by Z. M. Wilmot
The Derelict
[Originally Published in Space Adventure Magazine, Issue 1]
“Going in – this is a big one, Reggie. Wonder what took it down.”
“Scans show very little surface damage; just an abrasion portside, near the rear. Not a large one, though – looks like it’s only a meter or two long. Nothing serious.”
“Then whatever got them came from inside,” Diana murmured.
“Aye, looks like. Probably just bad air filtration or something. But be careful anyway.”
Diana rolled her eyes. As if she was ever not careful. She finished placing the charges around the airlock’s exterior lock, and then moved a few meters down the length of the derelict ship, pulling herself along using bright orange cables that she had pinned to the hull. Once she was a safe distance away, she pressed the big red button in the center of the remote held in her right hand. The charges exploded silently, blasting open the airlock’s exterior door. The flames from the explosion managed to survive a few seconds in the outpouring of oxygen before their fuel supply was cut off and dispersed.
“Right. Time to see what we’ve got here.”
Reggie didn’t say anything as she watched Diana move back towards the now very open airlock from the safety of their ship. Her ship. The Buzzard, she was called; an apt name for what her crew did. Reggie preferred to think of her current day job as that of a recycler, making sure that nothing went to waste. More polite members of society would probably have called her a salvager, a derelict stripper, or a vulture. What she did for science.
“Is Diana in yet, cap’n?” called a voice from behind Reggie. She swiveled around in her bright orange plush chair and shook her head as a rather large man stepped onto the bridge.
“Just about though,” she added, pointing through the window behind her with her thumb. She shook her curly black hair out of her eyes. The man looked over the captain’s shoulder and nodded.
“She’s in now.”
Reggie swiveled back around again and watched Diana vanish into the airlock. Her voice came in over the communications channel a moment later. “Place seems empty – I’m in a side corridor, looks like. No signs of life – or death, even. Not here. Surprisingly clean, really… I’ll sweep this side of the ship and see if it’s safe for us to dock.”
The captain pushed one button among many on the control panel laid out before her. “Alright. Take your time; we don’t want another booby-trapped ship waiting for us.” Bloody Terran law enforcement, Reggie thought. They look rather different from the lower side of life. She released the button.
“Is the engine still running fine? Will we be able to get close?” Reggie asked, not turning to look behind her at the olive-skinned giant. If she had, she would have seen his bearded face break out in a grin.
“She’s runnin’ smoother than I ever seen her,” he responded. “Y’should have no trouble t’all bringin’ her in. Even the microthrusters are all up and running.”
Reggie smiled and slowly turned around. “All of them, Jorge?”
“Damn near’s I can tell,” he continued, still grinning. “Just got ‘em all up and goin’.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever had them all working at the same time,” Reggie murmured, her brown hand hiding a mischievous grin. “Are you quite sure they’re all working?”
“D’you doubt my mechanical prowess?” Jorge said, an affronted look crossing his face. He puffed out his chest in a way that clearly showed that he was the biggest and baddest bird on the beach. “When I say I got somethin’ workin’, that somethin’s workin’.”
Reggie swiveled around and rested her hands on the ship’s wheel. It was a U-shaped affair, stuck on the end of a shaft coming out of the floor at a forty-five degree angle. She tilted it back, forth, left, right, and slid it forward and backward, admiring the way the ship turned at the slightest movement of the wheel. She checked all of the microthrusters’ functionalities, and couldn’t find fault. He did well. Her grin widened. But if you give a man a compliment, he’ll think he’s lord of the universe. Her thoughts flew back to a moment three years ago, and she saw her protégé’s face laughing at her as he accepted what should have been hers. Reggie’s expression darkened for a moment. She’d show him.
“P40’s out,” she said vaguely, coming back to herself. “Doesn’t seem to be responding properly.”
“What? No, you’ve got to be…” the mechanic was out of the room in a flash, running back down to the engine room. Reggie pushed the past aside and counted. One… two… three…
“Reggie!” came the shout from below, and the captain grinned. She loved her crew. She had promised herself she’d keep her distance – this was only a temporary affair, after all – but it got lonely out in the cold reaches of space.
She’d picked them all up in various dead-end jobs; Jorge had been a chronically unemployed hovercar mechanic on New Eden, Diana had been a security guard for a whorehouse on Demeter, and Jon had been a quack physician on Terra. Or Earth, if you preferred the old name, which Reggie did. It had been risky, running the ship by herself for those few weeks before she picked them up, one by one, but it had been worth it. She now had a handpicked crew who owed her everything. She needed unquestioning loyalty if she was to get done what she needed to, and that was what she had. Jorge walked by the door to the bridge and glared at her as he walked by, en route to the galley to pick up a snack before the docking.
Jonathan Dallies – M. sort of D. – served as both the ship’s cook and its physician. He had received half of a medical education from the premier institute on Earth, but had been expelled after an event he will call only “the giraffe accident.” His practical experience was phenomenal and his results had almost always been positive, but his lack of formal accreditation had doomed him in the medical world. After saving Reggie’s life after a nearly-botched mugging in Cayro, his healing skills – not to mention his cooking talents – become readily apparent, and he leapt at the chance to be paid what almost was a salary to practice.
He stood behind the galley’s counter as Jorge approached, constantly adjusting his ill-fitting spectacles. The glasses were an affectation of his; laser readjustment could easily have fixed his eye problem, but he believed that the presence of glasses somehow enhanced his status and reputation, and so he refused to give them up. Jorge was reasonably sure that the things actually impaired his vision.
“Whatcha’ got there, Jonnyboy?” Jorge said, sitting down at a stool in front of the counter.
Jon adjusted his glasses again and didn’t look up from whatever was cooking on the stove before him. “Flapjacks.” As he said the word, a pancake flew up into the air, flipped seven times, and then landed back down on the pan.
The cooking doctor looked up, his glasses fogged over. “Ready, just for you!”
“Can you make anything besides flapjacks?” Jorge rumbled good-naturedly.
“Don’t think so,” Jon replied. “Or at least, so I’ve been told. I should branch out some, huh?”
Jorge didn’t even bother to nod as the plate was placed before him. Why are there three flapjacks? He was only cooking one… If there was anything that Jorge had learned as a boy, it was never to question anything – or anyone – that supplied you with meals. He wolfed down the buttery trio in a matter of moments.
Jon stepped out from behind the counter, wiping his glasses on his shirt. “You heading out soon, then?”
Jorge nodded as he slid the plate over the counter, where it landed in the sink. “Prob’ly. Diana’s clearin’ the area for us.”
“Good call, that was,” Jon said approvingly. “Don’t want a repeat of the booby-trapped wreck we hit last week.”
“Aye,” the mechanic said as he stood and stretched. “Hopefully this one’ll be the big hit Reggie’s been promisin’ us. Certainly th’ship itself ‘is big. It’s huge, I tell you; y’should go see for yourself.”
“Already have,” Jon said, placing his glasses back on his nose,
ignoring them as they immediately tilted to the right. “It’s quite a beauty; it probably has something of value on board. Assuming whoever took out the ship didn’t make off any of the important functioning bits.”
“The exterior scans showed it to be mostly intact,” Jorge responded. “S’there seems t’be a good chance of gettin’ a lot o’good parts outta’ this one.”
“We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose,” Jon said.
“Aye,” Jorge replied. There was a brief moment of awkward silence. Neither man was particularly good at talking with the other.
“So if it is the big one, what are you going to do with your share?” Jon asked politely.
The big man shrugged. “Dunno. Booze. Maybe some women.” He said the last bit conspiratorially, winking. Jon nodded; Reggie was a staunch opponent to the use and existence of prostitutes, and might withhold payment if she thought money would be used on them.
Jorge thought more seriously for a moment. “Maybe some new parts for the ship, too. Trick her out a bit.”
“But this is Reggie’s ship,” Jon pointed out. “She owns it; if you trick it out at your own expense, whatever you do will become hers. Plus, she always sets aside a part of what we get for keeping the ship maintained.”
The mechanic shrugged. “She deserves it,” he said. “Plus I don’t see myself leavin’ anytime soon. D’you?”
Jon shook his head. “Even if I did, no one would take me. I’m nothing out there. I’d be arrested and thrown in prison for the rest of my life. Reggie’s been good to me.” He leaned back, expecting to find a wall, but instead nearly fell down to the floor. Catching himself, he continued. “And with my share of the profits, I’d get this thing a better operating room. There’s bound to be a serious accident at some point. And more food,” he added. “Food just for me. Real food. Sophisticated food.”
Jorge shook his head at the long word and began to head back to the engine room. “We should be leavin’ soon; might be best to talk t’the cap’n.”
“Will do in a moment,” Jon called. He retreated back to his counter, sent Jorge’s fork, knife, and dish through the washer, and returned them to their proper places. Satisfied, he hurried to the bridge to speak to the captain.
As it was, he arrived just in time to hear Diana give the all-clear. “We’re going in,” Reggie said, not turning to look at Jon, focusing instead on the controls. “You’ll take my seat, as always. Keep an eye out for Terran patrols. Give us assistance if we need it. Make sure we’re all in contact with you at all times. The usual. Got it?”
“Aye aye, captain.” Jon straightened slightly and saluted. She didn’t see his gesture, as she was carefully guiding the Buzzard in towards the new hole in the derelict’s hull. Jorge really can do his work, she thought in admiration as she gently guided the ship towards the gap in the derelict’s hole. When the ship’s lower sensors started blinking, Reggie stopped the ship, noting with a passing interest that the derelict seemed to not be moving through space at all, which was unusual for a wrecked vessel; they tended to exhibit momentum from whatever had last happened to them. This vessel, though, seemed almost fixed in space. But a wreck’s a wreck, Reggie reasoned. And this one looks very promising. Maybe enough to get me a new batch of equipment.
On the derelict, Diana had made her way back up to the hole she had made, and watched the Buzzard float in. The ship really didn’t bear any resemblance at all to its namesake, the crew’s self-proclaimed “commando” thought as it floated closer. Her eye slid over its clunky curves, and she noticed that each of the tiny microthrusters positioned about the hull – to allow the ship to make minute adjustments in space – all seemed to be working. Jorge did well, she thought. All of them working at once. Imagine that.
Her hand moved down unconsciously to rest on the handle of an E-7X energy pistol strung through her belt. Her pride and joy. She knew every imperfection and stain on its gleaming chrome surface, and could drop a body from a hundred yards away without aiming. Not that she ever had a real chance to use the thing, of course; Reggie was earnest in her belief that weapons were only to be used when there was no other option available. At least this job pays a helluva lot more than Giorgio’s did, even if the paychecks are farther apart, Diana thought. And the company is much better.
The Buzzard was beautiful in her own way. There wasn’t a smooth curve on her, not like you’d find all over Terran police vessels, but she had a rugged charm that no shiny government ship could ever hope to match. She was a mostly a dark brown, though she had several very light brown splotches scattered across her hull, and was shaped like a bent thumbtack. The front of the ship was vaguely hemispherical, and a window in the center let the pilot see out into space. The front contained all of the living areas, the gravity drive, and the engines, and was actually able to detach from the rear in times of need. The rear of the ship was a cylinder bent at a forty-five degree angle at the end, mainly used for storing whatever they could cannibalize off of derelicts like this one. The very end of the cylinder could open up and create a vacuum-seal, effectively connecting any breach in the hull of the target ship to the Buzzard herself. It was a beautiful design.
Reggie was gently moving the ship’s crooked end towards the hole Diana had made, making extensive use of the cameras placed strategically about the Buzzard’s hull to let her see places that her window wouldn’t let her. The tip of the cylinder drifted slowly towards the commando, who floated over to the edge of the breach she had made. The Buzzard stopped moving, and the end of the cylinder unfolded, shooting a thick black plastic tube that hit the derelict’s hull with a satisfying thud. There was a faint hissing sound as the vacuum seal was established. At the far end of the tube, Diana could barely make out a blinking light and a door. She floated back to the far wall, waiting for the rest of the team and wishing she could get out of the rather uncomfortable bright orange spacesuit. What is it with Reggie and orange, anyway?
“Right, Jon,” the lover of orange said as she hopped out of her chair back on the Buzzard. “The place is yours. The computer should be able to get into whatever systems the derelict had that are still running. Tell us when it gets through, and look up the blueprints and schematics.”
“Aye aye, cap’n!” Jon saluted again, and Reggie returned it this time. The doctor sat down in Reggie’s chair while the captain scrambled off to get into her suit. A few minutes later the speakers on the bridge played Reggie’s voice, and he ran her through a communications check. He did the same with Jorge a few seconds later.
“Right, Jon, we’re heading out,” Reggie’s voice said. A light lit up on the display in front of the doctor as the captain opened the door leading to the airlock at the end of the crooked cylinder. The light went out as she closed it again, and then a second light blinked on as she opened the door on the other side, leading out onto the derelict. Good luck, he wished them, then said it out loud. “Good luck.”
“No need for that,” Reggie replied. “We’ll be talking to you the whole time. Can you patch Diana into our channel?”
Jon nodded, said “Aye,” and carefully pressed the proper buttons – just like Reggie had shown him the year before – to patch Diana through, allowing all four members of the crew to speak to each other at the same time.
The door at the end of the black tube slid open, and Diana watched the medium-sized form of Reggie glide through it, followed by the gargantuan Jorge. The pair floated gracefully down the tube and touched down in front of Diana. They both flicked their suits’ headlamps on, further illuminating the place. A few moments later, Diana was patched into the conversation.
“Right, Diana. So do we have breathable oxygen levels in the rest of the ship?” Reggie looked around the small airlock of the derelict, her eyes missing nothing.
“Aye, cap’n,” she said. She gestured to the leftmost door leading out of the airlock. “At least down that way there is; I was able to turn off the air supply and open the suit’s ventilators and not die. It’s perfec
tly breathable, at least for a short period of time.”
Reggie sighed. “Don’t go taking risks like that, please. There could have been trace elements of poison in the atmosphere that your suit wouldn’t pick up. You could be dead.”
“But I’m not,” Diana said cheerfully. “So you can stop worrying.”
The captain just shook her head. “So, was there anything down that way?”
“Not of value, cap’n,” the commando replied. She pointed at the rightmost door. “My guess is that the bridge is that w-”
“Got it!” Jon said triumphantly over the communications channel. “There’s a faint residual digital network in the ship still. Scans show the bridge is down the door that would be to your right, assuming you’re facing me.”
Diana nodded, slightly annoyed. “Right. Like I said. Or was saying. The bridge is that way.” She pointed half-heartedly.
“There also appears to be… a cargo bay? A large one… uses up most of the ship’s interior space. If you take the door directly across from the breach, you should reach it,” Jon said.
“What t’hell kinda ship has an airlock wit’ three doors leadin’ outta it?” Jorge muttered.
“That is strange,” Reggie murmured. Diana nodded in agreement, and turned to look curiously at the door next to her.
“The manufacturer is… unlisted.” Jon sounded curious. “Huh. No records of it anywhere.” There was a moment of silence as the doctor peered more closely at the blueprints. “And the layout is like nothing I’ve seen before…” The airlock isn’t the half of it, Jon mused. But I shan’t worry them.
“Well, there are three of us, and three doors,” Diana said. “I’ve already gone down one of them, and couldn’t find anything useful. Clear of booby traps, though. Not a single one! We’re the first ones here, I think.”
“Good, good,” Reggie said distractedly, thinking. “No signs of life, Jon?”
“Aye, captain. Nothing. Well, nothing other than you three, I think…”
“You think?” Reggie’s voice was sharp. “Can’t you tell?”
“Negative, captain. I’m pretty sure, though. There’s a sort of… interference. Like something’s trying to decide if it wants to be alive or not.” On the Buzzard, Jon frowned at the lifescanner. His three crewmates showed up as clear as daylight, but there was a fuzzier something else there as well. But anything larger than a mouse would show up at half the magnitude of the three of them – and there’s nothing that large here. Most of the time.
“Interference? How on Earth does a lifescanner get interference?”
“Not the faintest,” Jon replied, staring at the green lines on the monitor. “There’s a sort of… err…” he struggled to find the words. “There’s a wavy green line beneath all of your spikes, only about a twentieth of the size most of the time, fluctuating rapidly between nonexistence and… being off the charts…”
There was silence at the other end. “Captain?” said Jon hesitantly.
“Mmhmm?”
“Do you have any clue?”
“Nope. Seems like the equipment’s just malfunctioning. You say you can read our spikes loud and clear?”
“Aye. It’s just a wavy-”
“I think we’re good then,” Reggie interrupted. She took a deep breath. “We’re in a rather deserted sector of space, but I had a report from a trusted source two days back saying that there was a Terran cruiser in the area. I’d like to get this done as quickly as possible.”
“The engines are near the cargo bay,” Jon said helpfully, eyes scanning the schematics of the ship on the main display.
“Alright,” Reggie decided. “Diana, go with Jorge down the center door. Start moving any valuable shipments in there. Jorge, follow Jon’s instructions past there to the engine room. See if there are any valuable bits in there. I’ll head to the bridge and get what I can there. Understood?”
There were two “ayes,” and then they went their separate ways. Reggie closed the airlock door behind her and smiled. She loved her crew dearly, but sometimes she needed time alone. Or at least as alone as you can get with a communications system in your helmet, she thought drily. She kicked her way along the zero-g corridor, noting several doors set into the interior hallway. If there was anything of value in them, Jon would have said something. Personal possessions left behind didn’t count. The Buzzard didn’t hold a gang of thieves. Jewelry, personal items, and valuable recreational electronics were always left alone. They weren’t robbing from the dead; they were recycling parts that otherwise wouldn’t be used, and managed to earn a little money doing so. They took the valuable parts of dead ships and whatever market cargo they carried to sell on the black market back in central space. Then the crew took a few days holiday on whatever world they happened to be on, and then took off again. It was a better life than the other three had ever known; Reggie had descended from the skies and offered them salvation. And they had offered Reggie the chance to prove that those who doubted her back home were worthless.
The captain took out a small device from her pocket – looking much like a small computer screen, and pursed her lips. It seemed as if the phenomenon had moved on. Ah well. I’ll find another one to study. She replaced the device and kept moving down the corridor; she had to pay the bills somehow, and this ship promised her half a fortune.
She continued to float past the closed doors. Probably the crew’s and passengers’ personal quarters, she thought. A ship of this size took as many passengers as they could, mostly refugees, in order to supplement their already considerable income. The captain of a freighter like this one could make him or herself a very rich person rather quickly; big freighter captains retired faster than they could be replaced.
Reggie hoped that Jorge and Diana weren’t breaking into any rooms and ransacking them. She had never been overly superstitious, but she still felt wrong about taking the personal belongings of another – even when they were dead. Her crew was explicitly forbidden from committing that particular sin, and they usually had no problem with that; she paid them the same share she got, and did as much work as they did. Besides, they all owed her.
Jorge had been mostly unemployed and wanted for petty crime – and a not-so-petty crime – on New Eden. She’d managed to lift him out of his home before it was raided by the police. She smiled as she remembered the grateful look in the giant’s eyes, and the delight that lit them up when she had offered him an actual job. Jon had been released on bail after being imprisoned for the death of one of his patients – of causes completely unrelated to his treatment, Jon would hurriedly add every time he was questioned on the matter – and Reggie had scooped him up before he was due to face a jury that would have undoubtedly sentenced him to life in prison. Reggie had saved Diana’s life when she was fighting off a large group of drunkards wanting free admission to the brothel she guarded; the Amazon-like security guard had jumped at the chance to go on an adventure and had packed and been ready to go within the hour.
Reggie’s reveries were interrupted as she passed by a door that was half-opened. Curious, she used a microthruster on her suit to stop her flight. She mostly tuned out Jon’s relaying of instructions to Jorge as she approached the door. So they’ve reached the cargo hold. The captain peered into the room, and found it completely empty. Not even a bed. An empty cargo room? She floated over to the next door, and fiddled with the keypad on it until it hissed open. There’s still some residual power somewhere, it seems. The ship probably hasn’t been dead long. The room was empty. She moved another one down. Also empty.
Reggie kicked back and thought for a moment. Why would a ship of this size have empty rooms? The captains of larger ships especially tried to cram as many people and goods as they possibly could into their vessel. Ships like this one tended to be filled to the brim. So why are the rooms empty? Did the inhabitants have a chance to flee with all they had? But then why no beds?
She decided to not risk further unnerving herself by opening more doors,
and so kicked off against the floor and sped purposefully down the corridor. The door at its end soon came into sight, and Reggie used the microthrusters to slow herself down. When her fiddling with the keypad didn’t open the door, she took a plasmaslicer from her belt and flipped it on.
In the center of the ship, Diana looked curiously around the gigantic cargo hold. It really did take up most of the ship’s interior, with the other rooms on the vessel all spread about its edge. The hold was filled with aluminum crates, arranged into two rows of disturbingly neat pyramids. The crates were all unlabeled, and try as she might, Diana couldn’t open a single one of them; the lids appeared to be welded on. After a few minutes she gave up pulling at them and drew her plasmaslicer from her belt. She turned it on, and a burst of controlled plasma about two inches long came out of its hooked tip. She ran the plasma through the box’s side, making a circle. She closed the circle, turned the slicer off, and stepped back, expecting a neat disk to fall out onto the floor.
It didn’t.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
“What’s up?” Jon’s voice replied.
“These crates… they’re solid! They’re fucking solid!”
“What?”
“Exactly!”
Jon leaned back in his chair and stroked his remarkably hairless chin. Solid crates? “They don’t move either!” Diana said as she tried to pull one away from the others. She peered at the thin crack between two crates. It was only a couple of inches deep. “The things are fused together! The crates are fake!” She turned her gaze to the floor, and got down on her hands and knees. “And they seem to be fused to the floor, too. What the fuck?”
Reggie had broken through the door at this point, and was looking confusedly at the scene before her. Her mind finished processing Diana’s words. “And the bridge…”
After a moment of silence, Jon asked, “And the bridge?”
“It’s all wrong.” Reggie cautiously advanced forward. “The control layout doesn’t make any sense… and the steering wheel is upside down!”
An astonished noise came from Jorge’s throat. “And there’s no gravity drive! There’s t’spot for it, but there’s no drive there! Just a silvery pyramid!”
Diana slowly backed away from the crates. “Something’s not right. I thought that this catch was too good to be true. Huge freighter, in the middle of nowhere, not moving an inch… it’s almost as if someone was trying to lure us out here.”
“Aye,” Reggie said, pondering the controls before her. “Diana?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t have your air supply disconnected and the ventilators on, do you?”
“Nope. Should I -”
“No. Don’t you dare. Same goes for you, Jorge. Something is very wrong here.”
There was no response.
“Jorge?”
Silence.
“Jon, is Jorge still in communication with us?”
Jon peered over at the communication readouts. “As far as I can tell, he is…” He peered more closely at the data.
“Sorry!” Jorge’s voice came back, and Reggie and Diana both sighed with relief.
“Why didn’t you reply!” Reggie said.
“Thought I saw something,” came the reply. “Didn’t want t’say somethin’ and startle it.”
There was a brief pause. “Two things,” Reggie said. “One, we’re the only life on board this ship, and two, I don’t think the sound would carry through your spacesuit anyway. Respond immediately the next time you’re spoken to.”
“Aye-aye, cap’n,” Jorge said.
“Good. Now, Jon?”
“Aye?” Jon replied, leaning forward.
“The deep-space scanners are on, yes?’
“Of course, captain.”
“Watch them carefully. This ship is clearly some sort of trap; we just don’t how and who for yet. Someone might be coming for us soon. The instant you pick up anything heading towards us, you say so. Understood?”
“Clear as day, cap’n.”
“Good.” Reggie nodded to herself and turned back to the control panel. Who uses an upside-down steering wheel? She floated closer to the controls, and tried to make sense of them. She failed. They seemed to just be a random mass of levers, buttons, and…
“…springs?” she said incredulously.
“Pardon?” Jon’s voice said.
“There are springs on these controls,” she said. “And there’s not even anything on top of them!” There was no response. Reggie shook her head and turned around. “I don’t think there’s anything here for us – and this place is giving me the creeps. I’m going to check the rooms on the corridor leading here, and then we’re all going to get back on the ship.” She couldn’t have her triumph if she was arrested or kidnapped… or killed. “Jorge, how’s the engine?” After a moment of thought, she added, “And what is it you thought you saw?”
There was silence.
“Jorge! I told you to-”
Someone gasped. “He’s gone!” Jon said.
“What?” said Reggie. “What do you mean?”
“He’s gone. Just… not here anymore. He was there – and then suddenly his communicator stopped working. And this instrument lit up funny…”
“What instrument?” Reggie said sharply.
“Err… it’s sort of a small circular monitor at the top of all the other ones… it flashed blue the instant before Jorge’s communicator went out.”
“Shit,” Reggie swore. The phenomenon is still here – and it’s malignant. These things aren’t safe close up! “We’re in over our heads. Let’s get back to the ship.” I need my instruments! And my crew – I’m not losing another one.
“But what about Jorge?” protested Diana. “Maybe his communicator just died-”
“No,” Reggie said flatly. He’s gone. Trust me.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me, I said!”
There was silence for a moment. “I’m going after him.”
“Diana! Stop!” Reggie knew it was hopeless. Diana didn’t reply.
“What does that instrument measure?” Jon asked quietly.
“Interdimensional shifts,” Reggie responded, equally as softly. Diana didn’t appear to hear. “When it flashes blue, there’s some sort of interdimensional activity going on.” They might as well know what they’re up against.
Back on the Buzzard, Jon paled. “Are you saying… that Jorge fell into another dimension?” It didn’t even occur to him to question the instrument’s presence on the ship. Reggie hoped he didn’t find some of the less benign equipment she had stored on board.
Best case scenario, Reggie thought.
“Diana! Don’t follow him!” Jon was leaning forward now, looking intently at what he could see of the derelict. He glanced nervously behind him. The empty ship seemed much more menacing all of a sudden.
Diana didn’t listen. Her breathing was still audible, but she made no verbal response.
“Reggie… how do we get her back?” Jon’s voice trembled slightly.
“I go get her.” Reggie closed her eyes and offered a prayer to whoever would listen. I put their lives at risk. I killed Jorge.
But they’re just tools, said a nasty voice in the back of her head. They’re just here to let you continue your studies independently and unwatched. If they die, they die for science.
No one should have to die for science! Reggie raged against herself, and won. “What’s the fastest way to the cargo bay?” she asked the doctor.
“The way you came,” Jon responded. After a moment, he added, “Be careful!”
“I always am,” Reggie murmured. She launched herself down the corridor she had come from, shooting by the empty rooms, almost slamming into the airlock at the far end. She hurriedly opened the door, floated to the central one, and hurried through that too, leaving it open for the air to fill. She zoomed down a short corridor and came out between two large pyramids of crates. She cou
ld see a row of identical structures across from her.
“Take a right,” Jon’s voice said. Reggie pushed off the floor and zoomed right once her path had cleared the first row of pyramids. She flew between the two rows of crates, passing by a dozen or so of the boxed structures. She quickly approached the end of the room. In front of her was a doorway, with stairs leading down into the darkness. “It’s through that door at the end of the room,” Jon said.
“Of course it is,” the captain muttered, drawing her pistol. “Of course it is.”
She slowed herself down as she approached the door, and used the ceiling to send herself careening down the stairs, her headlamp casting ominous shadows at the edges of her vision. Did something move over there? She didn’t have time for childish fears, and immediately used her feet to send herself speeding to the left at a right angle. She stopped herself before she whizzed through the engine room, which the corridor she was on passed through. The space that a normal gravity drive normally would lie was indeed occupied by a pyramid of chrome, about a third of Reggie’s height. “What the hell…?” she whispered. She looked at the engine, and she saw that it did not appear to be made of moving parts; it looked as if someone had just taken an image of an engine and made a sculpture from it. It looked the same as its model, but couldn’t function in the same way. Or at all.
It seems as if this entire ship is a poorly designed copy of a Terran freighter, Reggie thought. She remembered the control panel on the bridge. Very poorly designed.
She continued down the corridor, and called Diana’s name into her communicator again. There was no response with words, but Reggie heard a change in the commando’s breathing – followed by a shrill scream.
“It went off again!” Jon shouted. Reggie was not concerned with that fact at the moment. There was something far worse here than the interdimensional phenomenon. Something bad enough to make Diana scream.
Diana never screamed.
The corridor took another sharp left, and Reggie slowed herself down as she approached, turning to face the inner corner. As the continuation of the corridor came into sight, she almost collided with the commando, who was careening down from the opposite direction.
“What’s wrong?” Jon said, his voice nearly breaking. Back on the Buzzard, he had swiveled his chair to face the rest of the ship. Maybe the interdimensional anomaly can come here!
Reggie looked through Diana’s visor and saw a panic that she never thought she would ever see in the woman. She grabbed the commando. “What happened?” Reggie asked, repeating Jon’s question. Diana didn’t respond, but instead tried to break out of the captain’s hold. “No! Not until you tell me what-” Reggie was suddenly jerked forward with enough force to cause her to let go of Diana. Reggie cried out and prepared to kick off after her but then stopped short. That’s a tentacle wrapped around Diana’s leg! No sounds came from Diana’s open mouth as the tentacle dragged the commando effortlessly away. Reggie raised her head, and her headlamp allowed her to see most of the way down the corridor.
She immediately wished it hadn’t. All she could see were tentacles and terrible, translucent fangs set in a yawning maw that opened up wide as Diana hurdled towards it. And then the eyes… the three eyes stared right through her, seeing not just her skin, but her internal organs and her veins, and then not just that. Reggie felt her very soul being observed, and even then the thing’s gaze kept going, piercing her very essence of being. She wanted to cry out, but found she couldn’t. She couldn’t even move as a second tentacle shot out towards her.
Then there was a blue flash of light and the thing – and Diana – were gone. The captain’s head began to hurt, as if she had just seen something impossible. That direction doesn’t exist… Reggie suddenly became aware of Jon shouting at her. “Reggie! Are you alright? The thing went off again! And Diana’s gone! What the hell is going on? Reggie?”
The captain didn’t waste her breath replying. She kicked off the wall and headed back the way she had come as quickly as she could. She zoomed back up the stairs, into the cargo hold, and then back to the airlock’s interior door.
It was closed. She slammed into it, and it knocked the breath out of her. “Jon!” she said as soon as she could, as she began trying to get through the airlock using the keypad. “Check the life-signs! Something else is in here with us!”
“What is?”
“Check the fucking signs!”
Jon checked the signs. “There’s nothing wrong! Just you and the interference!”
The interference. If there was a life-form from another dimension in the same space as the ship, would the lifescanner pick it up? Reggie’s scientific mind revved up in preparation to go into overdrive. No. Otherwise they’d pick up beings all over the place. Right? Which means…
“Reggie.” Jon said calmly. It was very clear that he was barely in control of himself. “What the hell is going on?”
Reggie’s mind was racing. She could figure this out. She was Regina van Heuten, Nobel-prize winning physicist and dashing space captain to boot. She could do this. Her body tingled with simultaneous fear and excitement. I ran away from the life I could have had to study things like this! If only whatever it is wasn’t trying to kill me…
“Reggie! It flashed blue again!”
“Check the life signs!” Reggie whipped out her plasmaslicer and turned it on. She began trying to slice through the door.
Jon obeyed, and he paled. “There’s something else in there with you! And it’s much bigger than you are! Get the hell out!”
“I’m trying!” The cuts she made in the door began to weld themselves shut. “Shit!” It can’t end like this, Reggie thought. I have a Nobel Prize in interdimensional physics – I proved the bloody existence of other dimensions! I founded the field! And then got laughed off of Earth when my own students surpassed my theories. I’ll show them! She gritted her teeth. I can’t die now! Her thoughts began to run in circles as her marbles all began to flow out of her mind. I spent all of my money outfitting the ship! My entire fortune! I gave it the best sensors, the best equipment, and the best computers! It can’t have failed me! Why didn’t it warn me? I can’t waste that investment! I have to get out of here! She tried the slicer again, but the door healed itself as before. What was that noise?
Reggie took deep breaths. Stop panicking, she ordered herself. Figure out what’s going on and you can beat it.
“Okay,” Reggie said, turning around to face behind her.
“It’s not okay!’ Jon’s voice came back. “You’re-”
“Shut up!” Reggie shouted. Jon shut up.
“Okay,” she continued in the calm voice one uses when they’re screaming silently on the inside. “The ship. The ship is fake. It’s a fake ship. It doesn’t work. It’s as if someone unfamiliar with a ship was trying to copy an image of it. An image of it… a three dimensional image of it… it could see enough of the internal mechanisms to make some of it work, but not enough for it to be fully functional.” Jon was listening in rapt silence to his captain. He had never heard her talk like this before. Who was she?
“As if the creator had seen a ship once before – but had seen all of it at once. Like I see all of a drawing on a sheet of paper at once. Like drawings on paper… it lives in a higher dimension than us. Okay. Higher-dimensional being… no. No. The life-signs… the interference… if only part of a being was in one dimension at a given time, that’s exactly what would happen! Say like, an arm or a leg… while the rest of the body is in another one. Then it would give off strange, half-life signals…”
Jon was staring fearfully at the interdimensional activity instrument. It was glowing a solid, steady blue.
“It’s an interdimensional being. Yes! It can exist in multiple dimensions at once, and perceive itself as existing in multiple dimensions… which means that we’re only seeing a part of it…” Her brain was running faster than it ever had before, dusty neural pathways firing wildly. “But what part? The mouth? No
… the head would be too close… and we’re only perceiving a cross-section of whatever it is… and the cross-section looks like a mad, fanged, tentacle fish thing.” An angler fish.
“No…” she said, a look of horror dawning on her face. Jon would have crumpled could he have seen it. “The ship! The derelict is part of the beast! Not created by it! Unless it can change the shape of its body parts at will… And the thing… the fangs… the eyes… the tentacles… that was its head! Or one head… the ship is part of the thing! Like a lure on a motherfucking angler fish! It was a trap! A trap designed specifically for us!” Three doors out of the airlock. Three people raiding the ship. “It’s like it read our minds…” She thought back to the thing’s terrible eyes, staring through her soul and into her essence of being. “That wouldn’t be a problem for it.” Her voice quavered. “It’s a giant interdimensional angler fish! The derelict was its lure!”
Jon sat silently at the controls, not knowing what to make of his captain’s rant. Reggie’s sudden display of knowledge made it very clear, however, that someone was not who they said they were. But that can be sorted out later. “Captain, can you get through the airlock?” he asked urgently.
Reggie laughed. “No. Not at all. It can modify the derelict at will. It can heal itself. We don’t stand a fucking chance. We just walked into the biggest booby trap ever.” Her laughter took on a maniacal tone, and Jon began to panic. He didn’t know how to fly the ship. “And it wasn’t even the Terrans that caught us! Bloody bastards. They never could have caught us. Just like you lot never caught onto me!” Something snapped in Reggie’s fraying mind. “Never questioned me… never wondered why I chose you… never thought to ask why I chose to go where we went… well I’ll tell you!”
She’s lost it, Jon thought. I’m going to die out here, all alone with a giant hungry space angler fish.
“I was following the interdimensional anomalies!’ Reggie was almost singing. “Every time something weird showed up on my instruments, I followed it to its source! It was just our fortune that those sites were also rich in derelicts…” Reggie’s maddened mind paused to think for a moment. “No… it wasn’t! Those sites of interdimensional activity… those were what caused the derelicts to be there! The beings from elsewhere are malign! I-”
The instrument abruptly stopped glowing blue, and the captain’s communication link vanished. Jon was all alone.
He panicked.
He pushed every button he possibly could, desperately trying to dislodge the ship from the derelict. It didn’t work. He looked behind himself every few seconds, waiting for a monster to materialize in the room beyond, but there was nothing. Maybe it can’t get here. He turned his attention back to the derelict. The ship shimmered, and then it changed. Jon could suddenly see all of it at the same time; he could see both sides of the walls, what was inside the walls, and what was beyond the walls, all laid out before him. He saw a terrible head, miniscule and yet massive, both inside and outside the derelict, attached to it via a long, thin tube. And there was a neck, stretching almost as far as he could see into the distance. And further than the distance, in a direction he could not comprehend, he could see heads. More heads. All the same creature…
The nearest slimy head turned and looked directly at Jon. It opened its mouth wide…
And then the entire thing vanished, pulled in a direction that Jon couldn’t hope to even begin to conceptualize. He had only seen the whole, terrible thing, for a moment, and yet in that moment he was able to perceive the truth. Mere humans could only see part of it. But it could always see them. It could see them more than they could see themselves. Jon began laughing and crying at the same time, slumping over in his chair. It could always see them…
It was always watching.