by T. S. Smith
“What do you think about going back to the Poseidon and re-evaluating the mission?” Dettman asked Holland over the radio from behind. “Obviously something happened back there in the galley.”
“Isn’t this what the Confederacy wanted us to do? Come out here and find out what happened? That’s what we’re doing, right? That’s why we have this guy floating ahead of us with a flamethrower.”
Boyer turned and Holland nodded at him, Boyer smiled.
“Asphyxia, that was the reported cause of death, that is what the Confederacy told us.”
“I know what they told us.”
“Then why don’t we–”
“Because we have a job to do. We’re not leaving this ship until our job is done,” Holland said.
They moved on and their cones of light passed over the long stretch of pneumatic switches, location markings, and electrical conduits that hung from what would be the ceiling. The Athena had been designed with a mechanical backup system in case the electrical system had been undercut. The movement of the ship would push back a weight anchored in the rear of the ship. Using the inertia of the mass, an air tank would fill and pressurize the air lines throughout the ship. It was an antiquated system, but it might just help the crew if it came down to it. Holland hoped that it wouldn’t.
Corridor 08A ended with a metal door and circular locking mechanism, it was another hatch. There was a small port window and below the window were the words “CAUTION: TURBINE ROOM.” Holland took a hold of the wheel and twisted counterclockwise, this time the door opened smoothly and inward. One by one the crew crawled through the small opening and their light cones shone through into the larger room. Huge electrical wire terminals and systems climbed up over the side of the walls to a central hub in the middle of the room where a metal enclosure brought the wires down to a large cylindrical component, the first of the ship’s four turbines, two were for redundancy. The room was a web of catwalks, stairwells, tightly packed mechanical systems, and large pipes running in every direction. The search team had known the layout of the room and though it was complicated, it all seemed extremely familiar to them. Holland and Michaels were the mechanical guys and they would be the ones to get the turbine going.
“Stay here” Holland told the crew. “Michaels, you’re with me.”
The two guided themselves through the large room and spider catwalks with grace, squeezing their bodies between openings this way and that until they came to a box where they stopped and read:
CONTROL_TERMINAL_TURBINE_TWO.
Michaels opened the panel and saw that beneath the metal door were a number of dials, switches, and gauges all set to zero. There were a few larger switches to the right of the housing, breakers, and LED readouts. None of the ship’s systems were turned on.
“Unusual” Michaels said. “The electrical turbines were shut off manually.” He reset the breakers, pulling the large switch down once and then a second time. Nothing happened. Michaels moved to another switch on the left and pushed up a clear cover that was hatched with black and yellow diagonal lines. He pressed the button beneath the cover and the LEDs lit.
“Power is still available,” he said as he looked at the green and yellow indicators. He went back to the breaker and shifted it up, pumped it three times, and then pulled it back down again. A hollow click initiated and the turbine in the middle of the room groaned. It started with a slow deep sound and then the pitch whirled higher and higher until it was so loud that the team was barely able to hear their own radio transmissions.
“We need to wait 240 seconds for the capacitors to charge up,” Michaels yelled. The rest of the crew stayed where they were, floating beneath the catwalks and stairwells out of sight. Their light cones bobbed in the darkness wherever they moved their heads. Once the whine of the turbine grew to a steady pace, another larger LED lit with a bright green color. Michaels shifted to the right where there was a second control panel. He opened the door covering the box. “Brace yourselves, going to engage the gravity system.
A gauge in the second panel read: GRAVITY_PULL. To the right of the gauge was a switch which he pulled down and an alarm rang out. The ship’s power core booted up and the team fell to the floor as the gravity turbine began to spin, grounding them hard against the metal grating. The Athena’s lighting system however only powered into the emergency phase and sent a bleak red gloom throughout the ship.
Romavich groaned over the radio, “Hit the floor like a truck, thanks Michaels.”
“I warned you,” Michaels said.
Still focused on the control panel, he moved his hands to the right. Next to the gravity pull there was a second large double switch marked: LIGHTING_PULL. He pulled that switch as well, nothing happened. An LED indicator next to the switch went from a deep red to orange. He adjusted two of the knobs to reset them and pulled the switch again, the LED stayed orange. There was a problem and it was going to take some time to figure out. At least the emergency system had powered up. Michaels turned to Holland and signaled for them to return to the rest of the crew. Holland waived at him to stop and yelled if there was anything more they could do, Michaels shook his head no.
“We’ll talk back there,” Michaels yelled back. “Can’t hear shit at the moment!”
The two walked back through the packed mechanical room just barely fitting at times between the equipment on the catwalk spaces. Even though the artificial gravity felt good to Holland, everything in the Athena felt so damn cramped together. Like everything had been stretched and then contracted. How could a crew operate cleanly in a ship like this? Even the Poseidon had more room, easily. V616 was the only answer that came to his mind. What the hell was happening out here?
Michaels spoke once they returned to the team, “There’s a problem with the electrical system. Power’s on, Roy, emergency power at least, but the lighting system is faulty. I tried the second system but no luck. We got the gravity system online. Atmospheric pumps are working and as long as there was gas, the crew didn’t suffocate out here due to mechanical failure. Either the system went off or was turned off. It will probably take a while to figure the lighting out. But overall, it looks like we were wrong about Athena losing power,” Michaels said. “The crew must have run into other problems.”
“Great observation, Michaels, I could have told you that after seeing that guy back there,” Dettman said.
“Shut up, Dettman,” Michaels said. “Or that won’t be the only body we’re trying to ID.”
Holland had heard all he needed, “Romavich, you and Michaels will meet with Jax back in the galley and you guys will take stern. From here, Boyer, Yola, Suk, Dettman, and myself will take bow. We’ll split up just like the plan and find the remaining members of this damned crew and meet back in the galley. With two hundred and seven crew members, this ship should be littered with them. There are more around here. We’ll go through the rooms one by one if we have to, systematic. It’s going to take some time to search this entire ship, probably in the neighborhood of tens of hours.”
“You got it,” Romavich replied. He stuck his forefinger out in a strange salute, one that the captain had seen before.
Holland ignored the signal and spoke up again, “Everyone, just make sure your cameras and floodlights are on, try to send a video feed to Roberts at the CCD if you can, we don’t want any surprises out here. Michaels, see if you can get the lighting system back online. If not, it’s not our highest priority, emergency lighting will do.” Holland thumbed at a switch on the small box to the side of his belt. “Jax, Roberts, any luck with the crew member we found?”
“None so far,” Jax said, his voice deep. “Only that the body is one of the males with a medium brown complexion. There are seventy-seven possible matches from the Athena recorded on the CCD. Roberts and I are doing our best to get an ID on the guy. Boyer keeping you all safe?”
“He’s doing just fine, for now.”
“Good,” Jax said from behind heavy static. “Good.”
/> INTERVIEW: PART V
/declassified
/operationaction/event_horizon
/interrogations
end
Interviewer: How long did you not have communication with the team while they were on the Athena?
2nd Officer S. Roberts: Exactly 71 hours and 34 minutes. The communication was there but patchy.
Interviewer: And what did they say once communication was firmly reestablished and they returned?
2nd Officer S. Roberts: They never came back.
7
Eleven hours had stretched by since the team entered the defunct Athena II and they had been a long eleven hours. In two teams, they had slowly moved their way through the red-lit arteries of the ship like the blood of a giant beast whose pulse was slow but continued on and on. And as the beat diminished and their feet dragged and their thoughts stretched long through the arteries of the ship, the shadows lurked in the darkness and danced in and out through their tired minds. While the monsters played their games and the silhouettes jumped through their thoughts, the conversations between them had gone dull and their words became short. It was as if each sentence they said had grown heavy and pulled at their thoughts. They were tired and it had been a long eleven hours.
Holland walked to the side of Boyer, with Dettman in the front, Suk and Yola to the rear. Romavich and Michaels had joined up with Jax and had gone to the stern of the ship. Boyer was a military man and over the years, Holland had grown fond of him. He could be direct but sometimes straight honesty was what a situation called for. Clear and concise, the man never wasted words. Boyer had lost his little brother when they were young and Holland could relate, the loss of his own wife had been hard too. Jax was the same way but to Holland it was different. Jax, whose actual name was Jason Aaron Xavier, was confident but not cool. He was a hot-headed, shoot from the hip, kind of guy and Holland didn’t like him but he had kept it to himself. He hadn’t felt so strongly about him during the years on the way out but things had changed, Jax was acting out. Holland didn’t trust him either but Jax showed confidence, so much confidence in fact that Holland thought he overlooked the details. He thought of the look Jax had given him. Had he truly seen disgust? It was hours ago.
The Athena II felt larger to Holland now that he was in the science vessel and he started having the same feeling as he had inside the storage room. After all of the simulations, the thousands of simulations, the ship still felt larger to him. Holland had a strange persistent feeling that cruiser’s hull was stretched but growing thinner and the walls were slowly tightening around them. The geometries of the rooms were changing and distorting as they proceeded through the ship. But he wasn’t quite sure of this. How was it possible? Even his thoughts were elongating into uneven bursts of random ideas and phrases. Could the others on the team feel it too? Holland didn’t know what it was and the simulations hadn’t prepped him for it either. There was a presence aboard the ship, not alive, not a physical being, but there was some type of presence aboard the Athena. The presence he felt was something unnatural and possibly even supernatural.
Holland then thought of Roberts who had become so emotionally attached to him. But he just couldn’t let it happen, he couldn’t let anything advance between them. For one, he still loved his wife. He couldn’t move on, even after all of these years. Maybe it was because he was scared to let go, maybe it was because he didn’t want to. But he couldn’t and he knew he couldn’t. Roberts was a beautiful woman, smart, great sense of humor, and anybody would be lucky to have a woman like her. But for Holland, his wife would never leave him. Second was Mears. Mears had been his best friend and confidant back in the Earth Confederacy when they signed up for this damn thing. There were other applicants, but he and Mears had been top of the line, earmarked for success. Mears had died in the training. His body couldn’t handle the deep sleep or the chemicals that filled his lungs that were meant to keep them suspended over long periods of time. Mears drowned in a tube and Holland had been the last one to see him alive, to see his eyes open, to hear his voice. He had been the last one to close the tube and watch his friend go under. He had also been the one to activate the system that would drown his friend. Holland had never quite gotten over that either. Two of the most important people in his life were dead because of him and Susan wouldn’t be a third.
“You’re sure quiet,” Boyer said.
“Yeah, I am but so are you,” Holland said while winking at Boyer.
“We need you here, Cap,” Boyer said.
Holland looked at the man to his right through the shielded helmets of the snakeskins, the boots of the skins thudded against the metal grating of the corridor floor as they went. “I’m right here with you, buddy, always will be.”
The team’s radio crackled to life again in their tight helmets, it was Jax. “Hey, Holland, I just found another body out here, Engine Room 4, nasty as shit, just like the last one. Probably another guy, we can’t really tell. There is blood everywhere on the walls, fresh looking blood though. It looks like he’s wearing a skin like us but I can’t tell, burn marks, lots of ‘em. They’re all burned to shit. Michaels missing too.”
“What happened to Michaels?” Holland asked.
“You killed your boy,” Jax said.
“What did you say?” Holland asked not sure if he heard that right.
“I said your boy’s missing,” Jax said. “I know there are problems with the radio but damn, get this man a hearing aid. They’re government issued you know? You wouldn’t have to pay for shit. Me and Michaels were out here trying to work on the electrical system, trying to get the lighting online again like you had told us to do. I turned around and he was just gone. Haven’t seen him since. Been looking for the guy but no luck.”
Holland had heard it wrong, just a mistake. He looked at Boyer who shook his head no, he was right.
“Have you got an ID on this one or the other body? Is Roberts helping you on the CCD? The Confederacy would like to know who it is. Remember that is what you were supposed to be doing?”
“I can’t tell what this is, let alone who this is. Some kind of thing got to this guy, it’s not safe out here. I can feel it. We need to get back on the Poseidon and rethink this whole thing. There’s something weird out here. Our protocol is broken, it’s a bad idea to stay on this cruiser. Two dead bodies now. We haven’t received one communication from any member of the Athena II, unless I’m missing something. I’m getting us off this thing.”
“We’re staying on this ship, we need to proceed with our analysis. There were two hundred seven crew members on this vessel and we’ve found two of them? There are more to find,” Holland said.
“Are you kidding me?” Jax said. “This guy’s burnt up, just like the other one was on the neck. Something was here, you know it, we all know it. Actually, I think someone killed these mother fuckers. That’s my analysis, how do you like it? You know any violent kind of guys, Holland? Guys that have murder on the brain? Or maybe it was some kind of creature.”
“Maybe ghosts? Big monsters?” Dettman said mocking the man over the com radio.
“Dettman, screw off man, you know like I do –”
“Listen,” Holland interrupted.
“– that people can’t rip each other like this. We can’t even get facial recognition on these bodies. They’re mutilated. Their blood is everywhere.”
“Listen to me!” Holland yelled over the radio. “I’ll tell you what we’ve got to do, we’ve got to keep our heads on straight, you hear me? Both of you. Arguing gets us nowhere. We need to keep walking this ship like we were instructed to do, right? You, two groups, aft and stern. You, Jax, are going to find Michaels. We need everyone together. If there are any problems, well, we’ve got radios, don’t we? Roberts will stay back on the Poseidon and listen to the communication.”
“Communication’s distorted by the hole,” Jax said. “She doesn’t hear it all out here, you know that.”
“Just keep it mo
ving, Jax, you and the team on that end, nothing’s on this ship, it’s just us. Find Michaels, he’s the top priority. Do you understand? Do not leave this ship. We’ll meet you in Engine Room 4.”
The radio was silent but Holland demanded a response of his team member, “Jax, you got it?”
After a moment the response came back through, “Yeah, we got it.” And then silence.
“Boy, I don’t think he likes you much, Roy,” Dettman said.
“He’s worried, that’s all, just needs to cool down some. Where the hell is Michaels? How do you lose someone?” Holland asked. But something in Jax’s voice had told Holland that it was more than just worry the man was feeling, it was something else entirely, like Jax was deceitful, like Jax had done something to Michaels. Like Jax had killed Michaels. He pushed the thought from his mind. The thought felt awkward, out of place, invasive, it didn’t feel right. Signaling to the other three of his team, they began to clang through the red-lit hallways once again.