by James Stubbs
But I’m not afraid by it. I can feel the rush in my stomach as gravity steps back in and does nothing to help the doomed ship. But it’s vague. It’s distant. I guess the best way that I can describe it to myself is that it felt like I’m playing a simulation of what happened.
I can feel and even to some smaller extent partake in the exhilaration of the event. But I know that it’s ultimately false, and that I’m ultimately not a part of it and will be safe from it at the end.
In the presumed safety of the future, given that what I was witnessing could only be a part of the past, I took the time to admire the Kraken in the prime of it’s life. Even if it was at it’s very end. My eyes are unstoppably drawn to the dazzling patterns the ionized gasses make as they swirl around the outer shell of the hyper drive engine. The swirling colors project onto the floor and wash the room in dazzling and beautiful lights. It’s like an organic movement. Or so it seemed to my ignorant mind. It seemed that the engine was alive. But in pain.
‘Fire the jet engines into full reverse.’ Kolt yelled at he top of his voice over the ruckus. He raised a powerful and unshaken arm to a distressed younger man, dressed much the same as he, in the gown I had grown to like despite its garish nature. The young man glanced back, from his place arched over his work station, to Kolt with fearful and almost teary eyes.
But he didn’t question and did as he was asked. If only I’d had Kolt there to tell me where and when to fire the jet engines to slow down descent. I might not have crashed and ended up in this mess in the first place.
‘Yes commander.’ He said. The brief and desperate exchange over. I can again feel the power of the Kraken’s mighty reverse jet engines, but they don’t scare me as I thought they ought to. I remembered, but only a had a brief moment to enjoy the sense of childish emotion it gave me to remember it, that this ship truly was where the old met the new.
The hyper drive engine, as powerful and as mighty as I though the first of their breed to be, was so completely dependant upon a jet engine as it’s crutch when it came to landing. A smile stretched across my face but it was brief.
It was knocked off me, and all sense of happiness with it, as I watched the hyper drive shell explode. And Kolt, along with every member of his team, engulfed in the resulting flames.
Strange what your mind thinks after an event. When there is nothing that can be done to prevent or improve it. Even though I suppose an observer such as me could have done nothing anyway. But I had noticed, and unintentionally ignored, the ionized gasses stop to move. I guessed, there and then before the flames washed into me as well, that they must have had something to do with the cooling of the engine.
I wish I could know more about what happened. Was it battle damage, an accident? Or something more sinister like internal sabotage? I guess I was not meant to know. I was just supposed to know what happened to him. Or else my dream or vision or whatever this is would have shown me more.
I can see him writhing in pain. I can see him dance with the fire that swallows him. Trying so desperately to worm his way out of it’s embrace. But it was not meant to be. I could swear that as he died, he looked right at me, with those bloodshot and piercing eyes. I can see him pause, then with one last fit of energy, whatever he had left in him, try to pull at his gasmask that had become welded to his face. To his skin and his uniform’s leather too.
And with that one last surge of energy he fell to the floor. And the fire consumed him again. Leaving nothing left of him for me to mourn over. And all I can do, is all that I had done the first time I had seen him die. Watch. Helplessly.
My eyes were pinned open until the fire had gone. Until the Kraken slammed into the mountain side. Where upon it still rests. And until the ship, dead, as I knew it, returned from the vision in which I had seen it.
I shook my head from side to side to try to get rid of the sudden onset of a headache. Or should that be another headache? Even though I know what I saw. Even though I could feel, in some sense or another, I could feel the death of the Kraken, I had to ask. Was that a dream? Was it made up, like another imagination? I didn’t have the answers right there and then.
I couldn’t figure out what had happened and that meant one thing. My mind was still not satisfied and I needed to know more.
That was what spurred me on. That’s what made me follow the creaking stairs further down into the bowels of the ship. The desire to know more. To find out what really happened to Kolt. Or should that be, to find out whether or not that vision was what really happened to him.
In that vision he was burned to a crisp. Consumed in the fire until there was nothing left of him. I don’t know if the answers will still be there for me to discover but I’ll try anyway. I owe him that. Whatever he was, he kept me alive through some really hard times.
I eventually make my way to the bottom of the staircase. My fingers, I hadn’t even noticed, were white from the exertion of my grip against the stair rail. This place had me spooked. It had me on edge. The very edge of whatever edge it had me on.
I know I promised myself that I would let this change me. That I would let Lucy change me and that I would be a new man because of her. That I would forget the ass that I used to be and that I would start again. But there was no point in lying to myself and telling myself that meant that I wouldn’t feel things like fear and regret.
I need to be honest with myself and use that emotion to drive me. It doesn’t mater that I’m scared. I needed to keep moving and keep trying nonetheless. And that’s why I keep going. That’s why I stride proudly and bravely over the flame soaked and charcoaled floor to the first station that I can see. The first terminal that looked like it might still have some life left in it.
What am I thinking? I scream inside of my own head. This thing is never going to work. It’s dead. Dead like me. Dead like this ship. There must be no power left to turn on the screen so that I can search for some kind of video record of my friend. A diary entry, a record of my friend in whatever form, I didn’t care. But I try anyway.
I kneel down to look at the housings, cased in hidden conduits that ran along the burnt floor, and make sure that all the cables are properly connected before trying the power button again and again. I know that the hyper drive, a constantly churning power house of energy, is what powered and charged the ancient lithium batteries this old crate used. Again another reference of the old meeting the new. And that meant that I knew they would be discharged after all this time. But I tried anyway.
And by something, something that I hesitate to dub a miracle but must call it so anyway, it actually turns on. I shake my head twice. Check the cables again and bat the screen with my open palm just to check, just to assure myself that it isn’t just my own imagination. But it isn’t. I’m sure. I check again. But it’s right.
There is still life left in it and I can see the information slowly load and the ancient computer screen. It, like the Kraken and like Kolt himself, was frozen as it was when it crashed. In alert mode.
A mirror, a ghost, of it’s last moment. My thoughts turn for just a moment to Lucy. I can’t help but wonder about her. I wonder if she has found anything of use. Anything that might help her and might help us. If she is even real. But I try so hard to shunt those thoughts out of my head and they reluctantly go when I focus hard on the warning message upon the screen before me.
It’s in Russian but the bold colors and strong, bright orange and red fonts give the purpose away. It must be touch screen. There isn’t a keyboard. I struggle to remember, even though I’m trying as hard as I can to, whether or not those things had stopped being the norm by the time this thing was built.
I wipe the screen with my palm, since I don’t have a clean cloth or anything I can use instead, to clear it from dirt and flame scarred soot. When I rub my hand over the static charged screen for the fifth time the warning message disappears completely.
The screen feels hard. Not how it should. The normal screen would have felt subtle, almost sp
ongy and fresh. That’s how the ones on the rig felt, even though I didn’t get much chance to touch them before I crashed the damn thing. It must just be a sign of it’s age or something. But despite that small drawback, it still works.
I can’t make out much of the Russian text. Like I had a clue about languages. I recognize a few Russian words but mostly only when they are spoken. The Russian language uses a different alphabet all together. So it’s hard to relate the phonetic sounds to the symbols that may as well be alien. They are to me anyway.
I wish I had a way to contact Lucy. It’s really strange how much I miss her even though she was only with me for a brief few hours. I hope she’s ok. She might even know some language skill.
But there it is, staring me in the face. A word not too dissimilar from it’s English equivalent. Gespenst. The word I figured before, the one that means Ghost in it’s native tongue. That must have been some kind of record of Kolt. With the vision I just saw, more experienced, still rattling around my head this just adds more questions to the mire that will go largely unsorted.
But I run my hand, as lightly as I can, a few times over the screen until it accepts the input. The dirt on my fingers and age of the screen must be hampering the interface. I can feel some sort of frustration rising inside me as I try and try again and again to open the link and nothing happens. I was never any good with technology either. I was better with a hammer and an axe. Hence my line of work. Even though it should have been called slavery.
Finally the link follows through and images start dancing on the screen. There are dead pixels all over the old LED (Light Emitting Diode) screen, another sign of it’s age, but I can still make out the video that has began to play.
I don’t know how to feel as I watch the same scene as I had just witnessed unfold again. Not as a vision this time but as a recording. My hairs all over my body stand on end, my heart pounds and I am filled with an obscure mix of elation and heartache.
I see Kolt, stood centre frame in the recording, giving out his orders with pride and authority. I thought he was only a Private. He doesn’t act like one. I add that question to the mire too. Maybe his commander got himself killed and he had to take over. That part would have to remain a mystery, simply because I don’t care to pry further.
I answered what I wanted to know. Kolt was real. At some time, in some form, he was real. I hadn’t imagined him. Hence the confusing mix of emotions surging through my blood.
I’m glad he was real. I really am. I would have felt weak and powerless if I had found he had been a figment of my desperate imagination. So my ego, that battered and bruised ego of mine, was soothed after all. But it just meant something more harrowing was unfolding on this world. One that didn’t sit right with everything that I thought I had known right up until today.
The dead live. Or they relive. However which way I could put it, it still made no sense. But it was clear that the dead were restless on this world and they remained here as ghosts. That didn’t mean I could accept it yet.
My mind, without my permission and barely without my knowledge, switched back to thoughts of Lucy. How can I trust her now? I thought Kolt was just a man. A survivor. One totally off his rocker but a man nonetheless. And he was not. Not anymore. I need to shake it off. But I can’t.
Through the burning questions and raging confusion all that I can think is that I hope she is ok. I don’t want what happened to Kolt to happen to her. I want her to be real. Flesh and blood like me. I didn’t know I had any feelings left. But what I had left, what remained, they were all for her.
I tried to revive the screen when it died but it wouldn’t turn back on. Even though I know what I saw, both in my obscure vision and in the CCTV recording, I would have liked to see it again just to make sure.
Not that I wanted to watch him die over and over again. But just another time might finally squash any doubt left over in my mind. I guess it will have to do.
Chapter 15
Reunited
‘Sam!’ Lucy’s distressed voice came bellowing from some unknown place. It startled me. I had taken to staring at the black and failed screen in some sort of state of denial. In some sort of recharge mode that might give my tired mind some time to process all of the difficult information that I had presented it with. But her shout socked me out of it in a snap. It must have been some sort of internal announcement system. Her voice, the voice of that angel, rasped and spluttered through some speakers that must not have been used in centuries. Or close enough at least.
‘I messed something up!’ She screamed again. ‘Get somewhere safe!’ I have no idea what she has done or what she means, and I have to fight the internal reaction to freeze to the spot and panic. I dart my head from left and to right and see nothing but the dark corners of the deserted and flame torched control room.
‘Come on!’ I scream at her even though I know she can’t her me. ‘I need more info than that!’ I would have never talked to her like that had she been stood in front of me. I guess I just need to vent some pent up emotion and frustration. It was as if she heard me.
‘I was trying to find a way through to the opposite side of the ship, I opened a closed and quarantined sector and have released VX Poison gas!’
‘What!’ I shout without thinking about it and grip the back of the seat in front of the console that I had been using. I just hope she’s ok. ‘Where do I know that name from?’ I scream at myself and start searching my own struggling memory. I figure it out as fast as it takes for my heart to sink into my stomach.
‘Nerve Gas!’ I have no way to ask her if she made it out! That fills me immediately with dread, just the knowledge that I was going to have to just hope, just hope she was ok. I hate hope. Hope is a bitch and she never puts out!
But at least I know what I have to do. The VX Poison gas is a blister agent. A similar compound to Mustard Gas but far more deadly. It was outlawed years ago as a weapon of mass destruction. Why the hell is there some on this ship? Just what were the Russians doing here? That gas will tear through my lungs and stop my heart from beating in a few seconds if I don’t act fast.
I had spotted them on my way down the stairs. I had seen them in my vision too, and I had seen them on the video recording. There were lockers in the corner of this bottom section of the engine room. VX Poison gas! It hit me like a spade right now. That was why he had a gas mask on in the first place. They must have been attacked or maybe had an onboard spill. Ironic. Yet again.
I need to find out if there is a spare mask in one of the lockers. I dart to them, slipping and sliding on the soot covered floor, and run into them with a crash. I tear open one of the doors, the only one I can find in this rush that isn’t locked, and rummage through. There is one! The same style as the one Kolt wore the whole time. Or at least the one his Ghost thought he still needed to wear in death.
There was an apron there too. The same brown leather and disgustingly textured one that Kolt wore in the video. I remembered that my armor was ripped, from the constant falling over and the tight tunnel I had to crawl through to get in here, so I took that too. I hurried, my fingers no longer as dexterous as they should be in a calm frame of mind, to pull the mask on over my face before the deadly gasses spread.
As soon as I had it on and fastened I pulled the leather apron over my shoulders and clipped that at the back fastener. I suddenly felt claustrophobic and restricted. My lungs burned with the added effort of drawing in breath. I had to fight with the panic response yet again. It felt like that river, like I couldn’t breathe and that I was going to die again.
I took just a moment to centre myself and relax. To adjust to it and remind my tired mind that I had to be stronger than this. I was used to closed in spaces. I was used to garish safety helmets and different densities of atmosphere. I just needed to adjust and give myself a much needed break. Don’t forget the gloves!
I managed it all just in time. The room, when I turned back to face it, was slowly filling with a brown colo
red and thick vapor. The gasses filled the room in volumetric and undulating clouds. It choked the air and reduced visibility to near zero. I needed to feel my way out.
That is, as soon as I had adjusted to it. I could feel my heart pound inside of my chest with the added restriction to my breathing of the horrible apron. But at least it would cover the cracks in my armor and stop any of the corrosive gasses from getting to my skin. I closed my eyes. Out of fear, out of instinct, I’m not sure which.
I felt like I was tapped in an elevator or something. I’m used to the confined spaces alright. What with the mine and the suits we had to wear when we were digging. Not to mention the cramped beds we were made to sleep in. But this was different. In all of those times, there was always a way out. I always had some sort of control and an exit plan. Now I didn’t.
The smoke shrouded me in a blanket of uncertainty, it blocked my eyes and I had to draw harder with my lungs just to get some sort of breathable oxygen into my body. I turned from side to side, almost freaked out but caught it just in time, and placed my hand on the desk I had been looking over just a moment ago.
It was the only anchor I could find. If I had let go of it, the gasses would have disorientated me so completely that I wouldn’t have been able to tell where I was. The chair, the bench, the old computer screen. They helped me find a starting point now that I had to paint a mental picture of the place.
There was no other way I could get around now that I couldn’t see. One. Two. Three. Four. I counted my breaths in my head and held my eyes closed to focus just on the need to breathe and the need to be calm. Ok. There it was. The last of the adrenaline ebbed out of my choked system and I could think again.
I can open my eyes and not freak out now. I’m acclimatized to the gas mask. To the lack of spatial awareness and everything else that came with it. I run my hands over my apron. The same sort I had seen Kolt wear in life, in death and in life after death. I brush it over and over to make sure my breathing has settled as much as I had thought.