The Transporter
A short story by Jenna Stillman
The Transporter Copyright © by Jenna Stillman January 2015
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Chapter 1
The hum of the ship had become the sibilation of life. If the rumbling beneath their feet, in the walls, in their legs were to come to a stop, the rhythm of life would end. Jasie depends upon the ever present vibration, it acts as the heart beat of her home. As long as the thrumming was at a low key, the life support systems were running smoothly. If the noise ratcheted up a few decibels then she knew to check for discrepancies.
The computerized system would tell her just as well, but the noise told her first.
Jasie had just celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday. Ten years on the job, a flawless record. Ted was new to the ship, and she was already fed up with the boy. His career had just begun, she was commissioned to train him before she moved up in the ranks.
She doesn’t think Ted will be able to handle the job. The desolation, the time spent alone between docks. He’s already seeing things. Things she doesn’t see and cannot confirm that they exist. Several times she’s woken up to find him standing over her, and it frightens her. Every time, her flash of anger has grown more immediate and intense. Anger is the best way to deal with fear, Jasie has found. Instead of reacting like a frightened child, she can control the situation, express displeasure, and make him leave. It removes his power.
Normally, she doesn’t mind training. Most of the candidates she has trained and passed were adequate and easy going. Ted.... well, Ted is something else. The way he screams in his sleep, the way he is so certain that something is on the ship with them is unnerving her. Each incident, every outburst, it’s like a needle sliding under the first layer of skin. It pinches, hurts, but remains there. She can’t shake the feeling that if something doesn’t come to a head soon, they may not make it to Halcyon.
Jasie walks the long corridor from the ship’s deck to the cargo hold. The lights flare brightly, a slight blue hue. She peaks in through the small window on the door. Everything appears to be in place. She tabs over on the computer screen to the right of the door and ticks the box, recording her routine check. She tries the door handle and as it should be, it is locked. She moves farther down the white-walled hallway toward the galley. She has a moment to sit and take a break, eat something, read for a bit, and then move on with her day. She passes a bank of windows, the stars float past just out of reach. She watches the familiar wash of colors that have become by rote. Just glancing out the window, she can tell where she is in the stream of time. They have just reached the half-way point to Halcyon. If they can just make it, she will get Ted off the ship and take a sigh or relief.
She rounds the corner, feeling drained from lack of sleep, and instead of finding a pristine cafeteria, she finds a debris strewn room. Bits of food everywhere, places where wet food had hit the walls and slid down. A hand print that looks like blood streaked across the white counter. Wrappers and various food containers litter the grey carpeting.
A tendril of fear coils around her heart, icy and cold. She bites her tongue, tasting blood, to keep herself from crying. She rushes over to the cabinets, the refrigeration units, the sealed boxes. All of their food is gone. Her eyes glide over the mess, and she wonders again if they will make it to Halcyon.
Chapter 2
Jasie searches for Ted in his room and instead finds an empty bed, the blankets balled up and shoved down to the end. The ship shudders briefly under her feet but no alarm bells go off, so she pays it no heed.
She calls for Ted as she peers in his closet, pokes her head into his private bathroom, and then steps back out into the hallway. Space isn’t for everyone, some people need to keep their feet on the ground where normal skies rest above their heads and the streets are full of people. The long stretches of silence, and the dark void of space seems to have an adverse effect on a number of people.
Jasie has never minded the vastness of space. She finds it beautiful, intriguing. All of the gaseous wisps of light that glide past the banks of windows are mesmerizing. When she had the ship to herself, she would sit long stretches of time and watch the light-show. She is going to miss this more than anything.
She pulls out her key card and locks Ted’s room, sealing it behind her so that she can cordon off areas one at a time as her search for the boy commences. Her instructor taught her that this makes it safer. If Ted had been hiding in the room, her key card would lock him in there and she could potentially save herself from being attacked by him later.
She has heard the stories, knows that the space crazies generally follow the same path. They will claim they are sane, and yet they will slowly unravel. It starts with paranoia. It escalates with panic, and often climaxes with death. The crazies will either kill those they are stuck in space with, or they will take their own lives. Lucky so far, Jasie hasn’t had to deal with this sort of thing. Of course, her last training mission had to be the one that failed miserably. She knew this meant that if she made it back to Halcyon alive, they would send another trainee to her, thus delaying her promotion even further.
Her nerves already frayed, Jasie doesn’t know if she could do one more trip with an untested.
Her footfalls are muted on the padded floor. Other than the ever present rumbling of the ship, there is no other sound. She ceases calling for Ted, knowing that it won’t serve to find the boy, and instead will give away her location. Halfway down the hallway, she pauses at her own room. With a trembling hand, she pushes the door open and peers in. Everything appears just as she’d left it.
Even so, she enters the room and repeats the same process as she’d done in Ted’s room. Letting out a pent up breath, she closes the door with relief behind her and locks it.
She stops by the supply closet, the light inside flickering on. Her heart hitches a beat. Ransacked. All of the boxes have been opened, the contents dumped onto the floor, charred black and still smoldering. Some of the plastic containers have melted from the heat. The shelving units themselves have sagged a little.
She leans against the door-jam as a wave of dizziness washes over her. That was everything. The medical kits, the replacement bulbs, backup clothing, the emergency food packets, the physical log books, test strips, anything she would need to repair minor things on the ship. All of it, gone in a blackened heap.
Jasie steps back into the hallway feeling more tired than she really was. They had only just passed the halfway point. There were at least one-hundred hours remaining. No food, no backups. Ted was going to pay for this. Dearly.
Chapter 3
The weapons room, which has always remained locked by Jasie’s master key, is untouched. She locks the door behind her, and weaponizes herself. Taking extra precautions, she suits up. When she is finished, she scans the hallway before opening the door. Finding it empty, she seals the door behind her and continues on.
The cargo hold door is open. Muttering an expletive under her breath, closes the door without entering and seals it shut with her key card. She taps the screen on the side of the door and brings up the security cameras. Scanning the room, she finds it devoid of human life. If only the rest of the ship had the same precautions, the search for Ted would go more quickly.
Next she seals off the galley and the spare rooms, no longer bothering to check inside them. The control room, the bridge of the ship really, is all that is left to her. If she can seal herself inside, she has a heightened chance of making it to the dock, where other people can secure the ship for her.
A strange noise behind her freezes her in
place. What was that? She turns slowly, feeling sweat beading on her forehead.
“Ted?”
She calls his name softly, but already she knows this sound. It is the sound she hears in her dreams. It is the sound she hears just before she wakes up in a cold sweat and finds Ted standing over her, his eyes wide with fear.
It stands there, or rather hunches there, black gaping holes looking up at her. It hoots at her, a soft resonance almost imitating her voice in raised question. Its body grotesque and strange, an appendage snaking out toward her.
Something drips onto the padded flooring, a black liquid that immediately beads into perfect mercury balls, as the appendage closes the distance between her and this thing. No, it can’t be. It isn’t real. But then a long prod-like thing comes out of the appendage and it looks sharp, like a stinger.
This breaks the spell. Jasie, spurred to action, backs away quickly. She makes it to the control room and as she pushes the button to slide the door shut, the thing screeches and rushes toward her. In a panic she drops the key card, and the thing smashes into the door on the other side. She snatches the card up and wands it over the computer screen. She taps the controls and steps back just as the thing hits the door again.
She yelps, watching the door rattle in its track. She pinches herself without taking her eyes off the door, and knows she is awake.
Poor Ted. Oh God, poor Ted! Obviously he was telling the truth. Something is on the ship with them and she didn’t believe him! Ten years. Ten years and nothing like this has ever happened, how could she believe him? Space is dead. All of these sectors, dead. What the hell is that thing?
When it stops hitting the door, she becomes afraid that the creature has full run of the ship. She steps over to the control council and begins shutting down the other parts of the ship. The cargo hold must remain oxygenated and warm so that what she is transporting will not be ruined. If Ted is still out there, she apologizes to him in a whisper. If he is alive, he will soon die.
Jasie brings up the emergency frequency and touches base with Halcyon. She explains her predicament and that she is unsure if it is safe to bring the ship to the dock. There is silence on the other end, and she knows they think she has lost it. They inform her after a time that she is to continue as directed. They inquire of Ted and she tells them he is missing.
The silence that follows is a dull thudding in her heart. There goes her promotion. There goes everything she has worked so hard for. Again, they tell her to continue as directed, to increase speed by half.
She signs off, dials up the engine and increases the speed. Weary, and depressed, she sinks into a chair. Fifty hours. Just over two days. She increases the speed further, knowing it is lunacy. The sooner this is over, the better.
Chapter 4
Convinced the thing will find its way into the air ducts and into the control room, Jasie sets to work finding what she can to block them off. Her vision fuzzy around the edges, she opens cabinets and stowed boxes. How long can she survive without water?
The ship shudders, vibrating her bones and making her teeth chatter, as though a great beast shaking water from its fur. Lunacy to increase the speeds, and this was the price she’d pay. The cargo hold would be suffering from the great rumbling of the ship, and she hoped they would not count this against her.
Then again, what did it matter? They already thought she lost her mind, right? Besides, it was her out in the vast void of space, not them. It really is up to her to either make it or not make it to dock.
She was surprised they had not asked the test questions, the questions that would determine if she is sound of mind or not. Disappointed, and slightly angry, she pulled the lid pins from one of the metal boxes and the lid separated easily. She raised the lid to one of the five air ducts and gauged the size to be right on. She drilled small holes into the lid, and then removed the grate covering the duct.
Irrationally, she could envision an appendage reaching toward her out of the darkness. She slammed the lid over the hole a little too roughly, a dull clang echoing through the duct system. If only she had thought to record her interaction. Maybe she would have proof to show to her boss when she docked. Proof she was not crazy, and that she had reacted properly, still deserving of her promotion.
She drilled the screws into place over the metal lid, the lid lips looking out of place. Maybe she was losing her mind, but even so, better safe than sorry. Ten years of perfection, she would not die in space now because she could not rationalize what she’d seen. Wether it was real or not, she had to operate under the assumption that it is real and that it intends to harm her.
Poor Ted, she thinks again, tears creeping into her eyes blurring her vision even more.
One positive view she could angle out of this experience, at least she won’t have to train someone to take her place. They will deem her unfit. She can live out her days wandering trails and enjoying views of mountains and trees. She will watch the stars at night, from the safety of her deck. She will tell her unborn children stories of her galactic travels, making them far more exciting than they really were. Maybe she’ll invent space pirates and monsters.
Monsters. No need to invent that. She pulls the pins out of the next box, the lid pulling free. She climbs onto a counter and awkwardly unscrews the vent. She puts the lid into place, her thoughts lost to a future that may never be.
Two more box lids are put into place, and then there is one vent left. Stupid. So stupid! The air vents are meant to control oxygen flow into the room, not just heating and cooling. How can she cover this final vent?
There is a reason there are so many vents coming into the room. One is the return, four are what send life. She cusses, and places her hand over the remaining vent. Of course, it is the return. It pulls the stale air from the room, a means of recycling what is spent into new and fresh. Her hair is sucked toward the vent, and she steps away.
Slow suffocation, dehydration, and hunger. All of the things she can look forward to, over the next thirty hours. Less than that now. She checks the screen. Twenty-eight hours and forty minutes left.
Hating the flimsy grate, she pulls one of the lids down and replaces it with the grate. Immediately, the return stops its high pitched whining that she hadn’t noticed, and she breathes easier.
Fear makes you stupid, she heard a voice in her head say. It makes you do things without thinking about them first. She wondered if fear had tinged her voice as she gave Halcyon information about her situation. If she had properly relayed to them all that was pertinent. Had she said anything stupid or irrelevant? Had she rambled or been succinct?
She couldn’t remember. She sits in the chair again, feeling exhausted and shaky. All that is left to do is sleep. Conserve oxygen this way by using less, deal with her hunger by sleeping it off, as well as her fear.
Surprising herself, she fell asleep within minutes.
Chapter 5
Jasie wakes with a start. The alarm is clanging, the lights have turned a flare red, and movement to her left catches her eye. When she focuses, she looks to see what had caught her eye but nothing is there.
She moves to the bank of computers to see what is wrong with the ship. Never had the lights turned red before. She had slept a half hour. Is that all? She thinks, rubbing her eyes.
She brings up the screen, typing in her pass-code and finds that everything is normal. Nothing is wrong. In fact, the vibration of the ship has lessened. Odd.
She hits the reset button, and the clanging stops. The lights return to normal, and she stretches. Why would the ship give off a false alarm like that?
More pressing than these questions is her need to relieve herself. No bathroom in the control room, no outlying rooms at all in the control room. She searches through the open boxes for something to urinate in. She finds a cylinder and it will do nicely. It strikes her funny the way small things, like a bladder, can overshadow anything else. Even fear.
She has to take off half of the defense suit to ta
ke care of business, and nearly doesn’t make it in time. She sets the cylinder on the floor, some of the contents sloshing onto her hand. Without a way to wash her hands or wipe, she feels disgust as she brushes her wet hand against her suit.
Feeling silly that she should continue to wear the suit in the control room, and feeling overly warm, she steps out of the suit completely and stashes it into one of the open boxes. She picks up a leg to tuck it in better and notices a small hole. Perfectly round, the size of her smallest fingernail.
Dread makes her nauseous as she looks down at her right calf. There, too, is a perfect circular scab. She touches it, feeling pain. When did this happen? Did that thing get her with the stinger before she made it into the control room? Surely not, there was always a distance between her and it. Her eyes had never left that dripping appendage, intuiting that it could not be a peaceful thing. The way it hooted at her, the speed it had chased her with. How it had crashed against the door as it slid shut.
The Transporter Page 1