The Phantom in the Deep (Rook's Song)

by Chad Huskins

  “Yes, sir.” No further arguments.

  With tentative steps, we now leave the bridge of this alien ship, perhaps to enter into something vastly more alien, if it can be believed. Back out of the bridge, floating on a sourceless wind, out into the nothingness, that world of perfect vacuum and tumbling rocks. Past the asteroids being tossed carelessly out of the path of the ship, like a child casting aside toys that it has no further interest in. Around what ancient explorers would have called the port side of the ship, should they have set eyes on it (and if they had been able to comprehend such a thing, without losing their minds). Past the superheated exhaust ports, where the ship casts out the nuclear byproduct of the pycnodeuterium fuel required to ignite the exomatter core and engage the power necessary to move into the quantum slipstream, that Bleed that carried the Conductor and so many of his ilk far from home.

  We pass through this exhaust, this intense heat which is the footprint left in the wake of such a massive ship. At many hundreds of thousands of degrees, we could not survive, if not for our incorporeal form. (There are some advantages to being ghosts.) Still, one thing that can be affected is our sanity, so take care now as you hold fast to it. Hold fast, my friend, like a sailor in the days of yore, clamping down to the rigging and gripping the ropes of the mainstay, lest your sails tear away and you are lost forever in the storm. Remember I told you this. When you come to our next destination, remember I told you.

  The spot where the Conductor was looking is no longer highlighted for us, but we see what we have to. Space. Endless, mindless, and devoid of hope. A gulf so vast it has no reckoning but what we give it. A thing without purpose, a Deep without end.

  But look here. Do you see it? Look closer. A ripple in space, almost like a tear. We know that this isn’t possible, but here it is. We could almost reach out and touch it, did we have hands to do so. It is not a tear; logic tells us that much. It’s…it’s…a mirror? Very large, almost exactly the eighty-three-foot estimate that the Conductor gave it, but not quite. Whatever it is, it refracts light, but it has contours, so it isn’t a perfect mirror, is it? No, because space does not have contours. Like the Conductor’s massive ship, this little thing also defies the Deep’s laws of having no perfect lines or circles.

  Then, all at once, the lines along this not-quite-eighty-three-foot mirror shift, proving that not only is it defiantly perfect, but also malleable, like clay. At least, whatever cloak it keeps around it is.

  And that’s what it is, isn’t it? A cloak. Yes…yes, a cloak. And if we can pass through the hull of the Conductor’s ship, we can most assuredly pass through a flimsy cloak. Here we go, let’s…

  Hold on. Take a moment to remember what I told you before. Guard your sanity close. You hear, friend?

  Passing through this wall is so easy for an apparition, but once we’re through, we can detect a stifling air. Almost like the morbid heat of a sun-blasted desert. Only here, the air is dense with a cloud we might have only detected a hint of, were we corporeal. A cloud that reeks of desperation and of sadness. Of murder and second thoughts. Of regrets, dashed hopes, and mad ambition.

  The ship is dark, with only nominal lighting needed at the moment. It runs silent. So silent. In the main corridor, there is a clutter. Ostensibly, there appears to be no pattern to it at all. If we want to explore this, we had best be prepared for anything.

  Objects hang restlessly along the walls. A collection of weapons hanging almost haphazardly from their hooks along the walls. Perhaps weapons taken from raids? Or from the carcasses of any number of downed fighters? That is almost certainly the case, since the ship itself looks of more Earth-like design (more familiar to our eyes), and the weapons themselves are alien.

  Yes, this is a human vessel. We ghosts have found a small vestige of humanity. By all means, let’s take a tour.

  Stenciled on one wall, in fading black military letters, is an identifier: Sidewinder x42.

  Along the cockpit access corridor, there are stacked compristeel cases. If we were to peek into any of them, we would find explosives, ammunition, detonators, food, and a smattering of tools. We pass the forward hold, which has a door that looks plain and innocuous. However, at the foot of it we see a tight string, as thin as fishing line, tied from one side of the doorway to the other. If we inspect the door latch, we can see a thin wire running up to it. A pair of traps, waiting for anyone who would molest it. Since we are immaterial, we can pass right through the door without triggering these. Inside, we find the life support systems, rerouted from another hold. We can see why the pilot of this vessel wants to protect this.

  Inside the number two hold, there is a stasis chamber, currently closed and insulated. A heart monitor beeps out a lonely but steady rhythm. Something small and frail appears to be inside the tube…

  Just behind us, we see an engraving etched proudly into the compristeel wall:

  Interplanetary Space Force

  Eternity

  Legacy

  Humanity

  If we creep down to the main hold, we find more compristeel cases sealed and stacked against the walls, each one stuffed with MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat). These reside just inside an open doorway. However, there is a sensor aimed right at us. It detects the vascular system of any organic creature approaching it. If we follow the wires within the walls, we’ll find it connected to canisters marked ONEIROGENIC GENERAL ANESTHETIC. By this, we can gather that if this system detects a creature with the wrong vascular ID, this “Sidewinder” ship will fill with a gas engineered to incapacitate the intruder.

  What paranoid creature would concoct all of this? Hold on to that question, because we’re not finished yet.

  Further down, where an oily smell is emanating from, we come to a maintenance access in the floor. Its door missing. There is absolutely nothing to keep a person from falling through. At the bottom, I can show you another trap. A motion sensor. Should it detect anyone, a congenial automated female voice will announce “Say the passphrase, please.” If the correct phrase is not spoken, the walls, access ladder, and floor will become electrified to the tune of fifty thousand volts. Here, within these cramped confines, tools lay strewn across the floor, leaving almost no room to stand, the sign of disorder taking over.

  Let’s move down to the circuitry bay. Careful now! The silence reverberates in here. As do thoughts and instincts. And perhaps, just perhaps, he can hear us?

  There is a snare trap hidden beneath a compristeel panel in the floor—unless one knows where to step, they’ll lose a foot. Move carefully now…

  The circuitry bay is overloaded with patches and upgrades, none of which were ever meant for this class of ship. Numerous parts from other ships have been cannibalized and repurposed to keep this vital part of the ship running. All of it has the look of a helter-skelter, repair-as-you-go kind of technician. Surprisingly, nothing here appears to be short-circuiting, though a few connections do appear close to it, and quite a few are held together by nothing more than some form of tape or quick-sealant. A few dials and screens beeped self-importantly to themselves. A repair bot sits inert in a corner, in heavy need of repair itself (oh, the irony!). All around this bot are more scattered tools, most of them arrayed at its feet, as if in offering to the monument of the Great Repair God.

  Down a bit from the circuitry bay, through another thin corridor littered with MRE’s tossed here and there across the floor, is the engineering station, right outside of the engineering bay. Several diagnostics screens are unattended, scrolling endless streams of data and system checks without anybody to appreciate them. There is, however, that partially disfigured warbot sitting over there in the corner, powered down, its guts plugged into a generator nearby, with its one remaining ocular lens pulsing with a dying red ember. We’ll leave him alone for now.

  Inside the engineering bay itself, there is another clutter of boxes and wires pouring out of the walls like a gutted beast. Blue lights blink on and off indecisively around the luminal engine’s diag
nostic readout, and the nearby freight elevator is rigged to explode. A bomb with a tripwire hidden just at its entrance has been prepared in case anyone ever gets on board the Sidewinder through stealthy means.

  A paranoid mind has arranged all of this.

  The engine itself has its own AI. One of the last great feats of Man, before everything went south, the engine’s computer has several thousand petaflops of processing power, and was built to continually learn as long as it lived. It is constantly having a debate with itself concerning Quantum Slipstream Theory, learning as it goes, its knowledge becoming exponentially larger with each successive permutation and calculation. The computer constantly cross-references the gamma radiation output with the quantum mathematics of its modified energy input-output in the fusion generator through its several kilometers of superconducting wire, and as it follows the methods of the horizontal boosters and calculates the efficiency of the ionization chamber, and as it checks to see if its current output is more efficient than the last check. Never satisfied, it checks and rechecks the exo-matter containment units, the exhaust output, the fuel-to-speed ratio, and an endless list of concerns.

  On a ship so chaotic and unkempt, the engine room is a bastion of order and efficiency. But for now, we’ll leave it to its calculations, ruminations, and debates.

  Beyond the engineering bay, there is the crew’s quarters, inside of which is nothing more than a cot on the floor, a dozen empty MRE wrappers left discarded, a pile of boxes filled with random batteries, a single sidearm of military-issue, tools and spare parts, and more compristeel cases of MRE’s. There is another vascular-ID sensor hidden in the ceiling that would alert the rest of the ship to an intruder. The randomization of traps here is chaotic, but that chaos is purposeful, there is a method to the madness; it sets no pattern, and makes it impossible for all but the most seasoned and prepared expert to infiltrate.

  Now, we finally come to the cockpit. The door is sealed, but that is no problem for us. As we pass through, we come into an area large enough for six people to sit, just behind the pilot and co-pilot. That is, if there was any co-pilot, and if there were any other seats to spare. At the moment, there is only one seat, and a sole occupant.

  The window is made out of alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass, forged in microgravity conditions. Another one of Man’s final, worthy achievements. The pilot reflects on that, even as the window reflects him. The flash shield is down, pulled just over the window, blocking out most of the surrounding space and the asteroid field. His face is only lit from the bottom up by what few flashing lights remain. It isn’t just because he’s trying to keep dark and quiet. No. The ship is dying, has been for years. Some of these buttons and indicators will never light up again.

  He looks back at his reflection. In that reflection, we see a haggard face, angular and predatory. A predator that has been hunting, and been hunted, far too long.

  Also in that reflection, we can see that the name on his flight suit has been torn off, perhaps snatched on a piece of hanging metal during some random maintenance, or perhaps he was once shot there, or perhaps it burned off in an accident. Whatever the case, we can plainly see the call sign written on his helmet: ROOK.

  As easily as we ghosts are able to slip inside a ship, we are able to slip inside a mind. This is where I will issue my final warning before we slip into this one’s shoes. Guard yourself.

  One scanner shows the Cerebral ship. As always, his eyes look for a way inside. But that is a dream, the dream of every saboteur, but one that likely can never happen, and well he knows it.

  Another scanner analyzes the Cereb ship’s pitch, yaw, and roll. It is the roll that makes him smile. A couple degrees to port, and then a couple degrees back. So slow and small the naked eye might’ve missed it, but he knows what this means. “Detect me, do ya?” Speaking out loud would not alert his enemies—space did not carry sound. It helped to think out loud. Besides that, it was just good to hear a voice. Any voice.

  The ship remains silent and on its course, not answering his question.

  Rook chuckles. “Yeah…yeah, you detected me, all right. Didn’t you, you clever devils?”

  Part of him wonders what the hell this luminal ship is doing out here. It has been a long time since any Cerebrals came out this way. The Cerebs mostly moved on from this sector of space about a decade ago, not too long after they obliterated the last human resistances in this system, that being Echelon Point, away on Shiva 154e, and then fried the two moons.

  Presently, he looks at his holo-display, at the golden orb that still bathes Shiva 154e. That sun witnessed homo sapiens come and go very quickly, geologically speaking. Two hundred years, that’s how long they lasted, which was a little over a single lifetime for a human being, at Man’s peak.

  A chime goes off. Rook checks another holo-display. It is monitoring the interplanetary medium, that is, the vast amount of material that fills the entire solar system. It gives him an idea of the weather in space, something he must always be aware of if he’s to competently manage the Sidewinder. Right now, it’s monitoring a geomagnetic storm in Shiva 154e’s magnetosphere, caused by a solar wind shockwave from the sun, Prime.

  Another holographic display, just to Rook’s left, shows a chess game, one he’s been playing with the ship’s computer for two days now. The computer always makes its move the very instant after Rook makes his. Rook, on the other hand, works out his next move slowly while conducting his repairs. He’s made a habit out of making a move, then going off to do some maintenance. Go check on the exhaust ports, come back, make a move. Go repair an air-exchanger, come back, make a move. Like that. No reason not to take his time with each move.

  He has all the time in universe.

  The computer opened up with a classic Queen’s Gambit, but the pilot had denied him that right from the get-go. There was an initial furious exchange of pawns. Rook recently lost a knight to a cleverly placed bishop. It’s always a damn bishop that comes outta nowhere and gets me. The game currently sits with enemy pawns at A6, C5, D5, and H6. Two knights are staring daggers over at his queen and remaining bishop. His king is soon to be threatened by a rook. Checkmate isn’t far away. His move.

  Rook looks back up at the Cereb warship, then back down at his planetary scanner—the screen is jumpy, and sometimes the image rolls. Another sign that the Sidewinder has just about had enough. A technological marvel when it rolled off the assembly line some seventy years ago, now pushed well beyond its recommended twenty-year lifespan.

  He taps the screen, gets it to stop rolling long enough to read it:

  Designation: Shiva 154e

  Type: H; rocky, with sparse vegetation

  Diameter: 28,865 km.

  Year Length: 287 standard days

  Suns: 1; designated Shiva 154 (Shiva Prime or “Prime”)

  Moons: 2; designated Eye of Shiva and Wrath of Shiva (Eye and Wrath)

  Atmosphere:

  78.084% nitrogen

  20.946% oxygen

  0.934% argon

  0.0383% carbon dioxide

  0.001818% neon

  0.000524% helium

  0.0001745% methane

  0.000114% krypton

  0.000055% hydrogen

  Aphelion: 151,197,662 km.

  Perihelion: 146,088,302 km.

  Mean Anomaly: 356.33271

  Semi-major Axis: 150,473,901 km. / 1.0058559 AU

  Inclination: 7.15° to Prime’s equator, 1.5784° to invariable plane

  Still very Earth-like, Rook considers. For a mad moment, he wonders why he hasn’t yet gone over to it. He could make the journey in two or three days. Surely there is still drinkable water, even if the plumbing has been obliterated with all the rest of the structures of the colonies. Probably still some wildlife on some portions, too, eking out an existence. Even if it’s just insects, he could subsist on that. He could find those small patches of life, find a cave to dwell in, watch the sunrises and sunsets through ashy clouds until the end of his day
s…

  Then, reason reinstates itself. It is a vain hope, as he’s known all along. The Cerebs have advanced scout ships and sensors, and anywhere a human being dwelt, they will always find him and kill him. It is unavoidable. Like conquerors of old, they have scorched the land of their enemies, leaving them nowhere to go, no lands to farm and till, no shelter to take from the elements. Ruthless, like a pack of wolves starving in the cold of night, with bottomless bellies, they had moved across the stars, relentlessly hunting and devouring worlds. There was nothing in mankind’s experience to prepare it. Homo sapiens had only just started taking its first tentative steps towards the limits of its solar system, and into others, like a child venturing out of the house for the first time. Had they known what they would attract, doubtless, they would have remained in the crib.

  Presently, a chime goes off just next to him. Rook does not jump out of his reverie. Rather, he slowly comes out of it, like a man emerging from a deep sleep, the layers of surreal visions peeling away, giving way to the core of reality. Is this reality? How can he be sure anymore? How, when so much of reality is and has always been determined by the feedback one receives from others, their replies, their jokes and insults, their envies and their vices? It is remarkable, now that he thinks on it, just how much we demanded others confirm what’s real to us. Certainly Descartes had been correct when he said “Cogito ergo sum,” I think therefore I am, but what is a person once they realize they are? How does a person confirm his purpose, test it, and prove it without others to bounce the idea off of? What could a man possibly…?

  Rook’s mind now refocuses, and presently addresses the chime. It has become a recent malady of his, to become lost in such thought. It is so easy to do, with such silence, and so much time to dwell in that silence. Still, duty beckons, and like Pavlov’s dog, he answers the chime.

  He taps a switch, and slowly, a devilish grin spreads across his face. They are coming. Many of them. A portion of the ship’s belly must have slid open while he was lost in thought, and now a squadron of their fighters, their skirmishers, came spilling out like bees from their hive. It’s been so long since I saw a bee, he thinks briefly. And these have greater formation, and far more purpose.