a good kid, Goban, don't go getting yourself killed. We've lost more than enough people today.' His eyes welled. He glanced at the console next to him, concentrating a little too hard on nothing in particular.
Carl looked away from the engineer, allowing him some semblance of privacy. He stayed quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say. He had never lost anyone close to him, how could he comment on something he had no unde
rstanding of? He braved some words. 'For what it's worth, Watts, I'm sorry.'
'Thanks, kid.' He lurched to his feet and walked towards the door. 'I'll get the Synth up and running, I'm going to need her help to watch the ship after we touch down. If you need anything, just shout.'
Chapter Six
Hawke
The voice in Hawke's head drifted into silence, leaving him alone in the darkness. He opened his mouth, but even at his most forceful no words came out. A tingling sensation tickled the back of his mind. It grew more powerful, working itself up into a mental whirlwind. Hawke's eyes opened.
Hawke startled as the door to the room hissed open, revealing a silhouette stood in the doorway. He squinted, raising his hand over his eyes, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the bright light beyond this new hole in the wall. The shape walked in, the details slowly filling out as his eyes grew accustomed to the light. The uniform gave it away. A flight lieutenant of the human military. She stood straight and held her chin high.
'This isn't the War Goddess,' Hawke muttered.
She did not look down at him when she spoke. 'No, Captain Sparov, it is not,' she said. 'I trust your journey has been without any problems?'
Hawke frowned. Journey? He grunted a response.
She relaxed and lowered her gaze to him. A kind smile spread over her lips. 'I'm sorry, Captain. It must be odd for you to be back.' She hesitated a moment. 'Permission to speak freely, Captain?'
What the fuck is going on here? Hawke nodded cautiously. 'Go ahead.'
She breathed an audible sigh of relief. 'It's good to see you are back, Captain. It is good to see that justice has been served.' She looked back to the doorway, checking for any prying ears. 'Between us, Captain, the rest of the crew and I, we always knew you were innocent. There was no way in my mind that you could betray the Council like that.'
Hawke felt weak at those words. All of this time, he had just wanted people to know the truth. Daria, his old squad, everyone. The words washed over him, flooding him. For once he was speechless.